#the whole thing just looks cheap and soulless

[beetled-juicer]

I feel like I can finally say the beetlejuice trailer sucked ass and I hate it

what have they done to him :(

[zorilleerrant]

Jason was right about the school. Bruce pulled some strings and went on some whole long thing about scholarships. Not to Jason, but he can still see it in the haggard smile on the face of the woman in charge of liaising with all the educational institutions, the way she overemphasizes certain phrases like she’s repeating them word for word.

Not least of all the part where she pushes seventeen brochures into his hands and asks him, with a pained look in her eyes, if he’s thought about college, and work-study programs, and student discounts on all sorts of things. Thin lips biting back the way Bruce obviously wants desperately to pay for it all, as if he isn’t already paying Damian’s tuition out of pocket.

The scholarships are real, this just clearly isn’t one. This is someone paying too close attention to someone who should’ve slipped his view, and now Jason can’t even use his own name anymore. A Jason, sure, there are lots of them, but the one Bruce has gotten so worked up about? Best case, he’ll think Jason’s a plant by some villain who wants to throw him off his game, worst case – worst case he’ll know.

He doesn’t think he can use Peter, either. Not unless he wants to see tears pile up in the corners of Bruce’s eyes while he smiles softly and pretends they aren’t. Not that Jason’s ever gotten entirely used to that one, either, the handful of times he used it.

Fuck, it would all be so much simpler if he really were just some down on his luck single dad, going back to university to learn things he never got a chance to, never having to hide all the things he shouldn’t know. But he’s about as much Greg Cather as the guy who made the fake ID was, if you don’t count the picture. It’s not actually of Jason, but it’s close enough.

Damian can still keep his given name, at least, and Jason can be Baba all he wants, and they have, you know, the things he planned. All the things he planned. They have food, and clothes, and somewhere to stay, and Damian’s going to school soon. Everything but Jason’s rock solid plan to hole up in a safehouse and do who knows what.

Put on a mask and be Robin again. Be Batman, but better. Hell, be a supervillain, maybe, just so long as he got to dress up as someone else for a while, have an excuse to run and jump and climb and stare at the blurry stretch of Gotham under weightless apogee. Drag himself back into the moment when he could fly.

He still has weapons. He just also has Batman’s scrutiny.

There’s something almost as soothing about packing a bookbag for Damian. The bag he had, sturdy canvas dragged all the way from home, and Damian would probably throw a fit if he had to go to school without it, so just as well. Something has to be consistent in the kid’s life. But everything else is from this neat little closet, smelling like artificial flowers over industrial cleaner, someone trying to pretty up another soulless shell. But under that, he can smell the paper scent of brand new notebooks, carboard boxes and plastic discarded to the side.

Everything is new and fresh and unmarred. Jason doesn’t think Damian’s ever used a marble composition book before. He’s used a ballpoint pen, but nothing this cheap, used markers, but never the washable, nontoxic kind. The books are well below his reading level, but he hasn’t studied literature yet, doesn’t know what he’s in for, and Jason finds himself a little jealous. Back to school shopping was always his favorite, just for this, even if the charity bins look a little brighter these days. Bruce’s fault or whatever. At least he’s done something right.

Damian looks skeptical at the neatly packed bag, lighter than he’s used to hauling around, but Jason’s riding his satisfaction high, brushing out the kid’s hair and feeding him breakfast, getting him to his first day of classes on time.

Breakfast is a granola bar and an apple. Jason will go shopping after.

Damian glares at Jason for clutching his hand too tight, but they make it to school without incident, and Jason barely has to juggle pleasantries before he remembers how to sign a form, sign Damian in. Hopefully not consign him to – well, Jason went here, too, and it was bad, some days, and worse others. But Damian is starting sooner, knowing more than he did at that age, and with Jason to back him up if anything goes wrong. So.

So.

“I’ll be fine,” Damian says, with an eyeroll that doesn’t cover the tremble in his lip, but makes Jason smile all the same.

He packed Damian a lunch. It’s not a very good lunch, but it has a note in it, some aphorism he’s already forgotten, just to get the kid through the day.

“I know you will,” Jason tells him, and wonders what he’ll do the whole time Damian’s in classes. Find someplace to hide and watch the school all day, waiting for something to happen? Better at least pretend to look for a job. Better plan how to make his money look legitimate and keep the Bats off his tail.

“Be good for your teacher,” Jason says, because he knows the three people in the office with them expect to hear it, even though he’s never understood exactly what it meant. But it sounds good, fatherly, when he says it, and causes Damian to give him a serious nod.

“I’ll pay attention and take notes,” Damian says, solemnly, with the double meaning Jason can’t break him of, because he’s still convinced they’re undercover somehow. He knows they left, he knows they’re hiding, he knows all the implications of running away, it’s just that Jason can’t explain what that means about their life. What is there to compare it to?

How do you ever explain to a kid that you’ve dragged them into a world they always knew existed but never got a chance to see? How do you teach them to fit in without telling them day after day this isn’t right anymore and that isn’t how we do things and for god’s sake, Jason, you can’t pick fights at school and calm down, it’s just a test.

Damian looks over his shoulder to wave goodbye as the smiling sunshine teacher takes him by the hand, and Jason waves back, fingers stiff as he tries to look casual. It’s easy to be calm in the face of the quotidian. Everything is a test.

[mattelektras]

What are some of your gripes with how marvel has written things in the last 20 or so years?

Basically i used to be soo into marvel comics then I stopped being into them but now I'm trying to get back into them but I used to be such a hater and I hated so many writers but now I can't remember why I hated them it's actually infuriating😭 like all I remember is matt fraction hawkeye (yay) and quicksilver no surrender (very good) but ik marvel has committed some crimes against me but I can't remember what they were :(( I remember not liking trial of magneto atleast☹️

i think my biggest thing is changing things to reflect the mcu. like people defend it because it makes comics easier for new readers and. no it fucking doesnt. and its so PETTY. like they killed off the fantastic four because they didnt have the cinematic rights to them. they tried to replace mutants with inhumans because they had the rights to one of them and not the other. but then after a while they DO get the rights to them and have to change it back??? they make themselves look dumb as fuck and its not a writer decision, its a decision made as a company and then everyone else has to work around even when it doesnt make sense. and it affects decades old beloved characters/franchises for the sake of some billion dollar faux cheap 2+ hr minor disappointment. i can experience that for free in my day to day life.

then everything also has to be an Event like. nothing can just happen in one issue anymore. or like 20 issues in the same comic. which is because they wanna change you £28497 instead of just like £20 back in ye olden days. there's a trend going here u will notice

THEN since you bought up matt fraction hawkeye. not paying their fucking writers or artists for using their shit!!!!! everything in comics now seems like its just used for the sake of the mcu. like they either test out stupid shit in comics so they can then do it in the mcu, they take stylistic choices from artists and writers that worked in comics and use them to make way more money than the original creators ever did

the tl;dr is that comics feel like mcu fodder now instead of their own entity like. 99% of them feel very cheap n like. soulless. like the recent death of kamala. why. what is the point. so they can make it match the mcu and bring her back as a mutant. but it makes her whole death meaningless and shes a much better character than that. he first solo was so heartfelt and personal but they make everything too Big and World Ending because in a 2 hours movie, it HAS to be. comics arent like that. where are the filler issues and the team ups just for fun. idk i think theyve changed comics into something more than they are recently n its just not something that works for the medium imo. silly little picture books should just be silly little picture books and some big money making mcu pipeline

[self-loathing-angel-of-thursday2]

Beautiful Spouse’s Rewatch Thoughts SPN 06x11 Appointment in Samarra

“I feel like we haven’t seen enough of Crowley yet” “that was quite the butt shot” “That’s some cheap vegetables. Goddamn” “How does he know what he’s there for?” “Does Dean not look like he belong or something?” “Oh hello” “Oh he doesn’t have a medical license. This will be spicy” “What are we doing?” “Who the fuck is Ben again?” “the fuck are we doing here?” “OH they’re going to kill him or some shit” “Is he going to talk to Death or some shit?” “Is this going to be the longest 3 minutes ever?” “hold up” then paused

We’ve got a timer folks

“Oh hi” “I get the feeling he doesn’t like to be disturbed very much” “THREE MINUTES” “3:15” “Four minutes” “Four minutes forty seconds” “Not quite 7 minutes - but maybe if you include a commercial break” “what’s he sneaking around for?” “how is sam able to make this judgement without a soul? I guess he says it but it’s still stupid” “Doesn’t look like Bobby wants this to happen either” “24 hours bitch” “That’s cool” “I feel like he’s going to like the reaper by the end of the episode. It’s kinda his style” “the fuck you doing Sam?” laughed at Balthazar calling Cas Sam’s boyfriend

“That was kinda funny” “At least shoot him more than once. Jesus Christ” “Is he going to choke on his pizza?” laughed at Dean

“What’s he supposed to say? Nothing” 🎶what’s in the drink🎶 

“Bobby don’t trust no one” “What part of Do The Job doesn’t he understand?” “the fuck are they doing?” “so now it’s going to set off this whole thing, right? That’s how it works” “You can’t ever really trust Sam” “not good” “How’d he move so quick?” “What the fuck” “the fuck” “Why can’t it all be reinforced steel? Why is there titanium? Just to sound cool” “They could have made so many Pink Floyd references” “Hello? Is there anybody in there?” “Why the fuck are you stupid enough to go down there? Come on. Don’t be dumb” “He left the door above him open. Sam’s just going to lock you in” “or you’re going to get pushed into the cell” “What good is that going to do? Fkn asshole”

“Can’t have them both. You let the domino fall already. You might as well leave it” “is he going to kill the husband now?” “trying to clean up his loose ends” “it’s a red door” “Must mean something” “What the fuck dude” “What a fkn cock, dude” “He took the ring off. What a fkn idiot” “for real though” “Just leave the bitch on. It’s not that hard” “How could you have any empathy for this one guy? He’s one guy, and you’re Death” “Put the fkn ring on and he’ll zap out” “Learning his lesson the hard way.” “I suppose Death will show up right after he kills her” “What a fkn soulless idiot” “Lock his fkn dick in the cage” “HEYYY. There we go. Where he belongs in the salt prison” “Can’t go unfuck your bet. You fucked up that one eh” “How can Sam be the main character if Dean fucks him over every time?” “This guy knows good eats” laughed

“So however long Dean’s had the ring, have people been dying? Or was Dean just there for the tough decisions?” laughed again

“Poof” “They couldn’t animate his poof. They ran out of budget” “Into the soul hatch. Right up his dick backwards. What it looks like”

[appendingfic]

Disney doesn't know meta. Meta doesn't mean just stringing a bunch of characters on screen for half a second each. Meta isn't just lampshade hanging (commenting in-character on the existence of a cliche or trope as it's being used).

So lemme take a shot on what a properly meta Chip and Dale would've been:

Chip meets Ellie out in the world - she is a huge fan, and she takes an offhand comment from him out of context that causes her Facebook fanpage to blow up with the possibility of a Rescue Rangers reboot. Disney sits up and take notice and call Dale's agent to tell him to get the original cast onboard for a reboot. The first act is just Dale getting the gang together - probably asking Chip first, and then getting told Chip won't go for it unless everyone else is in first.

The next act is about the work of making this reboot, and the continuing interference of a "brand consultant" who is "here to make sure this reboot within community standards".

Filming includes many unpleasant discoveries about how things have changed. Instead of getting a full script, they get the day's scenes delivered by the creepiest spy-looking character imaginable. Backgrounds and even major props will be "CGI in post" (Gadget is incredibly disappointed because she really enjoyed building the gadgets in the original show - even got a producer's credit for it. Chip complains about the laziness of replacing real set-building with "cheap CGI tricks" which upsets Dale).

Chip: And what's with this line? Disney liaison: Oh, we've decided to hint Fat Cat is gay and is attracted to Chip - Disney's first LGBT character! Chip: Oh, is it June already?

The whole thing is a soulless mashup of pointless references and gratuitous crossovers, and worse there's a leak in the studio that is awakening a lot of negative chatter online. Ellie, who got the part of the unnecessary human tagalong character, is the prime suspect.

Of particular concern is the Last Page of the script, which the studio liaison indicates would be a disaster if it leaked.

Dale has been trying to get everyone to relax and lean into the movie - "Dude, it's just a movie. Stop acting like it needs to be Shakespeare", but Chip is suspicious, and eventually gets in to read the last page.

Chip: ...Dale dies? What sort of an ending is that? Disney Liaison: The sort of ending no one would expect. At least as long as no one spoils it. Chip: This is a terrible ending! Disney Liaison: For Dale, sure. But...not necessarily for you. This can set you up for your own franchise. Double-O Dale failed because it had no connection to his most popular character. Here - you can be the star of a new, edgy franchise. Chip and His Rescue Rangers. Chip: I don't- Disney Liaison: And it's so much cleaner this way. With your different art styles, you don't...match. Chip: Yeah, the CGI is a little awkward to work with. Disney Liaison: Better to cut loose the dead weight and have a fresh start...right?

Dale of course overhears most of this and decides to leak the ending to tank the movie - going to a huge gathering of Chip and Dale fans at Comicon.

Chip tries to stop him, and instead of his big announcement, Chip and Dale have an awkward gratuitous rap battle about the show and actually work through some of their own frustrations with each other.

Afterward, though-

Chip: That felt gratuitous Bystander: You've got a ton of views of the video of you two already - that's all that matters. Chip: ...All that matters is...the views. Chip: Holy - Dale we gotta go!

They finally corner the liaison

Chip: You're the leaker, aren't you? You're making everyone hate the movie before it comes out! For - clickbait! Disney Liaison: What does it matter? Chip: You're ruining the movie on purpose! Why - why would you do that? Disney Liaison: Look, three weeks after your movie comes out, we've got the next installment of the MCU, and buzz has been - lackluster. So I figured if we released a terrible movie beforehand, people would want to see it more in comparison. Dale: You're wasting millions of dollars to make a movie you intend to fail? Disney Liaison: Who said it would fail? Dale: ...What? Disney Liaison: People are TALKING about it, boys. And if there's enough chatter, people are going to WANT to see how bad it is. Chip: Come on - once people see the reviews that it's unwatchable- Disney Liaison: The director sends a tweet accusing the Hollywood elite attacking the movie for not pandering to their "woke" politics. Disney Liaison: See, movie making isn't about "telling a story" or whatever you've been complaining about. It's about controlling the media narrative to encourage people to SEE the movie...whatever it takes. Chip: I know one thing that'll make it so NO ONE wants to see this movie. Disney Liaison: What? Dale: *holds up his phone showing the leaked last page on his twitter* Dale: Spoilers.

In the end, because all they've done is film in front of a bunch of green screens and haven't contracted the CGI yet almost no money has been spent and they're able to wrangle a new script (I wanted to describe a plot point where Ellie is a writer and there's been hints also that she'd been working on a script for years - possibly even post the last couple of pages of the script on her fanpage to hype the new script).

[dzpenumbra]

3/1/23

Well shit, I guess it's March, huh.

I, yet again, did not get a good night's sleep. I might as well get this out. I wrote a comment on a post on an artist's group on Reddit. They were in a similar position to me. All-in on art, 7+ years no other work history, battling with mental health. They were saying they were worried they would have to get other work, another job.

I wrote a whole thing, several paragraphs, you know how I am. I just.. wrote from a place of being able to deeply relate. And a bit bitterness because this isn't really a thing with a lot of careers. For some reason, art, which used to be one of the most revered and sacred professions since before we even invented spoken language... is viewed as a child's hobby now, in many circles. As in, it's not viewed as a legitimate, sustainable career. And modern western society is most definitely not built to sustain fine art as a career. No-sir-ee. Modern western society is built to turn fine artists into contractual laborers, who supervisors and tacticians can use for profit. Like pieces on a factory line. Like Assemblers in Factorio.

It's a really fucked up thing in the end, because they're so short-sighted that they genuinely can't see why their corner-cutting and exploitative practices don't work the way they want them to. They want to emulate art. They want to create the illusion of art. Of passion. Of vision. Picture acid-washed jeans. That. But with passion, with inspiration, with vision, with a personal message. But, as with most of western society, they are always looking forward. They try to emulate the end result. They try to emulate the product.

It's a very industrial concept, like China reverse engineering iPhones to make clones. It works in that industry. And you see it in gaming a lot, when a big soulless company buys out a small indie passion project, then they release a cheap straw-filled scarecrow wearing that indie game's skin. They try to emulate what a good game looks like, what it feels like, what it sounds like. But it's just an imitation.

I found that in watching a lot of streams of newer games. If you see a chat saying "oh wow, that's just like BioShock" or "oh wow, that's just like Minecraft" or "oh wow, that's just like Call of Duty". Then you know that game is not really standing on it's own two feet. And they can get by, and make a good product... but you will rarely find art this way. Those games, art games, legendary games... some may start as "wow, this is just like ____" but they quickly break free and have their own unique, memorable experience.

Fine art is the purest form of this "lightning in a bottle" I know. And it's different for everyone. My form is trying to capture my inspiration, my passion, things that are incredibly meaningful to me, in whatever medium feels right, even if I don't know how to work in that medium. The picture in my profile here, or whatever, idk what it's called. The Barred Owl. I have a few incredibly vivid memories of that bird. One, I was going up the mountain with my friend to find a bar we were told about that had pool tables. There was nothing to do at night in our town, so we were searching for the holy grail, essentially. It really felt like a quest, you know? And we end up on this dirt road in the middle of nowhere at like 10PM and neither of us know where we are, and this is before GPS and all that, of course. And we're driving along and up ahead we see... these fucking figures in the middle of the road. I'm serious, this was like... horror movie shit. Like I thought they were kids wearing the same hoodies with the hood up at first, it was really weird and surreal. Like a fairy tale or something. And there were like... 5 of them? As we got closer they seemed like they were around like 1.5-2 feet tall, and we started to suss out that they were Barred owls. Just standing in the middle of the fucking road, with us coasting towards them with the headlights on and the windows open. They were just... dead silent. And as we crawled towards them, they inched to the side and let us pass, but like stared directly at us as we passed, heads on a swivel. And I was really sketched out having the windows open, I was convinced they were going to like attack me or something, they were like... a foot away from me. It was really scary. Then right as we passed by, they scattered and they started flying tree-to-tree behind us, following us. Some overtaking us and perching in trees ahead, the rest following behind, swooping from tree to tree. It was nuts. We never found the place either, never even figured out if we were on the right road.

The other owl story was from my post-breakup days, the summer after, when I revisited my hippie self - who is firmly hybridized in my personality now, thank god. I kept getting the image of owls come to me in dreams, and I tried to do some kind of spirit guide meditation thing, like a summoning ritual or some shit (as though I've ever really needed that, good lord, they seek me out constantly) and I kept getting images of Barred Owls popping into my head. Just the head, for a long time. It's a very distinct face. And that summer, I had a family of Barred Owls hunt in my neighborhood at night. Maybe they'd always been there? Maybe I was just starting to go outside more, and finally heard them. But I lived right next to a pond and I would hear them calling to each other and coordinating. And I could hear them relocate from the north eastern corner across the pond... to the south eastern corner... then through the woods on the southern side, then looping around to where I lived on the western side. And they'd sometimes do a really slow loop, like over the course of hours, and sometimes they would just stay on the eastern side and then head out or go quiet. So, I started working on my owl call. Someone taught me how to do an owl call with my hands when I was really young, I've always remembered how to do it, I'm just very rusty. And I started to get it back really well that summer. And one night, I decided to call them. Just to see what happened. The cool part is, the leader (or whatever, I don't really know how their psychology works) had a distinctly different call. It's hard to articulate how, but when I heard it I knew it was them. And that one responded to me. And I went back and forth with them for a few calls. And then they went silent. They were across the pond (like a soccer pitch sized pond, not huge), on the eastern side, directly across. And after about 5 minutes of silence, I called again, and I got an immediate response from the leader... from due south. They had relocated. Then I heard a call to my north, a bit closer. That... was a very unique feeling. Then I called back, and the leader was a bit closer, and one or two other calls from varying locations. They had split up, and were coordinating locations. They were... surrounding me... I should mention at this point, I had no porch lights and a pretty poorly lit home. It was super dark at night. Like... super dark. Like walk out to the edge of the fenced-in yard and you can't see your hand in front of your face on a new moon. There was definitely moonlight that night though, I remember distinctly summoning my courage and walking out to the fence (about 30 feet from my porch, as though the roofed porch was "safer" or something...) and being able to see a tree about 10 feet away from me. So... decent visibility. And I called again, but got no response. And then one last time, and I got a response from the leader... I still don't know if they were in the tree 10 feet in front of me or the tree behind it, but they were fucking loud. Like, they were right there. Like... it made me freeze up a bit. But I got really excited at the same time. But like... it was one of those feelings, like... this animal and it's entire family can see me clear as day. And I can't see or hear a single one of them. And they're predators. So there's something very instinctual about that, it's a very unique feeling. But the coolest part about that scenario, I had summoned them, and they willfully sought me out. But having them that close? It freaked me out a little too much, and I headed back in.

So... my point with these stories? That's what Barred Owl means to me. And so much more. It's not just something cool to draw (I mean it's that too...), it's a deeply personal part of my life. And the act of drawing that piece? I streamed it. I streamed the entire process, start to finish, it took like... 40 hours total. And I met some cool people while I was doing that, and we talked about a lot of important life stuff. Point being, that piece wasn't something commissioned off some random dude on Fiverr. That piece wasn't focus grouped in a graphic design or illustration firm, then tasked to the most capable illustrator, then sent to print, mass produced and available on-demand as a postcard or a t-shirt. It's something special. Made by me, with my memories in it, with my emotions in it, with my skin oil in the paper. It's an artifact of a memory, or a concept. Or both.

So... when someone says... go get a job working for someone else, in a related field? It's like... they come from another world. It's like they don't even understand what this life or profession is. It's like they interchange "logo designer" or "basket weaver" or "candle maker" or "landscape painter" and they throw them all in the same pile and label it "not-normal jobs". Or "not real jobs". Or "hobbies". Usually "hobbies". It upsets me so deeply. Not just because I have devoted so much of my life to this, but because... I love these things so much. This way of living so much. This way of looking at the world. It's my everyday experience. I see art everywhere. I see art in the architecture of my building. I see wooden beams from different eras, some machined, some seemingly hand-hewed, at least in parts. I see brickwork that is quite old. And I envision the people constructing this building back... probably 100 years ago? Maybe even earlier. Let me google real quick. Yeah, it was originally constructed in 1880. 143 years. 143 years ago, some dudes were mixing mortar and placing bricks to make a gigantic mill. There are relics of different time periods, different constructions; all telling a story, like a fantasy movie scene that plays out in my head. And I see stuff like that everywhere. And it fascinates me, and I want to share it with people. Because it makes life so much more deep, and rich, and romantic, and fascinating. Art and writing allow me to do that. For anyone who chooses to participate. Unfortunately, not many have been interested.

So yeah... all this... because some dude sent me a reply to my comment at like 3AM saying that the OP should get a "normal job". And I was fucking livid all day. I was surprised I feel asleep. And I woke up angry. And I carried that anger all day long, until like 5 or 6 PM, when I finally talked to my mom and was able to get those thoughts out.

An interesting thing happened when I was talking to her about art. I was telling her this, the stuff about how... like... I'm basically looking for private collectors. For these relics, essentially. These artifacts. I don't know what else to call what I make. I say art and people just roll their eyes. But they really are so much more than the end product, they are the product of intellectual exploration, of memory, of my personality. They are concept pieces, most of them. My necklace that I'm wearing now is a concept piece. It's a bloodstone centerpiece, which was a stone I was given at a very difficult time in my life, and I lost it. And it always upset me very deeply that I had lost it, and I always pledged to get a new one. Now it's the heart of my necklace, and sits right above my heart. The wooden beads are stained with my tattoo ink that I have injected permanently into my own skin. The large beads are Tiger's Eyes, which were my favorite stone as a child. And the filler beads are Black Obsidian which is cool, but also a pretty important mineral in the advancement of humankind. Maybe that's a reach, it doesn't have a ton of personal sentimental value, it was a later addition. I got it because it called to me. Because my eyes kept being drawn to it, and it fits perfectly in the necklace thematically. It's more than just... something thrown together because it looks pretty - which is respectable in its own right. Every single direction in it was picked deliberately. The rhythm and pattern of the beads. The number of square knots used for spacing. The transition into braiding at the end, to emulate my symbolic braided mohawk that I used to have, as a reminder of where I came from. Every step of it is intentional.

I was telling my mom about the stones I've been sanding and faceting, that she sent me from her driveway. Sounds silly when I say it that way, wait til you see what they look like now. They are absolutely gorgeous. And I'm like 80% sure some of them have tiny veins of silver in them. And I asked her... if I approached a gallery and I just told them "here, here are some stones that my mom was drawn to, that she sent me from her driveway, which I sanded by hand into these shapes that somewhat mimic their original organic forms, but take on their own unique geometry, which I sanded while I was caring for and then eventually grieving my beloved cat." I asked her... "do you think they would put this in a gallery if I told them that." And she took a minute... then she started telling me about a woman she knows who does a lot of stuff that I would be interested in - candlemaking, beekeeping, making soaps and stuff, you know... someone who would make my life fucking awesome if I were dating them. But she's married so, whatever. XD And she's a vet, a traditional and alternative vet. So she does all kinds of stuff, and... she said this woman might be interested in these pieces.

So... she asked me, "how are you going to package it? Or present it?" And I went... "I'm probably going to go up to her with the stones in my cupped hands and say 'you want them?'" And my brain started getting fuzzy and quiet. Like static or white noise or something. Meaning like... thoughts just started not being there, going blank, like I was getting really tired or something. And I told her, "I could like... put them in a box, or a bag or something, maybe she could put them in a fountain and the light could play off them or something? Whatever, once they're out of my hands it's up to them." And then from there on out, my brain was just... struggling to keep up. Very blank and slow and having difficulty focusing. And I really brought attention to this very transparently, saying "this is my problem". I have trouble even envisioning the scenario. I don't believe in my ability to make a successful sale. I don't like it. I don't like the process at all, and I don't believe I'm skilled in it, and I don't want to be. I would be more than glad to tell the insanely personal story behind them, and burst into tears in front of them, but figuring out money? Making a sale? I naturally reel. I naturally pull back and freeze up. And I literally froze up, which is what my mom helped me learn. My mind froze, I was having trouble thinking, I couldn't envision the scenario or any options of what to do, the whole white noise thing. My brain would just go blank of thoughts.

So... I'm gathering... this is not just... something I don't like or don't want to do... it's something that's actually triggering a panic response and sending me into "fight, flight, freeze, fawn" mode, and this is my "freeze". Earth element out of alignment? Meh, I don't know enough about that kinda stuff to even speculate, I understand the language of psychology much better. I just have more experience in that tongue. So... that's a bit of a problem... if you want to ever have a career doing anything ever... and you freeze up any time the topic of asking for money comes up. As an artist, this makes you a golden fucking target for scammers, especially if what you produce is valuable. But more than that, I just... never get a chance to even get started. Because I don't care if I sell my shit or not, in fact, in some ways... it even benefits me to not sell my shit. And I really just want my art to go to a good home, where someone really appreciates it and lets it run free in the yard and feeds it food scraps under the table when no one's looking. And I wish life could be that simple. That I make really cool shit for people who really want it, whatever they want, whenever, we'll work together and make it work. And I'll cook for them and entertain them, and tell stories and teach them what I've learned in my travels. In exchange, I don't have to worry about housing or food. That's all I really want. But I'm afraid I'm... about 4000 years too late for a life like that. Apparently that life is not available to me, and I need to get a "normal job" to make "money" to pay for things to stay "alive" so I don't "die on the street" and then maybe in my free time I can dick around with paints or whatever lame shit I do that no one actually cares about. Yay.

But yeah, identifying how bad that anxiety/panic mechanism is getting, and how... I had a complete blind spot for it. Like... I was insanely disoriented and had no idea why my brain was just going blank. Luckily, perspective from my mom helped me connect the dots. No wonder I've been so adamant to get help around that, I had no idea it was so bad, because I wasn't like... physically feeling the fear. Fight is a very unique feeling. Like boiling water or something, like pressure building. Flight is very... sharp. Tightness, tension, gripping. Fawn is weird, it's like a hollowness and then like... a release... when it's genuine. When it's a fake fawn, like... going along with what a scary person is doing... it can be more like flight but... I don't know, like... cold and spooky. I'm pretty well acquainted with fawn, unfortunately. But freeze... at least this one... This one barely even registered to me as a panic response. It was just like... emptiness. Stillness. Blank. So, like... I didn't even associate it as a feeling, an emotion, let alone Fear.

Fear is so weird, it takes so many wildly different forms of experience, yet it's all the same emotion. So odd.

So yeah, we wrapped up, got the electric skateboard ordered, hopefully it'll be shipping before too long. It seems like it's a final plan. I'm gonna be doing the skateboard and car share thing, that plan. Hopefully it goes well, if not, we'll just reconvene and talk options again. I'm cool with it.

Okay, I wanna get to this because it's getting really late, I had no idea I had so much to say tonight. I went skating tonight. I was debating between streaming or playing a new game, and I said fuck it and went skating instead. I'm really glad I did. As always!

I spent most of my time at the handicapped access sidewalk that has that plateau section that ramps down, so it basically makes a little natural kicker. I landed some pretty good ollies and a shuvit, and really went after 3 shuv for a long time. I got really close a few times but I never stuck it. Though I'm pretty sure I have landed it at that spot before. I packed in a flatground section and just practiced kickflips for a good half hour. It was exhausting. It's weird, but I think flatground is actually more tiring than skating a gentle hill and then climbing back up. It's hard to really tell which is worse, but I feel like flatground might be. Because you just... don't carry speed... so you end up having to run and push more. Just a theory. I landed one kickflip, out of probably... I don't know, if I was to hazard a guess, probably 30 attempts? Not a great ratio. But I was really focusing on something specific today. I watched this video from a pro skater on common mistakes skating, and noticed something that I do a lot snowskating that I don't do as much skateboarding (though I still do it, just not as much). Leaning my torso forward rather than squatting on anything that isn't a straight ollie. Even ollies I get that sometimes, especially when landing a drop. But I noticed it a ton on backside 180s and heelflips. Correcting this by keeping my weight above my board, keeping my hips and shoulders lined up more (thank you, yoga!) made me much more consistent in proper 3-shuv landings, I was just... having trouble focusing on catching the board. The path turned to solid ice really quick, so when I popped... it felt like trying to jump forwards while wearing skate shoes (flat bottomed, little grip) on an ice rink. Your balance just immediately goes fucky. So regaining balance, staying above the board and looking at the board for catch and foot placement was just... too much for me all at once while mid-air. The "look at the board" part was usually too late, because all these moving parts still haven't been committed to muscle memory yet. The foot position, riding and correcting balance, steer correction, the pop and flick, those are all committed pretty well to muscle memory, I don't have to think too much. I just go 3-shuv and my feet go to the right place. But weight placement, posture and looking at the board aren't intuitive yet.

The "squat, don't bend" method definitely made kickflips much more consistent, and they actually popped higher too, which was an unexpected bonus. But sticking them moving on very uneven terrain... it was a battle. But I landed one. And it was much higher than my other kickflips. It wasn't clean, but it was enough to call a land.

I started to head back... then I eyed the 6-set at the bottom of the hill. Yep. I was tempted. It's weird, it's diagonally angled, so... it's a little weird to hit it? It feels much bigger than it really is. I decided to set the goal of bombdropping it. And I refused to leave until I landed it. And I tried and tried and tried. Over a dozen times, easily. I ate shit on that over and over. I just couldn't get my balance right. Too far back, too far back, too far back, too far toe edge, too far forward. At one point, I spooked a young woman and her dog who were out walking, it was like... 11PM. I think I scared her a bit? I don't know. I tried to be friendly, but she just... seemed to want to keep walking. I get it, it's late at night, your dog's barking at me, I'm some dude with a weird board thing alone in a park wearing all black. Probably not the place she felt the most safe in the world. I tried to be really friendly, told her I used to have a german shepherd and it was cool, I wasn't upset by it or anything. Then wished her a good night. Then it was like... probably another 6 or 7 more tries. And I was so fucking close, I just kept sliding out. And I was just about to give up and getting so tired. And I just went, "I'm fucking landing it this time. And I'm just riding away." And I tried to envision it, like... envision what it feels like, what it looks like. Really get that in my head. Then just clear my head and immediately go. And I came really close but I didn't land it. So I bolted back up and just said. "Nope, this time. This is it. Just do it." And I ran, and jumped, and put the board under my feet, and... rode away. And I did it. And I scared the shit out of some dude across the street who was walking and didn't see me because of the sound of the board smacking the packed snow. And I was beaming.

It wasn't an ollie, but it was the biggest stairset I've ever done. And the only one bigger in the park is the 7-set above the flatground section. Talk about progression. I don't know if I'm brave enough to try to ollie that 6-set this winter. Ollieing is so different from bombdropping. I'll leave the option open... but... it spooks me.

But I'll tell ya, that first bombdrop on the stairset? That took a bit of pumping myself up to do it. I was tempted to just jump first, no board under me, but... I was actually worried that might do more damage than good. I feel like landing flat-footed with nothing to move your momentum... all the impact just goes to your static feet, right in the ankles. And I don't really know how to like... tuck and roll out of that to distribute momentum, especially with a phone in my pocket. I do know how to tuck and roll and slide out of landing on my board to distribute momentum, pretty well too. So I actually opted to just skip the test jump and go right to the first bombdrop. And that was... a literal leap of faith. It took a big "fuck it" to get me to override my survival instincts there. I often feel like a baby because there are kids half my age that jump down stairsets twice that big, and they don't even have snow to break their fall. But for me, it's spooky. For me, these sets are the biggest thing I've done. So... I'm gonna let myself have that fear. Because the fear = the challenge. And overcoming the challenge, conquering the fear = the reward. Otherwise, I'm kinda cheating myself out of progression just because others have progressed further in their own journeys... That's kinda silly.

I ended skating on that note, it was a great feeling. I am so glad I stuck it out and pushed the last few attempts. It was worth it!

[kujakumai]

cleaned up old WIP, 2800 words, AU where Yami Bakura succeeds in switching hosts in DK and Mokuba makes friends with an evil ghost. Not going to be continued but it literally would not leave my brain alone until I finished it.

Things were not going according to plan.

The plan was to take control of a soulless puppet, an easy vessel incapable of interfering with his ends. He had the vessel, had accomplished that much, but he was not expecting the pharaoh and his little friends to succeed and convince Pegasus to give everyone their souls back. So now not only was there a second person in this body he had to keep suppressed, but now he was stuck impersonating a child, smiling through an awkward reunion and then placed onto a helicopter next to a gangly high school student who was watching him like a hawk.

The spirit-that-was-no-longer-Yami-Bakura knew that he was supposed to be Mokuba, but he did not remember the tall one's name. K-something. He had a stupid jacket and hardly took his eyes off him the entire ride, as if he thought his little brother was going to disappear in a puff of smoke when he wasn't looking. Annoying. Infuriating. Luckily it did not seem he wanted to talk, or at least accepted silence. No one expects recent kidnapping victims to say much, which was a boon. A little dazed, a little quiet, a little off, and no one really found it unusual.

They dropped off the pharaoh and his friends, and finally landed at a gaudy and ostentatious house so large it took him a second to realize it was a home at all, an absurd monument to decadence with grounds full of ugly topiaries. Wealth, then. Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad. He could work with this. The rich kid in the stupid coat quietly held his hand the entire walk up the driveway, until they entered a foyer just as gilded and obscene as the outside had been.

No, things were not going to plan, and playing grade-schooler was awkward and an insult to his dignity, and he was farther away from the other millennium items as he ever had been. He would have to grit his teeth through it until he could figure out the next step. In the meantime, perhaps, enjoy some amenities.

Richie rich sighed, relaxed his shoulders the moment they got inside. He looked at who he thought was his little brother and gave him a small, exhausted but genuine smile. He struggled with what to say next.

"Mokuba," he said, "I have to check on a few things in my office. See what kind of damage they did. Do you want to come with me?"

"No." Finally, a chance to be out of this idiot's sight.

This answer seemed to surprise him, a twitch of skepticism. "Will you be okay by yourself?"

He nodded. Keep answers short, when you're impersonating.

His face betrayed more skepticism, concern, and the tiniest hint of disappointment. As if rich kid himself was the one who was scared to be alone in his own house. He accepted the answer, though, to the spirit's relief.

Rich kid bent down and pulled him into a tight hug and ruffled his hair. "We'll get something special for dinner, okay? And ice cream."

"I do like ice cream." This was true. Ryou Bakura almost never bought ice cream, and when he did it was the stupid healthy kind that everyone knew shouldn't even really qualify as ice cream, which was another reason he was a terrible host. That and the fact that he was startlingly pale and had the upper body strength of a limp noodle and the personality of skim milk. This would be better, even if he had to deal with the abrupt drop in height.

Rich kid headed off towards the staircase with another tired but trying-to-be-reassuring smile, and it was then that the spirit of the ring felt an annoyance in the back of his brain. A presence. A scratching, biting, flailing presence, screeching mad, which he had been suppressing for a while now but finally broke through.

get out get out get out get out give it back its MINE get out

The host, awake. What a bother. More rambunctious than Bakura, then? No matter. He could handle a child.

that was MY hug and MY headpat and MY big brother and you can't have them he's been gone for ages and they're mine not yours get out get out get out

The spirit pushed back, ignored him. Shush. He had planned to hold this body alone, and he did not intend to go back to sharing. If you're good, I might let you have it back for a little while later.

shut up go away go away go away go AWAY

And then Mokuba Kaiba did something, something the spirit was not accustomed to or expecting at all, something which Ryou Bakura had never been willing or able to do. He shoved, violently, and the spirit of the ring was ripped out of control with some amount of panic.

"SETOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Why you insolent little--

Seto Kaiba was not aware of the mental turf war happening over his little brothers body. What he did see was his brother scream his name and fall down, and the whole room echoed with a metal clatter as his briefcase fell on the floor and he ran towards him.

--

The ring had been discarded unceremoniously to a side table, and not-Bakura-and-not-Mokuba-either had no choice but to wait and observe, as a pediatrician on a sudden housecall shined lights in the boy's eyes and rich kid, who the spirit had since gleaned was named Seto Kaiba, looked on in worry.

"You said you heard a voice?" The doctor asked.

"Uh-huh. I think it lives in the necklace."

"You got that thing at Pegasus's house?" Kaiba asked, in disbelief.

"I don't remember. I was just wearing it when I woke up."

"What did the voice say?" the doctor continued, professionally ignoring any talk about magic necklaces.

"Not a lot. It was kind of mean."

"I see." She turned to Kaiba. "He's fine, physically. You might want a psychologist." and Seto Kaiba made what could politely be referred to as A Face. This was not what he wanted to hear, this was news that worried and annoyed him in equal measure, and to some degree was news he had half-expected.

"He's had a rough few months. I'll look into it." and she was dismissed, and Mokuba hopped down from the counter.

"Can we order pizza?" he asked, with big pleading eyes.

Kaiba watched him with dry amusement. "Mokuba, you can have anything you want from any restaurant in a forty mile radius."

"And I want pizza. Real pizza, from somewhere that doesn't also serve caviar."

"Cheap pizza?"

He nodded very seriously. "The grossest greasiest cheapest."

"I can do that. Anything else you want?"

Mokuba's eyes lit up, and soon he was dragging Kaiba by the hand towards somewhere else in the house. "I got to this really hard level in my game I can't get past and I wanted to see if you could beat it, and I found this really cool video I wanted to show you, and I got a really good report card you never saw, and--" and months worth of pent up requests were tumbling out rapid fire, and Kaiba was smiling with affection and some amount of relief.

Loud and clingy, then, was the normal and expected behavior. The spirit of the ring made note of this, as he lie abandoned.

--

The ring was still sitting on a side table, in Mokuba's bedroom, apparently because no one knew what to with it or thought it mattered much. This was a problem. The spirit couldn't do anything without a host, and now everyone was suspicious, these stupid rich people worried too much and paid too much attention.

He was forced to sit there all night, pondering about how he was going to get out of this mess, when at one or two in the morning he observed Mokuba wake up, and rub his eyes, and hop out of bed. He did not turn the light on, but he did check the time, and reach under his bed to retrieve what appeared to be a small backpack. He took it with him as he moved quietly towards the door, and the spirit saw his chance.

Hey, kid. He was near enough to speak into his head. Maybe this wasn't a dead end.

"You!" Mokuba stopped in his tracks and looked right at the ring.

Yes, me. This could be salvaged, he thought, concocting a plan. This was a child. Play friendly ghost and imaginary friend. Surely it would not be hard to weasel himself into the good graces of a sixth grader.

Mokuba glared at the ring with suspicion. "I don't think Seto believed me when I said you could talk, but I knew it." He picked it up delicately by the string to examine.

Where on earth are you going at this time of night?

Mokuba was the current host, technically, so there was a connection, and 11 year olds are not particularly used to or adept at hiding their own thoughts, especially inside their own heads. The answer, if not in words but in abstract concept, was provided instantly as it bubbled to mind. He was going to the kitchen, as he did once or twice a week, not their personal kitchen but the house staff kitchen, where he would move a chair to stand on the counter to reach the very back of the highest shelf of the third cupboard to the left, which was where one of the cleaning staff kept a pile of chocolate so he could cheat on his diet without his wife knowing, a fact Mokuba knew through surreptitious eavesdropping. Mokuba's end was to steal just enough of it that he wouldn't be noticed, and add it to a stash of snacks and other shiny trinkets currently hidden in the bottom of a pile of legos in his closet.

...You steal food to hide in your closet? Why would a child who lived in a three-story mansion need to steal?

Mokuba was only mildly perturbed by the fact that someone had just read his mind. He was mainly curious, now. "Our dad didn't like junk food, so I always took stuff to keep around." he explained, "I guess I don't really have to anymore, 'cuz Seto will let me have whatever I want, but--" he faltered, unable to finish or give a reason.

There wasn't a reason, and Mokuba knew that. There was no need to sneak or stash or steal anymore, but he kept doing it, irrationally, for reasons that confused him, a complicated swirl of things a child could not name or understand but were very easy for the spirit to read. Fear; compulsion; habit; the illusion of safety; the sense that your life was precarious, unstable; a need to exert control over your surroundings. It was not the food or the stealing that mattered, but of the hiding, of having something they could not take away from him.

Mokuba didn't understand any of that, because he was 11 and 11 year olds don't understand why they do anything. He just knew he liked sweets and hated people telling him what to do and that having bags of chips and other people’s lost jewelry at the bottom of an old toybox made him feel better.

Can I come with you?

"No! You tried to take control of me!"

Yes, but you kicked me out, and you'd probably be able to do it again, so I would be stupid to try. I also like chocolate, you see, and it's very boring to be stuck here on your desk.

"Can you even eat? You're a necklace."

I can when I borrow a body.

"You tried to take over me so you could eat chocolate? I'm not stupid enough to believe that."

That and other things. I can't do very much at all, while stuck in the ring. No food, no sunshine, no running around. It's no fun to be without a body, which is why I am occasionally driven to steal one. Terribly sorry about that. he added, in his most pathetic-sounding tone, Please? I don't have anyone else to talk to.

Mokuba was hesitant, but clearly found the fact of his existence too interesting to ignore. "Fine." He picked up the ring and dropped it unceremoniously into his backpack, which had a dragon on it.

Not trust yet, but tolerance and curiosity. One step at a time.

You shouldn't go barefoot, you know. Socks will be quieter if you're trying not to get caught.

"I didn't ask you."

So Mokuba descended down the stairwell, in the dead quiet and dark of the Kaiba Mansion, with no flashlight because he knew it well enough to navigate blindfolded. The place was decadent in the ugly way rich people's houses were, luxury but without taste, soft carpets and gilded banisters.

Mokuba had not quite realized yet how to think at the ring, so he spoke in a low whisper. "What are you, anyway?"

A ghost. So much more complicated than that, but simple words were suitable for children.

"How'd you end up a ghost in a necklace?"

I died, and then someone put me in a necklace.

"That's not an answer." he followed up, "Do all dead people become ghosts?"

No. Just sometimes, maybe, if the way they died was especially violent or gruesome or terrible.

Mokuba frowned. He had caught on remarkably quickly to guarding his own head, but the spirit could tell he didn't like this answer.

This was delicate, but he risked a push. Was there someone you had in mind?

Mokuba said nothing. He reached the staff kitchen on the lowest floor, and opened the door, slow and careful. He was deciding whether to say anything, as he climbed up as quietly as he could and reached far into the back of the cupboard, scrabbling.

"Our dad killed himself last year. Jumped out a window." He finally said, hopping down with his spoils. He said this the same way one might dolefully report the milk had gone bad. Unfortunate but boring.

You don't sound very sad.

"Nah, he sucked. And he never liked me." he said, "Seto was really really upset though. He was pretending not to be, but I could tell." Now there were feelings there, big and weird and sad and clinging ones. For reasons the spirit could not discern, the simple phrase ‘Seto was upset’ carried with it more weight, a thousand million times more weight, than news of a father's tragic death by defenestration. "I hope he's not a ghost. I don't wanna see him again."

Probably not.

Mokuba sat down cross-legged on the kitchen floor, unwrapped candy in silver foil. "You really can't do anything from in the necklace? Like, ghost stuff? Make things float or anything?"

No. It is a bit like being trapped in a very small box.

Mokuba mulled this over for a little while. "If you wanted to borrow a body to do fun stuff, you could have just asked."

Really?

He nodded. "Not being able to eat chocolate sounds lame. It'd be mean to just leave you like that." He put one chocolate into his mouth and dumped the rest in the backpack, where they covered the ring unceremoniously. More indignities. "Not in front of my brother, though. And you have to give it back whenever I say so."

...I could agree to such a compromise. Your candy haul is impressive, by the way.

"Thanks!" He grinned, emanating genuine pride. No one had ever complimented him for stealing before.

Tragic, the work of great thieves. How the very best of it can never be bragged about, the most impressive of skills gone unnoticed by nature, how the very success of a perfect crime relies on keeping your mouth shut about it. An unappreciated art, where even mastery gains you no respect.

You don't care that this poor man has to go out and buy twice as much food to make up for what you steal?

"No, he's a jerk. One time when I was six they confiscated my gameboy, so I went to steal it back and he caught me and told my dad and I got in huge trouble. So every day for a week I snuck down here and moved his keys to a different place so he couldn't find them. They were all so mad at him for losing them all the time, and he thought he was crazy."

Why was your gameboy confiscated?

"Don't remember. I think I bit someone at school." he shrugged, "They probably deserved it, though."

Mokuba Kaiba. he said, I think you and I are going to be excellent friends.

"Okay. Do ghosts watch cartoons?"

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

So what exactly do you think about the whole vampire “mate” thing? Along with the whole idea that the vampire emotional nature is like “stone” and thus can only love romantically the once?

Mates? I don’t think they exist.

Alright, fine, a serious answer.

I think it’s not so much mates, per se, that there’s one person out there for you in the whole wide world and if you miss them you’re a soulless husk forever but a product of vampire neurology. 

It’s not so much that vampires don’t change, or at least, no less than humans do (we tend not to change without catalyst either). However, I do think that vampires are a bit more stubborn in their nature than us humans and their profound memory helps them along.

A vampire never forgets the joy of being in love, never forgets what they initially loved about their partner, and in the case of Marcus never forgets the grief of losing them. 

But I think they feel love, sorrow, anger, etc. as much as we humans do. They just have this overly romantic mythos that they themselves have bandied about for thousands of years.

What do I mean?

Well, the ‘mates’ we see are unconvincing. There’s Marcus, yes, and it’s implied that he had something truly profound with Didyme. But what about the others?

The Cullen Family alone is full of disastrous marriages that will fall apart any second now.

Bella/Edward is such a shit show of yikes involving no love whatsoever and more the lust that a lion feels when about to feast on a gazelle (that Edward also uses this analogy really says something to me). Remember that Meyer presents Bella/Edward as the best and brightest of all the mated pairs.

Edward marries and falls in love with her while she’s still human, a very rare phenomenon. He tries to leave her but finds himself physically unable to, within six months both he and Bella attempt suicide (nevermind that Bella was clinically depressed and Edward is in love with his own tragic theater and martyrdom). 

Meyer describes them of having the wonderful spiritual connection of Carlisle/Esme and the physical intamacy of Rosalie/Emmett (which of course means that Rosalie and Emmett are the only couple in this goddamn house that actually have any sexual intercourse). 

This is the love story the entire series hinges on.

And it’s like a virtual novel where you’re playing as Bella Swan, and if you made even one, small, wrong choice along the way Vampire Patrick Bateman sneaks into your room and devours you, your father, and maybe your entire graduating class.

By some miracle, Bella unwittingly travels the golden path. For her, that is, for everyone else it will end in very very bad places.

Then we have Carlisle/Esme, where they seem to be held together by wishful thinking and denial. Neither is really what the other wants, they share completely different values, their miscommunication is profound, and while I won’t get into it here I will say that I think they very likely have 0 physical intimacy for a variety of reasons.

Edward looks to Carlisle/Esme as his ideal relationship and what he wants to recreate with Bella. Which is... very Edward.

The only ones in the Cullens not a complete disaster, but still should have couple’s therapy, are Rosalie and Emmett. And here’s where I go, “alright, maybe there’s something to this mated pair thing”. Because the story of Rosalie is she finds this man torn apart by bears, after having been a victim of gang rape, carries his bleeding carcass for miles, dumps him on Carlisle’s table, and says, “MAKE ME A HUSBAND”. And it somehow works out for them. It’s the world’s weirdest pairing, in Midnight Sun we learn that Rosalie is just as weirded out as we the audience are, because her brain just tells her that this man is her husband.

So perhaps there’s some instinctual connection, but we certainly don’t see it in all vampire couples. So, if the mate thing does exist, I suspect it’s a) extremely rare b) is probably not one unique match in all the world.

That said though, even Rosalie and Emmett have issues and I’d hardly call them soulmates. They don’t really get each other, I think. Emmett certainly doesn’t understand Rosalie and I think Rosalie does find Emmett is often a boor. They love each other, certainly like each other, but they’re not two connecting puzzle pieces.

Otherwise, outside of these guys there’s... Pretty much Marcus.

Aro is gay, clearly enamored with Carlisle, and locked his wife in a tower.

Caius also locked his wife in a tower.

Eleazar left the Volturi for Carmen, but Eleazar is a dick and useless (this is for another meta). By the sounds of it Aro was jumping at an excuse to get rid of him.

Marcus, mourning for two-thousand years straight, is enough to convince me that something’s up. However, he could simply have been in love the way elves in LotR love, and they don’t have soulmates either.

Plus, mates are so cheap to me.

Every time, every time, I see it used it’s a cheap prop to do away with actually convincing us this is a convincing and moving love story.

Bella and Edward belong together because they’re soulmates.

Kylo-Ren and Rey are a dyad in the Force and therefore their love is a great one.

Tom Riddle and Harry Potter have their names written on each others arms in your fanfiction du jour and it’s very angsty because they’re soulmates with their greatest enemy and someone they don’t even like. Don’t ask how they could possibly be soulmates in this scenario, they just are, because I say so.

Every time you resort to using mates to convince your audience that your pairing is a superior love a puppy dies. 

Right, the falling in love romantically once, well look at my fics and I clearly don’t believe that. What I will say is that vampires can hold onto their memories longer than us, so if they want to reminisce over being romantically in love, they can, and falling in love with someone else might be harder for them. 

However, I don’t think there’s anything stopping them. We see many vampires with very complicated and frankly very human relationships. They play themselves for fools, yearn, and settle for people they do not truly love just as much as we humans do. 

[lioninsunheart]

PANDEMIC OP-ED- “BOOMERS VS. THE HIPPIES’  (FREE SPIRITS OF CHANGE) - 11-3-2,021. PLANET: EARTH.

ALERT: LONG READ.

EXCERPTS FROM : 

“The Hippies Were Right! / Green homes? Organic food? Nature is good? Time to give the ol' tie-dyers some respect.”

-Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist-

“Go ahead, name your movement. Name something good and positive and pro-environment and eco-friendly that's happening right now in the newly "greening" America and don't say more guns in Texas or fewer reproductive choices for women or endless vile unwinnable BushCo wars in the Middle East lasting until roughly 2075 because that would defeat the whole point of this little column and destroy its naive tone of happy rose-colored sardonic optimism. OK?.........”

....Look around: we have entire industries devoted to recycled paper, a new generation of cheap solar-power technology and an Oscar for "An Inconvenient Truth" and even the soulless corporate monsters over at famously heartless joints like Wal-Mart are now claiming that they really, really care about saving the environment because, well, "it's the right thing to do" (read: It's purely economic and all about their bottom line because if they don't start caring they'll soon be totally screwed on manufacturing and shipping costs at/from all their brutal Chinese sweatshops).......

.....There is but one conclusion you can draw from the astonishing (albeit fitful, bittersweet) pro-environment sea change now happening in the culture and (reluctantly, nervously) in the halls of power in D.C., one thing we must all acknowledge in our wary, jaded, globally warmed universe: The hippies had it right all along (Stop calling them ‘Boomers’ they still have feelings-it’s an insult and always has been). Oh yes they had it right!....

....Here's a suggestion, from one of my more astute ex-hippie readers: Instead of issuing carbon credits so industrial polluters can clear their collective corporate conscience, maybe, to help offset all the savage damage they've done to the soul of the planet all these years, these commercial cretins should instead buy some karma credits from the former hippies themselves. You know, from those who've been working for the health of the planet, quite thanklessly, for the past 50 years and who have, as a result, built up quite a storehouse of good karma. You think?.....

......Of course, you can easily argue that much of the "authentic" hippie ethos -- the anti-corporate ideology, the sexual liberation, the anarchy, the push for civil rights, the experimentation -- has been totally leeched out of all these new movements, that corporations have forcibly co-opted and diluted every single technology and humble pro-environment idea and Ben & Jerry's ice cream cone and Odwalla smoothie to make them both palatable and profitable. But does this somehow make the organic oils in that body lotion any more harmful? Verily, it does not......

......You might also just as easily claim that much of the nation's reluctant turn toward environmental health has little to do with the hippies per se, that it's taking the threat of global meltdown combined with the notion of really, really expensive ski tickets to slap the nation's incredibly obese ass into gear and force consumers to begin to wake up to the savage gluttony and wastefulness of American culture as everyone starts wondering, oh my God, what's going to happen to swimming pools and NASCAR and free shipping from Amazon? Of course, without the '60s groundwork, without all the radical ideas and seeds of change planted nearly five decades ago, what we'd be turning to in our time of need would be a great deal more hopeless indeed......

....But if you're really bitter and shortsighted, you could say the entire hippie movement overall was just incredibly overrated, gets far too much cultural credit for far too little actual impact, was pretty much a giant excuse to slack off and enjoy dirty lazy responsibility-free sex romps and do a ton of drugs and avoid Vietnam and not bathe for a month and name your child Sunflower or Shiva Moon or Chakra Lennon Sapphire Bumblebee. This is what's called the reactionary simpleton's view. It blithely ignores history, perspective, the evolution of culture as a whole. You know, just like America......

.....But, you know, whatever. The proofs are easy enough to trace. The core values and environmental groundwork laid by the '60s counterculture are still so intact and potent even the stiffest and hateful Republican has to acknowledge their extant power. It's all right there: Treehugger.com is the new '60s underground hippy zine. Ecstasy is the new LSD. Visible tattoos are the new longhairs. And bands as diverse as Pearl Jam to Bright Eyes to NIN to the Foo Fighters are writing savage anti-war songs for a new, ultra-jaded generation.....

And oh yes, speaking of good ol' MDMA (Ecstasy), even drug culture is getting some new respect. Staid old Time mag just ran a rather snide little story about the new studies being conducted by Harvard and the National Institute of Mental Health into the astonishing psychospiritual benefits of goodly entheogens such as LSD, psilocybin and MDMA. Unfortunately, the piece basically backhands Timothy Leary and the entire "excessive," "naive" drug culture of yore in favor of much more "sane" and "careful" scientific analysis happening now, as if the only valid methods for attaining knowledge and an understanding of spirit were through control groups and clinical, mysticism-free examination. Please.!........

.......Still, the fact that serious scientific research into entheogens is being conducted even in the face of the most anti-science, pro-pharmaceutical, ultra-conservative presidential regime in recent history is proof enough that all the hoary old hippie mantras about expanding the mind and touching God through drugs were onto something after all (yes, duh). Tim Leary is probably smiling wildly right now -- though that might be due to all the mushrooms he's been sharing with Kerouac and Einstein and Mary Magdalene. Mmm, heaven.......

....Of course, true hippie values mean you're not really supposed to care about or attach to any of this, you don't give a damn for the hollow ego stroke of being right all along, for slapping the culture upside the head and saying, See? Do you see? It was never about the long hair and the folk music and Woodstock and taking so much acid you see Jesus and Shiva and Buddha tongue kissing in a hammock on the Dog Star, idiots!....

....It was, always and forever, about connectedness. It was about how we are all in this together. It was about resisting the status quo and fighting tyrannical corporate/political power and it was about opening your consciousness and seeing new possibilities of how we can all live with something resembling actual respect for the planet, for alternative cultures, for each other. You know, all that typical hippie crap no one believes in anymore. Right?”

[writethelifeyouwant]

Sin

Created for: @ilysm-mybabybrother

Pairing: Dean x Reader / Sam x Reader / Dean x Sam 

Warnings: Dub-Con 

Additional tags: Cuckolding, Dirty talk, Praise kink 

Word count: 2,076

A/N: Written for my @spnsecretsantaficexchange set up by my bae @negans-lucille-tblr as a present for the lovely @ilysm-mybabybrother (who I’ve been a long time stalker of, nbd). They requested something smutty with dirty talk / praise kink / cuckolding / and the brothers touching each other - potentially with Demon!Dean or BoyKing!Sam - I’ve gone with Soulless!Sam - I hope that’s still okay! I think I managed to work all the other kinks in there... Anyways I had a lot of fun writing it so I hope you enjoy it! Merry Christmas 🎄

Dividers: @firefly-in-darkness 

Dean hadn’t let himself imagine this moment. 

When Sam jumped into the pit with Lucifer riding shotgun, Dean made himself accept that. Bobby came back, Cas came back, but when Sam didn’t appear with them, he had to let him go. He promised he would let him go. 

He kept his promise. He found a job in a garage in Texas. He wooed a girl who brought in a car that sounded like his old neighbours in Hell were trapped under the hood. He picked her up in the Impala and dropped her off on her doorstep with a kiss and a promise to call; and he actually called her. They weren’t living together, but they spent most of their time at each other’s apartments. Dean taught her a bunch of ways to doctor up boxed mac’n’cheese, and Y/N taught Dean how to mix cocktails with cheap whiskey that actually made it taste nice. The earth was still turning. 

But now it had stopped, because Sam was standing in front of him, dripping in holy water and cut across his arm - not a monster or a demon, it was Sam. And Dean didn’t care that he got wet too when he pulled his little brother in for a bone crushing hug, because nothing could be wrong again now that Sam was back in his arms. At least, that’s what he’d thought two hours ago. Because now, as his wrists were getting rope burn and his ears were ringing with Y/N’s soft whimpers he knew something was wrong. Something was very wrong with Sam. 

“Wow, Dean,” Sam had exclaimed when he introduced him to Y/N, who had been cooking dinner when he showed up at Dean’s door. “He’s lucky he met you first, darling.” Sam’s eyes dragged up and down her body hungrily, and Dean was taken aback because that was not like Sam at all. Usually Dean was the horndog between the two of them but, I guess you would get pretty horny being dead for a year, Dean reasoned to himself. He remembered that feeling, after he got back from Hell, of wanting something to really make him feel alive again. It would just be nice if Sam didn’t use his girlfriend to feel that. 

But as the evening progressed, and dinner turned into drinks, and beer turned into liquor, Dean felt more and more like he might not get a say in the matter. Sam was all over Y/N, flirting harder than Dean had ever seen him flirt, and way better than Dean remembered him being at it, come to think of it. And Y/N wasn’t turning him away. She was laughing and smiling and getting him another drink, and being the perfect goddamn housewife all while Dean was sitting there watching the two of them. 

And then when Y/N brought him a refill on his whiskey she shot Dean a look that he’d only seen once before, when she’d asked if they could take home the cute waitress so Dean could watch. Back then, Dean had thought he had the best damn girlfriend ever. He essentially got a front row seat to one of his favourite pornos. But the thought of her sleeping with Sammy... Dean wasn’t wild about that one. Except he didn’t know how to say that to Y/N and Sam, so he just kept drinking and hoped it didn’t come up. He wasn’t so lucky. 

He tried to step in, when Sam put his hand on Y/N’s thigh and dug his fingers in - Dean gritted his teeth and choked out a cautious “Sam…” but the warning died in his throat when he looked into his little brother’s eyes and saw empty determination and cold hunger. He didn’t see his brother. “Y/N get away from him!” Dean shouted and reached for the knife stashed in the end table next to him, but Sam was faster, drawing his own and shoving it threateningly under Dean’s chin. 

“Whatcha doing there, Dean?” 

“What are you?” 

“I’m your brother,” Sam teased, lips curled in an ugly imitation of Sam’s warm smile. 

“What happened to you down there?” Dean demanded, because if this was Sam, something changed - something was different. 

“Oh so much, big brother,” Sam laughed but there was no emotion behind it. “Learned a few things too. How ‘bout I show ya?” And now Dean’s hands were tied above his head with his own goddamn rope on his own goddamn bed, while Y/N was laid out between his legs with her head on his stomach as his own goddamn brother went down on her. 

“Mm, you’ve got such a good little pussy, sweetheart,” Sam sighed, sucking on her clit and pulling a whine from her lips. Y/N’s breath ghosted over Dean’s naked cock, making it twitch despite his best efforts to be disgusted at what was happening right now. “Hope Dean’s been giving this cunt the attention it deserves.” 

Y/N whimpered a little, but didn’t answer, prompting Sam to slap between her legs. “My brother been treating you good? Giving you enough cock to keep a pretty thing like you happy?” 

“Yes,” Y/N gasped, clenching around the fingers Sam had just pushed inside her. “Yeah he’s good - mmh - so good to me,” she moaned. 

“Yeah?” Sam sneered, twisting his fingers to push against Y/N’s clit and make her writhe. “What’s he best at? I’ve always wondered when I heard the moans from the next room.” 

“Sam…” Dean complained, finding his impertinent big brother tone despite the situation he was in at the moment. 

“His mouth,” Y/N sighed, happy to answer despite Dean’s protest. “I love his mouth, it’s so soft… and when he kisses you, it can take your breath away.” 

“How romantic,” Sam smirked. “Always knew Dean was a bit of a softie deep down.” 

“Fuck you,” Dean growled, pulling uselessly against his restraints again.

“Ladies first,” Sam laughed, and pulled his fingers from Y/N and sucked them clean, eyes boring into Dean’s while he swallowed his girlfriend’s slick. “Turn around baby, get on Dean’s cock,” Sam directed, landing a slap on Y/N’s ass when she turned and crawled over Dean. She shivered when she pressed his cock against her entrance, pulsing down slowly, working him inside her bit by bit. 

“Oh look at you,” Sam cooed, brushing her hair off her shoulder so he could bite into her neck, pulling a moan from her chest. “Such a good girl teasing him like that, I didn’t even have to tell you to.” Y/N smiled to herself as she finally got Dean fully seated inside her, revelling in the stretch and fullness of it all. “How did Dean manage to find such a good little slut, huh?” 

Y/N giggled lightly but didn’t say anything, just rolled her hips, drawing a gasp from Dean, whose eyes were squeezed tight in pleasure. Y/N felt so good around his dick. And he hated to admit it but he was in fucking heaven right now. This was so, so wrong but it was so hot, every other thought was being pushed out of his mind for the moment. He just wanted Y/N to keep moving, and he wanted Sam to keep talking. 

Sam wrapped his fingers around the back of Y/N’s neck and shoved her forward, so she was lying chest to chest with Dean. “Give her a kiss Dean. It’s her favourite after all,” he teased. Dean wanted to find some retort to throw back at his brother, but Y/N’s lips were swallowing his before he got a chance, and he decided this was a better use of his breath anyways. 

They kissed and licked and moaned as they ground together, Sam watching on and stroking himself lazily. He reached one hand forward and drew lazy patterns on Y/N’s ass which was bouncing so nicely on Dean’s cock. Sam bet it felt amazing to be inside her. “Mm, you’re fucking him so good, Y/N,” Sam praised, petting his hand down her back. “Look so hot with a cock inside you.” He crawled forward and draped himself over the couple, bumping his hips into Y/N’s and grinding against her ass. She moaned happily and fucked back harder, trying to rub against Sam as much as she could without pulling off of Dean. 

A choked whine slipped through her lips when Sam’s cock caught between her cheeks and nudged at her other entrance. “Oh,” Sam grinned at her reaction and repeated his motion, pushing against the taut, puckered skin. “You have more in common with Dean than I thought.” 

“What?” Y/N panted, confused and distracted by all the sensations she was swimming under. 

“What, Dean never told you? Never asked you to fuck him up the ass?” 

Dean’s eyes shot open, horrified. How did Sam know? 

“You didn’t really think I didn’t know, did you, Dean?” Sam smirked, still rubbing himself against Y/N’s ass, but letting his fingers trail down further, skating over Dean’s inner thigh, making him jump. “You told me about Rhonda Hurley and the panties when I was sixteen, but I knew that wasn’t the whole story. I found the strap on after you picked me up from Stanford. How many girls you given it up to, big brother?” 

“Fuck you,” Dean ground out, mortified. 

“You know what, I just might,” Sam drew small circles with his fingertip the whole way across Dean’s skin until he reached his target. “What do you think, Y/N, should I give your boyfriend what he wants?” 

“God yes,” she gasped, riding Dean hard, head buried in his shoulder. 

Sam spit on his fingers and pressed them back against Dean’s ass, teasing his hole until it was nice and slick and he could slide a finger in without too much resistance. Dean was tense, trying to fight what Sam was doing, trying to fight wanting what Sam was doing, but he didn’t think he was strong enough. Sam’s finger twisting inside him actually felt amazing. It had been over a year since he’d let anyone fuck him and god, he had forgotten how fantastic it was, feeling this full, this whole. 

Sam felt Dean accept what was happening, felt him relax around him, and took that as his cue to add more spit and another finger. Then another. He pulled them out when he felt Dean was ready and tugged Y/N back so she was sitting up against his chest. “You ready to cum, darling?” He snarled in her ear. 

“Mmhmm,” Y/N whined, bouncing faster over Dean, but Sam hoisted her off his brother and sat her down between his legs where they’d started. 

“You’re gonna get my cock nice and wet, aren’t you baby? Gonna be good and cum all over my cock?” 

“Yes, fuck yes, please,” Y/N begged. Sam slammed in place inside her and didn’t hesitate before fucking her at a furious pace, rubbing his thumb over her clit and pulling scream after scream out of the girl writhing beneath him. He felt, with satisfaction, a surge of heat between her legs, and knew her cum was trickling out from between her thighs. 

“Good girl,” Sam huffed, cold smile firmly in place. He pulled out and looked down to see veins of white dripping over his skin. “Got me nice and wet for your boyfriend, good job, sweetheart.” Y/N rolled out of the way, sated and dazed, and anxiously watched Sam climb over Dean and rub his cock between his legs. 

Dean groaned, eyes pressed tight, trying to pretend he wasn’t about to let his little brother fuck him. Trying to pretend he didn’t desperately want his little brother to fuck him. But when Sam pushed in he couldn’t pretend that he didn’t love it. It felt so different to having a dildo in his ass, and it was so much better. It was warm, flesh and blood; his flesh and blood. When Dean clenched around him, Sam moaned and thrust harder into his brother. Dean loved how responsive he was, and did it again, earning himself another thrust. 

“Think you’re being cute?” Sam panted and glared down at Dean, who smirked up at his little brother with his last vestige of self-respect. 

“I think I’m adorable.” 

“And I think you’re gonna regret that.” 

[caranfindel]

Fic: You don’t know how it feels (to be me)

gen, s6 | about 3600 words | pg for language | characters: soulless sam winchester, dean winchester

synopsis: Soulless Sam tries to deal with his brother's feelings about, well, everything. Including his hair. Set in season 6, before "You Can't Handle the Truth."

An idea I had a long time ago, resuscitated by Jared's Walker haircut. The title is from "You Don't Know How It Feels" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

. . . . . .

It's a stupid case.

The manager of the county fairgrounds is a stooped, gnarled old man wearing one of those ball caps veterans wear sometimes. Gold embroidery on the dark blue hat proudly displays the name of his ship or submarine or whatever. Sam doesn't care about his ship or submarine or whatever. He doesn't care about this guy's service at all. Most days, old Blue Hat here got three meals a day and a warm, dry place to sleep in exchange for whatever he gave up. He got a pension when he was done fighting. Sam gets to scrounge for cheap food and sleep in crappy hotels when he's lucky enough to actually land someplace other than the back seat of the Impala. Sam's service to his country earned him a trip to Hell. Sam will get to stop fighting when he's dead. His only pension will be a pyre.

Sam doesn't even get to sleep any more.

(This should bother him. But the truth is, it doesn't.)

Blue Hat frowns at Sam's ID and snorts derisively. "You don't look like a Fed. You look like a goddamn hippie."

He rolls his eyes at the old man, even though he knows Dean hates it when he does that. It's something he didn't do Before, no matter how annoying or insipid the witness. Sam doesn't give a good goddamn what this guy thinks about his hair, but apparently his brother does. "He's been doing some undercover work," Dean says. "Sometimes you've got to look like a goddamn hippie to blend in."

Blue Hat sniffs his disapproval and ignores Sam for the rest of the interview, directing all of his answers to Dean. Which is fine. The old guy doesn't seem to have anything useful to add anyway. Sam leaves his brother to the pointless interview about the stupid case and wanders around the building, taking pictures of the unexplained runes that brought them here. He's bored. The sudden appearance of mysterious runes on the bland metal exterior of a county fairgrounds building feels witchy, and Sam really doesn't care about witches. Two measly deaths, quite possibly from natural causes, and now he's out here standing in cow shit. Or goat shit or pig shit. This entire day has been shit, literally and figuratively.

Dean joins him after a couple of minutes, apparently done with Blue Hat. "What do you think?" he asks.

Sam shrugs. "Too early to tell. If these runes are what Bobby thinks they are, they'll change under moonlight, but moonrise isn't until 9:05 pm."

“Jesus," Dean moans. "I can't stay awake that long. I've already gone almost two days. Let's go back to the motel and crash, and we'll hit this place again tonight."

Or not, Sam wants to say. I think you jumped on this paper-thin excuse for a job just because the alternative was sitting in a motel room with me waiting for an actual case to come up, Sam wants to say. But neither of these are things he would have said Before, and Dean is so goddamn twitchy about Sam being different than Before.

As they turn back to the Impala, Dean glances at Sam with a slight smile. "Dude's not wrong, you know."

“What?"

“You do look like a goddamn hippie." Dean's hand twitches toward Sam, like he's going to smack him on the back of the head or ruffle his hair, but he pulls back without touching him. Because they don't do that now. Casual, good-natured, brotherly contact isn't a thing now. Dean doesn't touch him unless there are injuries involved.

(This is another thing that should bother Sam. It would have, Before.)

. . .

Dean hangs his suit in the closet, sets an alarm, and collapses on top of the covers. Sam stares at his own bed. The threat of spending hours pretending to be asleep makes his skin crawl. If Dean falls asleep quickly enough, he can skip the whole charade.

“Hey, I think I'm gonna shower first," he says.

Dean doesn't open his eyes. "Just don't wake me up when you get out."

In the bathroom, Sam turns on the water but doesn't get undressed. He stands at the mirror, staring at his too-long hair. Why has he bothered to hold onto it? He remembers caring about his hair. He remembers it being a small fuck you to John, the one area in his life where he was able to cling to some autonomy. It's not that he's forgotten about that; he just doesn't give a shit any more.

And like Dean said, Blue Hat wasn't wrong. He does look like a hippie. The hair is a hazard, and it does clash with any kind of law enforcement disguise. Maybe it's time to do something about it. He has time to kill anyway, while Dean sleeps.

(Sam should care that he doesn't need to sleep any more. Dean would definitely care, if he found out. Dean cares so much about any aspect of Sam that is less normal than he thinks it ought to be. Even if it's something that makes him a better hunter. Dean didn't appreciate it when Sam could exorcise demons without killing the host, and Dean wouldn't appreciate that Sam can get so much done when he's not sleeping. He could never understand why this version of Sam is so much better than the way he was Before. It's a shame Dean hasn't discovered the option of Not Caring.)

(Sometimes Sam wonders if getting back with Dean is worth the trouble.)

(And that should bother him too.)

Sam shuts off the shower and pulls out his phone. He needs to find a barber shop in walking distance. Dean will get all pissy if he wakes up and the car is gone; less so if only Sam is missing. Luckily, there's a shop that might still be open. It's one of those ridiculous sports-themed places that presumes men are fussy toddlers who need to be distracted from the ignominy of a hair cut. At least they tend to be staffed by women, and those women tend to be prettier than average. With any luck, he can kill two birds with one stone.

When he opens the bathroom door, Dean is either asleep, or pretending to be. Sam scrawls couldn't sleep, back soon on the motel notepad and closes the door behind him as silently as possible.

(He misses his car. He didn't have an emotional attachment to it, like Dean and the Impala, but it was convenient and it suited him.)

(He doesn't actually have an emotional attachment to anything. That should bother him.)

. . .

Two stylists, both predictably prettier than average, look up when he walks in. The redhead says "sorry, sir, we're just about to close up," and continues sweeping up hair trimmings. But the brunette looks him up and down and smiles. And Sam's partial to brunettes anyway.

He gives her a once-over in return and smiles back. "Do you have time for just a quick cut? I'd be eternally grateful."

She stares at him for a minute, appraising. "Well, how could I turn down an offer of eternal gratefulness?" she says with a wink. She turns to the redhead. "Why don't you go on home. I've got this."

The redhead dumps her clippings into a trash can. "You sure?"

"I'm sure. You mind locking the door behind you? I don't want any more last-minute customers walking in."

The redhead raises her eyebrows, but gathers her purse and jacket and makes her escape as Sam settles into the brunette's chair.

“I'm Marianne," she says, as she starts to drape a cape over his shoulders.

“I'm Sam. But listen. I get too hot under those capes. Would it be okay if we skip it? And I just take my shirt off so I don't get hair all over it?"

Marianne smiles like the cat who caught the canary. "Not a problem, sweetheart."

Sam slips out of his dress shirt and drapes it over the empty chair next to him. Marianne watches him the whole time, eyes roving over the muscles exposed by his snug white undershirt. It's like shooting fish in a barrel.

He sits back in the chair and Marianne stands behind him. Her chest brushes against his shoulders. "So," she asks, "what are we doing today?"

“Shorter. Off my collar, above my ears."

She slips her fingers through his hair, measuring its length. "You sure? This length looks pretty good on you. Just needs to be cleaned up a bit."

“It's for a job. The long hair doesn't fly any more."

“Aw, that's a shame." Marianne's still running her fingers through his hair. "If you've got a lady in your life, I bet she'll miss it. A girl likes something to hold onto."

Well. The best lies are based on a kernel of truth. Sam looks into his lap and lets his smile go sad and soft. "That's kind of why I'm here. My girlfriend died and I thought I'd try to start over. New place, new job, new life. But yeah, that's always been one of my favorite things. A girl grabbing my hair in the heat of the moment. I should have tried to find someone to do that one more time before I had to cut it off."

Marianne leans forward, pressing her breasts harder against him. When he looks up, she meets his eyes in the mirror, then flicks a glance toward a door marked Employees Only. “You know," she says, "that could probably be arranged."

Seriously. Fish in a goddamn barrel.

. . .

Dean's awake when Sam gets back to the motel room, but he doesn't look up from the laptop. "Couldn't sleep?"

“I guess I napped a little in the car on the way down here," Sam lies. "And then, you know, a lot of caffeine this morning."

“Whatever. I'm not the sleep police. I hope you brought food, cause I could —" Dean looks at Sam and stops mid-sentence, mouth still open. "You cut your hair?"

“Yeah."

“Why?"

“What do you mean, why? Like old what's-his-face said, I looked like a hippie, not an FBI agent. And you've been telling me to cut it for years."

“Yeah, I have. I've been saying that for years and you've been ignoring me for years. Now some random witness calls you a hippie and you go running to Supercuts?"

Sam sighs. Dean may not be the sleep police, but he's awfully eager to step in as the hair police, enforcing his own set of laws about Sam's hair. "Why does it matter? You wanted me to cut it. Everyone wanted me to cut it. And I cut it. Can we move on now?"

It's a statement almost guaranteed to make Dean bow up in anger, but instead, he deflates. "It's just… nothing. Fine. Moving on." He closes the laptop and pulls his keys out of his coat pocket. "We've still got an hour or so before moonrise. I'm gonna go run through McDonald's. You want a chicken sandwich, or is that something else you're not interested in any more?"

Jesus Christ. This is what passes for moving on. But Sam needs that shower now, and none of this is worth arguing about.

(Few things are any more. That seems like it should matter.)

“Yeah, that sounds great, thanks."

By the time Dean gets back, the sandwich is cold and the ice in Sam's drink is mostly melted. He pretends to enjoy it anyway.

. . .

Their drive back to the fairgrounds is quiet. Dean occasionally steals an unhappy glance at Sam's hair, but doesn't say anything. Sam ignores it.

They pull into the parking lot in front of the marked building. Without even getting out of the car, they can see that the runes have changed. The broad strokes are softly luminescent, glowing a pale blue in the moonlight.

“Okay, so that answers that question," Sam says. Thank God. Now they can leave without wandering around the grounds, soaking up the barnyard smell again. Wrap this up and start working on something more important. But Dean gets out of the car and looks at Sam expectantly. Well, crap. Sam dutifully follows him closer to the building and tries to think of how he would have felt about this development Before.

“Cool," he says. Dean narrows his eyes at him. "I mean, cool that our theory was right. Not, you know, cool that someone is using this kind of spellwork to make sure their pig wins a blue ribbon at the fair. That part's… pretty awful." But Dean's still looking at him funny, so he probably overcorrected on that one. It's just hard, any more.

Dean rubs the back of his neck as he examines the glowing runes. "If that's all they're doing, more power to them. I couldn't care less. But we need to make sure that's all they're doing. I mean, people died, Sam. We need to figure out if this is why." He pulls out his phone. "Gonna take some pictures to send Bobby." There's no reason to remind him they already have pictures. If Dean thinks additional pictures are more effective and efficient than "just like this, but glowing blue," that's up to him. Sam will most likely solve the damn case later tonight anyway, while Dean sleeps.

And he almost does. Dean knocks back a couple of glasses of whiskey when they get back to the motel, and falls asleep pretty soon after that. Sam doesn't bother to feign sleep — Dean doesn't seem to care, right now, whether his brother gets any sleep or not. But when Sam realizes his own photos missed a crucial corner of the building, he opens his brother's phone and finds his last text to Bobby. There's only one picture, and it's not glowing runes. It's him. Just a dark, slightly blurry picture of Sam, obviously taken earlier that night at the fairgrounds. And a text conversation.

See, I told you, it's short. I don't know what's going on. I swear he's just different.

Yeah, I get it. It's different. He's different. But what'd you expect? Of course he's not the same as he was. Hell changed him.

It didn't change me this much.

His Hell wasn't the same as yours. I know it didn't last very long, but remember, he was in the cage with the devil. We don't know what happened to him in there. Give him some time.

Well. Fuck. Dean's talking about him behind his back. Dean doesn't trust him. Dean thinks, once again, that something is wrong with him.

(That would have hurt, Before. Now it's just an annoyance. A distraction. Something to be dealt with.)

Yes, Hell changed him. Hell burned away all the crap, all the useless feelings, the guilt and shame and fear of failure. Hell purified him. Hell carved out the weakness and left nothing but pure, strong hunter. Dean, of all people, should appreciate the result. But Dean does not, and now Sam has to cater to his tiresome attachment to everything Sam was Before.

Fine. He can make that work.

Sam quietly puts Dean's phone back on the nightstand. He strips down to boxers and his t-shirt, sets an alarm, and crawls into bed. Pretending to sleep is tedious, but a couple of hours of boredom right now might spare him weeks of Dean's moodiness about him being different.

(As if Hell could leave you untouched. As if anyone in their right mind would expect that. As if Dean himself didn't know this first hand, for fuck's sake.)

. . .

Sam spends the next day focusing on acting the way he did Before. When his alarm goes off he stretches, yawns, and pretends he had a good night's sleep. He goes for a run, brings back coffee, showers quickly, and rolls his eyes when Dean makes a crack about him being able to spend less time in the shower now. At breakfast, he smiles at the (cute, definitely worth a bang) waitress, but doesn't flirt or even check her out as she walks away. He's figured out that Dean wants Sam to want to get laid (but not too much; he's definitely not supposed to want it as much as Dean wants it) but for some reason doesn't want him to actually get lucky. And he definitely would have gotten lucky. He spends the day looking empathetic, acting like this whole thing hasn't been a colossal waste of time. Like he cares about everything. About anything.

(God, it's exhausting.)

It turns out the deaths probably don't have anything to do with the witch at all. They return to the fairgrounds one last time, where Sam plants hex bags and paints runes on the corners of the building that will block the witch's simple spells - not that he cares whether the witch achieves anything or not, just on principle. His own runes are small and subtle enough that this novice witch (they must be a novice; no one with any experience would be naive enough to make their work so noticeable) won't even know they're in place. And if the witch escalates, well, that's not exactly Sam's problem.

When he's finished, he wipes his hands on his jeans and says "We should get Chinese for dinner. When's the last time you ate a vegetable?" Because monitoring everyone's vegetable intake is something he did Before.

They're finishing Chinese takeout in their motel room (beef with broccoli for Dean, eggplant in garlic sauce for Sam, because occasional bouts of vegetarianism were also a thing he did Before) when he catches Dean looking at his hair, very clearly wanting to say something.

So. It's go time.

Sam tries to make his eyes big and sad. The puppy dog look, Dean always called it. It was never intentional Before, but now he has to work at it. "Listen," he says. "I owe you an apology. I haven't been telling you the whole truth."

“No shit," Dean says. He's trying to sound nonchalant, but his body language screams that he's bracing for something. "So, spill it. What's your big confession?"

(That I don't care about any of this. This piddly little case. My hair. You. Nothing. And you can't imagine, Dean, you cannot even begin to imagine the incredible freedom of not caring. I wish you could, but you just can't.)

No, he can't say any of that. But the best lies are built on a kernel of truth.

Sam takes a deep, anxious breath and looks at Dean. No, wait. Look away. "You know, I told you I don't remember Hell. And I really don't. Not consciously, anyway. But when we were fighting those demons a couple of weeks ago, one of them grabbed me by the hair, and I felt something… it was a sense memory, I guess. It felt like Hell, for some reason. Like it was something that happened to me in Hell, someone grabbing my hair and pulling my head back and getting ready to cut my throat or… whatever."

He doesn't have to elaborate on whatever. Dean knows the whatevers of Hell better than anyone. He's probably dealing with a little sense memory of his own right now, of clutching someone's hair and pulling their head back in preparation for whatever. And now Sam does look at his brother, who is staring at him with wide, horrified eyes.

“Ever since then," Sam continues, "I just feel like I've been on the verge of remembering something. Something I don't want to remember. And I'm tired of worrying that I'm gonna have a Hell flashback every time I wash my hair."

Dean looks like he's going to vomit. Perfect.

“I'm sorry," Sam says. "It threw me, and I just didn't want to talk about it. But I shouldn't have kept it from you."

For a second, he's sure he has gone too far. Dean is going to say what's this bullshit, Sam, you would never apologize for something like that, so tell me what's really going on. But he doesn't. He stares at Sam for a minute, then looks away and wipes a hand down his face.

“Yeah, okay. Okay. You, ah. You good now? Is it working?"

Sam shrugs. "Hard to say. It hasn't been very long. But yeah, I feel a little more… stable, I guess."

And then it’s time to go for the kill.

Sam gives him the sad smile. (He never used to think of it as a sad smile; never used to think of it as anything at all. It was just what his face did. Every expression requires so much thought now.) "Listen. I know things are weird. I know I'm weird. Different. I know it's hard for you. If this is all more than you want to deal with right now, I understand."

Dean frowns. "What are you saying?"

“Just, I can go back with Samuel and his crew if you don't want to do this any more. You and me, I mean. No hard feelings, I promise."

Dean's face crumples. "What? No, fuck, no, Sam. I don't. You and me, we're good. I'm just getting used to things. That's all."

“Okay." Sam gives his best approximation of a grateful smile.

“So. Uh." Dean looks around the room nervously, like he's waiting for the other shoe to fall, then stands. "I think I'm gonna go get a drink. You wanna come with, or…"

Even if Sam believed Dean really wanted him to come along — and he doesn't; this is obviously Dean's way of retreating from a situation he doesn't want to think about — pretending to sleep when Dean's gone is one of the easier ways of making it look like he actually does sleep sometimes. "No. I'm beat," he says. "I think I'll just go to bed."

“Okay. Yeah. That sounds like a good idea." Dean takes his keys out of his pocket and anxiously tosses them in his hand. When he finally does turn to Sam, he looks at his hair, not his eyes. "Hey, you know, it does. It does look good on you."

Sam ducks his head shyly, like someone who's not used to praise. Who doesn't think he deserves it. "Thanks." When he looks up, Dean is already halfway out the door, putting as much space between himself and his little brother's hellscape as possible.

(Seriously. Fish in a fucking barrel.)

[orchidzach]

NOW I HAVE TO ASK U ABOUT THE BLASPHEMOUS BAKE SALE

OK SO

I don’t know if any of you all have heard of Brother Jed, and I really hope that you have not, but goes to universities across the US to talk about who was going to Hell (specifically gays, fornicators, non-Christians, people with piercings, people with tattoos, people with dyed hair, non-submissive women, and sometimes various non-white minorities depending on the sign). I think he even had a show on TLC, but don’t give this man any more attention. 

So in my freshman year he and his wife came and I was caught flat-footed, but I noticed two things:

He drew a huge crowd of people who told him he was trash

A friend of mine, Amanda, who organized a Love-In to oppose him, which is to say she got most of the crowd to sit down right in front of Brother Jed and talk calmly together, completely ignoring him. 

So I went about my business, doing college things, for several months. Now in my university I was involved in a scholarship program that had a lounge on campus and all the freshmen lived together on one floor of the dormitories. For room inspection days I would make chocolate chip cookies to cheer everyone up and bribe my RA to ignore some things in our room and after I moved out I continued to make cookies for the lounge or the occasional funding bake sale. As good as the baked goods were, though, they never generated much money.  

I don’t remember when the idea came to me or who suggested it, but one day I realized that selling baked goods to a crowd would probably increase our revenue, and no one gathered a bigger crowd that Brother Jed.

At that moment the gears in my head started turning. With the help of my friends Adam and Amanda, we got the permits to have a bake sale and decided to really stick it to the man by making all the food Hell themed. All the proceeds would go to a non-discriminatory charity, and we would make sure he knew it. Adam was onboard for the lolz, but Amanda got an absolutely possessed gleam in her eye; she was in this for blood.

In planning for our long-simmering revenge, Adam and I checked Brother Jed’s schedule to find out exactly when he would be coming to our university, but there ran into a slight snag; our state has a system of universities all run under the same name just in different cities. Jed had only listed the generic name of the university and 3 days in which he would be touring the state. Since we couldn’t tell which day he would be there, and baked goods must be fresh, Adam and I both realized a horrible truth:

We would have to ask Brother Jed. 

We flipped a coin and Adam lost, so he bit the bullet and used the contact information on the site to email him for clarification. We were both prepared to stew on this for days, but happily Brother Jed’s wife, Sister Cindy, responded in 5 minutes to clarify the exact days she and her husband would be there. She followed up a minute later asking if we were eager to ‘share the word of God,’ but neither Adam nor I had the heart to tell her our true purpose.

Months passed, and finally the long-awaited day came. I burned a sick day and skipped all my classes to man the table for the entire time. A little after noon, they showed up in full force. Last time he was there, it was only Jed and his wife. This time they had a whole troupe; a ‘formerly gay’ boyscout, an unrelated preacher, Jed’s three daughters, Sister Cindy, and the man himself, all under the protection of campus security.

I had been at the table since 7:30 that morning, and awake since 6:30 making my cookies, which I wanted to be very fresh to be more enticing. That whole morning had been slow, but immediately after the band of bigots arrived things began to pick up. And BOY did they pick up. Soon there was a crowd of 50 people, all gathered to protest Jed’s presence on campus. 

And getting mad is hungry work. 

The hot, fresh, Hell themed baked goods were flying off the cheap plastic table; Forbidden Fruit apple-oat bars went first, followed swiftly by the bak-LAVA. After people realized we were there to oppose Jed (thanks in no small part to me yelling like a Carnie for four hours), things really picked up. Even people who were just passing through picked up a snack just because they knew we were there to oppose Jed. 

It was late October, so the sun set early and the band of bigots were wrapping up for the day. The crowd had dwindled to about 20, and at the table it was just me, Amanda, Adam, and our last cookie. We were debating what to do with it, and I suggested maybe we should use it to thank Jed in a final twist of the knife. Amanda’s response was immediate, energetic, and slightly terrifying:

“That’s an excellent idea, Zach. Go, give it to him yourself.”

So I picked up that last cookie, made my way through the crowd, and asked for quiet. The protesters that I had fed happily obliged. I took that moment to inform Brother Jed that his hideous presence had resulted in good; he had raised $600 for charity, and as a thank you we were going to give him the last cookie. 

I know it sounds fake, but the crowd actually cheered as I offered that last cookie to Brother Jed. Sister Cindy deigned to relieve me of it, but not before shooting me the most soulless look of utter hatred that I have ever encountered. It’s not hyperbolic, but whenever I think of true evil, even today, I remember her eyes. 

In any case, thereafter we all packed up and went home. After my voice recovered, Adam, Amanda, and I began to eagerly plan our attack for the next year; Adam wanted broader participation and set a goal of $1500 to raise; Amanda suggested large signage to clarify our stance and save my voice. I said we ought to donate our proceeds to a local LGBT+ youth homeless shelter. All this was in motion when I checked Brother Jed’s schedule to plan out the time.

Imagine my surprise to find that not only was our university omitted from the schedule, but our entire STATE was being passed over. While nothing is for sure, I like to think that it was our Blasphemous Bakesale that scared him off. It was the only thing that had changed in his most recent visit. 

And that’s how I used fresh baked goods to banish a hate-monger from my university. I have since graduated, but it has been close to four years since I pulled this stunt and he still has not come back.

TLDR: I decided to use a hateful preacher’s presence on campus and the crowds he drew to feed a “Blasphemous Bake Sale.” It was super effective, we raised $600 dollars for charity, and the preacher never came back.

[scorched-light]

Here is my The Last of Us Part 2 review for anyone who is interested to know about the leaks and if the story was done any justice. The answer is the leaks were basically on point and no. No it was not. Spoilers below, don't read on if you're after a spoiler free review. Final warning: End of Game Spoilers for The Last of Us Part 2!!! Do not read if you don't want spoilers!

Okay. As someone who adores the first game, it pains me to say this but I'm so disappointed with this overpriced horror show. A complete deconstruction of the first game and the characters you developed a connection to therein. Just a complete brutality to basically every character new and old, and the whole franchise's reputation.

Joel announcing his name to a group of strangers he already seemed suspicious of despite knowing that people could be looking for him after what he did was so forced and out of character. This man hit a guy with his truck on the off chance that he might be faking his injuries. He was always super cautious, wary of strangers, and aware of his surroundings.

Ellie walking in on Joel getting beaten to death, GUN IN HAND, and not immediately shooting Abby was also incredibly ooc. Even if she was shocked, this is the girl who shot a man at age 14 to save Joel, here she charges in through the door instead of shooting when she's had years worth of experience shooting first and asking questions later. A lot of the ooc stuff she does after his death is excusable by her obvious trauma up until the ending, at least, but it's still bad writing.

Poor writing, not just in the overall story but also in terms of the characters, is literally used as a gratuitous stepping stone (AKA a shameless excuse) to get to all of the brutal, gorey violence. Not to mention it ends in a bleak way with no silver lining at all. Compare that to the way the first one, while bleak in nature still had its nice moments. Its moments of "ya know what maybe this hellscape is worth sticking around for." It made you feel things. The giraffe scene? Running out of the hospital holding Ellie as Joel gently, desperately tells her she's okay? Beautiful, complexly emotional moments But this game? I'd get more emotional fulfillment shoving fingernail clippings up my ass hole.

Don't get me wrong, I expected it to be bleak. The tone of the game is post-apocalypse. It revolves around death and the ugliness of man and yes yes it's all very grim. That kind of prepares you for how this isn't going to be a totally happy story. But everything they built up and established in the first game is just burned to the ground.

All the gameplay is basically the same as the first with some exploration buffs and NPC tweeks, companion AI feels clunkier now but a lot of the interactions between your people and between enemies outside of cutscenes feels very fluid and natural. That said, a lot of the stuff that's good about the game is done in flashbacks to when Ellie was younger. The actual current story they're telling had potential but the executuion is poor.

The game is trying so hard to get a specific reaction while blowing holes in why and how you should feel that way. We are supposed to empathise with Abby just because we are exposed to her when we're forced to play as her? We are supposed to think bad of Ellie when she killed Mel after Mel attacked her first instead of just pleading "I'm pregnant!"?

Abby killed the man that saved her life brutally and mercilessly. She wasn't able to empathise at all, but you are expected to empathise with her? She even goes on to have a similar, protective sort of relationship with Lev as Joel did with Ellie. Maybe not in a parental way, but the parallels are still there. A notable one is when she's carrying Lev bridal style in her arms off of the island, the same way Joel carried Ellie.

The writing even frames Ellie as being bad, killing a pregnant woman (even though she didn't know and upon finding out, falls to her knees and heaves), and frames Abby as good/the victim, helping and protecting Lev, a victim of transphobia, and slowly discovering and watching more and more of her friends as they die. They try to manipulate you as the player with bad writing.

It really could have been a good story had they spent more time on Ellie working through her feelings towards Joel and his decision to save her. Maybe Abby kills Tommy so Joel can know what it's like to lose a loved one, maybe Ellie is forced to join with him again on their journey for revenge, maybe she more or less HAS to face up to what happened while begrudgingly working with him. Especially after her constantly telling him she doesn't need his help.

He still could have died, maybe before they *really* fix everything. Maybe he gets bitten, that'd be poetic, he robbed humanity of the cure and then died to the infection. Ellie has to face up to the fact that he'd be alive if she had died, and he has to face that too. He also wouldn't have been bitten at all had he not been out for revenge in the first place, so his death would be the price of them wanting revenge for revenge, AND be a much better way of showcasing the cycle of loss being the cycle of revenge in a way that doesn't come across as incredibly redundant for the environment they're in. Ellie really would be The Last of Us. The last of the iconic duo that gave the series its incredible reputation. She could go on to kill Abby and realise it's not made her feel any better, now they've lost Tommy AND Joel, and nothing is going to bring Joel back.

ANYTHING would have been better than what we got. Joel's death 2 hours in was super premature and such a meaningless way to go for a character like Joel. Not to mention the character that looks like Neil Druckman spitting on his corpse but whatever, I digress.

All of this and the fact that the ending is not at aaaaall worth it makes this feel so incredibly soulless. They wanted to go down the route of "is there really a good guy in this kind of world?", and that idea could have worked even for the grim reality in which the story takes place. But then they butcher the execution, force you to play as the character who beat Joel to death for a massive portion of the game, and leave off with a terrible ending.

!Here come the end of game spoilers!

Ellie stated in the first game that she's most afraid of ending up alone, and they did that to her. She suddenly realises that Killing Is Wrong after slaughtering countless men and women to get to this moment with Abby. She is in the middle of drowning her and suddenly lets her live. This woman killed Joel, almost killed Dina. In fact, upon hearing that Dina was pregnant from a battered and bleeding Ellie, she says "Good.", and proceeds to almost slit her throat only that Lev stops her. But Ellie suddenly forgets all of that and lets her leave.

Ellie goes back to the farm she and Dina were living on with their baby only to find Dina has left, as she warned Ellie she would if she leaves for revenge again. The revenge Ellie didn't even get. She goes into a room and sees her guitar in its case. She pulls it out and learns she can no longer play the way Joel showed her all those years ago because she had her fingers bitten off during the struggle with Abby. She props the guitar up by the window, almost as if in memory of the man who taught her to play, and leaves it behind. She has no use for it now. Ellie walks through the field outside, alone. Joel dead. Tommy partially paralysed but his characterisation definitely got massacred. Dina gone. Cut to credits. Game over.

There isn't even a slither of happiness in this game. Was the lesson "revenge is bad"? Because if so, they should have rolled the credits as soon as Abby killed Joel and told players "if that made you uncomfortable, do not seek revenge." In big writing before rolling the credits.

Either way the ending would leave you shifting uncomfortably with a bad taste in your mouth.

I won't even go into how the trailers lied. "You think I'd let you do this alone?" Tell that to Abby's driver. I'm interested to see how quickly the price drops on the PlayStation Store. Even if it gets cheap, I wouldn't bother subjecting yourself to this trashfire.

[alarawriting]

52 Project #28 / Writeober 2020 #8 Haunting: The Court of the Lion King

I returned to the apartment building where Daro and Anzali and I had lived before we went down to the sea. It had not changed in the way buildings change-- its paint was the same color, it seemed no more or less weatherbeaten than before.  The railing on the 3rd floor balcony still sagged.  But it had changed in the way homes change, because it wasn't home any more. Because different people lived there now, filling it with their strange scents, and because I had changed.  The scent of the sea was still in my nostrils. I would never smell the comforts of home again.

Renting the third floor apartment did not present difficulties.  I walked through the silence of the apartment, marveling at its emptiness.  The furniture was still there, the faded rug, the great sagging bed, the tired appliances. But all the personality was gone. Anzali's bright prints had been taken off the walls, which themselves had been whitewashed again to remove our cheery yellow paint.  White is a disturbing color, the color of bones and of drowned skin, pink human and green farla alike.  Even the humans of other colors became gray, in death by water. If I needed to be here long, the white walls would glare in my eyes and drive me mad.  

There was a knock at the door, startling me, and I almost fled.  But it wouldn't be the Lion King, not here, not yet.  He wouldn't know I was back.  I opened the door.

A human greeted me. "Hi there, new neighbor.  I'm Rachael from the second floor apartment. Just thought I'd come say hi. Need help moving in?"

Rachael was chubby – not just by farla standards, but by human – with short brown hair and a squeaky tenor voice. She had pale skin, which she covered with more makeup than most humans, and her chin and brow seemed unusually defined for a female human. "Hello,"  I said distantly.  "I'm Ashmi.  No, I don't need help moving in.  Thanks for asking."

"Oh.  Well, sorry to bother you.  You want to come downstairs for a cup of tea or something? I like to get to know my neighbors.  It cuts down on the insecurity, you know.  Living in a place like this-- well, this isn't the best of neighborhoods, you know?"

"I know,"  I said bitterly, and wondered if this androgynous human knew the Lion King.  I also wondered if I could still drink tea.  I was afraid of my bone-white apartment, and loneliness.  "I'll come downstairs if you want, but I don't know if I'll be able to take tea.  I tend to be allergic to nearly everything."

"Well, come on down. You don't have to have tea if you don't want it.  You're a farla, aren't you?"

I stepped out of my apartment and followed Rachael downstairs.  "You can't tell?"

"You're a bit pale, aren't you? I never saw a farla so white.  I thought you guys were all green.  Not that I think it looks bad, I think you look gorgeous.  At least, I don't know, by human standards or something, but maybe you don't feel good?"

"It's the color we turn when we're away from our Mother,"  I said.  "The Sun.  It is not a well color, and I thank you for your concern, but really, don't worry about me."

Rachael's apartment smelled like cats.  Unsurprisingly, three came to greet Rachael, and another one sat on a moth-eaten armchair and glowered at me.  The cats seemed unsure of me.  Farla generally get along well with cats, sometimes better than with the humans who brought them, and I had always liked them.  These, however, avoided me, and I avoided them.  Rachael noticed.  "Don't you like cats?"

There is one Cat that I despise.  But I wouldn't say so.  These cats were nothing of the Lion King.  "They're all right.  These don't seem to like me."

"That's funny.  Normally they're all over strangers.  What's wrong, guys? You being little bitches today?"  Rachael turned to me apologetically.  "They get like this sometimes."

"I don't blame them."  I took a deep breath of cat-scented air.  It was not quite enough to drown out the scent of the sea.  "Forgive me for my ignorance.  I'm not very experienced with humans, but...  you are a woman, aren’t you?”

Rachael laughed. "Already? That’s great!"

"I don’t understand."

"I’ve been trying."  The human went into the kitchen to put on tea.  "Just managed to get on hormones two weeks ago. This place, well. Not a lot of doctors, and the mail’s not too reliable."

"What do doctors and the mail have to do with your – no. This is none of my concern, I’m being very rude."

"From a farla, I’m okay with it,"  Rachael said, coming out with the tea. “I’m a woman, but I only figured it out for certain a year ago, and it’s taken me this long to get the hormones I need.”

“I didn’t know humans could have an ambiguous gender," I said.

“Yeah, sometimes we’re born with the wrong genitals and hormones, and it can be hard to figure out what we really ought to be. I’m thirty-five. I don’t know if farlae age like humans do, but that’s, like, more than a third of a human’s maximum average lifespan, more than half of how long we usually do live when we grow up in neighborhoods like this. I didn’t grow up here, though, but just a few cities over, not so close to the water, but other than that it’s just like this. So that’s a long time to not know, but I know it now. Gonna start growing my hair out now that I have my shots.”

I doubted the other city was really just like this. This city was different from any I had known. "I see,"  I said, though I didn't really understand most of what she was talking about.  I tried to smell the tea, but I could only smell salt water.

"Do you want something? Some water? I feel bad that you're allergic to tea and all."

What I needed, Rachael could not give me.  Or at the least, I would not take from her.  "That's fine.  I'm all right."  I had not been all right since we went to the sea.  I no longer even knew how many years it had been.  "How long have you been living here?"

"Oh, a year and a half or so.  It's a bad neighborhood, but it's cheap.  You know how it is.  Hard to get work nowadays."

I didn't know how it was, but I nodded politely.  "Yes."

"Now that I’m out, a lot of humans won’t hire me. This is the kind of neighborhood where they’ve got really old, traditional attitudes, you know? And I guess you've got it worse.  Not many farlae here."

"This was a farla neighborhood once,"  I said. "An artists' community.  It was poor, but it had a soul."

"Well, it hasn't got one now,"  Rachael said, with an edge of bitterness in her voice.  "That's just like us humans.  We wreck everything."

"You feel too much guilt.  This may be a human neighborhood now, but its soullessness is not human doing." Panic choked me like seaweed as I realized I'd said too much.  I had lost my old instincts-- I had no way to know if Rachael was the Lion's or not.

"You talk like you've been here before."

"I must go." I got up, hastily.  "I'm sorry."

"Uh, okay. Health problems or something? Or was it something I said?"

"Health problems," I lied.  "Perhaps we'll talk again.  I'm sorry."

***

I locked the door of my apartment behind me.  It wasn't necessary; what I feared could come through walls, and there were no mundane threats I did fear anymore.  But it would disturb me if Rachael came upstairs and came inside while I wasn't watching.  I wanted to be careful of what she might see.  

I thought she was a sweet, harmless soul, if a bit strange.  I would wish to befriend her, another time, perhaps, but not here.  Not where anything might warp under the paw of the Lion.  I could see the signs she'd spoken of now.  This place no longer had a soul.

Once Daro had argued that humans could be rendered soulless, could be enslaved, far more easily than the farlae.  Farlae, he argued, had been created as slaves, and would die free rather than live that way again.  Humans, freely evolved, knew no better.  Slavery was a sporadic thing in their history and was performed by groups of them on other groups, never something their race as a whole had suffered.  So they did not notice being enslaved.  They couldn't see the loss of their souls until after the precious stuff was gone.

At the time I had called Daro racist, but secretly suspected some part of his theory to be true.  Now I knew better.  Farlae had fled this neighborhood because they'd heard of our fate, I thought.  And humans moved in simply by the laws of diffusion, there being more of them on this world than us.  Unaware of the danger until it was too late.  Farlae would notice an absence of farlae, and stay away, feeling unwelcome. Humans, the majority, had no such warning system.

And farlae could be enslaved, stripped of will or soul.  Sometimes the choice was not between slavery or death.  Sometimes it was between two forms of slavery.

I thought I could sleep. But the bed would not touch me. When I closed my eyes and lay down, I felt myself in my ocean bed once more, curled like a child in the womb, the green water penetrating me and washing my thoughts away.  It didn't matter.  I didn't need sleep anyway.

I left my apartment and went to explore the neighborhood by night.  It had changed physically after all.  No one I'd known would have allowed their apartments to become so run-down, let so much trash collect in the streets, or left broken, melted vehicles like mountains of plastic on the sides of the roads.  Aside from me, no woman walked abroad, and I was invisible if I chose. Gangs of young male humans lounged about, predators waiting for prey.  Empty drug vials and used-up dermal patches littered the sidewalks and the paths between the buildings.  

The Lion King's place alone had grown in splendor.  His nightclub, Heaven, looked positively palatial, glittering with light and music. He sat in the center of the neighborhood, with a vast spiderweb thrown in the air about him of parking for aircars. There were no longer any grounded streets leading to his court, and all the buildings that used to stand around Heaven had been swallowed by the glittering fibers of the parking web. From the ground, only someone light as a wraith could climb the web to reach the cars, as I did; the human children down below could see fat, juicy prey overhead, but had no way to reach it. They were driven sullen, reminded of what they didn't have and could never get, made impotent by the Lion. And so in impotent fury they raged against those that had no more than they-- which was why no one walked alone on the night streets, and no women walked at all.

This was what I saw when the Lion King first arrived.  But then it was only a vision in a dream-clouded farla's mind.  I didn't truly know what the Lion King truly was until the day he summoned me to his court.  None of us knew.  I tried to tell myself that, to remind myself that Daro and Anzali's fate was not my fault. I didn't believe my own reassurances at all.

The club itself was the last place I went, that night.  Invisible to almost all, I wandered the two dance floors, peered in some of the upstairs bedrooms and slipped back out again.  Heaven had grown more openly decadent since last I was here, with more bedrooms for the transactions of perversion and vice.  They were no longer hidden away on the top floor, available only to members of the Lion's court.  I saw businessmen cavorting in swimming pools with women who were no more than animated shells, the vivacity that seemed to pour from them as artificial as the sunlamp light that glittered off the pool.  I saw humans and farlae both drugged out of their minds, performing obscene rituals of life and death for an appreciative audience of both races. I saw other humans and farlae voluntarily drinking down hells'brews, filling their bodies with a greater variety and concentration of drugs than even the poor victim-slaves had been poisoned with.  And none of them saw me.  I didn't expect humans to see me, but the fact that I was invisible even to farlae said that the farlae in this establishment were all spiritually dead.

None of this surprised me. It filled me with hate, but hate gave me strength.  I remembered what had been done to me, what had happened to my husband and wife, and why I was here.  I decided to risk finding the Lion King.

***

The topmost floor of Heaven was the Lion King's court.  One could not get in without an invitation, but in a sense the Lion had tendered me an invitation all those years ago.  In any case, only the Lion himself could have kept me out, and he didn't man his own doors.

I saw him on his throne, with four scantily-clad women serving him.  Two were human, one was farla, and one was as he was, part cat. The humans once manufactured other humans with the blood of animals mingled with their own.  Normally cat-humans manifested only with cat-shaped eyes and bodies far more graceful than a typical human body.  The Lion King himself was thought a mutant or a throwback, or else something entirely inhuman, with his features subtly shaped to seem more cat than human, and his curly golden hair almost a mane.  He was feeding from one of the human women as he held her in his lap.  The others were massaging him or stroking his hair, oblivious to the bloody fate of their companion.  Favored courtiers, men and unattractive women, competed for his attention, praising him and giving him information on his business.

He could not speak as he drank, but eventually he released the woman he was feeding from.  She dropped to the floor in a heap, and I shuddered.  In my time, his habits were not quite so open.  I turned and left as I heard his voice.  It was deep and mellifluous, no different than I remembered it, and I feared that my hate would choke me and I'd do something rash.  I hadn't come all this way to throw away my best chance.

***

In the morning, I went to visit Rachael.  My sight of the Lion King had fortified me, and I no longer cared if she was his creature or not.  I needed information.

"Hey, Ashmi!" she said cheerfully, answering my knock in a bathrobe.  "Want to come in and get some breakfast?"

"I'd like to come in, in any case,"  I said, "though I've already eaten."

"Oh.  Well, if you don't mind watching me eat, come on in. I was kind of hoping you'd come in."  She stared at me as I entered the cat-full apartment and seated myself.  "God, you're gorgeous.  I'd give anything to look like you."

"If you would give what I have given, you're a fool,"  I said softly.

"What?"

"Beauty is only a danger, in a place like this.  I need information, Rachael; about the Lion King.  What do you know?"

She swallowed. "Um.  I don't think it's safe to talk about him..."

"It's safe.  No one is listening, I am not an informant, and if you are I don't care.  Tell me what you know about the Lion King."

"I don't think--"

I stood up again, and stared into her eyes.  I let her see a small fraction of what I truly was.  "Tell me."

"Oh, God." She stared at me with fear, not envy, now.  "You're-- you're not--"

"I am not. Yes.  I won't hurt you, Rachael, not unless you keep information from me."

"No wonder you didn't want to eat."  She swallowed again.  "All right.  I don't know much-- I'm too ugly for the Lion and too poor to go to his club.  But I know what everyone in the neighborhood knows. He's not human, for starters.  I mean, more than the way you're-- uh, maybe the way you're not.  Um.  I mean, he isn't natural.  He isn't just a catperson, he's something else. Something else totally."

"Yes.  Something that can strip away a will, or a soul."

"And pretty girls have got to go to him, if he wants them.  He doesn't take them all.  And most of the ones he takes come back, though they don't remember much about what happened, and they're usually not so pretty anymore.  Some of them, though-- some of them don't come back at all."

"How do the girls go to him? How are they chosen?"

"Anytime someone new moves in, his people check to see if there's a pretty girl in with them. They'll probably come to take you tonight.  If there are any remotely pretty girls, they go with the Lion King's men, and they get presented to him in his court.  And if he likes them, they stay there."

"Yes.  It was not the same in my time, but it was similar." A fierce pain beat at me from within. "What of those who won't submit?"

"The Lion King's bullyboys don't give you a choice.  You have to go with them."

I smiled bitterly and looked hard at Rachael.  "You wanted to be my friend.  Yet you made no attempt to warn me-- though you thought I was beautiful, and that must have meant you knew the Lion King's men would come for me."

"I was scared," Rachael whispered, looking down. "If I'd warned you, and you'd run away...  and he found out..."

"You might find yourself walking to the ocean,"  I agreed.  "No, I suppose it doesn't matter."

"Ah--" Rachael looked up.  "Did it happen to you? Did you..."

"When the Lion King first came,"  I said, "I lived in the apartment I live in now, with my husband and my wife, Daro and Anzali."

"Your wife?" Rachael sounded startled, and then nodded.  "Oh, right.  Farlae live with two women and a man, don't they? I'd forgot."

"The Lion King summoned me.  He had less power in those days, but he was less well known as well.  I thought he would be a patron for my art, so I went willingly enough."  I lost myself in memory a moment.  

We had such bright happy lives then, and knew nothing of it.  We had problems with bills, lovers' quarrels, emotional intrigues with the rest of the farla community, and we thought those were troubles.  I was a naive innocent when I went to see the Lion King, thinking he had heard of my art.  But what he wanted was not what I had created.  What he wanted...  was what I was.

The demand was for my body. I knew it went deeper than that. Farlae tend to be more sensitive to such things than humans; it was my soul he wanted, and I knew it.  I refused.  He threatened to kill me, to kill my husband and wife.  I told him that all of us would rather die free than live as soulless slaves.

I looked up, shaking myself free of memory.  "I was a naive fool,"  I said harshly.  "But the Lion King has no more power over me."  I stood up.  "Rachael, I forgive you for not warning me.  But if you tell the Lion King of his danger, or give him or anyone else any information concerning me, I will kill you slowly.  Do you understand me?"

She nodded, shivering. She knew what I was capable of.

***

They came for me that night.

I feigned sleep, lying on the sagging mattress in the semblance of a nightgown, waiting for them. They unlocked my door and shook me, roughly, thinking they were waking me.  "Get up.  You've been summoned to the palace of the Lion King."

So even he called it a palace now.  I looked at them with dazed eyes.  "Do I have time to get into some clothes?"

One of them snickered. "Why bother? You'll just be taking them off again anyway."  They all laughed.

I went with them in my nightgown and my artfully disheveled hair, out to their aircar and from there to Heaven.  They brought me to the top floor, to the court of the Lion King.  And I stood before the creature who'd destroyed my life, and felt the hatred surging in me, giving me strength.  On the outside, I showed frightened, sleep-bewildered eyes, the face of a beautiful innocent.

"What is your name, girl?"  he asked me. His voice was beautiful, rich and deep as the sea.  

"Ashmi,"  I whispered, letting myself tremble.  I looked down at my feet, at the enamel floor, and forced myself to see a reflection.

"Ashmi,"  he said reflectively.  "I knew a farla named Ashmi once.  Years ago...  She looked much like you, but not as pale.  And she gave me trouble.  You won't give me trouble, girl, will you?"

"You should know what happens to those who resist the Lion King,"  one of his courtiers hissed.

"Disrobe," he ordered.

I stripped, letting the nightgown pool around my feet, and turned around for him like a bird on a spit as he ordered me to.  Finally he smiled, showing sharp teeth.  "She'll do.  Take her to my chambers and have her wait."

I scooped up the nightgown and slipped back into it.  Once I was in his chambers, alone, I let it disperse into mist.  I sat on his bed, naked, and remembered our journey to the sea.

He had demanded me, body and soul.  I'd refused, and he'd laughed.  "You have spirit, don't you,"  he said. "Go home then.  Go on back to your husband and wife.  I have no shortage of beautiful women, that I need to trouble myself with you."

And gods help me, I thought I was free.  I ran back to Daro and Anzali, to tell them what had happened, to seek their comfort. I ran up the stairs to the apartment, and into Daro's spotless kitchen, where the two of them had stayed up late, waiting for me.

But as I met their eyes, a compulsion struck, consuming the three of us.  I explained nothing-- I couldn't speak.  All I knew was that I had to go down to the sea and die, and that my loves felt the same way.

We left the apartment, holding hands, and began to walk.  We felt as if we were in a dream, inexplicably shared.  The empathic bond between us had twined around us all, dragging us down together.  Perhaps this was intended to be my private nightmare, and the bond I had with my loves, the linkage between our minds, pulled them down with me.  Or perhaps the Lion King had always intended to send us all. Throughout the night we walked, slowly, in a daze.  The sea was normally half an hour's journey by aircar.  On foot, holding hands and walking with dreamlike slowness, it took us all of the night and most of the next day.  We were exhausted, but there was never any question of stopping.  The sea pulled us with some strange gravity. Hydrotropic, we flowed down the path of least resistance, through the city and out, until we came to a cliff over the ocean.

I felt their love for me, and mine for them.  I felt an overwhelming despair and exhaustion, a hunger for the ocean's balm. We looked at each other and nodded. Then we released one another, and separately we leapt into the sea.

Daro and Anzali were dashed against the rocks at the bottom, immediately.  I fell into a deeper part, cushioned by water, and curled up in green darkness to sleep my despair away.

***

The Lion entered the room, awakening me from my reverie.  "Good.  You've got your clothes off."  He smiled at me ferally.  On him, it was more of a baring of teeth than a smile, and spoke of hunger.  "Lie down."

He removed his own clothes and came to touch me, to cover me with his lightly furred body.  "Gods of hell, you're cold, woman.  What have you been doing, standing on the balcony with your clothes off?"  

"It's a cold night,"  I whispered.

"I'll warm you, then."  His hands had articulated digits, but furred fingers and pads on his palms.  With these paws, he explored my body, finding no body heat anywhere.  Alarmed, he licked at my neck, and when he found the reassuring taste of salt there bit in, drinking what ran through my veins.

What he needed was blood. All I had was seawater.

The Lion King jerked away, spluttering, and stared down at me.  I smiled at him, the same baring of teeth he'd shown me.  

"You knew me," I said.  "Many years ago.  And I gave you trouble."

He tried to back away then. But I grabbed him and pulled him down to the bed, pinning him under my weight, the weight of the ocean.  I opened my jaws wide and let the semblance of normalcy fall from me, showing myself as I truly was-- a skeleton animated by seawater, a demon driven by hate.  He screamed. I dove upon his throat and tore at it, drinking his hot blood as my claws dug into other parts of his body, tearing flesh away.

The Lion's life force was strong, fed by the blood of innocence and whatever demons he served. But my hate was stronger.  He fought me, digging his teeth into my neck once more.  All he drank was seawater.  He tried to drink that, hoping to weaken me, but he might as well have tried to drink the ocean dry.  I drank his blood and it was finite, though fortified with the blood of many victims. I ate bits of his flesh, torn away. As his struggles weakened, I released his neck and burrowed my face into his belly, chewing through the flesh. Drenched in blood, I reached my bony hand into the opening I'd made and clawed through his liver and lungs. Finally I tore out his heart and showed it to him.  He died then.

The air was filled with a rustling noise.  The souls he had stolen from young women, from men, from the neighborhood itself, fled from the punctured hole in his body.  Some were partially consumed, and would never be strong again.  The sight renewed my hatred, though my enemy was dead and his soul bound to the darkness.

For this moment alone I had the power.  I had stolen the life force of the Lion King, and I had within me the strength of the sea and the energy of my hate.  I could have called a tidal wave to destroy Heaven and all the tormentors within. The tormented would die as well, but that would be only a blessing, I felt.  The neighborhood would be destroyed, but there was nothing in this blasted ruin of a hometown worth keeping anymore, was there? Destroy it all and let the survivors rebuild.  Yes.  I felt the charge build within me, and almost gave myself over to it.

But then Rachael would die as well.  And she was an innocent, who had kept her soul, though the paw of the Lion had undoubtedly started to warp her.  She had not warned me, but she'd tried to befriend me, as best she could with her fear of the Lion King.  If I killed her with a tidal wave, I was no better than the Lion King, killing as it suited me.

There would be no tidal wave.  I let the energy fade away.  Let someone else save the city; I had done my part.  I was so tired.

It was time to return to my ocean bed, and to my loves.  I faded away, and let myself turn into mist, carried back to the sea.

[huskeddevotee]

Hello! I'd like to ask out of curiosity what you may think of the baddies Pain & Terror in BL3? I personally found them way more entertaining than the Calypso Twins, to the point that part of me wishes they were the main villains of the game instead. I even wrote a post on my blog for my idea of an AU of BL3's plot where the Calypso Twins work for P&T instead of the other way around, it's in the 'my writing' tag, the first ever piece of fic I've published :)

Thank you so much for the question!! I haven't thought about BL3 in a while, but my first thought immediately is; Oh boy. Pain and terror.

Now, I'm a person who does like cheap throwaway characters for fun - I like everyone in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, for example, even though they're kind of soulless and don't get much time to exist. I don't need hyper complex and nuanced characters to like them. I like Gonner Maleggies for another example.

But Pain and Terror?

I cannot stand them.

For one, they have no real purpose except to be a reference. If you cut out their section, the game is drastically improved; its shorter and more concise, has less confusing plot points, has no unnecessary Siren Tannis reveal, and more importantly, the other parts of the game have had more work on them. For such a pointless chapter, it takes so much. And for what? A Penn and Teller reference that I'm pretty sure most younger audiences didn't get, because Penn and Teller are not very relevant to those audiences.

But the rest of the game is marketed and made for those audiences. Old memes that they would have been familiar with, like the stupid succ gun thing, everything with the Echonet quest, and I'm blanking for anything else because most of this game beyond the main story was entirely forgettable. So you have a chapter that slogs the game, takes up resources AND MORE DATA FOR FRICKS SAKE, and is a reference that the marketed audience will not understand. I know I certainly didn't.

And the thing with the reference; if you didn't get it, that chapter was so god damn boring. Its not "Oh, it's Penn and Teller but apocalyptic. Dude, they have a murder show now, thats fun! Are we going to see any magic tricks??", it's "Why is no one acknowledging these characters? Wouldn't the twins have referenced them before? Wouldn't anyone have referenced them before? Who are these guys and why is there pretty much only one of them, because the other is showing up only in graffiti?"

It isn't a fun reference, it leaves you feeling like you missed or forgot an important scene or dialogue that would have made it make sense.

I don't have any feelings on Pain and Terror themselves because they aren't anything. They're hollow shells for Penn to talk into, and for Teller to say "yeah sure sign the contract, I don't have to do anything anyway." I think Penn is a convincing VA, but otherwise I had little reason to be engaged with that whole section. Actually, I had forgotten they existed entirely. I remembered that section for having Rakkman, though. Not the two hyped up bosses, but Rakkman and the fact that Tannis became one of the worst characters in the game.

As for them replacing the Twins? As long as it isn't GB writing it, good content. It actually fits Borderlands more, I think. A bloodthirsty carnival reaping across Pandora, bleeding the people dry both of blood and resources at the exchange of murderous entertainment? Hell yeah! You could do so much with that. You could even keep the Twins as the star performers and the cult their fans, it would be amazing thematically. Of course, it would need to be more than just a reference for the sake of a reference. So, more than "Hey look Penn and Teller." Which, because fanfiction is basically a peer review, probably does so naturally.

This isn't as concise as my usual rant mini essay is but I had to wake up at 6 and it isn't even 7 so that's my excuse /./

[strayen-fx]

My Roommate is a Demon

Minho x Reader (first person POV)

Genre: Fluff, Humor? I srsly dunno how to classify this 🤣

Wordcount: 1.9k

A/N: What is this ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Sorry for being M.I.A this past week  ㅠㅠ

I wasn’t expecting a visitor at such an ungodly hour of the day. More importantly, I wasn’t expecting to see a demon chilling on my couch while petting my cat at two in the morning.

It was supposed to be a simple hangout over Netflix and fastfood, but Changbin insisted that we deserve a more “interesting” Friday night. Apparently, he stumbled upon a bunch of summoning spells in the internet, and he was more than excited to try them out. His enthusiasm won over our protests, and we spent the night over black candles and weird symbols he had copied from god-knows-where.

“Why exactly are we summoning a ghost?” Chan asked, obviously skeptic about the whole thing.

“Binnie hyung just wants to scare himself,” Jisung said. I noted, though, that his hands were shaking uncontrollably as he shoved a handful of popcorn into his mouth.

Changbin rolled his eyes. “We aren’t summoning a ghost, you folks. We are summoning a demon who could grant our wishes.”

“Like a genie,” Chan remarked sarcastically.

I sat on the couch beside Doongie, my one-year-old cat, who was busy licking his fur. “Why exactly are we doing it in my house?” I grunted.

Changbin grinned. “Because you, my friend, have the biggest stash of chips among the four of us. That is the number one requirement for the summoning to work.”

Chan paused from downing a bottle of Mountain Dew. “Oh. It’s not because of Soonie, then.”

Soonie, who was sitting comfortably on the TV stand, hissed in response. He is my three-year-old cat, and Chan is pretty much convinced that he is a spawn of Satan. (He actually typed a whole three-page essay to prove this hypothesis, but that’s beside the point.)

Jisung chuckled. “Chill, hyung. Soonie didn’t mean to spill coffee over your research paper.”

Chan groaned. “Oh, I’m sure as hell he did. He hates me – he thinks I’m stealing his master right under his nose.”

Soonie seemed to have understood that we were talking about him. He stared Chan down for a good three seconds before walking out with his nose in the air, heading towards my room. (I sometimes agree with Chan – maybe my cat is a spawn of that fiery land deep down. I mean, look at the sass. He’s gonna make Hades proud.)

Unfazed by our cat conversation, Changbin took the lead and settled himself on the center of the room. The rest of us followed begrudgingly, forming a semi-circle around a bunch of papers carelessly drawn with symbols and letters.

I knew with utmost certainty that the whole summoning was going to flop, but I wasn’t going to tell Changbin that.

We sat in silence, inhaling smoke from burning candles. We turned the lights off to complete the creepy vibe, which resulted to me having a papercut while arranging the “summoning circle” that we hastily made. Changbin was confidently muttering in Latin (or at least I thought it was Latin – it sounded gibberish to me, actually). After a few minutes of half-rapping and half-singing, he immediately gave up. He kicked the papers scattered on the floor, stood up and grabbed a slice of pizza.

“Tonight isn’t the night. We don’t have enough moon energy,” he declared.

I know not what “moon energy” was, and I was far from interested. I moved to turn the television on, not hiding the sense of relief that washed over me. Finally – the night could finally go as how it was initially planned.

Boy, was I wrong.

After a couple movies and a tower of pizza boxes, my friends finally called it a day. They were living together in a studio complex just a block away from mine; there had been no problem in getting home late for them. We bid some quick good nights, and they were off.

I locked the door after they left. I was more than prepared to plop down my couch and enjoy my moment of peace and solitude, when I suddenly heard my cat purr.

Doongie doesn’t purr unless I’m petting him.

When I turned to my couch, someone was sitting there – and he was rubbing Doongie’s belly while sitting comfortably as if he was lounging at his own home. I almost threw the phone I was holding.

“Wha- WHO ARE YOU?!?!?”

The young man winced in protest as if it was I who disturbed his peaceful night. “Good evening to you, too. As much as I would want to have an, uhh, enthusiastic conversation, I would rather not wake up your whole neighborhood.”

“Excuse m-”

“And to answer your question,” he continued, “my name is Lee Minho. I’m an intern from the ninth division of Hades Eastern Labor Line. Next time, please make sure you’d call our line during business hours. While I love receiving overtime pay, my boss clearly hates giving them, and I’m done with tolerating his hot-headed ass.”

The man – Minho – gave me a soulless, obviously forced smile. He looked pale, I noticed. His long black hair was falling over his forehead, almost covering his eyes. He was wearing a baggy black shirt and a pair of skinny jeans, matched with white rubber shoes and black socks. He looked young – I think he’s just around my age. His eyes looked perennially bored, as if being in my apartment was the last thing he wanted to do in his life.

Which bring us to the most pressing question of all time: WHAT IS HE DOING IN MY HOUSE?!

“Excuse me, but who are you again?”

He rolled his eyes, not even hiding the annoyance on his face. “The moment you rang that line, I immediately knew I didn’t like you. I’m Lee Minho, stupid-face. From the–”

“Ninth division of whatever-bbibbidiboo,” I said, cutting him off. “But who are you to barge into my house unannounced?! Who are you to stain my carpet with your filthy unwashed shoes?! How did you get in in the first place?! Who are you and why does my pet rub against you like you’re his owner?!?!?!?”

He was staring me down, and I swear I saw a flicker of fire on his eyes. Like, literal fire. I thought I was going to spontaneously combust.

“I’d tell you to go to hell, but I work there and I don’t want to see you everyday, so that’s totally out of the question,” Minho said flatly. “You called our hotline a few hours ago. That’s why I’m here. Believe me, I’d love to be anywhere else but your filthy apartment.”

I shook my head. I’m not drunk, am I? Last time I checked, soda doesn’t contain alcohol or any similar substance that could make me hallucinate stuff. “I’m sure as hell I didn’t call you.”

He rolled his eyes once more. “Well, hell is saying otherwise. Even Doongie here knows that you called me earlier.”

“… Are you crazy?”

Minho closed his eyes in an attempt to control his anger. “Please, human. I am tired. Just say your wish so I could leave, then we can live our separate lives in peace.”

It took me a whole minute before I finally realized what Minho was actually on about.

“Wait. You mean… the summoning worked? It actually worked?”

“Actually, it didn’t.” Minho continued petting Doongie, who purred contentedly in return. “My boss sent me instead, because who can summon a real demon with that half-assed incantation? I can point out about a hundred flaws in your ‘summoning circle,’ if you can even call it that, and another hundred flaws on the pronunciation of the chant. Plus, who draws the circle on a cheap bond paper? Don’t you have class?”

I tried to ignore the fact that he was outright dissing me. Well, he was dissing Changbin, actually. “If the summoning failed… then why are you here?”

Minho rolled his eyes for the nth time. “Like I’ve said, I’m just an intern.”

“So… you’re not a demon?”

“I’m half-demon.” Minho stifled a yawn. “But I’ll soon be a full-fledged one, once I’ve been summoned a thousand times and fulfilled a thousand wishes from mortals like you. Hence, like I have said a hundred times now, just get on with your bloody evil wish already.”

I took a seat on the couch opposite Minho, trying to compose myself. A demon intern was sent into my house because a real demon can’t be bothered by our half-assed summoning? A demon? In my house? At the dead of night? Tell me about it. “If you’re really what you’re claiming to be, you’re almost five hours late,” I noted.

“Well thank you for pointing that out, Dr. Punctual. You could just thank me – at least I decided to come despite your trashy chant,” he answered. “It was hard for me to cross the border to your world because of the trashy portal you made. Plus, there’s no enough moon energy at this trashy time of the month. You mortals could really use some research.”

I tried to ignore the fact that he used the word “trashy” thrice in less than a minute. “About that, I’m not the one who summoned you. It was my friend. You should go and grant his wish, not mine.”

Minho sniffed the air like a cat. (He actually looked like Doongie.) He crinkled his nose and sat back. “Your blood. There’s no mistake – it was your blood that was used to summon me.”

“My blood? What are you–”

The papercut. Crap.

Just then, Soonie sauntered from my room towards the living room. You should know that Soonie is one helluva irritable, choosy and aloof cat especially when it comes to strangers. I was expecting him to hiss and jump away from the demon-in-training on my couch, maybe even hide back into the safety of my bedroom.

“Another cat!” Minho exclaimed. I whipped my head towards him, and I saw him smiling a fatherly smile down at Soonie. It was weird, but I felt warmth from the stranger who barged into my house. There was a sincere look of adoration in his eyes, and if an outsider would look at him with my cats, they would probably think that Minho is their real owner and not me.

“How are you able to pet Soonie? He doesn’t usually warm up to strangers,” I asked.

Minho smiled – and it was unlike the previous mischievous grins he flashed. It was soft and pure, I had to doubt if he was really an entity training to be a full-time demon.

“I guess I should change my profession and be a cat whisperer instead,” he answered. “I rarely see cats Underground; they can’t endure the intense heat.”

What he did next surprised me – it was even more surprising than the moment he made himself appear in my house out of nowhere:

He lied down on my couch, nuzzling Soonie and Doongie into his arms.

“Since you don’t have a wish for me to do anyway,” Minho said, “let me stay in your house for a bit. If you have two adorable cats roaming around your household, then I guess you’re not as intolerable as I initially thought you would be.”

I stared at him for a good minute. Then: “What?”

“Do you have leftover pizza? I’m starving.” He grinned at me, his eyes glinting with mischief. “I’m looking forward to living with you… roommate.”

He’s inviting himself as my roommate just because I have two cats?!?!?!?

°°°°°°°°°

A/N: Should I make a part two? What do you guys think?PART TWO IS NOW UP 💙