#the fog's manhunt

[kiruliom]

the fog's manhunt

a fictoreligion based on worshipping the entity from dead by daylight. it has no set rules otherwise.

coined for a ghostface insys

fictoreligion coined by @redacted-coiner

please do not reupload without permission and credit!

[viceconnor21]

Shadow Band- a Tantabus designed/based off Badboyhalo.

I don’t know much about this creator, but I do know that he was part of Minecraft manhunts and that’s what I need for my AU lore.

Shadow is a rare creature made from thick fog and star dust called a tantabus. It is believed that these creatures of formed from nightmares taking the form of flesh. He is talented with a sword, and he can use shadows to hide and to travel far distances. He can melt into the shadows and sneak up on his prey silently. This has made him a well off mercenary and assassin.

He is tasked to hunt down Silk Weaver (with Fireborn) for Silk’s crimes. He looks scary and is feared by many but he’s really a soft guy.

[dallonwrites]

LOVER BOY - WIP INTRO

[ lover boy by @dallonwrites / sfgate / tumblr user catilinas / lover boy | little weirds by jenny slate / lover boy / hellraiser (1987) / manhunter (1986) / the lost boys (1987) / lover boy ] this post has alt text.

disclaimer: this is my own original work

Genre: Literary that wishes it were horror Setting: San Francisco, 1987/88 Aesthetics: fake blood, uncanny SFX in old horror movies, grainy home videos, a deeply orange sunset, retro arcade games, an empty mall, overripe fruit, anatomical heart models, heart shaped candles, leather jackets, rolling fog, the moon in the ocean, bowling alleys, red lights, trying to see a ghost in the hallway, real blood, mixtapes from former lovers, nightclub bathrooms, vampire fangs, neck kisses Summary: Sometimes, to cope with change and unpredictability, Beau likes to pretend he's the protagonist of a blood-soaked horror movie. And all he's ever wanted is a lover. But after the death of his childhood best friend he retreats into himself - frustrated at love and frustrated that Bobby hasn't haunted him the way he promised to - until he's jolted back by former friends needing his help with a movie project, an ex lover returning as new ones find new ways to hurt him, his friends and his community getting sicker, and a near death experience that comes with the urgency to record everything around him whilst he still can. The more that happens, the more he tries to find ghosts around him. The more times he sees blood on his hands, the more painful his old coping mechanism becomes, as his thoughts become less and less tasty.

what if you were autistic but you didn't know it because it's the 1980s and your special interest is horror movies and sometimes your brain feels a little bit blood-soaked but it's okay because it feels good! it makes you feel better, right? but then your best friend dies and also you lose the closest person you had to a lover and you wonder if you've wasted your time obsessing over romance but you don't have time to think about it because life keeps happening and nobody seems to care that your community is dying and no matter how hard you try you never see a ghost in the hallway or the bathroom mirror like you want to, and then your lover comes back but he's different, and so are you, and you really want to stop looking death in the eye, so you try to capture everything around you on your video camera to show that you were here, we were here and we're alive, and your queerness is your heartbeat and all you want to do in this life is love, so that's what you do, despite everything, whatever that love looks like, even when everything gets louder and brighter and too much to bare and you're starting to get scared by the blood in your thoughts

I call this "the culmination of my growing obsession with horror and the undergrad dissertation I wrote on how the AIDS crisis functions in queer narratives". I think it's my favourite thing I've started in a long time! There's so much flesh to this story that I haven't even dug my hand as deep into it as I could go. It's fun, it's silly, it's raw, it's sweet, it's emotional, it's complicated, it's a bit bloody, it's theatrical, it's trying it's best. It doesn't take itself too seriously but it's also crying in the bathtub you know

Characters (just a few otherwise this would get way too long)

Beau (he/him) the bestest boy in the whole world. Someone pleeeease take him to a farmers market on a chilled Sunday afternoon

Benji (he/him) Beau's little brother who Beau thinks is the bestest boy in the whole world. Even though he loves bugs and dirt and wants to be a shark when he grows up

Bobby (he/him) dead but before he died he thought being a ghost would be so fun. It'd be so much easier to sneak up on Beau! He could finally go to Fire Island! He loved handmaking jewellery and wanted to be a volcanologist.

Felix (he/him) the ex lover! He's doing sooo much better since the last time you saw him! Hey why is he crying in that movie theatre bathroom

Tiff (she/they) Beau's old friend and roommate. Tattoo artist who collects eye shaped decor and broken rotary phones. Lesbian/gay solidarity is the backbone of this novel.

Dorothy (she/her) In love with the moon and acrylic paints. What if you bumped into your ex boyfriends twin sister and feel like you shouldn't get involved but then you remember she's realllyyy fun to talk shit about people with?

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

Whumptober Day 4: Drowning and Separated from Loved Ones

Canon compliant. Tommy mentions how much he misses his family in L'manberg in Exile and Dream decides to “teach him a lesson” by drowning him in the ocean until he's “sorry.” Warnings for drowning, abuse, torture, past trauma, unhealthy coping mechanisms, suicidal thoughts, some very extreme splitting, dehumanisation, possessive behaviour, obsession, and victim blaming.

ao3 link

—— Tommy was, in a word, fascinating.

Dream was someone who was very easily bored. Most days were an agonising slog, enough he usually considered flinging himself into the ocean and just giving up. Before he had a purpose in life, he’d had the Manhunts to distract himself from the gnawing, rotting boredom, now he had his ideals, his research. They served as a beacon, a reason to hang onto life despite the lack of satisfaction it gave.

But despite that, Tommy provided a light in that endless darkness. A small spark of hope in an empty world because he reminded Dream of what he could have. Friends, a family. People that sparked interest in him, that didn’t just feel like interchangeable dolls, words like the obnoxious buzzing of insects, thoughts empty and vapid.

Not like Tommy, not at all.

Not like Tommy, loud yet always with interesting things to say, annoying in a way that was endearing instead of a chore, smarter than he pretended to be, a unique specimen. And Dream had always been a scientist at heart, really. To him, there was nothing better than the perfect lab rat.

They sat by the ocean, watching the sun set. Logstedshire, as Tommy had dubbed his enclosure, was nothing if not beautiful. It disguised the oppressive heat of the days and the biting cold of the night, masking it as a cage far more gilded than it really was. One day, Tommy would realise that Dream knew best and join him, become the perfect protege to carry on his work if something awful truly happened, but to get there required harsh methods. Not that Dream minded much- after all, Tommy’s reaction to anything, positive or negative, was endlessly fascinating. He could repeat each experiment again and again.

The sound of seagulls overhead and the lapping of waves onto the silver-gold shores, picturesque if you ignored the bloodstains that never quite came out, were only interrupted by the absent hum of Tommy, shaking hands working quickly with knitting needles. It was simple work, but it was work that kept him occupied, let him be useful to Dream even while he learnt to behave, and most importantly, made his face light up whenever he finished some strange creation or other. It made Dream’s day to see Tommy that happy, even if he did have to be harsh.

It was the look on his face whenever he was around Wilbur, or that goddamn ram. One day, it’d light up the room around Dream, too. He could be family, too.

“What’re you making today, Tommy?” Dream said lightly. It took the slightest thing to get the kid rambling, and Tommy’s strange ideas made a far better thing to ruminate over than the inherent untrustworthiness of the world outside of him. Their talks were a ray of light in a frightening world, an oasis in a desert of backstabbers.

“Uh, well, y’know how I make shit for you?” Tommy’s eyes darted around nervously. “I mean! You’re my best friend and all, I know that, but, y’know, I know they abandoned me, but L’Manberg is still my family and stuff, so I, uh, I wanted to make something for them, and-“

Something virulent and acidic pooled its way into Dreams’ mind. Family. Something safe, something warm. It was a word that meant no one would hurt him, no one would do anything to him that made him feel weak. It meant happiness, it meant fascination, it meant the fascinating conversations he had with Tommy, and it meant he didn’t have to feel on edge anyone would betray him, twist the knife, and throw him away once they were done. It meant they’d love him. It meant they’d get rid of the boredom fogging over his mind.

Why did Tommy get to have a family, when Dream didn’t? Why was Tommy spared being treated like a tool by everyone when Dream was betrayed again and again? Why did Tommy, fucking Tommy Innit of all people, get to keep that naïve look on the world that Dream had torn dowover and over again painfully? Why did Tommy not see him as family, too?

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fucking fair.

Dream barely even realised that he’d slapped Tommy until he felt blood coating his fingers, Tommy holding a broken nose and looking shell-shocked. He deserved it, Dream couldn’t help but think. He deserved to feel some of the pain that Dream felt.

“Your family? Your family?” The laughter bubbling in Dream’s throat was completely humourless. “Tommy, you idiot! They abandoned you! They fucking hate you, Tommy, and quite frankly, I can’t blame them! You’re so- so obnoxious, so goddamn obsessed with people who don’t give a shit about you for some reason! You’re like a little parasite, always clinging on to people and draining them dry. And y’know, I think you need to be taught a lesson.”

“Dream, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-“

He cut Tommy off with another blow to the head, disorienting him as Dream pulled him by his scalp to the water and pushed his head under.

Dream felt a lot like he was drowning. That’s how it felt, like being stuck without a raft in the middle of an ocean, alone. And if Tommy was going to- to rub that in his face, he’d make sure Tommy knew just how it felt.

Tommy flailed around, but his frail limbs couldn’t wrench him free from Dream’s grasp. It stung as he clawed desperately at Dream’s arms, but the adrenaline Dream was hopped up on left him uncaring of the pain as all he could think of was making Tommy feel the pain he felt, making him pay for being such a privileged little brat. All that was in his head was blind rage, poisoning his mind.

When Tommy’s struggles weakened, Dream pulled his head roughly out of the water, letting him hack up the water in his lungs and take a few laboured breaths, before shoving him back under the water. Again, and again, and again, the jealousy in the pit of Dream’s stomach never dulling even after he lost count of the number of times Tommy went under the waves. Nothing seemed to be enough- still, all Dream could think about was how dare Tommy be allowed to have had a family? How dare he rub that in Dream’s face? That was all he ever wanted and could never get, yet Tommy just flaunted his around like he was better than everyone else. And he wasn’t. He wasn’t.

The feeling of the struggling slowly weakening, even Tommy’s desperate fighting for life dulling, suddenly shocked Dream into realising what he’d done. He let go of Tommy, letting him crawl back to the shore as he stared at his hands, horrified. 

Not at what he’d done to Tommy- he’d done worse, and he had worse planned, all for the greater good. But that was the thing- it was for Tommy’s benefit. He beat and broke Tommy to build him up better, happier, a rightful protege to serve by his right hand. He had many experiments planned that would be painful and unpleasant, yes, but it’d be to make everyone undying, able to live happily forever.

This? This was pure anger and jealousy, rage and longing mixed into a violent outburst he couldn’t control. It was a show of weakness, a show of the emotions he’d tried so hard to purge.

And Tommy hadn’t done anything wrong, had he? He didn’t know that the others rejected him, treated him like scum, didn’t listen. It wasn’t his fault they’d favoured him unfairly, because Tommy was special. He was the only other person who felt like a person and not just a simulacra, a broken AI. The masses who hated him must long for that, and Tommy must mistake that for love.

But only Dream could really love Tommy, because only Dream took upon the responsibility to beat some sense into him like any good guardian should do to a misbehaving child. He was the only one worthy of being called family, and one day, Tommy would look upon him the same way he looked upon Wilbur. But it’d take time. Maybe even centuries or millennia. And that was fine; that wasn’t the poor kid's fault for having bad influences. Dream just needed to be kind as well as strict, to help mould his corrupted mind into something healthier.

Looking up, the poor kid was shaking, and he flinched away from Dream when he moved, shielding himself instinctively and letting out a pathetic sob. There was a terror in his eyes that seemed so satisfying when he deserved it, but just made Dream feel inexplicably bad now. He opened his mouth and shut it, too frightened to even speak. Maybe if Tommy was being a brat, Dream would have felt proud for shutting him up. Now, the quiet was sickening.

Dream took a gentle step towards Tommy, making soothing noises like he was a wounded animal. “Shh, shh. It’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m sorry, Tommy.”

He gave Dream a long, disbelieving stare at that. “… Sorry?” he said, in such a quiet, strangled voice it broke Dream’s heart.

“Yeah. I just- you didn’t do anything wrong, right? You’re just naïve. That’s not your fault, Tommy. I- I just, I was so mad at what they did to you, y’know? And I just- I lashed out. And I shouldn’t have. It’s not your fault that they hate you.” Dream reached down and gently ruffled Tommy’s sopping wet hair, hoping it might comfort him, but he just stayed completely still, looking at Dream warily.

Prime. Tommy really knew how to play the guilt card.

Dream picked up the discarded mess of thread, and threw it in the ocean, ignoring how horrified Tommy looked. He’d understand later. He would. “See, look, it’s all done now! It won’t happen again, it’s fine. I’m sorry, Tommy. I- we can do whatever you want for today, if that makes it any better. As long as you stay here, we could- we could play with the tridents, or- or we could make a cobblestone tower, or whatever you want!”

Tommy let out a choked sound, and his eyes darted to the floor. “I- could I just have a hug? I need a hug.”

“Of course.” Dream knelt down and wrapped his arms around Tommy gently, taking care to avoid the bruises covering his bony form. His clothes were sodding wet, and Dream wouldn’t have been surprised if they were heavier than he was.

He pretended not to notice when Tommy buried his head into his cape and whispered “Thank you, Wil.” After all, that was the closest he’d ever got to calling him family.

[who-is-muses]

How open are the muses to smut without a preexisting romance?

Abe Sapien: it's highly unlikely. Abe is a very self conscious man, both of his unusual features and propensity for awkwardness. Not to mention he thinks it'd be demeaning for both of them and would overcomplicate things between them.

Antonio da Vinci: manwhore supreme, ready to go 80% of the time. And 15 of that missing 20%? He'll agree anyways. Especially if booze is or already was involved. Hello, unhealthy coping mechanisms.

The Artist: Carmina is a complicated case. Overall, her answer is not even remotely- unless they were friends first. She has to have some level of trust with another before even considering sex.

Bleez: extremely unlikely. Not only is she asexual, she also still very much believes that she's an 11 out of 10- any ladies that are interested will have to put some serious work in for her to even consider going to bed with them.

The Blight: unsurprisingly, the Fog's biggest recluse is not down for casual sex. Barely even has interest in sex to begin with- partly because he's so absorbed by his work and the thralls of the serum, but also because he refuses to realize that he's attracted to men rather than women.

Bookworm: he'll need some flattery and flirting first, but Winnie is relatively open to hookups. He's hired more than a couple prostitutes before- The only difference is a financial transaction. Maybe.

Candyman: highly unlikely. Daniel is an extremely romantic individual; there will be wooing and all that beforehand (and during if he has it his way.)

Catwoman: she has no issue with casual sex- but isn't nearly as "easy" as some claim, in fact rather picky about her choices for all genders.

Claudette Morel: she's much too shy to pursue anything like that- any girl that's interested would have to approach her first, and even then there's no guarantee Claudette won't panic and bail.

The Doctor: manwhore supreme, spooky edition. Sex is one of his biggest vices, one which he is all too willing to indulge in with almost anyone.

The Dredge: depends on what it has to gain from the exchange. Not a hard no, but it will not be a healthy experience for either of them.

Goswin: very shy about the whole intimacy thing. Like Dan, xe thinks it would be demeaning for both involved to skip straight to knocking boots, more inclined to take things slow with proper courting.

Guy Gardner: generally, yes. Very much so. As long as he isn't in one of his dour moods.

Habeas Corpus: it has absolutely zero qualms about anonymous or casual hook ups, sex being one of their biggest and most common vices.

The Ichor: despite the ego Athanasios puts forth, they will be extremely suspect of any actual desire being present if proposition. They'll likely consent anyways, but be second guessing the genuineness of the whole thing the entire time.

March Harriet: she'd be flattered, really, but would probably decline (with some flustered stuttering and plenty of blushing.) Harrie's a hopeless romantic through and through- she'd much rather try a date or two first, see where things go.

Martian Manhunter: not really, no. Casual sex isn't entirely out of the question, but very unlikely for J'onn- emotional connections are of great importance to him in all matters.

Martian Marauder: though he would greatly prefer having some connection with a partner, it isn't necessarily required.

Rorschach: you're kidding, right? He's listed as "demi-homosexual" for a reason. It would take many, many years of trust before one could even begin trying to convince him to take his pants off without losing blood.

Saint Walker: he's bashful and shy about the topic by nature, but exceedingly sex positive. Casual hookups were far from taboo on Astonia. Whoever's interested will have to broach the topic first, though.

Salaak: also a big ol virgin, but way more uptight- and he's coming from a background where sex=marriage, thus there being a lot of anxiety for him. It would take A While before Sal would be open to sex with an established partner, so he's extremely unlikely to respond well to any advances from someone he's not involved with.

Scarecrow: he borders on demiromantic, needing a significant amount of trust before romance is an option, but he's not a stranger to picking someone up when the need strikes him. Granted he's not especially likely to have sex with someone in general because of his repression, prone to bottling any urges up for as long as he can when there's not someone to semi-regularly coax him into letting go.

Sinestro: much more open to the idea than most might expect- but he's still very cautious and paranoid (and full of himself), so any propositions not of his own would have to have the right motivations (or person) involved for him to agree.

The Spirit: Rin is Extremely Asexual- sex neutral, but still ace. The only appeal sex has to her is intimacy, and she only desires that from a romantic partner.

Thoth: surprisingly picky and flighty despite his reputation, very much reliant on his mood and the events leading up to any proposition. He's also unlikely to bring it up himself unless he's particularly frustrated. Just be warned; while he doesn't have godlike strength, he does have a ridiculously high libido.

Two-Face: Harvey isn't overly keen on the idea, but Harv doesn't crave romance nearly as much as his headmate and thus is far more interested in something casual. It ultimately depends, like most things with them, who has the most sway over the other that night.

The Wraith: once upon a time, Philip was a little looser with his life, more exploratory and outgoing. Now, he's extremely guarded and suspicious of others, unwilling to let anyone get too close- but, he still has needs in this nonhuman form, and has given into desperation on a rare few occasions. It's certainly improbable, but not impossible.

[littlenightma]

October Heat

Warnings: Mature Content, 18+

She'd locked every door and window to her house, checked them twice, before turning off the lights to her living room. The television had been running the news all night, ever since the word that Michael Myers had escaped, again, and their little town of Haddonfield had been suffering for it ever since. It was only on so she could be kept in the loop of things, but the steady increase in bodies discovered made her stomach churn. She eventually turned it off, having heard enough.

She hated to admit it, but she was particularly horny and was quite aware that it was a bad time to do such a thing. The town either holed up in their houses or out on a manhunt searching for Myers. She felt inclined to do something more pro-active, yet the tingling between her thighs was getting harder to resist.

In the privacy of her bedroom, she pulled down the soft cotton of her panties until there was enough room for her fingers to dive freely. They skimmed lower, hovering teasingly over the prized spot. She leaned back against her pillows and closed her eyes as she focused on getting herself to that sweet, sweet precipice, but then her hair bristled, and they shot back open to see him.

Even through the thick fabric of her curtains, the discolored and pale face of his mask was still recognizable. Her movements ceased momentarily before she shuddered at the loss of contact. Pleasure forced the fear away, even when her eyes locked with his through the fog tinted glass.

Michael watched the girl work her hand feverishly beneath the sheets with mild interest. An image of him on his side flashed, hand wrapped firmly around himself with his back to camera to not give a certain voyeuristic doctor the privilege of watching.

Michael felt another kind of thrill when she stared at him and leaned her head back against her pillows, lips parting when a low moan left her lips. His chest lifted with surprise when she didn’t run away or attempt to arm herself with a weapon, choosing to continue with him as an audience.

She didn’t know what was coming over her, touching herself while the killer shamelessly watched. A need tugged in her belly, an adrenaline pumping yearning, and it yearned for him, and she breathed his name into the wind, and Michael vanished like a ghost.

Wood being bent and splintered rung below. She could practically taste his desperation. The drug store locks provided little defense against Michael. He was in the house within seconds, slowly making his way up her stairs, seeking her out like a wolf, hungry with desire, pinning her down on the bed with his feral gaze as he emerged from the hallway. She gulped a ball of saliva down. Not able to voice what she desperately wanted, she uncovered her lower body and spread her legs beneath the dark gaze of the serial murderer. Her eyes were glowing in the darkness, pleading for him to join her.

While Michael never found himself in this sort of situation, it was not difficult for him to conclude what she was asking for. He reached up and unzipped his coveralls, revealing the dark gray t-shirt he wore beneath. He pushed them down until his red headed cock sprung free. At the sight, her body excitedly gushed out a wave of glistening slick.

The bed groaned loudly the more he moved up, aligning his body perfectly with hers. His strong chest trapped her to the mattress. She welcomed his weight, groaning along with the bed. His cock hung directly between her legs, teasing the soft valley of flesh there. She lifted her hips, urging him to go faster. Michael curved into her swiftly, completely engulfed after a few short, experimental thrusts.

She was hot, hotter than the fuming basement and gripped him like a well-fitted mold. The friction sent him into a lustful frenzy. He snapped his hips hard. Her pussy greedily took all of him, suctioning him back into her, meeting his frantic movements with her own. Michael did not take his eyes off the girl, enjoying the way her face contorted as he fucked her.

She gripped the fabric of his shirt in fistfuls, holding on for dear life. His thrusts were becoming more erratic by the minute. Her head would have been dangerously close to making contact with the headboard had it not been for his palm snaking up to cradle it. Her grip suddenly intensified, legs locking around his waist, and her string of moans transformed into a single and long sigh that slowly faded into the night.

His right hand clamped down on her hip in a bruising hold to keep her in place as his own release came. His gritted his teeth, burying himself as deep as he could as his seed jetted into her. Michael let out a muffled and satisfied breath.

He rolled over onto his back beside her, staring up at the ceiling. She curled a few inches away from him, the shame of her actions keeping her at a distance. Her lover was an asylum escapee and murderer. What was she thinking and how was she going to get herself out of this alive?

His chest rose up and down, trying to catch his breath and shake the pain from his aching muscles. Although his body remained in decent shape, he was not as resilient to the outside forces as he used to be, and he hadn't realized how low his physical limits had gotten until he barely managed the escape the Strode woman's fortress. The bruises and gunshot wounds did not concern him, but the burns took an extra toll, and he was paying for it now that the adrenaline was beginning to wear off.

“I can try and fix you up.”

Michael, not showing any indication that he heard her other than the slight turn of his head, remained silent, calculating her through the eye slits of his mask.

“The burns,” she continued, gesturing with her hand, “They look painful.”

They didn’t just look painful. They were painful, and it was weighing him down more than he would have preferred. After several tense moments, he took up her offer, shadowing her to the bathroom.

[dorky-zuko]

“SHITSHITSHIT, IT’S THE FUZZ,” Akarsha hissed, when she had made it back to Noelle. “WE GOTTA GET OUTTA HERE.”

“What does that mean?” Noelle asked, confused.

“The ‘fuzz’ means the fuckin’ cops, Frenchman,” Akarsha told her, flashing a worried glance in her direction.

“Seriously?” Noelle whispered, horrified.

“Seriously seriously,” Akarsha confirmed, grimacing.

Noelle’s brain went straight from overdrive into certified freakout mode, her voice coming out as a breathless whisper. “Oh my god, we’re breaking the law! We’re criminals, and they’re the police!” She started to hyperventilate in front of Akarsha. “I’m supposed to go to college in a week, not to prison!”

“Hey hey hey hey hey, okay, listen,” said Akarsha quietly, reaching up and gripping Noelle’s face between her hands. “Listen to me. I’m not going to let my girlfriend go to jail, alright?”

Despite the terror coiling in her gut and making her mind hazy, the words my girlfriend zapped through the fog of fear within Noelle’s brain and got her thinking slightly more clearly again. “Girlfriend?” she asked in absurd disbelief. “You think I’m your girlfriend?”

“Oh, what, you don’t want the job?” Akarsha said, as she was looking all around the mall concourse, trying to find them an escape route. “I’ll have you know the benefits package is quite killer, and the application process highly competitive.”

“I... I...” Noelle spluttered, too scared and shocked at this exact moment to think clearly. She took a deep breath to try and master all of her competing concerns. “Of course I want the job!” she said finally, and a little indignantly. “But that doesn’t change the fact that we’re about to be arrested for trespassing and breaking and entering and criminal-”

“We just gotta get away, that’s all,” said Akarsha, shaking her head at Noelle as she tried to dispel her fears and concerns. “There’s only two of them, and they’re probably just here to figure out why the power got turned back on last night. They don’t know where we are, or if we’re even still here. We can get away.”

“And what, just start living our lives on the run? Never resting, always only one step ahead of the long arm of the law?” Noelle asked derisively. “I can change my name to Jane Doe, and you’ll be Akarsha Doe, and we can bleach our hair, and start sleeping in shifts, and-”

Akarsha reached up and pressed a single finger gently to Noelle’s lips. “I know you’re all the way melting down over there, but stop and use your beautiful, wonderful brain for just a second. All we’ve done is break into an abandoned mall, steal some socks, and some rings from Claire’s, and a Sonic the Hedgehog Halloween costume. And I guess we also broke some glass. But I don’t think they’re going to start organizing a manhunt for us if we manage to get away. So that’s all we have to do. Just get away.” She took her finger off of Noelle’s lips and placed her hand on Noelle’s cheek. “Okay?”

Noelle tried extremely hard to push all of her fears away and focus solely on the warmth of Akarsha’s hand on her skin. And after a second, it worked. “Okay,” she said tremulously, nodding her head slowly as she stared into Akarsha's eyes.

***

Remember kids, crime doesn't pay. And always gun it from the cops!

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Guards Thwart Escape Of Two at Graterford," Philadelphia Inquirer. October 29, 1943. Page 1 & 12. ---- Two long-term convicts, taking advantage of fog and rain, broke from their cells at Graterford prison in the darkness early yesterday morning and came within a few feet of escape, while police of eight States continued an intensive manhunt for a convict who fled from Eastern Penitentiary Wednesday.

Only the alertness of two veteran guards, both off duty at the time, foiled the Graterford escape about 5.15 A. M. yesterday. DETECTED BY GUARDS The prisoners, Harry John Hovey, 27, and Michael Cipy, 36, were found cowering at the foot of a 30-foot moat surrounding the prison after Sergeant Clarence Wolf and Earl N. Moser had detected their shadows as the men passed a window of the prison kitchen.

Both Cipy, formerly an inmate of Fairview State Hospital for the Criminal Insane, and Hovey are serving terms for robbery.

According to Elmer Leitheiser, prison superintendent, they broke from their cells and tried unsuccessfully to scale the wall at the outer edge of the moat with the aid of 40 feet of sheeting, an iron hook, and two wooden poles about 20 feet long, taped together.

The men were confined in Cell Blocks A and B, in which the cells have partially barred windows. The lower section of each window is guarded only by a metal fly-screen.

Hovey and Cipy kicked these out, crawled through, and from the prison kitchen obtained long window cleaning poles and a heavy iron meat hook with which they attempted to pull themselves up over the wall of the moat.

The poles proved insufficient to hold their weight, and Hovey and Cipy were still at the bottom of the wall when Wolf and Moser gave the alarm and searchlights picked out the prisoners.

The fugitives will have hearings before a Norristown justice of the peace this morning on charges of attempted escape from prison.

HUNTED UPSTATE The third convict, 28-year-old Victor Andreoli, was believed heading for his old haunts upstate, in the deer hunting country.

Serving a life term for the murder of a State Motor Policeman six years ago. Andreoli disappeared from Cherry Hill on Wednesday, apparently in a truck which took a load of tent pegs, made by prisoners, from the institution next seen entered the shortly before noon. He was about 2 P. M., when he home of Anthony W. Cella at 5224 Arbor st., Olney.

After threatening Cella's wife, Lillian, and their six-year-old daughter, Angela, with a 12-inch knife, the fugitive forced Mrs. Cella to turn over to him an entire set of her husband's clothes, including shoes, then, waiting until the husband returned home from work, forced all three into the Cella family car and forced them to drive about the city while he ripped up and threw away his prison garb.

Ordering Cella to stop at Broad st. and Olney ave., the convict got out and walked away, telling the driver to warn police that "the first cop that lays a hand on me dies."

GUARD FORCE WEAKENED Following yesterday's frustrated escape attempt at Graterford, Warden Herbert Smith reiterated his recently voiced belief that the "maximum security" status of both Cherry Hill and Graterford had been weakened by the wartime depletion of their guard personnel.

The warden said further attempted prison breaks "may be anticipated" as a result of the loss of guards to the draft and higher paying war-industry jobs. Picture caption: THEY THWARTED CONVICTS' ATTEMPTED PRISON BREAK Earl Moser (left) and Sergeant Clarence R. Wolfe, two Graterford prison guards. holding the ropes and pole by which two convicts tried to escape yesterday. The guards detected their shadows as they passed a window of the prison kitchen and sounded the alarm. The men were captured at the foot of the prison moat.

[tinx-methinks]

EOY book asks - 2, 6, 17, 24 :3

2. Did you reread anything? What?

Yes! Last year I read Dracula Daily, this year I did Re. Dracula which is practically an audiobook of the same thing (fully voice acted! with original songs! its amazing I totally recommend this podcast!).

Also a lot of the short stories Luke and I have been reading are ones that I've read before. Things like "The Lottery", "A Good Man is Hard to Find", and "Masque of the Red Death" were ones I'd already done.

Other than those I didn't do much rereading this year. I keep buying books as I get them read so I always have new ones in my TBR and I never make any progress lol

6. Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to?

I bought a pretty copy of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea last year I've been dying to dig into but didn't get the chance. I'm looking forward to doing that this year. I meant to read The Turn by Kim Harrison. It's a prequel to a series I love and anxiously await. I dunno why I keep putting it off. My brain just keeps saying "The Stars. Can't do it. Not today." Also there's a couple I wanted to read but I just didn't buy because I was hoping to see them on sale and didn't or because their popularity meant their coverprice was higher than I wanted to pay or simply because something else caught my eye first, those titles include: I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy, Paladin's Strength by T Kingfisher, Ruthless Gods by Emily A Duncan, Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin and The Bell in the Fog by Lev AC Rosen.

You'll note a bunch of these are things I already know I enjoy. For some reason it's harder for me to buy a sequel of a book I really like than it is for me to buy a new book I might not like because the Sunk Cost Fallacy guts me much worse so sometimes I end up wanting the sequel for months/years because the fear I won't like it makes the money so much harder to spend lol.

17. Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

Oh yeah a bunch of them! Animorphs have been super surprising! Murderbot was so good! I didn't expect to like Legends and Lattes or Lavender House nearly as much as I did! I found The Watchers so genuinely creepy! Also I had written off as The Fourth Wing as booktok junk pretty much before I read it but after I did read it I thought it was way better than I expected. I think I can really see what people liked about it even though it wasn't for me.

Books are great for surprises like that.

24. Did you DNF anything? Why?

I almost never DNF a book. I will put myself through unspeakable agony to finish a book. It has to offend me to my core for me to put a book down because I think there's value in a book that's bad. If I find a book bad I really try to figure out what makes me feel that way so I can apply it to my own writing/storytelling...

That being said I am working on a couple visual novels I started last year because while I'm great at making time for books, video games are a whole other story. Sigh.

Thanks for the asks Bec! Love you!

End of Year Book Asks

[manufactoredxbyxdesign]

"There's this ball in exactly one month's time. And it's not really something you go to with a date. It's a masquerade followed by a manhunt. But if you'd like, I'd like to find you. And dance with you."

He, of course, knows precisely what she is referring to. It would seem that everyone in The Fog has heard about the upcoming masquerade. Wesker is not immune to receiving news, even when he tries to be at arms length as much as he can manage.

If he were speaking the truth he has never been to such an event. Formal parties having never held any appeal to him in life, he cannot recall more than a handful of instances when he attended anything even similar to a ball.

He can't even begin to decide what use he would gain from going to one. Socializing aside.

"I had a vague sense that everyone would be attending given how widespread the news has been." He shrugs. Still refraining from committing to the idea of actually going. "I would not be the most gifted choice of partner, I suspect."

[nectar-daze]

𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫 ✩°｡⋆⸜ 🎧

welcome welcome welcome, if you give a shit enough to take a gander at this page in the first place, thank you. you absolute star

𝔤𝔢𝔫𝔢𝔯𝔞𝔩 ˚₊‧꒰ა ♱ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

exhilarated and mortified at the human experience ✩ ENFP ✩ she/they ✩ im new to this so sorry for any crumby coding errors :/ ✩ may or may not be a ghost ✩ 19 ✩ libra btw ✩ reading ✩ writing ✩ philosophy ✩ big 420 fan, the biggest, you might say✩

𝔪𝔲𝔰𝔦𝔠 ✩°｡⋆⸜ 🎧

Mazzy Star ☆ The Cranberries ☆ Smashing Pumpkins ☆ Pixies ☆ Fiona Apple ☆ TV Girl ☆ Grateful Dead ☆ Blur ☆ Cigarettes After Sex ☆ Echo & The Bunnymen ☆ Gorillaz ☆ Garbage ☆ Lana Del Rey ☆ Grateful Dead ☆ $uicideBoy$ ☆ Freddie Dredd ☆ City Morge ☆ Steely Dan ☆ I, Monster ☆ Fog Lake

𝔪𝔬𝔳𝔦𝔢𝔰 ⋆｡°🕯️✩.˚₊

eyes wide shut ☆ interview with a vampire ☆ scream ☆ any of the live action scooby doo movies ☆ cruel intentions ☆ empire records ☆ trainspotting ☆ dazed and confused ☆ gia ☆ the crow ☆ X ☆ pearl ☆ jennifer's body ☆ fight club ☆ titanic ☆ knives out ☆ crimson peak ☆ howl's moving castle ☆ mid90's ☆ twin peaks ☆ nightmare on elm street ☆ halloween ☆ kill bill volumes I & II ☆ pretty in pink ☆ rocky horror picture show ☆ the virgin suicides ☆

𝔱𝔢𝔩𝔢𝔳𝔦𝔰𝔦𝔬𝔫 ⋆˚🐾˖°

shameless ☆ devilman crybaby ☆ derry girls ☆ castlevania ☆ breaking bad ☆ good girls ☆ euphoria ☆ boondocks ☆ south park ☆ adventure time ☆ that 70's show ☆ always sunny ☆ SNL ☆

𝔟𝔬𝔬𝔨𝔰 ༻📖༺

daisy jones & the six ☆ my year of rest and relaxation ☆ fight club ☆ the bell jar ☆ the 7 1/2 deaths of evelyn hardcastle ☆ interview with a vampire ☆ the vampire lestat ☆ queen of the damned ☆ the satanic bible ☆ a certain hunger ☆ prozac nation ☆ just kids ☆ boy parts ☆ call me by your name ☆ rouge ☆ manhunt ☆ siren queen ☆ jigsaw ☆

And as a bonus:

[foxcomment]

New boring MC trend~

Everyone make videos about Minecraft:From the Fog Lets goooooooo like a new dum manhunt

Video Format- No montage Guyzz i didnt' played minecraft for years Yes, I have a weird controlls Yell as loud as chu can from seing a square heads

[thepoisonroom]

yes i've had hypomanic insomnia and have been sleeping 2-4 hours a night for the past 3 days yes i just stuck the landing on having a 12-hour reset sleep everyone say congrats

[dewitty1]

Fic Recs Wrap Up - August 2022

Teenage Wasteland by GallaPlacidia

Draco never thought he’d end up as the sole guardian of a troubled teenage girl. Harry never thought he’d end up a werewolf. Being twenty-two is hard. Rec Post, Art by @fictional, Art by @zigster-ao3

@geesenoises has kindly put an archive of GP’s works together, you can access it HERE!

All the Young Dudes by MsKingBean89

LONG fic charting the marauders’ time at Hogwarts (and beyond) from Remus’ PoV - diversion from canon in that Remus’s father died and he was raised in a children’s home, and is a bit rough around the edges. Otherwise canon-compliant. 1971 - 1995

This IS a wolfstar fic, but incredibly slow burn. Literally years. Long build up but worth it I promise! Rec post

Two Weeks by shiftylinguini @shiftylinguini

If Harry had to guess which out of he or his Auror Partner, and tentative new friend, Draco Malfoy, would turn out to have Veela ancestry, his answer would be: neither, because that is ridiculous. Finding out the answer is actually him, and that his Veela heritage is wreaking havoc on his ability to work, sleep, and above all be in the same room as Malfoy, is a surprise to say the least. But this is fine. Harry’s been through worse, and he can just sit this one out, regardless of how much his body is screaming for the one person he doesn’t want to ask for help. Can’t he? Rec Post

Voices From The Fog by noeon (noe) @noeeon

After years of running away, Harry crosses paths with an all-too familiar face and follows him to Amsterdam. Rec Post

Illuminate by dicta_contrion @dictacontrion

It’s opening night at Draco Malfoy’s Muggle-friendly art gallery. Harry Potter is the Auror assigned to make sure the Statute of Secrecy stays firmly intact. When the party’s over and the all-too-encompassing security system kicks in, they might find reasons to look at things from new perspectives—but first they’ll have to make it through a night alone together. Rec Post

The Spy Who Loved The Boy Who Lived by Alisanne

There is a plot to capture Harry Potter, and an unexpected person steps forward to save him. Can Harry really trust Draco over his friends? (Warning-no tags on this fic)  Rec Post

A Little Perseverance by Writcraft @writcraft

Harry’s wand is dying and Draco’s flirtation with a magical matchmaking service is causing him no end of trouble. When Harry turns up at Draco’s shop looking for help, everything gets a lot more complicated. Rec Post

Crown Witness by slytherco @slytherco

After the war, wizarding society is oppressed by a new kind of plague—an organised crime group calling itself the Family. When Harry Potter goes to interrogate a potential witness, he doesn’t expect to end up on the run again, trying to keep Draco Malfoy alive, while a manhunt follows in their footsteps, adamant on eliminating the one witness that could ruin everything. In which Harry and Draco learn that the way to each other might just have to go through the dingiest hotels in Britain. Rec Post

The Maddest House by busaikko

After the events of Halloween 1981, Sirius Black finds himself raising Harry, with the assistance of Remus, in a world where Voldemort never disappears for 11 years. Rec Post

Here are a few more fics I've read recently that y'all might like to check out as well! (ﾉ^ヮ^)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

Here Be Dragons by birdsofshore

Harry doesn’t want to waste his time investigating illegal dragonhide trading, whether it involves a fetish club in Knockturn Alley or visiting a remote island in Wales. Why the bloody hell does Malfoy always have to be up to something?

Once a Malfoy by enchanted_jae

Months after their divorce, Draco requests a huge favor from Harry.

The Risk of Exposure by marguerite_26 @marguerite_26

After Draco discovers something about Harry during a chance meeting, Harry can’t seem to get him out of his head or out of his life.

A day in your life by shushu_yaoi_lj @orange-peony

Harry sees it straight away, the white trail of the comet so bright despite the lights of all the buildings surrounding him. He feels a lump in his throat as he stops and stares at the moonless sky. Is he supposed to make a wish or a prayer? He checks that no one is looking his way and then he takes his wand and points it at the bright comet in the sky. He wishes to feel whole again. To feel happy and not so bloody lonely all the time. He wishes for a new life.

Must Love Quidditch  by dracosoftie

Through a series of emails from an online dating site, Harry thinks he's found his perfect match. Will the bond they've forged survive after their identities are revealed?

( •ॢ◡-ॢ)-♡

I hope you enjoy these as much as I have! Thanks, as always, for being here! ( ᵕ́ૢ‧̮ᵕ̀ૢ)‧̊·*

Happy reading, y’all!

xoxo Carey  (◍•ᴗ•◍)♡ ✧*💜💙💚💛❤💗💕💖

[maxwell-grant]

Jumping off from my previous question/suggestion, might I please ask if there are any superheroes you think would make fine Pulp Villains and any Supervillains you think would make convincing Pulp Heroes?

I'm gonna go ahead and remark that I'd personally suggest to anyone who's trying to create pulp characters inspired by superheroes (which would be probably about 90% of you who may want to do that sort of thing) to flip the script around a little. As in, don't try to create pulp analogues to the Justice League/Avengers upfront, but play around with some of the lesser-known icons and filter those through your idea of what “pulp” means (which is gonna be quite different than my own or anyone else’s). 

I’m not gonna really mention characters I’ve already talked about before like Vandal Savage or Namor, instead I’ll pick new ones and see what can be highlighted about them.

Regarding “Superheroes who could make fine/convincing Pulp Villains”, even though he’s a character I've read basically nothing on, Martian Manhunter definitely leaped out to me as an obvious option. He’s a Sci-Fi Superman who takes the first half of the name to an extreme that borders on comical, except he’s not a square-jawed white man, he’s a 1.000 year old green alien from Mars with shapeshifting powers who can look as monstrous as the artist desires. He’s the product of an advanced civilization and genetic modification, and on top of the Flying Brick powerset and shapeshifting, he also has incredibly powerful and extensive telepathic abilities, he can become invisible, phaze through matter, use telekinesis and other weird abilities. A lot of pulp stories closer to sci-fi were based around the idea of taking one of these abilities and extrapolating horrific consequences for them, and J’onn has those by the dozens. He also has an extremely mundane weakness that would allow him to be beaten by Macready with a blowtorch if that’s where the story ended.

He was also a law enforcement officer from Mars who became a police detective and it’s even right there in his name, and again, I have never read anything he’s in (I should probably pick the Orlando mini), I know he’s for all intents and purposes a generally nice man who tends to job a lot in crossovers and cartoons, but the idea of taking all those great vast and horrifying alien powers, combining all of them into a single character who also happens to be the last survivor of a doomed planet (and one who actually lived through it’s collapse), and then making that character a former cop trying to resume his work on Earth? 

That is a Pulp Supervillain begging to happen, and a particularly horrifying one at that. And hey, speaking of The Thing-

Now, Plastic Man’s potential for horror has already been explored quite a bit in some of the darker DC continuities like Injustice and DCeased, and it’s quite funny seeing a lot of these turn Plastic Man into The Thing because there were quite a handful of Wold Newton pages that ran with the idea that Macready from the original story was Doc Savage, and that the secret chemicals that Eel O’Brian was hit by that gave him his powers were actually samples of The Thing contained in one of Savage’s labs. Regardless, the idea of a former street crook suddenly gaining bizarre shapeshifting abilities that allow him to reign terror on his gangster associates could make for a great premise as a pulp crime story that veers into horror as the gangsters gradually figure out what is Eel O’Brian’s deal, and then the story can take a more tragic turn.

The thing about Jack Cole’s Plastic Man that modern takes on the character neglect is that, while Plas was a lively roguish anti-hero (arguably the first of it’s kind in comics), he’s still for intents and purposes “the straight man” (HA, right, Plastic Man being “straight”). He’s the relatively sane hero who plays off Woozy’s wackier misadventures and the imaginative madness that Jack Cole paints his adventures with, and it makes for an interesting contrast considering Plastic Man is already a weird character, having to ramp up the strangeness of the world around him so that he still remains the sane man. There are ways to twist this into something quite horrifying, even tragic for Plastic Man as he either struggles to maintain coherency, or embraces the shifting chaos the world’s spiraling into for better or worse (and definitely for the worse towards those on the receiving end of his vengeance, or even his humor).

Now, onto the flipside, regarding Supervillains that could become Pulp Heroes -

Normally I’d not mention the Batman villains here, because I already have a lot to talk about in regards to them as is, they comprise some of my favorite comic characters, but I pretty much have to make an exception for Two-Face in this topic, as not only a pretty obvious option but one with even case studies to prove it, as not only do we have The Black Bat, a 1930s costumed pulp hero with an identical origin story and several other conceptual overlaps with Batman, as well as The Whisperer, a young hotshot police commissioner who dresses up as a disfigured vigilante to kill criminals without consequence (and who’s somehow less of a maniacal asshole in his secret identity than in his regular one), but it turns out that there actually was a 1910s pulp hero called The Two-Faced Man:

Crewe was created by “Varick Vanardy,” the pseudonym of Frederic van Rensselaer Dey (Nick Carter, Doctor Quartz), and appeared in three short stories and two novels and short story collections from 1914 to 1919, beginning with “That Man Crew” (The Cavalier, Jan. 24, 1914). 

Crewe is “The Two-Faced Man.” 

He is in his forties and has gray hair and a “sharply cut and handsome profile—until one caught a view of the other side of his face and saw the almost hideous blemish that nearly covered it, and which graduated in corrugated irregularity from a delicate pink to repulsive purple.” 

Crewe is two-faced in another way. Crewe is a saloon owner in below Washington Square. But he has another identity: Birge Moreau, portraitist and socialite hanger-on. Crewe uses both his identities to solve crimes as an amateur detective.

The only person to know about both of Crewe’s identities is a police inspector who is also Crewe’s friend and who Crewe helps in pressing cases - The Encyclopedia of Pulp Heores by Jess Nevins

And speaking of obvious picks for Supervillains turned Pulp Heroes,

Assuming I even need to make a case for Kraven the Hunter other than just presenting this cropped panel from Squirrel Girl and in particular the art painted on the Kra-Van, or even just telling you to read Squirrel Girl and it’s take on “The Unhuntable Sergei” (I had no idea most of the people saying “Kraven’s arc in Squirrel Girl is as good if not better than Kraven’s Last Hunt” weren’t actually joking in the slightest and I speak as someone who has Kraven among their absolute favorite Marvel characters, it had no right being that good), I’m going to quote the brilliant Rogue’s Review from The Mindless Ones that lays down in painstaking detail why Kraven could make a killer protagonist in that horrifically over-the-top pulp fashion

One thing that strikes me writing this, is how well Kraven could hold his own comic. There’s always room for a book spotlighting a ruthless, hardcore, gentleman bastard, and Kraven’s raison d’etre makes him supremely versatile, so well suited to any genre, any environment. It’s odd that more writers haven’t jumped on the fact that in a universe where off-world travel is possible – indeed, common – a hunter like Kraven would have a field day. 

I can just imagine the opening scene – herds of weird cthuloid bat creatures grazing in the gloomy green nitrogen fields, bathed in lethal, bone splintering fog, when, suddenly, LIGHT! from above and an unholy bellowing: “CTHGRGN fthgrgnARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHGN!”

They look up in fear and then they start to run – ploughing into and over each other, tentacles flailing, as from the space-ship’s docking bay Kraven silently plummets, barely dressed for the cold, a glowing knife smothered in elder signs jammed between his teeth. 

You should have seen him one night previous, sipping alien tokay around the Captain’s table with the other guests, discussing the morning’s hunt; and the way he insulted the Skrull dignitary by forgetting himself and accidentally sporting his favourite piece of formal wear: his boiling unstable dinner-jacket of many colours, fashioned from the hide of one of the Ambassador’s super kinsmen.

Whoops!

Midway through Kraven explaining how the best way to irreparably damage a symbiote is to wait until its bonded with you and then seriously maim yourself, the Skrull decided it might be a good idea to simmer down, while his beautiful Inhuman lover hung on every word.

The deeper I get into this the more convinced I am that the MU’s hunter-killer extraordinaire wouldn’t limit himself to bloody planet Earth. And neither would he limit himself to this dimension, or universe or timeline. The guy’d be just as at home leaping, sword raised, onto the back of a T-Rex in the Savage Land, as he would be ploughing through werewolves in the graveyards of Arkham or tracking a howling Demon across Mephistopheles’ realm. 

He’d work perfectly in all these environments because he has a damn good reason to be casting a bloody swathe through them: wherever there’s big game, you’ll find Kraven.

The next choice I guess is an oddball, but not that much of an oddball if you know already what is my main frame of reference towards Marvel

I don’t think people appreciate enough that the main reason Shuma-Gorath has anything resembling a fanbase has nothing whatsoever to do with the comics he was in, but entirely because, when Capcom designers had a list of Marvel characters to pick from to work on Marvel Super Heroes, they took a look at the diet Cthulhu and went “gimme THAT one”, and then went all-in in giving the alien squid monster a funky personality along with a great stage and music and animations and all that great fighting game character stuff, and now he’s maybe the most popular Dr Strange villain along with Dormammu and Mordo, despite having ZERO film appearences or major showings in comic sagas.

Capcom's designers redefined Shuma-Gorath from a nebulous cosmic evil into a comically smug cartoon bastard who can rant about devouring all dimensions and souls horrifically while also cracking poses and zingers like “How do you expect to win a fight with only two arms?” and having dinners with Dhalsim or hosting Japanese game shows in his endings, and it kills me that none of this ever made it’s way into any depictions of the character outside of MvC. 

So that’s kinda what I’d go with. I’d take Capcom’s Shuma-Gorath, depower him a bit obviously from his canonical power, and run with the premise of his MvC3 ending where he decides that, well, if he's the unlikely savior of this pathetic planet and these wretched human dogs like him so much, and he’s clearly having a much better time here among them than he ever had drifting among the stars cealessly consuming life, then maybe he can take a break from all that eldritch business and keep up hosting the Super Monster Awesome Hour and maybe fight whatever PITIFUL villains think can take HIS planet. I mean, he’ll probably still end up destroying the planet by the end, but why not give this hero business a try?

Just until he gets his full powers back of course. 

I mean you can’t deny he DOES look pretty good in that bowtie, surely The Great Shuma-Gorath wouldn’t be so unmerciful as to deny these vile wastes of flesh something good to look at in their brief and miserable lives.

[whetstonefires]

in the shadows

hey guess who has two thumbs and just spent 5 hours straight writing another batman AU?

-

Batman wasn’t a person.

He faked it very well. When the League gathered, the line of his mask against pale skin looked natural and human, a little more perfectly fitted than the Flash’s but not quite as perfect as Green Lantern’s, which was an energy projection and not a real object and thus lay against his face flawlessly, without shift or gap.

His mouth didn’t bend into many expressions and his body language wasn’t voluble, but the emotive gestures that he did make were pretty normal. The rare smile seemed honest. He had a heartbeat, perfectly steady. His shadow (almost) always matched the shape that was blocking the light.

The stories that came out of Gotham, about the Bat—those could be exaggerations, born of terror and manipulated perception. Clark, of all people, knew how much you could convince people to believe things that weren’t real, because they made a better story. Even the scraps of photography and film showing a towering thing of black fog and long fangs could have been some clever trick with projectors.

The fact that Superman couldn’t see through his suit just meant it was well made.

He’d had to pool his observations with Diana and J’onn before he’d been sure he wasn’t imagining things. But Martian Manhunter knew shapeshifting, and said the block against his mind when he tried to touch Batman’s thoughts did not feel quite human. And Superman knew what posing as human looked like. And Wonder Woman knew truth, and its absence.

Batman wasn’t human. Which wasn’t the problem, of course.

The problem was that he was pretending he was. Pretending it rigorously in a situation where there shouldn’t be any need, unless he had something worse to hide. Pretending it in a way that overlaid on a certain inhuman predatory grace began to look very dangerous indeed.

Superman could see both things in him now, watching narrow-eyed through a roof into the room where Batman bent over a child’s bed, cape swirling up larger and darker than he let it get around them. The man and the hungry creature, flipping in and out of focus, neither ever gone but superimposed, like a trick picture that was two things at once.

Knuckles ghosted over the boy’s cheek, claws turned inward, and the child sighed softly, and sunk deeper into sleep. Batman’s heart wasn’t beating, but Clark could monitor the child’s vitals easily from here.

Batman drew his hand back, and tipped his head up—looking back at Superman as though the roof was no more a barrier to his perceptions than to Clark’s. Waited a beat, as if making sure his attention had been noticed, and then passed soundlessly between the other beds to the window, slid it open, and launched himself out through it and up onto the roof.

He didn’t bother to restrain himself to even a plausible approximation of human limits, now. The arm he reached up to the edge of the roof to pivot himself up by was too long, and his shoulder rotated further than it should have been able to, and he landed with impossible soundlessness in a billow of cape that was far, far larger than any cape that only reached to his heels should have managed, and which faded out at the edges into shadow. He knew he was found out.

Superman took the obvious invitation, and sunk down to join him. It was better, sitting like this, facing the same way on the ridgepole of a two-story building. Batman hadn’t hurt that child, that he could tell. There was no need to make this a confrontation.

“I don’t understand why,” he said at last. Out of deference for sleeping children, he kept his voice soft—he would have worried about a human being able to hear it, but now he knew he didn’t have to worry about that with Batman. “Why go to so much trouble to deceive us? We haven’t kept secret what we are. Not from you.”

Alien, alien, user of alien weapon, magical princess…

Batman sighed. He spoke almost as softly as Clark had, and his voice sounded the same as ever, except for the fact that a human voice couldn’t get this quiet without falling into a whisper. “I’m not like you.” He turned.

He’d let some of the details of his human mask fall away—what must have been the exhaustively rendered texture of skin, the flakes of dry skin on chapping lips, a crease at the corner of his mouth that had suggested he scowled or smiled more, outside of his costume. There was no pretense of a jawbone, under the skin, though the jawline externally hadn’t changed. The cowl still looked like something he was wearing, but Clark knew it was not. It flexed like skin when Batman narrowed his blank white eyes and said, “I can see you know that.”

“You’ve visited that kid every day for weeks,” Clark said. “Why?”

Batman stared at him. “How long have you known?”

“Batman…”

“You’re confronting me now because you’re worried about my intentions toward Dick. He changed your mind about something. Ergo, you’ve been sitting on this for a while. How long have you known I wasn’t real?”

That was such a bizarre choice of words Clark almost skipped answering the question to chase it down, but he held himself back. This wasn’t a story, and Batman wasn’t even a hostile source so far, if it had been. “Wonder Woman, J’onn and I pooled our observations about four months ago, in April. We were pretty sure by the time we finished comparing notes.” He shrugged. “I suspected something a long time before that, but it’s hard to say when it started to be more than…a feeling.”

“A feeling,” Batman echoed. “Yes, it would start there.”

“So?” Superman prompted. He had liked Batman. He was the last person who could insist that someone hiding the truth of his own nature was reprehensible, though the sting he’d felt about it was an uncomfortable reminder of how much most of his friends would resent him, if they knew the truth. So he’d meant to let it lie, until Batman chose to trust them, or gave them a reason not to trust him. “Why have you been visiting…Dick?”

It wouldn’t be suspicious on its own—well, not very suspicious, all things considered, in context—except that Batman had changed, around the same time. Diana said his presence seemed deeper, Clark thought he seemed to be having trouble staying within the outlines of his human mask. J’onn agreed that he seemed somehow more powerful.

Batman stayed silent a long time. Eighteen heartbeats from the boy below them, slower than those of his peers because he had an athlete’s conditioning already and was more deeply asleep than most of them. At last, the being beside him confessed, “He’s carrying me.”

“What?”

“You noticed I’m stronger now,” Batman said matter-of-factly, in a way that almost managed to cover up emotion. “That’s his doing. I was…fading, when you met me. Not up to capacity. I’m not really meant to exist that way.” He glanced over at Superman again, as though evaluating his reaction, and Clark wondered if he had really needed to do that—if he really only saw out of his eyes. J’onn could make eyes anywhere he wanted some, but he needed them to see. Batman seemed somehow less constrained by biology than that.

“Is it hurting him?”

“No! No. It…shouldn’t.” Batman ghosted a sigh, voiceless, inhuman as the wind. “I don’t know that it’s good for a child to be around me. But I’m not…taking anything from him. I’m not…feeding on him, if that’s what you think.”

It was what Clark had feared. And probably anything that would eat a child would also lie about it, but Batman was his teammate and very nearly his friend. So it was reassuring to have it so firmly denied. He’d come braced for only a little and no lasting damage and he said it was fine.

“Please,” he said. “Can you explain it to me?”

“I suppose I have to.” Batman tipped his head back, to look up at the few stars that smudged themselves visible through the red blanket of light-polluted smog overhead. Clark could make out more of them, even with his ordinary visible-light vision, than a human could have. He wondered what Batman saw. “Will you tell the others for me? Your little conspiracy?”

“Not Green Lantern and Flash?”

“Hal and Barry can figure me out on their own.” That dry sense of humor was the same, even if it was bending amusement onto a mouth that could no longer pass as human.

A breath Clark suspected he didn’t need was drawn. “A different little boy made me up,” Batman said. “Bruce Wayne. You can look the story up in the newspaper archives.

“It was a little over twenty years ago, in Gotham. A mugger shot his parents in front of him.” Another slanted glance, and then he looked away again. He certainly acted like he needed his eyes to see. “It wasn’t more terrible than things that happen to a hundred other people every day, really. But he was the right kind of terrified and angry, in the right place, at the right moment…the police reports all say he tackled the mugger from behind, and got lucky that the man hit his head. But it was me. I took him down.”

He raised his face back toward the smudged stars. “I was such a small thing, then. If that vengeance had been enough—the killer taken in and sentenced, brought to justice—I would have faded away again. Things like me are summoned and dispelled that way all the time. Or he could have taken me back into himself—the danger was past, it wasn’t a chronic part of his existence, so I would have reintegrated, probably, and not hung around rising up to protect him for the rest of his life, and probably disrupting it in the process.”

That amused quirk to the horizontal slash of a mouth, again. “But it wasn’t enough. Not for him. He clung. He brooded. He wanted to protect everyone. And I grew.” Bittersweet and fond. “I grew until I really could help. Until anyone could see me, any time I liked. Until I was solid enough to get in half a dozen fights in one night without my blows starting to go right through the enemy.”

There was no way Batman was letting him know these things about how he worked, when he wasn’t holding back, by accident. They were being given.

“Where’s Bruce now?” Clark asked. Knowing it was probably a painful topic, but hoping to hear it was some rule of magic out of a storybook, that only a child had the right kind of belief to sustain a projection of this nature. That Bruce Wayne had grown up and moved on and had a career and a family, and perhaps didn’t remember that Batman was something he’d made.

Batman’s eyes closed, and vanished completely into the black of his head. He’d kept unspooling all the while he’d been talking, Clark realized, and the gouts and folds and flame-like flickers of his cape now sprawled over more than half the roof, leaving a great circle of open space around Superman himself, and a broad open route away from Batman, as though he couldn’t just go straight up if he wanted to get away. The billows of it had now collapsed in on themselves. His voice, when he spoke, was hushed and solemn, but calm. “He didn’t make it to sixteen. He died tackling a gunman who’d been holding up a corner store where he happened to be, buying junk food he wasn’t supposed to have. The cashier fumbled the register key and bent over to pick it up, and the man panicked and started shooting. Bruce saved lives, that night. But he didn’t survive. Because I wasn’t there. I was away protecting other people, like he’d asked me to.”

“I’m sorry,” Clark said. Inadequate as always, but more so, when he’d pushed for this truth and didn’t even understand enough to know how to offer comfort. He reached out to offer a comforting, boundary-respecting brief pat on the shoulder, like he might have when he had less idea what Batman was, and his hand hung still in the air, as the face Batman turned toward him was human again, so abruptly that even to his accelerated visual perceptions it looked like some sort of glitch.

“This is his face,” Batman told him, and the grief that hadn’t been in his voice before was worn on it, in the pull of the mouth and the bend of pain around the blank white eyes. He looked like he might cry. “The way he would have looked. He never…grew this far, but…”

“In memory of him, then,” Superman said, soothing, and was able to deliver the pat on the shoulder and withdraw. It sounded like Batman was in some ways the only surviving part of Bruce Wayne, and as such had every right to his appearance, but he clearly didn’t think of himself that way, and it wasn’t Clark’s place to try to alter his self-concept, or even make comment when he’d only just been introduced to it. “That seems appropriate.”

Batman shrugged. It looked very human, except for the way the cape parts of him reacted. “I knew it best.”

Had he held the memory of his…creator’s face in his head, updating it carefully to how he would have looked with every year or month that passed? That couldn’t be healthy. It also might be unavoidable, considering Batman’s origins.

“You went on protecting Gotham, afterward?”

“What else would I do?”

“And you joined us. When Starro came.” Batman nodded, as though that was only obvious. Clark supposed it was—when you were a supernatural entity created to protect human beings, why would you not answer a call to band together with other superpowered beings to save the world? “Why did you pretend?” he asked. “To be…”

“Human?” Batman asked. He snorted in derision, either at Clark’s inability to choose a word or his own deceit. “It wasn’t the first time. I talk to the police like this, sometimes. Witnesses. It reassures people, to be talking to a…person.”

That was the same reason J’onn made himself look more human, even in blatant green—it wasn’t entirely unlike why Clark kept his own life as Clark, why Superman didn’t wear a mask. “But why…” He’d gone to such lengths, to maintain the façade. Human jaw and teeth, sculpted solid to catch X-ray vision behind flesh he’d carefully made permeable to it, when even now with the image of Bruce Wayne’s face restored he wasn’t bothering. Consistent physical proportions. Always running close against the edge of normal human limits, of strength and speed and length of jump—not hanging back, but not throwing himself onto the front line either, contributing as much with tactics and analysis as actual combat. “Why try so hard to convince us?”

Batman shrugged. “I wasn’t holding back that much. I told you. I was fading. I was never meant to last. Once it turned out the team wasn’t a one-time thing, I still didn’t want to go through the whole…process of revelation.”

“But you’re doing it now.” Clark found he was grinding his teeth, because he was putting together a picture he didn’t like. “Because. Now you’re expecting to survive.” Batman had been dying. He hadn’t thought it was worth the stress of being honest with them, because he hadn’t expected to exist long enough for their relationships to matter.

Superman glanced down through the roof at the sleeping children, and one child in particular.

“I wasn’t there in time to save his parents, either,” Batman said, and Clark knew that feeling—all this power and yet you could still arrive too late, and be too little. But Batman was defined by that feeling, founded upon it almost, so it probably struck him deeper. “But I was there afterward. I protected him from the followup attacks, meant to stop him testifying about the sabotage he’d witnessed.

“And he clung to me, whenever I came…I do try to comfort them, especially when it’s children, but usually they’re at least a little bit afraid. He wasn’t. And he didn’t have anyone else to cling to. They wouldn’t let his parents’ friends in to see him more than once, and then they left town. And then, after I came to tell him that Zucco and his men were taken care of for good, when I left I felt the distance opening…I realized I was…his, now.”

There was a strange, wondering ache in the way he said it that made it easy for Clark to repress his own discomfort with the idea of anyone belonging to anyone else, and of something that looked like a grown man asserting an intimate personal bond with an unrelated child. Batman was supposed to belong to a child, it was how he’d been made, and he’d expected to die by inches in the absence of the one who’d made him, and now he suddenly wasn’t. This little orphan was the most precious thing in his world, that was plain, and to Clark at least it was equally plain that he felt a deep guilt at replacing the boy who had been his world before.

He wondered, suddenly, if Batman had ever been this honest with anyone in his existence. Had he been this open even with his Bruce, or had his need to protect led him to put on a front, and conceal every uncertainty?

The pale smudge of Batman’s face was still and remote, and his voice was nearly calm, but the darkness of his cape had spilled out over the whole roof now, and it was gently writhing. The route out for Superman, opposite Batman’s main body, had shrunk to the merest footpath. Was that there out of instinct, or a more conscious courtesy?

“You don’t have to leave that,” Superman said quietly, flipping his thumb toward the corridor of open shingle and beam. “I know you aren’t trying to trap me, and it won’t anyway.”

The path snapped shut almost instantaneously, and a little of the strain in the atmosphere faded—Batman had been holding himself back from encircling him completely only with continuous effort. Why? Did he naturally expand to fill the available space? Or was expanding in the form of the cape an expression of emotion that was uncomfortable to suppress, in the same way it was hard to sit still when you felt anxious, or hold your tongue when you got mad?

His teammate’s whole torso was turned away, now, and this too was easy to read—shame at his own inhumanity. In front of Clark, of all people. But then, Clark made it look easy, didn’t he? It even was easy for him, when it came to things like looking like he fit in.

J’onn should have been the one to come. But it disconcerted him not to be able to pick up anything Batman did not intentionally share—Clark didn’t think he’d learned to read human body language yet, beyond the most obvious things—and Batman had been known to use fire.

“It didn’t seem wise to seem to be trying to threaten you,” Batman said flatly, into the night.

“Thank you,” said Superman, because while he didn’t mind at this point, it would definitely have made him uncomfortable earlier, before Batman had made himself so vulnerable. “Could you, do you think?”

A sidelong look. “You’re less invulnerable to magic,” Batman said. “Probably.”

Something to keep in mind. The Flash was the only teammate he had now that he was reasonably sure he could take three falls out of three. Maybe they could start practicing against each other, if they could find somewhere they could risk making a mess on that scale. Sparring—he and Diana had tried it out, gingerly. If Batman wanted to stretch out his re-expanding powers in a secure environment…

“Do you have any plans, going forward?” Now that he had a future to plan for.

“I have someone who helps me,” Batman replied. “Bruce’s guardian, after his parents died. He wanted to leave Gotham, after…but he stayed. To try to help the city, in Bruce’s memory. And to keep an eye on me.” The amusement this time was bitter. “We don’t really get along. He thinks Bruce died because of me—that I made him feel invulnerable, and then didn’t protect him. He’s projecting. But I suppose that’s what I’m for.”

Clark made a face; he didn’t like the idea of people being for purposes. Even people who’d been made. This wasn’t the time to argue about it. “But he helps you?”

“He helps.” Batman glanced down, toward Dick’s bed, as though once again he could see through the roof. “I’m trying to get him to agree to take Dick in. He did a good job with Bruce, even if he doesn’t think so.”

“Will that be the best for Dick?” Clark asked, as neutrally as he could manage. He could tell Batman’s intentions were good, but he didn’t know if putting a child entirely within the influence of a supernatural being that had latched onto him, without an external line of support, was a good idea. On the other hand, putting him in the care of an adult who would know he wasn’t delusional could only help. And Clark could be the outside support, if necessary—not that he wasn’t under Batman’s influence himself, but he wasn’t within his circle of it the way this Alfred seemed to be, resentment or not. The resentment might be the most dangerous part.

What part of this train of thought Batman sensed, he couldn’t tell, as his comrade only retorted, “It can’t be worse than here!”

A group home with four beds to a room certainly wasn’t the best environment, but surely he couldn’t be here much longer. “Have you talked to him about it?”

“He doesn’t get much privacy. He agreed to meet with Alfred last time he ducked into a closet while I was there, so now Alfred’s the focus of the plan.” Batman sighed again. “He’s so brave,” he said fondly. “It worries me. I wish he were somewhere safe.”

The wild impulse rose to offer to step in, to take the role of legal guardian if this Alfred wouldn’t. Clark sat on it. He didn’t want a child, he wasn’t equipped to care for a child, CPS would be able to see that perfectly well in a single reporter in his 20s living in a one-bedroom apartment in a somewhat run-down building. He didn’t even live in the same state, and child placement was handled on a state-by-state basis so even petitioning for custody would be horrifically involved, never mind obtaining it. Also, he had a secret identity to protect.

He couldn’t always help. The hardest lesson in life, and one he had to keep relearning.

“So your plans are…to get Dick into a safe home environment.”

“And keep him alive,” Batman affirmed. Quick, and firm, and almost not obvious about what a vital goal this was to him. Keeping this child alive, the way he’d failed to keep the one before.

“Of course.” Clark nodded. If everything he’d been told was true—and he thought it was, it felt true—then there was no need for the League to intervene. Gotham was probably safer than it had ever been. “Can I meet him, sometime?” Partly to do his part as an outside support network. Partly because he was curious, to meet this child who’d been able to reach his hand into Batman’s chest and close his fingers around his heart.

Batman glanced over, and then seemed to relax. Even the endless piles of his cape seemed suddenly to behave more like ordinary fabric. “I passed, then?”

“What?” Oh. Of course he’d known. Clark had hardly been sneaky. “Yes.”

“Not that I know what you were planning to do if I hadn’t.”

Clark didn’t know either, other than get Dick away of he seemed to need it.

“All of this is off the record, of course,” Batman added. It was a testament to how distracted Superman was by Batman’s problems that it took a long second for him to realize the potential implications of that choice of words, and read in Batman’s posture and the way his cape had developed hooks of tension in some of its folds that they were entirely intentional.

“How long have you known?” he asked.

“You attended a press event in Gotham two years ago. You still feel like you, no matter how you dress.”

“Well.” Superman tried to shake the sudden tension out of his shoulders. Batman was a good detective and data analyst, that hadn’t changed with the rest of it. He’d certainly tracked down the name of the gentleman from the Planet. “I guess that’s fair. And of course it’s off the record. I won’t even tell J’onn and Diana anything but the basics without your permission.”

“Oh.” Batman clearly hadn’t expected that. “Why?”

“You have a right to your privacy.” Clark thought back over his own approach to the whole situation and said, with a gentleness born somewhat of guilt, “You are a person, after all.”

“I’m really not,” Batman said, corner of his mouth ticking up just slightly to underline the easy irony in his voice. But the great spread of cape had fallen into easier, more geometric wrinkles, and Clark was beginning to learn to trust that over what he said with his borrowed face. Though he could almost definitely lie with the cape part of himself, too, if he needed to.

“Don’t…” His tongue flickered across the back of his teeth; be brave, Kent. “Don’t talk about my friend that way, huh?”