#spooksville was just good | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rwprincess · 2 years

Text

Fluff Piece: Part One (Stranger Things Fred Benson x Fem!Reader)

Masterlist

Word Count: 2.3K

A/N: So, you might recall me complaining 'why isn't there any Fred content?' and like...I believe you should write the fic you wish to see in the world, so here it is. Also, I tagged folks who seemed to share the sentiment and are looking for Fred content.

Synopsis: You join Hawkins’ High’s Weekly Streak staff in order to save your grade, but you stick around because you find yourself falling for senior staff member and editor, Fred Benson.

CW: failing grades, slight anxiety and self-doubt/deprecation (next to Spooksville, this is probably the most wholesome thing I’ve written)

fluff piece

a news story or report which is unimportant, extra.

Your English teacher had roped you into working on the school newspaper, the Weekly Streak, for extra credit. A couple of chapters unread had led to a poor grade and she was always proselytizing the benefits of the newspaper, trying to recruit 'new blood,' usually to no avail. But you needed the boost to your GPA. You reasoned that at the very least, you could try it. And she had tried to sway you with some flattery by saying you could bring a 'new and unique voice' to the Tigers' publication. You figured that most of the people on staff had wanted to be here, that this was one of their interests and they were serious about it. You, however, could appeal to the average student with your views.

“So, what is it exactly I’ll be doing here? Am I writing articles or reviews, or--” you trailed off, not really sure of the scope of the school paper.

"Well, I wouldn't just throw you to the wolves!" Your teacher cackled, as if it were an absurd suggestion. She led you forward and indicated a boy with large glasses and sweater vest over perfectly crisp, ironed khakis. "No, I'll have you shadow one of our best, hardest working staff members, Fred Benson." It seemed like the guy had been volunteered for this task right now. He looked surprised and Mrs. Callahan was laying on the compliments thick, trying to butter him up and get him to agree.

You offered your hand forward to introduce yourself and he took it warily, but politely, and did the same. He eyed you up and down, unsure and possibly disappointed, it was hard to tell. "Well, I will leave you to it, I'm sure you'll show her the ropes!" your teacher encouraged as she turned to leave.

"Wait!" You called out to her, suddenly nervous. Maybe it was Fred's unwavering and serious gaze that made you feel like you were on fire, or maybe it was just the prospect of having to work to prove yourself to a stranger when neither of you seemed to really want you to be here. "You're not staying?" You asked, pleadingly and wide-eyed.

"Oh, no. I have a lot of essays to get through. But you're in good hands," she indicated Fred again and you glanced back up at his stone-serious expression. You had expected to do some articles and turn them in, but here you were being judged already, and by the look in his eyes, not lightly. As soon as your teacher had left, he rounded on you.

"What kind of experience do you have, exactly?" He asked, his withering stare making you feel like he could see right through you, as if he were some prophetic Greek god that could weigh and measure your internal worth, seeing all your faults and failings throughout the cosmos. You swallowed hard.

"I…I don't really know. She, I mean, Mrs. Callahan, just asked me to join and I thought, why not?" This was clearly not the answer he was looking for.

"You thought, 'why not'?" He punctuated every word dryly, tilting his head. "You really don't have a clue about the hard work and dedication it takes to run this paper, or to even contribute, do you?"

You gulped again, feeling small in his presence, which was ironic given his slight frame. "I guess not," you mumbled in return. There was a moment of palpable silence and it seemed as though he was waiting for you to fill it, so you continued, "but I'm willing to learn. I mean, I'd like to learn."

"Good," he replied in kind, "let's start by setting you up with the right materials, then." He took you to their stock-cupboard to gather notebooks and pens, then showed you about the working space and what items you would be using before whisking you away to your first assignment, to follow his lead and take notes for the interview he was conducting with one of the other club leaders.

As you reviewed your notes together to craft your article, Fred bluntly asked you, "Why did Mrs. Callahan ask you to join?"

"Honestly, I'm having doubts about it now but she said something about bringing a 'unique voice' to the paper?"

"And what do you get out of it?" His question caught you off-guard. What would be a 'normal' reason to join an extracurricular activity? "Usually people don't join our staff to see, 'why not.'" He echoed your term from earlier, but more in a mocking tone now.

"Look, I'll be straight with you. She offered me extra credit if I would join and submit some things. I've fallen a little behind lately and…I need it." You shrugged, shrinking further down in your seat, not wanting to be seen or even be present anymore. Fred scoffed in response.

"I can't believe her. She's always trying to get people to join but doesn't take one minute to think about the work that goes into this; not just anybody can do it, you know."

"I see that now," you acquiesced. "It's already way different than I expected."

"You know, you can just go."

"What?"

"I'll submit it under your name, you can get the credit, I can keep the paper how I like, everyone wins." It was an interesting proposition, and while it felt like disagreeing with him put more burden on both of you, you refused.

"No. I'm going to stick with this.Mrs. Callahan has her reasons to ask me to do this and even if I started to make up a grade, I want to stick with it. I want to earn it, okay? She put her trust in me and asked me to do something. I agreed, so I'm going to do it." He looked at you with that weighted gaze again, but somehow seemed to deem you worthy this time.

"All right then, let's get started."

In a matter of weeks, Fred had won you over. His serious demeanor often dropped and you found him making stupid jokes and off-the-wall puns. Sometimes it seemed they were just to make you smile. You no longer felt intimidated by him, though you still aimed to please. You took all of his notes and meticulously worked to become a better writer and reporter. Mostly, though, you found that you oddly wanted to be there because of Fred. Other staff members were nice, sure, and you liked being able to attend different activities to report on, to get out of your bubble, but your favorite moments were those when you and Fred would spend time together, secluded after hours where he'd roll his eyes at your suggestions that maybe the basketball could win a game or you would laugh at one of those idiotic word-plays he'd toss out and he'd smile at you with those perfectly-straightened teeth as you tenderly set a hand on his forearm, only to jerk it away half a second later to tuck in your lap as you looked away. Fred wasn't your usual type; he wasn't the kind to be in a heartthrob magazine and then have his picture tacked to your wall, anyway. But he was real. He was real and sincere and didn't seem to hold back whether his passion or criticism were brutally honest or not.

Meanwhile, Fred appreciated how studious you were, your eagerness to learn, although he never told you that. He had high expectations for all of his staff and eventually, you seemed to pass the test, too. While he lamented that there wasn't really 'hard-hitting news' to be had at Hawkins High, he always wanted each of you researching, digging. However, your supervising teacher insisted on some 'lighter fare,' and you once caught her arguing with Fred about it.

"This is exactly why I asked Y/N to join, so there could be a different perspective and something that isn't so serious."

"What, you want her to waste her work and her…her talent on some fluff piece?" He countered. You were astonished that Fred would challenge an adult in this manner, but also that he was standing up for you and thought you had 'talent.' Again, something he had never expressed to your face. You felt a tight squeeze in your chest and a familiar heat creep up your neck, its flushing pink betraying your internal thoughts. You were flattered in general, but a compliment from Fred, any attention from him these days, really, had you reeling.

"Yes. We need to be a well-rounded publication. I'd like to see something beyond pessimistic coverage of sports games and I'm sure our readers would, too." She left quickly after dealing that blow and you scrambled to make it look as though you hadn't heard the confrontation and busied yourself at a desk as she approached, "Y/N, I'd like you to work on some sort of slice-of-life article this week. Think of a topic and run it by the editor, please." She emphasized the word loudly so that Fred would know it was an assignment for the both of you. You dared to glance up at him in the doorway to the smaller office where they had had their spat. He had a cold gaze and red face directed at her back.

"Fred, I---" you started gently, treading lightly. His expression softened as he turned to you, the ire for Mrs. Callahan burning out almost immediately.

"Whatever topic you want to do is fine, I'm sure. Just…just go ahead." He walked away with balled fists, head hanging low in utter defeat. You were tempted to go after him but felt he would prefer to deal with this alone. The best thing you could do is get to work. Fred wordlessly submitted your work back to you a few days later. It wasn't marked up much, but you didn't take this as an inherently good sign. You approached him quietly as most of the other staff left on assignment or to go home. "Fred? There's not a lot of notes here. Does that mean you enjoyed it or?"

He gave a dry, humorless chuckle. "No, I didn't like it. It was just well-written. Not many mistakes. But it's a banal topic that I didn't really care to write about." His words stung you. You were used to his critiques by now, but they'd never so bluntly been 'I didn't like it' or have an air of 'you've wasted my time' before.

"Oh. Well, I could do something else, but I thought you said any topic would be fine."

"I did. And it was. It's fine. I'm sure it's what other people want to read, 'normal' people as our faculty advisor so kindly put it. She's made it clear that a bunch of nerds can't be the only ones contributing to the paper anymore. We need 'other voices'," this time he did sarcastic air quotes, "to appeal to a broader base. So, write whatever you want, I guess. That's the direction we're taking now."

His crestfallen expression nagged at you the most. This newspaper, while small and humble, was his baby. All of his great effort and care went into it, that much was plain from day one. That fire, that passion to always make it better and not settle for less just because it was some rinky-dink small Midwestern town's high school newspaper was one of the things you admired most about Fred. And now you were taking an active part in tearing that down, without even meaning to. "I'm sorry that that's what you feel like it's come to, I mean, I know how much you---I wish I knew how to fix this. I could talk to her, maybe? Get us back on track?"

"What for? This is what she wants and what she keeps pushing for. Besides, you don't have to be sorry. It's not like you wanted to do this, anyway. You're just here to make up assignments, right? Well, then you'd better do what she tells you to. Make the grade and then get out, while you still can. Feels like a sinking ship at this point."

"Fred, I---"

"No, really." Another humorless laugh rose and caught in his throat, "What's keeping you here anyway? You gave it a try, that's all you wanted out of it, right?"

"No, no, I like working here, I--"

"It's okay. You don't have to lie anymore," he cut you off and you returned his abrupt answer with a confused look. Lie about what? you thought, then he continued, "I think…I think I'm just gonna go home."

"What? But we're behind on the Chess Club piece and the preview interviews for the play."

"What does it matter anymore?" He shrugged and blinked away the wetness from his eyes before leaving the office, looking utterly heartbroken.

You stewed on possibilities to even try to cheer him up, to work on something that would satisfy Mrs. Callahan and also be good enough for Fred, but you kept coming up short. You let yourself get caught in the fatalistic spiral and found yourself thinking, 'well, if it's all coming to an end anyway, why not be risky? Why not tell him how you feel?' It was always a horrifying proposition before; You'd get tongue-tied trying to admit any hint of your feelings towards Fred, save the random compliments you had blurted out and then instantly regretted. But, you might not be working with him much longer, and then when would you have the chance? Alternatively, you could just write it, you were much better at that than speaking, anyway. A smile crept on your face as you decided to be both bold and sneaky at the same time: 'I'll give him a Fluff Piece.' It seemed like a ridiculously easy solution to all your previous pondering, so you began drafting, How To Tell If She's Really Into You, and laced it with your own real emotions, hoping he would read between the lines and see the parallels between your article and your interactions.

Tags:

@waiting-to-stop-fixating @firey-phoenixs @slut4boomerang @schoolrumor @detectivereadera @foggyparadisekryptonite @davemillersbiggestfan

#stranger things 4 #stranger things #no spoilers #fred benson stranger things #fred benson #fred benson x reader #fred benson x fem!reader #look at that wholly adorable baby boi. how could you not love himmm?

74 notes · View notes

ironicsopsychotic · 2 years

Note

First Line Tag Game! Rules: List the first lines of the last ten stories you published (or works in progress if you’re feeling brave lol). Look to see any patterns you notice yourself, and see if anyone else notices any!

okay imma thank you first (i love this game omg) and say that i WANTED to be ambitious and do both published fics and wips, but i started on wips first and this is long af. so here we are. over half are hoa fics but i threw in some random oneshots for other fandoms.

[10 WORKS IN PROGRESS]

#1 the hard part (hoa; 03. in neddie au series)

Two days. Two days after Amber gave the breakup news, two days of incredibly uncomfortable Sibuna meetings, two days of Eddie blatantly lying to himself that ending their whole tryst wasn't a big deal. Two days of all of that, and then Nina sent him to the clearing in the woods for a solo mission but showed up five minutes after he did.

Two days, and she told him that waiting for things to cool down wasn't cutting it for her. He took in her words slowly, but he took them in, and he took in the meeting place, and then he took her in.

#2 golden opportunity (hoa; jeroy college au)

It's the day after sophomore finals week ends and Joy honestly has to wonder how the fuck Mick convinced everyone to go out drinking in celebration. Drinking itself is fine; drinking with Mick at the helm is a lot like trying to swim upstream without a paddle. No good could possibly come from it.

#3 i summoned you (hoa; nina&eddie time loop s2 finale au)

Nina doesn't remember events normally when Senkhara's using her.

The mask is like a film over her eyes, everything distorted just enough that she doesn't feel like herself. She knows what she's doing when she pushes the mask into her skin, but the moments after shift into slow motion, a nightmare she can't stop.

#4 the hookup (hoa; jamber college au)

Try as he might, Jerome Clarke could not, with whatever remnants of a conscience he had left, claim he didn't know who she was.

#5 definition of an extended play (btr; kucy college soulmate au)

The first time he met Lucy Stone, he figured some part of his soul just knew, even without the mark.

His head's the one that has some catching up to do.

#6 exile (good witch; nace post-s5 finale)

Smiling up at her onstage giving her graduation speech is the very least he can do. He can smile, and clap, and even cheer like all the cheesy coming-of-age movies she'd made him watch over the years.

What he can't do is gather her up in his arms afterward. He can't press a kiss to her temple, congratulating her with words but also with every single love language there is. He can't hold her hand as they all go out to eat before heading back to Grey House for their joint grad party. He can't look her in the eyes and revel in the fact that she knows everything he's feeling, and that she feels it too.

He can't do any of that, so he smiles and hopes it's enough to tide him over.

It isn't.

#7 new place, same feeling (supah ninajs; amanda/flint post-s2)

Spending the summer away from Empire City and the dojo was kind of fucking with her.

#8 road trip to your heart (spooksville; adally +watch road trip)

It starts like this:

road trip. u me and watch.

be seen in public w you? oh hell nah

i'm serious

so am i ;)

adam.

senior year.

senior prom.

you need an opportunity to step up your game before you ask me to it, and i'm more than happy to give you that chance.

#9 it's a wedding, not the end of the world (hoa; after anubis series, jeroy wedding)

kindly join us for

the wedding of

JEROME CLARKE & JOY MERCER

5:00pm | July 31st | Calderstone Park: Ornamental Garden

~lil skip ahead of a joy, patricia, willow, & kt group chat~

[willow] you don't have to worry about a thing, joy!

this'll be the best wedding ever!

[kt] agreed! :)

[patricia] sit back and relax, we've got this

five months later...

"Holy shit, we don't got this."

Alfie kept his face smushed on the outside of the leaning cake box and breathed out harshly. "A little HELP??"

#10 in more ways than one (hoa; neddie s2 soulmate au)

Nina spent the morning after Senkhara marked Amber feeling braindead and searching for long socks.

She felt helpless. She couldn't help getting marked herself; she barely cared about that anymore. Besides Victor seeing it and the occasional burn, it wasn't too bad. Sometimes she could even pretend this was just another fun mystery like the beginning of the previous year. But then Fabian lied to her, he got a mark himself, and she realized that, yet again, she couldn't protect anyone. She couldn't even protect herself against Rufus in their final showdown--Jerome had thrown the flies.

so the trend i'm seeing here is i like starting w a (hopefully) intriguing hook, usually just one line. i try to make it at least a little ominous yet simultaneously all-encompassing of what the fic's about. but i already kinda knew that, so lemme know if you see any other trends? and if you wanna do this game, i tag you! :)

14 notes · View notes

unsaid-stardust · 4 years

Text

So I finally started watching legacies the other day even tho I’ve never continued watching the vampire diaries but I absolutely LOVE legacies. It’s like Spooksville but much much darker and I’m actually ok with it. Ajkjf

What’s especially good about this show is that there were many many characters I didn’t like in the beginning, Hope, Lizzie, Kaleb, etc, but now I love mostly all the characters and that’s when you know a show has well written characters.

ANYWAY I’m alreayd halfway through season two and I just want Landon and hope back together—is it too much to ask?!?!

#that’s that on that #legacies #legacies season one

8 notes · View notes

lunaraen · 5 years

Text

I figure a number of the people following me probably do because of a shared interest in Minecraft: Story Mode, and I’m absolutely going to take the time to gush and recommend a different series with a similar sense of humor and ability to balance the jokes with emotion. I know some of the people who follow me are also interested in series like Percy Jackson and Trollhunters, and I think The Last Kids on Earth series is on a similar level to them too, in the sense that it deals with stories about awesome and terrifying adventures featuring teenagers who are just doing their best and who haven’t lost their senses of humor. The Last Kids on Earth also has the benefit of, while being presented mainly through text, having many fun illustrations.

TL;DR: The Last Kids on Earth, written by Max Brallier and illustrated by Douglas Holgate, is a delightfully fun book series that twists what you might expect from a post-apocalyptic story with a just as fun Netflix mini-series adaptation, and while only Book One is up on Netflix now, it’s an hour and seven minute long episode. The series seems to be decently stocked in most libraries, including electronically, so if you’re looking for something fun, silly, and with heart to read, I definitely suggest at least checking out book one. If you want something fun, silly, and with heart to watch, and you also happen to have Netflix, I also definitely recommend watching Book One.

(Oh, and are you a total sucker for found families like I am? This series has you covered.)

More details about the first book and examples of the art and writing under the cut!

For starters, the series has a wonderfully fun art style, and the cover for the first book lets that shine. The other books’ covers are all fun too, but I think tumblr would kill this post many times over if I tried to include them all.

[ID: Illustrated cover, four defiant teenagers stand in a mostly circular formation while grey zombie-like figures with glowing yellow eyes surround them from behind. Each teenager is wielding a weapon, some of which are partly concealed and harder to identify. The character centered at the front holds a splintered and sharp baseball bat and is wearing nondescript pouches. The teenager behind him wields a crossbow with a modified soda-bottle-arrow loaded in it. The title reads “The Last Kids on Earth” in stylized green text with a dark blue border, while in smaller less stylized white text it reads “Max Brallier Author of Galactic Hot Dogs” at the top and “Illustrated by Douglas Holgate” at the bottom.]

The main character of the series, who we meet forty two days after the start of the apocalypse in his town and the Possible End of the World as We Know It™, is Jack Sullivan, a 13 year old whose foster family kinda-sorta-entirely ditched him at the first signs of trouble.

[ID: A white, black haired teenager frowning and holding a splintered baseball bat and a hockey stick while one foot rests on top of an unusual spiny reptilian-like monster head. The text above him reads in black “JACK SULLIVAN -The Hero-” while a number of flavor-text text boxes point out and describe different aspects of his apparel. One pointing to his hand reads “Annoying hand-nail I can’t stop picking at”. Another pointing at his bat says “Louisville Slicer™”. Another for his shoe, reading “Worst. Shoes. Ever.”. The hockey stick is labelled “Hockey Stick, for conking zombie heads.” The pouch at his side are described as “Emergency Peanut M&M Pouch”, while the filled water balloons also hanging at his side are labeled as “Grapefruit juice hand grenades- a blast to the eyes blinds almost anything.”]

He’s our narrator, and he copes largely through humor- a skill he needs even before the start of the apocalypse, because he’ll put himself in danger and say things he shouldn’t if it means sticking up for his best friend.

[ID: Text that reads “I felt Quint’s hand on my shirt, trying to stop me, saying ‘Jack, it’s fine...’ But it wasn’t fine. I hate jerks- whether they’re monster jerks or zombie jerks or just regular human jerks.”

Followed by illustration of characters on bus, Jack turned around in his seat and supporting himself with the back of his chair as he asks “Hey, Dirk, why don’t you pick on someone your own size, huh?” Quint, a black teenager, is sitting behind him and is partly obscured, staring at Jack and Dirk. Dirk, a large, tall white teenager with a mullet/mohawk, is a distance away from the characters and in the foreground of the image, and replies, “Find someone my size and I will.”

Text resumes, reading “I shrugged. ‘I’m sure we can find someone your size. Right, Quint?’ Quint looked out the window and closed his eye and started humming to himself, like he wasn’t involved in this. Sonofa... I turned back to Dirk. ‘Maybe a very rotund panda bear? That might be closer to your impressive figure.’ Dirk reached out and grabbed me by the collar. ‘Hey, Watch the jacket,’ I said. ‘It’s a five-time-hand-me-down. Might even be an antique.’ Dirk growled, ‘You think you’re funny?’ ‘I do. But to be fair, I also think people slipping on ice are funny. And guys getting hit in the groin. My sense of humor isn’t exactly sophisticated.’”]

From the start of the book, Jack handles the apocalypse pretty well, spending his time cataloging the monsters he comes across, keeping track of self made video-game like achievements like knocking off zombie hats, and we first find him focused on trying to get in touch with his previously mentioned best friend, Quint Baker.

[ID: Similar to previous flavor-text text box picture of Jack, with a black teenager smiling, wearing a lab coat and cap, holding a pocket watch, and wearing a large backpack with odd looking technology sticking out of it. In black, the text above him reads “QUINT BAKER -The Best Friend-”. A box pointing to his hat reads “Old-man cap.” Another points to his hair, reading “Hair smells like movie theater popcorn butter.” The pocket watch is described as “Pocket watch for looking dorky.” The text pointing at the technology sticking out of the backpack says “Always working on a new gadget or experiment.” The text for the lab coat reads “Wears a lab coat as a jacket for no good reason.” His sneaker is labelled with “Non-athlete’s foot.”]

Actually- to give you an even better idea of the series’ humor, this is pretty much where we start with Jack, followed by him explaining what he’s been doing and how he got here.

[ID: Jack in mid-air, the bat raised above his head and his legs bent to suggest he has leaped forward, above a large multi-eyed spiny monster that has many sharp teeth, two large tusks, and a long drooling tongue. In black, text above the creature reads “Deadly Duel!” In the lower right-hand corner, all-caps white text in a small black box asks “Who will triumph?!”]

(By the by, the “duel” kind of goes the way you think it would.)

[ID: Text reading “Well, basically, he triumphs. The monster’s massive hand snatches me out of midair. I’m a thimble in his gargantuan grasp. I try to grab hold of my baseball bat blade (aka the Louisville Slicer) but the monster’s crushing grip pins my arms to my sides. He pulls me in close to his face. Thick saliva, like slime, oozes down his lips. His eyes scan me over and his gaping nostrils flair as he inhales my scent. I feel like that blonde babe in King Kong. Only I don’t think this beast wants to hug me and love me... He sniffs some more, blowing my hair back as he exhales. I turn my face. His breath, it’s just- wow- my man here needs to floss. I’ve encountered other freaky beasts over the last forty-two days, but none like this. None that examined me: looking me over, smelling me, studying me.”]

Then we get all the fun backstory end of the world stuff.

[ID: White all-caps text at the top reads “Total monster zombie chaos” while below a large multi-armed, spiny, sharp-toothed, furry monster towers over a sea of zombies, flinging one car in the air as another car sits in the background.]

The end of the world monsters include everything from weird unfamiliar creatures like the one above to more familiar weird creatures like the typical zombie below.

[ID: A zombie in ripped clothing, with black text at the top labeling it a “Classic Zombie”. A speech bubble from it in shaky text reads “Mmuhhh...” and various flavor-text text boxes surround it. The speech-bubble is labeled as “Constant, creepy moaning.” The head’s text box reads “Those empty eyes- they’re spooksville.” The mouth is pointed at and its box says “Bite you and you’re one of them. Undead!” One pointing at its back warns “Stink like hot garbage.” The feet are described as “Slow, until they get close- then fast!”]

And for all the wisecracks and jokes about how well he can handle the new apocalyptic world, early on Jack is shown to be more than just a 2-D smart-mouthing teenage protagonist. He’s pretty good at coping, but he’s still 13.

[ID: Illustration above text, showing a walkietalkie shattering as it hits a rock. Black all-caps text reads “Smash!”

Normal text reads “I stared at the walkie on the ground below. I needed to talk to Quint, but -I’m embarrassed to admit- I was too scared to go down there. Too freaked out. Too scared. Too everything. So I curled up on the floor. I pulled a jacket down over me. I put my earphones in to drown out the sounds of chaos outside. And I slept. I slept for days. It got worse. Zombies everywhere. Giant monsters on the horizon. I blacked out the tree house windows and stayed put.”]

Jack doesn’t stay alone for long, though, and the first book follows him and his friends as they help each other not only survive their crazy new world but also live in it, and maybe actually have some fun along the way. While the first book largely focuses on the group coming together, later stories ramp up the scope of adventures and the threats they face while letting the characters’ interactions and care for each other shine. There’s fun development to be had and cool monster-butt to kick.

(This was my first time writing image descriptions- if you think they can be improved, let me know!)

#The Last Kids on Earth #Last Kids on Earth

78 notes · View notes

brightbeautifulthings · 5 years

Text

Spooksville: The Deadly Past by Christopher Pike

"'Bum told you that Spooksville is the last remaining bit of Lemuria, and that is true. But the ancient war between the two great continents was only a reflection of a greater war that was happening in the stars. In fact, that war continues to this day, and some of whom you call aliens want the earth to survive and others do not.'"

Year Read: 2020

Rating: 3/5

About: When Adam and his friends are hiking in the hills around Spooksville, they're horrified to discover a dinosaur on their trail that's determined to make a meal out of them. Prehistoric lizards are attacking Spooksville, and they're almost certain that active volcano wasn't a part of their mountain range yesterday... They have to scramble to save the town and close the rip in spacetime before Spooksville is destroyed. Trigger warnings: injury, blood.

Thoughts: I grew up on Jurassic Park and my dad and I share a love for dinosaurs and mega-monsters of all kinds, so I was pretty excited about The Deadly Past. There's an extremely cool pterodactyl right on the cover! And, indeed, the novel starts out strong with a totally unprecedented pterodactyl attack while the kids are hiking in the hills. Even in Spooksville, dinosaurs are pretty strange, and the fight is frightening and suspenseful as they realize there aren't really any good weapons for fighting off a prehistoric monster. If it wasn’t a middlegrade book, I would have worried more about all of them making it out alive.

I wish Pike would have just stuck with the dinosaur angle, but it gets sillier after that. I mean, sure, it's part of a larger plot and Pike is good at mixing genres, but aliens are a use-sparingly plot device that has already been used too often in this series. There's no reason a book that already has dinosaurs in it also needs aliens. Isn't that essentially Occam's Razor, at least applied in a literary sense? We've already made one metaphysical commitment in this book; adding another is asking quite a lot of readers' willingness to believe. Philosophical digressions aside, I do like that Ann Templeton appears again and hints that the crew is being set up for a bigger destiny. The series would benefit a lot from having a stronger over-arching plot. (Also, I'm with Adam on Bryce Poole. I don't trust that guy.)

#book review #spooksville #the deadly past #spooksville: the deadly past #christopher pike #middle grade #middle grade science fiction #3/5 #rating: 3/5 #2020

2 notes · View notes

lorewytch · 5 years

Note

writer questionnaire: 👀 🤲 and 🧠

👀 When writing, what do you find yourself focusing to convey? Imagery? Banter? Emotions? Actions? I think now its emotions mostly. All I used to care about was telling a story. Maybe focusing more on the lesson learned or showing others things I went through and letting them know that there’s still hope? Now though I focus mostly on emotions rather than the lesson learned. I’d rather not sound like a after school special lol. Characters emotions and the events that change them is really what I strive for. If I can make my audience FEEL then that’s important to me. Too many times I have read or watched something and felt nothing. That emptiness left me feeling annoyed and one of the reasons I stopped writing is because I stopped feeling. While morals and lessons are important still to me. I feel like more than anything emotions is what is driving me now. 🤲 Are there any authors who inspire your prose or influence how you write? Or are you an uncultured swine who has never picked up a book before?

LOL I love that last part of this question. Well yes and no. My writing is mostly influenced by the quirkiness of TV but I must admit, my fascination with Fantasy first started with books. I’ve read A LOT in my time Let;s see if I can remember at least a few. Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce. (This is a story about a girl who can talk to animals and is gifted with the ability of wild magic. Her stories always had strong female characters and I loved the journeys these girls went on) Spooksville Series by Christopher Pike (I used a LOT of the plots and story ideas from these books for some of my writing) Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison ( Some humor from this series has trickled over into my writing I must admit) Masks By E.C Blake (This one is actually really good. I loved the creative plot and it was the first thing I read in a long time after a dry spell. I still have to finish the third in this series. This helped inspire me to write again) I’ve also gotten a lot of ideas from Manga. But thats a whole new can of worms XD

🧠 How do you deal with writer’s block? Hmmm “deal” isn’t so much the right word as fight viciously tooth and nail because “I don’t have time for this!” (Bangs head against wall) Usually I have to step away. I try to do something else for a while. I have a ton to do so its pretty easy to lose myself in something else for a while then realize....I should write.. Oh look its one A.M. A lot of what I’ve been told is just to write even in writers block. Sometimes I just stare at the blank pages and wish them to write themselves. I’m finding though that going out, into nature helps. I just take a walk through my little forest backyard or go to the beach to find sea glass... it all helps a little at a time. Keeping myself locked up does nothing. My friends have said I should meditate but I can’t seem to keep my mind quiet XD. Another idea I do sometimes is I write something else. Sometimes I can’t write because something else is invading my mind so intensely I need to write that instead and I get writers block for a certain fanfic/story. But also RPing does help a LOT for me. It helps the creative juice flow and I honestly get super excited about Rping. It’s kinda like a second home for me.

1 note · View note

cha-eunwoow · 7 years

Text

I was tagged by my Jenny girl( @dalkkong)(am I allowed to call you that tell me if you do not like it!) 💕 ILY💕

Hmmm I don’t know what to call this so let’s call it the Cute and Quick 6 question tag!

And let me just apologze now for tagging so many people on tag posts in a day! I alwaus love to hear you guy’s answers and I try to do tag posts all at once when i have time and i do my best to spread out my tagging so i can get to know everybody ^-^

I tag my loves💕: @moonbinandback @beyourstar @jinjinwooz @jinwoowoohoo @jinjins-freckles @leedongmlns @astros-turf

1. You’re given one chance to have tea/coffee with a celebrity. Who do you choose?

Kehinde Wiley! I do not think they are concidered a celeberity but they are a super influential painter right now and their work is so freaking important to me.

Or! Maya Angelou before she passed away it was my dream to meet her and talk to her!

(Oh and Jen didn’t Christopher Pike write the Spooksville books? or am i thinking of somebody else?)

2. What would you do if you had a million dollars?

I would probably use it to help my mom! Definitely use it for mine and my brother’s college, like no question about that.

3. Are there any years in your life you would like to do over?

I would redo the senior year of my high school over, and probably take a step back and reconsider my decisions for Uni maybe..?

4. What’s your favourite dessert?

Fun fact I do not like chocolate too much! lol But I can eat a brownie or an oreo or a chocolate chip cookie, but if you ask me to eat like a chocolate bar or a Hershey’s kiss I will look at you like you have lost your mind. Idk i am a pretty basic and boring person when it comes to these things, I like almost anything Vanilla, other types of cakes i like are coconut, caramel, and lemon. I also have a love of doughnuts lol. I am more of a candy person in all honestly lol

5. What’s your cure for a hangover?

Lol I don’t drink! I live in the US so I am too young(I know that does not stop so many people but still), but I also do not want to drink for personal reasons! ^-^

6. What’s your favourite kpop album and why?

I FREAKING LOVE SUNRISE SO MUCH OH MY GOD AND MOONRISE IS BEAUTIFUL I CRIED LISTENING TO THEM DAY6 IS JUST SO GOOD I SCREAM(did i just expose myself?). I love pop rock/rock, pop punk, and alternative music, like I do not think I have talked about it on here but aside from k-pop I love bands like Green Day, All Time Low, Paramore, Mayday Parade, You Me At Six,, you get the picture lol. Day6 had that high quality multidimensional sound that I love from artists while they still stay themselves(compare the styles of any one or two songs between these albums or one one of them(ex: I’ll wait to Be Lazy). And like I jkashakjfjsrgASKLASJKF I am trying not to like scream in excitement in my room talking about this. I love rock music I get the same excited feeling listening to them that I got when i first discovered All Time Low. Idk that type of music always has had a very special place in my heart.

Dream pt.1, Dream pt. 2, or Winter Dream! I do not want to put an order on this but I love these three because I love the growth and development from these albums. And I love the growth and change that comes from these albums while Astro stays true to their refreshing sound. Like these albums all give me a warm and fuzzy feeling and always perk up my moon and will have me smiling seconds into the song.

Thank you so much for the tag again! this was super duper fun! 💕

#.#tag games #I although worry you guys will find out how boring i am if i keep doing these lol #crazy sexy queue

21 notes · View notes

ayearofpike · 5 years

Text

Witch World/Red Queen

Witch World

Simon Pulse, 2012 521 pages, 24 chapters + epilogue ISBN 978-1-4424-3028-0 LOC: PZ7.P626 Wi 2012 OCLC: 924501501 Released November 13, 2012 (per B&N)

(HELL YES I DID take this picture in Vegas. Way back in November, underscoring just how behind this entry is.)

Red Queen

Simon Pulse, 2014 ISBN 978-1-4424-3029-7 LOC: PZ7.P626 Rd 2014 OCLC: 1030042441 Released August 19, 2014 (per B&N)

First I have to address the immediate question: It’s the exact same book. Like, down to pagination. (Yes, I read them both. We’ve already established I’m kind of a freak.) I don’t know why it has two different sets of catalog information. I don’t know why they changed the title, but I will hazard a guess that Witch World is a shitty title and it took slow or lacking sales for S&S to convince Pike/Pike to convince S&S to change it. I don’t know why they then picked a title that would be coming out shortly from another publisher, one that would go on to create a much more robust universe and move enough units to muddy any kind of search query. I don’t even really know why I bought them both. I don’t know a lot of things, and I’m not quite masochist enough to find out.

What I do know? This book is more of the same old shit. Like, OK, most people aren’t going to read all 95 of Christopher Pike’s books right on top of each other, so the connections and relationships might slide. But if you do, you start to see that this dude actually has no new or original ideas after ... let’s generously call it 1996. The beautiful girl in the California town in the middle of nowhere who goes on a weekend party outing with her friends, but then meets a dude with mysterious powers and ends up in a fatal situation, only to realize that she’s survived death and now has strength and vision beyond her prior ability or even imagination? A vision that taps her into an alternate parallel universe, where she’s had a child who has the potential to be the most powerful human ever, only evil forces know about this child’s genetics and want to use her for their own selfish and horrific ends? This is The Grave, gang. Well, mostly The Grave, with some Sita and Alosha and, yes, even Spooksville sprinkled in for flavor. But the point is, we’ve seen all of it already.

Pike has previously said that he felt rushed toward the end of his previous S&S days, and that he didn’t put everything he had into the stories he wrote because of being pulled in multiple directions. That’s fair, and it makes sense that he’d want to come back to something he felt wasn’t as good as it could be, something that didn’t get enough care and attention, and make it better. So it’s a little frustrating that this is what we get. Don’t get me wrong, it’s got a lot of potential, but then again, so did The Grave. I can’t help but feel like Pike is still just trying to figure out what has sold, what has been attractive to people who read his books and others like them, and is retreading so much old ground that it’s starting to become flat and uninteresting. (Which might be part of my reticence to finish this project.)

One thing that’s new and notable about WW/RQ: it marks the placement of Pike’s first YA F-bomb. He’s been using “damn,” “hell,” and “bitch” since the beginning, and starting with EoI (eliding maybe one or two in Whisper of Death) he began liberally (not literally, mind) dropping “shit.” But “fuck” has been sacred, hallowed ground, off limits in any but his adult novels, never mind that this is pretty much what all of his characters want to do all the time. So imagine my profound shock when I picked this book up right around its release date* and encountered the word “unfuckable” on page 18. A sign of the times, yes, and of what was becoming permissible in YA, but to someone who had grown up with Pike and expected a certain voice and stance, this felt kind of wrong and out of place. Much like my opinion of Pike in the 21st century in general.

*This was another random club store find in a rural town in southern New Mexico. I don’t know why the store where I mostly bought diapers was getting Pike in hardback on or near release when nobody else even knew these books were available, and can’t imagine I’ll ever find out.

OK, summary time. Jessie Ralle has just graduated from high school and her entire senior class is going to Las Vegas to celebrate. Said entire class is like 200 people — so not only does Pike still not get what a small town is, but he demonstrates increasing disconnect from how young people actually act. Vegas is a two-hour drive from Apple Valley, California (where Jessie’s mom relocated them after her Hollywood doctor dad bailed on them for a hot young nurse, and also where none of this takes place). I barely even wanted to drive across town to my senior party, to say nothing of paying for a hotel and a fancy dinner with a massive group that I barely know. And that was before the Internet and streaming media allowed us to prune and curate what (and who) we interact with so ruthlessly. Like, if this was a class of 40, I’d be on board, but 200?

But apparently it’s a close-knit 200 people, even though we only ever meet like six of ‘em. Jessie’s riding in a car with four others: her best friend since childhood, the uptight salutatorian, the class nerd who of course has always had a crush on Jessie, and Jimmy. Jessie has loved Jimmy from afar since the beginning of high school, and from up close for a couple of months this past winter, but he dumped her to go back to his previous girlfriend, who graduated early and hasn’t been seen around town since. That doesn’t mean Jessie is over him — far from it, actually — so this car ride is either going to work out in her favor or be super awkward and uncomfortable.

They get a three-bedroom suite at the MGM Grand for $150 over a weekend somehow. It is all I can do to suspend my disbelief. Like, I’ve been to Vegas (obviously; see top image). Pike obviously has too; his description of spatial mechanics is (mostly) on point, which is what makes this price thing so jarring. I’ve been responsible for booking hotel rooms there off and on for the last 20 years. And the one time we ever got a suite, it was almost twice that PER NIGHT and still only had one bedroom. (We split it six ways, and we all HAD jobs.) And this was in the beat-ass old Luxor in September 2006. Ain’t no way these fucking CHILDREN managed a SUITE in a PREMIER CENTER STRIP HOTEL SIX YEARS LATER FOR LESS. And Jessie has the gall to fucking COMPLAIN ABOUT THE COST.

I MUST STOP YELLING. I am so a dad, right?

But anyway, Jimmy doesn’t have a room — he wasn’t even sure he was coming on this trip. Jessie’s best friend offers for him to stay with them, which Uptight Salutatorian bitches about, but like, chill the fuck out, there’s a couch, right? He and Jessie have to talk about whether this is OK, and it turns out he left her because his ex was pregnant, but the baby died just after he was born. And Jessie isn’t OK. They’d been together long enough that this smacks of either an excuse or a manipulation, and she doesn’t like either option. She kicks him out and cries a lot, and then the gang all goes to dinner at the Bellagio, which is where this starts to get financially realistic when half the class balks at the cost of the meal and fucking bails. Yet the restaurant serves the rest, even giving these (again) CHILDREN bottles of wine, which messes Jessie up enough to kiss Nerd Crush. In front of Uptight Salutatorian, who (it turns out) likes HIM. So everyone gets pissed off at each other and takes off, and then Jessie and Best Friend go see O (the Cirque show inside the Bellagio).

It’s page 35, by the way. Almost 500 to go yet. At least from here the story gets more focused and straightforward.

After the show, they want to gamble. CHILDREN. But they have fake IDs, so they head down to the Tropicana, an older hotel with lower minimums on blackjack, where they bump into a dude who seems strangely familiar to Jessie, even though she’s sure she never met him before. This dude is in town for a medical conference ... Jessie will later learn about his genome-scanning technology and what it implies for people like her, but she’s gonna have to figure it out first. He has an uncanny ability to win, and people start asking him for advice, but he denies them all. Except Jessie. They quickly pile up hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is where she’s hosed because they’ll never let her cash out that much with a fake ID. So the dude gives her his room key (not at this old-ass dirtball hotel, at the Mandalay Bay across the street) and says he’ll get her money and bring it up in a minute, and she should order some dessert from room service while she’s waiting.

No, they don’t fuck. They almost do, but then Jessie remembers Jimmy and realizes she’s still hung up on him, even though he wronged her and left her hanging. But she learns that the dude will cop to some unnatural method of knowing what’s coming next in the deck, which is why he managed to bet properly at the right times. He doesn’t show her, but he does teach her how to play twenty-two. Not twenty-one, which is blackjack: in twenty-two, aces are only worth one, but red queens are eleven. And if you get a natural twenty-two (queen of hearts and queen of diamonds), you win instantly, PLUS your opponent HAS to try to win their bet back in full on the next hand. The dude doesn’t state why these are the strict rules, but he does imply that a portion of the winnings goes to some mysterious party that doesn’t come clear yet.

So Jessie goes back to the hotel, where Jimmy is sitting on the floor outside. He’s been sexiled from the nerd’s room, because it turns out he was OK going after Uptight Salutatorian (who I guess isn’t so uptight after all). And he’s crying and he’s apologetic, and this coupled with Jessie’s realization in Mystery Gambler’s room is all it takes for her to accept him back. They have breakfast with everyone the next day (room service, more invisible money spent) and then Jessie and Jimmy drive out to Lake Mead to splash and swim and sex. But what’s weird is that it reminds them both of the first time ... which neither of them remembers the same way. Even more awkward is the ex showing up with a warning: “They never take just one, Jessie. They always take both.” (102)

This doesn’t make any sense, right? Well, Mystery Gambler has planted a seed that things might get confusing pretty quick, and invited Jessie to talk to him about it. So she hops in a cab back to his hotel, except the cab takes her out to a creepy industrial area instead. When it finally stops at a stop sign, she bolts, only she doesn’t know where she is now. Luckily, a beautiful woman in a red Porsche pulls up at that exact moment and offers to give her a ride. Which ... aren’t you even the slightest bit concerned that a strange car brought you out here and now another strange car has just pulled up right when you needed it? Obviously not, which is what leads to her getting tased and waking up in a meat freezer, where the safety ax is of course missing. She wrestles with the door and some meat-hanging apparatus for a while, but can’t get it open and ends up spraining her ankle in the process. And even though it’s dangerous to sit, to slow down, to stop moving in this freezer, Jessie can’t help herself.

She wakes up in a hospital. Only this room doesn’t look or feel like a typical hospital room. Plus, she can’t move. She can’t even blink. She’s briefly relieved when two doctors come in, but that goes away when she realizes they’re here to perform the autopsy. The senior doctor gets called out, which is all the other guy needs to start satiating his necrophilia all over Jessie’s corpse. He’s pretty shocked when Jessie suddenly sits bolt upright and curses him out — enough that he has himself a nice little heart attack right there in the morgue. The other doctor comes back, and she seems to know what happened, and is also weirdly thrilled by the guy’s obvious pain? But she leaves without taking any action, and Jessie sees this as her chance to get out of Dodge.

The hospital is downtown, which is a long way from the MGM Grand but at least it’s an obvious straight shot on Las Vegas Boulevard. Only Jessie doesn’t recognize some of these north-end casinos. She goes inside one to get her bearings and is quickly accosted by three punks, who she casually injures like it’s no thing. What’s even stranger is how quickly they back off and the degree of respect they suddenly accord her. And even stranger than that is that the blackjack tables don’t say “blackjack.”

You guessed it. People in Las Vegas are playing red queen.

So now she has to talk to Mystery Gambler more than ever. She walks all the way to the Mandalay Bay, because fuck a taxi anymore, right? Only it’s called the Mandy, and his room on the top floor is now one floor lower than it used to be. But as it turns out, he does have some answers. He first tells Jessie the truth of why he's in Vegas: his whole medical conference story is just a front. There is some basis in reality, in that his group has identified certain genes that, when awakened, enable essentially superpowers. His genetic sensor identified that Jessie has seven of these genes — but he already knew that. He seems to know a creepy amount for some rando she just met. And also, he keeps calling her Jessica, and she realizes she's using a longer version of his name too, reflexively, even though he never called himself that in their interactions.

This, plus the hotels and the casino game and the fact that, y'know, she woke up on a fucking MORGUE TABLE a few hours ago help Jessie to realize the truth of her situation. With a little guided meditation, which helps her to remember things that never actually happened to her, she learns that there are two simultaneous dimensions happening on Earth, we live two lives in parallel, and the extra genes (when activated) allow people to experience both. These people, historically, are who we think of as witches, so for lack of a better term this second dimension is colloquially called witch world. Like, super lazy writing, right? I guess Pike blew his load inventing names for shit in Alosha and couldn't be arsed to consider that maybe twelve thousand years of connected humans might have named something themselves. (Yeah, I said twelve thousand years. Back at it again with the same timeline.)

But one of those things Jessie remembered is having a baby. This is where her father (remember, the dude who bailed on Jessie and her mom) suddenly shows up. We learn that he left (in the “real” world, not in witch world where he’s still present in her life) because he realized the importance of Jessie and her fate, and hoped that his absence would protect both her and the baby to come. (He has the "seeing-the-future" gene, I guess?) According to Dad, this baby is potentially the most important person in the history of both worlds, because she's the only one to have ever been born with all ten extra genes. It's also a weird connection, because this is the only occasion that anybody knows of where a child has been born to different parents in the two worlds. (The kid is an entirely different person because of that, so that's weird too.) But, just like the boyfriend's ex-girlfriend warned, "they" have taken both.

"They" turn out to be a cadre of witches who want to use their powers to elevate themselves rather than ... well, it's never really made super clear what the "good" witches do. Like ... hang out and be immortal? Oh yeah, I didn't mention that once you're awakened you can't die of natural causes. I guess the dad says that sometimes they'll interfere when shit is really going sideways, but for the most part they want regular humans to regulate their own affairs. It's the Telar again! Only, no, wait, they call themselves the "Tar" in this book so it's obviously totally different. And yeah, both babies have been taken; they let the boyfriend think his son died in infancy so that he'd eventually be a lever to manipulate Jessie when he realized he had two living children. But it sounds like the daughter is already causing trouble for her kidnappers, without even being aware of her ten genes, which ...

I don't know, it doesn't make any sense now that I'm writing about it. Like, I'm cool with the parallel dimensions, I'm on board with dying to become awakened, I'm down with extra powers and whatever. I'm even mostly OK with this story reusing so many assets from all these past books. But like ... how does the baby have some (even unconscious) control of her locked genetic powers when her counterpart in the real world is not only still alive, but had a different MOTHER and is therefore a totally different PERSON? The first chapter of the sequel (all I’ve read of it so far) doesn’t make it look promising that we’re ever gonna find out, so just keep suspending the shit out of that disbelief, I guess.

But anyway, now that Jessie’s connected, she’s hell-bent on rescuing her baby. Which I think she would have done even if she were still separated, but whatever. And I know, easy to think that not actually having a memory of the baby might make it difficult, but these memories are slowly bubbling up and emerging, especially strong ones like parenthood and family. She’s been warned against contacting Jimmy (or “James,” I guess) in witch world, but she doesn’t hesitate to tell him all the crazy shit that’s happened to her in the real world.

(This is another reason I have a problem with the lazy naming conventions on display. To witches, “witch world” is the most real. Each day takes place first there in their perceptions, followed by the same day in the “real world.” We’ll also see how events in witch world have a stronger effect on events in the real world; namely, if you die in witch world you pretty much always die in the real but the inverse is not true. So, once again, why wouldn’t witches have come up with some more appropriate naming patterns at least, given how old the oldest is? Just more lazy crap we gotta swallow.)

So anyway, Jimmy doesn’t believe her; he thinks someone drugged Jessie with a hallucinogenic and now she’s having altered state memories. So she gets out of the car they’re driving to the desert and picks it up to prove her new strength. Why are they driving in the desert? For some reason, Jessie is drawn to the power associated with the nuclear tests that the government ran in the barren nowhere that is most of Nevada. There’s gotta be a reason, after all, that the centers of witch power are here. So they bust into the deserted testing ground, only to discover it’s not that deserted — there’s a kid out there apparently living by himself. He takes to Jimmy immediately and agrees to come back to the city with them, where they’re going to talk more to Jessie’s dad.

The kid can’t speak, but he can write — with a prehensile tail that he has heretofore hidden by wrapping it around his waist. He tells them about the other freaks that live out in the nuked test cities, as well as the mean man who brings him food. The rationale isn’t clear, and the kid isn’t talking ... well ... you know what I mean. But this is where Jimmy finds out his son is still alive and being used as bait. And dude fucking TAKES it: as soon as his ex calls and wants to discuss what she might know about the children, not only does he refuse to step back and let the powerful people handle the rescue, but he actually wants to go through the death process in order to awaken his awareness of both sides.. They don’t let him do that, because apparently our good guys are not allowed to actively connect more witches, except when they are. So all they can do is talk to the ex and learn that she doesn’t care who she sells out to as long as it saves her son, which ... fair. But Jimmy isn’t willing to go that far, and they head back to her dad’s house to regroup, where they realize they’re being watched.

Or they were, I guess. There’s a car with two obvious spies in it, but they’re dead, and the killer is hanging out nearby. This dude is, we learn, second-in-command of the Tar leadership, a five-thousand-year-old Celt who wants to take a more proactive approach in encouraging good and deterring evil in both humans and witches, mostly with his sword. He’s a Highlander, is what I’m trying to say. He takes Jessie out to a sacred spring in the mountains, where they swim naked together, as you do when you first meet an ancient Celtic swordsman, right? But there’s some cliff writing out here, written by the ancient people in a script the Highlander knows, having been taught it by the man who turned him so many years ago. It describes a woman who will have such power that she controls the destiny of the world, and it’s essentially Jessie’s daughter. So like ... tell me something I don’t know, right? What’s more new and unusual is the Highlander’s description of red queen, how it was taught to him and spread throughout ancient Rome, and how a certain percentage of all winnings, no matter who takes it, has to ultimately return to his benefactor, who we’ll call the Alchemist because that’s what Pike calls him.

We’re going to have to wait on more description, because the Highlander takes Jessie home and we skip-cut forward to the next night in witch world, where she’s meeting the leadership council and discussing their intents to rescue the baby. Mystery Gambler is there too; he's going to act as Jessie's liaison to the bad guys, having served as a double agent since the Civil War. This scene seems like it might be superfluous, except that you mostly only retain the memories from the dimension in which you die, and so the council knows that Jessie needs some backstory. (Don't we all.) The main thing we get out of this is that they've kind of figured out that WANTING to activate their witch genes has a high correlation with witches going bad at all, especially when they try to engineer the birth of high-number witches. So Jessie's contact with Jimmy was carefully arranged so as to appear NOT engineered, because even though the future sight told them that these two were compatible and would fall in love and make a power baby, any appearance of forcing it could make things all fucked up.

So Jessie's entire life is a sham, manipulated by sources of power she was never supposed to see, one of those being her own goddamn father.

What next? Well, on to the other purpose of this meeting: prep for said meeting with the bad guys. The council expects that they're going to offer Jessie her baby back, as long as both of them live under bad-guy control, and they want her to string them along while they figure out what to do. Great fuckin' plan, guys. You've been trying to make a power baby for how many thousand years, and you didn't have a contingency plan if it got kidnapped?

But so Jessie and Mystery Gambler go to the next meeting, and this is starting to sound like work. As it turns out, the leader of the bad guys is (plot twist that surprises nobody!) the coroner who was unfazed when Jessie sat up in the morgue. She's making this deal because the baby is difficult, and they think that if she has her mother that they'll be able to control her and her powers. They let Jessie hold her, which activates even more of those mom connections, but when they go to take her away the baby cries and creates almost a physical wall, which the big strong guard man has to fight with all his might to overcome. President Coroner has no qualms with the possibility that she might have to kill both baby and mom if they don't cooperate. In fact, she invites Jessie to die right here and now, by forcing her to fight for her life against Mystery Gambler. For Jessie, this is proving her worth and her importance in being allowed into the bad-guy circle. For Mystery Gambler, it's a step up to a higher ranking of leadership. For President Coroner, it's TV. So they have a monster sword fight ... well, Mystery Gambler has a sword; Jessie has a bamboo stick that proves its power when she somehow shoots fire out the end and totally incinerates the dude. Which is cool by the bad guys, because they already knew MG was a double agent and wanted him dead anyway. And then there's another kid ... this one with a tail ... only instead of a blunt prehensile end, this one has a stinger like a scorpion's. Guess whose kid THIS is.

Back in the real world, Jessie and Jimmy go see her dad, who confirms that there was a mysterious fire on the top floor of the Mandalay Bay the night before, with one fatality. Which ... does this even come close to matching the timeline? How could it have already happened if the day hasn't happened yet? But whatever — the important thing is that the council wants Jessie to accept the bad guys' offer and go live with the baby. The tail-boy is still here, though Jessie's dad says he's riddled with malignant tumors and can't possibly live too much longer. But they realize that if he can tap into those cross-dimensional memories, the way Jessie and Jimmy were doing when they argued about fucking all the way back ... two days ago, then maybe they can use him to triangulate the area where witch-tail-boy lives, presumably with President Coroner. He leads them to a gated community at the base of a mountain, which they figure is good intel to take back to the council even if they're not ready to investigate yet.

Jessie does want to try to find the area where she got dumped and zapped the day she was killed, for ... you know, reasons. She hears cries of pain coming out of the sewer in the general area she thinks it was, and in investigating she runs into the big mean guard from the bad guy meeting. He thinks it's been a waste of time trying to get her on their side and is just about to kill her when the Highlander shows up and unceremoniously lops off his head. He has some more info about what might be going on down here, and it has to do with his dearest and oldest love: that’s right, President Coroner.

They met in ancient Rome, around the turn of the calendar, but every effort they made to procreate ended in tragedy. One son was killed in battle fighting the Huns, one daughter (and her children) died of the plague, and a final son (who, let it be known, they named HERME) disappeared during the US Revolutionary War. All this loss made the poor woman so bitter and angry that she naturally began striving for control, including supporting Hitler (like, literally helping him) during WWII. The Highlander thinks there's another dimension to her having gone there, though: somehow she can feed off the pain of misery and death, and is addicted to it. Also, it gives her another power of being able to confound people, which the Highlander experienced when trying to reason with her around the time of the Hiroshima nuclear explosion and again when the power baby was kidnapped. Is it helping anybody that he's holding out on the council with this info?

So he takes Jessie back to the hotel, where she owes her best friend an explanation — only she already knows. Turns out that this dude she's been hooking up with in Vegas is a witch too, and has explained to her the ins and outs and difficulties of what's going on with Jessie, up to a point. Turns out this dude is ALSO a double agent, here supposedly on assignment from the bad guys but just about ready to turn face, at least partly because he's found himself in love with the friend. After two days. His primary power is the ability to change his appearance at will, which Jessie learns in a jarring fashion upon waking up in witch world and finding a tall hunky dude in her suite in place of this pudgy nerd. She has that gene too, he says, and helps her start down the path of disguising herself. She quickly gets good at it and then realizes: couldn't I use this power to sneak into that gated community and steal back my baby?

Obviously it's not going to be so easy as walking into the joint and walking back out with The Special, even disguised as President Coroner as she is. First of all, she doesn't even know for sure that the baby is here now, and she does know that the actual boss is in town, not here. (Lucky thing, right, when she goes through the guard shack in full makeup.) So instead she goes to Jimmy's ex-girlfriend's place. Don't ask me how she knows that THIS is an option, or that the girl is indeed even home, or that she is living there at all. There's not even really a reason to believe that she can help, or that she even KNOWS anything about the baby. But Jessie's concerned about the competition, and fairly confident that her target doesn't have the strength gene and will therefore be easy enough to overpower. It proves true in terms of tying the girl up and throwing her in the trunk of her car, but Jessie isn't counting on being lied to. The ex kicks through the backseat and forces Jessie off the road, where they have an epic Matrix battle that culminates in Jessie punching a hole in the gas tank and exploding the thing with an emergency flare. She feels a surge of pleasure while the ex-girlfriend dies, which is ... creepy? Shows some link to President Coroner? What else does it mean?

It at least means that Jessie should be prepared when she goes to talk to President Coroner tonight. She buys a handgun at a pawn shop, then meets Jimmy James in front of the Tropicana, where the big ugly bodyguard picks them up in a limo. James takes a little while to get in the car, and he doesn't sit right next to Jessie for some reason. The car takes them back to the gated community, to the biggest house, where President Coroner is waiting. Negotiations don't really go as well as could be hoped, since the boss already knows that she's not the one who kidnapped the ex in the trunk of a car. But while they're working out their threats and measuring their dicks, who should walk in but the Highlander. He's finally talked the Tar council into using brain powers to murder his dearest love, and as one person has to be present to make it work, guess who volunteered. Only the big mean bodyguard is holding the baby, and he'll rip her in half if they make a move against his boss. This is a good time for the best friend's boyfriend, the shapeshifting teacher, to appear out of thin air, grab the gun out of Jessie's waistband, and cap the bodyguard in the head. Yeah, he was sitting between them for the whole car ride, like there's not enough seats in a limo for him to stretch out somewhere else. Cockblocker.

But here's the weirdest part: President Coroner recognizes him. That's right, bitches — Herme lives! He has seen the evil his mother is doing and has finally come out of hiding to try to help put a stop to it. And James helped him because he knows what's going on in both worlds. He's experienced it, actually: after Jessie fell asleep, he killed himself (with Herme's help) so he could be fully present and help in witch world. I have more timeline problems and concerns, obviously, starting with the question of how Jimmy could possibly be here today if he hasn't yet killed himself, but that's not where the characters are right now. Right now they're concerned with stopping this ultimate evil who doesn't seem to care about murder. So Herme and his Highlander dad point blue brain lasers at President Coroner, who generates a red bubble to stop them, because everything we have to know about good and evil energy colors we learned from Star Wars.

And now Jessie finds herself inside the red bubble. She's been the most susceptible of those exposed to PC, after all, and so she might be convertible to the pain-suckers. She relives all of the memories that our dear villain has of her children dying and of how the pain could be turned into a pleasurable sensation, and it's just hypnotic enough and convincing enough that, as Jessie finds herself back in her own body, she can be persuaded to take her gun back from Herme and shoot the Highlander. He doesn't die, but he's weakened enough that President Coroner can steal his sword and stab him in the heart.

So now what? Well, it's a good thing Jimmy's here to save everybody! What would we do without a white dude who's barely aware of his powers? But he knows that together, with Jessie and the baby, they have a strength that is impossible to overcome. So they manage to paralyze our villain, but now her scorpion son shows up and wants to murder too. Only — plot twist! — he murders his mom! Turns out that when Jimmy killed himself, he also killed tail-boy in the real world, and now HE'S got good-guy memories. This is really telling about President Coroner's parenting skills that all of her living children not only think that she has to die, but show up to help DO IT.

But now all is good and we can move forward as a family, right? Totally! At least until Jessie wakes up in the real world and finds Jimmy lying beside her, still and cold and dead.

This would have been a good place to stop, right? Of course he doesn't. Two days later, Jessie and her best friend are home from Jimmy's funeral, talking about what's going on and all the implications, when suddenly there's a sound at the door — the mail box. (Does anybody still have one of these shits in 2012? Most rural neighborhoods are going to the community box.) Jessie collects the mail, among which is a red envelope containing a letter from the Alchemist (remember that dude) anticipating a future meeting and sending best wishes from ... President Coroner.

And that is the end of Witch World! Or Red Queen, whichever one you picked up. Like, are we starting to understand how Pike has so little grasp of world-building that he has ALREADY killed his main antagonist AND the potential monkey wrench in Jessie's future relationships? Doesn't he realize none of us are going to get invested in a world where you don't stay dead after you die? I mean, except zombies. But since that's not what we're talking about, I can't possibly imagine where Black Knight is going to take us. I mean, I can, because I've read the back copy, and it doesn't look remotely related. Maybe that's one more reason I've been stalling on this entry: to keep me away from the annoying-looking next one.

2 notes · View notes

rwprincess · 3 years

Text

Electric Love~Chapter 13 (Spooksville Watch x Fem!OC)

Masterlist

Word Count: 1.7K

Synopsis: Based on the episode Blood Drive because OBVIOUSLY it is the best episode for Watch lovers and needed to be included. Gol-dang.

CW: EXTREMELY flustered Jules (due to some romantic interactions), predatory vampires, mention of blood (because, vampires)

*~~~~*

Only Springville would have a vampire-themed dance to celebrate a blood drive. When Watch and Sally had told Jules and Adam about this annual tradition, it was second nature to them. Sally even wanted to be crowned ‘Vampire Queen,’ whose duties included escorting the wagon of blood bags to the hospital. “You recognize that none of this is normal, right? Like no part of it?” Adam informed them.

“Yeah,” Jules agreed, “I could understand a vampire-themed Halloween dance, but it’s February...and for a blood drive,” she emphasized.

“It’s Spooksville,” Watch shrugged, as if that were any sort of explanation.

“I don’t care how weird you think it is, or how weird it actually is. I just need to be Vampire Queen!” Sally demanded.

“You have my vote, I promise,” Jules laughed and threw her hands up in surrender. The four of them were on their way to advertise for the blood drive by holding signs out front. However, Sally took this as her opportunity to threaten people into civil action...so their role didn’t last long. Ms. Clench had 'demoted' them, as Watch had put it, and taken the lot off of sign duty, but insisted that they come to the dance later on. “I guess I’ll take that as my cue to leave and get ready.” Jules told the others after she, too, dejectedly handed over her sign. She began the walk home as the rest of their group walked back toward the school.

Two hours later, she made good on her promise to Ms. Clench as well as their ‘Spooksville group’ and entered the gym. Black and red streamers and tulle hung on the walls and red and black balloons floated in clumps. She looked up and noticed vampire fang mylar balloons as well. “Festive,” she chuckled before setting out to find her group. Honestly, she was relieved that they had decided to go as a quadrant, as friends. It took some of the pressure off. However, it didn’t completely resolve the jittery thoughts at technically going to the dance with Watch. She had thought he was cute from the moment she met him, but being his friend these past few months had been something...else. She really liked him and any time she actually got to spend with him. Even just sitting silently in his lab watching him work. It was...comfortable. There was no such thing as an awkward silence between them and he was the least judgmental person she knew; even if he had thought she was a witch when they first met.

She continued scanning the gym for some sign of any of her friends, and spotted Sally first. She was taller than normal, which made sense when Jules realized she had wickedly high platform boots on, black with red lace up the back. She also wore a black skirt and a black mesh top over what looked like a red silk bustier, with a leather jacket on top. It was a far cry from her usual preppy, vibrantly colored wardrobe and seemed like something Principal Blackwater would award ten dress code violations for. But, Jules supposed that it was just a costume for a party, something there might be leniency toward. She herself had chosen a red-and-black long-sleeved dress, something she expected a Victorian woman would wear. That seemed more ‘vampire,’ to her than anything else she saw in town, anyway.

“Sally!” Jules approached her, “Where’s Adam?” She assumed they’d be attached at the hip. Sally had already sort-of asked Adam to Prom, even. This seemed like it would be a precursor and that Sally would be trying to coax him to dance with her. She was much more bold in expressing her feelings, which Jules both admired and feared. Sally didn’t answer and just eyed her. It wasn’t exactly in a suspicious way, but it was slow and lingering and Jules couldn’t put a finger on what the expression was like, but it made her uneasy.

“He hasn’t made it yet.” She recognized Watch’s voice behind her, but he sounded like he was speaking more slowly, deeper. She turned towards him, looking over her shoulder as he almost hovered.

“Watch! You look...different.” She said, taking him in and gulping at the sight. He generally wore polo or collared shirts with another shirt on top, sleeves rolled up; or, a t-shirt with an open button-down over it. Stripes, patterns, colors. His costume, however, was completely black. A silk shirt with the top two buttons undone, black slacks, and a leather jacket. But most jarring was his lack of glasses. She had never seen him without them and didn’t even know he owned contacts. He smirked, acknowledging her gaze.

“Not bad, right?” He asked, circling her slowly, looking her over from head-to-toe. “Like a real vampire.” He mused and gave Sally a look; she chuckled darkly in return.

“Uh, yeah, I guess.” Jules said, trying to collect herself. “I, uh, thought Adam was with you two, though. How has he not made it?”

“He...took off.” Watch replied mysteriously. He looked at Sally a moment, as if they were speaking telepathically or already had a plan in place, then nodded at her. She walked away wordlessly, an unsettling smile playing at her lips.

“That was...odd.” Jules noted, she opened her mouth to ask Watch what that was all about, but he took over before she could.

“Do you wanna dance?” He arched an eyebrow. The question seemed surreal. While Watch was straightforward and blunt, he was not this confident or bold. Even though she had had actual dreams about this exact scenario, Jules still hesitated. It didn’t seem quite right. Or maybe she was just too flustered by the question to think straight. She swallowed thickly and just nodded, not able to agree in words. He had a loose smile on his face as he took her hand and led her forward onto the dance floor, before turning and placing her hands on his shoulders and his on her waist, just above her hips. Her heart pounded hard and fast, overtaking her ability to hear. She was sure it was obvious, that he could hear it too. Little did she know, he could, but not in the way her anxious mind feared. He could feel the electricity of her quickened pulse and could smell the blood pumping faster through her veins. It was hard to resist the sweet, delectable smell of it. He knew that they were meant to make more vampires and wouldn’t want to hurt Jules, but he doubted that he could stop at one taste, one bite. He took note of her reaction, her silence, and smugly asked, “Nervous?” enjoying the effect he was having on her.

“I-I...no. Why would I be nervous?” She stammered, completely betraying her words. He just laughed in response, sending shivers up her spine.

“You know,” he looked down at her with dark eyes, “I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Just needed the change to get up the courage, I guess.” She nodded numbly in response, hazy at the fact that this was really happening.

“I know what you mean...wait, what change?” He didn’t respond to her question though, and began lowering his head as if he were going to place it on her shoulder. It was too difficult to resist any longer; he snarled his lips back from his newfound fangs and prepared to bite into the soft flesh at the crook of her neck. However, he felt a sudden stinging down his back. A ripple of white-hot flaming pain shot down his spine and he wrenched his head away from Jules, hissing at the sensation. Adam was still aiming the water bottle at him, his other hand holding one pointed at the approaching Sally. “What the--” he could hear Jules yell from behind him.

“Get out of here! They’re actual vampires!” Adam called back to her, then turned to his two best friends. “I don’t want to hurt you guys, but I have my own special mix of garlic and holy water right here. Where is the Master Vampire?!”

They wouldn’t be very good minions if they sold her out, so they hissed and backed away from the squirt bottles as Adam fired them around. The rest of the vampires attempted to flank him, but he held them off. Ms. Clench appeared and angrily asked, “What is going on here?”

Adam knew it was a longshot, but he told her the truth, “Half these students are vampires!”

“Oh dear, I thought they’d all be vampires by now.” Ms. Clench smiled deviously, revealing that she was the head vampire. She was tired of taking ‘stale’ blood out of blood bag drives every year and decided to create a vampire army in the place she had the most control. Adam tried his best, but of course, he was no match for a 500-year-old vampire. Luckily, Principal Blackwater came to their collective rescue. Adam continued to hold back the smaller vampires and Jules helped the last of the human students exit the gym while Blackwater moved swiftly and expertly to dust Ms. Clench. A charred outline of her on the floor is all that remained.

“Ew! I drank your blood!” Sally shrieked, backing away from Watch, the Master’s power over them finally broken.

“It’s not my fault, you bit me!” Watch shot back as Adam approached Principal Blackwater. She declined his offer to join them in their ‘research’ about all the weird goings-on in Spooksville and assigned them detention instead.

“Well, now half of Spooksville has been exposed to the weirdness.” Adam declared, assuming that they might actually be believed, going forward.

“I wouldn’t count on that, Adam. With the Master Vampire dead, any vampirlings will quickly forget.”

“But you didn’t forget--”

“Forget what?”

“...the vampires?” Adam looked to Jules for reassurance. She nodded, confirming that he wasn’t crazy, that she remembered too. But since Sally and Watch had been ‘vampirlings,’ they had no recollection of being vampires or the fight that had just occurred.

“It’s a vampire dance, Adam,” Sally joked, looking around, “I thought you would have gotten that by now.” She surveyed the empty room before concluding, “Ugh. It’s even more dead than last year. C’mon, let’s get out of here.” It was clear that they didn’t remember anything that transpired in the past few hours, and it probably was a lost cause to try to explain it or convince them of what really happened.

Tags @criminalwipes @coquettedarling

#spooksville show #spooksville #oc series #fem!oc #watch waverly #watchxfem #watch #adam freeman #sally wilcox #vampire #blood drive #the slowest of slow burns

2 notes · View notes