#so hard to find wild black rat stuff on here though

[sealcore]

me when i

[hurting-fictional-people]

Day two

Just a quick disclaimer: I tried to read about blood loss and stuff to make this as accurate as possible but in the end, the real scientific and completely medically precise source used to describe how Noah feels is how bad I feel after drawing blood when I can’t eat beforehand. So just ignore the medical inaccuracies please hsdjfhj

CW: lab whump, medical setting, needles, drawing blood, manhandling, restraints, muzzle

Previous

“Mr. Reeve, the doctor has requested you.”

It was weird how, sometimes, words felt physical. Noah was sitting on the bed one moment, trying to talk to his roommate – who kept dodging his questions –, and in the next, he was up and backing away to the wall farthest from the door and the guards waiting there, hands raised in surrender as a shiver ran through his body.

Even though he could hear his heart racing and feel his stomach churning, Noah grinned at the guards and crooned “You can go and tell dear dr. Carver to shove his request up his– “

Before he could finish, three guards hovered over him. Unforgiving hands grabbed his arms and hauled him out of the room, jerking in the tight grip.

Maverick, who had kept mostly to himself as Noah tried to get him to spill out everything he knew about the facility, stood up with a frown and called his name, but Noah was left guessing what he was about to say as the doors locked them each in one side.

He thrashed and kicked for half of the way before giving up.

“Fine, I’ll stop fighting, you guys can let me go. I’ll lose my arms if you keep cutting off my circulation like this.”

As soon as the hands left his arms, though, Noah darted forward. The hallways were endless and identical, but he would never forgive himself if he didn’t at least try to leave.

Noah didn’t even get to the corner before he was thrown to the ground face-first, avoiding breaking his nose by turning his head in the last possible second, hands held behind him and a knee on his back. A high-pitched yelp escaped his lips as the guard barked at his ear, “done with the antics, kid?”

He nodded against the cold tile. The man pulled him up but didn’t let go of his arms, still painfully twisted behind his back. Noah groaned, but didn’t bother complaining – he knew he wouldn’t be heard anyway.

Noah tried his best not to think of where he was going or what might be awaiting him, but when they stopped in front of sliding metal doors, he was already trembling. One of the guards typed something on a keyboard by the door, and as it opened, Noah had to lock his knees to keep them from bucking.

He stood before a wide lab, eyes darting between trays filled with needles, flasks, and sharp objects he didn’t know the name of but filled him with unease either way; cabinets he was sure held more of the frightening instruments; and the metal table, right in the middle of it all, surrounded by restraints.

He swallowed audibly and started to back away instinctively, earning a growl from a guard and an annoyed shove forward.

Dr. Carver looked up at him from where he rummaged through a cabinet and straightened up, smiling at the false bravado Noah was trying to pull.

“Noah! How nice of you to join us,” the doctor cooed, giving him a wink. Noah wished to have his hands free so he could punch that fucking wink out of that smug face. “On the table, please.”

“If your henchmen stop trying to dislocate my shoulder,” he hissed, writhing against the hands holding him.

The doctor only tilted his head to the side and admired the scene as the guards pushed him down on the table and buckled restraints around his ankles, his wrists, his chest, his hips. Noah swore through gritted teeth, loudly and profusely enough to feel burning glares from the nurses and other doctors strolling around the lab, casually ignoring him until then.

“Language, kid,” Dr. Carver chastised.

“Fuck you, you crazy fucking psycho, sadistic creep,” Noah grunted.

“Quit insulting me, Noah, it won’t do you any good.”

“I wasn’t insulting you, asshole, I was describing you,” he replied, pushing against the restraints and finding no give.

He expected annoyance at least, fury at best in response to his retort. Instead, he was met with an amused smile.

“Did you know we’re recording every test and experiment?” the doctor said softly, towering over Noah’s defenseless figure. “I’m going to take great pleasure in watching this later, once I’ve taught you how to behave properly.”

“We’ll see about that, doc,” Noah smirked, hoping it would conceal the dread pooling in his stomach.

“This is one of the wild ones, huh? We’ll see how long It lasts,” someone muttered behind him, earning low chuckles from faceless people. Suddenly it was too hard to keep up the fearless facade as helplessness fell over him like a thick blanket, stealing his breath away. They talked about Noah like he was a zoo animal – locked up against his will, just a helpless and unwilling entertainment. A lab rat. It was hard not to feel like it.

“Are you done being a brat?” Dr. Carver asked, dragging a stool and a metal tray on wheels next to Noah. “Let us begin, then.”

“Don’t fucking touch me!” he shouted, but no one listened.

Noah trashed as hard as he could, but all he could do was scratch his skin against the harsh material strapping him to the table.

“I’m not doing anything yet, kid. Hold still or this is going to be a lot more painful than it has to,” Carver warned with a look a parent might give a disobedient child.

Noah only thrashed harder.

Hands came from everywhere, grabbing his body all at the same time. A tourniquet was tied to his arm way too tightly, a cotton-tipped swab stuck up his nose so high it burned and made his eyes water. Before he could do as much as take a breath, a needle was stabbed into his vein so harshly and abruptly he couldn’t help by cry out.

“I told you to hold still,” dr. Carver said in a sing-song voice that got Noah clenching his fists and gritting his teeth.

As people continued to poke and prod him, Noah searched for the small black circle of a camera, finding one in each corner of the room. Staring straight at the closest one, he screamed “I want this to stop now! I do not allow my body or my image to be used in this experiment! They are keeping me captive and using me against my will!”

When he finished, shaky hands, gasping breath and raw voice, a chuckle filled the room.

“Cute,” Dr. Carver commented, patting his hand. He didn’t get a chance to scratch the man before he took the hand away. “But the recordings are mine and are never going to be seen by anyone else. Nice try, though.”

He would have replied, weren’t for the harsh hands suddenly holding his head still. Noah tried to bite and scream, but he was truly helpless to stop them when a piece of metal was shoved inside his mouth, keeping his tongue uncomfortably pressed to his palate, his jaw unable to fully close or open, and someone held his head up as another buckled straps behind it.

A muzzle.

They muzzled him.

Noah stared at dr. Carver with wide, betrayed eyes. The man simply giggled and continued to fill a bag with his blood. He tried to force his jaw open, to say something, anything, but the muzzle was strapped tight, and all he could produce was a pitiful whine. Shame filled him to the brim, making his cheeks burn.

“Don’t worry kid, this is just so you stop screaming and don’t give us a headache since we’re going to be here for a while,” the doctor said in a tranquilizing voice. “We’ll take it out once we’re done.”

He looked at Noah expectantly, as if waiting for a response, his smile wrapped in just the right amount of mockery to make Noah seethe.

With even his words taken away, Noah let his body sag on the table, eyes closed to keep the tears from falling as the doctors went on.

They took X-rays, ultrasounds, and countless tests no one cared to tell him the name of or what they were for. His body was handled by precise, impersonal hands, moving him slightly when needed, like a puppet being rearranged on stage. Like an object, made to be played with. Whenever he had the chance, Noah writhed as best as he could just to annoy the doctors, but the satisfaction it earned him was quickly muddled by the pain when they tightened the restraints so hard his extremities started to tingle.

It wasn’t the pain he was scared of. He had agreed on participating in the experiment before he knew it was actually a prison, knowing it would probably include some degree of pain. It was the lack of freedom that made him sick to his stomach with panic. The loss of his free will, which he had fought so hard to conquer, now being taken away in the blink of an eye. It hurt more than anything those so-called doctors could do to him.

And so, it hurt inside and out, as strangers with apathetic eyes used his body as if there was no one inside, whimpering softly and hoping that dreadful day could just come to an end.

-

After what felt like forever, when Noah was already dizzy and weak from all the blood they’d taken – why did they need two blood bags and that many tubes, anyway? –, dr. Carver smiled sweetly and shook his shoulder to get him out of the sleepy daze he didn’t realize he was in.

“We’re all done here, kid. I’d say you did good, but you really didn’t. You also lost quite a bit of blood and haven’t eaten anything, so I’d recommend resting and eating whatever we send to your room unless you want to be back here sooner rather than later. Hopefully next time you’ll behave better, and we won’t have to use the muzzle or the restraints, huh?”

His head was lifted, the muzzle taken away, leaving his jaw aching and his pride scattered somewhere along the floor, replaced by anger and embarrassment.

“Let’s not pretend you wouldn’t tie me down just to see me struggling, doc. I can see it in your eyes,” he said, working his jaw to try and alleviate the ache.

“You’ll be so cute when you learn to keep your mouth shut, Noah,” Carver sighed, not looking at all as annoyed as his words might’ve suggested. Actually, he sounded more entertained than anything.

With an indifferent nod to someone Noah couldn’t see, the doctor patted his cheek patronizingly and turned away.

A part of Noah felt the impulse of provoking the man one last time, just to try and get a reaction out of him, but the rest just wanted to curl up and sleep, forget that this day ever existed. So, when the guards surrounded him, unbuckling the restraints with maddening slowness, Noah just laid there and waited, too worn out to do or say anything.

The walk back to the room looked more like two grown men dragging a rag doll through disturbing hallways, but Noah was so faint and defeated that he just sank in their grip and stumbled across the cold floors.

He didn’t even realize they were already in front of his cell until the guards let go of his arms and shoved him inside. The ground approached quickly as his knees bent with the sudden push, but instead of being met with chilly tile and pain, he was enveloped by warm arms and a comforting presence holding all his weight.

“Thanks,” he murmured as Maverick helped him straighten up before staggering toward the bed.

“You are either the most intriguing subject they ever got their hands on, or you really pissed someone off if they left you like this on your second day here,” Maverick remarked, sitting on his own bed across Noah’s.

“I don’t think Carver likes being called a crazy fucking psycho,” Noah said in as smug a tone as he could muster, “or a sadistic creep.”

Maverick pursed his lips, but a snorted laugh was quick to escape them. He shook his head slowly, laughing audible for a moment before forcing his mouth back shut and replacing the softness the laughter had spread across his face with a slight frown. “Bold. But you shouldn’t do that, Noah. The sooner you stop resisting, the less they’ll actively hurt you.”

“They are keeping me captive; they are hurting me either way.”

Maverick glared at him, jaw pressed tight. “You are hardly escaping. It’s better to comply and accept the mercy you can have than fight for a lost cause.”

“The day I stop fighting, Maverick, is the day my fucking soul dies. If I comply, then I give up and I am never doing that. And you know what? You shouldn’t either – if you let them convince you that you can’t escape, then you really won’t.”

The words fell out of his mouth in a stumbling croak, his tongue feeling weird and sore inside his mouth. Even so, Noah would’ve kept going if the other man hadn’t turned his face away, brows furrowed and gaze furious. He would’ve been sorry for scolding him, but Noah truly meant what he’d said.

“Hey, how long have you been here?” it was hard to keep a lighthearted tone when he felt absolutely miserable, but Noah forced himself to roll to his side and swallow down the nausea and the humiliation that seemed to have stuck to him.

“I don’t know, they don’t let us keep track of time,” was the low answer, a hint of sadness tinging every word. “You have to make peace with what you’re living now, Noah. I’ve been here for longer, and I can tell you for sure: people don’t leave this place. The only thing we can do is hope that today doesn’t hurt as badly as yesterday.”

Helplessness emanated from Maverick as the words left his mouth. Noah’s roommate had clearly been through a lot more than he had, and he knew that arguing would render him nothing. So Noah kept his mouth shut and silently promised himself he would prove Maverick wrong. 

“Are you okay?” Maverick asked suddenly.

“Yeah, why?” 

It was a flat out lie. Noah’s body felt feeble and strained after so many hours held in the same position, his head hurt, and he feared he might start crying anytime.

“You are so pale your lips have disappeared.”

Noah pouted, trying to see his colorless lips.

“Damn, I can’t believe I’m already making a bad impression. Wanted to look nice at least on the first few days, you know?” he mumbled, the instinct to joke and hide his vulnerability taking over.

“You look like a very handsome ghost, don’t worry.”

Noah managed to crack out a smile as Maverick stared so intensely at his face, he feared he was looking at his soul.

“I think you’ll be okay, you just need to eat something and rest for a bit,” his roommate finally stated, glancing at the box attached to the wall from where the meals came in. “I’ll keep watch for when they deliver some food. You should sleep for now, I know you didn’t last night. Tell me if you start feeling worse or if anything changes, alright?”

Noah nodded once before curling up and closing his eyes. Strangely enough, he quickly fell into a dreamless sleep, too exhausted to even think about how he could still feel the muzzle pressed against his face. For once, he just laid there and let himself be lulled by the warm presence watching over him, knowing he wasn’t alone after such a terrible day.

When Noah woke up, he was alone in the cell, Maverick’s absence feeling like a weight on his stomach. This time the unease he felt looking around had nothing to do with blood loss.

Next

[lowkeyaesthvtic]

Say More, Dumbass - KINKTOBER Day 2

Day 2: Dirty Talk

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Pairing: TodoBaku (Todoroki/Bakugou)

Summary: What started off as an excuse to get drunk ends with Bakugou realizing just how powerful Todoroki’s voice can be.

Word Count: 1,878

Prompt by: @lustyargonianmaid​

NOTES: Characters are 18+

For once, the students of Class 3-A had a long weekend. Nobody really knew why, but nobody cared. With recently moving into the dorms, most of the students were excited to hang with their classmates away from the pressure of their family and teachers. This strongly included Katsuki Bakugou. Though he wouldn’t admit to anyone, he was looking forward to staying up all Sunday night and not having to worry about an early class with Aizawa the next day. Did he know what he’d do to stay up all night? No. But he was damn sure going to find a way. Closing his laptop, Bakugou slipped on a black tank top and walked next door to Kirishima’s dorm. “Hey, dumbass! Can I come in?” He asked, nearly breaking the door down as his fist pounded against the wood. 

“A little busy, Bakugou!” Kirishima grunted out. Bakugou rolled his eyes and pounded once more on the door.

“I know Kaminari’s in there with you, man. I need his help with something. Yours too.” A couple of seconds of silence passed by before Bakugou saw the door slowly open, Kirishima peeking around to check for people nearby. “Can I come in or not? Nobody’s gonna see you, dumbass.”

Kirishima chuckled and walked the blonde in as he closed the door behind them. “Yeah, sorry man. We’re just trying to make sure Mineta and Iida aren’t around. They’re really the only ones who would rat us out. If we got caught with this stuff, we’d get kicked out of UA for sure!”

“We wouldn’t just get kicked out of school, Kiri. We’d get arrested! We can’t drink until we’re 20, man!” Denki chuckled out as he downed what was not his first beer of the night. “Who gives a shit, though, man? We don’t have classes tomorrow! Let’s get so dumb we forget our damn names.” Kiri grabbed another beer from the mini fridge and opened it with a strong grip. 

“Were you wanting to join in, Bakugou? Hell, I’m sure we’ve got enough in here for the whole class!” Kiri asked as he slowly savored his drink. Bakugou scoffed and rummaged through the fridge, looking for something stronger than the puny beers he had been sneaking since junior high.

“Do it then, dumbass. It’d be hilarious to see how stupid these weaklings get off such a stupid drink.” Kiri and Denki looked at each other, confused as to whether or not their friend was joking. Bakugou rarely wanted to spend time with anybody in Class 1A other than Denki or Kiri. Even his time spent with Midoriya was starting to become scarce. The two shrugged, deciding that Bakugou likely wouldn’t joke about something as small as this. Assuming so would definitely get the two on his bad side, something neither of the two wanted. “Seriously. Get all the assholes who won’t snitch and bring them in here. I’m bored.”

And so they did. The overall question was whether or not it had been a mistake.

It started off light. Mina and Sero joined inside the dorm, staying calm but definitely still adding to the fun. The five friends just sat around and talked, but Bakugou kept noticing Mina looking at her watch. “The fuck are you looking at, Ashido?”

“Well, I texted Momo and asked her to bring some more people here, but she hasn’t responded yet.” As if on cue, Kiri’s dorm room door opened and a small crowd waited in the doorway. The boys and Mina looked up and ran over to greet them with excitement. Bakugou continued to sit and drink his beer, finishing off what might have been the second bottle. It was enough to get him tipsy, but nothing to make him too sick in the morning. He was almost a little ashamed of how small his tolerance had gotten. What was once a madman downing bottle after bottle of sake was now getting tipsy after just two bottles of beer. He had to find a way to get stronger. There was no way he’d let anybody in this room see him in such a weakened state.

“Would you like a third?” A low, quiet voice spooked the blonde out of his thoughts. He looked up and saw the one person that he wouldn’t mind looking weak in front of. Shoto Todoroki. He could never put a finger on it, but since their battle at the Sports Festival as first years, Bakugou had this fluttery feeling in his stomach around the icy-hot bastard. He’d die before telling anyone, even Kiri, but he had multiple dreams of what it’d feel like to have Todoroki on top of him, filling his ear with words dirtier than ever before. 

“I can get one myself, icy-hot.” Bakugou scoffed out, going to stand but getting blocked by Todoroki’s body in front of him. At that moment, it was hard to remember that there were other people around. He did everything he could to keep his blush hidden and his tough expression strong. “Out of my way, icy-hot. I’m trying to move here!” Todoroki looked around, then quietly chuckled and leaned close next to Bakugou, pretending to grab something from the bed the blonde was sitting on. 

“A little birdy told me you’ve been dreaming about me.” Todoroki kept his face neutral, but his tone of voice sent chills down Bakugou’s back. He had earlier convinced himself that Shoto was able to put ice in his voice with his quirk. But this, this feeling was both chilling and warm at the same time. It was as if Todoroki’s words alone had frozen him in place. Was this the alcohol talking? No...no it couldn’t be. “Your walls are thin, Bakugou. The question is, should we do something about it?” A small smile played at the corner of Shoto’s lips as he walked away. In a sort of scramble, Bakugou grabbed a bottle of sake from the fridge and made his exit. 

“Bakugou, where are you going? You’re the one who organized this thing!” Kirishima shouted out, gesturing his best friend back to the bed.

“I’m going to bed, shitty hair. These extras aren’t my style.” Bakugou muttered, slamming the door behind him. After making sure the halls were clear, he practically sped to Todoroki’s dorm. It wasn’t hard considering the boy’s dorm was next to his own, but he could barely contain it anymore. Between Todoroki’s words and the alcohol rushing through his veins, he could already feel himself getting flushed with anticipation. Before Bakugou could even raise his hand to knock on the other’s door, it opened and invited Bakugou inside the traditional looking room. Todoroki stood near the doorway, a conniving, lustful gaze fueling his eyes with fire. 

“Why did I know you’d rush over here?” Todoroki asked, leading himself and Bakugou towards the bed as he started to strip off his shirt. The blonde eyed his chest up and down, dazed at the sight of Todoroki’s stripped body. 

“Y-you don’t take any time, do you, Icyhot?” He asked, hurriedly stripping down to his boxers. The taller man responded with a snicker and a “come hither” gesture, inviting Bakugou to the bed. As soon as the hot head got close enough, Todoroki grabbed him by the throat and pinned him down to the bed. Even if Bakugou wanted to get out, there’s no way he could. He felt goosebumps rising atop his skin. Was Todoroki using his quirk? 

“Oh, on the contrary, Bakugou.” He leans in to whisper to the man below him. “I plan on taking all night with you. By the time I’m done, you’ll be bruised, speechless, and barely able to walk. Does that sound good to you?” An audible gulp sunk down Bakugou’s throat. Of course it sounded good to him. He lightly nodded, already a little speechless due to the position he was in. Receiving the invitation, Todoroki dove down and kissed Bakugou passionately, adding spice and lust to every movement. 

“What are you gonna do?” The blonde huffed, needing the other’s voice to fill his ear. There was something about it. It was like Todoroki’s own quirk had filled every part of him, including his voice. What would sound cool and harsh one second could sound warm and fiery the next. He needed it. All of it. Todoroki broke the kiss from the blonde’s lips and began moving down his neck, leaving dark love marks in the nooks and crannies of his collarbone.

“Are you sure you want to know, Bakugou? I mean..actions do speak louder than words, don’t they?” Todoroki spoke in between bites, using his ice quirk to cool the marks as he left them. He knew that Bakugou wouldn’t want people seeing what was done to him, and Todoroki understood that. But this, what Bakugou was asking, seemed a little odd. 

“Just keep talking, dumbass! You know how to multitask, don’t you?” He responded in between tiny groans, chilled by the icy feeling on his skin. Todoroki chuckled in response and removed both his and Bakugou’s boxers, letting their cocks spring free from their confines. The older one leaned down to Bakugou’s member, giving the side of it a long, wet lick before lowering his hand to stroke the length. Bakugou leaned his head back in pleasure, relieved at the contact after going so long without it. Todoroki leaned in towards his ear, lightly nibbling the lobe before speaking with his hot breath.

“You’re already so hard for me, Bakugou, you’ve been waiting for this moment, haven’t you?” Nothing but a pleasured grunt comes from the blonde. He doesn’t want to talk right now, just listen and feel everything that Todoroki is giving him. “Since you’re so keen to listen, I’ll tell you every little thing I plan on doing to you...is that what you want, Bakugou?” A light nod came from the blonde, as if to say please keep talking. Todoroki snickered and started to pick up his pace on Bakugou’s cock. “I’ve thought of you too, you know? I know the front you put on, Bakugou. You’re loud and angry towards everyone. But it’s just pent up frustration, isn’t it? You just want someone who fucks you so rough, so relentlessly that you can’t think anymore.” A quiet moan slipped Bakugou’s lips. It was always the quiet ones who were so wild in bed, and Todoroki was no exception.

“Y-yes...please, just -”

“Did I say you could fucking speak?” Todoroki growled, using his free hand to wrap it around Bakugou’s neck. “Speak out of turn again and I’ll find a better use for that mouth of yours.” Bakugou nodded and leaned his head back, ready and eager to listen to every dirty word that decided to drip out of Todoroki’s hot hot mouth. “God, look at you. So needy for me…you want more, don’t you, Bakugou?” Another nod, not wanting to speak out of turn again. “I’ll fuck that tight hole of yours so hard, all you’ll want is more. I’ll grind into so rough..so deep, you’ll nearly pass out from pleasure. Is that what you want? You can tell me.”

Sweating and twitching from anticipation, Bakugou looked up at him and mustered up whatever words he could. “Say...more..d-dumbass.”

[thiswasinevitableid]

sea monster indruck nsfw? maybe including one of them masturbating while fantasizing about the other one and confessing all their dirty thoughts as they're actually having sex? scary protective monster is also always hot if you're down for that

Here you go! I wasn’t able to fit in everything, but this one was fun!

This is all the hangman's fault. 

Indrid could be pleasantly dead right now, not trapped in a gibbet on a clifftop, if the man had bothered to check his ropes ahead of time. But no, instead he failed to see the rats had been gnawing on them and the blasted noose snapped clean off the instant it took Indrids weight. To the villagers, this was a sign that Indrid was indeed a witch (and the son of a demon, a rare charge that drags his poor, deceased mother into this mess). To Indrid, it meant a new set of bruises and the worst possible death. 

They locked him in the gibbet, the Atlantic crashing in angry, grey waves far below them. The man on his right is dead, eyeballs already plucked out by an enterprising bird, and the man on his left is getting there. If his visions are accurate, Indrid has a good five days of suffering the elements, the wild-life, and his own hunger and thirst before he joins them. 

A lifetime of visions breeds resignation in the face of fate, so he closes his eyes, follows the futures of luckier men as a temporary escape. The screams of his neighbor rouse him with a start. Their source is wholly unexpected. 

Looming at the edge of the cliff is an immense monster. From his vantage point, Indrid spies the creatures’ lower body still submerged in the sea, making it well over a hundred feet tall. It’s skin is green, it’s fingers webbed, and it’s crowned by a frill of wave-shaped spikes. The face is humanoid, with green eyes and hair of black water and a squid-beak where a mouth should be. Strange tentacles appear and disappear along its torso, as if they have not made up their mind as to whether they wish to exist. 

The monster sighs, “Fuckin hate it when they leave their dead like this. Unsightly, and I ain’t sure it’s good for the seagulls to be eatin humans.”

“The dead and, ah, almost dead do not enjoy it much either.” 

Upon hearing Indrids voice, the creature peers into his cage, “Huh, guess you ain’t dead. Either of you.” He turns his eyes on the other condemned man, who starts screaming again, “why’d they stick you here?”

“Witchcraft, specifically foresight and dabbling in ‘black magic.’ Well, that and a failed hanging” He tilts his head to show the visitor the rope mark. 

“Damn, that looks like it hurts. Wonder if I can..” the tip of an immense claw extends towards him. There’s a crackle of power that makes his ears pop, and the monster pulls his hand back, “nope, fuck, was hopin it’d be a small enough thing to do.”

“I beg your pardon?”

The monster sighs, “Long story short, my kind ain’t able to interact in an, uh, altruistic fashion with humans unless they’re acolytes. Can’t even open that damn cage without gettin zapped. Never mind that some of us don’t even wanna be old gods or whatever the fuck, still ain’t allowed to help. Maybe if I get a real big stick..”

“How does one become an acolyte?” Indrid presses his face to the front of the cage.

“Uh, you gotta swear loyalty and servitude to me, specifically, and the ‘old gods’ in general, live in a place I set up for you, and do stuff when I need you to.”

“Very well, are there specific words of the oath or…”

“Whoah, hold up now” the creature raises his hands, “this shit is real bindin’, rather you not rush into it.”

“Given the alternative is death, a rush is rather necessary.”

“All I’m sayin is you might wanna think for more than two seconds before you agree! And there might be other ways for me to get you out.”

“Do..do you not want an acolyte?” Being rejected by a sea monster feels like a fitting end to his life. 

“Not really. It ain’t personal or anythin; I’m just now leanin into the whole god thing and I still ain’t all that comfortable with parts if it. Last thing I want is an acolyte who saw me as ‘not as bad as death.”

“And the last thing I want is to die of exposure, so we are at an impasse.”

The monster clicks his beak once, “Okay, here’s what I’ll do. You take until sunset to think over whether you wanna be stuck servin’ this” he gestures to himself, “for a long-ass time, and we’ll go from there.”

“Very well.” Indrid resigns himself to several more hours of misery as the creature sinks from view. He glances at the other prisoner, “what do you think? He seems very considerate for a sea monster and I for one would like to keep living.”

The man stares, babbles incoherently for a moment before shouting, “You, you conversed with a devil! You are a witch, just as they say!”

“He spoke to both of us.” Indrid blinks, puzzled. 

“I closed my ears to his lies, you offered yourself to his wickedness! Speak no more to me from your black tongue.”

“Hmmph” Indrid does his best to ignore the ongoing beration. He’s not sure the creature is a god, but then again the creature seems uncertain on the matter himself. Serving a maybe-god seems no worse than serving the king, a life among the depths no less tolerable than his small home in a town torn to pieces by accusations of witchcraft. 

After a time, the storm clouds fulfill their purpose, a downpour battering him from all angles. Then a shadow falls over his shut eyes, and no more rain touches him. 

“Seemed awful rude to leave you stuck in the rain while you thought things over.” The god explains, one massive hand shielding the human. 

“Many thanks. Ah, I do have one concern about being your acolyte. Would...would I have to hurt anyone?”

“Don’t think so. I ain’t fond of hurtin folks, and if someone did need to be hurt, seems real strange to make the tiny human do it.”

Indrid puts on his most hopeful, charming smile, “I am very cold, very hungry, and my whole being feels as though it’s been stomped on by a team of horses. Perhaps I could give my answer early?”

A chuckle, like bubbles in deep water, “Hard to say no to that face. Okay, you got a deal. I checked with Joe while I was gone, to make sure I knew the right thing to do if you said yes. I’m gonna say the oath, and you’re gonna repeat it.”

Indrid nods, makes his way laboriously through the incantation in a gurgling language he does not know. The god patiently guides him along, cracks open the cage when the last word is spoken. 

“Do I get to know your name? If it was one of those words, it will take me some time to master it.”

The monsters’ cheeks rise, suggesting a smile, “You can call me Duck. It’s a nickname. C’mon” he holds out his hand, “let’s get you outta the rain.”

“One moment.” Indrid moves to the other gibbet, undoing the lock, “you can get free if you wish. If anyone asks how, tell them it was the witch.” With that, he settles in Duck’s cupped palms, the skin smooth and cool to the touch. 

“Down we go.” Duck sinks. 

“Wait, how will I bre-” water fills his mouth, but only for a moment. A clear bubble forms around him, let’s him gulp in air as Duck dives further into the sea. More jarring than the spell is the sight of the monster unfurling behind him. He assumed Duck had legs, but instead his lower body is that of a sea-serpent, green with bronze rings and undulating in the dark waves. 

“Like what you see?”

“Yes” he wonders what touching that tail is like.

“Yeah, this is a real beautiful part of the sea. If you want, some time I can take you further out; some spectacular lookin creatures out there. Here we go, home sweet home.” They surface at the base of a much shorter cliff, Indrid woozy from the change in depth. Three cottages--one red, one gold, and one blue-- stare back at them from a grassy hill. 

“Let’s see if I can do this” Duck sets Indrid on the ground, closes his eyes, and hums. The world shudders and splits, and then a fourth, emerald green cottage sits alongside the others. 

“Ha! Pretty damn good for a first effort.” His frill flickers with silver light.

“It’s wonderful.”

“All yours. You get yourself settled, I'm gonna go find out from the others what else needs doin’ now that I got an acolyte.” He lowers himself so the two of them are roughly face to face, “see you soon, Indrid.”

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

The cottage holds more possessions than Indrid’s ever had in his life, including a large feather bed that he stretches his aching body across before falling asleep and dreaming of seaweed twining up his legs. 

Voices from the window rouse him some hours later. At the side of the red cottage sit three other humans, two of whom are at work in a vegetable garden. Indrid ventures down to introduce himself. 

“Hi!” One, a woman with golden hair, waves to him, “you must be Indrid. I’m Dani, this is Barclay” she points to the bearded man harvesting potatoes, then to a tattooed man polishing a pile of gold and silver jewelry, “and that’s Boyd.” 

“Pleased to make your acquaintance. You are all acolytes as well?” His stomach rumbles and Barclay pauses his digging to slide him a basket containing bread and cheese.

“Help yourself, those are leftover from lunch. And yeah, we are. Or were, in Dani’s case.”

Even with foresight, Indrid is surprised when the woman says jokingly, “Got promoted to ‘wife’ a few months.”

“Congratulations.” It seems the appropriate thing to say, given her smile, “ah, what exactly do you all do for your gods? Duck is rather unclear on the details.”

“Some of it is spellwork. Beings like Duck have some innate power, but they can get more of it from an acolyte doing rituals or making offerings. Joseph, that’s my monster, Duck, and a few others aren’t sold on the idea that they’re meant to destroy humans, so they spend a lot of time keeping other monsters from doing just that. Our spellwork gives them an edge. Other than that, it really depends on who you’re working for; I spent a lot of my first month helping Joseph understand that hauling himself up onto a random dock to ask questions is not the best way to learn about humans. Boyd spends a lot of time maintaining Ned’s treasure.”

“Only because he bloody tricked me into workin for him. Just bidin my time until the deal runs out. You hear that Chicane!” Boyd yells towards the water, “don’t care how much you steal, I’ll get my share and run one of these days.”

To Indrid’s ear, the sea laughs in reply. Boyd grumbles and returns to his work. 

“He’s just annoyed because he and Ned thought they could outwit each other; Boyd was on a prison ship bound for Jamaica and Ned offered him an out. Apparently they spent hours haggling over the terms.” Dani leans closer, whispers, “Boyds left twice, comes back every time saying he’s bored without someone to challenge him.”

They talk a while longer, Dani promising to bring Indrid some hens and a goat from town, Boyd giving him some firewood, and Barclay explaining the network of sea caves in the surrounding hills. When there’s a knock at the door, he opens it expecting another human and jumps when this is not the case. 

“Evenin’” Duck smiles as he slithers into the house, “brought you a few more things.”

“You got smaller.” 

“Can change my size some, though this is about as small as I can get.” He’s still two heads taller than Indrid, who notes that the ceilings are just high enough to accommodate him, as if the god built the cottage with visits in mind. 

Duck sets a bucket of fresh oysters in the kitchen along with a large slab of butter, some milk, and some sugar, “Had one of my human friends bring me these. And, uh, I made you this” he holds up a cloak in the same colors as his tail. It fits Indrid snugly, shutting out the chilly air and making him feel rather grand indeed. 

“C’mere” Duck pats a kitchen chair, “lemme take care of your neck.”

Indrid sits, shudders when webbing and claws rub sticky balm into his skin. The gods hands easily encircle his neck, a realization that stirs heat deep in his stomach. Duck talks as he works, a meandering story about a shipwreck, and Indrid finds he enjoys his manner of speech. The initial discomfort of the touches subside, the balm washing the pain in his neck away like a wave erasing a message in the sand. Cool hands wrapped around his throat turn as comforting as the fire crackling in the stove. 

“That looks like it healed. Good” Duck’s beak fondly nips his ear, “gotta make sure my servant is in good condition.”

“Mmmm” Indrid bumps his chest with his head, hoping for more; tomorrow he’ll ask the others if it’s commonplace for an acolyte to lounge in the coils of their gods lap like a housecat. 

The beak touches his ear once more, biting it lightly with little kissing sounds.

“Huh'' two tentacles catch Indrid as he tips sideways, his body deciding that the earlier nap was not enough rest, “didn’t think you’d find that soothin. Did it by accident, it’s how my kind show affection.”

“S’very nice” Indrid mumbles, dimly aware of being carried. 

“I’ll keep that in mind. Y’know, in case I need to reward you for somethin.” Duck lays him in bed, pulls a thick blanket over him, and bids him goodnight. Indrid is sound asleep before the door closes. 

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

“Ngahka miskato--ah! Give that back” Indrid wrenches his spectacles free from hold of a far too inquisitive octopus. The creature squirts him with water, then disappears back into its pool. 

Each of the gods has a sea cave in which their acolytes perform their rituals. Since the processes involves ancient, dark magic, all manner of strange sea life makes its way to the caves. Some, like the octopus or the seals that bob in the distance or flop on the rocks to nap, are known to him. Others might be classified as indescribable horrors from the deep, though Indrid thinks they look like crustaceans with a few too many limbs or the offspring of an eel and devil fish. 

His oath to Duck allows him to read the spells, and his pronunciation is improving. Duck’s requests center on defense; letting himself take greater damage from an enemy, be better able to protect his friends, that sort of thing. Indrid even found a ritual that gives the god new cloaking abilities, which he’s used to make the cottages disappear on the hillside and thus keep curious townsfolk away.  He also found one that allows Duck to remain out of water for well over a day.

The Duck who visits him in the cave and the one who stops by his home may be radically different sizes, but his disposition is constant. He talks about the kelp forests and the animals, about his annoyance with his supposed destiny as “destroyer of all man.” He conjures fine clothes from seaweed, furniture from driftwood, and brings Indrid newly made grins embedded with fresh pearls. 

“Aren’t I supposed to be the one serving you?” Indrid will tease.

“Way I see it, we serve each other. Don’t care what that fuckin oath said.”

Indrid is feeding his hens one evening when his luck catches up with him; his human friends are all standing at the edge of Dani’s house, peering anxiously around it’s corner and down the hill. Joining them, he sees a crowd marching with torches and an assortment of lethal farm equipment. 

“What the fuck are they doing? You were just in town today and everything was fine” Barclay glances at Dani, who shrugs, worried.

“My visions tell me that as they get closer we will hear them yelling about witches and that I will recognize many of them. I suspect my fellow gibbet-occupant told them about Duck.” He sighs, “I’ll try to lead them on a chase, get them away from all of you.” 

Indrid runs into the evening before the others, or his own common sense, can stop him. Keeping to the cliffside, he lets them glimpse his hair and his red glasses, both used at the trial as proof of his wicked nature. His plan is to take a secret tunnel down into the caves, but his visions alert him a moment too late to the fact there are two, not one, groups of villagers. He’s outflanked on the cliff, holds up his hands to show he means no harm.

“I understand my continued existence alarms and confuses you, but that is no reason to go running about with weapons. Would you kindly leave me alone?”

“No, witch, we will not.” The head of the party shouts over the wind. 

“I have a name, you know.” He grumbles, looking behind him and wondering if his status as an acolyte grants him immunity from death by falling in the water. 

“You have already confessed to your black work, and we have on good authority you have made a pact with the devil. There is nowhere to run, and if you come quietly I promise we will hang you properly this time.”

“And if I do not?”

“We shall see to it that your body is scattered about this cliffside before the night is out.” The mob moves forward and Indrid stumbles back, the earth giving out beneath his feet. 

He lands with a yelp in a smooth, large hand. As Duck rises more fully from the waves, the crowd freezes, struck dumb with fear. 

“Y’all ain’t gonna touch him, y’hear? Indrid’s under my protection and in case it ain’t obvious, I could smoosh the whole damn bunch of you without breakin a sweat. So, what you’re gonna do is turn around and go back to your village, and I’ll forget this ever happened. If you come after him again, I’m gonna start taking out ships in your harbor. We clear?”

The panicked flight of the mod downhill suggests he’s made his point. 

Duck carries Indrid home, joining him in the cottage once he can fit through the door. The monster follows him upstairs, pulling him into his arms.

“Thought I was gonna lose you.”

“That makes two of us.” 

Duck nuzzles the top of his head, “You mind if I stay here tonight? Little worried some of them might get it into their heads to come back and hurt you.”

No futures show this, but Indrid nods all the same. Duck curls up near the bed, not leaving until the morning sun shines through the window. He does the same the next night, and the night after that, and soon it’s been two weeks of the god talking softly with Indrid as the human falls asleep. 

When Indrid shyly asks if Duck will join him, his monster lays as comfortably as he can on the right side of the bed. Indrid is now used to waking up with a tail looped around his leg or a tentacle clinging to his arm. 

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

Indrid is just drifting off when the covers slide aside and weight slithers up the bed. He opens his eyes; Duck is on his side, facing him, annoyed. 

“What troubles you, my dark excellency?” Indrid nudges Ducks’ lower belly with his toes. He’s taken to calling Duck increasingly absurd things, and the monster calls him “faithful servant” or “esteemed attendant” in reply. 

Tonight, Duck just sighs, “Y’know how I was supposed to do somethin important tonight, bein’ that it’s the second full moon in the month? Turns out that somethin was, ‘spread my seed among the beds of men’ so our kind will gradually overrun the surface.” He clicks his beak with a snort, “don’t that sound fun?”

“No.”

“Smart little thing, ain’t you?” Duck teases, cups Indrid’s chin, “Yeah, I said no. Problem is, apparently a second full moon makes my whole body wanna fuck, which is why that prophecy was supposed to happen tonight.”

Indrid looks down, sees something rippling under the skin at the upper part of Duck’s tail. 

“I’m gonna try sleepin it off.”

His visions give him courage; Duck turns him down in most futures, but none of them end in death or bodily harm, which at his point in his life is all he asks. 

“Or you could, ah, allow me to help you.”

Green eyes blink, slow and calculating, “‘Drid, that ain’t part of your job.”

“No…” Indrid scoots across the sheets, tentatively runs his fingers up Duck’s side, “but that is not why I’m offering.”

“No?” The rest of his tail joins them on the bed, curving so it traps Indrid against him, “Then why are you offerin, sweet human of mine?”

“Because I, ah, I want, that is I would very much like to know you in that way, and I thought it was allowed based on the others, I apologize if it’s not, I did not mean to-” He freezes as Duck cups his face, nipping his ear and throat with a kissing noise.

“‘Drid?”

“Y-yes, my lord of the depths?” He’s breathless, drowning in Duck’s gaze. 

“Stop apologizin and take off your clothes.”

Indrid flails until nothing is between him and his monster. 

“Thats better” Duck’s voice deepens, washing over him like rough waves, “now, come serve your god.” He pats what Indrid thinks of as his waist, the point where his human qualities disappear entirely. 

“As you wish” Indrid tries for a coquettish smile as he straddles him, but it gives way to surprise as the slit in Ducks skin parts. 

“I was not expecting tentacles. Which, given the rest of you, was naive.”

“Not usin that future vision of yours to see what’s comin’?” The webbing of Duck’s fingers is like velvet as it caresses Indrid’s chest.

“It is difficult to focus on such things when you are here. You command my attention. You always have.”

Duck flicks his tongue across Indrid’s lower lip, “Now that kind of devotion I could get used to.”

“It is yours whenever you want it.”

A tentacle emerges from his side, petting Indrid’s face, “My Indrid. You been so good for me, so faithful and true. Letting me babble about seaweed and when my claws through that pretty hair. And you just keep gettin better.” 

“Please” Indrid rests his head against Duck’s chest, hugging him as best as his size will allow, “please teach me how to serve you this way too.”

“I can do that. You don’t gotta lift a finger.” Several of the tendrils that comprise his cock twine together to form a single appendage. The tentacle on his face gains a twin and the pair slide down to his ass, parting it.

Indrid’s thighs are uncooperative, struggle to get and keep him in the right position to sink down. He curses, reaches down to adjust only for a thicker tentacles to bind both wrists and yank them up above his head. 

“Uh uh, I said no finger-liftin and I meant it.”

Indrid moans, his cock filling as he discovers there’s no way to free himself. He expects Duck to guide him into place with his hands. The end of his tail encircles Indrid’s hips while his claws trace arcane shapes on his skin. 

“I, I did not know it was quite so dextrousOH, oh god.” The tip of that strange cock pushes in, pulsing little by little to stretch him open without pain. 

“Right here.” Duck nibbles his hair with that same kissing sound, “I got you. Take such good care of my faithful human.”

“Oh god” Indrid can’t come up with anything else to express the sensation of Duck sinking deeper into his body, of how safe he feels stretched out and stretched open in the monsters hold. He tips his head back with a cry as Duck bottoms out and his cock moves fluid and disjointed all at once. It’s pulsing, thrusting him full on each inward push, yet it’s individual tendrils curve and curl within him independent of the whole. 

“More, oh god, please, please never ever ever stop.”

 A fond chuckle, “That good huh? Maybe that prophecy was wrong. Maybe what I’m supposed to do is fuck you full and then drop you in town so you can spread the word of how good my dick is. Be my consort and prophet all in one. Get everyone clamorin for the chance for me to fuck them.”

“No” Indrid squirms, petulant, “you’re my master. Not theirs.”

A louder laugh this time, “You gonna take the amount of fuckin I was supposed to do to a whole town yourself?” A tendril curls around Indrid’s aching cock. 

“Yes” He wails, rolls his hips “you may have me as often as you please, I want you too, I’ll, I’ll be your faithful servant always.”

“You’re already somethin better; you’re my ‘Drid.” Duck twists the tendril and Indrid’s lost, his orgasm knocking breath from his chest and tears from his eyes as white spatters the green of Duck’s abdomen. 

“That’s it darlin, lookit you bein so good, cummin for your master. Think it’s time for you to make good on your promise to take whatever I give you.” The tail lifts Indrid up and down as Duck cums, the monster not so much as pausing before thrusting his hips harder, “fuuuck that’s good, my perfect servant, my ‘Drid, takin me so well.”

Indrid sobs as another burst of cum enters him and a strange feeling fills his chest; he’s buzzing with blindingly bright power. It’s coming from Duck, he knows this, and in the haze of his submissive state he understands the depth of his divinity.

“Duck” he whimpers as more tentacles twist around his limbs, the god losing himself in his pursuit of pleasure, filling Indrid until his belly twinges and his eyes fight to remain open. When the god groans out the humans name a final time, Indrid is so enveloped by him he wonders if they’ll ever fully disentangle. 

The monster carries him to the washroom, Indrid still squirming on his cock, and gently pulls him free to set him in the tub. A flick of his hand fills it with warm seawater.

“You okay?”

“I doubt I will be able to walk tomorrow.” Indrid smiles to show he relishes this fact.

“Guess I’ll be spendin tomorrow waitin on you.” Duck joins him in the tub, coiling protectively around him as he washes his chest and thighs.

“I thought I was the servant here?” Indrid cuddles closer, kissing Duck on the tip of his beak.

“Nah. Far as I’m concerned, we take care of each other.”

[mrvdocks]

Plus One

It’s Joyce and Hopper’s wedding. A new member is added to the household, and things get real.

(chapter one)(two) 

It’s a Wednesday in February when he returns home and plops down onto the couch. The bar shifts just seemed to get worse. In the span of three minutes, he had to break up a fight, have the bouncer kick out a guy for harassing his manager, and clean a spill a drunk party group had made.

I’m not paid nearly enough for this, he thinks.

A sneeze breaks him from his misery. 

“Bless you.” He says with his eyes closed. They shoot open when he realizes you don’t sneeze like that. 

He sits up and looks at the moving thing under the pillow. His heart races as he hears some kind of breathing. 

Please no, he thinks. We just took care of the plumbing. 

He lifts the pillow carefully, expecting to see a pile of rats or mice or worse. Instead, he’s greeted by a sneezing dog. 

It’s a Scottish Terrier with big eyes that just seem to interrogate him as to why he interrupted his sneezefest. 

“Uhhhhh, where’d you come from?” He scans the apartment, seeing a dog bed at the corner of the lazy boy across from him. 

This had to be the work of one person only.

Steve calls out for you, hearing you run out from the bathroom in a hurry and a towel haphazardly wrapped around you. 

“What’s the emergency? Oh, I see you’ve met Mickey.” 

He’s speechless, looking at you like you’re out of your mind. “Mickey?”

“Yeah, they brought him in today and I felt really bad that they were taking him to the choky tomorrow. I had to save this poor baby. And who can say no to his little eyes?” You singsong the latter half of that sentence in a baby voice, kneeling to ruffle your fingers through Mickey’s fur.

“What if Tony finds out we have a dog? What do we say? We can’t keep him.”

You roll your eyes. “Relax, he’s quiet when he eats the jerky from Tom’s.”

“That’s my jerky!” Steve whines.

“Okay! I’ll get you extra then. Don’t be such a sourpuss.” 

Steve glances back to Mickey still staring at him. He puts out a cautious hand, Mickey getting close enough to sniff and then lick. 

At least it was nice to have another man in the house. 

He runs his hands through Mickey’s surprisingly soft coat, earning a low whimper from the pooch. Mickey lies on his side, clearly loving the scratches Steve is giving him. Steve catches himself smiling, suddenly forgetting the looming threat of eviction for a moment.

He’s wanted a dog since he was six, but his dad would never let him keep one. Not even a goldfish. He thinks maybe if he’d had a dog, he wouldn’t have turned out so cold in his teens. He just wanted to love something and have it love him back.

“Hmm, maybe you’re not so bad.” 

Mickey responds by kicking his tiny paws in the air, writhing on the couch.

Steve is so bewitched by the creature he doesn’t even notice when you come back into the room or even left for that matter.

“So, anything from that Sissy girl you were seeing?”

“No,” he pouts, “I mean I think she was scared off by this.” He gestures to himself.

“Oh my god, you’re doing it again.”

“Doing what? I just felt like there wasn’t any long term potential there.”

“You guys went on one date, and you didn’t even kiss! You blue balled her!”

“Okay first of all, who takes their date to their family member’s birthday party and expects a whole relationship to blossom from there? And second, when you’ve been single as long as I have, you just know what you want and what to expect.”

You snicker. “But you don’t know what you want, you have like, the worst standards.”

“Uh, I like to think they’re realistic.”

“Oh yeah? Well, I don’t think it’s fair everyone has to compare to Phoebe Cates.”

“Phoebe was a great product of her time, thank you very much. And, I mean what about Tessa Grey?”

“Tessa Gr - my co-worker?”

Steve nods adamantly. “I would date her. You know if she wasn’t - engaged.” 

“Alright we have to unpack that sometime but first why do you always say their names like some sort of serial killer?”

“Because,” he thinks, “they’re firsty-lastys. The same way I’m Steve….” 

“Oh please don’t say it.” You cover Mickey’s ears. 

“Steve “The Hair” Harrington!” 

You groan in response, bringing Mickey to rest on your chest while you put your feet up on Steve’s lap. 

“Sounds like someone’s jealous.” He mimics. 

“Oh, please. Okay, okay, let’s say for the sake of this being hypothetical, Tessa breaks off her engagement and she shows up here and says, ‘Oh my god, Steve Harrington I would love to have your babies, let’s get married! You can meet my family and eat my famous pasta, wahhhh!’” You flail your hands around for effect, seeing the amusement in his face.

His face screws up, “Geez, am I dating Wario now?” 

“That is exactly how she sounds! Plus, you would find something wrong with her and then you’d bail.”

“That is not true.”

“Oh but it is! It’s so true. In fact, anyone as grotesquely tall and hair-obsessed as you cannot be so picky.”

“I’m just trying to make sure I find the -”

“Don’t say it.”

“The one.” 

You groan, shoving your face into Mickey’s chest. 

“Oh yeah? I don’t see you bringing anyone home. Still not over Danny?”

Your mouth forms an O, you kick his thigh with the heel of your foot. 

“For your information, I have been seeing someone.”

This piques his interest. “Who and is he an escaped convict?”

“Okay,” you scoff, rolling your eyes. “I haven’t talked to him but he left his number at the desk so who knows?”

“Hmm, I may be wrong, but I don’t think that was meant for you. You are a receptionist after all.”

“We’ll just have to see, won’t we? But I just have some stuff to take care of beforehand.”

He nods.

“Personal…..maintenance.” 

“Yup.” 

“Gotta mow the lawn.” You emphasize.

“No yeah, I got you the first time. But come on, let’s be honest here. You’re stalling.”

“For what?” 

“Jumping into the unknown. Danny was a huge part of your life so I get what it’s like to lose that connection.”

You laugh sarcastically. “Okay, grandpa are these your words of wisdom? I am totally over Danny. At this point, I can say screw Danny! I have all the time in the world to find someone else!“

You weren’t completely wrong. Danny had been with you since senior year of high school. You thought it would be like one of those fairy tales where the high school sweethearts end up living together in an amazing house surrounded by all these treasures and all that jazz. Nothing could tear you down.

And then junior year of college came and he slept with one of your college friends. You transferred soon after. It was your first relationship, and you just felt like a failure. 

You don’t view California so great anymore, instead choosing to uproot yourself and finding the first place you could in New York for cheap.

It worked out fine, you think. It led you to Steve and Robin. 

Even though you clowned him for it, you also wanted that special connection. Love that movies taught you but you’d learned the hard way they weren’t going to translate into real life the same way. 

“Uh-huh. I mean there’s no shame in it, I was the same way with Nancy.”

“I wasn’t moping around and wallowing in self-pity like you, though.”

“C’mon what was that whole period of just ‘Danny!'” He mimics your voice crying and eating out of an invisible tub of ice cream. 

You feign being offended, chucking the couch pillow to him as he catches it and smothers himself with it. 

“Your dad’s crazy. Yes, he is.” You pout to Mickey. 

Joyce & Jim’s Wedding

Chincoteague, Virginia

March 1-3rd 

“I remember during ‘84, Chief Hopper had a special visitor waiting for him in his office to talk to him about the disappearance of her boy. At the time she was just the town’s nut, but I bet no one would guess the wild ride these two would go on to end up here.” The man who Steve tells you was one of Hopper’s officers back home, toasts.

It sat poorly with the guests, including a somewhat already even more pissed off looking Hopper. He seems to get the idea and ends his toast blessing the couple in their late forties. 

Jonathan goes up next, greeting the crowd. He’s dressed impeccably, his hair somewhat slicked back and his ring very prominent when the light catches it.

“I would like to thank everyone who came out to help us celebrate. I’m very proud of my mom and at first, I was a little wary about her settling down with someone. Not because I was moody about it but because she’s done so well on her own taking care of me and my siblings. She’s always been both parents to me but Jim,” Jonathan raises his glass.

“I want to thank you for helping us years ago, for believing in us. For being patient with us and sticking with us through thick and thin. My mom lights up every day like a Christmas tree and I think that’s evidence enough for me to happily welcome you into the family. To my mom and Jim!”

“To Joyce and Jim!” The crowd toasts. 

The wedding was held in a gazebo near the beach on the East Coast, with Joyce getting married in a white tea-length dress with lacing decorating her collar down to her arms and Jim in a grey suit decorated with one of Joyce’s favorite flowers in his pocket. They’d both changed for the reception, Joyce into a red sheath dress and Jim into a black dress shirt and pants and a blazer matching Joyce’s dress. 

You were seated with Jonathan and Nancy and another pair of family friends, talking and catching up with the other nuptials. They both told you the craziest stories about Steve from high school to when they last saw him, all the while he sat mere inches from you and hid behind his hand when something particularly embarrassing came up. 

You’d often erupt in fruity laughter, hearing about the time Steve got his Scoops Ahoy uniform stuck in the fridge or when he’d played Dungeons and Dragons for the first time only to lose every time. 

“So, how long has this been going on?” Nancy queries, gesturing to you and Steve.

You glance at Steve, lost for words for a moment. “We’re just friends.”

“Yeah, friends,” Steve adds right after you.

“I’ve been rooming with him for the past two years since Robin left.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she concedes. “I always hear you call him Honey over the phone sometimes.”

Your eyes widen.  Curse your sarcastic nature.

“Oh no, god no,” You laugh nervously. “I just like to mess with him.”

You drown yourself out with the drink in front of you, leaving Steve to pick up the rest of the conversation.

“We got a dog.” Steve blurts out, trying to fill in for the painfully embarrassing silence.

Jonathan raises his brows, “Really?” 

“Yeah, only instead of being the dad of the group back then, I’m a dog dad now.” He reveals.

Nancy and Jonathan laugh, almost as if to help ease both of you back into not being awkward. 

“Hey, you guys heard Dustin’s getting married right?” Nancy pouts with her bottom lip drawn out. “He’s so old now.” 

“Yeah, Steve loves the little guy.” You blurt. Steve glances at you.

“Last I heard he was starting up some fund for kids with CCD in California,” Jonathan alleges.

“Oh yeah,” Nancy remembers. “The Palm Springs wedding.” 

The music begins playing for the guests and Nancy jumps, exclaiming that she loves this song and asks Jonathan to dance with her. They turn to you and Steve and urge you onto the dance floor, but you say you’ll be there in a second.

“What was that?” He whispers in a shrill tone.

“I panicked!” 

“They probably think we’re idiots now.” 

You cock your head down and glare at him. “These are your friends, Steve. They would never think that. It’s just been a while since you’ve all seen each other they probably understand.”

Steve bounces his leg in response. You put your hand on his thigh, stopping him. 

“Look, we are gonna go out onto that dance floor and we are going to find you the best damn lover you’ll ever have.”

He nods rapidly, hooked onto your every word. 

You lead him in when a couple leaves, guiding his hand to rest on your lower back and rest your left hand on the lapel of his suit. Your right-hand holds out for his, swaying until you can match the tempo of the music. 

“Okay, what about violet in glasses?” You suggest, feeling him turn you to catch a glimpse.

“Too bookish.” 

“What’s wrong with bookish?”

“I already have you, don’t I?”

You roll your eyes. “Alright, what about red with the pony?” 

“Where?” 

“Behind you, rotate.”

He rotates you to the left and makes a face. “Too mean.”

“What? She seems nice.”

“The red makes her seem aggressive.”

You sigh. “Okay, pink with the braid?”

He glances quickly to his right, “Yeah she’s cute.”

“I’ll go and spill my champagne on her and then you just swoop in and dry her off.” 

“Is there any way you can do this without assaulting someone?”

“It’s not assault, I’m just very hands-on with this.”

“That sounds like it’s textbook definition.”

“When have you picked up a textbook? Nevermind, you want to try this or not? I haven’t failed you yet.” 

He purses his lips, thinking back to the first wedding. 

“Don’t. I know exactly what you’re thinking.”

As the song ends you retreat to your table, grab your glass, and start sipping. Steve stays behind, watching you fake stumble and fall against the woman and drench her with the drink. She gasps as the cold beverage hits her, and Steve pulls out one of the fancy napkins from the table.

“Showtime.”

"You think she hates me now?” You say, drawing circles in the sand with your feet.

“You mean because a drunken guest dumped their drink on an expensive dress she was planning on returning?" 

You stare at him, unamused. 

"I appreciate the try. She just seemed….too hostile.”

“I get it, I mean a guy like you coming up to me and trying to pat my breasts down - I would want to leave too.” You chuckle to yourself.

Steve stands, smacking off the sand on his pants. He takes hold of your shoulders and leans you close to the waves as they crash against your ankle.

“Oh my god, Steve! You know I can’t swim.”

Steve is laughing like crazy, teasing you. He takes hold of your waist in a second, carrying you as far into the ocean as he can while you’re shrieking. 

He twirls you as you grip his hands tight, digging your nails into his skin and still screaming to be put down.

“Be careful what you wish for.” He says into your ear and drops you on your ass. The overwhelming cold and seaweed cover your body as you try to stand only to be wiped out by a wave. 

Steve is howling in hysterics, clapping like a seal.

“Oh my god, I’m gonna kill you!” You don’t sound too threatening, if anything your wet appearance was akin to that of a wet kitten just meowing in protest. 

Steve runs and dodges you, moving in a zig-zag pattern as you try your best to chase him through the water.

“You’ll never catch me!” He fronts. 

Anticipating him to move in a pattern, you wait till he moves to the left to start running to the right and knock him down against the sand with a hmph!

“Gotcha!” You exclaim, putting your hands on his chest and completely unaware of the position you’re in. 

You’re straddling him, legs on both sides and your face is inches away from his trying to catch your breath. He smells like salt and champagne.

He’s frozen in place too, one of his hands firmly on your lower back. 

Your eyes flicker from his to the rest of his face, focusing on the moles decorating his neck. He can smell your perfume still even through the saltwater. It inundates his senses, disorienting him momentarily. Your necklace dangles and touches his chin, taunting him. 

This is the moment you’ve been looking for, the one that the movies oh so love to display over and over again. Something in you tells you to do it, to just lean down and see if he tastes like you do. 

Instead, he pushes you to the side softly, catching his breath and patting your thigh. “I guess you got me.”

You nod, taking your dress by the ends of it to walk back onto dry land and leave him sitting there. You’d see him back at the hotel anyway.

@mochminnie​, @wolfish-willow​

[only-lurkin-dont-mind-me]

A Scarecrow Named Cyrus (Scarecrow Monster x Reader)

With a sigh, you looked over the rolling fields before you. Rows of corn, a small cluster of apple trees, a fine crop of pumpkins, some potatoes, and a small assortment of herbs. All ripe for a good fall harvest. Along with the fall faring flowers growing here and there with a controlled wildness to them. 

You had expanded your efforts in farming this year, and it was certainly paying off. Sure tending to so many good crops was hard work, but nothing you weren't capable of handling. Your little town could thank the roughness of your hands and your gentle nurturing attitude for such fine results. 

With October finally arriving, it would soon be time to harvest and sell off most of your crops. Until then, you had to prepare for the pumpkin patch the town was eagerly anticipating. You had chosen to host the pumpkin patch this year, and you were out to prove yourself to some of the less than pleasant members of the town. 

Did those people who irked you by commenting on your capabilities deserve your attention? Of course not. Did you feel spiteful and eager to prove them wrong to piss them off? More than anything else. 

Looking over your rows of pumpkins, you saw movement that was most definitely not the leaves and vines. With a confused glance, you made your way over. Your footsteps seemed to spook two rabbits that had been gorging themselves on one of the smaller gourds. As soon as they caught sight of you, they turned tail and ran as fast as they could. 

"Damn critters," with a huff of frustration, you kneeled. Turning the pumpkin over in your hands, observing the now broken backside of it. You gave the pumpkin a sad pat, hearing the hollow echo as you plucked it from the vine. "Sorry, buddy, not much left to do now but call you the first Jack 'o' Lantern of the year." 

With that, you wandered inside your small home. Already thinking of what you could do around the decent-sized hole in the side of the pumpkin to make it look intentional. Maybe a sideways face with a big 'o' mouth? That might work. 

As you set the pumpkin down and set to work you pondered over the rabbits. This wasn't the first time you'd caught something in your fields. Even when you were out among your crops, there would be birds, rabbits, foxes, and the occasional curious dog having escaped its yard. 

You couldn't keep watch over all of your crops all the time. Farm dogs were great to have but were mostly used for herding, guarding flocks, or guarding property against predators, not running off birds at the sight of them. Even rat dogs like terriers only caught mice in the barns much as a good mouser cat would. Where did that leave you? 

As you looked around the room for a hint of inspiration, you looked to a little fall card you had been given by one of your lovely neighbors, Ms. Ruby Jane. A darling old lady who had a good herd of sheep and great skill in baking. you would often help her tend to alongside her dog, Russel. 

A cartoon scarecrow stared back at you on the front of the card. 

"Would that work?" pondering aloud, you carried the little pumpkin to your window sill and placed it looking out to the fields. With the thought of a scarecrow in mind, you began wandering the house looking for a few things you could use. 

An old red and black flannel shirt, A pair of work jeans that you hardly used anymore. One of your old sunhats and lastly, gloves that you had stopped using some time ago. All you were missing was some scrap fabric to stitch together it's head, and hay to stuff it. Excited over a new project, you dashed off to Ms. Ruby Jane's farm. You knew she always had scrap fabric and hay bales for her sheep that you could buy.

"Well, ain't this a nice surprise? Good afternoon dear, please come on inside," Ms. Ruby Jane held out an arm, inviting you inside with a warm smile. 

"Thank you, ma'am. I don't mean to barge in out of nowhere," you tried to apologize for the unexpected visit only to have her wave you off.

"Nonsense, I always appreciate the company," she wandered off to the living room, no doubt to her chair settled by the fireplace. You followed suit, finding your usual spot on her couch. Russel, her rottweiler, looked up to you with the same expression that always made him look like he was smiling. 

"Hey, buddy." 

Russel huffed in response and settled back down, not appreciating being woken up from his midday nap. 

Ms. Ruby Jane spoke in her warm voice, calling your attention back to her. "Not that I don't mind the visit, but was there somethin' specific you came lookin' for?" leave it to her to know when you always needed something. 

"Yes, Ma'am actually, I was gonna ask if you had any scrap fabric I could use for a scarecrow? I have needles and thread for patchin' my clothes but nothin' the size I would need for, well, a head. I was also gonna ask if I could buy one of your haybales for stuffin' if that's alright."

Ms. Ruby Jane stood slowly, "Of course, of course, I've always got somethin' in that ol' chest of mine that you could use. You just wait right here and keep Russel company while I find you somethin' you can use to keep those fields of yours in shape," with that she began walking up the stairs behind you, going to rummage around in one of those old rooms that she asked people to stay out of.

  Ms. Ruby Jane was a mysterious person to be sure, but her privacy was hers and not something to question. She had shown up in town one day out of nowhere. Her home seemed to appear overnight, her sheep coming from the woods that surrounded that same little home. She was always kind to you and made sure you were doing well. You tried to do the same, helping her find any missing sheep, shearing them on occasion if she was too busy to manage to wrangle them up. Getting her haybale loads to her barn, anything you could lend a hand with you tried to do. 

It didn't take long for her to return with a mischievous glint in her eyes and a brown piece of fabric, cut clean and sized perfectly for what you needed. As she handed it to you, it felt strange. Warm, most likely from her hands. The fabric seemed nicer than you were anticipating. "Ms. Ruby Jane This is some of your nice fabric, made for dresses and suits. I can't use this; I would feel bad," you tried to explain but quickly realized that she would hear none of it.

As you looked over the pictures on her walls, you never once saw any family photos. Pictures of places she had lived, friends she had made, some of her favorite animal companions, some paintings she especially enjoyed painting. You hadn't asked about any family, she seemed happy just her, Russel, and her flock. Who were you to judge? 

"Dear, I have nothin' left to create with this, I am askin' that you put it to good use and think nothin' of it bein' too much. You do so much for me. Let me pay forward the favor," she stated with a finality in her words that you couldn't find it in you to disagree. 

"Yes, Ma'am, I'll be sure to stop by again soon. I'll bring your apples from the fields. They're gonna be ready for bakin' by then!" You promised as you headed off back home, ready to start stitching your Scarecrow together.

"Of course, now you make sure to stop by mine again and let me know how it goes, alright?" Ms. Ruby Jane questioned as she walked you to the door, sensing your excitement with each step. 

After you got home it took a total hour to stitch up the clothes and stuff them, it took an additional thirty minutes to stuff and attach the gloves, another five minutes rummaging for an old pair of boots that you could put on the scarecrow, and that was it. All that was left was stitching together the face and attaching the pair of large black buttons you had found for eyes. As you went to grab the fabric strip Ms. Ruby Jane had given you though, you couldn't find it. You scoured the house for the next hour, unsure as to where it could have gone and you felt rather upset at that point. 

"Thank you, ma'am, that's real kind of you," the fabric held weight in your hands, more than what it should have. Then again, you weren't much of a tailor. You didn't know much beyond patching a hole in clothes, so what did you know?

'It's gettin' too late to keep this up,' you thought with a disappointed sigh. You looked to the nearly complete Scarecrow laying on your table. Walking over to it and placing a hand on its hay-filled torso, patting it lightly, you spoke, "Don't worry, bud, I'll find your noggin sooner or later, then we'll get you out in the fields. Till then, you just rest up. I'll see you in the mornin'," you began to walk down the hall to your room, bidding the Scarecrow goodnight.

It took three days. Each day you would greet the headless scarecrow laying on your table, waiting to be complete. You would talk to it like it could hear you while cooking, or cleaning, or just in passing. As humans do, you grew attached to an inanimate object and named him, Cyrus. The first day you built his post, a simple thing with strong oak wood to hold him high in the fields, with a prop for both his arms and his legs, to keep him from falling. The second day you worked on picking the pumpkins and laying them out for the pumpkin patch. On the third day, you were picking Ms. Ruby Jane's apples to bring inside and wash off in the kitchen.

"Now where in the world..." Your voice trailed off as you walked over to the Scarecrow. In its gloved hand was the strip of fabric you had been looking for. You cautiously picked up the fabric. Looking it over to check if there was anything wrong. Determining that it was just as you had last seen it. You looked to the Scarecrow in confusion, "Were you the one hidin' this from me, or did you find it for me?" You questioned jokingly, hoping to settle the unease you felt in your gut. 

"I'm tellin' you, Cyrus, the corn maze is going to be great this year, so long as we can keep all those critters from eating it all up before families come to get lost going through it," you jokingly stated. Stealing a glance at the lifeless hay stuffed figure, laying on your table still. That's when you froze up in confusion and set down the last apple you had been cleaning. 

"Well, I suppose it's a good night for some stitchin', full moon's finally out, and I'm done workin' for the day so I've some time to kill," Why you decided to stitch the head together, you still don't know. But, turning down any gift from Ms. Ruby Jane left a bad taste in your mouth, you'd put the Scarecrow together, get it outside come morning time, and if a day went by and all was fine, you'd leave it be. 

As you were cleaning the apples, you were once again talking to the Scarecrow.

It took less than an hour, and only that long because how do you stitch together a circular shape? You were able to figure it out after a quick youtube search and had it done in no time. you even got the buttons eyes on and all even.

Connecting the stitches to the body, however, felt... odd. Like someone was watching you, waiting for something to happen. It wasn't necessarily a bad type of odd just not normal in the way you knew things to be. 

Cradling Cyrus's head in the crook of your elbow. Holding together the head and the collar of the shirt in one hand, and stitching with the other. It was almost peaceful if not for the odd feeling lingering. The same feeling kept you from looking at the scarecrows button eyes as if they were actually watching you.

As soon as you were finished, you took a step back to calm your nerves. Staring at the Scarecrow with unease that soon dissipated. It didn't move. It wasn't like it was anything but a hay-stuffed creation of your own hand, you were just scaring yourself. 

You let yourself laugh at the ridiculousness of your fear. Feeling it melt away bit by bit. "Oh, boy I sure have been workin' too hard or somethin'. Can you believe that little ol' you got me shakin' for a minute there? Cyrus, I tell ya, I'm about a half a step from loosin' it some day's," You looked over the Scarecrow with fondness in your eyes, this was yours, You had made him stitch by stitch, and you scared yourself over your own Scarecrow, irony sure was funny sometimes.

  You stepped forward and reached a hand out to pat the Scarecrows shoulder, feeling the hay rustle underneath the shirt. "Sure hope you don't mind, buddy." With one final pat, you walked off to your room, ready to sleep and give your hands a break. "I'll get you out on your post tomorrow, Cyrus, sleep well," you called out behind you. Hearing no response, just like you had expected.

 Standing on the stepladder and making sure it's settled on its post properly and that the short rope pieces are holding it in place well enough. After deciding that the Scarecrow is good and secure, you place a hand on its shoulder. "Course you can manage this, you'll do just fine. Keep an eye on these fields for me while I'm gone and when I'm here if you could. Thanks, Bud," with a quick 'Goodluck' you climb back down the step ladder and carry it back to the barn before setting out to the daily grind. 

The next morning you did as you promised. Lifting the Scarecrow over your shoulder and carrying him out to the center of the cornfield, right to its post.

First up was watering the herbs and wildflowers; they were smaller plants, so you took care to water them by hand to ensure they didn't get the wrong amount, leaving the bigger crops to the sprinkler system. After that, it was trimming dead leaves off of the corn stalks to make them look more presentable for the pumpkin patch. Lastly, you dove into the corn maze, along the cleared paths you had marked down before planting around them. They needed some clearing out and trail marking, so people knew what path to stay on and didn't try to go through the corn... Again. 

Throughout all of this, you would keep an eye on Cyrus. He seemed to be doing his job fairly well. You hadn't seen a bird land or catch any grounded critters running amock just yet. Hopefully, the new factor of him wouldn't wear off and would continue to keep those pesky animals away from your crops.

"Cyrus, you listen to me now. Your job here is to watch over these here fields for me and, try to keep all those critters and strays out of these crops. Can you manage that?" You ask the Scarecrow with a playful smile as if it would respond.

Over the next three days, your heavy work outside paid off, and come nighttime you were ready to open the pumpkin patch. the sun was just beginning to set as people filtered in through the front garden archway. It was covered in vines from the pumpkins that had already been harvested and displayed in rows close to the entrance. After that, there was the entrance to the corn maze as well as a small stand for hot chocolate to warm up the cold night. Baskets of apples stacked closeby as well. 

There were even multiple wooden tables with pumpkin carving kits for those who wanted to get to carving. Lights strung about here and there lighted the areas as the sun fell further and further, and the many groups of people that had finally arrived seemed to be enjoying their time, talking and laughing. It was just a good night.

Through it all, your scarecrow did a wonderful job of scaring off any unwanted visitors. 

'It really was been a good idea to make him,' you thought to yourself. Enjoying the joyful air surrounding your pumpkin patch. A group of teens caught your eye, they were walking out of the exit of the corn maze, laughing and scaring each other. You didn't think anything of it until you heard their remarks.

"I'm tellin' y'all, that scarecrow came out of nowhere! Damn thing scared the shit outta me." 

"Aw did little baby, Jackson get scared? Poor baby Jackson!"

"Shut up, man. You saw it too."

"And? It was probably just some guy paid to dress up and scare everyone that he wants to. I mean honestly, what a life. Can that be my job?"

That uneasy feeling you had felt when first stitching the Scarecrows head together returned stronger than before. You were quick to make your way through the maze, knowing just how to get to the center where the Scarecrow was. 

Under the full moon, you could see the Scarecrow clearly as its head slowly, uncertainly, lifted, and lolled slightly in your direction. His button eyes somehow seemingly staring directly at you. 

As you reached the center, you realized that you were the only one in the corn maze, you couldn't hear anyone else nearby. Maybe that was for the best.

You jerked your hand away from him as you watched in terror as this hay stuffed inanimate object... moved. His head followed you as you took steps back. He seemed to consider your response before, almost dejectedly, slumping back into its original position. 

Staring in a sense of confusion, trying to convince yourself you were scaring yourself again, you quickly made your way back out of the corn maze. You made it out just in time to see the last small family leaving the pumpkin patch. Fair enough it was getting late, that also meant you were now totally alone. 

You looked up to your Scarecrow, unable to tell if his position had changed. "Cyrus? You're doin' a good job keeping all those critters off the crops, just try to remember that the people here right now are invited here, they're alright to roam around long as they're not breakin' anything', they're welcome here." You walked over to the scarecrow cautiously, patting its lower leg where you could reach. "You doin' good out here, Buddy?" Your voice grew quieter as you asked as if fearing a response. 

You turned back to the scarecrow to see His head facing you once again. You looked between the garden entrance, debating running to Ms. Ruby Jane's, and back to Cyrus. Wondering if you should go figure out just what, why, how, anything was. 

He had been up for days now, and you hadn't heard almost anything about him. If he had bad intentions he could have done something the first night he was complete and still in your home. 

With one final look to the entrance, you made up your mind and rushed out and away from your farm.

Ms. Ruby Jane seemed to expect your arrival as she had two cups of tea set out along with a tray of sweets on her coffee table. Something about her behavior was off, however. Even Russel seemed far more attentive to the conversation at hand. 

"Now what did you say he did, dear one?" She asked in an eerily calm voice, the light from the fireplace giving her dark skin an almost ethereal glow. Her eyes seemed far more focused than you had seen before. 

"He moves, Ms. Ruby June!" You quickly stood up and began to pace the room, fear now evident in your actions and tone. "He moves and has apparently been able to. I ignored those little things like that bit of fabric going missin' only to appear in his hand, his headless bodies hay stuffed hand! He's alive apparently, a scarecrow looking around like he's got eyes to see instead of buttons, movin' like he's got muscle and bone inside of him instead of stuffin', he moves!" You looked directly at her for the first time during your fear-induced raving, and any fear immediately melted away. 

She was smiling, a proud sort of smile a parent would have whenever their child made something new. 

"You. You knew he would, didn't you?" Your question came out more like a statement as you slowly sat back on the couch. Russel walked over slowly and placed one of his paws on your foot in a far too understanding way for your liking. 

"I knew that if you treated that scarecrow like you treat anythin' else, he would more than happily accept his roll on your farm as somethin', someone, to help you. I know that you're a kindhearted person, dear. You've helped out this ol' lady more times than she can count. All I did was give you the materials for him to be a walkin', talkin', creature. It was your heart that gave him that last kick to get his sentience goin'," Ms. Ruby Jane picked up her cup and took a sip of her tea, still as relaxed as ever as you processed her words. 

You looked up at her, with one word on your mind. "Why?" Your voice came out weak, uncertain in the face of powers you didn't understand. 

She looked in her cup for a moment before letting out a sight. 

Russel, immediately sensing the change in mood, moved to her side. She reached her hand out to pat his head as she spoke. "I can't stay here forever, dear. I'll be headed on somewhere new soon, and you have done so much for me over the years I've lived here. I had to find some way to repay you, so when you came here lookin' for somethin' to finish making that scarecrow with? I knew it was the perfect time to give you the chance to create someone who could keep an eye on you, and help you once I'm gone." She looked you in the eye as she finished explaining. "I am paying forward your favor, I couldn't leave until I had and now I have." With those words, something in the air seemed to shift. as if the house itself had let out a breath it had been holding for so long. 

You understood a fraction of the hidden layers to her words. Ms. Ruby Jane was far more than she appeared but didn't seem open to discussing anything further, so you nodded your head in acceptance of her explanation. 

"Thank you, as always Ms. Ruby Jane,"  her words calmed you entirely. There were some things you wouldn't always understand or comprehend, but at the same time, you knew you couldn't turn down this kindness.

She smiled at you once again, "Of course, child. Now you best run along, you shouldn't be out so late for too long," Ms. Ruby Jane stood and guided you to the door. Giving you one last hug. Russel followed beside her and waited for his goodbye pet. As soon as he was satisfied, you began the walk home.

Once you finally made it back home, you looked to the Scarecrows Pole. Only to find it empty. You had to remind yourself that this was a gift from Ms. Ruby June, and she would never gift something she thought would harm you. You didn't have any reason to be afraid. Unfortunately, logic isn't always what your heart listened to. 

Once you reached the center of the cornfield, you found him. Having managed to untie himself and climb down, Cyrus stood, slouched in front of his pole. Staring dead ahead at you. Waiting for your next move.

You took an uncertain breath and stepped forward, "Cyrus?" 

Any words you were going to say next were cut off as the Scarecrow stood up straight, and tilted his head back. A deep throaty gurgling sound rose from inside of his very much hay stuffed neck. 

You stared with a newfound horror as the fabric of his face tore apart in jagged pointed lines, almost like rows of fangs forming where his mouth ought be. As his mouth opened wider and wider, you saw nothing but darkness inside of him.

The very sight had you ready to run right back to Ms. Ruby Jane but you were frozen in place. 

He took a slow step forward, finding his legs and maneuvering in a jerky awkward fashion that grew more steady with each step. " ..My cre..ator" His voice was louder this time, trying to find the right volume, the right way to put together the sounds. 

Cyrus looked back down at you. And he smiled a wide joyful smile that made any thoughts of running stop. You watched as his new-formed mouth moved and shifted as if trying to mimic the way your mouth moved whenever you spoke. A rumbling voice rose from his chest as he tried to speak. "..m...My. cre..a..tor."

The words made any sense of dread vanish. Confusion and awe were all that remained. "What are you trying to say?" you questioned with a gentle tone, encouraging him to try again.

You took a few steps forward, an arm reaching out as he stumbled, ready to catch him. "Try again, Cyrus. You can do it," Your eyes shown with clear excitement and fondness for the creature in front of you. 

He looked to your outstretched hand and reached for it, slowly, cautiously, figuring out the movements as he went. "My," Cyrus managed another step, now only a foot away and having stopped walking. He slowly maneuvered his other arm, reaching out a glove stuffed hand to carefully touch your cheek in wonder. "Creator." Cyrus wore a proud grin over having found the words. 

You, in shared delight quickly wrapped the scarecrow in a tight hug, able to lift him off the ground and spin circles with ease. "Atta boy, Cyrus!" You set him back down and grabbed his hands.

Cyrus seemed to only grow in enthusiasm over your response, grin growing wider as he began repeating the phrase, allowing himself to fall forward into your arms once more. He finally fell silent, wrapping hay stuffed arms around you, completely content to settle into your hug for a good bit.

You couldn't find it in yourself to complain, still beaming, you held him tight, pride welling up in your chest. "Good job, Cyrus."

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #365

“i’m numb to the pleasure, but still feel the pain”

Are there palm trees where you live? No. Do you own any Hello Kitty stuff? If so, what? No. What’s your favorite flavor of ice pop? Blue raspberry. Do you like animal print? What’s your favorite print? Not really. I think animal "print" only really looks nice on, well, animals. Does your dad have any facial hair? Yes. What do you think of foot tattoos? They're not my favorite, but some look nice. I myself wanna get "11121" (a Silent Hill 4 reference) "carved" onto the top of my feet. Do you like bugs or do they scare you? Some do. I've gotten more into them though as my passion for tarantulas expanded to other inverts, like mantises. Ever seen the movie Chernobyl Diaries? If so, did you like it? If not, do you want to see it? I haven't, but I'd be willing to watch it. I find the whole Chernobyl incident to be extremely fascinating, so I'd probably like it. Did your senior class in high school have a class trip? Where did you go? Bitch I wish. :/ Do you have an instagram account? What’s your username? Yeah, two: brittanymphotography and eldritch_obscura. Do you like Gir from Invader Zim? I think he's cute. Do you or would you ever own a gun? Why or why not? No thanks. If I'm not mistaken, I can't legally obtain one anyway because of my suicidal history. I'm fine with having like, pepper spray and a bat handy by the bed, lol. If it was offered for free by a professional, would you get your hair dyed platinum blonde? For FREE? Fuck yeah I'd try it. What do you normally order at Dunkin Donuts? A chocolate frosted donut, and sometimes a plain/cake one. Do you watch football? Favorite teams? No. What about WWE? Favorite wrestler? That's an even bigger no. Funniest thing you’ve ever heard a teacher say? Okay so this is hard to actually explain and it be funny. I had this amazing, kinda charismatically awkward history teacher in high school, and when talking about some legal stuff I can't remember, she deadass quoted "Without Me" by Eminem ("if the FCC won't let me be...") like so casually and everyone fucking died, just from knowing her and her personality. It was just very unexpected. Do you wear a lot of makeup? What do you think of girls who do? No. Girls can wear however much makeup they please. Do you have a savings account? Are you good at saving money? No. I can't really answer the second question because of me never having a steady flow of money. Would you rather have a relationship or casual flings? Relationship, 100%. I would never have a casual fling. Do you know anyone that’s part Native American? Yes. Who was your favorite Spice Girl? I remember none of them. Have you ever tried to poison someone? Yikes, no. Have you ever saved anyone from a fire? No. Have you ever had a seizure? No. I've had sudden spasms, but never a full-on seizure. Have you ever had an out-of-body experience? No. Have you ever had a black eye? No. Have you ever had a tooth pulled? No. Have you ever had pneumonia? I have not. Have you ever had tubes put in your ears? Yes, as a baby. Have you ever been shot with an arrow or bullet? Thank god no. Have you ever had kidney stones? No. Have you even been bitten by an venomous animal? No. Have you ever thought about being in the military? Fuck no. I wouldn't qualify, anyway. Have you ever been sedated or put under anesthesia? Yeah. Have you ever used shrooms or any other hallucinogen? No. What upcoming event are you most looking forward to? I can barely believe my tat appointment is almost here lakjsd;ajwlej;rwe What was the last song you heard? I'm currently listening to Motionless In White's synthwave edit of "Voices" they just put out. I looooove it. What time did you wake up today? Maybe like, 5:20? Is there a vase in the room you’re in? No. Have you recently been insulted? Yes. Compared to someone else of your age and gender; do you feel that you have a lot to offer someone? N O P E How many days a week do you work? I'm unemployed. Is there ONE person you feel more connected to than others? Yes. What is your worst relationship quality? I obsess over the person probably leaving, so especially at the beginning, I'm paranoid and distrustful. I want to emphasize that I'm not the asshole that snoops through her partner's phone out of distrust, but still, the fear is just there. What was your most recent serious injury? A serious one? Man idk. I've had a lot or negligible and smaller ones, but a big one... *shrug* What were you most recently happy about? I was happy to see "synthwave" in this video title, haha. Are you a fan of cake? Oh yes. What is your favorite insect? Butterflies. Is your town beautiful? Ew, no. Do you prefer the city or the country? THE COUNTRY. Have you ever witnessed an eclipse? Lots of lunar eclipses. Do you wear lipstick often? No. You’re going on a date with someone you like. What would you like to do? Considering the pandemic, probably just like... grab fast food and sit and eat at a park. That'd be cute. You’re hanging out with your best friend. What would you like to do? It'd be nice to get back to Avatar: The Last Airbender while hanging out with Doris (her beardie that I adore), too. Have you ever written or considered writing a play? No. Who is considered the “black sheep” of your family? Why? Ha, me. To begin, I like all the "dark" stuff, I'm the unreligious one, the one with political beliefs unlike most of my family, I'm not doing what I should be... Why is your favorite movie your favorite movie? It's just a masterpiece. I love love love animals, African one especially, and I find it to be an amazing story of courage and dedication to family. Plus I shamelessly love all the songs, haha. What’s an odor you hate? GASOLINE. FUCK. What’s a sound you hate? Fingernails on a chalkboard. Or screech-y noises in general. If money was no issue, what would you like to do right now? I was initially gonna say go to Yellowstone, but fuck that hot weather this time of year. So, this brings us back to Venus' terrarium; I'd want to get a new one and better materials. What’s something you’re so good at that you take pride in your skill? I wouldn't say I'm "so good" at it, but I do take pride in my writing. What’s something you’d never ever dare to ask another person? Hm. Under ANY circumstance, I guess "are you pregnant?" There's almost like... no situation where I'd be comfortable asking somebody that. What’s the worst/best thing you’ve done without your parents knowing? We're not getting into that lmao. Do you know anyone who has a hearing deficit? No. What is one thing stopping you from becoming a veterinarian? I could never stand seeing so many hurt and dying animals and still be okay at the end of the day. Are there any opinions you used to have even a few years ago that you look back on and think, “I can’t believe I ever thought that way”? THERE ARE!!!!!!!!!!! A LOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The last time you cried, what was wrong? I fell and skinned my knees when stepping over this barrier Mom made to keep the damn dog out of the hallway and thus my room to fuck with the cat and eat his food. I previously twisted my ankle, fell backwards, and had one other accident with it despite moving stuff, and I didn't cry from pain, just massive frustration. I want this dog GONE. Do you like multi-choice tests or tests you have to write out? Multiple choice. Who last called you ‘beautiful’? Couldn't tell ya, bud. Have you ever caught a firefly? Yeah, I did that lots as a kid. Do you own any camouflage? No. What’s the stinkiest pet you’ve ever had? Uhhh I dunno. Have you ever been on the news? For what? No. Have you ever seen one of your friends get arrested? No. Do you put sprinkles on anything? No, I hate sprinkles. How do you like your steak? Medium well. Long hair on guys: yes or no? Yaaaaaaaas. Is there a basement in your house? If so, what is it used for? No. When was the last time you started a new medication? It's been a while. What is your favourite type of nut? Cashews, I think. Where did you eat the best pizza you’ve ever eaten in your life? I'm so fuckin basic, like my genuine answer is Domino's lmaooo. Did you ever watch The Rugrats when you were a kid? Yeah, I loved that show. I even had the two video games; I was obsessed with the first one in particular. Do you know anyone who was adopted? Yes. Do your parents’ professions match their college degrees? No. Do you write shopping lists on paper or just remember it in your head? I don't do the shopping, so. But I would definitely need to write it down. Have you ever used a lawnmower? No. Have you ever consumed so much alcohol that you vomited? No. Can you tie balloons? No, actually. My hands are just too shaky. When was the last time you were at a pet store? A few weeks ago when we got rats for Venus. Ugh, it is SO overpriced; they come in a box of two, and as I feed her twice a month, it's honestly quite a bit of money. Like if I remember correctly, it's around $16. FOR TWO. SMALL. RATS. I've recommended we just buy them in bulk NOT from an overpriced chain pet store, but the problem with that is then we have *too* many, and the nutritional value of frozen rats apparently does degrade with time, so I don't want to feed my snake poor food. So it's just an annoying thing we have to do. Have you ever taken a pregnancy test? Not like, an at-home one. I've been tested before surgery, but that was just a safety protocol. Does your ex still think about you? "The" ex, probably not. Honestly, who is the last person to tell you that they love you? My mom. What is the last state you were in besides your own? Virginia. Would you go down to see the Titanic if given the chance? Man, that's kinda tempting. Maybe. It'd be super cool. Have you ever seen the Hollywood sign in real life? No. Did you ever see a scorpion in the wild? No, they don't live here. Do you type the proper way? Have you ever typed on a manual typewriter? Yes to both. What was your maternal grandmother’s first name? Cecelia. Name a word that people use locally that outsiders probably can’t pronounce. Conetoe. You said it wrong.

[crystalninjaphoenix]

To Those Who Wait

Septics Inverted

A JSE Fanfic

I said this one would probably be longer, and it is! By quite a bit, actually. After the end of the last part, we jump right into the action. Jack and Sam are in a mysterious other dimension, looking for Anti. Who is there, but so is someone else...and things back in the main world, or whatever you want to call it, soon reach a head as well. Hope you guys enjoy! This one took a long time to write

Read the intro story: Part One | Part Two

Various other AU-related stuff found here

Taglist: @watermelonsinmyattic @asunachinadoll @a-humble-narcissus @odysseus-is-best-boi @acuriousquail @beerecordings @human-being-kinda @romanticslimecreature @samisabigmess @rachelclutch @septic-nebula-art @toboboby @the-parentheticals @rammypaige @amyxmiaplay @rats-this-username-is-taken @immabethehero @eridangan @bupine @violet--majesty

The air was cool. The silence was deep. Jack opened his eyes, and looked up into a crimson sky. He looked down, and the ground was made of small chips of metal, like discarded circuit boards. Blocks of metal stuck out of the ground at uneven intervals, forming a circle that he was standing in the exact center of. A quiet hissing sound filled the air. “Well...this definitely worked,” Jack muttered.

Something wiggled in his hands, and he remembered he was holding tight to Sam, pressing them to his chest. “Oh, sorry,” he said, looking down and opening his hands. “You okay?”

Sam swished their nerve-tail, and looked up at him. Their glow was...weaker. That was a bit worrying. But they assured him they were fine.

“Uh...okay,” Jack said slowly. “But if you feel, I dunno, sick or something, just tell me.” He looked back up, staring at their surroundings. Beyond the circle, there was nothing. Just an endless plain of metal chips and a red sky above. “Man, no wonder Anti prefers to spend time in the real world.”

Jack started walking, but after he took just a few steps, the ground started to shake, suddenly and violently. He staggered and looked down at the ground, just in time for the metal chips to start falling, the ground collapsing. There wasn’t even time for a proper scream, just a strangled gasp, and then he was tumbling, sliding down the metal waterfall, until suddenly landing on solid ground and immediately fall to his side. He once again held Sam close to his chest and curled around them to shield them from any stray chips still falling.

“Jesus fucking...” He trailed off into muttering, looking down at Sam again. “You okay?” Sam shook themself, and said they were fine. Jack let out a slow breath. “Okay. Good.”

Slowly, he stood up. He was now standing in...a theatre? Yes, that’s what it appeared to be. Looking out, he saw rows and rows of seats, rising, with dangling globes of red light illuminating them. He himself was standing on a stage, complete with curtains. Strange...why would he have suddenly fallen into a theatre? Actually, upon looking up, he couldn’t see any space to have fallen from. Just a bunch of overhead lights and rafters. Weird.

And there was more weird about this theatre, too. The curtains dangling on either side of him were in tatters, looking almost as though they were burned. The stage was made of metal, and pitted with holes. Whole sections of seats looked oddly...melted.

Jack walked over to the edge of the stage and slowly lowered himself to the ground. “Oh, I’m getting a bad feeling about this, Sam,” he muttered, looking closely at one of the melted sections. And that was indeed the best word to describe it, the way the chairs drooped and clumped together. Sam agreed that this was bad news.

Cautiously, Jack walked up the aisle, head darting side to side in case anything happened. Nothing did, but he still felt on edge as he approached a pair of double doors around the edge of the room. “Hang on, Sam,” he muttered, slipping them into his hoodie pocket. They didn’t protest.

The doors swung outwards, revealing more of that crimson sky from before. A path twisted downwards, curling and turning in on itself, a sloping path that rested on nothing. It led down onto what looked like a regular city street, if not for the fact that there were no buildings lining the sides. Jack hesitated before stepping onto the path; it just looked like it was floating. But it did hold his weight. He hurried downward and onto the ground.

Only moments after his shoes hit the pavement, the ground shook.

Jack yelled, but managed to keep his balance. He blinked, and suddenly, there were buildings. It now looked like a regular city, except for the floating path he’d just stepped off that led to an empty double-wide doorway. And except for the red sky and the underlying humming sound. And except for the fact that occasionally the buildings would suddenly start to flicker and glitch crazily. If Jack had any doubt that he’d ended up in Anti’s home world, it quickly vanished.

“Okay, now what?” Jack muttered. He patted his pocket. “Sam? What do you think?”

Sam poked out of the pocket and looked around at the city that had suddenly appeared. They replied that this was all very odd, and honestly it didn’t make them feel too good. They actually felt kinda nauseous.

“What? You’re an eyeball, how can you get nauseous?”

Sam said that they didn’t think they could, until now. But maybe if they followed where these glitches were coming from, they would find Anti?

“That makes sense...” Jack said slowly. He looked more carefully at the glitching buildings. Now that he was paying attention, they did seem to sort of be coming from a direction. It was like a wave of glitches would shake its way down the street. Jack headed in that direction, not noticing how the humming sound was getting louder.

After walking for what felt like a long, long while, Jack stopped. “Wait, Sam, I just realized something. Didn’t we read in the notes—the ones from that spirit, Caedmon—didn’t they say something about time not existing here?” He paused. “Wonder what that meant...”

Sam replied that they didn’t know, but that something felt wrong.

“Wrong?” What do you—” Jack cut himself off. There was something happening...in the distance. He squinted down the street. Something was moving. In fact, a lot of things were moving. Jack’s eyes widened as he realized what he was seeing: the glitches from the buildings were growing in intensity, entire houses shuddering rapidly and multiplying, covered in static. And the glitching was approaching. Quite rapidly. “Fuck—!” Jack turned and bolted.

He wasn’t nearly fast enough. The humming grew louder, turning into electronic screeching that could make anyone’s ears bleed. Soon he was swept off his feet, being thrown around by glitches.

The glitch wave crashed onto the ground. Jack landed hard on his back and stared up into the crimson sky, gasping for breath.

“Oh fuck off with that already!”

Jack felt his heart freeze. He recognized that voice.

“I get it, you can throw the place around! Now stop hiding behind this fucking fake city and actually fight me again!“

He looked in the direction it was coming from. Some ways down the street, pretty far away but still clearly within earshot, was Marvin. He had his back to Jack, thankfully, but was still easily recognizable, his hair wild and his cape in tatters. Jack slowly sat up, never taking his eyes off the lone Void.

“I know you’re heeeere!” Marvin looked from side to side, allowing Jack a glimpse of his purple eyes but luckily not noticing Jack himself. “Where are you?”

The static seemed to rise in the air, and it sounded like laughter. And words. “I͏'vé t͏ol͟d ͡yo͢u͝ béf͟ǫr͟e͠,” it said. “I'̕m̨ e͡very͢.͞.̴.wheŗe.” There was the slightest shift in tone in that last word. The barest hint of surprise, as if the voice had just noticed something strange.

Jack stiffened. He knew that voice. But where was it coming from? It certainly sounded like it was coming from everywhere.

Marvin suddenly screamed. “That’s! Not! Funny!” There was a flash of dark purple, and then a few black orbs dripping with violet spun away from Marvin. Some hit nearby walls and burned into the surface, a few melted deep grooves in the street. Jack ducked as one wild orb flew right over his head.

And then once again, the floor gave out.

Jack cried out, but this fall wasn’t nearly as long. He soon landed on a lumpy, soft surface. Pillows? He didn’t have much time to take note of it, because—

“What are you do̸in͞ģ here?! Wait, how did you even g̀ȩt here?!” Anti appeared in front of him, grabbing him by the shoulders and looking him over. “Are you h͢ųr̡t? Oh fuck, I can’t look over e͟ve̛ry̸t͟hi̸n̕g all the time! Especially not with this crazy bitch here! If something in here got you—”

“Anti, I’m fine.” Jack shrugged off his grip. “I, uh...are you alright?” He did his own once-over of Anti. He seemed alright. But he definitely looked different. His eye-patch was missing, letting his green eye shine, and so was his scarf. The wound on his neck slowly dripped blood. Glitches and static constantly tore across his body, making him seem less solid.

“What? I’m fi̧n̨e͝. Why wouldn’t I be?” Anti looked a bit confused. He glitched, and was suddenly standing.

“I dunno, I just—I got worried!” Jack climbed to his feet. “You disappeared off the face of the earth three months ago! Last I heard, you were fighting someone who almost killed you! So I...I came to check on you. Well, me and Sam.” He patted his pocket. “They’re not feeling too good, though.”

Anti stared at him silently. “You...came to check on me?” He asked in a quiet voice.

“Well...yeah,” Jack said. He looked down at his feet. “I mean...you seem alright, so I guess it was nothing, but still, it’s been a while, so—”

“No, no, I—it’s g̨re͡at,” Anti hurried to say. “But...still, h͞o̡w did you even get here?”

“Uuuuuh...it’s a long story.” Jack laughed a bit. “So me and Stacy went back to the cabin, and there was a, uh, magician guy who lives there now. So we told him all about you, cause he already seemed to know something was up, and he helped us summon this, like, ghost magician guy. And the ghost guy told us how to get here.”

“There’s a necromancer living in the cabin now?” Anti asked.

“Yeah, he’s pretty cool. I mean, kind of nerdy, but you know,” Jack said. “Apparently his ancestor knew you, which is crazy, right? Anyway, that’s who we talked to, the ghost was some magician with red magic, called Caedmon—”

“Y͡ou ta͞lk͠e͏d to ́Cáedmo͝n͢?̀!” Anti repeated in an utterly shocked tone.

“Yeah. Tiernan—that’s the necromancer—passed out for like twelve hours afterward.”

Anti stared at Jack, eyes wide. Then he laughed. A spasm of glitches ran through his body. “Oh my gods. Jack...you’re...wow.” He calmed down a bit, and his voice softened. “You...really went to all that ef̧for̢t...just to check on me?”

“Course I did,” Jack said. He tried to shrug it off, but just couldn’t. Not when Anti sounded so touched. “I mean...it wasn’t that hard. And you’re...you’re my best friend. I couldn’t just let you possibly die because of this asshole and his stupid Void powers.”

“Oh...” For once, Anti seemed at a loss for words. “Well...thank you.”

Jack nodded. “You’re welcome.” He hesitated. “So...how are you doing? I mean, you said you were fine, but there’s...still a guy out there...who looks pretty pissed...”

Anti laughed. “Marvin? He has n͟ò̧th̴in̶̢g̸ on me h̴er͞ę.” He paused. “Well, no, not nothing. He’s fucking resilient. And quick. I can’t pin him down long enough to try my plan. You said it’s been three months in the other world?” Anti rolled his eyes. “Well, certainly fucking f̶èel̷s like we’ve been fighting for that long.”

“Huh.” Jack hesitated. “Is...is there any way I can help? I mean, I’m already here. Might as well.”

“Hmm...” Anti flickered with static as he thought. “Maybe...if you could distract him, I might be able to get close enough to—only if you’re sure, of course. I’ve tried distractions before, but he’s dead-set on fighting me. But if it was y̷ou̸ as the diversion...”

Jack hesitated. He didn’t really want to face Marvin. But...if this plan of Anti’s went well, then they’d never have to deal with Marvin again. “Alright, I think I can do that.”

Anti grinned. “Ver̵y̕ gǫo̵d. Now, let’s be quick. Eventually Marvin’s going to be over his outburst. This is what I’m thinking...”

- - - - - - - - - -

The makeshift city was silent, except for the strange humming that was ever-present in the air. The buildings were slowly losing their detail, becoming mere black shapes with a white glow where windows and doors were supposed to be. Marvin stalked through the streets, not caring to notice the changes. Anti had to be here somewhere. He’d stopped with the weird glitch waves, which probably meant he was preparing something else. And if he was busy preparing, then he would be vulnerable.

There was a door up ahead that hadn’t yet lost its definition. Marvin shot a bolt of black violet towards it. The bolt hissed as it made contact, blasting pieces of the door away and melting what remained into a puddle. Behind the empty doorway, Marvin caught a glimpse of something moving. No, someone.

Marvin laughed. “I seeeee you!” He rushed forward into the building, eyes lighting up bright violet as they dripped black liquid. Splashes of black and purple danced around his hands.

The inside of the building was barren, the walls, floor, and ceiling made of a smooth black material. Red light came from bulbs mounted in the ceiling. There was a single door in the wall, made of metal. Someone was trying to pull it open. Marvin’s eyes immediately locked onto him. “Aaaanti, are you running?”

The person at the door jumped, looking over his shoulder. He managed to get the door open and disappeared inside.

“Wait a second...” This was different. Marvin realized, and he laughed. Anti wouldn’t run. He hadn’t ever run before, not the whole time Marvin had been stuck in this weird other dimension. Retreated, yes. But this wasn’t that. Because this wasn’t Anti. “Jack! How did you get here? Checking in on your glitchy friend, I bet. Where are you going? Come back!”

The door was starting to swing shut, but Marvin caught it, swinging it open with force that it slammed against the other wall. The other side was a long room, walls similarly made of black. It was probably meant to be a hallway, but it was void of any distinguishing features. Marvin glanced down at the other end. There was a staircase, barely distinguishable against the rest of the black room. Jack ran towards it, heading upward. Marvin grinned. “Stop running! I just want to talk! I just want to taaaalk!” He ran after him, heading up the stairs. Yet strangely, it felt like he was heading downward.

The staircase emerged from...a hole in the ground? That was what it looked like, at least. The ground was made of dirt, and the ceiling of the next room up was supported by rafters one might find in a basement. Bare bulbs dangled from chains, lighting up the small room. There were no doors or windows leading out. Jack was pressed against the opposite wall, hands running over the smooth surface. Upon hearing Marvin, he spun around, eyes wide. “No!” He pressed his back against the wall.

Marvin grinned wildly. “Hello Jack. How long’s it been? Feels like forever. I can’t keep track of the time in a place like this.”

“H-hey...back off!” Jack stammered. 

“Why should I?” Marvin laughed, and started approaching. “Are you going to stop me? Couldn’t do much last time, could you?”

Jack flinched. He pressed closer against the wall—and suddenly it spun around. Like an entrance to a secret passage in an old movie, the wall rotated on an axis, and suddenly Jack was gone. Something clicked.

“What?!” Marvin ran forward, pounding against the wall. “Fuck this! Fuck this whole world and its fucking traps and illusions and nothing making sense!” He screamed in frustration, and hurled a blast of dark violet at the wall. The magic slid right off the black material it was made of. “Oh, of fucking course you’ve figured out some fucking way to make it resistant to my magic! Well fuck you! You don’t know the spells I have!” 

Marvin stepped back against the opposite wall. He raised his hands above his head and closed his eyes. Violet magic began to gather, droplets clustering together and running down his arms, becoming a sphere of running purple magic that was black at its center. Marvin shouted, and threw his arms down. The sphere flew across the room at the opposite wall, gaining size as it went. It was almost the size of a person by the time it slammed against the wall, spattering everywhere in a bright violet explosion.

As the magic faded away, Marvin walked up to the wall again. It still looked mostly solid, just with a few dents. Except for near the bottom. It appeared the spell had been concentrated there. A small hole had been blasted through the thick material, smoking at the edges. Much too small for a person to get through, but maybe big enough for something else.

Marvin hesitated for a moment. Was this really worth it? He quickly decided that it was. Jack had somehow slipped away last time he tried to grab him, he wouldn’t let him do so again. Besides, if Jack got in here, maybe he knew a way out. So Marvin took a deep breath, and cast a spell.

Soon, a cat slipped through the hole in the bottom of the wall. A black longhair cat with four white spots on its forehead, its eyes glowing purple. The room beyond was dark, but the cat could see easily. It was a small area, about the size of a closet, and packed with pipes winding around the room, filling the little empty space there was. Jack was huddled in the corner. It wasn’t clear how he’d gotten through all the pipes, but given how this world could change at the flip of a dime, Marvin assumed the pipes had suddenly appeared.

The cat flattened his ears against his head, and started navigating through the pipes, easily squeezing through the small spaces left. What was he going to do once he got close enough? There wasn’t enough room to turn back to human form, and he couldn’t cast most spells in an animal form. But perhaps that had changed, now that he had all this new power. Yes, that made sense. Why would he be limited by shape now? Limits were a thing of the past. He started getting ready for a teleportation spell.

The air in the room started humming, vibrating with a low current of electricity.

Jack looked up, noticing the glowing purple eyes that were getting closer. “Wait, Marvin, let’s talk about this!” He said in a hushed yell.

Marvin purred, amused. Silly Jack. He can’t talk in animal form. He kept getting closer, climbing through a particularly tight gap in the pipes. All he needed was to get close enough to teleport the two of them away.

The electricity increased, causing the fur along Marvin’s tail to stand up. He didn’t notice.

“No no no, wait!” Jack tried to back up, hitting the corner. “Look, I can—I can get you out of here!”

Yes, that was the plan. Marvin lunged through one last hole in the pipes, landing on Jack’s lap. Immediately, he tried to activate the teleportation.

Instead, a strong electric shock ran through his body.

Marvin yowled, jumping backwards—right into a waiting pair of arms. He hissed, claws shooting out as he looked up, right into a glowing green eye.

“He̸͟ļ̀l͏͠o,” Anti grinned.

Green lightning shot through the air. Anti dissolved into shadows and static, yet still held tight to Marvin as he clawed and squirmed. The air was filled with electronic screeching. Jack clamped his hands over his ears. Flashes of green and purple light burst with a snap! and so he closed his eyes too.

All of a sudden, the screeching and flashing stopped. And there was laughter. “You can look n̡o̷w, Jack.”

Jack opened his eyes. Except the room was completely dark. “Uh...no I can’t.”

“What? Oh. Hang on.” The humming sound returned. Suddenly, the room fell apart, opening up like a paper diorama turning back into the two-dimensional plan it was made of. The walls hit the ground silently, seamlessly merging into a plane of blackness, lit up by scarlet light pouring from the sky. Anti grinned. “Here we are.” He chuckled. “Lo̢o͡k a͏t̵ th̛is͏.”

There was a black cat, four white dots on its forehead, lying on the floor. It slowly stood up, shaking its head and looking around. Its eyes were green.

Jack stared, still a little wary. The cat looked up at him and hissed. There was a moment of silence. Then the cat looked back down, turning its head side to side and walking in circles. It seemed confused.

“So it worked then?” Jack asked. “You took his magic?”

“No, I didn’t t̢a͝ke his magic,” Anti said. “Gods, how fucked up would that be? I just locked it away so he can’t use it.”

Jack nodded. “So now he can’t turn back.”

“Exac̀tly̧.͡”

The cat’s—Marvin’s—eyes suddenly widened, almost comically. He let out a loud scream, and turned around and started attacking Anti’s leg. Anti looked unconcerned with this, and merely bent over to pick him up, ignoring the way Marvin struggled and tried to climb out of his arms.

Jack couldn’t help but chuckle. “And we’re sure this was the best idea?”

Anti nodded. “According to Dark, the options were to kill him or somehow keep him from using magic. Dark might’ve been fine with the former, but it’s always a last resort.” He paused, expression falling. “If we’d kept fighting...”

The unfinished sentence lingered in the air.

Anti shook his head and continued. “And if we left him as a human, he would just find some ǫt͠he͞r way to cause trouble, maybe even unlock his magic again.” He looked down at the squirming cat clawing at his arm. “Wo̢u̢l̷dn't y͢ou?”

Marvin snarled.

Jack nodded slowly. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t glad that Marvin wasn’t able to cause trouble anymore. He just wanted to make sure that they’d made the right choice.

Something squirmed in his pocket, and Sam poked out. They said that this was all well and good, but they were feeling very...bad. Could they please leave this place?

“Oh shit. Yeah, of course.” Jack pulled Sam out, looking them over. Their glow was barely visible. “Anti, we have to get out of here. Sam’s not feeling too good.”

Anti nodded. “Of course.” He bent over. Suddenly, there was a cat carrier sitting on the ground. Anti dumped Marvin through the hole in the top, quickly zipping it up as the cat tried to inch his way out. “We’re bringing this a̷ssho̷l̵e̶,” he muttered. “I’m sick of having him running around here.”

“Understandable, have a nice day,” Jack said.

Anti chuckled tiredly. “Okay, so where did you come into here from? You were in the old cabin?”

“Yeah, in the room off the left hallway. It’s a storage now, for magic shit.”

“Nice.” Anti considered this. “I think I can aim for there.” He reached to the side, and his scarf, his patch, and a roll of bandages suddenly appeared in his hand. “Don’t wanna freak out anyone there,” he explained, wrapping up his neck. “Can you grab the bitch kitty?”

Marvin hissed, and rammed against the side of the cat carrier.

“Got it,” Jack said, picking up the handles of the carrier. “Let’s go. I’m sure the others are worried.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Footsteps sounded down the hall, and Stacy threw the door to the room open. “What happened?! It sounded like a bomb went off! Wait…” Her eyes scanned the area. “Where’s Jack?”

“Um…” Frederick laughed nervously. “He may have…convinced me to do the spell.”

Stacy blinked. “The spell to send him to another dimension? That we couldn’t get him back from?”

Frederick nodded hesitantly.

“What the actual fuck?!”

Everything seemed to freeze for a moment, as if someone pressed pause on real life. All of a sudden, static built up in the corner, the world stuttering. And in an instant—

“Shit!” Jack stumbled as he partially landed on a pile of boxes, which then clattered to the floor. Marvin yowled as he dropped the carrier. Anti, standing next to Jack, helped steady him. Sam wriggled out of Jack’s pocket and flew up, stuttering a bit in flight until they landed in a nearby box. They stopped moving. It was clear they were ready for a long rest.

Stacy’s head snapped toward the corner. She blinked. “...well. I guess he can come back.” She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Hey Jack?”

“Hi Stace,” Jack said, waving.

“What were you thinking?!” Stacy shouted. “You can’t just jump into another dimension!”

“Hey, it worked out!” Jack flashed a smile. “Look, Anti’s here! He’s okay. We even, uh...dealt with the problem. Sorry to worry you. We must’ve been gone a while.”

Frederick, previously gaping blatantly at Anti and the way he glitched, looked over at Jack. “Um...actually, that was about twenty seconds. At most.”

“Wait, what?” Jack asked, confused.

“Time is inconsistent between here and there,” Anti explained idly, looking over Frederick. “So. Are you the magician who lives here now?”

“Me? No, I just stopped by,” Frederick said. “Tiernan lives here, he’s still asleep. I’m Frederick. And you’re Anti?”

Anti nodded. “So you sent Jack to find me.”

“...yes?” Frederick said slowly.

“Well. Thank you,” Anti said shortly. “Hello again, Stacy.”

“Hi, Anti,” Stacy said. “You’re, uh. Alright. That’s good to know.”

Anti didn’t answer, looking around the room. “This place sure has changed,” he muttered.

“Oh boy, you haven’t even seen the rest of the house yet,” Jack chuckled. “C’mon, let’s not stand around in a storage room where we could easily knock over more boxes.”

Back in the living room, Tiernan was still napping on the sofa, and Jackie and Heather were talking quietly. Heather glanced over as the group reentered the room. “Oh hey! What happened?” she asked. “Wait, who’s the new guy? A second Jack? Or maybe a second Jackie, given the eye-patch, haha. Wait, no. I’m an idiot. You’re Anti, aren’t you?”

“An—!” Jackie turned around with so much force that he almost fell off the chair. “Fuck!” He suddenly clutched his side and hissed. “Stupid fucking...” The phrase trailed off as he looked back up at Anti, face wary.

Anti stared at Jackie coldly. “Jack failed to mention you were here.”

“Sorry,” Jack said. “But, uh, it’s fine, he’s...cool.” Jackie flinched a bit at the slight hesitation before the word.

The cat carrier suddenly jolted. Marvin meowed, clawing at the mesh sides, and gave Jackie a look that screamed let me out so I can claw out your other eye.

Jackie stared at it, then suddenly shot to his feet. “Wait a second! I recognize—you—Marvin—!”

“Oh yeah, we turned Marvin into a cat,” Jack said, holding tight to the carrier handles.

Frederick whipped over to look at him. “You did what?!”

“We did not turn him into a cat!” Anti corrected hurriedly. “He turned himself into a cat, then I sealed his magic.”

“You can’t just leave someone as an animal!” Frederick protested.

“Look pretty boy, do you want the Void who burned your hand off running around?!” Anti yelled. “No? I didn’t think so!”

“Wait...” Frederick took a step back. “How do you know Marvin did that?”

“I recognize you,” Anti said, looking Frederick over. “It took me a moment, but I do. I dropped you off at that ABIM hospital. Tricky business, making sure no one saw me, and it could’ve easily ended badly. But it seems it was worth it, since you sent Jack to my home.”

Frederick stared at Anti. “You...did that?”

“Yes, I did. Please keep up.” Anti folded his arms. “I had to take my eyes off the Void to do so, too, who knows what could’ve happened in that time?”

“...oh. Well.” Frederick coughed. “Thank you. They said I would’ve died. If you...if you ever need anything—”

“No, you don’t owe me something,” Anti interrupted. “I didn’t do it in the hopes of getting a favor someday.”

Frederick let out a small breath and smiled. “If you insist.”

Jackie had an odd expression on his face. Without another word, he pushed past the rest of the group, muttering something about needing air. He then headed into the hallway. Frederick stared after him, concerned, and followed.

Jack set the cat carrier on the coffee table. Heather scooted her chair closer, staring at Marvin inside. “Y’know, he’s kind of cute, for an evil magician.”

“Clearly it’s a trick,” Stacy drawled. “Get you to lower your guard.” She glared at Marvin. “So that he can get inside a diner and fight a glitch right in front of you.”

“Huh. That’s an oddly specific example,” Heather said.

“Never mind,” Stacy chuckled. “It’s a long story.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Jackie leaned against the wall, feeling a bit dizzy. Everything was happening so fast. In just this day alone, he’d followed Jameson around Ireland, met up with Jack again, and now Anti and Marvin were here. After three months of being on his own, he was meeting up with everyone from his past in such a short time period...and they all hated him.

But wasn’t that justified? Well, for Jack and Anti, at least. He’d stood by while Jack had been hypnotized, traumatized, for two years. And in that same time period, he’d fought Anti countless times for the crime of just trying to get his friend back and stop the actual criminals in the city...criminals that included Jackie himself.

Of course, Marvin was just an asshole who’d always hated him. But...he’d hated Jackie because Jackie was a do-gooder, right? Who kept getting in his way. And who...kept lying about being a do-gooder...even to himself...when he clearly wasn’t...

Jackie felt hot tears start to gather in his eye. He quickly wiped them away before they could even fall.

“Jackie?”

“Wh—” Jackie spun around. Frederick was in the hallway. “H-hey,” he mumbled. “I’m fine, I just...needed a moment.”

Frederick frowned. “No, you’re not fine.”

Jackie didn’t answer.

“Hey.” Frederick walked up to him. “What’s wrong?”

A lot. A lot was wrong. He felt like he was spiraling out of control, down a pit in his own mind as the foundations he’d built his life on spun out from under him. He was starting to realize he...he didn’t save people. Though he claimed he did, it was a lie. He was now seeing people who really helped others, and interacting with the people he’d wronged and hurt, directly and indirectly. And then Anti...he’d never liked Anti, but here he was, having apparently saved someone’s life for no reason other than it was the right thing to do, even putting his own plan in trouble to do so. Jackie never would’ve done that. “I...” he started to say, choking on the words. “I think I might be a bad person.”

Frederick fell silent for a while. “You’ve made some bad choices,” he said in a soft voice. “You know this now. So...what are you going to do about it?”

Jackie jolted, looking up at Frederick. He wasn’t expecting that. He’d been expecting—seeking—reassurance, but not...that. It...it stung a bit. But...

‘What are you going to do about it?’

Reassurance would’ve done nothing. It wouldn’t have rang true, anyway. But...he could do something about it. He could do something about this realization. Perhaps...now that he’d faced the truth...he could find some way to change.

From the living room, someone shouted.

Frederick’s head snapped back towards the sound. “Heather?!” He looked back at Jackie, and the two of them ran back to the other room.

Heather, Stacy, Jack, and Anti had gathered around the living room window. Upon hearing the others return, Heather looked back over at them. “I-I saw—I saw Yvonne!”

“What?!” Frederick rushed over, pressing against the window with the others. Jackie followed more slowly. Outside looked mostly the same. Except for a few wisps of blue light dancing in the breeze. “That’s her magic,” Frederick recognized. “She’s here!”

“What? Why is she here?” Jackie asked. “Does that mean—”

Heather pushed through the group and ran out the front door.

“Heather! Wait! Shit!” Frederick looked at the others. “If Yvonne is still hypnotized, who knows how she’ll react to seeing her? She could attack!” And without another word, Frederick followed Heather in running outside.

“Who’s this Yvonne?” Anti asked.

“She’s a magician,” Jackie explained. “Heather’s sister, and Frederick’s partner.” He hesitated. “Jameson got to her.”

“Fuck,” Anti cursed, jittering with glitches. “If he got to her, and she’s here, then he’s not far away.” He backed away from the window. “I have to find him.” And he glitched away.

Jack also backed away from the window, dread pooling in his stomach. “Jameson is...here?”

Jackie glanced over at him. “I...Don’t worry, Jack, I’ll go look for him, too.” He took a deep breath, and headed out the front door.

Stacy remained looking out the window. If she pressed her face to the glass and looked to the side, she could barely make out flashes of emerald and sky blue light. She glanced back at Jack. “Should we go help?”

Jack shook his head. “No, I-I don’t think we should. And I...don’t...want to.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “We’ll stay here and make sure Marvin doesn’t get into trouble.

Back on the coffee table, Marvin stopped his efforts to shove the cat carrier onto its side. He meowed, somehow sounding like a spoiled kid caught in the act of stealing from the snack jar.

“Good idea,” Stacy said.

- - - - - - - - - -

Anti zipped around the edge of the clearing in energy form. Jameson, where was Jameson? There was a strange car on the road, partly hidden in the trees. That must be how he and the magician got here.

Speaking of the magician, it seems there was a magician’s duel brewing. Yvonne, hair faded and eyes clouded, was hurling blasts of blue magic at Frederick, who conjured a shield just in time to cover himself and Heather. He sent a rope of green magic around it, wrapping around Yvonne’s waist. She sheared it off, and sent a blue breeze at Frederick’s unprotected legs, knocking him over. Heather ran forward, shouting something, tears in her eyes. Yvonne paused for the slightest moment, then sent a blast at her. It was quickly diverted by a shoot of magic from Frederick.

Jackie was outside, too, heading in the fight’s direction but staying at a safe distance. He scanned the nearby area, perhaps assuming that Jameson would be nearby.

Which he should be, shouldn’t he? He wouldn’t leave his puppet behind. After all, he hated to lose him.

Anti continued his search. Jameson couldn’t be too far.

- - - - - - - - - -

Jack sighed, and took a seat in one of the armchairs. He glanced at the sofa. “Man...Tiernan’s a really heavy sleeper, huh?”

“He’s been exhausted,” Stacy said, shrugging from her position near the window.

“Still, didn’t he wake up for a bit?”

“Yeah, and sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night because I hear a noise or something. Then I fall back asleep, especially if I had a long day.”

Jack nodded. “That makes sense.” He sighed. “Maybe we should go help—”

{/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\}

Stacy collapsed to the floor, landing hard on her side. Jack instinctively tensed, but the gesture was useless, as he slumped back against the chair, unable to move. But his heart was racing. This had happened before. This had happened before. This had—

Footsteps sounded down the hall. Jameson entered the room, looking as proper as ever, watch clutched in his hand. His gaze swept the area. {Well. Isn’t this an interesting sight? It’s been a while, you two, hasn’t it?}

Jack’s eyes locked onto him. His instincts screamed at him to run, but his muscles wouldn’t move. Not again not again not again not—

{I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m not sure how long my distraction will last.} Jameson smiled, returning Jack’s gaze. {Perhaps we could catch up another time. You and I could have a talk.} He looked away, and turned his attention to the cat carrier on the table. Quietly, he walked over to it and leaned over, looking inside.

Marvin backed up, hissing. He turned and once again tried to knock over the carrier, but Jameson reached out and grabbed the handles, righting it at the last moment.

Jack wanted to scream. He wanted to yell for the others to come back, or even to ask what Jameson wanted. But it was impossible.

Jameson tipped his hat. {Until we meet again, farewell.} And, whistling a jaunty tune under his breath, he turned and left the way he came.

Silence filled the house.

Two minutes passed.

Five.

Ten.

Fifteen.

Jack counted them on the clock mounted on the wall, glancing at it every so often. The hands on its face moved steadily, ticking softly. The sound sent panic through his veins.

The front door slammed open. Frederick and Heather stumbled inside, Yvonne draped between them, not unconscious but seeming unresponsive. Her eyes were no longer cloudy. Jackie followed shortly after. “Hey, so we—” Frederick started to say. Then he stopped. “What happened here?!”

Jackie looked at Stacy, who was unmoving on the floor, and Jack, whose eyes darted back and forth. “Jameson was here,” Jackie muttered. “He did this. Wait a moment.” He looked at the coffee table. “Where’s Marvin?!”

The air broke. Anti appeared. “I couldn’t find—” He then looked around the scene, and his expression darkened as he quickly came to the same conclusion as Jackie. “How?! I was looking all over! Constantly!”

“I don’t know!” Jackie said. “But he took Marvin!”

“So he did,” Anti growled. He glitched over to Jack’s side. “I think I can get rid of this. Give me a moment.” After hesitating for a second, Anti’s hand turned into pixels, and he reached into the side of Jack’s head. Jack immediately shuddered, then jerked and bolted upright. “Jack, are you alright?”

Jack didn’t answer, leaning over the arm of the chair and shivering. He held up his hand, asking for a moment. Anti nodded, and glitched over to Stacy, doing the same thing.

Stacy sat up. “Oh god...that was...” She shook her head.

“It was a trap...” Heather muttered. “We got Yvonne back, but...that magician cat...”

“He’s gone,” Frederick finished grimly. “He probably can’t do much while his magic is locked—and he’s, you know, a cat—but that Jameson guy...he probably has a plan.”

“He definitely has a plan,” Anti confirmed. “That’s the kind of person he is. A little schemer.”

“Fuck him!” Jack suddenly shouted. He pounded his fist against the arm of the chair. “Fuck! Him! I hate him! He should just go off and—and—” The words dried up in his throat, and he blinked back tears. He buried his face in the back of the chair.

Anti looked at him and walked over, sitting on the chair’s arm. He put his hand on Jack’s back, leaning closer. “We’ll get rid of him,” he said in a voice low enough for only Jack to hear. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Well...I guess we can’t do anything right now,” Frederick said slowly.

Jackie nodded. “I guess we just...make sure Yvonne is alright, and...and then we can look at what to do next.”

“Yeah...yeah, that’s a good plan,” Heather said. “Fengge, you and I should find Yvonne somewhere to rest, since Tiernan took the couch.”

“There’s a bedroom that way,” Stacy said, pointing down the hall. “Actually, I’ll show you.” She climbed to her feet and headed out, Frederick and Heather following her.

Jackie glanced over at Anti and Jack, then silently also left, heading in the opposite direction the others went. “I...I’m going to...think,” he mumbled.

Soon after the others were gone, Jack took a deep breath, and straightened. “Thanks,” he said, not sure what he was saying thanks for. He fell silent, staring out the living room window. “Anti...” he said slowly. “What did you mean by...get rid of him?”

Anti didn’t answer for a bit. “Jameson is a bit more complicated than Marvin is,” he said quietly. “There are questions there that...I still don’t know the answer to.” He paused, and looked back at Jack. “But he won’t hurt you again.”

Jack nodded. “That...that would be ideal.” He chuckled a bit.

Anti grinned, and started to laugh too. “It would, wouldn’t it?” The smile faded. “Well...we’ll find a way. It’s going to be alright. I promise.”

Jack sighed, and said nothing. The two of them stared out the window and let the time pass.

[rayegunn]

Music for 2020

Been a while since i posted about music here, but was having a look at my last.fm (I mean, i know it’s kinda dead, but the plugins are still going, collecting what I’m listening to, so i check it now and then) and though there are fewer listens overall probably because i no longer scrobble from some sources like my phone/tablet, some new favorites have definitely emerged. So here’s what I was listening to the most  in 2020, a couple surprised me because it didn’t really feel like i had listened to them a lot, but... i guess  they came up on shuffle a lot, go figure. I know it’s not technically the end of the year yet, but this is unlikely to change a lot in the next few weeks.

1: top one for the year is a newish one for me, Lord of the Lost. They are a German band that have been around for a while, but I found them when they released their album Thornstar, I remember because I saw the video for the song Loreley when it was released because the costumes/makeup in the thumbnail looked wild. That came out in 2018, so a couple years now. Anyway, I love them. They’re usually classified as Gothic Metal but really it’s like.... ALL THE GENRES. They have influences from Metal, New Wave, Industrial, EDM, Classical, and more, and somehow make it all work. and Chris Harms has a great voice, I love how theatrical they are with the makeup and stuff, and they just seem like really nice guys from what I have seen of their social media. Here’s Loreley, the song that got me hooked on them:

2: Is Swedish metal band Avatar. Love these guys. Been listening to them for a while now and they are definitely up there as one of my favorites. They are also a highly theatrical metal band, I seem to like those, but they stick to their theme a lot more closely than Lord of the Lost. They have a gimmick and stick with it, though they do update the costumes in order to fit the theme of  each album, which are often concept albums, or at the very least they speak to a theme. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but I really like Bloody Angel.

3: is Danish black metal act Myrkur. A somewhat recent find for me, and one that is a bit divisive because the black metal people don’t think she’s trve kult enough, or whatever, because she has a pop background, and the sound is more polished, but I love her. Good music is good music, I don’t care how closely it fits a genre or whatever. Love the ambience and just overall sound, both spooky and harsh and beautiful at the same time.

4: is Swedish band Ghost. Yeah, these guys blew up recently huh? They’re cool tho, despite the band drama that spoiled the mystery of the identity of Papa. Well, sort of band. Technically it’s just Tobias Forge and a couple other guys, but they hire musicians to play on stage, made easy by the fact that they all wear masks, so they can swap em out at will, but some of them decided they wanted more money/credit and they sued Tobias and his identity was revealed, it was a mess... anyway, they’re cool. I chose Rats for the song, because it is probably a bit more reflective of 2020 than they anticipated.

5: was a bit of a surprise to me because i didn’t feel like i had listened to them a lot this past year, but it’s one I have been listening to for oh, decades at this point, Finnish cellists Apocalyptica. Their  shtick is simple, they play metal/rock... but on cellos. They started out playing Metallica covers, but soon started writing their own music. On their more recent albums they have tended to have guest vocalists perform over their compositions. But personally, I always liked the instrumental songs, so i was personally really happy to see their new album Cell-0 was 100% instrumental. I hope it did well for them, because I really liked it, so I am including something from it.

6: The newest find on the list for me, I found him this year, Amigo the Devil (he’s American, since that seems to have become a thing in my list) This one is a lot more subtle and subdued than the rest, his genre is an obscure one called Murderfolk, basically he’s a blues/folk singer who sings a lot about rather dark subject matter. But sometimes hopeful, too, as with my pick Cocaine and Abel. Led me down a whole murderfolk rabbit hole, lot of cool stuff there, but he’s the only one who cracked the top 10. Can only add 5 videos, so linky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzjtLm0G49E

7. Is an old fave, American metal gods Metallica. I mean what’s to say? it’s fuckin’ Metallica, man. Kind of a basic choice, but hey. Been listening to them since high school. Didn’t feel like i had listened to thema  lot recently but guessing S&M 2 bumped them up! But just gonna link to  one of my old faves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM8bTdBs-cw

8. Is another American band I’ve been listening to for a while, Mastodon. I think these guys have such a unique sound, with the 3 different styles of vocals over the sludgey instruments, and they have some really great lyrics going on as well.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6WGNd8QR-U

9. Is Ukrainian band Jinjer! somewhat recent find, been aware of them for a a couple years now, i guess. Great songwriting, cool djenty sound,  and oh man, does Tatiana have some pipes on her! You may have seen this video, Pisces, because video gets shown around a LOT on react videos, and kinda went viral, because it gets a big reaction if you are not prepared for it. If you haven’t seen it, brace yourself.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQNtGoM3FVU

10. I was a bit worried and a bit shocked that he almost missed the top 10 cus he is definitely one of my very favorites, i hugely respect him and think he’s a great talent... Canadian metal god Devin Townsend! I think part of the problem is that he recently went from The Devin Townsend Project to just Devin Townsend, and then you throw in side projects or even older projects like Casualties of Cool and Strapping Young Lad, so while i do listen to him a lot, it’s under different names, so he came up a bit low in the charts. But I love him, he’s on of my all time favorites, and sadly doesn’t get as much attention as he deserves. Massive talent, huge fun personality. He’s great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n7uvokARQ4

[roguish-gallery]

Did you ever make that joker tier list, I always like seeing what people think of all the different ones. Though if they put Romero last I can no longer respect them.

LMAO I DID! I think I’ve made it kind of obvious in this blog but I... don’t... particularly... care... for... the joker.... unless he’s, y’know, fun to watch. Cause he’s a clown, and clowns are supposed to be entertaining. But since you politely brought it up, and and because I have a deep respect for mutual Romero-lovers, I guess this would be a good time to explain my rankings and just discuss my general thoughts on each clown:

General Thoughts:

For the most part, I don’t really care for the Joker. This is hardly an uncommon opinion here on tumblr, but I definitely fall on the side of the fandom that feels that he gets too much attention from DC. I get WHY they use him so often for films and comics, and I don’t have anything against *most* folks who consider them their favorite Batman villain, but at this point he’s used more for shock value and as a crutch instead of anything interesting. Like, instead of giving attention to the other Rogues, writers (at least for the comics) will try and make up some bullshit story that they can shoehorn the Joker into, ‘cause it sells. It’s tiring, and I feel like the character has lost his meaning; I can only read so many stories about the Joker, I don’t fucking know, wearing a suit made from dead babies and Jason Todd’s flayed corpse before I get sick of it.

I’m at the point where I’ll like any Joker who’s just fun to watch. I genuinely respect those who prefer darker interpretations of the character, but that isn’t me; I vastly prefer the lighthearted takes on him, because... at this point... writers who use the “cleaner” version of him tend to be more creative, since they actually have to write a Joker story that doesn’t rely on gore/torture porn.

TIER ONE:

Joker Baby: Self explanatory. Joker Baby is thematic, thoughtful, and intense. Everytime I watch this video, I shiver with fear and pleasure; something primal in me awakens whenever Joker Baby runs his fingers through his spray-on dyed hair, and ends up smearing green paint on his forehead- it represents the inner turmoil, the chaos, that resides within the disturbed body that is Joker Baby. Nothing can ever hope to top the artistic and cultural impact Joker Baby has had on society.

TIER TWO:

Batman Ninja: I genuinely believe that Batman Ninja is one of the most fun, organic, and creative things to come out from the Batman side of DC comics in like... hmmm... a decade, maybe (I could talk for hours about how much I love this movie but that’s something for a future post). This Joker is easily, and unironically my favorite interpretation of the character, period. I love his energy, his design, everything. This is the most fun I’ve ever had watching a Joker on-screen, and for that I’ve gotta give the film credit where it is due.

Batman ‘66: I looooove Caesar Romero. Batman ‘66 in general is one of my favorite pieces of Batman media, and I absolutely adore this Joker. The show is pure, genuine fun, and it’s nice to turn my brain off and watch a show where the entire cast was allowed to goof around. This Joker is just a cute, goofy little clown-man who likes to commit crimes, go surfing, turn Gotham’s water reserve into gelatin, and have wild orgies with Penguin, Catwoman, and the Riddler. I massively appreciate the hustle. I love his little mustache and his facial expressions. I’d give him a chaste little kiss on the cheek if I could.

The Batman: EXTREMELY CONTROVERSIAL TAKE BUT. I think TB!Joker is better than what people will give him credit for. I can only imagine how stressful it must have been to be the first Batman cartoon to follow BTAS and the writers for this show knew they were gonna be fucked no matter what they did with the Joker, so they just decided to try something completely different with him. Personally, I appreciate the new direction- he has a fun, unhinged energy. I’ve placed him higher than BTAS/BTNA!Joker simply because The Batman was the show that got me into the Rogues in the first place, and I’m just a bit closer to this Joker because of it. Also his vampire form was cool as FUCK in Batman Vs. Dracula and the scene where he gets drenched in blood at a blood bank is fucking awesome.

Batman the Animated Series/The New Adventures: Everyone loves BTAS’s Joker, and I’m no exception. Mark Hamill is fucking great, and the writers clearly knew the character well enough to create a version of him that can be fun and threatening. As an aside, I unironically like his redesign in BTNA- I remember Hamill mentioning somewhere that he thought it was neat that this Joker looked more like a shark (I’ll see if I can find a source on that... I think he said it in an interview with Kevin Smith?) and I kinda agree with him. the redesigns in the final season are hit or miss, but I didn’t get why so many people bitched about the Joker’s new look.

Batman Unlimited: Hear me out... Hear me out... Clown... funny... and cute... He wears a little crown and gives Solomon Grundy a little smooch on the cheek and it is as delightful as it sounds. Yes the Batman Unlimited films literally only exist to sell toys but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy them on some ironic level.

TIER THREE:

Lego Batman: He’s a gay icon. He has the range. Enough said.

White Knight: This is just a genuinely good, original take on the character, and the art in White Knight is absolutely gorgeous. 

Arkham: My friends and I joke that this Joker is basically a more unhinged version of BTAS! Joker and... yeah. I’m glad Hamill and Paul Dini got to fuck around with the character more, but I never really dwelled on the Joker parts of the games like I might have for other characters. I definitely liked him the most in Arkham Asylum, as he was more fun to watch. Arkham City was fiiiiine, but I think I replayed the game so much that I kinda got fatigued with everything about it. Genuinely hated his part in Origins, and I was pissed that he stole the attention from Black Mask and Bane (who’s the best fucking part of Origins IMO). I’ll admit that I... Haven’t... played... Knight yet (I have it on PC but my laptop is too wimpy to run it) but like... He’s dead at that point, so I’d assume he isn’t the main point of that game anyway. I love Mark Hamill and the fact I can personally beat the shit out of this Joker, so he’s ranked up pretty high for those reasons.

TIER FOUR:

Batman ‘89: TBH this Joker should be a rank higher, but I’m too lazy to hop onto PicsArt to change it. NIcholson was an excellent choice, and I apprecaite how this Joker makes use of the playful and unhinged aspects of the character. Also, his outfits are cute, and I love the museum scene.

Brave and the Bold: Technically this Joker SHOULD be ranked higher since he’s literally based on the more lighthearted comics in the 60′s but... ehhh... I haven’t really watched BATB so I don’t have any strong opinions on the show and how it handles the character. he’s ranked this high through beause I appreciate what they were going for.

Golden Age: The quality of comics are always subjective, based on the creative team behind them. Some I’ll like more, others less so, It’s kind of hard to rank the pre-52 comic version of the Joker because of this.

TIER FIVE:

Killing Joke: Read it, didn’t care for it. I acknowledge how massive the impact this comic had on... everything, but just because I recognize how important this graphic novel is, doesn’t mean I have to like it.

The Dark Knight: Ledger did an excellent job with the role, but uhh... I’m kind of sick of the alt-right chuds who are out there sucking this Joker’s dick. The fanbase definitely ruined the character for me.

TIER SIX:

99′: Eh

Endgame: No

Suicide Squad: NO

Death of the Family: Hate him. Despise him. Lame stupid dumb little edgy bitch.

Gotham (Jeremiah): I don’t particulary care for Gotham in general, but the only reason I ranked this Joker over Jerome is beause I thought it was kinda funny to see that they made him a little rat-man, and I liked watching all the fujoshi on here cry and complain that they can’t ship this version of the joker with the pre-pubescent Bruce Wayne in the show bc he’s too ugly.

Gotham (Jerome): stop shippping this freak (who is fucking eighteen years old) with a literal twelve year old child. what the FUCK is wrong with yall.

UNRANKED:

The Joker (2019): I don’t plan on watching this film, nor will I ever. I know this is ironic, coming from someone who runs a Rogue blog, but stuff that focuses primarily on a character’s deteriorating mental health makes me reaaaaallllllyyyyy anxious (it’s kind of a phobia) and considering that I don’t particularly the Joker, I have no reason to watch something I know will only give my dumb ADHD-ass intrusive throughts.

[whimsicalsesquipedalian]

Modern-day witch.

In Salem there were witches. Or there were women who old, bitter men said were witches. We all know they weren’t witches. Not really. Witches aren’t real. Well, at least not the kind the fairy tales tell you about. But there was something. Something about those women. Something that said “I don’t fit”, “I’m different”, something that said: “my deviancy is worth killing me over.”

Gretel didn’t believe in witches. ‘Patriarchal bullshit designed to police womens’ behaviour’, is what she told her father as they watched a Netflix special on the trials, ‘just another way the male agenda enacts violence on womens’ bodies and identities.’ Her father remains silent, probably wanting to avoid an accusation of complacency or even compliance with the patriarchal machine. Her brother isn’t in the room. Her “mother” is away on a business trip. She misses these times when it’s just them, her and her father. No annoying younger brother with his neanderthal behaviours. No bitch in heels and lipstick pretending to be her mother. Just them. Sometimes, she thinks, this is the only part of my life that isn’t just bullshit. ‘I think I would have been killed for being a witch,’ she says, long after the television has gone silent. Her father simply hums. ‘The men back then would have been way too intimidated by a woman like me.’ Her father stares, taking in his daughter. She narrows her eyes, turns down her lips, rolls back her shoulders and puffs out her chest. A less than convincing picture of the “deviant woman” when the canvas is a nineteen-year-old girl who’s never left her hometown. Her father nods, ‘I suppose you would.’

Six months later Gretel sits alone in the dark on a street corner in a city all too large and all too loud, and a perfect fucking example of why the capitalist regime should be torn down by a new and glorious revolution. The marxist group at the local community college ran a seminar on the dangers of capitalism last week. It’s the first time since she arrived here that something in this city hasn’t felt like complete bullshit. ‘We at the Marxist Alternative don’t cater to the capitalist pigs draining you of all individuality or expression,’ she was too caught up in the moment to notice the inherent irony in the statement, ‘the wealthy conservative scum are the true bane of our society. Eat the rich and destroy their legacies.’ She nodded along, caught in the fervour, already seeing a face in her mind.

She had left home. That bitch in heels and lipstick ran her out. She doesn’t need a trail of breadcrumbs to return; she knows the way. That doesn’t mean she will. Not when it’s all bullshit. Not when no-one understands her. Not when the father that should have loved her more than anything chose the bitch in heels and lipstick over her. Over her plain face, her bad hair, her short, uneven nails. Why couldn’t he see that she was the only authentic thing in the white-picket life he had built for himself? It’s cold on the street corner. The owners returned to the place she was squatting in. Policemen, cold blue light, and a station that smelled of piss, all because she had decided to take something back from the Wall Street bastards who took something from her first. A court date on Monday feels like a fucking hatecrime, she thinks. All cops are bastards, or whatever the saying is.

‘Can I help you, baby?’

The woman stands there, under the streetlamp, looking down at Gretel. The wild afro around her head glows like a halo, and frames a dark-skinned face with eyes the colour of coal. Tension runs down Gretel’s spine. Immediately replaced by shame crawling in her gut at her initial reaction. Immediately replaced by the projection of a false sense of comfort so as to appear that she is not one of the racist dicks Twitter seems so keen on calling out lately. ‘I need somewhere to sleep, do you know if there are any shelters nearby?’ She keeps her voice light and her expression blank. It’s only polite, she figures. ‘No baby, no shelters around here.’ The woman looks sorry, looks sympathetic, looks almost pitiful. ‘You got any friends or family? I can call you a cab.’ Gretel shakes her head. There is something authentic about the street corner she has found herself on. Something the bitch in heels and lipstick could never understand. She wasn’t going to compromise that by going home now. ‘I don’t normally do this, but I’ve got a spare mattress. You can come home with me, if you need to.’ The woman looks kind and the night looks dark. It’s still cold. Gretel follows her. I would have followed home a white woman, she thinks.

‘Come in, make yourself at home.’

Dirty floors, mould on the walls, and a dampness in the air that seems to draw the light and warmth right out of the room.

‘I know it’s not much, but I hope it’s alright for tonight.’

Low ceiling, concrete walls, bars on the only window and a stain on the floor that could easily be blood.

‘I’ll heat some food up for you. Skinny white girl like you, you could use a proper meal.’

No light comes on in the fridge. The food looks more than a few days old. The woman’s hands move over the container and suddenly it’s not so certain what Gretel is being served.

‘Put your stuff anywhere, baby. It doesn’t bother me.’

Piles of clutter and mess. Bags of clothes that are far too small for the woman at the kitchen bench. Backpacks and shoes that look as though they once belonged to young children. Another stain on the floor. The smell of rot.

‘Mattress is behind that curtain. Not much privacy in a one room.’

The room is too small. A bed in one corner, a kitchen in another. No bathroom she can see, and a table worn with use. A shower curtain draws over one corner. A mattress that would look at home in a dumpster lies behind it. More stains, more stink. The curtain rustles.

‘Don’t mind the smell. Landlord found rats in the building. Exterminator came, but I think some got stuck in the walls. Hard to have an appetite when the place smells like death.’

The smell hits her harder now. Not just rot, but rotting flesh. An almost sickly sweetness to it, like pus or dead flowers. It fills her nostrils and makes her head spin. The floor is still stained brown.

‘You don’t mind if I lock the door do you? We get some interesting folks in this neighbourhood. I’d rather be safe.’

The lock clicks behind her. The room is suddenly stifling. The food sits on the table, but it smells like everything else in this place. Death in every bite. Her stomach turns.

‘So you haven’t got anyone then, baby? No-one waiting for you to come home? Young girl like you, you shouldn’t be all by yourself. Not in these parts.’

The words send shivers down her spine. The questions a red flag warning her to hold her secrets close. The door is still locked. The food is still warm. The air is still acrid. The woman is still staring. ‘I shouldn’t be here,’ she stutters. ‘I’ll just find a shelter,’ the words hang empty in the stale air. ‘It’s really not worth causing you all this trouble...’ The excuses fly past her lips as she edges towards the door. Her phone is in one hand and her bag in the other. There’s a baseball bat by the door, she realises. ‘Are you sure, baby? I really don’t mind.’ The woman takes a step forward and Gretel runs.

‘Hello. Yes, police. I’d like to report an attempted abduction. I got away but it looks like the woman has done this before. Yeah. Blood on the floor. Clothes in bags. Shoes for like 10 different kids. The whole place smelt like there was something dead there. Yeah, I have the address. Please, she just grabbed me off the street. Wanted to know if anyone would come looking for me. I think she tried to drug me. Everything happened so fast...’

It is on the news two weeks later. A black woman in her early forties, shot by police officers when they entered her home on belief of suspicious activity. No one is sure if they had a warrant. No one was wearing body cameras. Apparently she was aggressive. Pulled a weapon. The officer in question had no choice. Six shots for one woman. At five foot two and 160 pounds it must have been some weapon she was carrying. Gretel watches it all play out from the couch of the friend she’s crashing with, counting down the minutes before she has to go start her court mandated community service. 30 hours. It speaks to how broken the fucking justice system is, she thinks.

Twitter and a multitude of news channels host a trial for the woman, post-mortem. Alternating constantly between prosecution and defense; the masses providing a widespread jury incapable of forming consensus. The prosecution opens: ‘The woman was a suspected kidnapper, possibly a child molester. There had been evidence to suggest she was at least a drug user. Weed under a mattress. You know the type.’ The defense rebuts: ‘The woman volunteered for her church’s thrift store, the clothes and shoes were donations that needed to be sorted. She suffered from a chronic condition, the drugs were prescribed to help her manage the pain. The supposed weapon the police keep talking about was a baseball bat she reached for when the door was broken down. She thought it was a home invasion.’ The masses lay their verdict; a hung jury. ‘Blue lives matter.’ ‘Justice for Lucretia Jones.’ ‘He was just doing his job.’ ‘Defund the police.’ The trial is complete and the sentence is hollow. No matter which way the decision falls the witch already lays dead. Burned before trial. Killed without mercy. The cycle continues, it is just the victims that change. Gretel turns off the news and keeps on living. ‘I’m a modern day witch,’ she says, as she drops more tinder onto the pyre.

[mosylufanfic]

Name That Tune

Inspired by the pic that DP recently posted to Instagram of her and Carlos looking like a couple of badass rockstars.

Name That Tune

Over the sound of his piano, Cisco heard the front door open and the click of familiar high heels on the tile floor of his entryway. He didn't bother to call out. He was the only one who played this piano. She'd know where to find him.

Sure enough, his manager strode in a few minutes later, ferociously stylish in skinny jeans, silk blouse, high heels, and a leather jacket that was probably too warm for the southern California weather, but still looked like a million bucks. "Surprised to see you awake," she said, setting her leather satchel down next to her usual chair.

"Why wouldn't I be?" He noodled the same chord progression again, frowning. There was something off about it, but he couldn't figure out what.

"You had a late night last night." Caitlin pulled out her phone and tablet and laid them out on the black glass coffee table, all business as always.

"Of all people, you should know better than to believe what you see online."

"I don't," she retorted, waking up the tablet and checking something. Probably her schedule, or her to-do list with its hundreds of tasks and subtasks. "Ralph texted me."

"My driver ratted me out? Fired. Out on the street."

"I cut his checks," she said calmly. "So no. Not fired. And you were getting in at four, the morning before a performance. Did you even sleep?"

It wasn't an idle question. He'd been known to pull 48-hour stretches when the music grabbed him by the throat. "Yes," he said. "A few hours." He ran his fingers over the keys. "I'm fine. I'll take a nap later.”

"See that you do." She unfolded herself from the chair and strode over to his wet bar. He ignored the various clatters and thumps and kept banging away at the chords. He was no closer to figuring them out when she set a giant mug on the music shelf of the piano, with a coaster under it.

He picked it up and took a sip. Hot tea, lemon ginger with two squeezes of honey, just the way he liked it. He would drink at least three or four more cups before tonight's show. "Thanks," he said.

She shrugged and settled herself back in her chair with her bottle of kiwi strawberry sparkling water. He had no idea why she liked it - the stuff tasted like it had heard about kiwis and strawberries on the Internet once - but she did, so he always had at least a case in the house.

"Are you working on the new album or messing around?" she asked.

"Mmm. Working." He played the chord progression again. "This phrase won't get out of my head but I'm not sure what it's about. Thoughts?"

"You know I'm tone-deaf," she said.

He shrugged. "You know what you like, though. C'mon." He played it again, all the way through.

She listened, sipping her water. "It sounds like yearning," she said. 

He lifted his hands from the keyboard and looked at her. "Yearning?"

"You know. Like there's something you want but can't have."

He lifted the tea to his lips again to hide the hard swallow he had to take then. When he was pretty sure he had himself under control, he said, "So something just out of reach?"

She looked away for a moment. "More like . . . it's within arm's length, but you're not brave enough to touch it."

He stared at her. She cleared her throat and took another sip of water. "Or, you know. Something like that."

"Hey," he said, and she looked up. He pointed at her. "I'm the singer-songwriter around here, don't you forget that."

She smiled a little.

"But I gotta admit that's . . . that was pretty good." He pulled his notebook toward him and scribbled down a few of the things she'd said. The musical phrase that had been circling his brain started to grow and expand, verses, chorus, bridge . . . He grabbed his phone and set it to record, then played a few of the threads spooling themselves out, before he forgot them. 

Caitlin listened, sipping her water, her face calm and unreadable.

"Good," he said, ending the recording and taking a deep gulp of tea. "I can work with that." He got up from the piano, taking his tea with him, and went over to kiss her cheek. "Thanks."

"It's all you," she said, and picked up her tablet. "If you're at a good stopping place, we should go over your schedule for today." 

He shrugged and dropped onto the couch, setting his tea on the coffee table. "Hit me." 

She paused to glare at his coaster-less mug until he reached over and pulled one off the little rack. Then she picked up her phone and fired away like a Gatling gun.

"I'm going from here to the venue for last-minute logistics. You're due at three for a sound check and run-through. Allegra's arranging dinner from Sushi Ten for you and the crew."

He nodded. "Including the Legends?"

She checked a text on her phone. "The bassist is allergic to soy and shellfish, so he asked for another restaurant, but everyone else is getting an order."

Shellfish, Cisco thought, filing it away. And soy.

If this group did a good show opening for him tonight, they'd come with him on tour next month.  Of course, Caitlin or her razor-efficient PA would make sure there weren't any allergens on the bus or at any of the stops, but it was good to remember anyway.

"At seven," she went on, "you've got a meet and greet with fans, including the Make a Wish kid you requested. Names and details on your calendar. The show starts at eight and you'll go on at nine-thirty. Rolling Stone wants an interview after."

"Who's the reporter?"

She checked her notes. "Iris West-Allen."

"Good. I like her. She doesn't spring shit on me."

"Yes," she said dryly, "I like that about her too. So that should be half an hour, an hour. I'll catch her on the way out and confirm any details." She tapped a few notes to herself and looked up. "Am I arranging any backstage passes tonight?"

"Yeah," he said, taking a sip of tea. "Couple of cuties I met at the bar. They follow me on Instagram."

She raised a brow. "You have over two hundred million followers on Instagram."

"They posted a pic last night. It was really nice meeting them." He smirked. "Really nice."

She picked up her phone, scrolled through his mentions, and found the post he was talking about. "These two?" she asked, holding it up to show a shot of a good-looking young couple, with him in the center, all three of them smiling brightly. Behind them the bar was dark and crowded.

"Yep. Jake and Christy . . . something. Forgot their last name." He waved a hand. "And while you're at it, bump up their seats as far as you can."

"I'll take care of it," she said, tapping a note to herself. Cool and unruffled, she continued, "Gatorade and condoms in your dressing room or back here?"

Because she was looking at her phone and not him, he allowed his eyes to narrow a little. "Let's say both," he said, pushing harder. "See where the night takes us."

She didn't react. "Okay. I'll be by tomorrow at noon. You've got another interview at two. Entertainment Weekly, they're coming here. So don't wear yourself out with your Instagram cuties tonight." 

"Hawthorne," he said. "That's it. Jake and Christy Hawthorne."

"Good, that makes my job a little easier," she said, typing the name into her phone. "I'll have those passes waiting at the box office." She flipped the cover closed on her tablet and started packing it away. "Anything else you need before I go?"

He gazed up at her, thinking, your hands, your lips, your heart.

He shrugged and drained his tea. "I'm good."

She tucked her phone in its little outside pocket. "Don't get lost in the music," she said. "Remember to take that nap."

He checked the time. "I've already asked for a sandwich in an hour, and after that I'll crash for ninety minutes or so. I'll be there in plenty of time."

"I know," she said. "Text if you need me." She was off then, heels clicking on the tiles, voice echoing in the hallway as she delegated new tasks to her PA, door thumping closed behind her.

He stayed on the couch for a moment longer, telling himself it would be maudlin beyond belief if he went to the window and stared longingly after her sapphire blue car streaking down the driveway. 

The least she could have done was look a little jealous when he'd implied he was going to have a wild threesome with a sexy couple tonight after the show. 

Not that he was actually going to do much more than kiss Christy Hawthorne's cheek. This was her birthday present, her husband had told him in the bar last night, one that Jake had scrimped and saved his teacher’s salary for.

No matter what Cisco had implied, the backstage passes and upgraded seats were just something nice for a couple of fans that had been sweet and excited when they’d recognized him at the bar last night. He hadn't gotten the sense that either of them were open to a post-concert tryst, even with their favorite rock star. 

So he'd walk around backstage with them, make chit-chat, sign some things, and wave good-bye. And if Caitlin thought they'd done anything more in his dressing room, well then, that was her problem.

He peeled himself off the couch and went back to the wet bar to get another mug of tea going. He grabbed his phone off the piano on the way, listening to the recording he'd made. The things she'd said swirled around his head. 

Arm's length. Close enough to touch. 

That was good. That could be something there. He played a silent string of notes on the edge of the bar as his tea steeped, hearing them swim in his head, aching. Longing. 

Yearning.

If nothing else, unrequited love was great for his songwriting.

FINIS

[pbandjesse]

There is like a really beautiful breeze right now. Its great. Today was great for like 99% of the day. Great first day of my new job. 

I slept okay last night. I woke up before my alarm because I was nervous. Not shocked. But I got up and showered and ready to go. I did not wear the dress I planned. I wore my favorite yellow dress (which somehow I broke the strap on within hours of getting to camp??) and boots and felt real cute. 

I was getting ready to go and said good bye to James and went to say goodby to  sweetP and my backpack fell off my back and smacked him when I went to pet him. I felt so horrible!! I hurt him!! I had to put everything down and go make sure he was okay and give him treats before I would feel comfortable going. 

But I was out of the house on time. I drove to pick up Charlotte. And I was nervous about that but that ended up being fine. We talked the whole time and it was fun. Helped my nerves I think. Because it was a distraction. 

It was a beautiful day though. We got there and the camp continues to just be beautiful and idyllic. Like its amazing how quintessentially summer camp it is.  

The day was long but fun. I didnt like. Make a new best friend or anything but everyone was real nice. We started the day with introductions and stuff. And then we all went over to get the first aid skill check. But that is where the one like. Upsetting thing of the day was. 

We all walk over to the pool house were they had all the dummies set up and things. And the guy introduces himself and asks if we had taken the online class. And I raised my hand to tell him that despite me asking twice, I was never sent the links, but I was already certified and I just wanted a refresher. And he like snapped at me that I had to leave. Like legitimately he said you have to get out of here, you cant be here. Go talk to Alexi (one of the people who run the camp) because you cant be here. It was. Kind of humiliating. I had to like get my bag and walk back down the hill to the office. And everyone said "Goodbye Jesse". And like. This is not a reflection on the camp, but it really kind of upset me and gave me knots in my stomach. 

But I found Alexi and I told her what was going on. And she tried to figure out why no one sent me the thing. And it seems like it might be because I told them (and sent my paperwork) that I am already certified but it was weird. I was able to get the links later in the day and I might do that refresher tomorrow. But yeah that upset me. 

Eventually though 2 more people were sent away because they had not received the 2nd half of the class email. So I really think it was on the Y's end. They ended up both having laptops with them so they proceeded to work on the class. And I asked if I could get started on art stuff and went to pull out supplies from the office's attic.

Once I was done up there I went with Heather (one of the other people who runs the place)'s daughter Sophie. She is 15 and very sweet. We wandered around differnt cabins to try to find art supplies but did not have luck. And we were both kind of winded from walking up hills. 

We headed back to the office and got the keys to the art building and decided to just. Organize and clean.

And thats what we did for over 2 hours. Its a cute little shack. But it was very dirty. While I was organizing and Sophie was sweeping, we found a little black rat snake! We thought it was dead but it was not. So Sophie called her mom to come get it. I wanted to use a broom and put it in a bucket to put outside, but instead Heather came and grabbed him and took him to their nature center! Amazing. I am so excited to get to meet the animals there. 

Around noon the shack was sufficiently organized and swept. I would have to do a few more hours later in the day to organize the supplies they found (which was like 14 rubber maid tubs) but for now it was lunch. 

Before lunch we did a little get to know you game as small groups. That was fun. I am not the oldest! There is at least one 31 year old. A lot of them were surprised by my age though. I got that a lot today. Most of them are sub 23. A few of them are 16! Wild. But its nice to have such a nice mix.

They got us pizza for lunch. I got to talk to a lot of people more. Im starting to remember names. 

There was some paperwork to be done after that. Fingerprinting. And then I went on a small tour of the camp. Im starting to get my bearing but it will take a while. This place is really big.

The tour was fun. I liked seeing the horses. I got to pet one and a greyhound dog. They are my favorite dog because they have puppy fur forever. I also like the frog pond a lot. I really just had a very good time today. 

I was free to return to the art building after that. Chris (the last person in the primary group of 3 that run the place) and Charlotte went with a car to go find and bring me those art tubs. And two girls helped me sort and clean. 

It was a lot of work but I got all the rainbow shelves organized for each project I want to do. Its not perfect but I am really jazzed. 

It was a long day. Around 430 we finished up in the art shack. I was dehydrated and needed to get some water. But the spout at the art shed needs a little more flushing before it will taste good. Apparently it is contentious what is the best tasting water on the campus.Some vote for art shack though so thats good. I still need to figure out what bathrooms I will use but thats not a big deal, there are a lot of options. 

I went back to the office cabin to find Charloette. We hung out there for a while until her meeting and then once that was done we headed home. 

It was a nice ride. Shes sweet. She filled me in on some more info she got in her meetings. And then I dropped her off. I am not going in the next two days but she is. Shes got rides lined up though so its all good. Ill see her thursday. 

I got home and I was. Super tired. I was so happy to see my boys. I joked about the clout I got from using "Jimmy" instead of "James" because thats what they all know him as. And I told him about my day while eating a popsicle. 

And then I proceeded to fall asleep. I slept pretty hard. And woke up at 815 delirious and thirsty. But I drank a bunch of water and James made me a sandwich and I had some ice cream and I feel okay now. Still tired. And kind of dirty. So Im going to go take a bath. 

I hope you all have a nice day tomorrow. Sleep good you guys! 

[bbyboybrock--archived]

Serendipity (C.B) | Chapter 2

Summary: Serendipity: (n) the chance occurrence of events in a beneficial way

Popular youtuber Isabella Hart, known as Bella to her audience, bends over backwards to separate her youtube life from her private life. Known for her overall clean content and her bubbly attitude, Isabella has a wild side to her that only those inside the youtube community know about. When Bella meets Colby during one of the trap house parties she finally meets someone she can be her genuine self with. When trouble arises after their meeting, will Bella be able to hand the pressure or will she destroy her relationship with Colby as well as herself in the process. [This starts in 2018]

Written: 2019

Word Count: 2,902

Warnings: swearing

Serendipity Masterlist

The day after the party, Sam and Colby left LA to go shoot a few videos for a week. The whole time they were away, I've been talking to Colby. Whenever one of us had free time we would text the other. Whoever ended the conversation the night before started the conversation the night after. My phone was going off more than ever. Normally I would only get youtube/ work related notifications and the occasional booty call from an annoying "big" youtuber on my Twitter DMs. Now, all my messages are texts from Colby.

I don't know what to label this feeling. I set a different ringtone for Colby so whenever I hear that tone my stomach somersaults. It can't be a crush, despite the fact that we've been talking nonstop I hardly know Colby. We planned on leaving the getting to know you questions for the date. That's not saying that I'm not into him. I definitely am. From the conversations I've had with him, I can tell he's more than just a pretty face. And for someone who's lived in L.A her whole life, I can attest that, that doesn't happen often.

But I still don't know how to label what I'm feeling? The nervousness that I'll somehow find a way to mess this up? Even if this doesn't work out as a romantic relationship with Colby, I hope that I can at least make a friend out of this whole situation. I don't have very many friends. If anything, I have one and everyone else I know is either an acquaintance, an old hookup, or someone that I collaborated with. Making friends in this industry is hard. You never know who's using you for views or to leech off subscribers.

One thing I know that I'm feeling for a fact is nervous for this date. Colby never told me where we were going. He insisted on keeping it a surprise. I did manage to get him to tell me what type of clothes I should wear. All he told me was "Olive Garden casual" but also being beach things just in case. I changed my clothes at least three times. I finally decided to stick with a white and floral romper with some sandals. I put my but length curly hair into a fishtail braid and called it a day. He also insisted on picking me up. So I spent all morning over cleaning my already clean apartment. I finally got myself to calm down enough to sit down and finish editing my video and thumbnail for Saturday.

****

I finish putting the final details on my video when I hear a knock on the front door. I jump so high that I nearly deleted the video upload. I put my laptop on my couch before going to answer the door. I open the door to reveal Colby wearing a white long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up and black jeans.

"Hi, come in. I'm just finishing uploading my video for this weekend. It'll only be a second more." I move so that Colby can walk in. I close the door and quickly grab my laptop and move it to the coffee table so Colby can sit

"Wow, nice apartment you got here. It's very homely." Colby says looking around. I finish the upload and close my laptop and see Colby wondering around.

"Thank you. The front area is just for show mostly, you know for the off chance I get guest. I can give you a small tour if you want."

"Sure. It's only fair, you saw basically the entirety of my house."

"Very true. So, over there is the kitchen. There are no guys there that show their id instead of carding you though. I hear that's one of a kind. We're standing in the living room slash tv room where I spend a lot of time when I'm not working or partying." I pick up my laptop and walk with Colby to the back of my apartment.

"I hear they fired the id guy. To be fair, he didn't know what he was doing but he was glad he did it." Colby mentions.

"To be fairer, I hear the girl who ratted herself out as underage felt the exact same." I turn to see Colby smirk. I turn back around and blush before opening the door on my right.

"This is my office and youtube room. I spend a lot of time working here." I place my laptop on my desk and plug it in before walking out with Colby.

"What do you keep in the closet?"

"Equipment for my hobbies that are not youtube related. In between both rooms is the guest bathroom. And the door right here leads to my bedroom. Complete with its own master bathroom and walk-in type of closet." I grab my bag from my bed and watch as Colby looks around.

Eventually, we leave and walk to his car. When we get in, Colby pulls out a blindfold.

"I know you don't know me that well but trust me when I say put this on." He holds the blindfold in front of me.

"Somehow, I knew this happen. Good thing I didn't put on makeup today." I take the blindfold and put it on.

"Wow, you're just going to do it. No questions or anything?"

"You haven't told me a single thing about this date all week. For all I know, you can be taking me somewhere to murder me for all I know."

"Very true. But that's not going to happen. I promise. Anyway, how long have you lived in that apartment?"

Even though I willingly put on the blindfold on, I'm still a little nervous. Colby senses this and slips his hand in mine.

"Uh, I moved in officially moved in on my birthday last year. I started moving my stuff in the month before."

"You're parents let you start moving out at 17?"

"That's a story for a later time. Um... why did you and Sam start in youtube?"

"Back then it was a way to reach out to our fans and get different content out their aside from our vines. Flash forward to now where we break into abandoned places or do overnights. I glad we started youtube though."

"Isn't that kind of dangerous or scary?"

"Yeah, but here's the thing..."

****

For the rest of the car ride, we kept talking about our channels and ourselves. There was a brief moment where we stopped somewhere and Colby left me in the car to grab something. When we finally reached where we are supposed to be, Colby placed my bag on my lap went to get the things out of the trunk before helping me out. We walk a few feet before Colby tells me I can take my blindfold off. It takes my eyes a few seconds to adjust to the light.

"Are we at the Santa Monica beach?" I ask after seeing the infamous ferries wheel on the pier.

"Yeah, I thought we could have a picnic on the beach and try to look at the stars?" I looked at Colby who was blushing a bit.

"Why did you phrase that as a question? Why do I feel like you aren't 100 percent sure about this date? I think it's a great date."

"I was just worried that you would think that it was too cheesy?"

"What part of me makes you think that I'd find this cheesy? Let's go, the sun is setting." I drag Colby closer to the water so we could set up the picnic.

****

Maybe it's because it's the beginning of February or maybe it's because it's Monday but there are hardly any people on the beach. It's vitally empty and it kind of feels like Colby and I are alone. Colby has actual picnic food, complete with chocolate covered strawberries. We spend the whole time talking and eating. Before the sun completely set we took pictures of each other. My favorites are the candids that I took of Colby when he wasn't paying attention. All the conversation and small talk that we avoided for the past week came out today. Colby had a speaker playing soft music in the background. It felt like every romance movie I've ever seen.

"Can I tell you a secret?" I asked while we looked at the sky. We had pretty much finished eating and the sun is completely set.

"Definitely."

"Well, it's not really a secret. I used to live near here before I moved out of my parents' house. Whenever I felt like life was getting to suffocating or the drama was too much I would sneak out here and just look out at the sky and listen to the ocean. I've actually forgotten how calming this was. I miss it." I adjust myself so my head is no longer supporting my head.

"I kind of know what you mean. Moments like this make me miss Kansas. I like nature and being submerged in it in a way." I turn my head and look at Colby who was already looking at me.

"What do you miss most about Kansas?" I adjust my body so I'm completely facing Colby.

"If I'm being honest? I just miss being around my family all the time. I can explore or find my own piece of nature anywhere in the world. I can't always be with them." Colby faces me completely too.

"Wow, you guys sound close."

"We are, in a weird way. What about you? Are you close with your family?"

"Um... to make an incredibly long and depressing story short, I am the black sheep of the family. Completely shunned and unwelcome. I could tell you the whole story but that probably wouldn't be first date appropriate."

"I get it. You can tell me anything though. When you're ready obviously. You probably can't tell but I can tell that we're going to be really important to each other."

"Really? You can tell that from one date and our super long talk at your party that I probably shouldn't have been at?"

"I know it sounds like I'm just trying to get into your pants or something, but I'm being 100 percent serious. There's something about us, we just click. Like we were made for each other."

I examine every part of Colby's face that I can. For once I feel like I actually met someone genuine. He doesn't sound like every guy that I've met who actually want to just hook up. He definitely doesn't sound like someone who would hurt someone or use them. I feel safe with Colby, something I don't think I've ever felt.

"Isabella?" Colby says breaking my concentration.

"Yes, Colby?"

"Do you mind if I kiss you for real this time?"

"Yes— I mean, I don't mind. You can kiss me for real."

We both sit up and I close my eyes and slowly lean in and only stop when my lips meet his. The kiss starts off soft but quickly gets more and more intense. We both pull away before things got too heated.

"Whoa..." we both said in unison. We were both quiet for a few seconds, trying to process what had just happened.

It was a perfect moment. At that moment I realized that I've never kissed anyone like that. Not sober, anyway. It sent a tingle down my spine and caused a wave of calm to wash over me. This kiss was real and I wanted more. Not just to kiss Colby more, but to feel more real things with him.

****

Colby takes me home about an hour after the kiss. We talked a bit more to get to know each other. The more we talked, the more I wanted to know Colby on a deeper level. I wanted Colby to know me more too, something I've never felt with anyone.

When Colby dropped me off I let him know that I would plan our next date, if he wanted there to be. He responded by kissing me again. When he left I lay on the couch and replayed the past few hours in my head. After that, I went into my bedroom and grab one of my empty notebooks. I choose the one with a tree carved into it and open to the second blank page. I write down everything from what happened and how I'm feeling. I even write about the events from the week before. As I write I set my photo printer to print out the photos from tonight. Even if things don't work out with Colby, I want to remember the first time I ever felt like this.

After I finish writing and taping the photos I take a shower and try to calm down. I place the notebook on my bedside table and go to take a shower. I climb into bed and try to decompress so I can sleep and wake up for my lectures tomorrow. I can't let my feelings for Colby make me late for classes. To help me calm down I go on my phone and scroll on my Instagram accounts. I have two, one for my fans and all business that is very public and a private one where I only let a few people follow. Right now, I'm only following Colby's private account. He has three: his public account, his fan appreciation account, and his private account. I check my public one and make a few comments and watch as people post about parties and birthdays. I get a few DMs from people asking where I wasn't at some party. I gave the same excuses of working on videos and switch over to my private account. On my feed a picture of me that I don't remember taking shows up. It's a candid of me from the beach. I'm laughing about something and the fading sun is hitting my face with my messy hair blowing in the wind. I see that Colby posted it and scroll to the caption. It reads: I can already tell my life is going to be better with you in it. Can't wait until next week.

I like the picture and quickly post my own picture of Colby with a cheesy caption. I switch back to my main account and see that I have a message from Brennen Taylor.

BT: Where were u tonite? Hooking up with some other insta-model?

Me: Actually, I was busy working tonight.

BT: Well, if you're not busy anymore do you want to hang out? The party was lame, I was hoping for sum fwb time.

Me: We're not friends and the benefits haven't been a thing for a while. Plus I'm seeing someone right now so the benefits are never going to happen again.

BT: We both know that that's not going to last long. Just come over right now and we can "talk" about it

Me: ...Night Brennen. Stop messaging me before I block you again.

BT: Goodnight sweet cheeks, I'll dream of the time we'll have a face to face convo again.

I close out of Instagram and plug my phone in. I make sure that my phone is charging before staring at the ceiling. At a party a few months ago, before I turned 18, I made the mistake of hooking up with Brennen. Ever since we've had an on again, off again hook up relationship. We were both in the same party scene. We would drunkenly hook up at parties, sometimes after I had just finished with someone else. After our first encounter, he found me on Instagram and would hit me up whenever he wanted to sleep with me, no strings attached. I would go only because he offered alcohol, sometimes weed. I would use him to get drunk or high and he would use me to get a quick lay. I didn't need him as much when I got my fake id but he did, even when he had a girlfriend. When I found out he was dating someone new I terminated our unspoken agreement. I wasn't going to be the reason his relationships failed. Still, he would hit me up every few days. If I'm being honest, he makes me feel uncomfortable and I try to avoid him at all cost. I never block him or expose him out of fear of being exposed myself. So I deal with it and I just tell him I'm busy or I was with someone else. It only works sometimes.

But now I met Colby and I really don't want to screw this up. I'm hoping Brennen won't screw it up for me. That sometimes happens at parties. I know that Colby and Brennen are friends. So I'm betting on the fact that Brennen wouldn't get in the way of his best friend's relationships, in every aspect of the word.

My phone lights up the room and I check to see a notification from Colby. He tells me that he got home safe and how much he enjoyed tonight. He also mentions that he's looking forward to next week. He ends with a good night. I type back a response with a huge grin on my face. I put away my phone and dream about the date over and over again.

[vaguely-concerned]

I played Death of the Outsider finally and I have some Feelings about it

and most of them not very positive. nice stuff first tho!

THINGS I LIKED:

- billie is such a good character. still new to her old self and slightly tender from coming out of the protective shell of lies that was meagan foster, full of old scars and doubts and bitterness but trying for something better, something kinder even though she still doesn’t quite understand what she’s walking towards -- the genuine care and tenderness in her voice when she talks to daud or thinks about deidre. I love her.

all that and she effortlessly IS also the queer disabled woc the gamer bros refuse to believe could possibly exist. exquisite. 

- the idea of ‘killing’ the outsider is compelling, but it’s the sort of idea that needs a full length game to support it and its implications. cool idea, completely wrong execution.

- saying that: I love that the injustice of the outsider’s creation being righted is only made possible by a long unbroken line of mercy and kindness. daud saved billie from the streets, corvo spared daud, daud saved emily and spared billie after her betrayal, billie tried to save aramis stilton and became entangled in the void, emily spared billie, billie took this job in the first place partly because she loves her dad daud and wants him to find peace. that idea is so beautiful that I wish the rest of the narrative was strong enough to hold it up lol.

there’s also something going on here with other people holding on to the important pieces of you -- that billie is ‘all that is left’ of daud after he’s dead. once he saved a child from true loneliness and gave her a purpose, made her feel seen again, gave her the closest thing she had to a home, and when he’s completely lost himself in the void... that kindness is still alive in billie, and she helps him find his way. again that is really touching and thoughtful and plays wonderfully into the chaos system in these games thematically! too bad about all the stilted dialogue and characterization messes and uh. everything else. 

- most of all I love how clear it is that billie and daud love each other. it’s a quiet love that has nothing to prove anymore, it’s survived all the blood and the ugliness and everything they’ve done to each other and to the world, a love with no demands left. it’s not the sort of love you usually see, in all its unsentimentality, but it’s real. when daud tells her he’s proud of her and trusts her no matter what she chooses to do, you feel how much he means it. (making his insistence on trying to make her choice for her all the weirder -- see my long rant of lamentation about his characterization in doto below lol)

there’s something about daud’s undramatic yet complete acceptance of and respect for billie that... I didn’t know I needed this, but it was a nice gift nonetheless haha, thank you. (it’s similar to how good it feels in D2 when you realize corvo just likes emily a lot as a person, even aside from her being his daughter. a good series for father & daughter stories)

- this carries over from D2, but I think the journal/log entries are better written and more insightful than the stuff out in the world.  

- it cannot be overstated how much the gameplay loop of these games is just... pure crack cocaine for my brain haha, very few things give me this specific kind of brain tingle. I love the sound of looting and I love the art style and ambiance and I love planning out a strategy after finding all the options and I love never being spotted or killing anyone and I love the puzzle elements they put into exploration sections and I love the feeling of how you move through the environment. it’s one of the few games where I routinely get so into it I end up with a crick in the neck because I’ve been so focused for so long and never noticed I’ve been sitting in a way that makes my entire spine hate me. I needed something to get me through the last few days and it did deliver that, at least. karnaca is pretty enough that I didn’t even mind that most of the levels were recycled from D2 either. 

- I’m not quite sure whether I understood this right but there’s a woman standing behind daud in the void -- I wonder if that is actually his mother and he’s been so close this whole time? at first I thought maybe it was jessamine but god no I hope she’s finally at peace after All That Nonsense, she shouldn’t have to hang around there anymore. there’s also a figure near him I could swear was corvo with his mask on, but he’s not dead canonically so that would make very little sense. oh well I’ll take my feels where I can get them even if I have to make them up wholesale  

- the bankheist was cool as fuuuuuck, that and the emotional impact of daud dying was sadly the height of this game for me, after that it all went mediocre real quick     

- paul nakauchi as shan yun was, as I have said before, a blast. ‘ugh I cannot continue my throat is as raw as a plucked pheasant’ fsdkfhlsadjkhfas

- daud’s funeral is genuinely touching. she gave him the entirety of her old life for a sendoff, battered and worn and dear as they both were. someone hold me 

THINGS I  H A T E D:

- the stuff they did with daud’s characterization. I am so unreasonably angry over this haha, the more I think about it the more I hate it. I think there are paths you could go with his ACTUAL character to make this work, but this was not it. I’ve said this before, but his most iconic, most defining scene is him surrendering himself to corvo’s judgement without justifying himself or deflecting the blame for any of what he’s done. this isn’t even regression in his character, it’s just.. a different character altogether. they could have gone for the angle that delilah almost managed to end the world b/c daud showed mercy and that’s the reason he’s moved to action, I think that might be a more compelling motivation for him at least. OR have him be more conflicted about how to do things -- violence is still the only tool he knows how to use but it’s not what he wants to or even can be anymore and the conflict troubles him, ‘His hands do violence, but there is a different dream in his heart’. or even use a different character for the ‘kill kill kill’ angle, he didn’t need to be here for this dlc at all.   

also, just on a purely practical level... for all his flaws and longstanding moral shortsightedness daud is not a stupid man. why the FCK would he be so sure that killing the outsider will fix anything? if I, dumbass extraordinaire, could within half a minute wonder if maybe something even worse would take the outsider’s place if you removed him... why does that never occur to the Knife of Dunwall tm, a man about Void for like half a century or whatever?? ugh fuck this, I’m having a hard time explaining exactly why it all feels weird and wrong to me, but know that it does and that I Do Not Like It lol. I feel cheated out of something important I thought I had.  

- again, this should have been a full game. (I think it is sold as one already, but it just hm isn’t) there’s way too much shit of literal cosmic importance for the game’s universe being picked up here for something this short to cover. save this HUGE idea for a rainy day should you ever want to do another game in the series and do something else with the dlc, honestly. 

- god but the outsider is insufferable in this. I don’t know what happened, but by the end I was like ‘*thoughtfully strokes chin* maybe daud has a point billie keep that knife handy’. he’s annoying and boring, which is wild to me because he was always a lot of fun in the other games.

for real tho I don’t know if this is just my atheist-but-still-angry-at-god-somehow??? talking, but daud HAS a point. people are responsible for their own actions, but the outsider didn’t have to do any of what he did either. he could have chosen to be bored through the centuries instead of seeing what people would do if you gave them such ~*morally neutral*~ abilities as y’know summoning a bunch of rats to eat other people. the game wants me to buy the ‘but really this black eyed boy is woobie tho uwu’ so badly and no I’m not buying that give me my refund I want my chaotic neutral bastard back pls. I’d probably be more inclined to want to help him like that. where’s his salt gone, arkane. if you didn’t want him to be edgy why did you make him look like that.  

- this is the lamest possible version of the outsider’s backstory lol, it feels like the pearl clutching panic about satanic cults back in the day all over. listen if it’s this easy to make a god the thrill is sort of taken out of it, if these randos did it anyone could. also how the fuck are they just normal-ish people anyway? why do they follow modern fashions? haven’t they been hanging around for thousands of years, haven’t their culture changed in any meaningful way? (I realize these aren’t the same guys as back in the day but it’s just weird) why do they speak a language billie and the player can understand? why did anyone think ‘idk some cultists no one’s ever heard of before with no thematic significance whatsoever’ was the way to go world building wise? they’ve taken all the unknowable eldritchness out of the eldritch horror and we’re all poorer for it now haha 

relatedly the last level is... just not very good. you come down from the awesome bank heist and then there’s... whatever the fuck this was.

- while I do like billie finding daud in the void and him remembering her I hate that he goes out still full of self loathing and rage when you talk him into the nonlethal option, that he can’t forgive himself or find any sliver of hope or peace. I wish there had been a few more moments for the two of them to come to peace with themselves before he gave the outsider back his name, some real catharsis. as it is I was annoyed when the outsider ‘woke up’ or whatever b/c it felt like he was stealing attention from what I was actually emotionally invested in and not done with.    

they had  n o t  built up billie’s or my sympathy for the outsider well enough either. again this is something I think they could have done if they’d structured things differently, if they’d been more deliberate in making you understand he was basically a child and letting you dwell on it. because there is a parallell there between him and billie, and billie and daud, but I, how do I put this, did not give a fuck  

in short this was really similar to my experience with D2 in that there’s enough good there that it’s all the more painful when it fails to deliver on it again and again, and it ruined things I already liked about this story from the first game (daud’s arc and everything to do with the outsider, mostly). give me some months of denial and hard core headcanon work and I’ll probably be able to live with it

[themoonandotherslikeit]

The Daughter of a Righteous Man- Chapter 25

*SEQUEL TO THE LOOK IN HER EYES*

After her husband is drug to Hell, Ava Winchester and her brother in law Sam try their best to do right by Dean and raise her daughter, only to find that good intentions aren’t always enough. Loving someone isnt always enough.

Chapter Twenty-Five, This is the First Day of My Life

Ella

About fifteen years later

I sat on the counter, my bare legs hanging down as I stuck my spoon directly into the pint of chocolate brownie ice cream. I had shrugged out of my button up, and was wearing my tank top and plaid uniform skirt. My hair was up in a bun. It was so fucking hot outside. My Chemistry book was in my lap as I did my best to be studious, even though I’d rather rip my hair out than read another word of biology. My final was coming up and it was too damn much.

"You're not my father, Castiel! You may look like him, but you're not him."

"Claire," Castiel grunted. I could hear footsteps padding down the steps to my right. "Please slow down."

"No! I can't believe you brought me to a creepy underground bunker. You had no right!"

My eyes widened as a blonde girl about my age stormed into my kitchen. She wore a gray, ratty T-shirt under a black leather jacket with an excessive amount of silver zippers. Her hair was long with wild curls. She had obviously been crying by the black smudges under her blue eyes.

"This is bullshit!" She shouted, throwing her hands in the air. She turned and caught my eyes.

"Uh, hi," I said awkwardly, spoon still between my lips.

"Do you have other girls trapped here?!" She asked, gesturing to me.

"I actually live here," I said, as I pulled the spoon out of my mouth.

"I'll get your bags from the car," Cas said, awkward as ever.

"I'm El," I said, offering my hand out to her.

She eyed me, checking me out. "Claire." She put her hand in mine. "You a stray, too?"

"Deans daughter."

She raised her eyebrows. "Really?"

"Mhm." I looked her over. Claire. I'd heard that name before. Her words echoed in my head. "You're Jimmys daughter."

Claire's expression softened a bit, but her mouth was still stuck in a scowl. "I was."

"I'm sorry about your dad."

"Me too, but he's been gone for a long time."

"I can't even imagine losing my dad," I admitted.

"The goof in the flannel?"

I smiled a bit. "That's him. He's got a charm." I shrugged. "You get used to it."

"I won't,” Claire said, folding her arms across her chest. "I won't be here long enough to get used to anything."

"It's not a bad set up. Good Wi-Fi. Lots of lore. Great shower pressure." I offered a smile, taking another bite of ice cream. "Not exactly a place to bring dates, but most girls don't have three dads. That has nothing to do with the bunker."

Claire winced. "Three dads. Hell I'd give anything to have one."

"I know Cas isn't your dad, but he's a good guy. He tries."

"I don't want to talk about him."

"That's fair," I said, shoving the spoon back into the carton. 

I could see her eyeing my ice cream, and I noticed how sharp her collar bones were under the swoop neck on her T-shirt. "Want some?"

She looked taken aback, but she slowly nodded. "Yeah, okay."

I reached under my legs to open the drawer and pull out another spoon. She hopped up on the counter to sit next to me, and dug her spoon in. "I have a chocolate problem," I admitted. "Especially when I'm stressed. I think it fixes everything."

"What're you stressed about?" She asked, eyeing my plaid skirt.

"Finals." I smiled cheekily. "I know it sounds dumb..."

"Nah. It's a nice change from the roller coaster I'm on."

"Are you in school?"

"Got my GED." She tilted her head to the side, sucking on her spoon. "School wasn't my thing."

I resisted the urge to reach up and wipe the makeup off from under her eye. "So no college?"

"I'm in the college of life,” she said flatly.

"Hm."

"I'm surprised you're in school at all. If you grew up with hunters."

"Dad wanted a different life for me. He wanted me to have opportunities that he didn't have."

"Noble," Claire said taking another bite of the ice cream.

"Maybe," I said, closing my chemistry book. "But on the other hand, maybe it's not what I want."

Claire leaned closer to me. "And what do you want?"

"I'm still deciding." I looked down at my book, sitting it next to me. "But I haven't even had the opportunity to learn the hunt. He's worked so hard to keep it away from me. I love what they do. They save people, and I'm just in class reading a fucking book about theories."

Claire looked taken aback when I cursed and then she smiled a bit, mischievously. "You have some fight in you."

"I'm a Winchester." I smiled widely. "All we do is fight." I grabbed her hand. "I know you don't want to be here, but if you stay we will fight for you, too."

Dean

Present

Things were way too fucking quiet on the apocalypse front. Sammy said he had some things to take care of. He wouldn't tell me what. Things seemed fine between him and Ave, but I wondered if he needed some time away from us, to get his head on straight. So I let him go, even though it's against everything I believe in to watch my little brother walk away, I let him go.

I sipped my coffee in the kitchen and looked out the window at the sunrise. I never got up early, but I couldn't sleep. I never could anymore.

"Morning," Ava said, walking into the kitchen.

"Hey," I said, glancing at her.

"I have a present for you."

I turned toward her and raised an eyebrow. "You do?"

She walked to me, the island in between us. She pulled her hand up and and sat down her newspaper. "I think I have a case."

Her eyes were glistening. Fuck she was beautiful. "Really? A case? Sam just left."

"I thought you and I could work it together."

I walked closer to the island, just the counter between us. I reached across and touched her cheek. "I'd like that," I admitted. "Tell me about the case."

——————————————-

"Uh... can I help you?" A young man behind the counter asked.

We were in a book store that carried a large selection of comics. We suspected a haunting, even if it seemed like a long shot.

"Sure hope so. Agents DeYoung and Shaw. Just need to ask you a few questions," I said, flashing my badge. Ava did the same next to me.

"Notice anything strange in the building, last couple of days?" Ava asked.

"Like what?"

"Well, some other tenants reported flickering lights," I said, glancing around.

The man scratched his head. "Uh, I don't think so. Why?"

"What about noises? Any skittering in the walls? Kind of like rats?" I asked.

The cashier squinted. "And the FBI is investigating a rodent problem?"

"What about cold spots? Feel any sudden drops in temperature?" Ava asked leaning into him.

A grin grew on the mans face. "I knew it! You guys are LARPing, aren't you?"

Larping? The fuck is that? "Excuse me?"

The cashier gestures to us. "You're fans."

"Fans of what?" Ava asked, crossing her arms.

I tugged on the tie around my neck, feeling claustrophobic all of a sudden. "What is 'LARPing'?"

The cashier rolled his eyes. "Like you don't know. Live-Action Role-Play! And pretty hardcore, too."

I frowned, my eyebrows coming together. "I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You're asking questions like the building's haunted. Like those guys from the books. What are they called? Uh... Supernatural. Two guys, use fake IDs with rock aliases, hunt down ghosts, demons, vampires. What are their names? Uh... Steve and Dirk? Uh, Sal and Dane?"

I swallowed hard and Ava and I exchanged a look.

"Sam and Dean?" She offered.

"That's it!"

My head was spinning. He didn't make any sense. How could he know any of this? "You're saying this is a book?"

"Books. It was a series. Didn't sell a lot of copies, though. Kind of had more of an underground cult following." He moved from behind the counter and walked over to the bargain bin and began to dig around. Eventually he came across a book and handed it to me. "That's the first one, I think."

"Supernatural by Carver Edlund." I frowned at the classic romance novel cover. "Along a lonely California highway, a mysterious woman in white lures men to their deaths."

Ava raised her eyebrows. We had suddenly forgotten about the case. "We're gonna need all the copies of Supernatural you've got."

Ava

We went back to the motel. Dean was getting obsessed with the books, and if I was being honest, my head was spinning too. I sat crisscrossed on the window seat typing away on my laptop. I was doing research on the books about their lives, about my life. Dean lounged on the bed, reading intently.

"This is freakin' insane. How's this guy know all this stuff?"

"I have no idea," I said, glancing at him.

"Everything is in here. I mean everything. From the vampires on the beach to us having sex. I'm full-frontal in here." Dean stood up, rubbing his face. "How come we haven't heard of them before?"

I sighed and gestures to my screen. "They're not exactly popular, Dean. Kind of obscure. The publisher got put out about a dozen before they went bankrupt. The last one ends with you going to Hell. I'm in here too. It all is in here." I was suddenly happy that there wasn't another. I couldn't take him reading about Sam and I raising his child without him.

He took the laptop from me. "I reiterate. Freaking insane." His eyes widened. "Check it out. There's actually fans. There's not many of them, but still. Did you read this?"

"Mhm."

"There are Sam girls and Dean girls and... what's a slash fan?"

"As in... Sam-slash-Dean. Together."

Dean looked up at me over the laptop. "Like, together together?"

"Yup."

He looked disgusted. "They do know we're brothers, right?"

"I don't think they care." I laughed. "They say a lot about me too, look," I said, taking back the computer. "Ava's character is flatly written. Dean deserves someone just as complexly written as he is." I rolled my eyes.

"We got to find this Carver Edlund."

"I don't know if we can, babe. No tax records, no known address. Looks like Carver Edlund is a pen name."

Dean groaned. This was really getting to him. "Somebody's gotta know who he is."

"Well, I have an idea, but it might be a little crazy."

He leaned into me, putting his hands on either side of my face. "You know me, Ava Winchester. I live for crazy."

After some research, I found the location of the publisher. She was obscure, but surprisingly active on social media. Not only did she publish the books, but she ran the official fan club. It wasn't hard to locate her house.

Dean and I stood in her kitchen. She poured us each a glass of iced tea. "So you published the Supernatural books?"

"Yep. Yeah. Gosh. These books... You know, they never really got the attention they deserved."

I forced a smile. "Right. Well, we're hoping that our article can... shine a light on an underappreciated series."

"Yeah, yeah, because, you know, if we got a little bit of good press then maybe we could start publishing again." She pushed her glasses up her nose. She was bouncing in her shoes.

Dean raised his eyebrows, throwing his hands up. "No, no, no, no. God, no. I mean, why would you want to do that? You know, it's, uh, such a complete series, what with Dean going to Hell and all."

Nice recovery.

The publisher, but her hand on her chest in a swoon. "Oh, my god! That was one of my favorite ones, because Dean was so strong and sad and brave. Watching him give up everything for Ava. It was beautiful. I mean, the best parts are when they'd cry. Gosh... if only real men were so open and in touch with their feelings."

I snorted a bit, biting the inside on my cheek. I did my damndest to keep it together.

"Real men?" Dean asked flatly.

"I mean, no offense. How often do you cry like that, hmm?"

"Well, right now, I'm crying on the inside."

"Is that supposed to be funny?"

"Lady, this whole thing is funny."

I elbowed him gently.

The publisher took off her glasses. "How do I know you two are legit, hmm?"

"Oh, trust me. We, uh... we're legit."

"Well, I don't want any smart-ass article making fun of my boys."

"No! We would never," I jumped in. "We are big fans. Really."

"Hmm. You've read the books?"

"Cover to cover," Dean agreed.

The publisher crossed her arms in defiance. "What's the year and model of the car?"

"It's a 1967 Chevy Impala."

"What's May 2nd?"

"Sams birthday," I said, wincing, knowing it was coming up.

"What is the gender of Ava and Deans baby?"

"A little girl," I said, itching to reach for his hand.

"Dean's favorite song?"

"It's a tie. Between Zep's Ramble On and Traveling Riverside Blues."

The publisher grinned. "Okay. Okay. What do you want to know?"

"What's Carver Edlund's real name?" I asked, leaning forward

"Oh, no. I... No. Sorry, I can't do that."

"We just want to talk to him. You know, get the story in his own words," I said weakly.

"He's very private."

"It would mean so much to us. Like I said," I stepped to Dean, unbuttoning his shirt. He looked at me suspiciously, but allowed me to continue. I exposed his anti possession tattoo. "We are big fans."

The publisher looked weak seeing Deans skin. She fanned herself a bit. "Okay." She took out a pen and paper and started to write. "His name's Chuck Shurley. And he's a genius, so don't piss him off."

Dean

Present

The front door swung open after a few brisk knocks. A man with an unkempt beard and shaggy hair squinted at us.

"You Chuck Shurley?" I asked.

"The Chuck Shurley who wrote the Supernatural books?"

The man eyed us. "Maybe. Why?"

"I'm Dean. This is Ava. The Dean and Ava you've been writing about."

The door shut in my face. I groaned and pounded on it again. It creaked open.

"Look, uh... I appreciate your enthusiasm. Really, I do. It's, uh, it's always nice to hear from the fans. But, uh, for your own good, I strongly suggest you get a life." Chuck tried to shut the door again, but I put my arm in the way, stopping it.

"See, here's the thing. We have a life. You've been using it to write your books."

I pushed my way past him into the house, Ava following behind me.

"Now, wait a minute. Now, this isn't funny."

"That's the understatement of the year." Ava laughed dryly. "We just want to know how you're doing it."

"I'm not doing anything."

I turned to him. "Are you a hunter?"

"What? No. I'm a writer."

I raised my eyebrows, crossing my arms. "Then how do you know so much about demons?" I stepped closer to Chuck, causing him to fall backwards on the couch.

"What do you want?" He stumbled over his words.

"I'm Ava, and this is Dean. Sam isn't here, but he's real too."

Chuck shook his head. "Ava, Sam, and Dean are fictional characters. I made them up! They're not real!"

"The fuck we aren't," I said, grabbing him by his ratty T-shirt. "Get up."

We walked him to the Impala, and I popped the trunk, showing him our full Arsenal.

"Are those real guns?"

"Yup. This is real rock salt, these are real fake IDs," I explained.

"Well, I got to hand it to you guys. You really are my number one fans. That's, that's awesome. So, I...I think I've got some posters in the house."

"Chuck, stop," I said putting my hand up.

"Please. Wait. Please, don't hurt me," Chuck said cowering in front of me.

Ava laughed a bit and walked toward him. "How much do you know? Do you know about the angels? Or Lilith breaking the seals?"

Chuck looked at her in shock. "Wait a minute. How do you know about that?"

"No. The question is how do you."

"Because I wrote it?"

"Waits" Ava began. "You kept writing?"

"Yeah, even after the publisher went bankrupt, but those books never came out. Okay, wait a minute. This is some kind of joke, right? Did Phil put you up to this?"

I sighed and punched the bridge of my nose. "Well, nice to meet you. I'm Dean Winchester, and this is my wife, Ava."

"The last names were never in the books. I never told anybody about that. I never even wrote that down."

"Now you're getting it," Ava said with a forced smile.

Chuck looked weak, so we each took a side of him and took him back inside.

He sat in the sitting room, and poured himself a whiskey. "Well, there's only one explanation. Obviously I'm a god."

Ava laughed and shook her head. "Yeah, you are not a god."

"How else do you explain it? I write things and then they come to life. Yeah, no, I'm definitely a god. A cruel, cruel, capricious god. The things I put you through. The physical beatings alone."

I shrugged. "Yeah, we're still in one piece."

"I killed Ava in front of you. I killed your mother... both of your mothers. All for what? For entertainment?"

"You didn't create us, Chuck," I said gently. "You're not god."

"We think you're probably just psychic," Ava added.

"No. If I were psychic, you think I'd be writing? Writing is hard."

Ava sat next to him. "It seems that somehow, you're just... focused on our lives. On Sam and Deans."

"Yeah, like laser-focused. Are you working on anything right now?" I asked.

Chuck gasped, suddenly rising. "Holy crap."

"What?" Ava asked, watching him rifle through papers on his desk.

"The, uh, latest book? It's, uh, it's kind of weird. I uh, I wrote myself into it. I wrote myself, at my house... confronted by my characters."

Ava and I exchanged a look again. What the fuck is going on?

Ava took the papers from him.

"So... You wrote another chapter?" I asked.

"Dean," Ava said, scanning the pages with her eyes.

"What?"

"If this is real... it's... fuck it's bad."

"What is?" I asked, my eyebrows coming together.

"It's Lilith." Chuck said, meeting my eyes. "She's coming for Sam."

—————

Chapter Twenty-Six, The Winchester Way

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