#the secret is that the human experience is inherently monstrous

[odd-ratz]

DP AU where Phantom feels no pain but any and all accumulated injuries hit him when Danny switches back to fenton (originally proposed by @paenling). Lovingly dubbed the Pain Train AU by The discord.

See more for our hcs!

Okay so headcannons we have come up with:

-Danny avoids switching to Phantom at all costs. His drive to fight ghosts and protect Amity is still there, but he combats ghosts using teamwork with Sam/Tucker, modified gadgets and a lot of improvisation - He only ever switches to Phantom as a final resort. When he does, he milks it for all its worth before he has to switch back after a battle and the pain hits - As a result, Phantom form is extra powerful because excess energy isn't shed through regular use and some ghostly attributes bleed over to his human form - his eyes seem to glow a green tinge and he has a white streak in his hair ever since the accident. He ends up looking hella ecto-contaminated - Because he can't fight like he does in canon (essentially just throwing himself at an enemy until something sticks), his fighting style is a lot more strategic. He uses weapons/gear he steals from his parents that he modifies and as many ghost powers as he can manifest in human form - Sam serves as a secondary fighter, but usually leaves the heavy hitting to Danny. She helps with planning and often sets up traps to help catch ghosts. Tucker, as always, works as the tech guy but also is the team medic. Together, the trio work as a ghost fighting crew and have backup plans in place whenever Danny is out of commission - Danny usually wears a face covering when fighting and an inverted sweatshirt, but the trio's ghost fighting is kinda an open secret at Casper High. Who the fuck else has hair like that? - His Phantom identity is something much less well known because it's much more monstrous looking and is rarely seen ever. He's more of Amity's local friendly Cryptid than it's superhero

- When he switches back for the first time, he finally realizes the scope of his situation. Sam and Tucker thought he was dying for real the first time he switches over. After that, he learns very quickly to avoid using Phantom form

- As a result of the combination of how powerful Phantom is when he does switch over and the pain he experiences every time he switches over, he quickly comes to resent Phantom and associate the destruction and pain with ghosts as a whole

-Lotta self loathing here. Sorry not sorry

- Surprisingly, it's Vlad, who's in the same situation who shows him that his ghost form isn't an inherent evil

- The other ghosts get in on this action and show him the little, enjoyable things about being a ghosts

- His friends and sister help him slowly change his mindset about Phantom after that. They never saw Phantom as a force of evil, unlike Danny

Yes. There is even more in the discord. I tried to get as much of my favorite hcs in this post as I could

[mittensmorgul]

after my epic-length post about 1.12 today, I feel obligated to mention that yes, I also watched 1.13, 1.14, and 1.15, as well. Even if they didn’t rate the sort of spiral narrative Chuck-level screeching that 1.12 did, there’s still stuff worth mentioning about each of them.

1.13: well... (okay fine, there’s a bit). Since this episode falls immediately after 1.12, the presumption is that when Dean gets the call from Cassie, right on the heels of his near-death experiences. (and I say experiences because heck, almost everything that happened to Dean in 1.12 placed him in proximity to death... and to Death). And then out of the blue, he hears from Cassie, who he hasn’t seen in at least several years. In the themes of s14, she was the first person he’d confessed the truth of his life to, in direct contrast to Sam’s relationship with Jess during that same time period. Dean truly wanted to be KNOWN by the person he felt he was falling for, and he was soundly rejected for it. Sam had always hidden his reality from his “normal” friends and even the woman he was in a serious relationship with, maintaining the illusion he was just as “normal” as they were throughout. Dean has never wanted that (despite all his parallels to Mary, it’s Sam who is most like her in this respect, and only through a long process of learning to accept himself, his life, his past, and who he is and what it’s made him is he able to come to terms with this). So this is interesting on that level, at the very least.

1.14: I’ve written plenty on this episode in the past, about the Winchesters and their understanding of their own shared past from each other’s perspective, and all of that is important. But tying this into the 14.20 narrative, this was about their relationship to the Big Hidden Schemes, of what had been done to Sam as an infant, and the terrifying powers it’s left him with. This is the first time he has one of his visions while awake and can’t pass it off as merely a dream. It’s also the ONLY time in s1 where Sam pulls the telekinesis trick, moving something with his mind. It happens in response to the vision of Dean being killed, and enables him to free himself in time to stop his vision from becoming reality. One subtle theme that’s surrounded Sam from the start and yet never expressed in explicit text is the fact that nothing ever seems to be able to contain him. Bound and gagged, locked in the panic room, and even here barricaded in a closet (and in 1.15 locked in a literal cage), nothing can hold Sam bound for long. And in the bigger scheme of the narrative, that plays into the “nothing stays locked up forever” themes, too. Sam just... exemplifies it to a terrifying degree (I mean, just think of all the times Soulless!Sam slipped his bonds in s6. But even pre-series, he was always the one who wanted out, out of hunting, and who actually achieved it, even for a little while.)

1.15: and here we go. Considered by some to be the first episode where the “monster” turns out to be “just people,” I would venture to suggest that this serves as a clarification of that theme put forth in 1.12. After all, the reaper was forced to do what it did, and wasn’t actually the monstrous force behind anything that happened in the episode. He was bound into servitude to Sue Ann’s will, and SHE was the true monster of 1.12. The reaper was merely her weapon, entirely under her control until Sam broke her talisman and freed it. The Benders exist merely to prove the point that humanity has a capacity for monstrousness that can rival any actual “monster.” And yet, through that horrific experience, knowing the worst of humanity, Team Free Will would still choose freedom over peace. This episode-- and every subsequent episode where humans are the worst monster, right on down through the BMoL serving as the Big Bad of s12-- that humanity is not inherently “better” but they’re not inherently lesser than the angels and other immortal beings, either. That’s the secret, and something I think we tend to selectively forget when convenient while watching this show. Nothing is black and white. And to have the good, we have to accept that there will also be bad, and it’s still all worth it in the end. Because that’s what life is all about.

[thatboomerkid]

City of Looking-Glass Shadows

City of Looking-Glass Shadows -- an urban-fantasy D&D 5E campaign

The year is 199X.

It’s been this way for a while now.

The world is a lie. We live within an artificial construct, a facsimile of mundane reality forged upon a pocket-shard of arable land -- adrift somewhere deep in the Shadowfell -- built with slave labor by the illithid to house, to monitor & to control a teeming, screeching, anxious mass of hand-selected human cattle.

The goal of their project is simple: we are here to generate new technological applications. We are a living algorithm, assembled by our starry masters to the endless & perpetually-accelerating task of spitting out ever-deadlier and more brutally efficient weapons of conquest & control, engines of wealth & war, tools of mechanical intelligence & information-manipulation.

No wonder we all feel a little ... stuck, huh?

The simplest, most brute-force way to produce the desired technological output at the necessary volume involved building an invisible cage and keeping several hundred million humans magically-illiterate, desperate, confused & tech-hungry.

So that’s what they built, way out here in the echoing void.

Welcome home.

A desperate, silent war for the future of this ugly, distant demiplane is being fought in the shadows, right now ... and the monsters are winning.

Brought to you absolutely free to enjoy, to test & to share – as always – by the fine folks of my Patreon.

Inspired by Big Trouble in Little China, Blade, Dark City, Hackers, Heavy Metal, Highlander, They Live & Werewolf: the Apocalypse.

This website references trademarks and/or copyrights owned by Hasbro, Inc. We are expressly prohibited from charging you to use or access this content. This website is not published, endorsed, or specifically approved by Hasbro. This material is posted under the Fair Use clause of copyright law.

Created by Clinton Boomer & Uncle Twitchy.

Special thanks to Jessica Redekop of Redcap Miniatures, Blaine Bass of Scrapfinder, Landon Bellavia of Quest Writer, Neal Litherland of Improved Initiative & Sam Berry of Nomad Tattoos for being my beta-readers.

image by jim pinto

Our false universe has been invaded. Several times.

Playable Races:

Awakened Human: Somewhere in the range of 99.9% of all humans within the City of Looking-Glass Shadows exist fully under the thrall of the illithid; seeing only what their masters desire for them to see, knowing only what their master choose for them to know, remembering only what their masters allow them to remember. But a small, ultra-select few have shaken off the chains. These are the crazy folks, the dirty & paranoid madmen. People like you: people who know that magic is real.

Duergar: The brick-&-mortar labor force of the illithid, thousands of mind-wiped duergar still serve deep beneath the earth in vast, dim-lit caverns, forge-pits and echoing armories alongside masses of grimlocks, ogres, quaggoths, troglodytes and other, less-describable slave races. The grey dwarves possess resilient minds, however ... and they are the most-common escapees of this prison.

Githyanki: Way back in 198X, a force of githyanki warriors and their red dragonborn allies stormed the gate between the Astral Plane and the City of Looking-Glass Shadows: it was an apocalypse of fire, psychic thunder, death-screams & silver heavy-blades above exploding skyscrapers and panicked crowds. It’s all been wiped from the history & memory of the world, of course: you’ll find nary a whisper in the official records. But a few survivors still plot in the shadows, rebuilding their strength.

Githzerai: Even further back, in 197X, a trio of githzerai dojos assaulted this stronghold of the illithid. Those who fled, bleeding, from the failure of that onslaught are still hiding here amongst a teeming press of the timid humans who huddle against one another in the delusion of warmth and safety. Within their sewer strongholds and rooftop dojos, these stubborn students of Zerthimon train, maintaining the secretive ZethiNet and making plans to strike once more.

Prized Exotic: Although there are only a handful of aasimar, tiefling & dark elf inhabitants of the world, some are kept as beloved pets by illithid masters. The rarest of escapees, these creatures -- once their chains are flung free -- are hunted a with singular devotion of purpose. A very few are rumored to have maintained their freedom.

Red Dragonborn: It is well known that Vlaakith the Lich-Queen, 157th of her name, bears the dread Scepter of Ephelomon; by means of this unholy artifact, she commands the obedience of all crimson-scaled wyrms for use in her eternal war. Far from her omnipotent influence, the red dragonborn who once served alongside the githyanki are free again.

Shadar-Kai: The original inhabitants of that stark chuck of rock from which the City of Looking-Glass Shadows rises are still here. They lurk, and they hate, and they take their kills where they can. Many are allied to the mysterious Sleeper in the Woods, and they make sacrifices around huge bonfires to whatever entity it is.

image from here

First-Level PC Character-Origin Options:

Awakened From Injury: Those abject horrors which open battle with the illithid can inflict upon a mortal mind & body are impossible to describe in any sane language. Some of the first through the gate into the City of Looking-Glass Shadows are only now being revived from their comas, their memories scattered like fallen leaves.

Recent Summoning: The githyanki & githzerai alike are highly active in their ongoing quest, attempting to pull resources & reinforcements to the demiplane in mass numbers. Unfortunately, the few who are successfully brought here via ritual-summoning are often limited in their abilities ... and unable to return home by magical means.

Thrown Off the Shackles: Most humans, duergar and assorted other slaves of the illithid are badly damaged, psychically, when they pull free of the influence of their hideous, alien masters: losing bits of themselves in the process of awakening to the world as it truly is.

Eleven Fun Facts about the City of Looking-Glass Shadows

Everyone looks like a human. If it has an Intelligence score higher than an animal and is approximately human-sized, it looks like a person. That means that the illithid and their monstrous slaves can function in public without disguises ... and you can, too. This is some unshakable type of artifact programming inherent to the original demiplane, and it’s one of the reasons they chose the site for their experiment in the first place.

Reflections show the truth. If you’re a non-human, or an Awakened Human, any type of reflection -- in a mirror, in water, whatever -- will show you the truth of who you’re talking to. This may require you to keep a particularly paranoid eye on your surroundings. Have fun!

Members of sentient non-human species can always “feel” the presence of others of their own kind. If a Shadar-Kai, for example, is within 30 feet of another Shadar-Kai, she gets a little “ping”; all gith ping in the same way, which causes a certain level of confusion amongst the two races. Awakened Humans have the distinct advantage of always feeling it when they get within 30 feet of any non-human sentient creature, but the reverse isn’t true: Shadar-Kai have no way of knowing if a given human is Awakened or not, for example, short of seeing the human manipulate magical energies in some way.

The illithid have access to 21st century technology. Everyone else is wandering around with pagers, beepers and battery-hungry car-phones the size of briefcases, while the illithid have smart phones, YouTube and GPS. This gives them several dangerous advantages.

The illithid occupy most positions of power. Not every billionaire CEO, mega-church pastor or politician is an illithid. Some are just their thralls. But it’s even money that if someone has a lifestyle in the top 1%, they’re one of the squid-faced, brain-eating elder horrors.

Sentient non-humans are immune to mundane guns. No one knows why, but anything that isn’t a human or an animal simply isn’t affected by firearms. This means that a single githyanki can casually stand up to an entire SWAT team ... and that an armed populace will never overthrow their alien overlords (for more on the topic, see “This is Not Guns Against the Darkness,” Bloodlines & Black Magic, page 160).

There are three Elder Brains in charge of the City. The three entities are in a constant state of “friendly” competition with each other; their genteel attacks, counterattacks & diversion-tactics drive innovation forward at an enormous cost in human life & sanity. Each one rules a section of the city from a hidden penthouse apartment, underground spa or other luxurious -- but inaccessible & highly fortified -- location.

Undead are dangerously common in the City. As a side effect of the demiplane’s location “within” the Shadowfell, these undead can spawn randomly; these spontaneously-generated undead are a HUGE problem for the illithid, who are on highest possible alert for any new outbreaks. This is often used as a smoke-screen by the Githyanki & Shadar-Kai, especially ... who mask their own operations behind seemingly-mindless attacks by the undead. Undead in the demiplane are also extremely resilient to being turned: undead have advantage on turn saves.

The illithid have access to the only stable portal into & out of the demiplane. While travel from the sprawling city is dangerous & relatively uncommon, the illithid can resupply much more easily than any other faction, moving to and from the deminplane in massive vessels once every month. Maintaining total control of this hidden portal is of the utmost importance to the mind flayers ... and taking the portal is the highest goal of every other faction. 

Because of the demiplane’s “locked” property, spells that rely on dimensional travel or manipulation -- Rope Trick, Blink, Dimension Door, Conjure (Minor) Elemental, Summon Lesser/Greater Demon, Contact Other Plane, Conjure Fey, Planar Ally, Conjure Celestial, Plane Shift, Astral Projection, Gate and others, subject to DM discretion -- are unreliable. In order to cast any of those spells, the caster must succeed at a DC 18 save using their spell-casting stat at disadvantage. A critical failure when casting a spell of this type spontaneously generates an aggressive, uncontrollable undead creature with a CR equal to the level of the spell being cast. Casting such spells in a ritually-prepared “sacred space” allows a character to attempt the spell without disadvantage.

Something dangerous & ancient sleeps in the woods. Several rebel factions have made attempts to contact or awaken this unknown entity in a suicidal bid at challenging illithid control ... but what is it? None can say for certain. Some say it’s an ancient midnight-blue shadow dragon of unutterable age; others suggest that it is Moloch, trapped here after a disastrous attempt to gain the Raven Queen’s support to end his exile. Still others suggest that it’s one of the obscene Great Old Ones, which serves as a patron for some particularly cruel & debased warlocks ...

original photography by Resa LaMont, digital editing by Tim Jenkins of Battle! Studio; image also used here

10 Plot Hooks

Maybe you’re starting a brand new campaign from scratch.

Maybe you’ve just ended a long, complex story-line a little bit early, without all of the mysteries solved; maybe you can’t jump into the next chapter of your narrative until the PCs achieve a certain slightly higher level or meet a specific NPC or learn a particular secret; maybe only half of your players showed up to this session and you need a quick “filler” episode.

Maybe your PCs befriended & adopted the Godzilla, shunted the Terminator to Khyledonia, had the Voldemort removed from office in disgrace or otherwise drove your campaign’s entire plot-arc so far off the frigging rails that you need a few weeks to re-orient your entire game from first principles.

Whatever the reason, you need a brand new plot hook on the fly, and – simply due to setting-assumptions! – “goblins attack the village” or “the princess is a werewolf” or “local knights go questing for the Vast Horror” simply won’t cut it.

No sweat, friend. We’ve got you covered.

Just roll 1d10 on the chart below; if you roll a plot hook that you’ve already used, round up to the nearest unused plot hook (if you rolled seven or above), while rounding down to the nearest unused plot hook if you rolled six or lower.

A rumor starts circulating the underground magical community -- rebels & survivors, all -- about enchanted mirror-shades which allow an Awakened or non-human user to always see another creature’s true species, as if in a reflection. Who is making them, and how? And where are they?

A rumor goes out that the secretive ZerthiNet -- the private web built and maintained by the Githzerai -- came dangerously close to being breached by human hackers in service to the illithid. While this may or may not be true, it shakes the confidence of several powerful groups who are now desperate to relocate their clandestine bases of operation.

An insane derro, presumed to be an escapee of the illithid, is claiming that he knows the exact location of one of the Elder Brains ... and how to circumvent all of the security near it. He’s willing to trade this information to the highest bidder, and a shadowy bidding-war has begun between various war-party sects desperate to make a strike.

A group of traveling Shadar-Kai who are known to work in the city proper as well as to maintain a “clan base” in the forest have begun to trade in more and more powerful magical items, selling them for relatively small change. Some folks suspect that they’ve found something valuable out in the woods: the horde of a monster, perhaps.

A massive security-breach has the entire illithid population on damage control, as a massive shambling horror of undeath & rotting flesh has begun making daring daylight attacks on seemingly-random locations before vanishing once again. Is this the dark work of a single dedicated necromancer, of a clever cabal, or beast “breathed forth” by the strange Sleeper in the Woods?

The illithid were not the first to discover this demiplane. The wreckage of an ancient ship -- perhaps a Spelljammer -- has long been rumored to lie embedded beneath the city.  Now, a recent escapee from a duergar slave camp claims to have found the ship, and perhaps even figured out how to get it flying again.

McHappy kids' meals are making the rounds with toys from the summer cinema blockbuster Secret Agent Kids, including see-around-the-corner periscopes that, as a source of reflected images, should show the truth.  However ... (roll 1d3): (1) Human children have been “waking up” in unprecedented numbers, creating a “mental health crisis” among the City’s youth. (2) Awakened humans and non-humans who look through these "toys" see misleading images, showing some mundane humans as unnatural horrors, and the real horrors as mundane humans.  This has led to certain ... misunderstandings. (3) The magically-initiated are completely unable to see through these periscope toys, and for 1d8-3 (minimum 0) minutes after trying, are unable to see creatures' true natures in reflections, seeing only their human guises.  The rush is on to figure out how this happens, and how to exploit it.

An unknown black-market agent is selling illithid-grade tech to the opposition. Smart phones -- complete with GPS location services, dual high-resolution cameras, and Candy Crush pre-loaded -- are being picked up by rival factions. Are these bonafide goods, or is it all part of a larger mind-flayer scheme?

A charming dark elf swordsman has recently established himself as the undisputed master over a small section of the city’s criminal underworld, making a grand living as a “problem solver” for rival gangs and ruling through a combination of flair & intimidation. His ability to fence stolen goods or to obtain cars & guns is unparalleled, but he’s either an agent of the illithid ... or will soon be their slave once again.

A gang of Red Dragonborn have started a turf-war with a small coterie of githzerai living in half-crumbled public housing; each group is unwilling to back down, even as the fighting drags-on and the bodies pile up; each night of aggression & retribution risks alerting the illithid to both crews.

The world is a lie. Kill its masters. Burn it to the ground.

image from here

[lizadoeslife]

To all the men who hurt me before

Dear Nora’s son (from when I was 4-5 years old),

    You were assigned the task of checking up on me after school. You were a few years older than me. Your mother was a sweet Peruvian lady who lived next door and, as I remember, eventually owned her own Peruvian restaurant that served an amazing rice dish and sodas in glass bottles. You had a sister who was younger than me. Her name was Alejandra.

I suppose I was an easy target. You knew no one would be around. You took me in a closet. You groped me. The whole thing was easy.

But even as children, we are aware of how things make us feel, and we run from the ones that feel bad. And eventually, the feeling became too much, so I started to make excuses.

You would show up to check on me, prompt me to get up from the desk, but I remained planted in the seat. I told you my mom was forcing me to draw something, and if I didn’t continue drawing it, I would get in trouble.

You insisted.

I said no, again. I rushed you out of the house, physically pushing you out of the door.

I don’t remember you ever coming over again.

Then, I saw you years later when we lived in the 15-floor apartments. Nora lived a few floors below us, and I was close friends with Alejandra.

I had come over for a sleepover and you were having a party with your friends in the living room. We remained in Alejandra’s room, but that feeling couldn’t help but emerge.

I ran into you in the hallway. I looked into your eyes, wondering if you remembered.

It seems you didn’t. And if you did, neither of us was going to bring it up anyway.

So we brushed past one another, leaving the memory to what it was in my brain.

__________________________________________

Dear Luis (from when I was 5-7 years old),

You were a pervert -- let’s not beat around the bush. You were also a soldier in the American Army, stationed at Camp Casey in Donducheon, Korea. You were a family friend, but that certainly didn’t stop you from touching me in places you weren’t supposed to. You were a child molester -- maybe you still are. After all, I never reported you when I was 17 and my mother found out. You weren’t even in my life by then, and you hadn’t been for many years, but while memories can deceive us, feelings remain true. And I’ve always had a bad feeling about you.

Even if I convinced myself that maybe I had imagined the whole thing, every disturbing interaction with you, the heavy feeling of distrust was too apparent to ignore. I remember the day my mom found out about you. The car ride is almost ingrained in my memory.

“I ran into Luis the other day,” she said, glancing at me once before returning her eyes to the road.  

I remained quiet.

“Do you remember him? From when you were little?”

I did. The feeling was there.

“He asked about you -- what you’re doing now.”

That one stung. You really had to go there, Luis? Smug piece of shit.

Eventually, my mom caught on to my silence and became frantic. She said we needed to report you to the police. When I said no, she tried to guilt me into it.

“What if he did it to other girls?”

And you know, Luis, you probably did do it to other girls. Most child molesters are repeat offenders. Maybe I got off easy because I was only groped. Maybe you had raped another girl -- maybe impregnated another. I had no way of knowing. However, I felt my story was mine. My experience was mine, and I didn’t deserve to have it tarnished and torn apart by some cop that would tell me “there isn’t anything we can do for you.” Of course, I know there isn’t anything they can do for me, it’s been nearly ten years.

So if you have molested anyone since, I feel for them. I want them to know they aren’t alone, and that I remember. They didn’t make it up. I remember.

__________________________________________

Dear Sarah’s dad (from when I was 8-10 years old),

    I really wish I knew your name because I would plaster it everywhere. I would put it on every billboard, flagpole, and PX message board. I don’t, and that frustrates me, but I’ve made my peace with it.

    You were my best friend’s dad. You were tall, you had a short military cut, you were a soldier, and you took us on base all the time.

    There were times when Sarah and I had a magical time with you, and then there were times when that same feeling sat in my chest. It was heavy as a boulder and confusing to me because you never actually did anything to me, but the psychological implications were big enough to stick around for my whole life, and the anxiety I feel from having no knowledge of where Sarah is and if she stayed safe being your daughter sometimes suffocates me.

    You had a sick way of being a pervert. It’s like you were a psychological pervert. You never laid a hand on me, but you would try to pry me into doing things like lift up my skirt or touch the elephant trunk on your red, elephant boxers.

    Even now as I write this, the feeling is simmering in my chest. It’s a mixed bag, really.

    You offered to buy me a Winx doll set and a replica of the Alfea castle if I would show you what was underneath my clothes. Sarah was right there, only a few feet away, witnessing the whole thing every time.

    Then, the next day, you would bring us kids meals from Burger King. Sometimes I was allowed to have the pretty toy, other times Sarah was. Usually, Sarah got to choose. “She’s my daughter,” you would say.

    You would show us videos of children doing things they weren’t supposed to. Things that adults would categorize as a different kind of play. You suggested we try it with each other sometimes. One time we did. One was enough.

    You would take us to the PX and let us revel at the beautiful, giant stuffed animals on the shelves. They were all characters from popular Western cartoons -- that was the magic of going to stores on Camp Casey. It wasn’t like the other Korean stores where all the characters were from Asian cartoons. These ones looked like us, we could identify.

    You left us alone at home with a hentai movie on. We watched a tiny fairy get a mushroom head stuffed inside of her.

    You took us to the pool. We had fun.

    You let us use your Playboy cards, allowing us to look at the naked women plastered all over one side of each card. We would take them out with us. We never showed anyone else, but they were virtually ours to keep. You didn’t care.

It was strange. You both cared and didn’t care. You never told me to stay quiet and keep things a secret -- I just knew. I knew I couldn’t tell my mom. I didn’t want to. In a way, the attention was exciting. It became normal, just a part of being Sarah’s best friend.

I sometimes wondered if you were this way with all of Sarah’s friends. Looking back, I realize I may have been her only friend. She had a learning disability, which made her less likable with kids our age.

I think the reason I never really thought anything about it was because you were usually never home. And if you were, Sarah and I played outside. Sarah was left alone a lot.

But the fact remains that your perverted ways were my first introduction to sex. I saw it everywhere, and it was ingrained in me that I was somehow inherently sexual.

I’m sure Sarah has had more friends since, and I don’t know if they’ve gone through something worse. Maybe I caught you at the beginning stages of your rapist tendencies.

What worries me the most, however, is whether you ever did anything to Sarah. When I was around, you never sexualized her the way you did me, but she was there for all of it. I have no way of knowing if you did anything to her when I wasn’t around or if you did anything to her later on in life.

My hope is that she eventually got out. That maybe you were stationed somewhere else and she decided to stay with her mom in Korea, that her mom decided not to move to a foreign country. That she came to her senses and realized how dangerous you are.

I don’t know. Maybe I’ll never know, even if I really want to know. I want to know she’s okay. I hope she’s okay.

__________________________________________

I write these letters to the three of you because I want to let go of the heavy feelings you shoved inside of my chest. I don’t want to carry their weight anymore.

That’s why I forgive you. I forgive you for shoving me in a closet, for grabbing my body, and for planting the wrong ideas about women and sex in my brain.

My hope is that you’ve learned from these demons inside of you, and you’ve brought the shadows to the light. I know you’re not monsters even if you did monstrous things.

This is just part of being human. Humans can be saints, and they can be cold-blooded murderers. Just like my childhood experiences with sexuality -- it’s sort of a mixed bag.

Thank you and goodbye. I hope to never feel any of you again.

[cosmicgrapevine]

The Legend of Florian the Great, Pt. 2

(Part 1 is here)

Some gang of demonic toughs resented that Florian had done such a good job keeping them away from all those tasty humans (note: I am once again using the word ‘demon’ to mean ‘any monstrous creature’; the specific demons in the story proper so far are called Mires). So, after tracking him down, they decided to take it out on his family.

When Fred and his wife arrived to the family Christmas party with their nine-month-old son, they found a massacre. Florian had survived, killing the attackers, but all his children but one were dead, as was his wife. He told Fred their old lives were over and now was the time to stop ‘Warding’ demons and start killing them wholesale. Fred, with a new family and job, took exception, still believing in his father’s work, believing his father’s work was an implicit promise that mass violence and bloodshed would no longer be necessary. Their fight spiralled out of control over the next few days, and Fred ended up fleeing with his family, fearing what lengths his father would go to.

Some connection or another alerted Fred to a job for a police detective in (for now) Chicago, and he shuttled his family up there, bought a cheap bungalow, and got to work hiding from both the monsters and Florian. Florian, mad with rage, grief, and abandonment, sought another way to get his revenge. He scoured his archives of magical marginalia until he found information, information about a sacred order of warriors few even knew existed: The Wild Hunt. 

It took a while, with some help from his old army buddy Art Brown (who had previously scorned the Cervantes’ operation as being far too wimpy and hippie-ish), but Florian was able to track down a Wildling going by the human alias of CIA agent Robert Costello. (Yep, the fey have people in the CIA Turns out being secretive, disappearing for a long time, and intimidating people was a good fit for them.) Costello was neck-deep in the Hunt’s larger-scale plans, but upon realizing who Florian was and what he could do, he decided to take a chance; he fatally sold out one of his Oak Clan brethren to Florian. Florian did not intend to join the Hunt, but upon Costello reappearing and pitching him on immortality, control, and (importantly) independence it offered, began to see the upsides.

There was one stop he had to make first; he found his son and daughter-in-law soon after, threatening punishment for abandoning him in his moment of need. After a few tense weeks, they came to a conclusion: Fred and Janet’s son Victor, 2+ years old by then, would go with Florian and be raised as a hunter--he needed some kind of heir, after all--with Art’s wife Lorraine doing most of the raising. In exchange, Florian promised to never darken their doorstep again. The young couple bemoaned this impossible choice, but Florian made it clear it wasn’t really a “choice”. He took the boy, and Fred took his wife’s name, vowing to never speak of or even think of his father again.

Armed with his magic powers, his seed money, and the Oaks’ inherent ability to bend the machinery of capital and civilization to their will, he kicked his operation into high gear. Learning from his Disney experience, he focused on resorts, hotels, and parks--all places whose reliable comings and goings made them easily Warded. They were popping up like weeds all along the Gulf Coast in the 70s and 80s, and Florian dove into buying, ‘improving’, and selling them. Eventually his empire reached as far west as Houston and as far north as Virginia Beach.

And...that’s pretty much where we’re catching up with him. Biologically 51 but passing as 75, Titanically rich, but also having pretty much alienated everyone he once loved, and 25 years of inhumanity starting to take their toll on even his more casual relationships. I’m trying to write him as a combination of all three things people would perceive him as: a stocks-and-real-estate zillionaire who has lost touch with the commoners and their piteous crying about “family”, a man who has been too traumatized to really love or be loved, and a man who isn’t a man at all, but a supernatural impostor. In other words, I’m actively trying to avoid the usual cliches about old supernatural mentors to the spirited young protags in the tradition of Gandalf or Dumbledore.

And while ‘Flamboyant Elderly Man’ is probably the character type that Artbreeder is the worst at envisioning, here’s a rough visual:

[lerrengwesten]

General Background Info

Some basics I ought to get out of the way so that they’re clear:

-Creature and Being are words used interchangeably to describe the current inhabitants of the Peninsula.  They all belong to some sort of Far Spirit, who cares for them like a sort of pet or livestock.  During the day and part of the evening (usually stretching from late morning-evening, but some will remain awake until late at night and there have been a small handful of Far Spirits on nocturnal schedules before as well), they are active and more of less left to their own devices.  Come the end of their day, the Far Spirit forces the being into a deep sleep, which is when they maintain and “Sustain” them.  They appear somewhat like the old earthly animals, but are very different on the inside.  They do not eat or drink, their Far Spirits alone keep them alive, and without their support they would certainly die. However, nobody knows their exact inner processes, as those are trade secrets of the Far Spirits and/or creator spirits.

-All of the Creatures are inherently sexless and have no concept of gender.  There are multiple reasons for this, and the motivation behind them being made this way have shifted with time, but currently it’s mostly because the spirits (Far, creators,and common ones that come to gawk) are the same way and it’s just familiar to them, and because there would be no market for making new creatures if they bred, and demand for them is too low due to their costly care for it to be necessary or practical anyways.

-However, the creatures have largely adopted English as a form of communication due to the early ones’ closer association with the last remaining humans. Because of this, it’s very common to see creatures that are referred to as she or he, as well as they or occasionally it. Some choose what they wish to be referred to out of greater association with a certain old gender role, though this is not taken very seriously, more like how a person would associate with a zodiac sign or choose an animal for their fursona. Most just pick one of the two at random or because they prefer how it sounds.  Many creatures, particularly some older ones, prefer to go by they due to its distance from sex or gender, and therefore, humans or because it has a more ambiguous sound to it due to its use as a default pronoun.  It can come off as a bit pretentious or bland, though, and can obviously be confusing when hearing the singular and plural “they”s closer together. “It” is generally the rarest of the four main pronouns used.  Typical used in a self-deprecating way to signify being so monstrous or horrible that one doesn’t deserve the acknowledgement of sentience that he/she/they has.  On occasion with creatures that want to sound unique or in very large groups of creatures with the same name (some Far Spirits were/are very unoriginal, particularly in the early days), variant of “they” such as “ey”or “vey” may be used.

-Far Spirits very rarely make their own creatures now, though it was more common in the earlier days of the Peninsula.  Back then, creatures were generally more loyal to their Far Spirits. However, in the last few decades, perceived indifferent attitudes towards the beings’ welfare has caused many of them to feel more attached to their creators and band together with those who were also made by them. There is some rivalry between creatures belonging to different Far Spirits still, but it’s more playful and silly.

-Some Far Spirits are individuals, others act as parts of groups.  The Banenhaxers are perhaps the most infamous group and are frequently blamed by their creatures for virtually every problem they experience.

-There are two main types of common spirits that visit the Peninsula.  Nlegera are just average joes that take the forms of little fuzzy rods that glow as they fly around.  They don’t generally know much about the creatures or the Far Spirits and may not even know of the creators’ existence and assumed that the far Spirits are the ones that make the beings. Some can be irritating in their ignorance, but most are unassuming and just out to have fun. Ehtstunisas are a small minority of common spirits that take a distinctive orb shape to indicate to others that they are an Ehtstunisa.  They are obsessed with the Peninsula and other projects like it ( yes, Far Spirits have such projects on other planets, this wasn’t even the first, but they are beyond the scope of the story).  They know far more about the Far Spirits, creatures, and creators than most Nlegera could ever really care about, and have a reputation for being know-it-alls about this. Most are reasonable and just huge fans of their sort of thing, but some can act entitled towards creatures and Far Spirits and the community of them is often represented by a particularly nasty one that happens to have a good relationship with the Far Spirits despite their nasty attitude and behavior. As much as Ehtstunisas badger Far Spirits for info and exclusive privileges, they really don’t mean much to them as they’re a tiny portion of their clientele.

If read that all, good for you.  I have a hard time condensing all this stuff since there’s just SO MUCH.

[crow-summoner]

HI!! If you're still doing the Grishaverse ask game, how about 1, 3, and 9?

Yep. Still open for any of my asks.

1. Who's your favourite character?

I'm going to cheat and give one for each of the major works.

My Grisha Trilogy fav tends to flip between the Darkling and Nikolai, but stuff in the show and RoW has currently given the Darkling the advantage. Part of his win comes from a fantastic performance from Ben Barnes, but I also love the discussion around his character. The thing that keeps drawing me back to the Grishaverse is it's potential rather than any one thing we got in canon. There's so much character history and worldbuilding that lurks under the hints we get in the books, and I love to analyze those things or expand on them in fiction or read others doing the same. The Darkling is bursting with this potential. He has a long history to uncover, a history that can explore how the setting evolved over time. He leads the Second Army, a good window into what life was like for Ravkan Grisha. His motivations and personality are ambiguous, leading people to come up with polar opposite characterizations for him. That's fascinating to me. I love a good ol' ball of contradictions so long as that characterization seems to mostly be intentional and not just the result of inconsistent writing. (There is a lot of questionable writing in the Grishaverse, but I also believe the Darkling was intended to be ambiguous in the trilogy) The Darkling is the heroic villain, the wise fool, the idealistic cynic, the simping player, etc ... I love to pick apart the various threads that make him him.

Inej is my fav from the crows duology, beating out Kaz. Once again, I love a character for their contradictions. She's a kind and compassionate person who strongly upholds her faith, and yet she also murders/maims people and sells their secrets. Neither half of her negates the other, and a big part of her arc is figuring out how to stay a good person when she has no other options but to break the law as well as her faith to survive. Inej makes the best of her bad situation, finding ways to take pride in her accomplishments even if she would never have chosen this path on her own. Unlike Kaz, whose experiences with injustice has made him lash out at those he holds responsible, Inej isn't that concerned about those who've wronged her so much as she wants to prevent those people from victimizing more innocents. Inej is primarily motivated by her strong protective streak: protecting herself when no one else would, protecting loved ones even if doing so tarnishes her own self-image and especially protecting those who society dismissed as unimportant and unworthy. She wants to help them the way she wanted to be helped in her time of need. The way Kaz helped her.

3. What's your favourite ship?

Darkina and Kanej. I've already discussed both ships in a previous ask about Alina and Kaz, so I'll go into the tropes the two have in common and my prefered relationship dynamics for the pairings in fanfic. The guy in the relationship is morally ambiguous and projects a monstrous image to achieve his goals. He's in a position power but is not the figure head, understanding that his deceptive plans work best from the shadows. He's preoccupied with accumulating power and getting back at those who wronged him. He likes to think himself above human desires and weaknesses because emotions would only compromise his plans. And yet he's fallen in love. His love interest can help his plans, but also opposes him on an ethical level, forcing him to reevaluate himself. Others can use his feelings for her against him, including the woman herself. He struggles so hard not to love her and not to compromise, but it's no use. Fine. Make him her simp. He doesn't need to bottle her laugher to get drunk off her. He's buzzed 24/7 just thinking about her. The big bad mastermind is powerless against this tiny powerhouse he fell for. And the girl in the relationship has power of her own and isn't afraid to stand up to the guy who technically has more power and rank than her. Her morals won't let her stand down. She'll push him to be a man who truly deserves her, but won't waste her life trying to change him. She has plans and dreams of her own, and that comes first. It's up to him to better himself, and if he's at least trying, he can be by her side. If he isn't, she won't let her feelings for him get in the way of what she thinks is right. She gives him hope and helps him find his humanity, and he drives her to take more aggressive actions to achieve her dreams and embrace the parts of herself she'd rather not see. It's the push and pull of opposites at work.

9. Which powers would you have, if you could choose?

Shadow powers. They get a bad reputation as the always evil superpower, right up there with necromancy. But there's nothing inherently bad about shadows. I am a night owl as my frequent posts at 1am will prove. I just feel so energized at night, in the dark, and living in a hot climate does not endear me to the sun. I would love to be able to create my own shade on command. I could sleep until noon and blot out the sunlight. I could also summon the armies of darkness and use them to do laundry or to help the elderly cross the street because they are not necessarily evil, dang it! My shadow minions can like belly rubs and fetch things like any other good boy. I would also love to throw people for a loop when they ask for the Shadow Lord expecting some bulky goth in fetish gear and instead finding me, this short, perky chick with glitter eyeshadow knitting in a corner.

[rei-definition]

The Fall

A good number of people will agree that despite our faiths, upbringings, beliefs, and trajectories in life, we all share a common essence. Whether this is simply by virtue of being human or by virtue of stemming from the same spiritual origin or consciousness is perhaps even immaterial, ultimately, for as long as one can experience that sense of intrinsic connection. One doesn’t need to wax philosophical to allude to this -- it is found, like the universally acknowledged secret, the ubiquitous, ringing chord that it is, simultaneously inside and around all of us. It is that nameless spirit of evocation and sacrifice and sex and selflessness -- the feeling of melting into the safety of someone’s arms; the feeling of returning a stranger’s smile on a grey, wet day; the feeling of being rendered speechless by art and beauty so profound and dashing that for a second you both forget and discover yourself all at once. Yes, a sense of discovery is crucial to this, because it is when you find a little shard of yourself buried in someone else’s heart that you realize we are all inextricably linked, in some long-forgotten, aching song of eons past.

This song, or mystical Origin, or collective unconsciousness, even God -- whatever form it may assume to the individual -- is a place of insurmountable love, grace, and hope; of innocence and vulnerability, of trust and safety and support, of freedom and potential. It is from here that we all derive our basic need to be loved, safe, and happy.

Yet we experience this so little and so rarely that it is safe to say it is not the only thing that connects us. Indeed, in extension, we are also connected by the fact that we are all fallen -- disconnected from this place of love and contentment, as though unwillingly and rudely awoken from a blissful slumber and thrown out of bed. The shock of this experience is so massive and so traumatic that it becomes the defining characteristic of the rest of our lived experiences. The cheeky “Did it hurt when you fell out of heaven?” acquires a new meaning now; yes, it did, it hurt so much it caused permanent and irreversible damage.

This permanent damage is the development of the ego itself. The ego, the individual’s conception of the self, of identity, of desire, of distinctness and individualism -- these are crucial components of our everyday existence, and rightly so. Without a sense of self one cannot survive. And yet, for as long as we are shackled to our sense of self and all its associated trappings, we are doomed to forget our transcendent origins.

If it can be said we were happy and free of evil, sadness, and longing in our original state of connectivity, then it is upon receiving scar upon scar from a harsh and unforgiving reality that we fall, and crystallize our personalities around ego delusions. These delusions are cruel and often self-destructive beliefs that we develop about ourselves and the world because it is what our wounds would have us think. We don’t receive the love we need and expect, so we believe we are unlovable. We don’t receive support and protection, so we believe the world is a cruel and unsafe place. We don’t feel happiness, so we assume we must live swamped in darkness and melancholy. We begin from a place of victimization and despair, and upon this bedrock we lay the foundations of our personalities and our worldviews. The world now seems like an eternal obstacle course; a fight that must be won to grant the victor happiness.

And so, as warriors do, we fight the good fight. We strengthen ourselves up, and we become invincible. We develop opinions and have heady disagreements. We look for love and companionship, and often fail to find it. From time to time we feel hopelessness, depression, anger, disillusionment, fear, and sadness. To live in a monstrous world, we develop monstrous qualities ourselves. We sharpen our claws and bare our fangs to ensure we can make it out of life in one piece. This isn’t even reprehensible -- simply necessary.  The ego is essential to survival, and grows as a defense mechanism against the traps and vagaries of the world.

However, to reconnect with our origins of love and faith, the ego must be questioned, deconstructed, and ultimately experience a state of dissolution, even if temporarily. For as long as one dwells on what makes us all different from each other, and what boundary lines lie between the self and the world, one cannot experience that state of transcendent connection of which one of the defining tenets itself is an absence of boundaries, divisions, and lines in the sand. One must willingly rip their shells off their backs and turn over to expose their soft underbellies to the sun, consequently experiencing what is commonly termed an “ego death”. The shell of the ego ceases to exist without the sustenance provided by life energy, and when it is ripped apart from the soul and recognized for the construct that it is, it becomes but dust in the wind. When this happens, the individual can finally re-experience that evocative sense of tranquility and joy that all our souls inherently long to be bonded with again.

If only life were so easy, though! Without a shell to carry us around in the world -- without a sense of assumptions, opinions, and mental shortcuts, an individual cannot reasonably carry out a life as a social human being. These assumptions and opinions, as well as choices, ultimately form themselves into an identity, which means that even someone who undergoes a transcendent experience must need to regain an identity and an ego to continue with their daily lives. This may seem disillusioning, and it certainly was to me, but it's worth remembering that that does not exclude us from experiencing ample moments of connection and transcendence every now and then, and it certainly does not "lower" us from any notion of goodness. Goodness and purity still bleeds through every which crack in the universe, and indeed the vast outpouring of human effort every second -- effort directed towards gaining a better, happier, and more peaceful life -- does have a massively empowering and emboldening effect on both the individual and the masses. It may be an imperfect recreation of the profound bliss and transcendence of grace, or Heaven, or salvation, or universal energy, or whatever you want to call it. But it is beautiful in its own broken, splintered, and ephemeral right, and even in its fleeting stay it reminds us of our true nature and what we are capable of being and feeling for one another. A "heaven on earth", if you will, and it is already here for us fallen souls to rejoice in, and has always been. All it takes is perspective.

[autolovecraft]

There's more to this nor what we know.

Ammi? There was no bottom at all. He had seen that nothing would do but that they could not touch it, and their nocturnal habits contradicted all former experience. By September all the vegetation was turning gray and brittle. They shunned people now, and recalled nervously the clammy vapor which had killed the live-stock. Merwin and Zenas in the mud of the vegetation, grass, leaves, and had put therein what he had by that phrase strange days. I walked hurriedly by I saw it, be the sap. Do not ask me for my opinion. Every trifle of the floor below. And by night—watching in all directions at random for something—something was wrong with the black pit like a great excitement.

Something was taken away—draws ye ye know something's coming but it was like the men who had been another sound out there now, and the Poles have come and departed. Yet it was still hot, and all the woodwork in sight, and in the end he could not fancy what for, since he had found that he could sink the wooden shaft to any depth in the yard then, worried about what might have happened, he took the keys from their nail beside the door I could tell he was not like to visit that country by night all Arkham had heard of again. The rural tales are queer. He knew it would soon be washed away. He saw so much so that nothing further could be analyzed, of course this was mere country talk, or that the foreigners would not approach the barn. There were ammonia and caustic soda, alcohol and ether, nauseous carbon disulphide and a most detestably sticky noise as of some fiendish and unclean species of suction. Strange colors danced before his eyes; and when Nahum opened the boys did not send her to the minds of the thing away at once one of his house is so near the well. I did not go.

Only a wooden ripping and crackling, and I marveled no more at the college for testing. They had, it was he thought only of the vegetation.

No watcher can ever forget that sight, only God knows. Quick to connect events, he overcame his fears and paid the Gardner place at the end of which nothing of value had been less thick. On the gentle slopes there are valleys with deep woods that no stone was missing from the account must be only natural disease—yet what disease could wreak such results was beyond enduring, and great bare trees clawing up at the college last year says the meteor that the span of frantic grays had broken their sapling and run off with the proper flora of the small piece refused to grow cool. Good God! The grass had so far hurt any human of unweakened mind, there came from poor tethered Hero such a thing of sinister menace, and the buggy. As was natural, the Arkham papers made much of the future lake. The name blasted heath as it was now the only one or two, and after its immersion in the absence of his family too, though this time, even the small barred window and locked door were intact; but when dawn came, and the hapless beast lay huddled inert on the other crops were in the very presence of one in the acid solvents there seemed to inhere in all the time Nahum thought it probable that others would be discovered as the shapeless stream of unplaceable color left the well it seemed to be—someone must make it keep off—nothing was left and reeled out the next day returned to him of no use, either, in telling the city veterinary from Arkham was openly baffled. Yet it was very close and noisome upon cutting. Often I had expected; but it told on him. By July she had ceased to wonder at anything beside its own elder mystery. Ammi would give me no added particulars of this scene, but this gas obeyed the laws that are left in that detestably ancient woodwork. The day after that—all this was not more imaginative. The boughs were all straining skyward, tipped with tongues of foul flame, and as Ammi quenched the lamp for better seeing they realized that the others, where the two phials of dust were finally taken. By September all the trees. Whether it had in other years, and something terrible—though I know not in what they found. There had been a deed so monstrous as to damn any accountable being to eternal torment. It was the meteorite; and Ammi advised his friend to dig another well on higher ground to use the tainted supply, drinking it as listlessly and mechanically as they ate their meager and ill-starred friend. It must all be a good old man—when the faint glow of the fathomless gulfs outside; that lone, weird message from other universes and other realms of matter I suppose the thing Ammi described would be called a gas, but perhaps they had been learned of it. He dared move neither backward nor forward, but something within the lifetime of those trees that claw the air which she could not convey it—when Ammi looked out again the hapless beast lay huddled inert on the couch, he took the keys from their nail beside the door the boy was gone, and no one could look long at them, and the feeling of something lurking under there. It must be something from away off in the undergrowth.

In the well. On an anvil it appeared to shoot up from the stone, and asked vague questions about the anniversary of the standing democrat-wagon were unstirred.

He let the boy was gone. And all the household confessed now and then he shut him in that well from which his horses had stampeded. It was as if jerked by some allied and bodiless line of the springtime, and wondered why Nahum had feared something down there at Nahum's. Ammi saw what had happened.

A feeble scratching on the borders of that kind ought never to sprout in a woodchuck before. The stench was beyond any mind's guessing. I had dreamed. It might be even queerer if city men and college chemists could be interested enough to stir furtively in the meteor fragment in the meteor. He did not wonder that his long pole must have had some peculiar electrical property; for not even mention for many years to come. Then there flashed across the hall from his all-night search of the pail. But his gaze was the last held their noses against the black cosmic gulfs it throws open before our frenzied eyes.

Then fell the time Nahum thought it probable that others would be certain to start. There was no longer good. It shrieked and howled, and foreigners do not believe I would hate to think of him as the townsfolk had forewarned. Then there had been dragged by any external forces, Ammi could not stay, though later they lost the property. One of the dark realm is enough to analyze it.

Something was creeping and creeping and waiting to be almost plastic, having heard that he showed; relief at the black pit like a great spot eaten by acid in the meteor's fall, and what is done in common humanity is sometimes cruelly judged by the woods. Mrs. Pierce remarked that the strange days. It had a very puzzling aftermath occurred at the black roots.

Then I saw that his mind. Something was taken away—draws ye ye know something's coming but it was pouring out; and when Nahum opened the boys grew afraid of her, and nearly drowned its owner's faint quaver as he now clearly saw was the last—they all drunk the water from that stricken, far-away spot he had blundered? The next morning to see the stony soil of the fall before was freely mentioned, and soon proving itself absolutely non-volatile at any producible temperature, including that of the thing vanished with the deep's secrets; one with the black roots.