#its a cautionary tale against this shit

[ham-and-cheese-studios]

Weird post, but I was watching vinesauce's robocop stream, which led me to watch some clips of the ED-209s from the Robocop remake, which reminded me of Israel's bullshit, which led me to read the comments of said clips and of course it was mainly people cooming over the sight of big robots killing brown people

And I bet if u made a movie where these big bois stomped around American cities/towns killing white people, audiences would be upset

[starwrighter]

I am not a baby!! (Yes you are)

(Ao3) (Masterpost) (Previous)

(Chapter 19 another long one)

His base shook like an earthquake hit, knocking him off his feet. The lights in his sea base flashed an angry red, a jarring siren sounding inside metal walls. “Shit shit shit shit shit!” Danny screamed, rushing to the front hatch, silicone flippers slapping against the floor.

Thoughts cluttered Danny’s throbbing skull. Had the reaper followed them? Why wasn’t Dami doing anything about it? Did the reaper hurt him that badly? Why wouldn’t this door fucking open?!

It didn’t give a single inch no matter how hard he pushed the sturdy glass hatch. Nothing he tried seemed to work, the door didn’t want to budge. Even when he threw all his weight against the glass like a living battering ram something pushed back every time. Staring through the glass, his blood began to broil like milk placed on a hot stove.

What.

The.

Actual.

FUCK!

Curses fell past his lips like heavy rainfall. Words that would make a sailor blush and land him a permanent grounding if someone heard. Barely legible words, too big for his mouth to keep up with. Feelings too big for his body left him wailing on the metal floor.

His only door was blocked by Dami, keeping him prisoner in his own Seabase. Forget anything he said about Dami not being cruel, this fish was a cold, callous bastard who deserved to be mauled! False imprisonment. Kept in a cage like a rowdy puppy!

This was a setup for a gruesome true crime documentary. One that’d have scary music with violins and a poorly tuned piano for dramatic effect. It would have that one moment where a photo of them had its colors inverted so the narrator could build up suspense. “They were friends until they weren’t,” Then they’d go on to describe in graphic detail how Danny starved to death in his fucking base. He’d be the cautionary tale Alterra would use; twisting the actual cause to benefit the company and shame employees.

His Seabase suddenly felt incredibly small as breathing sharpened. Yanking hard on locks of raven hair Danny let out a scream. Snot dripped down his nose, scalding hot tears burning against chilled skin. He wasn’t trained for any of this shit! Why did nobody think to put a “giant fish bastard,” protical in the survival guide? Didn’t Alterra pride itself on being prepared?

Slamming fists against glass, he could feel his flesh begin to bruise; short fingernails dug into his palms with every heavy hit. Feet slammed into the door like mini hammers. Hinges creaked as Dami put more weight into keeping his base sealed tighter than Pandora’s box. Fucker!

He felt like a toddler throwing a tantrum, kicking, screaming, crying. This was a justified tantrum though. Nothing about this situation was trivial. His entire body could be crushed within a matter of minutes. All Dami had to do was put a little too much weight on his roof and he was flat as a pancake. It didn’t even need to be purposeful! The worst part was; he couldn’t even look his captor in the eye because his thick skull was blocking the fucking door!

Coiled around his base like a snake he made himself at home. Technically, this planet was his home but the fucker was suffocating himself to be petty. Normally, he respected petty behavior; pettiness flowed through his veins but this shit crossed past the line of petty revenge or malicious compliance.

All it would take is one wrong move for his solar panels to be damaged. Just a few seconds of curiosity for him to pluck them off the roof like dandelions in an open field. Without a source of power pumping breathable air into the base would be a distant memory. One he’d miss oh so much when his face was turning purple as he slowly suffocated to death! To add insult to injury, he’d be dying in a place he specifically built to be his safe haven in a sea of salt water.

Even if they weren’t damaged, his power situation looked as bleak as his academic future. Daylight wouldn’t last forever and solar panels weren’t exactly known for their effectiveness at night! A power outage that lasted more than a few minutes would kill him. Such a stupid way for him to die; the only redeeming feature of that death would be the location. Dying on a planet unexplored by humans was decently cool no matter how you spun it.

Would he come back afterward this time too? When he’d been gargling on his blood as his Lifepod crashed to the sea; not once did he think there would be another chance for him. Danny could only assume it’s three strikes and you’re out, but when it came down to weird zombie resurrections he could never be sure. Would he be caught in a death loop? Doomed to slowly die of suffocation over and over again until Dami decided he’d had his fun?

Is this a normal prank for a fish teenager to pull? Because this was sociopathic behavior if this was a prank. The language barrier made the situation a little better, but it wasn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card. Language barrier or not this was still leaving a dog in a hot car levels of stupidity.

This was such a cruel thing the universe decided to do to him. What had he done to deserve this? He hadn’t cheated on the CATs. Not in this timeline at least. Was this some form of divine punishment or did he just have an aura that made everyone want to screw him over? Either way, if this guy really thought of him as a pet he’d be in for a surprise when Danny built a fucking taser. Let him have a taste of what made him so awesome!

With a sneer, Danny watched the window. Dami’s midsection was pressed against the glass. Dots ran across his body, a straight line of tiny circles glowing dimly with the setting sun. A built-in night light to help Dami sleep at night knowing how terrible he was being right now. Pale desaturated blue faded to a shadow-like black. The transparent looked ghostly, like he could run his hands straight through it. A feat he was capable of doing without breaking a sweat not even a week ago.

Glowering, he slammed his hands against the window with a rage burning brighter than the stars in the sky. How could he convince a giant sea serpent teenager to piss off? Without his ghostly wail to boost his volume loud enough to shatter glass and crumple buildings, shouting was a useless scare tactic.

Dami couldn’t plan on blocking the door forever; could he? Maybe he was just pissed Danny ignored him about the crash zone. If he’d understood that hungry murder fish were chilling near the crash zone he probably would’ve gone anyway just to see it. But he hadn’t known; how could you punish him for that?

Actually, there were a lot of people who’d do that.

With a heavy sigh, his shoulders sagged, every breath of fresh air exhausted him to the core. Eyelids drooped anxiety battling against the growing need for rest. He could wait this out; Dami’s only mortal, he can't stay forever…

But he could keep his lazy ass parked here long enough for his supports to give in under his weight. His foundations continued to creak, a nauseating groaning of metal being strained. It was a pure miracle his base hadn’t collapsed already!

Danny screamed, collapsing into a heap of snot and tears. Chubby fingers smudged the glass. He’d never felt so useless in his life. Not when his parents rambled about ripping his alter ego molecule by molecule and not when his grades slipped through his fingers. Life sucked when you didn’t have a grocery list of superpowers at your fingertips. He felt further from normal than ever. Dying a second time had made him more freakish than the first.

A Useless freak! Wasn’t this just a wonderful predicament? This was the perfect use of precious time. It wasn’t like the Aurora’s drive core was a ticking time bomb that would explode into a massive conglomerate of metal with enough radiation to cause a mass extinction…

Oh, wait, what’s that? The Aurora is a fucking quantum detonation waiting to happen? And he’ll be stuck here like a toddler trapped in their playpen when it happens? How wonderful! Here Danny thought he could actually try to help. You know, find a way to be useful when the tragedy happened instead of waiting a week to gather the supplies he’d need to do anything.

Instead, he was trapped here with no laser cutter, no seamoth, no propulsion gun, and no radiation suit to do anything but wilt like a daisy planted in battery acid when the radiation spread out. He couldn’t go check if the Degasi base even existed either! He couldn’t check down there for anything useful and he couldn’t check to see if anyone was alive! All because a stupid teenager decided Danny’s a puppy who needs kennel training!

All he wanted now was to phase his hands through the glass and punch Dami when he wasn’t expecting it. To scare the teen into running to tell his parents about how mean Danny is. He didn’t care! He’d throw hands with however many parents and siblings Dami had! Lay down with dogs get up with fleas. Play stupid games win stupid prizes. At this point, ghosting should be the consequence of stupid actions.

Something tight wrapped around his wrist squeezing flesh and bone in a python-like grip. The curtain clung to his wrist, his entire hand stuck through it like he’d punched a hole through. A transparent ripple in the fabric circled his hand, a defiance of physics he’d never been so excited to see.

If anyone took a picture of him right now you’d think he won the lottery. Intangibility, his beloved! Oh, how he desperately missed it. Attempting to pull his hand back, Danny blinked owlishly when his hand remained firmly implanted in the fabric. He braced his foot against the glass, tugging as hard as he cut but the curtain rods just groaned, creaking under his weight.

It reminded him of the first few months after the accident; when his powers just didn’t do what he wanted them to do. Of all the times he’d fallen through his locker door. All the poor beakers and cups that'd slip through his fingers and shatter on the ground. Every memory of a mistake or malfunction a reminder that things weren’t always as easy as he mourned them to be.

What happened?

When did walking through walls become as easy as breathing for him? Something he could do without thinking or breaking a sweat. There had to be a turning point. A moment when everything clicked into place like puzzle pieces. Not having some sort of dampener might’ve helped. Maybe he just needed to think intangible thoughts?

Uhhhhh…

Blob ghosts!

Technus, Ember, Skulker, Pointdexter!

…

Nothing.

The cloth continued to strangle his wrist, cutting off his blood flow, turning his hand a frightening shade of red. Irritated and throbbing with every second the limb went without the crucial oxygen it needed. Yanking back with all his pitiful might, the metal rod groaned with each tug.

This stupid curtain was going to take his hand. The limb was going to go necrotic and fall off like a twisted 1600s fairytale! It wouldn’t even be one of those fairytales that got butchered into a poorly produced Disney movie! Just a cautionary tale that parents would use to scare children out of throwing tantrums. And it would happen because this thin piece of cloth just-

Wouldn’t.

Let.

Go.

Thud!

Blunt pain shot up his back as he toppled over like a house of cards. Static shot up throughout his arms, fingers tingling as blood finally flowed freely again. Wiggling each finger individually, bright purplish red faded to its normal pallor hue. Breathless, excitement surged in his chest, freedom at the tips of his fingers. Intangibility! It’d worked! An excited squeal died on his lips both hands blocking noise from alerting his self-assigned prison warden.

When this was over he’d never take his powers for granted ever again! Never in a billion years! Forget being normal. Normal is the path of the coward; he’s a fucking ghost! Danny Phantom; that’s who he is! Not some pet for an oversized oceanic teenager or the cowardly dumbass of a family chalked full of geniuses everyone thought him to be.

Freedom was just a few feet away now. All he needed to do was brute force his intangibility into working again…

Easier said than done.

Something somewhere in this solar system really didn’t want him to use his powers but that something could go pound sand for all he cared. He had a Seabase to explore and a Leviathan to punch when he got back.

Slowly, he crept toward the far side of his base. The closest he could get to kelp forests without leaving his base. The furthest he could get from Dami’s face. There would be no invisibility to shield him from Dami’s gaze if the leviathan turned his head.

This escape had to be flawless! Not a single glowing eye could land on him; not for a single millisecond. There was no doubt Dami would attempt to follow him. He’d been willing to follow Danny into reaper-infested waters to act as a guard dog!

Squishing his body against the floor, Danny squeezed his fists tight. He needed to be ready to swim. As fast as he could and as stealthy as physically possible; Dami couldn’t be given a chance to catch him. One poorly placed grab and Danny could be shish kabobed by his claws in an instant!

Metal walls groaned, Dami’s python-like grip denting titanium and straining glass. Danny hissed, a cheek pressed up against the wall; he’s going to implode at the rate things were going. This Leviathan needed to take a chill pill before he gave himself a heart attack and a murder charge.

He kept his breathing deep and slow; his eyes pinned to the window. Muscles lax, palms flat on the ground a tingling sensation sparked through his body as he slowly sunk through the floor.

There wasn’t a second of hesitation in his mind; when he made it through he booked it. Not a single thought of reluctance could make him falter. Any coherent idea was drowned out by the desperate need to reach the kelp forests. Only when he swam deep into green-tinted waters did he allow himself to look back. …

Dami hadn’t followed him?

Did Dami think he wasn’t worth chasing? How dare he. Maybe he just didn’t see him? There wasn’t exactly an abundance of creatures who could through both walls and flesh but Danny couldn’t help feeling disappointed. It wasn’t like he wanted to be hunted down like an animal but a little recognition would be nice.

Pouting, a frown tugged on his lips, his PDA lighting up his face in the fleeting daylight scrutinizing the coordinates on screen. A deep yellow light shone from clusters of seeds like naturally grown lamp posts in a busy forest of kelp. Groups of Stalkers prowled the biome, their lack of bioluminescence allowing them to cloak themselves in the setting sun.

The signal was closer to the Aurora than he’d previously thought. It wasn’t clear if it was directly in the crash site but it was definitely close enough to guarantee a lethal injury if the drive core decided to explode while he was busy poking his nose in Torgal Corps business. Was this really worth the risk?

…

Yes.

Absolutely.

Without a possible doubt.

There was something fishy going on and he wanted to know if this was a Scooby-Doo situation. The Torgal’s in all their eccentric glory dressed themselves up as giant fish to keep the planet for themselves. At least in a scenario like that everyone would be mostly alive.

A naive part of him wanted to believe that. Was the lack of human contact already getting to him? Maybe it was the PDA’s explanation for morbid realities? Death dumbed down and sugarcoated to the point your brain would rot if you took it seriously. It was like the PDA couldn’t grip his reading comprehension and common sense was above that of an infant!

The tablet not thinking he could piece together what happened to the people in lifepod three made sense. But life pod seventeen?? Ozzy’s death was clear cut; eaten by a giant snake,done! Trauma contained, business as usual until, finally in his late fifties he realized how badly the situation fucked him up. With how the tablet tried to explain things he'd go his entire life thinking Ozzy and anyone who didn’t make it to a life pod “Went to live on a farm off-planet,”

Would the PDA try to explain things away if he found a skeleton?

Yeah, he didn’t actually want an answer to that question. Finding someone dead was the last thing anyone wanted unless they were a mortician…Or a serial killer.

As hypocritical as it might sound, he’d prefer to find living people. At this point, he wouldn’t even mind if he found ghosts. He needed there to be ghosts. For those who died to tell him who they were. Names, their favorite colors, what they wanted to do with their lives. Anything to prove these people were something other than their last words. Something to prove they were something other than a number on a list of casualties. He had to find something.

He would find something; someone, scanners be damned.

A dense forest of kelp transitioned to the plateaus red grass sprouting from the seabed as distance ticked down. Wrecks he didn’t have the tools nor the energy to explore taunted him. Tantalizing, wires smoked and sparked as if screaming of all the possible valuables hidden inside.

See if he cared. There was someplace much cooler for him to explore! Ancient's forbid there be something as abhorrent as ugh; walls down there. Hopefully, they were sensible enough to leave a key under the doormat.

Chunks of seamoths half buried in the sand were scattered near each wreck. Storage crates filled with only the mangled remains of what once was a complex piece of technology. Tools gnarled and melted, fragments of what they used to be. Reduced to nothing but an expensive piece of scrap. It was a miracle his scanner could salvage anything from some of this stuff!

How would the PDA even make some of these blueprints useable? Would it babyproof the laser cutter? Cutting through layers of steel wasn’t what he’d call a safe activity. You could easily chop off a hand or foot if you weren’t careful. The heat would cauterize it too so the chance of reattaching anything was small. Maybe it was like those car doors that stopped automatically so it wouldn’t crush your hand?

How would it make the seamoth usable? He’d thought about it briefly before but now that he had the blueprints in hand his curiosity tripled. A seamoth was essentially just a submarine but felt closer to a car than anything else. Would the tablet even allow him to make one? He hadn’t had a license before the crash but now that he’s funsized it’s twice as dangerous!

The PDA did let him swim around with a knife, but giving him a car was a bit much even for Alterra. Then again; they did bring a fourteen-year-old into space so maybe the line was further away than he thought?

Watching the numbers tick down as he paddled closer to his destination, he shook his head. Alterra’s restrictions were a problem for the future. Present him should stick to worrying about the Degasi.

Between the bright red grass of the plateaus and the murky green of the kelp forest was what he needed. A chasm leading downwards was illuminated by mushrooms clinging to stone. A scratchy roar muffled by the depth gave him goosebumps.

He broke for the surface, taking a huge gasp of air as his tanks topped up. Those snake-like creatures Ozzy talked about were down there. Something he found terrifying on its own without knowing they already had a taste for human flesh. Flesh, bone, and everything in between, nothing had been spared.

Ancient’s, these guys better not be like owls.

Blinking a gruesome image out of his brain, he delved down into the chasm. Darker and darker, a purplish glow lit up his face. The jellyfish mushrooms he’d seen before filled the biome. With caps like pretty pink jellyfish and their stems dark and strong. A piece of flora he’d expect to see in the ghost zone but also fit with what all those old sci-fi comics said alien life would be like.

A fish that looked like a peeper swam near, its eye a bright magenta and its tail like dripping wax. The light from his seaglid startled the fish into a hasty retreat.

It’s not long until he finds what he was looking for… Or at least what’s left of it. Every inch of metal was covered in rust, barnacles fused to the roof. A compartment collapsed to the floor, seawater flooded the base.

He knew; before he even stepped foot in that seabase that nobody lived there for a very long time. Only curious fish looking for somewhere to hide.

A spotlight hung from the roof almost indistinguishable from the rusted rooftop. A water filter stuck out against smoother surfaces. The survivors who stayed here were in it for the long hall or at least they tried to be. It hadn’t exactly gone well for them from what he could tell.

A PDA glowing dimly where a compartment had collapsed. A single log transferred to his PDA before the tablet went blank.

“Son, there is always a pecking order, and in our world, money makes the hierarchy,” An older voice begins. “I pay Maida a fraction of what I pay, and you a fraction of what I pay me,” He’s confident like each word was a law set in stone.

“If money makes the hierarchy, why is Marguerite making the decisions?” A much younger voice questioned.

“We NEED her.” The older man emphasizes. “We let her think what she likes, so long as she does what she’s told,”

“And what if she doesn’t?” The younger prods.

“For enough money, she will. People always do.” This Paul Torgal sounded like he'd get along well with Vlad.

The whole “ Everything and everyone can be bought if you have enough money,” Was straight up the Fruitloop’s alley, never mind the fact that it’s blatantly wrong. They’re both delusional old men; maybe they could bond over that?

Shaking his head Danny stared at a duo of hanging plants. Downward spirals that reminded him of jellyfish stingers. Their bright purple glow screamed, “Touch me and you’ll have a very bad time.” A carnivorous plant that ate small fish.

Now, he wasn’t a fish; but he was small. Small enough to be eaten whole by a crabsnake and small enough to squeeze by the stingers without even grazing them.

Trash was piled throughout the base; wires hanging from the ceiling of a multipurpose room. Plenty of things to scan yet not a single person in sight. Though, he wasn’t quite sure he’d expected to find anyone in here in the first place. The base was flooded; bottom to top. Not a single foot of this base was free from seawater.

Two PDAs sat abandoned in the room. One stashed away in an open locker; the other sat flat on a desk. Both of them still glowed dimly despite human hands not grazing those screens since they were abandoned. It was a miracle these PDAs managed to turn on let alone transfer any data! Yet here it was; two logs and coordinates right here for him to gawk at.

Maybe Tucker was right about the older PDA models being better. A notification popped up on his PDA; a reminder that his “Bedtime” was near. He ignored it; simply ushering a gentle reassurance to the tablet. Clearly, it’s jealous and was trying to redirect his attention.

{Proposed Degasi Habitat (500m)}

500 meters down?! What were these people trying to swim down to the core of the earth?! This base already flooded! What made them think they could keep the seawater out when the pressure was a thousand times worse?

Tapping the play button he decided he’d give them a chance to explain themselves as he poked his scanner everywhere he could.

“You know what Maida told me today?” Paul's voice starts, leaving Danny to guess.

It had to be something along the lines of, “Pull that stick out of your ass!” Or maybe “ Stop being such a massive douchenozzle,”

“She wants to build a habitat 500 meters below sea level more than a kilometer northeast of here. And she needs Bart and I to do it,” Oh, that explained the crazy scuba diving he’d be needing to do. Maida won this battle.

With a shake of his head, Danny kept his scanner pointed at the water filter. It stuck out of the wall like a sore thumb a piece of tech that hadn’t been changed since the day it was sent out. Pretty sure the same brand of water filters had been tucked away in the cargo bay. Hey, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Though he’s not sure if that still applied when it came to life-saving technology.

Danny only paid half attention to the man as he rambled about Meida like he was a grade-schooler who didn’t understand bullying your crush wasn’t the way to get their attention. “She’s being so reckless! I am obviously the leader of this group meh meh meh meh meh,” Please, this guy had a superiority complex every word he spoke screamed of it. Even when he spoke with his son, it sounded so insincere and- what in the fresh fuck?!

He’s eighty?! No wonder he was spouting nonsense; he’s completely senile! Eighty years left in him; that was mother Gothel level shit right there. Does Bart have healing hair? Is that why Paul sounded so freaking. Seriously all this talk about mortality and replacing livers like that’s a normal thing to do when you get old.

“It’s my responsibility to make a decision. Return to the island and hope whatever knocked the Degasi out of the sky won’t do the same to the rescue ship, or take us deeper in search of answers. All the while hoping old age gets to me before the sea monsters do.”

Danny hoped old age got him first too. Not that he wanted anyone to die. He’d just prefer it if whatever sea monsters the old Fruitloop was talking about didn’t have a taste for human flesh. Maybe they already did? After all, two ships had been knocked out of the atmosphere with no hesitation. Not even a warning shot or redneck war cry of “Get off my turf!”

Just- BAM!

A hundred people dead without so much of a clue what the hell had happened! What was the point of that? It needlessly destroyed the planet. Was human flesh that tasty? Should he be flattered? He probably shouldn’t. People are dead and more would be dead if he didn’t find out what was happening on this freaky planet!

Swimming through the hallway the drooping stingers gave the room an eerie glow. Yet another tablet sat on a desk a few feet away from a double bed. The only bed he’d found in this seabase. Maybe they scrapped the other ones but Danny preferred to think the Degasi survivors packed themselves together like sardines. With Marguerit and Paul glaring daggers at each other while Bart acted as a living barrier.

A funny situation to think about while he did his best to brush away the morbid reality that these people were dead. To brush off the sinking feeling in his stomach that something much worse than flesh-eating sea monsters was going on here.

Call it morbid curiosity but he’d never been one to mind his business back home. What made anyone think he’d stop now that he’d been stranded on an alien planet? He’s the perfect example of a real-life horror movie protagonist. One you’d scream at through the screen as he waltzed right into a situation that’d kill him. With that said, he pressed play on another log.

“We’re already 200m below sea level! You want to go deeper,” He could empathize with the guy. Fish got freaky the deeper down you went. His PDA blared, an upgrade for his air tank added to his blueprints.

“Look around us Chief. Water leaking through the hull. Water outside the hatch. We’re drowning. Real slow.” Marguerite drawled out the last sentence. It’s clear in her voice; she’s already made up her mind.

If rescue arrives whatever shot us down is going to do it again. And again. Until it’s shut off. You see an off switch around here, chief?” The word chief sounded like a devastating insult when it came from Marguerit. A sardonic hint to her voice that

“Why would it any more likely be half a kilometer down?!” Paul shouted.

“Your kid found something on the scanner. There’s something down there. Something that shouldn’t be,” She states, and if Danny wasn’t on her side before he definitely was now.

“You’re mad,” He spits.

“I’m going all the same. And I’ve an idea you two are gonna follow. But if you do, be mindful: your authority stopped at sea level.” She ends, unwavering against Paul’s objections. He already knew who won this battle. Marguerit took no bullshit and went to chase down whatever Bart found on the scanner.

For some reason; he didn’t think they had the chance to find what they were looking for down there. Neither did he; Marguriet was right. There’s no off switch around here, and there certainly wasn’t a spare radiation suit hung up in the lockers that he could borrow.

All that’s left in these caves were the stones scattered throughout the biome. Paul was right about this place being chalked full of materials. Lithium clung to the walls and magnetite stuck out of the sand. An abundance of shale outcrops dropped gold and lithium, diamonds slowly drifting into his tiny hands.

“Remember that materials you gather are-“ The robotic voice cut off. The tablet decided whatever message pre-programmed into it was inappropriate to say to a baby.

Why did he get the feeling that the message was going to be a bill? It was a bill, wasn’t it? Anchient’s what kind of dystopian hellscape was Alterra running?! Billing a crash survivor for surviving? That sounded like something he’d expect of Vlad.

If the rescue teams showed up with itemized bills for everyone nothing would stop him from bankrupting Alterra. He’d bulldoze the corporation and turn every building they owned into a spirit Halloween maybe turn a warehouse or two into a hot topic. A little gift to Sam. No amount of backtracking on Alterra’s part would deter him. It’d be time for them to start rebuilding everything from scratch; with morals this time!

“Oxygen.” His PDA chimed; clearly a distraction to keep him from holding a grudge against Alterra for an imaginary scenario. The tablet underestimated the sheer pettiness he’s capable of; a rookie mistake on Alterra’s part.

Swimming up to the surface, Danny gasped, filling his lungs until they felt like they’d burst. His seglide helps him keep him bobbing above water seawater, moonlight engulfing him like a paper-thin bedsheet.

Stranded or not, he’d insist enthusiastically to anyone who cared that this planet’s moons were prettier than the one orbiting Earth. Glowing like a copper sphere half heated, several times the size of Earth’s moon. If he ever found that island Paul talked about he’d be stargazing like a king!

Staring longingly at the sky Danny kicked off, darting through the water as if he’d been born in it. His fingers lingered above the play button of one of Bart’s recordings. Bart was different from Paul and Marguriet in a way that made the thought of him being dead more distressing.

Marguriet was in her early forties when the Degasi dropped off the radar. Paul was in his late seventies when they crashed, turning eighty in the Jellyshroom caves. But Bart… He was just nineteen when he disappeared. It’s hard to wrap his head around that he’d be in his early thirties if he were alive today. Somberly, he pressed play.

“I thought it might get claustrophobic, living underwater. Father feels it is. He’d tell me it was childish but I stare out the window and sometimes I think how lucky I am to see this world up close.” The biochemist starts.

“Back on the island, I wouldn’t have believed the creatures that lived down here. The fish, they GLOW… There's one that’s 90% eyeball… and snakes twice the length of a habitat compartment” He says, awe oozing from each word he spoke. Sam would’ve gotten along with this guy.

“Certainly it’s not all friendly. Most of the plant life is toxic, I learned that the hard way, but I’ve managed to coax some marblemelons into growing indoors, and when they don’t cover our dietary needs…” There’s a slight pause and Danny really hopes he’s not about to confess to being a cannibal.

“We eat the fish themselves. It’s a bit gross, but nothing they wouldn’t do” Thank fuck.

“I’ve been attempting to document my findings. Father approves. He says understanding is power. That the more we know about the planet the more we can use it to our advantage,” Paul was right about that. Learning to differentiate between animals that wanted to tear flesh off your bones and the guys who just wanted to be left alone certainly was an advantage.

“I’m just doing it because it’s fun. It’s not easy without proper equipment and network access, but the old-fashioned way- Observing, taking notes, testing theories- shows me the world in a way spectroscopic analysis never could,” Bart continues.

“Lately I've been watching the crab snakes. They ambush their prey as it tries to feed on the mushrooms they hide in. What they don't eat settles on the seabed, which fertilizes the mushrooms, which feeds the herbivores, and so the chain continues. Co-evolution gives me the fuzzies.” Whatever floats your boat dude.

Biology never was his thing. He got a C in that class for a reason. Sure he’d gotten better but it wasn’t anything to write home about. Whatever notes he wrote about the local ecosystem were just entertainment for him. A way to fuel his obsession without having to look around and remember everyone was dead and there were no ghosts to be vengeful about their deaths. Most of the notes he wrote down on his PDA were solely for telling stories others hadn’t lived to tell.

They’d be another funny thing to explain when he found other survivors. Though hope was dwindling a bit at this point he wouldn’t give up just yet. There’s still a speck of hope for him to cling to. A logical expectation that the universe wasn’t stupid enough to leave him to solve problems on his own.

A piece of magnetite rested in his hands as his base slowly came into view. It’s strange to think a small stone like this was used to make torpedo systems all across the universe. Just another miracle of human intelligence. Anything and everything nature churned out could be made into a weapon if you scienced hard enough. … … … … Dami was gone.

It might be the crushing loneliness, but he couldn't help but be a little disappointed. Dami is classified as a teenager for his species he could have a parentally enforced curfew or something. That or maybe Dami found out he’d left and went to chase him down. Either way, if Dami tries a trick like that again he’s getting tased harder than a neckbeard at an anime convention.

Clliiick crickk....

A quiet noise echoed throughout the shallows. Like the click of a tongue, barely noticeable but creepy as hell to hear in the dark of night. Hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he scanned the area for any sign of Dami… Nothing, not a roar or a croon. Just an empty imprint in the sand where the leviathan curled around the base.

A peeper, its eye half open and Danny could only assume it was sleeping. Did peepers snore or something? How could something so tiny make a noise so big? The peeper's beak opened…

....       ....

           ....Clllick crickk

Ah, that’s how. He guessed that made sense… It didn’t but he wasn’t down for vivisecting local wildlife for something as stupid as a little snoring. Sometimes it was better to chalk things down to Alien life being weird. Still, if he wanted to mark down peeper sleeping habits he needed to make sure this one wasn’t just congested.

Inching closer, its bright yellow eye snapped open. Darting away like a bolt of lightning before Danny got the chance to poke it. That didn’t look like a sickly fish? It acted the same as a healthy one. Terrified of everything unless it was trying to rub that weird fluorescent glitter all over you. Maybe peepers were the heavy snorers of this planet?

That’s the explanation he'd stick with for now. And if anything freaky happened later he’d facepalm at the obvious signs of danger. If he wasn’t brutally murdered, that is.

Another reminder chimed the five-minute mark before his Ai-assigned bedtime. Hastily he fumbled with the habitat builder building up a multipurpose room onto his base. He’d like to sleep in an actual bed tonight if that wasn’t asking too much.

Ocean water dripped from his hair when he entered the seabase; pooling down onto the metal floors. There’s no towels to dry him off here. No shower he could wash off in, daydreaming until the water ran cold. Unfortunately, indoor plumbing wasn’t included in Alterra’s survival blueprints.

There wasn’t enough time or power to place down a water filter. Solar panels were too weak to keep the base powered with a water filter running. Oxygen trumped the need for water just like water trumped the need for food. Despite what his teachers said about him, Danny did know how to prioritize! Ghosts just got in the way more often than not.

The room was gigantic compared to the basic compartments. Empty enough that his words held a slight echo; an empty canvas for him to decorate. Unfortunately, he’s got plenty of time to decorate his home away from home.

A timely rescue was a dream of the past. It took a decade to find the planet the Degasi crashed on and that was by accident! So for an unforeseen amount of time, he’s trapped on this planet. Far outside of federation space, stranded on a freaky ocean planet determined to outdo the Bermuda Triangle. This was what they made sci-fi movies about in the nineties.

With a shake of his head, he built a bed. It’s a double bed because he deserves that luxury. A thin blanket was tossed across the foot of the bed, the mattress more like a cot than anything else but who was he to complain? At least it was comfier than the ones in the nurse's office. Plenty of room for him to curl up and make a move toward sweet unconsciousness

… Hopefully, his PDA would wake him if anything was about to blow up.

[sparklingmineraltequila]

American Wasteland

Note: Here we fucking go with round 2. Thanks to everyone reading, I hope it's somewhat enjoyable. Also, forgive the sometimes underbaked/ possibly mildly incorrect philosophy references but, for the sake of the fic, forgive me cause I doubt the people are here to hear a full blown thesis on Nietzsche's Anti-Theism

Warnings: drugs, violence, insinuations of smut

The interior is surprisingly clean given its owner and surroundings. Lodged in some armpit of Houston's outer bayous, the trailer park is littered with the Crusaders' Harley Davidson's, ripped up lawn chairs and the occasional hooker: slumped against an RV's entrance steps, faces vacant aside from the glazed eye euphoria of a particularly good rush of dope. While they were walking to his trailer, Rust noticed Cassandra looking at them in disgust, not the arrogant, middle class disgust reserved for hushed, cautionary tales at the dinner table, but a disgust of acknowledgment. Not necessarily directed towards the drugs but to the girls' stupidity, their pliability. Rust never met someone with such an aversion to weakness as Cassandra.

She glances around the trailer, duffel bag in hand: a mattress on the floor, the usual kitchen set up of these trailers, a lawn chair, a stack of books. She runs over the list of these items in her mind, repeating them like a grounding mantra like, if she doesn't, the exhaustion and desolation in her throat will bubble up into that sob that she has been suppressing for the last couple hours. Rust feels like he is almost seeing her for the first time, not bathed in dim lighting and the haze of cigarette smoke, out of the lace bras and free from the intoxicating smell of whiskey mixed her skin's natural musk. The under eye bags are visible along with the bruises on her left thigh, when one of the Crusaders got ahead of himself a few nights ago. Later on, Rust had taken him outside and punched him till he couldn't feel his hand, till each of his knuckles formed a raw cavity, the blood mixing with that of other Crusader.

Violence over apathy. Always.

'Wow, a fucking Sears catalogue you got here, Crash,' Cassandra states dryly, more to assuage the maelstrom of emotion in her than to genuinely be unkind.

'I don't recall boasting about the amenities,' Rust replies, his own drawl equally dry

She dumps her duffel bag onto the floor and moves to inspect the stack of books leaning against the wall,

'Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Cioran. Jesus, Crash, you really are one dark son of a bitch with all this pessimism shit.'

'Nihilism, technically. And Kierkegaard's an existentialist.'

She shrugs, still squatting in front of them, 'Same fucking thing.'

Rust regards her cooly, 'Stop acting stupid, Cass. It doesn't suit you.'

She gives him a look over her shoulder, before rising to her full height, 'What the hell do you even know about me, anyway?'

Here it is. That acrimony. His coping mechanism may be the booze, the drugs and the fights, but hers is the crushing of any idea of talent about her; talent means hope, a fleeting idea that things might actually get better, that she might get out of this squalor and desolation. The imperatives of this terrain don't permit hope and they both know it. Rust, however, pushes her. He's like a recovering alcoholic with taste of Listerine, having now seen the first few slivers of the true Cassandra, he craves more, refusing to relent now.

'Pre-law at Rice on a scholarship ain't something trivial, baby.'

'Well who knows what the fuck is gonna happen to that, now.'

'What do you mean?'

'I have nowhere to live, Crash. The only things I have in my name are my scholarship, my locker at the club and the contents of that duffel bag. Nowhere to live means nowhere to study.'

He raises an eyebrow at that, gruffly stating, 'I told you that you could stay with me. That's why you're here.'

She looks at him for a moment 'Don't fuck with me on this. Don't make a promise that you can't or won't keep.'

'Do I look like a sweet talker, huh? Have I ever fucked with your head?'

She acquiesces, slumping down onto the edge of the mattress. 'Poor kid,' Rust thinks, watching her slide off her cowboy boots, her pack of cigarettes falling out with the movement. The subtle innocence of that act, the hiding of the cigarettes, betrays her suppressed naivety. No-one round here would give a fuck that she smoked, quite the opposite; they'd probably encourage her to do the heavier shit, to leave her pliant and docile, a tender cutlet for their calloused hands. But no, she hides them, like a trepidatious kid with their first joint, hands clammy and trembling.

'You can shower if you want. Make yourself at home,' the warm phrase contrasting with the cold tone delivering it.

'You gonna join me?' she arches an eyebrow, a devious glint in her eye and, fuck, if he doesn't love it.

'Cool it, kid. This is only gonna work if we can maintain some level of fuckin' decency between the two of us.'

She scoffs, giving him a questioning glance as she peals her leather jacket off, followed by her tank top, 'There it is, again. You being weird. What biker doesn't jump at the idea of screwin' any decent looking girl.'

Rust watches cooly as she unzips her denim shorts, amplifying the Crash persona, to eliminate any budding suspicion, as he replies 'I ain't fucking you. And, even if I was, I'd wait until you were in a better state. I want my girls knowing what I'm doing to them.'

That makes her halt her movements, the flush on her cheeks in both desire and envy. She meets his gaze as she strips off into just her underwear and Rust prays to every God that he doesn't believe him that her hand doesn't hook into that lace waistband. The look they share is one of predator and prey, though the roles of who's who have been amalgamated into one. She's a smart girl, Rust knows, She won't let me see that, not yet. Infatuated as she is, girls like Cassandra don't place seniority of love over safety, over control. In a place like this, where violence for violence is the modus operandi, what hope do most women have when faced with a mean, drunk son of a bitch's fists. Cassandra knows the one way to ensure some tenuous semblance of control amongst the Iron Crusaders: sex. Not necessarily the act, itself; sometimes its denial is more effective, like now with Rust.

She stalks to the trailer's tiny bathroom, still in her underwear, throwing Rust one more coy look from over shoulder before going in and locking the door.

'Crash, baby,' she calls from inside, 'Your mouth might be able lie to me but your body sure as hell can't.'

As Rust curses to himself, adjusting the crotch of his trousers.

[sol-consort]

I like to headcanon that the humanity we see in ME is a humanity who worked their shit out mostly, solved most of our internal issues, and is actively trying to improve and wants to see the other species improve too. Humanity isn’t perfect of course, but we know that (which is arguably one of our strengths, knowing full well we ain’t shit, but that’s another discussion). Because of that I think humans caused a social shift in the non-humans at some point, especially within the council races ESPECIALLY in turian society.

At first the reaction is “nosy humans, mind your business” but after a while I can see some of the aliens realize that “dammit, the humans are right.” Humans are the youngest species but we have lived many lives, we know their struggles, we know their problems by heart, because we lived them too, and we don’t want to see what happened to us happen to the rest of the galaxy.

More turians start asking why it is they’re forced to serve in the military, asari start to unpack their superiority complex they didn’t know they had, salarians start to realize the long term consequences of their short term solutions. Maybe EVERYONE starts to really question why there only three/four councilors and why exactly no one else is allowed in their special club. And the humans in the background watching and cheering because YES BESTIE, START ASKING QUESTIONS!

Humans are easily misunderstood and casted aside Because of how young of a species we are. I mean we've only started recording history what 2000 years ago? That's two Asari generations.

But they forget how much we have fucked around and found out during these 2000 years. All the dumb decisions we have made, all the wars we started, all the near world endings we've evaded by a coin toss.

It never was a matter of if we accidentally lead the homosapiens to extinction, it was always a matter of when.

All the inventions that had the slightest possibility of unleashing a flesh eating bacteria or setting the atmosphere on fire were proceeded nonetheless. All the times we flew too close to the sun with no regard to the wax scorching our skin.

But. We. Persist. Like an annoying roach, we are invasive and can't help but poke our noses where we don't belong just because we are hardwired to be problem solvers. And if there are no problems left? We create some just to solve it!

We easily spot the faults in turian society because we have been through it! We have records of Rome and their great empire which crumbled beneath its own weight, we have records of military centric societies losing sight of their purposes and turning against their own civilians.

We have been through it, and it sucks and we hate it, and we wish they'd just listen to us.

Don't even get me started on the asari and how their superiority complex blinds them so much that they actually rationalised SLAVERY. Humanity's biggest shame and regret. Not only did they enslave the vorcha who can't argue with a proper case against the asari because of their limited 20 years lifespan, but they've reached the level of capitalism hell that they started selling people to work of their debts. Making excuses as if not debriving them of basic respect, food and shelter justifies trading an actual living person's soul to the highest company bidder akin to stock at a sheep market.

Their entire justice system is built on lawyers taking advantage of loopholes, birbes and blackmail. They're living the dystopian cautionary tales every human was told and selling it as the most glamourise life of the advanced civilisation that the rest of the galaxy should all strive for.

Not to mention how their government activity ereased the prothean's interference in their early stages and rewrote history for it to be some asari goddess just to sell their propaganda more that they are born inherently better than the other races whilst also NEEDING us for a diverse genetic sequences in reproduction. Shaming for being lesser than them whilst using us to make more asari.

Or the salarians who narrowed the purpose of existence to birth work then death, who against all the braincells they manged to hoard failed to see how they were so concered with getting as much productiveness out of their short lives that they actually forgot to live the said lives.

The hanar who focused too much on spirituality and left no room for the mortal flaw to exist. Who isolated themselves in feverish reverence to worship their stone statues of past dead species while pretending a world outside isn't being built and almost within reach of the same capabilities of their so proclaimed gods. Who deemed others too ignorant or rude to deal with, who's only interaction with others are to educate their barbarian ways and show them the true meaning of life that they decided without consulting any other race.

IT'S A FUCKING CIRCUS SHOW.

HISTORY IS A FLAT FUCKING CIRCLE.

A PARADE OF HUMANITY'S MOST HORRIFIC DYSTOPIAS MASQUERADING AS THE PRIMA DONNA OF EDENS.

WHAT THE FUCK.

Aliens are in fact just like us.

Because they are rolling in the same mud puddles as us.

The shitstorm just happened to reach us before we could reach the stars.

While they're still flinging mudballs onto each other's faces and calling us the apes.

Having run out of my cynical juice tho, I think we at least will get the chance to play heros in this scenario.

Welcome any alien who decided to diverge from the norm of their society standards amidst our ranks and into our homes. Encouraging our turian friends to have dreams and hopes outside of war and country service, allowing our asari friends to be flawed mortals and calling them out on their mistakes without antagonising them, showing salarians how beautifully love is and there is more to marriage or starting a family than simple reproduction values.

It is funny how Korgans are essentially the least flawed and most civilised in comparison to the rest of the galaxy who shunned them for being savages.

I hope our invasive nature infects them, our songs about dreams and passion to move them, our continous persistent that they deserve so much more, that life could be so much better, that the world is bigger than their government lead them to believe would get them to glance outside their aluminium glided cages and wonder if apes were onto something.

[thegreatobsesso]

Writing share tag // PITCH (!!??)

@winterandwords tagged me to share some writing and I did get distracted drawing fanart of her characters but now I am fulfilling the tag with what I'm currently working on, WHICH IS a PITCH for The Insuppressible Callie Ray.

Feedback is welcome!!! At the end of the month I'm going to be submitting it for a professional critique and actually pitching it to a couple agents at a virtual conference, so, like, it's go-time. 😱

Callie Ray is an urban legend. A cautionary tale. Tucked away in a snow-blanketed castle, Simon Bennett assures his students they’re safe at Delaney School for Magicians. Everyone knows he failed to protect his friend, Peter Silver, from her twelve years ago and her name still haunts these halls as much as Simon’s guilt-wracked dreams. He’s a telepath, for god’s sake - he should have seen her coming. If anything helps him sleep, it’s knowing she’s locked up, her abilities suppressed. Callie Ray is a killer. Riley Silver can use that. Somewhere wholly off the grid, Rileyis closer than ever to stripping her own magic out of her body. She’s using the same method Callie did to extract her brother’s magic, except without the killing part. Which no one’s ever done, but Riley will. When it’s over, she won’t be a medium anymore; won’t have to listen to the constant cries of the dead. Callie Ray is a wrecking ball. Riley will be a syringe. Keeping that power out of the hands of people who want to eradicate magic is a problem for another day, and that’s just pragmatism. One thing at a time.  And miles off the coastline, the sun is shining, seagulls are singing, and the waves lap against barnacled steel under Callie Ray’s window. It’s a beautiful day for a prison break. Sure, they’ve got her loaded with enough suppressants to kill an ox. But she also happens to be the only magician alive capable of burning that shit off like carbs, and it’s high time the world knew it. Because here’s the thing: an ancient artifact of unparalleled power waits deep in the caverns below Delaney.  It’s only the most expertly fortified castle in the world. Piece of cake. Callie loves cake, and she knows every inch of Delaney, every flickering enclave, nautilus stair, and ivory-carved constellation adorning its soaring ceilings. And before you mistake that for nostalgia or anything as saccharine and unproductive, know that she’d raze the place to the ground to get that orblex and the power it holds into her unrepentant hands. Because if Callie Ray is anything, she's the fucking end. The Insuppressible Callie Ray mixes parallel redemption and corruption arcs for two messy nightmare women with one nice guy stuck in the middle, trying his best. Enemies-to-family, twisted queer feelings, cinematic magic fights, and unapologetically bombastic dialogue were liberally dumped into the cauldron and stirred long enough to form a thick, spicy duology. It is my debut.

[corvidcrybaby]

I must know more about Judah and Rabbi Loew! Please tell me who they're all about. What are their connections to Zemira?

EEEEE TYSM FOR THE ASK I'M SO SORRY FOR THE LATE ASS RESPONSE.......!!! I'm glad someone finds them interesting, they're easily the hardest part of Lesions of a Different Kind to write but I find them so deeply moving and fun to explore. I'm gonna copypaste some info from a fucking essay I wrote a friend regarding Judah.

JUDAH

Judah the Hammer is based directly off of the real historical figure of Judah Maccabee, the inspired guerrilla commander who was the mastermind behind much of the Jewish victories during the Maccabean Revolt. This was a real historical event in the 160's BC which saw a Judean revolt oust the Hellenic Seleucid Empire from its control over Judea, and an end to their Hellenization policies which threatened to erase the lion's share of Jewish traditions and identity at the time. The holiday of Hanukkah commemorates this story and the miracle of the oil.

In my Hellsing fic, Judah is the primary antagonist. Rather than dying in his suicide charge at Elasa, this version of Judah was turned into a vampire, and still walks the Earth. This event thoroughly shattered his worldview and his understanding of his role in it. As the antag, he forms an important foil with Alucard, because Alucard did much the same shit that Judah did - guerrilla warfare waged against a larger, more powerful empire, complete with being remembered as a total brute of a man - with the major difference being that Judah's war was victorious. He just didn't get to live to see it.

When I set out to design the prime antag for Lesions it was a tough call. I knew I wanted it to be an 'ancient world' vampire, and I wanted to keep up the trend of a historical figure being a vampire such as with Alucard and Erzsebet - which, yes, I like Hirano's other project Drifters quite a lot, don't @ me LOL. But then I also decided I wanted it to be personal to Zemira in some way, shape or form in such a way that would challenge her in a meaningful way and also be her worst nightmare incarnate. I was really hesitant to go there with this character for obvious reasons, but then I remembered that part of why I love Hellsing so much is that it isn't afraid to go there and tackle the uncomfortable topics in these big grandiose orgies of violence and philosophizing and grand tragedy. And I got to wondering about the dynamics between a medieval warlord like Vlad III and a warlord from antiquity like Judah Maccabee and how they would differ and relate to and from one another, and decided that that topic and the way people lionize historical figures and re-interpret them to fit the needs of their time. I've always found that topic intriguing as a historian because I first and foremost consider it folly, no matter what argument you're trying to make with them. But on the other hand, these were real people whose actions shaped the world we live in now, and I suppose I wanted to explore with the horrific matrix we call vampirism might do to a man like Judah, and how it would highlight and distort his character traits. I also, of course, wanted to make him a foil that Alucard could face down that would enhance his appreciation for Zemira's traits that are so distinctly hers (her rebellious attitude, her tenacious-to-the-point-of-stupidity tendencies, her disregard for power structures that don't respect her, et cetera) while also giving Zemira a "this you???" kind of antag that will make her question herself and grow into a stronger person.

Judah is an embodiment of Jewish rage. All the trauma, all the anger, all the suffering and all the cruel irony of two thousand years of antisemitism coalesced onto the shoulders of a single man. A man who, to his own community, is controversial and complicated. A cautionary tale to some, an inspiration to others. Sometimes for good reasons, other times for bad - but always drawing from the same core story of who Judah the Hammer was and what he did.

So from the time of his turning, Judah took it upon himself to wander the Earth as a foul-tempered arbiter of retribution for the horrors the Gentile world inflicts onto Jews. For every Jew murdered in a hate crime, he would take the life of a Gentile - with a particular hyperfixation on Europeans, as these were his sworn enemy in life, and that hatred extends particularly to Christianity, who he views as the torchbearers of Hellenic influence and outright calls them cultists; he's definitely disappeared plenty of villages throughout the rest of the world, mind you, definitely destroyed some mosques, but his main tunnelvision is upon Europe. I feel like if he were to put forward an insane Old Man Conspiracy Theory, it would be that Jesus was actually a Hellenized Jew or some shit like that and therefore a Greek and therefore the enemy. He is an ancient vampire and every bit the giga-powerful behemoth you'd expect from a being his age, but he chafes at the body he inhabits and has never fully accepted that he is what he is now (meaning he and Zemira both know what it's like to exist in a body that isn't home to them). He exists in the role of a spirit of temptation, but is in fact ace, and generally hates being touched. Oftentimes he wouldn't even kill for food, and in fact, still despises drinking blood and has never truly acclimated to it, only drinking from people he considered deplorable enough to take into himself and weaponize against their kindred, be it as a thrall or as something to simply sustain his existence. He prefers to carry and eat bones, as he dislikes waste and excess, and considers drinking blood to be a gross indulgence.

Is he grandiose, or pathetic? Tragic hero, or petty opportunist? DId he truly take up this mantle of being a spirit of vengeance out of a belief it was G-d's intention for him, or did he window-shop a hypothesis for an event (his turning) that he had no control over and traumatized him deeper than he could ever hope to recover from? Is he to blame for his callous reduction of peoples' lives to political 'gotchas', or is that a product of his time that anyone on a high horse about their morals would have fallen into as well? Does his vampirism make him a monster, or was he monstrous before an infectious Nosferatu's fangs got anywhere near him?

There aren't a lot of clear answers in the text about this because I mostly use him to pose difficult questions to the cast of Lesions, and how they react to him determines much of who and what they are. He's extremely difficult to write well and I've rewritten his scenes more often than any other characters, but I love him.

Yet even with all this grim characterization, Judah is a character that is just an endless blast to write for and daydream about. Whereas Alucard is all pomp and circumstance, elegance and dramatism, Judah is rugged, foul-mouthed just like Zemi, and with a crotchety old man mean streak a mile wide. When he moves about, his body acts like it's being controlled by a drunken puppeteer - very 'HOW DO I DRIVE THIS THING???' energy, because vampirism in Hellsing is often framed in Christian terms. Therefore, as a Jew, it's really hard for him to acclimate to it, and his fight scenes have major Drunk Monk energy. The text calls him "a boulder of a man" as opposed to Alucard's gracile and lanky build, and is shorter than him at six-foot-even (since people used to be smaller in the ancient world, generally).

He's an angry old man, he's a dude who's sad that his little brother died in front of him, he's your orthodox uncle with a bad attitude who tries to corner you at the family function to tell you how you're off the derech, he's Oscar the Grouch in vampire form, and his fight scenes are shockingly violent. Alucard kills people and makes a spectacle of it, but Judah's kills read like you found a video of a guy bludgeoning a fellow inmate to death with a lead pipe in a high-security prison that got released on Liveleak or something.

Also, my voiceclaim for him is Brok from God of War: Ragnarok.

He's a dick, but it's hard to look away whenever he's talking. And I love him for it. <3

RABBI LOEW

Shifting gears here, Rabbi Loew is, much like Judah, the very same Rabbi Loew as the real person who is fabled to have created the legendary Golem of Prague - in my Hellsing fic, he's done just that, and still resides in what looks to be a decrepit old mansion in Prague, but will reveal itself as a safe haven for Jews who are in a bad spot. He's essentially the Prophet Elijah figure of the story - he appears to people along with his golem in scenarios where they are deeply and truly lost and in need of guidance, giving them a comforting nudge in the direction they need. He's a repository for endless depths of knowledge, and opposed to the rest of the Hellsing cast who are so fond of carrying themselves with over-the-top aesthetic maximalism, Rabbi Loew is very simple, very soft-spoken, and although he can absolutely get angry and does so in the story, he hardly ever raises his voice. He's part of an important web of foils that includes Rabbi Loew & his golem (simply named Guard in the text) versus Integra and Alucard, as well as how he represents a defunct, dead-in-the-water version of the Integra/Alucard boss and servant bond due to his complicated and fraught relationship with Judah.

Rabbi Loew actually contributed some of magical binding seals used to tie Alucard to the Hellsing family, which furthers the golem parallel so core to the story. But the elephant in the room here is that Rabbi Loew does not have Judah bound in a similar manner. Judah comes and goes from the mansion in Prague at random. Usually, he swings by just to rest for a bit, and maybe pick a few obnoxious arguments with Rabbi Loew. There is a great deal of uncertainty in how they interact. On the one hand, Judah is four times Rabbi Loew's age, but the latter actually looks like an old man, where as Judah looks around his mid-to-late-fifties, and is found of calling him "Old Guy." Rabbi Loew is, well, a fucking Rabbi, and therefore commands a certain kind of deference and respect amongst most Jews, especially as a legendary figure - but Judah is a figure even more legendary in Jewish history, and comes from a time in which Rabbinic Judaism was not the standard (Second Temple Judaism, to be specific), thus meaning they are separated by time in more ways than one. I think secretly both persons look to the other for inspiration, but are always saddened and frustrated by what they find. Judah finds Rabbi Loew to be overly passive and toothless, despite their first meeting being Rabbi Loew coming upon the Hammer brutalizing and torturing a Cossack to death in a shockingly violent manner, and saying "Not that I'm opposed to cracking a few skulls when push comes to shove, but don't you think this is a bit much?" And despite Judah's dislike for the old Rabbi's attitude, he often finds himself yielding when Rabbi Loew checks him on his brutality. But when his Rabbi isn't around, Judah continues on his usual sporadic outbursts of vengeful violence on Gentile communities, believing that if he was cursed with vampirism, then he must become like one of the Plagues of Egypt itself. HaShem did terrible things in the name of justice then, and Judah sees himself as one of those further terrible necessities, instead of his own person.

Rabbi Loew hates this.

Rabbi Loew looks at Judah and thinks of how much good a person like him could do with the mind-blowing powers of vampirism at his disposal. The lives he could save, the atrocities he could prevent, the connections he could build and foster, if he so chose to do so. But Judah doesn't do that. Judah is resigned to being the Hammer of Israel, the Lion of Judea, the Beast of the Levant. He is so deep in a haze of dissociation that he sometimes believes everything around him is the nightmarish hallucination of a dying man (as though he's on an acid trip that never ended) that he doesn't at all consider that maybe he could make this extended lifespan of his mean something. He doesn't consider that wandering the Earth and murdering Gentiles to "keep the score even" isn't actually helpful. He thinks it's beyond his purview. And Rabbi Loew can't help but keep trying to Uncle Iroh this touchy motherfucker into a healthier headspace, but I think both men know that the old Rabbi doesn't have what it takes to truly get through to Judah. And so, detente. They share space and company and do care for one another, but it's a doomed friendship that can't go much deeper than that.

Because at the end of the day, just like any real Rabbi, Rabbi Loew is just a man. There are bells and whistles that call it into question (such as his unnatural long life, which I won't address here due to spoilers), but he's just an old fellow, doing his best to make the world a slightly less cruel place.

He gets the least engagement, but I love him too.

[cogbreath]

what is your opinion on pro ship discourse? I know it is a tough or awkward subject, you do not have to answer this

im not proship myself but at the same time it seems completely unrealistic and infeasible to try to put a stop to it, people r gonna write and create stuff like that no matter what, and i genuinely do believe that some of it is done for shock value/attention , and giving it a response or acknowledgment is what they want. basically i take a sort of "dont feed the trolls" mentality about it. i dont want to see it but i also dont want to let it get to me. the internet is a place where theres some truly heinous and nasty shit out there and i feel like you'll destroy yourself mentally if you make it a major thing to worry about.

i do kinda live online but the fsct is that for the most part (outside of some things ive heard abt happening at like fan conventions) that it can be avoided by logging off. so becsuse of that as well i dont find it exactly an issue thats worth prioritising the way some ppl who r against pro-ship stuff are.

way more important things to spend your life worrying over.

what i find very annoying is the whole "dont like dont read" defense, and its really pathetic and stupid the way proshippers act like their writings are immune from criticism, or that any criticism that is against the subject matter in their writings is invalid, and they cry "harassment" too often.

frankly you shouldnt be surprised also that ppl will tell you to kill yourself and think thst youre disgusting if youre writing that kind of stuff, and i cant feel sorry for you if you dont have the backbone to take it. if its a problem then stop writing that stuff lol. if u have the guts to do it you should have the guts to handle the hate.

also the way some of them literally compare criticism to actual book burnings and police violence??? which is racist and ludicrous.

a lot of them also looveeee to use lolita as a gotcha but the truth is their writings are nothing like nabokovs in terms of quality and worth, and they dont seem to realise he wrote that as a critique of the normalisation and glamourisation of pedophilia.

out of morbid curiosity i once read a fanfic that touted itself as being inspired by such. i wanted to see what that author thinks being inspired by nabokov's work means, and not big surprise, it was masturbatory slop.

sure its possible that you can write fanfic that involves dubious subjects like that and do it well, but its rare.

irt to people who say they write it to cope, i have my doubts on that as well unless its a story where its clear that characters involved will grow and heal, or its very clear its written as a cautionary tale or something to that effect. maybe some ppl out there legit do cope with writing something that i find to just be nasty masturbatory slop, i dont know, but i dont know if thsts actually a healthy coping mechanism.

many ppl say that if you want to do that you should make it all original, but i think we are past that point, and fanfic is a medium that a lot of ppl use to express and cope about things. I've done it myself (albeit unpublished) and i find that argument to mostly be based in that they feel its cringe bc its fanfic rather than anything to do with genuine criticism.

ive also noticed the emergence of new terms like "comship" ? i kind of forget whst this means i think its like being neutral on it? i find it a bit shitty that ppl consider neutrality on it to be a bad thing? i csnt blame someone for not giving a shit about it. i think its lame to expect everyone whos involved with fandom to pick a camp to sit in, especially when the subject matter is often triggering. someones neutrality could be bc they dont want to think about it too much for that reason.

and as far as it goes though for RPF? i think it's really not THAT bad of a thing. especially bc in all honesty its moreso about that persons public persona. & just because its parasocial doesnt mean its wrong to do, thats simply a descriptor of the dynamic between fanbases & public figures. there is some absolutely NASTY and questionable stuff out there especially like for kpop bands 😭

that being said public figures do have the right to be uncomfortable about it either way and i do find it unfortunate and disrespectful that fans arent willing to listen to them when/if they say they dont like having it written about them. ABSOLUTELY shouldnt write it about irl minors though regardless.

oh and also like if ur writing it about like. ur coworker or someone u kno personally thats kinda really creepy . but its also not wrong to fantasise about people thought crimes arent real. just. dont publish it or show them that

anyway feel free to disagree with anything i have an open mind abt this most of its based off personal inference i havent rlly ever discussed it much ^_^

[stylinsuns]

i hate propaganda films include the kerala story made money for bjp

you know at this point i think we are absolutely incapable of making films about organised crime without simultaneously, and needlessly dragging and targeting our muslim people and communities. it is very clear that these people making all these films about Islamic terrorism be it The Attacks of 26/11 or Kashmir Files or now with The Kerala Story, don't know shit about Islamic teachings or discipline at all. nor do they want to. all these so called 'documentary films' do is create deceitful perceptions and resultant discrimination against Muslims not only in India but everywhere. they're just all trying to slowly achieve this Purist Hindu Nationalist agenda where anything even slightly not in accord with Hinduism is deemed violent and insanitary for the nation's religious health. and any state, which is Kerala in this case, that tries to sustain diversity that in any way involves Islamic identities positively is ostracised and made into a cautionary tale. "do not be like this state. do not let islamism prevail." where actually, kerala has drastically been able to reduce its ISIS recruitments according to this post and is not even among the top five ISIS targets anymore.

this is incorrect and exaggerated portrayal and extremely, extremely dangerous especially when a large part of its demographic is desperate to prove, hungry for blood hindus who will charge at anything without looking left or right. injuring the rights and trampling on the voices of our muslim communities and people by shadowing their entire religion under the cloud of terrorist activities is burning an irreparable hole into the minds of our youth, especially our hindu youth, who may go on to amplify such behaviour.

i've heard my cousin sister telling her friends that her mom doesn't like this part of the town because it's mostly muslim people over here and that she shouldn't make friends with muslim people because they kidnap girls and take them to some place bad. and she is eight years old. i have heard my one of my peers whining about how her train compartment was mostly muslim people and she felt unsafe without her hindu friends there. this is the state of our children and adoloscents right now. they don't know what inflation is but they already have a political aversion towards a certain religious group. and while i can still interrupt and correct these two people for their inane, secondhand remarks, i can not convince the rest 750 crore something people. but the anti-muslim and anti-islam propaganda can and is reaching all of those people thanks to the widespread and accepted medium of film and cinema.

which is fucking terrifying.

[imsosocold]

People are saying the “ new” Collector is better because now he’s more than a kid with too much power. Personally I always thought the seeming contrast between physical and mental age was intentional, if the Collector could even be measured by human metrics.  But whatever, I actually do find the “ kid with too much power” concept interesting with how it could mirror Luz and Philip’s journeys.

At the start of the series Luz viewed the Isles through a fantasy book setting and her arc was her learning that the Isles wasn’t like that, it was its whole own separate place with its own rules and culture. Those who lived there were just like her and that her actions there hold heavy, real life consequences. Luz reached these conclusions with help of the positive influences around her. If Eda, King, Hooty, Gus, and Willow hadn’t been there for her, if she had been left to fend for herself, I think Luz would had drawn different conclusions.

Philip, on the other hand, couldn't separate the Boiling Isles from the Bible stories he was told and the tales of witches that were spread in his village. He also was forced to wander and fend for himself in the Isles alone from a relatively young age.  Someone Philip had previously turned to for guidance was now going against everything he’d ever taught him, it must’ve been like the cautionary tales they both would have been told about. Obviously Philip was very negatively influenced by his surroundings and the people within them. But recently, at least, there’s been a shift in thinking. Maybe it was from seeing the human realm and how it changed but it’s obvious through Philip’s interaction with “ Caleb” and " the Grimwalkers" that he does doubt the legitimacy of the stories he’d been told and thus his own beliefs. With his plan and his confidence in it falling apart,  so does Belos’s body.

The Collector I thought had no influence in contrast to the both of them.  Going back to how the Collector was said to be THE  child of stars and not star people, the Collector would hypothetically have nothing to watch over them, no set goals or expectations,  left in the cold and uncaring universe they were created from.  Lacking any reference, they’d just treat the Isles as a form of entertainment, something to explore and play with. What else would it be? In doing so the Collector caused irreversible harm to its inhabitants through the Titans. But nobody bothered to explain anything to them, he was locked away harshly instead.

But now turns out he’s also a victim of negative influence via “ bad Collectors” ( weird for Dana to portray almost the majority of a whole species as bad ™ when she’s refrained from doing that for all the other species, isn’t that mindset the same as Belos’s) and it’s implied the Collector didn’t hurt the Titans at all. He’s STILL is a kid with power, despite what others may say, but just a less interesting version that brings nothing new to the conversation. I didn’t want him to be meant to be same as others, I wanted him to not be meant to be anything.

But I’ll be satisfied if the Collector does what Belos never did: grow up. I want them to realize their actions are part of a perpetual cycle and that while he recognizes they were negatively influenced by a lot of forces he also did a lot of fucked up shit of their own violation.  I want him to pinkie promise King they will play again but they’re not ready yet to be his friend. I want the Collector to hold himself responsible even if other characters don’t, even if the fandom won't. It won’t be fun but it what he wants to do.

(Shock, I know because me not wanting the Collector’s  more negative qualities to be retconned or ignored clearly means I want them tortured and  killed. I want  them to  be redeemed and I expected him to be from the start but I’m not happy in doing so that Dana and co took away what made them so interesting to me in the first place.)

[kygerbearr]

I have a really difficult time feeling any amount of patriotism for the United States, I can't wrap my head around being proud of what we've accomplished, I feel no connection to my so-called "people" and there's so many of them that are ignorant of just how little history we have compared to every other country.

I'm willing to acknowledge what this country has accomplished for itself, but I feel like that has so little to do with me in the end. It feels like most Americans have no reverence for what was here before them, and that really bothers me.

Everywhere I go I see things that have been here long before I was here, and it feels wrong to have no regard for them. I don't want to be part of a group that places themselves at the top of every list and thinks they did everything better than everyone else. I have never known a patriot who could explain their patriotism beyond throwing out hollow buzzwords that they don't understand in the first place.

Even in my effort to be fair and try to consider what America is as a culture, I'm left bitter and disappointed at its legacy. The most it's done is, at least before it was wholly bastardized, provided some amount of opportunity for some people.

The fact of the matter is that this is not our land. It was never our land, all we did was take from the people who were already here, suppressed and erased their culture and ruined all we took from them to boot.

It makes me really sad when I see Japanese people romanticize the U.S., it's a lot similar to how I feel when I hear Americans idolize Canada even though they deadass did the same shit we did with the natives (and still do). They get fed an idealized version of a filthy, borderline unredeemable history.

The U.S. is not something that is meant to be idolized. Most of our history should be treated as a cautionary tale than anything to actually be proud of. I don't wish to dismiss any culture as being illegitimate because that goes against my principles, but American history and culture is extremely tainted, and it's not something I have any desire to call my own.

[ekleipsi]

usual pep to one's strides perhaps .. missing , as hesitation instead takes place in it's hold. hood is almost entirely pulled into courier's visage , perhaps in a half-hearted attempt , to cover flared blush dusting upon fine cheekbones non-stop these days. ‘ hey , uh .. aphro ? ’ he regrets it. the second love goddess' name slips pass plush tiers , he's internally slapping himself harshly so. a hiss and form shifts to turn around and avert himself in the same motion , he has called out for olympus' companion. ( only to turn and face her once more. )

‘ hypothetically speaking , if you liked a guy , who , uhm - ’ he pauses. teeth gritting against each other within maw painfully so. ‘ - like I said , hypothetically ! not literally ! but what if you liked a guy .. your father has some serious beef with. like .. big bad conflict and shit. and I know you're into this whole - ’ cue him tuning vocals up to a high pitched note. ‘ oh sweet , handsome hermes darling , dear ! forbidden love is the best type of love ! ’ and he's exhaling , form slumping in on itself seemingly.

‘ - but this is like .. stuff that could get you kicked outta here. you know ? like .. shit that happened to apollo type of kicked out. ha. what would you do ? ’ and he's panicking. great.

// ( aphrodite&hermes ! )

--- The scalloped shell she called something of a throne in her own private locale on Olympus ( a Goddess of her standing needed her privacy of course ) opened at the call of name, a bubbling froth of seafoam spilling from it as she slipped forth with graceful ease. Bared legs were shown off, accented by the slinky dress that clung to ample curves like water upon her frame. Delight and curiosity mars flawless visage at heavenly companion, courier calling out has smile brightening in radiant display.

--- ' Hermes! Little Angel, what a sight for- ' she'd begun to speak, before gasping aloud at the bright and striking coloration painted over his features and the way hood was pulled up so tight. To hide face? From her. Like a mother to flame, she's invading his personal space, pressed into his bubble and eagerly pulling away material before a giggle of satisfaction is tugged from chest. ' Young love, puppy love...I see it all over you, you're oozing it, Angel, a crush? ' she breathes the word out, hand lifting to clutch chest.

--- Only when he begins to speak in explanation, did expression draw crestfallen. The way he bites and grits, tenses, and even the tumultuous way his heart bubbles and stutters...only when the words are finally spilled does realization dawn on her. She lets him finish speaking, not even bearing any offense to the way he mocks her ideals of love and how perfect it is regardless of the situation. It's even further accented with the slump of shoulders; and when he mentions Apollo, does she freeze and tense.

--- Once Sunkissed Prince was now little more than a cautionary tale among Olympians who dared rage and fight their father, the Mighty Zeus. To Hermes concerns, her brows knit together; she can only take this seriously from that moment, finding seat upon a plush bed of water and patting the spot next to her. There's a pregnant silence, as she gathers thoughts to carefully construct to word and advice alike, biting lower tier.

--- ' You are...a fool, then, to have a crush on someone Zeus has taken personal offense by. Such a thing is...frowned upon, and the task alone is monumental and foolhardy. I cannot say I would expect any less from someone like you. ' she chuckled softly, tone somber and serious before she faced him with a stern expression upon lovely features. ' That said, though? Zeus...has so many enemies and grudges that he cannot possibly keep count. ' she chuckled, shaking her head and reaching a hand outwards to press to his cheek.

--- A moment passes, before she drops fingers further yet to the thumping of heart. Eyes closed, feeling its pulse...the rhythmic beat of it in his chest, with each passing second, aiming to listen for its quickening as she next speaks. ' Is he handsome, Hermes? Are you comforted by him? Does he make you feel wanted, charmed, whole? Does he excite you? ' each question posed is hummed soon after, listening and listening before she finally pulls her hand away with a chuckle.

--- ' Apollo...is warning to us all, but Apollo sealed his own fate with his actions. Besides...he's here, isn't he? Zeus isn't in the business of smiting and killing outright, he's in the business of teaching lessons, and wanting others to learn from them. Has you beau learned the lesson he was taught? I don't think...Zeus would take up arms against a relationship that is healthy. Would lovely Hera let him? ' she chuckled ironically, expression soft and filled with adoration.

[ruhrohrichie]

sorryyyyyyyy I'm justttt... would you ever wanna write hcs/a fic wherein Richie was a Casanova who seduced Eddie to be able to drink from him, but then he and Eddie liked each other so much that Eddie became his Blood Doll *mixed* with kittenplay, like Eddie gets called kitten all the time, and he likes to perch up on Richie's thigh and bare his neck and rub against Richie until Richie can't help but drink from him and feel him up at the same time? Terminology from here: https://hellhorror.com/vampires/vampire-glossary/

never apologize for this omg this is art of COURSE i'd wanna write about that

i would love to write this as a fic eventually but for now i think i'm gonna keep it to hc's

tw for blood,  stalking/obsessive tendencies, brief mentions of a huge age gap (ik its vampires lol but still figured i’d mention jic), and a sort of predator/prey vibe. also brief mentions of how much sonia sucks and her prejudices she tried to force onto eddie

so for this au, we’re thinking vampires are fairly common. most of them are chill. there are blood donors for them, and it’s very easy to get blood from banks. vampires aren’t usually seen as dangerous–not any more dangerous than humans, anyway. 

but eddie grew up in a small town, where his mom and all of his neighbors warned him of the dangers of catching yourself alone with a vampire

eddie’s mother and hometown are far in the past now. eddie’s in his early twenties, living in rural-leaning-suburban new england. he works as a mechanic most days and is taking classes at a local college at night. 

while his hometown is a state and a half away, he never made it to any big city. he’s been to Boston, once. and Burlington a handful of times. but mostly he’s content to stay someplace quieter. the people here are kind, and the college campus is beautiful—all old brick buildings that smell like books and history.

but, eddie learns quickly, the buildings are not the only old things in this town. 

as a night student, he’s had a few classes with a vampire or two. they were both lovely. one had a somewhat distracting habit of clicking her pen, but otherwise they proved all of the horror stories and cautionary tales eddie’s mother had filled his head with wrong.

basically he learns that everything his mom said about vampires was horrible bullshit, just like everything else she ever said

so eddie knew better than to be afraid of vampires. 

but there were people who warranted putting up your guard, people without fangs.

and so, as nature would and will always have it, just as there are humans with ill intentions, there are vampires one would be wise to steer clear of.

eddie thinks richie tozier might be like that.

it is the first day of eddie’s latest computer science class. he’s already in his seat, laptop and notebook neatly arranged on his desk.

he’s looking around the room when richie walks in and drops the temperature in the room a subtle but tangible few degrees.

richie’s gaze falls almost immediately to eddie, and eddie can see the hint of fangs poking out, cushioned against richie’s plush bottom lip. his face is all sharp angles, except for his freckled nose that softens and rounds and turns slightly downward that the tip, and his lips, so full and soft eddie can feels like he already knows how they’d feel on his skin. 

shit.

eddie looks down at his notebook hastily, but the damage is done. richie has seen him staring, and he smirks as he passes eddie, sitting just behind him and to the side, just close enough that eddie feels his gaze all class.

every class

eventually, richie invites eddie over. or maybe he says it’s dangerous for eddie to be walking home alone at night and walks him home.

on the first offer eddie declines, and he feels someone—something—following him all the way home.

it’s unusual for vampires to hunt, but richie nearly hunts eddie. he memorizes his path home. he spends all night walking between his own house and eddie’s apartment, counting the paces between them, finding the shortest, most private route. he can see how small eddie’s apartment is through the windows he only rarely leaves open at night (smart boy, richie thinks with a patronizing smile on his lips), and he can’t help but think about how much happier eddie would be living with him, living in his big house hidden away in the woods with its big windows and plush couches and various quiet reading rooms.

he sees it, how eddie doesn’t like loud noises or crowded places. richie could give him a home far from all of that, where richie would keep him. 

eddie is nervous through the process, almost aware of what richie is doing but not wanting to jump to assumptions

richie also calls eddie kitten before they even get together, low and teasing and he can hear the blood rushing through eddie’s body every time he says it, despite the displeased faces eddie tries to force in response at first

soon enough he knows it’s no use and is just openly bashful about the pet name

richie references that he’s old, and it should make eddie squeamish, but it just makes him a little lightheaded, an embarrassing throbbing between his legs as richie looms over him, not specifying just how much older than eddie he is, how much more he knows

but he gets a sense when eddie finally comes to his house

richie has a whole fucking mansion to himself

they’re supposed to be studying, but richie keeps getting closer, and nuzzling into eddie’s neck, and talking to him in this low voice that thrums slightly in the base of eddie’s skull in the nicest way, and it’s late of course, and richie is so fucking smart and hot and this couch is so soft, so soft where richie is firm, and guides eddie down and lets him hump richie’s leg while richie feeds from him for the first time

eddie comes in his pants as soon as he feels richie growling in pleasure as his blood pools over richie’s tongue <3

eddie gets so pliant and cuddly, until he just is richie’s kitten

he’s his lap pet, his little blood doll, and richie reminds him all the time

“just giving yourself up to me, baby, such a dumb kitty begging me to drink from you all the time. and why? ‘cause it gets your little cock hard? sweetheart, i could fucking drain you”

that always makes eddie cum

and yes omg kitten eddie. so perfect. so happy to just sit in richie’s lap no matter what richie is doing—if eddie wants attention, he just sits right in front of richie’s sight line

and he begssss for richie to use him and let him be his good little blood doll <3 

to the point where richie has to laugh and say no sometimes. but eddie pouts, so richie soothes him by letting eddie suck on his cock for as long as he wants

god i love vampires god i love kittenplay. thank you for this oh my god

[learnthisphrase]

Best books of 2021

10 12 favourites*

*This was supposed to be a top 10, but I couldn’t quite narrow it down and also had a last-minute entry to my favourites list. Here we go!

Something New Under the Sun by Alexandra Kleeman (4th Estate, 2021)

What it’s about: A dissatisfied writer and a former child star investigate a conspiracy involving artificial water in LA. Simultaneously a satire of the film industry, near-future SF, a thriller and a cautionary tale about climate change/consumerism – and also nothing like any of that.

Why I loved it: Kleeman is a genius, and Something New Under the Sun exists on its own plane: a bizarre, wild, colourful odyssey through a version of California that seems to be melting. As in her debut, Kleeman is breathtakingly adept at taking symbols of capitalism, celebrity and consumer culture and warping them beyond all recognition in order to reveal the horror within. Yet no matter how bizarre the plot gets, an ever-present undercurrent of humanity means that, against all odds, it doesn’t feel detached from reality at all. The narrative style – which mixes dreamy, weird writing, deliberately (and hilariously) absurd dialogue, and really effective perspective switches – is brilliantly unique. The result is the best, most ingenious book I have read this year, with a title that is wholly apt. (Full review)

Read if you enjoyed: The isolated writer-protagonist and suggestions of conspiracy in Red Pill; the hallucinatory LA setting of We Play Ourselves. But really, Kleeman’s vision stands alone, and only she could have written this book.

Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt (Cipher Press, 2021)

What it’s about: Three years ago, three girls – Alice, Ila and Hannah – entered the House, a corrupted, haunted place. In the aftermath, Hannah is gone and Alice and Ila’s relationship is radically transformed. Ultimately, the two survivors must go back.

Why I loved it: This book left me haunted. Rumfitt turns the haunted house trope inside out (and then some) with a story about fascism and trauma and guilt and gender and what it’s like to try and perform an acceptable impression of a functioning human being after bad shit has happened to you. It’s electrifying. It’s disgusting. It’s hot. It actually made me THINK. It’s the best book about what it is to be a woman (specifically in modern Britain) that I’ve read in years, possibly ever. It’s the most radical horror novel of the year and probably the decade. (Full review)

Read if you enjoyed: The punk spirit of Gary Budden’s London Incognita. Again, though, this book is a true original.

Terminal Boredom by Izumi Suzuki, translated by various (Verso Books, 2021)

What it’s about: Short sci-fi stories from a little-known Japanese author, written in the 1970s and 80s but only now translated into English. Unusually for a collection, each story has a different translator.

Why I loved it: This is one of the best short story collections I’ve ever read. Terminal Boredom isn’t just prescient, it’s prophetic – over and over again I was thrilled by the fact that these stories featuring video calls, reality TV, robot vacuum cleaners, live streams, celebrity politicians, screen-addicted people, and very 21st-century perceptions of gender, date from 40 years ago. Suzuki has a startling ability to pin down a character’s worldview in just a few lines: the book is packed with observations so acute they sting; so modern they’re unnerving. ‘You May Dream’ – a story about grappling with loneliness and detachment in a society that prizes technology above community – is an instant classic, ‘Terminal Boredom’ and ‘Women and Women’ are also outstanding, and the entire collection represents a stunning body of work. (Full review)

Read if you enjoyed: Anna Kavan’s short stories, Sayaka Murata’s Earthlings.

The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley (Bloomsbury, 2021)

What it’s about: London, 1898: a man named Joe steps off a train and realises he has lost all his memories. Then he receives a postcard written to him before he was born... This all takes place in an alternate version of 19th-century Britain in which France won the Napoleonic Wars.

Why I loved it: On paper, The Kingdoms shouldn’t have been my thing – I don’t usually enjoy fantasy, I’m ambivalent about alternate histories, and I actively avoid romantic fiction. Yet I fell head over heels in love with it. The world of the book is fantastically complex and vivid, the character development builds slowly until you’re properly obsessed with these people, and I found myself unexpectedly invested in the central romance – to an embarrassing extent (tears were shed). Missouri Kite has to be my favourite character of the year hands down. Pulley’s writing epitomises emotional excellence, and this is a sweeping, enthralling story with tons of heart. (Full review)

Read if you enjoyed: Cloud Atlas, Crossings, The River of No Return or The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters.

Hare House by Sally Hinchcliffe (Mantle, 2022)

What it’s about: An unnamed woman leaves London to ‘start a new life’ in rural Scotland. She settles in the tiny community surrounding a country estate, where it soon becomes clear the locals not only believe in witches, but also regard them as an active threat.

Why I loved it: I underestimated this book at first, fearing it might be derivative. I couldn’t have been more wrong: Hare House, in its essence, is a true original. Any cliches in the plot are made entirely new by masterful plotting, a uniformly fascinating cast of characters, sparing deployment of tension and eeriness, and, most of all, VOICE. This is Hinchcliffe’s second novel (and you’d better believe I’ll be reading her first soon), but she writes like an author at the absolute top of their game – sharp as a knife, not a sentence wasted. Employing landscape beautifully, making the story just uncanny enough, it’s note-perfect all the way to the bravura ending, which made me almost squeal with glee. (Full review)

Read if you enjoyed: Devil’s Day, The Little Stranger, voice-driven dark character studies like Notes on a Scandal and The Woman Upstairs.

The Brimstone Wedding by Barbara Vine (Penguin, 1995)

What it’s about: 70-year-old Stella, who has terminal lung cancer, confides in her care assistant, Jenny: the tale that emerges involves a secret house and a forgotten film star called Gilda Brent. The story is narrated by Jenny, who’s dealing with some secrets of her own.

Why I loved it: While it starts quietly and requires some patience (Vine’s writing is nothing if not replete with description and detail), The Brimstone Wedding transforms into an enthralling tale whose brilliance made me increasingly dizzy with joy. Everything I have loved about Vine’s other novels is realised to its full potential here: the rich, almost fussy language; the slow-burn intrigue; the multidimensional characters. Throw in a perfect narrative voice (we learn so much about Jenny from the way she tells the story) and you have a truly spellbinding book that is literary triumph, gripping mystery and tragedy all in one. (Full review)

Read if you enjoyed: Strangely, this is the hardest book on the list to find comparison points for; I’d really only liken it to Vine’s others. But if you like getting stuck into a long, detailed, involving mystery, chances are you’ll enjoy this.

The Coming Bad Days by Sarah Bernstein (Daunt Books, 2021)

What it’s about: A woman leaves her partner, moves to another town and lives in solitude – until she forms an odd, intimate friendship with a woman called Clara. Around the same time, she starts to receive strange anonymous notes.

Why I loved it: Bernstein’s debut is very much driven by style and language rather than plot and character; I read the book marvelling at its style first, and taking in its events second. The writing is remarkable: reminiscent of Fleur Jaeggy’s style, but imbued with its own cool economy and wry humour, full of ambiguity and the cold thrill of pessimism. I couldn’t stop noting down lines I loved. It can, however, be abstract and difficult, and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to everyone (if you want everything in a story to be resolved and made clear, avoid). The cover suits it perfectly: icy and ambiguous. (Full review)

Read if you enjoyed: Anything by Fleur Jaeggy; the mood of Signs of Life; the setting of Communion Town.

Among Others by Jo Walton (Corsair, 2011)

What it’s about: Morwenna, a 15-year-old girl from a magical family (she’s the daughter of a powerful witch), goes away to boarding school. Told in diary entries, the story charts her coming-of-age journey.

Why I loved it: This is a unique sort of fantasy novel: one in which the fantasy is largely incidental. It’s really the story of an inquisitive, precocious, naive girl discovering her identity, largely through reading science fiction and meeting others who share that passion. It’s lovely to read – the literary equivalent of a big warm blanket – yet it’s also unusually compelling. I was hooked on Morwenna’s voice, finding her excitement infectious, and loved the way magic was woven into the story. I came away from it feeling delighted to have discovered Walton’s work. (Full review)

Read if you enjoyed: Nina Allan’s novels and stories; the narrative form and style of The Moth Diaries.

Professor Everywhere by Nicholas Binge (Proverse Hong Kong, 2020)

What it’s about: Newly arrived in the UK from Hong Kong, Chloe Chan finds life at a British university dissatisfying until she starts working with the reclusive Professor Roland Crannus. It quickly becomes clear that Crannus’s research is more unorthodox than anyone imagined, and Chloe’s dragged along for the ride.

Why I loved it: Speculative fiction about multiple worlds that also has a captivating academic setting and a narrator I felt attached to almost instantly… This was a book I’d always wanted to read without even knowing it existed. What worked best for me about it is something that perhaps should have worked against it: its world feels so small, so cosy (even as we’re presented with the possibility of countless realities). I just felt so at home in it. Written as Chloe’s memoir, Professor Everywhere is such a likeable and absorbing story that even its flaws only made it more charming to me. (Full review)

Read if you enjoyed: The combination of collegiate setting and speculative elements in Catherine House.

The Art of Space Travel by Nina Allan (Titan Books, 2021) / The Good Neighbours by Nina Allan (riverrun, 2021)

Disclaimer: as some of you will know, I am a huge fan of Nina Allan. At this point, I’m so deeply entrenched in my love of her work that it’s arguably impossible for me to be objective. We were blessed with both a novel and a collection this year, and I couldn’t not mention them! But I’ll try to keep this brief...

The Art of Space Travel is an outstanding collection of short stories. Some are sci-fi, fantasy or horror; some are literary fiction; many blur the lines between these genres. All are written in a rich and engaging style that makes every character feel like a fully-formed human being. The stories chosen for this book are, for the most part, quiet and thoughtful, rarely dealing in extremes, though incredibly powerful when they do. They include the stunning ‘Four Abstracts’, the story that made me fall in love with Allan’s writing: a perfect horror story that is also a beautifully nuanced exploration of friendship, art, grief and guilt. (Full review)

The Good Neighbours is a novel about a photographer who revisits the island she grew up on and becomes obsessed with an old murder case. She uncovers the incongruous fact that the killer – her childhood best friend’s father – believed in fairies. This is a story about the fragile and capricious nature of the human mind, and the dangers of making assumptions; it’s sensitively crafted and compassionately written. And as it’s the least genre-inflected of Allan’s major works to date, I also think it would make a great introduction to her writing for those who don’t usually enjoy SF or horror. (Full review)

They by Kay Dick (1977, reissued by Faber 2022)

What it’s about: In a series of interconnected stories, we follow an anonymous narrator trying to survive in a society besieged by the ‘they’ of the title – a group who seek to destroy art, independent thought and even love.

Why I loved it: They is resolutely cryptic, with so many things remaining unknown throughout: the background of the world it depicts; the identity of the narrator; whether the narrator is even the same person from one story to the next. Dick’s prose moves swiftly and covers much ground in a few sentences, shifting between matter-of-fact description and startling emotional depth. The style made me sure I would love it; the story ‘The Fairing’, an extraordinarily tense and ambiguous sequence, confirmed that. I enjoyed They most for its mysteries – it’s most powerful when little is explained – and love the fact that I can now see echoes of it in the work of so many of my favourite writers of speculative fiction. (Full review)

Read if you enjoyed: Anna Kavan’s Ice, basically anything by M. John Harrison, Piranesi, Christopher Priest’s Dream Archipelago books/stories.

Honourable mentions

Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor (Daunt Books, 2021): I truly believe that Taylor’s books are classics in the making, and this collection of short stories is further proof of that. The subject matter (young people navigating intimacy, desire and loneliness) is not new, but Taylor’s prose hums with a power beyond what fiction typically possesses.

Intimacies by Katie Kitamura (Vintage, 2021): Kitamura’s writing epitomises the phrase ‘deceptively simple’. This, a short novel about an interpreter trying to build a life in an unfamiliar city, does exactly what I want literary fiction to do: capture reality in a way that makes it new.

Laura Blundy by Julie Myerson (Harper, 2000): This Victorian murder story is propelled by the blunt, sly voice of its antiheroine. Both a brilliantly effective piece of historical fiction and an uncanny triumph of ventriloquism – read if you enjoy transgressive fiction and unreliable narrators.

Come Join Our Disease by Sam Byers (Faber, 2021): If I had to pick one book from this year that should���ve been massive, this would be it. A story of ennui in the underbelly of London that transforms into a transcendentally disgusting ecstasy of filth; a fearless excoriation of capitalism and wellness culture. Lurid, sickening, fun, impassioned, provocative and brilliant.

The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2021): I never feel properly equipped to talk about Cohen’s writing; his intelligence and wit are so powerful they kind of terrify me, and while not easy to sum up, this novel of campus politics and Jewish identity is masterfully written, involving, surprising and very funny.

Spider by Patrick McGrath (Penguin, 1991): In this gothic novel of 1950s London, a young man’s identity and sense of self slowly unravel as he writes the story of his life. A masterpiece of psychological horror, full of ratcheting tension and powerfully disturbing imagery.

Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2021): One of the most readable and compelling memoirs I’ve ever encountered, cataloguing the author’s lifelong obsession with Japan and what it’s like to live in another language.

Whiteout Conditions by Tariq Shah (Dead Ink, 2021): The lean prose of Shah’s novel – about a man returning to his hometown for the funeral of his friend’s younger cousin – is as bare and and unforgiving as the bleak urban sprawl its characters traverse. To be read in a single sitting.

Also...

Even more honourable mentions

Savage Appetites by Rachel Monroe: four tales of notorious crimes and the women obsessed with them, made unputdownable by wonderful writing. Daniel Kehlmann’s Fame (trans. Carol Brown Janeway), a surprising, exciting collection of interlinked stories – a bit Ned Beauman, a bit David Mitchell. Damon Galgut’s ostensibly simple, ultimately gripping The Impostor. A Lonely Man by Chris Power, an effortless story about stories that’s also a wildly tense cat-and-mouse thriller. The Unauthorised Biography of Ezra Maas by Daniel James: I have repeatedly described it as ‘Daisy Jones & The Six written by Borges’ and I stand by that.

Dennis Cooper’s transfixing, terrifying, indelible The Sluts. Patrick Redmond’s The Wishing Game and its bone-chilling ending. Virginia Feito’s clever Mrs March, for which the publisher’s attention-grabbing tagline (‘Shirley Jackson meets Ottessa Moshfegh meets My Sister the Serial Killer’ ) was, for once, accurate. The audiobook of Joseph Knox’s True Crime Story, which – thanks to its excellent voice cast – was the only audiobook I managed to truly enjoy in a year of trying to make myself like them. Matt Wesolowski’s Demon, the sixth (and final?) entry in the Six Stories series of horror(ish) novels about a true crime podcast – books I will be rereading forever.

Short stories

Richard V. Hirst’s beautifully crafted, sinister, complex ‘Oblio’ and Gareth E. Rees’ funny, poignant ‘Meet on the Edge’ (both from the anthology Out of the Darkness). Andrew Michael Hurley’s powerful ‘The Hanging of the Greens’ (from the otherwise mediocre The Haunting Season). The title story from Lucie McKnight Hardy’s Dead Relatives, a triumph of voice, full of the narrator’s slyness and angst. Jia Tolentino’s snappy, acerbic I Would Be Doing This Anyway. Online, everything by Brandon Taylor – especially ‘Prophets’ and ‘Otto’ – and ‘Cancel Me’ by Honor Levy.

Notable rereads

I revisited The House at Midnight by Lucie Whitehouse for the first time in 12 years, with some trepidation; I discovered that not only is it just as good as I remembered, but my relationship with it now feels deeper. I read Dark Echo by F.G. Cottam for something like the sixth or seventh time; it’s still my favourite ghost story. Tasha Kavanagh’s twisted, vividly rendered coming-of-age tale Things We Have in Common was even better second time around. Ditto Andrew Michael Hurley’s Devil’s Day, an enigmatic pastoral laced with horror (Hardy meets Aickman) which remains my personal favourite of the author’s novels.

[229zmi]

[02] WHAT ONCE WAS TOGETHER

Kozume Kenma/Reader | 6.1k words, mentions of death

series masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

There's no telling the type of person you are at the root.

You've spent too many years cultivating a garden of top-notch scores and a high-standing reputation that of the very narrow line between artificiality and sincerity, what's on the side you seldom display shows up a hazy vision to the human eye. Sincerity, in its rawest form, is a relic of the past that you've long since vowed to keep buried deep beneath fraudulent smiles and pleasantries because it's the only way you know to thrive. And although you don't really believe in forever, you're certain this façade will outlive you. It has to.

Otherwise, all that's left of you will be years' worth of wreckage, remnants of what once was together. It makes sense, after all, that everything falls apart when you take away the infrastructure of something, so in the case that this ever happens, you imagine your tongue to crumble away like dust without its carefully calculated untruths and your brain to melt into some unidentifiable, liquid-like substance without its selfish ambition. You see them as clear as a sunny day: gruesome images of deteriorating organs and bones floating in your vision in the same manner as when you're five years old and trying to count imaginary sheep to fall asleep.

And the grand finale, you think — the final part to go to shit — would be your spinal cord, where there lies a woman whose bitter eyes you share. A woman whose formidable hand perpetually threatens to claw around your heart and mangle it until it is no longer beating; whose voice is the one that rings alongside yours in the back of your mind with every silver-toned word that escapes your lips, stern and sharp and biting your eardrums the same way as how winter feels against your bare face in the coldest month of the year; and whose command finds itself meticulously woven into your instinct under the guise of advice.

(She reminds you all the time: it's every person for themself in this world. Don't look at people like they are human beings with complex brains and beating hearts, with the capacity to think and feel and aspire. You are to view them as mere stepping stones in your ascension to success because all that matters is on the surface level. Any deeper and you might drown, like when Icarus flew too close to the sun.)

Your mother is the pivot of your universe, the marrow of your spine, the sound and the fury. She is everything all at once, and you are not. More precisely, you are the one dangling on the edge of a cliff, holding out between the two halves of something and nothing, of glory and condemnation, of life and death. That's the way things go, the way that has been driven into your brain since the moment you opened your eyes. You know that it is inevitable that you will see yourself either die a spineless victim of the extensive fallacies and greed of the [L/n] family or live long enough to become the poisonous machine enforcing such a ruthless cycle.

To put it simply, you will die as nothing or live to be something.

So perhaps it is not the event itself of your pretence disintegrating into the terrain to reveal the repulsive truth — that you are really just a fraud, a poorly executed mockery of the archetype your ancestors have laid out before you, and a blemish in your family's pristine history to soon be extracted like a cavity — that truly frightens you to the point of near-complete obedience, but the cataclysmic aftermath instead, in which you're suddenly something out of nothing again, though it's not the something that anyone wants or expects. Rather, it is the opposite; it is the something that is far beneath nothing at all, the lowest rung of the ladder. Only when your body falls to a standstill, is when you can become nothing once more, no longer a living cautionary tale as you are swept under the rug and left to rot amongst the centuries-old spiderweb of lies and family secrets.

(What they fail to tell you, however, is that your fate is the same regardless of whether you live the life of a predator, a prey, or a conglomerate of both — your story was predestined to eventually become part of the fuel that keeps the system running. While you yourself may decay into nothing, your story will live on in the minds of those who were there when it happened, used by them as an unspoken incentive to keep the leash tighter on their offspring, to make sure that the apple does not fall far from the tree next time around.

It's a deceptively perfect system. Even so, there's a degree of trial and error beneath it all.)

You've even witnessed it firsthand. Those who fall from grace have been forgotten before they can get back up, with their faces ripped off the family portraits on the walls and their names damned to be silenced until the next generation of kindred and beyond. And as your mother's sole child who is expected to carry on her legacy, you have grown to believe that your own fall from grace will only ever happen on a cold day in Hell, which is why when spring break ebbs away with the wake of the new school year, to let whoever this Kozume Kenma out of your sight is simply not an option to you.

The first course of action you finally settle for after several days of mulling over it is to gather information on him, letting his name roll off your tongue in a few passing conversations with the excuse of wanting to get to know the student body more. However, all anyone has to say about him ends up not consisting of anything very useful, disappointingly enough. It is the same thing regurgitated over and over again, smacking you in the face like a returning boomerang— social recluse, apathetic volleyballer with an interest in video games, and absolute Loser with a capital L (their words, not yours, but judging by what you've heard about him so far, you wouldn't disagree in the slightest, even if there was a weak attempt from you to defend him in order to avoid the harmful reputation of a bully).

Thus, your second course is to find him. Maybe that sounds a bit creepy, like straight out of a serial killer movie, but the thought does not unnerve you as much as what might happen if you do not succeed.

Of course, you can't fault him when you were the one who decided to first shout at the sky like a madman and then shout at him, acting all territorial when it wasn't even your rooftop nor a place that you considered a personal 'safe haven' to begin with. You're more embarrassed than anything. You could hardly give two shits about the rooftop of some rundown apartment building, so you don't know what possessed you to act so brashly, especially when you could've just kept your mouth shut in the first place and probably find more success sneaking away unnoticed that way.

Maybe, though, it's because nighttime makes you feel invincible. Shit always hits the fan right before then, you suppose, like a soda can that's been left inside a freezer for too long. It's the hours during an argument with your mom, the hours where your heart is hammering against your chest and the adrenaline is racing through your veins and she's telling you to get out of the house; so when the sun finally sets and you're roaming the streets of the city aimlessly, you think your day can't get any worse until it starts all over again a couple days down the line.

Nighttime makes you feel untouchable in a way that the status of being the top of your school will never make you feel, offering you crumbs of a freedom you know you'll never obtain at any other point in your lifetime. And somehow, it had you foolishly craving for even more conflict that particular night, as if you hadn't had enough already.

Either that, or it was because that security guard really got on your nerves, leaving you with a hostility like adding fuel to an already pent-up flame.

Nevertheless, no matter how unintentional the circumstances were, Kozume Kenma is to you like a weed in your perfect garden (the root of all evil, you'd dare say in this case, which you'd find kinda funny if you weren't scared shitless over this), and all it takes is one on the loose for everything to wither down to nothing. For that to happen— well, it can only mean failure, which, through calloused fingers pinching at the fat under your arm and fingernails curling deep into your skin throughout your childhood, you've learned is taboo in both sides of your family, the one thing that they seem to share in spite of their differences. Don't speak of it, don't think about it, and god forbid you dare bring it home.

A sudden shiver runs down your spine, shocking you out of your thoughts and back to the mundane reality, which, at the moment, paints itself as a painful conversation in the middle of a busy hallway with one of your classmates. Well, in actuality, the conversation hasn't really started yet because you'd only heard him shout your name just now, but you can already predict that it will be painful from the very interesting stylistic choice that sits atop his head like a beacon in the night— or in other words, the ugliest effing mohawk you've ever seen as you turn to face him.

"A thousand apologies" — you squint at his name tag before plastering on a polite smile — "Yamamoto-san, I didn't quite hear what you said. If it's not too much of an inconvenience to you, could you please repeat that? Or perhaps we can go into a classroom to talk if this is an important matter."

Yamamoto grins, and it's the widest smile you've ever seen with crooked teeth peeking from behind and the apples of his cheeks pushed toward the outer corners of his eyes. You sort of find it charming in a way, and you're not only talking about his smile that honestly makes yours look like a grimace in comparison, but also the way he easily looks past the fact that you sound like you have a mortgage and a family of five. Although this is nothing out of the ordinary for you, you figure you should probably tone down the formal language a bit, especially after watching him proceed to mindlessly flick some earwax out of his ear as he speaks.

"Don't sweat it, School Pres! I just wanted to ask you, are you available on Friday this week?" A hopeful expression clambers its way to his face. You place an index finger on your chin, contemplating your agenda for the next couple days.

"I should be," you say. "Why?"

"We have a match against Karasuno's volleyball team this Friday and well, they're a pretty good team," he explains, appearing sheepish as he rubs the back of his neck. "As captain of our team, I was wondering if you could come visit and maybe boost our morale? It would really help improve our game, especially since I know a lot of the people on the team, myself included, look up to you a lot!"

Confused, you raise an eyebrow: a habit you picked up a few years ago from one of your classmates. Your mother scolds you for it whenever you do it in front of her 'cause you'll get wrinkles quicker that way, apparently, but habits are habits nonetheless and the warning slips your mind sometimes. "I'm flattered you think so highly of me, but don't we have a cheer club here for that sort of stuff? I could contact them on your behalf if you'd like."

"No need. I've already tried asking, but alas, they're booked by the basketball team around the same time. That's why I'm asking you since you're the most cheerful person I know at school! Get it? Uh, 'cause cheer... ful? Full of cheer?"

It is the kind of joke that would warrant a reaction of tomatoes and boos being hurled at him (and rightfully so): the kind that could only be described as nothing but pitiful and the lowest of the low. Regardless—

"You're so funny," you say without much thought, a giggle tumbling past your lips as he visibly brightens at your compliment. People like him are so easy to flatter. "I'm honoured by your invitation, Yamamoto-san. But I don't exactly think I'd be the best person to lift your spirits for your match against Karasuno High School, especially when I don't know a thing about..." Shit, what was it? "...the sport you play. Maybe you could ask your friends or a family member to go and support you because surely it'd mean a lot more from someone you're already familiar with. Or someone who's already knowledgable in the matter of, um. Your sport."

He disregards your concerns with ease, patting you on the shoulder for an ounce of reassurance. "You're so thoughtful, Class Pres! But don't worry about not knowing anything about volleyball, you just gotta cheer us on. Like, a woo-hoo! and a go Nekoma! here and there. That's all. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy."

What the fuck are you saying? you want to say, unimpressed by this not-so-thought-provoking conversation. You open your mouth to make up another excuse, but Yamamoto continues on without allowing you to get a word in, "So I'll see you Friday, then!"

His words come off less like a question and more like a statement. Like the matter has already been settled. You're so used to things going your way and people agreeing to whatever bullshit excuse that comes out of your mouth that this conversation feels uncanny to you.

"...Sure!" you settle on after several seconds, finding no other way out. It's one thing to lie to him and say you've got some after-school activity that you remembered just now, but it's another to disappoint him and the volleyball team, even more so if they lost. That would certainly not look good on you. On the bright side, you suppose you could invite someone with you, one of your more outgoing classmates; that way, they can do most of the cheering, and you just have to be there. "I might be a little late though, if that's alright."

His face lights up with yet another blinding smile, though you aren't as charmed this time around. "As long as you're there!"

In every conversation you've had with them, your next-door neighbours like to treat you like a petri dish underneath a microscope, probing all your defining traits with wide, curious eyes that you liken to invasive metal tweezers. They've known your family for years, ever since your mother and Grandfather Iori taught at the same university back in the 80s, so to them, it seems perfectly fine to point out time and time again that you have your mother's eyes and your father's nose, your mother's bone structure and your father's smile, your mother's ambition and your father's compliance. None of it belongs to you, apparently.

Aside from that, it's always a Good morning accompanied by an observation on how you look so much more like your parents the older you get; a Good afternoon followed by a remark of how you've grown taller since they last saw you; a Welcome in! preceding an off-hand comment on your weight. Your personal favourite, however, is when Grandfather Iori points out that your eye bags have eye bags as of lately, though the once-over that Grandmother Miki gives you along with a disdainful Interesting... comes a close second.

Perhaps this is why you only visit Grandmother Kiku's room regularly these days. You find her to be the most tolerable out of the three elderly neighbours as her conversations rarely feel like they drain the life out of you whenever you stop by to drop off her mail. Rather, there's a refreshing feeling that settles in your chest almost every time you exit her room, which smells intensely of eucalyptus oil that burns your nostrils and clings to your clothes even long after you've left. It's a scent that suits her all too well: sharp and distinct, like her hazel eyes that always seem to bore holes into the side of your head while you walk in— a stark contrast to the shallow looks of those who ogle you as though you're a trophy on a shelf, moulded and refined by your mother's hands.

Grandmother Kiku, of silk pyjamas in various shades of mauve and countless bottles of Eagle Brand eucalyptus oil on the shelves, whose presence is so piercing yet so mellow like the two sides of one hammer— she isn't perfect. Your mother knows that, too, constantly warning you steer clear of "that crazy old hag" as much as possible. But you can't help but grow fond of her nonetheless.

The septuagenarian grunts at you by way of greeting. You smile at her as you set the envelopes down on the bedside table, in between her reading glasses and an antique-looking vase.

"Good morning! It's so dim in here, would you like me to open the curtains for you? I heard letting in some natural sunlight is good for your health."

"You're so damn loud, it's only nine in the morning." Despite her words that seem to puncture the comparatively stagnant air like a wolf's canines, Granny Kiku coughs and then waves her hand dismissively— a definite indicator that she doesn't really care whatever it is that you do. "I'd beware of the cobwebs at the top if I were you. Some spiders might jump out at you and ruin that nice jacket you've got on there."

Yuck! Your next words do not coincide with your thoughts. "Thank you for the warning."

"Well, of course. I can't possibly let that happen to you after knowing the same thing happened to Iori last week." Granny Kiku shakes her head and clicks her tongue at the memory. "That old geezer hollered so loud, he woke Miki up from her afternoon nap. And Miki, you know how she is. I'll spare you most of the details, but she was livid, I can sure tell you that much."

"I'm sure she was." You muster up a small smile as she huffs a loud guffaw, with spit particles even flying out of her mouth from the intensity of it. The sight sort of reminds you of a firework in a way, particularly one of those sparklers your neighbours used to hand out to all the kids in the area on New Year's Day. Noting that her laugh seems to contain a certain air of liveliness akin to her youth, you just hope Grandmother Miki isn't asleep at this time because she'd certainly hear it from the other room.

As her laughter wanes into the background, your hands reach over to the window and pull apart the curtains. Luckily, nothing falls onto you aside from some dust, which you're swift to swipe off your shoulders in two graceful motions. Through the weather-worn glass, you only manage to make out a few distinct shapes that look like trees outside before you decide not to dwell on it any longer and return your attention to Granny Kiku, who gestures for you to sit in the armchair beside her bed.

"Tell me," she starts, "what's been going on with you lately? I haven't seen you since, err... since..."

"Last month," you supply helpfully. She sends a grateful look your way and nods at you to continue. "Over spring break, I started volunteering at a hospital. The one that Grandmother Miki's son used to work at before he got fired for HIPAA violations, to be specific. This year, I'll be—"

She gasps suddenly, a raspy sound that grates against your ear drums. Decades worth of worry lines become prominent in her forehead as she raises her eyebrows, appearing scandalised for some reason. "Who told you that?! Miki wanted to keep that confidential."

You can't help the amusement that makes its way into your voice. "You told me."

"Ah." She blinks. "Did I?"

"Yes. You definitely did."

"Oh." Faint indents appear near the corners of her mouth, revealing a phantom-like smile. She moves on promptly. "You're doing volunteer work again? I thought you said that tutoring thing you did last summer would be the last one on your list. Unless I'm remembering things wrong and those doctors really weren't lying when they told me I was showing signs of dementia..."

"No, no. I changed my mind at the start of this year," you rush to reassure. You don't have the heart to tell her that that last part may be true, however. "My mother says it'll be good for when I start applying to colleges since this is my final year of high school."

"Huh... And you've got those student council conferences or whatever they're called that they make you go to like every week, don't you? I don't know how you do it." Granny Kiku lets out another grunt, one of disbelief this time. "Back when I was in high school, the only thing I ever did after school was kick rocks along the sidewalk and see how many snacks I could knock out of the vending machine free of charge before the teachers caught me. Homework was a little thing that crossed my mind once in a while."

She grins, reminiscing on her past years. Her hazel eyes catch yours; you find yourself staring back at your own reflection in them.

"Would you have ever guessed that I had to retake my third year of high school twice before they gave up and just handed me my diploma to get rid of me?"

You mean to only smile at her words, yet a slight chuckle tumbles from your lips clumsily, which you then attempt to conceal behind your hand. "Sorry," you say. You don't know why you're apologising, but it feels right to, even though Granny Kiku rolls her eyes at your feeble apology. "Of course not."

She swats your knee as her way of calling you out on your lie. "Your ma probably tells you all the time about how I'm such a bad influence. So particular over everything, that woman," she tuts, shaking her head. "And she's always having you do so much outside of school all for some stinkin' high school transcript that won't even mean anything after a few years!"

A sudden grandiose motion of her arms accidentally sweeps over a glass of water in the process. The liquid sloshes over the rim of the glass cup and onto the surface of the bedside table, yet before you can move, she's quick to shoo you away, waving her hand at you like you're a bothersome fly.

"Don't worry about it, s'just water. It'll dry in a couple of hours or so."

"Your mail's getting wet," you reason.

"Oh, child, you give me a headache with your worrying." Granny Kiku leans back into her mountain of pillows and shuts her eyes as if to block your voice out and say lalalala I can't hear you! "It's all just medical bills and advertisements, I'm sure. Pesky, some of those companies are. Cruel of them, too, to take advantage of such a poor, old woman like me."

"But if you look with your eyes," you emphasise with an overly patient tone, eyeing the mess, "some of them are postcards from, um, 'your dearest friend, A—'"

"Oh!" Her eyelids fly open immediately, amber irises bulging out of her sockets in a manner that could be considered comical. "Go get a rag— quick!"

Your laughter rings out in your neighbours' abode as you rush to the kitchen. This time around, you really hope Grandmother Miki isn't asleep.

Kenma knows that whatever feelings you may have toward him at the moment, they aren't exactly positive. Which is why meeting you again on the same rooftop is a little less than ideal.

Maybe it's his fault for coming back to The Roof, thinking you wouldn't also return after he told you that lie. He can admit that was a foolish choice on his part, but it's too late for him to go back on it now, given there's not many options when it comes to exiting a rooftop five or so stories off the ground, other than the stairs and, well. You know.

Regardless, it's your unmistakeable voice that resonates through the air, enunciating his name in a way he's never really heard it said before — dulcet, airy, and all other positive adjectives he'd hear in something like a fragrance advertisement — and it's your silhouette that Kenma's eyes land on, backlit by the sunset as you pad across the rooftop toward him. With his back against the parapet and the space between you and him narrowing with each passing second, there's nothing else he can do but nod in acknowledgement of your presence, holding in a sigh once he notices in his peripheral vision the pixelated words on his screen: GAME OVER. Bummer.

Behind you, the sky is a pretty shade of amber that blurs into a pale magenta, then dull periwinkle over your heads. Kenma hopes this won't take too long.

"Hi," you start, twiddling your fingers for the effect of what you believe is meekness. You pause to think over what to say after your pathetic greeting, aware that you look like a nervous mess right now, but perhaps this'll add to your charm somehow. "I thought you said you didn't come here often."

"I found that the signal's better up here," he says, plain and simple.

"Oh, wow! Really?"

"Yeah."

"Mm." Pressing your lips tightly together and nodding awkwardly, you feel like a broken record already. "Wow."

A long silence settles between the two of you, making the distance of a few meters that already separates the two of you instead feel like a couple hundred kilometres. The scent of whatever fragrance you're wearing floods his nostrils, glissading through the thick tension-filled air to wrap around his neck and keep him in a chokehold. It's suffocating, he thinks. Smells saccharine like vanilla, but with a hint of something tangy — still, there's too much sweetness that it nauseates him more than anything else.

With this in mind — as well as the fact that you're known as the picture-perfect student body president at school and he witnessed you when you were a little less than picture-perfect a few weeks ago — he knows he should leave. He knows he should use this opportunity to redeem his first mistake; to stand up right this instant, barrel past you to the stairs, and start running as fast and as far as his legs will allow while never looking back. Because there is no doubt that you've got some sort of plan in store — an ulterior motive to reel him in like you would with a fish on a hook, then trap him in your net of lies as you've done with all the rest, but this time, you'll be sure to tie the rope tighter. Lessen the chance of him escaping so that the truth does not as well.

He doesn't know why you'd bother, though, when it's clear that nothing he could say would tarnish or even put a dent in your reputation, not that he ever considered actually saying anything about what he saw. In fact, what would most likely happen, in his imagination, consists of all the [L/n] [Y/n] bootlickers calling him a bitchass liar and then begging the coach to kick him off the team or something for peace of mind. Because they're a mindless flock of sheep, too deluded with the idea that honour and your family must go hand-in-hand, intertwined with one another like poisonous vines on a brick wall so there's no telling where one began and the other ended. They're a pitiful flock of sheep, too afraid to take the risk of pulling apart the tendrils, to see the hideous reality hidden behind your family's success.

It must be a lot of pressure on your shoulders, Kenma surmises. For everyone to look at you and always see a force to be reckoned with, or an intricate hurricane in the making, destined to shine in the future. Even if — his gaze traces the shadow silhouetting your jawline, follows up the slope of your nose, and lingers on the patchy, almost powder-like, area around your right cheekbone — underneath all that wolf's clothing, you are not.

"I believe we were classmates in our first year, Kenma-san," you say with a smile. His impassivity seems to not have yet deterred you. "Class 1-5, right?"

"Yeah."

"Mrs. Ishida was always so strict." You're careful to keep your tone light-hearted so as to not give the impression of criticising the woman, even if Mrs. Ishida still likes to hand out pop quizzes at every minor inconvenience and has such a strong coffee breath that you can tell whenever she's near just by the smell wafting around in the hallways. It's by pure luck (and a little bit of your flattery) that she was in a good enough mood earlier today to let you skim through her old roster papers.

Kenma nods. "I remember her. Hated whenever she licked her finger while passing out papers."

"Right? Because her spit would leave a wet mark in corner every time. That was the worst." You can't help but shake your head at the memory before you take one step closer to skim over the upside down letters on his screen, feigning interest with a pleasantly surprised expression. "Oh, that game looks like a lot of fun! I think I might have played that one before."

How quickly you manage to change subjects nearly gives Kenma whiplash. Weren't you just talking about your shared experience of a particular unfavourable teacher? And now you're suddenly bringing up the video game on his phone. It's as if you trying to appease him by conversing about something that would interest him, to make him feel some sort of familiarity with you so he can let his guard down.

Nonetheless, your attempt has the opposite effect from what is intended. He shrinks into the collar of his jacket, his eyebrows furrowed as he wonders if you're serious right now. Because— "This is just the game over screen, [L/n]."

There's another beat of silence, in which you give him a blank stare. Instead of acknowledging your mistake, however, you decide to point out, "No honourifics for me, Kenma-san?" You stretch out that last part as if putting extra weight on it will suddenly remind him to add an honorific to your name.

"Sorry." He bows his head slightly, by way of an apology. "It slipped my mind."

"Don't worry about it." A smile overtakes your face once again, welcoming as per usual, but there's a wily glint in your eyes that Kenma would've missed if he didn't know any better. Such an insincere sight makes him want to look away, yet he can't quite bring himself to do so. Because the more he gazes into your eyes, the more he sees a kind of desperation that reminds him of himself, as much he wants to believe he is nothing like you and you are nothing like him. It's the kind of desperation, he recognises, that escalates as time crumbles away to reveal, not only the threshold of the unknown, but the fact that you aren't at all like the person you want to be.

"How about this?" you begin. "So you don't have to worry about remembering such formalities with me — let's be friends from now on."

Kenma frowns at your words, cocking his head to the side a little. The way you worded that is strange. Like you won't accept a refusal despite the impression you're trying to give off. "Is that a question or a command?"

"A question, of course." You sound bewildered, as though the idea of it being otherwise is outlandish to you, emphasised by your wide eyes and the mock-innocent expression on your face. "You can say no, I won't mind, but" — you place a finger on your chin, cosplaying somebody who's deep in thought — "it's just, I'm getting the feeling you don't like me all too much."

"I don't dislike you," he says after a moment, slotting his phone in one of the inner pockets of his backpack. "I don't feel any type of way toward you."

His fingers reach for the zipper of his backpack, tugging on it once, then twice before it finally budges. He doesn't move in his seat aside from slinging one of the straps loosely around his arm, but his intentions are clear to you as your eyes dwell on his hand, rooted to the polyester, and there's absolutely nothing you hate more than this. You hate the direction that this conversation has taken, you hate that he's not grovelling at your feet for your praise, and you especially hate this feeling of you being the one to chase after someone instead of it being the other way around, as if you've been using a line without a hook this entire time.

He's slipping out of reach. And now, you find that it is you who feels like a fish pulled out of water — powerless.

"So what, you're just going to leave?" the words bolt across your tongue too quickly, unable to help coming off as defensive. After realising this, you lower your voice just enough to sound as meek and fragile as you did at the start, all while trying to maintain your composure through a smile, though there's less charm put into it and more desperation around the corners. Where is the rewind button? You wish for it more than anything else right now. "Pardon me, but I believe this conversation isn't over yet. I asked you a question — it'd be really nice if you didn't leave me hanging!"

Kenma opens his mouth to speak. But a different voice breaks the silence, sounding much deeper and louder.

"Hey!"

Shit, you think, shutting your eyes tightly as if that'll make the owner of the voice go away. Not now, please, not now.

With impressive synchrony, the two of you turn your heads to see a middle-aged man sporting typical male pattern baldness and a security guard uniform. You remember his face from the last time you visited this rooftop, but with Kenma around and by the man's livid look, it doesn't seem like you'll be able to talk your way out this time or offer any monetary bribes either. You purse your lips, feeling a sinking pit in your stomach.

"What a mess..." Waving his little flashlight around to skim the area, the security guard shakes his head at the sight of so much debris. It doesn't take long before his attention returns to the two of you once more.

"Hey, did you hear me? What're you kids doing up here? This place is off-limits, it's not safe up here!" He starts to waddle your way, tentatively stepping over the metal scraps of chairs that lay in the way while holding a walkie-talkie up to his face, although he's not really talking into it. In his mind, he must look very authoritative and intimidating and like he knows what he's doing. "I'm going to have to call your parents and your school — so if you'll just make things easy for all of us and come over to me..."

Yeah, no. "Get up."

Urgently, you grab a startled Kenma by the forearm, pulling him up from his spot by the parapet of the roof before leading him past the man, who, after realising what you're doing, shouts at you to not run in such a dangerous place. The scene is raucous, a harsh contrast to the awkward, pause-filled conversation minutes prior with the security guard's heavy footsteps following behind, the stairs rattling beneath your shoes, and the sounds of traffic getting louder with each step toward the ground.

As you jump the last couple of steps with Kenma stumbling right behind you, the man yells something again about how trespassing is a crime, but it flies over your head with the wind. You don't think Kenma quite catches it either.

[nightcoremoon]

a lot of criticism against captain marvel completely missed the fucking point of captain marvel

they whines because she was a shitty person who had no personality and used physical force to get what she wanted and to show off.

veers was a fucking douchebag because the kree made her one

and then what happened after she realized everything she knew was a lie? she kicked the absolute shit out of the kree so hard that ronin literally said fuck this, turned around, and LEFT only to try again on xandar two entire decades later.

she betrayed the people who stole her life, her memories, her personality, and she pieced it together from fragments. she retained her cockiness and smarm only to throw it back in the faces of the people who forced her to be that way. but only when fighting. carol is uninteresting when she is what the kree wanted her to be, and that is why the impact of not taking part in the dick measuring final fight with billions of dollars of collateral damage is so important and integral to creating the most important thing that most modern marvel movies lack.

a character arc.

captain marvel was a calculated effort to deconstruct the action hero genre. it’s every single jason statham movie, it’s every single sam worthington movie, it’s every single carbon copy clone of every single testosterone fueled action movie. it was the most generic drivel the entire time on purpose if you’re not paying attention. but if you pay attention and you remember and you actually use your goddamn brain you’ll figure out the plot twist literally 20 minutes before it ever even happens, ESPECIALLY if you’re at all familiar with the comics. it’s a walking parody of nostalgia. it’s an intelligent movie with a very important theme that was buried beneath disney’s marketing. it’s a cautionary tale against any and every military power structure because ALL of them exist to warp the perspective of its soldiers in order to massacre the innocent civilians of the world, and if you got the take that “it’s a military propaganda movie because Disney used its imagery to push a pro military agenda” you’re a fucking idiot. every single piece of this movie was built to code by disney’s standards because it had to be, but even then they could still prevail with their originally intended message: every gender is capable of anything that the other can also do, and it’s time that the shitty action movie market has a women’s lens. not just that women can fight, but men can be emotional and show pure unabashed love to his wife and child without it being made fun of. tell me when is the last time you saw an action sci-fi movie with a genuine moment free of bathos of a father tearfully reuniting with his family and kissing his kid on the cheek WITHOUT ending in horrific gory tragedy???

captain marvel was everything I expected it to be. two hours of fun, fanservice, extra backstory, oh yeah and coming up with the only reasonable way to get tony stark back to earth.

people only hated on it because it lay between infinity war and endgame (and ant man 2) and it had a female protag. that’s it. chauvinism and an inability to think laterally. and stan lee died so people were finally comfortable with shitting in the water.

[wcmcink]

mid-day updates/drink deep/java

vestigial: remaining or in part… what is spoken, what is not spoken, coming through the interstices, what is seen, what is not seen… what we could never say exists on top of the words we do speak…& what is spoken remains. what is true these days…any of these outfits el señor mucho grande likes to wear? in the darkness we find what is not, dancing upon who we are…

gravity

i am that gravity in the cloak  of night

i am that silence that speaks  through

the short leg of the trip

the moon goes round  the earth

round the sun like old women

lugging laundry up/stairs

12:03

do you even know what rasta’s believe? thats what someone asked me last night, i listen to reggae btw… re-patriation to africa or some shit like that, i dunno i’m a white-boy; fuck it if i know i’m nice, i’m my own fan… i’m just trying to peep some good music & feed out… i live, i die… some quick some dead, some red, some blue…against them one another… just some geek off the streets…

whats on your power? waiting in the afternoons for your mother to arrive, the mental health courts? a caustic sense of humor? in & out of the system? shopping? waiting for packages to arrive? listening to music? grocerys? three day benders? getting clean for the last time? (bro, i’m a smoker, i don’t drink) social security checks at the beginning of the month? bumming around?where smallness is a strategy, yeah real less than…the fertile mother, the barren mother…the fawn, the hag…very yin i like it…where the politics of love & hate were being discussed & this is the enterprise… only poseurs wear ‘70s… calm down bro you can’t find cheap chucks anymore… although i love these shoes, i love this philosophy…i used to wear a three piece suit & carry a brief-case… save your breath i never was one… i keep getting updates from r/sadcringe, today it says sad-boy pity party, maybe reddit is trying to tell me something, an editorial comment on bad brains comes to mind “i got a fast car, i got a big t.v. i’m not a victim, i’m not a victim….” seriously, make up your own lyrics…. a poem i started, a poem i didn’t finish…

bro, why are there so many mirrors in this house? this is l.a. consciousness revealing itself, it drips of candy…self-satisfied…self-effacing… this is a cautionary tale folks, go back to school! alright my green & blue brother! mind the co-ordinates, never take that air-line doggy, the color values… also very green, thought yang…a means to an end…

i just saw the 62 roll by, blaring its sirens, i wonder if they’re running the 261 in miracle mile, wonder if there’s a 357 somewhere in los angeles… what is the fire-house trying to tell me today?… all over town trying to put out little fires… this old water sign…the valley, santa monica, the palisades, redondo beach, san pedro…all over west l.a… some may call me paranoid schizophrenic or something…how do i feel? caffienated…just say jah jah jah java…