#violence ment tw

[golden-web]

“It’s just for two days Finley,” my dad says releasing me from his hug. He and Cory were going on a college trip, her dad had a big deadline coming up.

“You two have fun,” he says from the kitchen. “What do you want for supper Finley?”

“Don’t care,” I mumble.

“Mac and cheese,” Cory says as she rounds the corner. She punches my shoulder. “Behave yourself now.” She winks and heads out the door.

“So ready to fly the nest,” Mr. Toller shakes his head. My dad gives him a kiss and follows Cory out the door.

Me and Mr. Toller always got along, but after he and my dad got engaged it got kinda hard. I don’t know why, but it did. Maybe cause he’s the only one in the house that doesn’t know. Who knows, not me.

I use homework as my excuse and Mr. Toller uses his project deadline as his.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••dream scape

So much blood. The long knife drips the dark red goo.

“Again!” Isa Riggs bark from somewhere I can’t see. The person in front of me flops over dead. I move to the next chair and pull off the mask.

“Please don’t hurt me flipper,” my dad pleads. Without hesitation I slice through his neck.

“Again!”

Mr. Barnes stares at me with vacant eyes, “I’m sorry I couldn’t save—” He hits the floor before he can finish.

“Again!”

“Please Fin, you don’t—”

My hand shakes a bit as I swallow down the bile.

“Do it Spider!” Isa barks.

“Finley. Please.” I stare at the knife. I stare at Cory.

“I’m sorry Cory I… I have too, they’ll—” armed men bust into the room. I try to hit them with my knife but there blows are too fast.

“Always to weak little spider,” Isa spits. I see my chance and block her hands and go for her throat.

“Finley!!!” She screams.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

“Finley.” What? I blink again and Isa transform into Mr. Toller. I quickly pull my hands off his neck and scoot to the back of my bed.

“Are…” he waves me off and sits on my bed grabbing his throat.

“Are you okay,” he gasps.

“Are you okay?” I stutter. He nods and takes a few deep breaths. I see my hand marks already causing swelling on his neck. “Do we need to go to the hospital?”

“No,” he insists. “I’m fine really, just a little scared. What happened? Bad dream?”

“Something like that,” I murmur.

“Do you need-”

“I’m good,” I snap. He nods sullenly. He’s the one that should be yelling at me. “It was kinda a dream, kinda a memory.” I offer up.

“Is it from when…” Mr. Toller thinks about his words.

“Kidnapped?” I offer. It’s the closest and most realistic excuse any of us could think of.

“I don’t know what happened to you, when you weren’t here, and you never have to tell me. Just know I’m here to listen. I just wanna be a good, parent? No adult? I don’t know, in your life. Everyone needs more of those.”

“Yea,” I let out a sigh. “You’re a great dad. I don’t know if I’d call you mine, respectfully, but you are in away.”

“I get it.” We sit in silence for a while, Mr. Tollers heartbeat evens out, so maybe we don’t need to go to the hospital.

I could’ve killed you.

The tears well up a bit before Me. Toller notices.

“Finley, hey, it’s okay.”

“It’s not,” a sob hitches in the back of my throat. “You deserve to know, I…”

“No I don’t!” He snaps. “You don’t owe me anything Finley. I know messed up shit has happened to you. I know though that my daughter loves you. So much. Your dad loves you so much, he’s so proud of you. I love you Finley, not in the same way, at least not yet. But you will never owe me, or anyone ever, an explanation. It’s okay.”

“I…” I break into tears as he rubs my back. I tense slightly. Your safe. I’m safe.

[cepheusgalaxy]

*sighs* i am gonna freak out

[strywoven]

smth smth , no-one asked for this either , but here is verona's jjk verse. under a cut for length , as usual.

Just as a brief overview of Verona's clan :

The Valhyr clan is extremely secluded and reclusive , done so entirely by choice to preserve the purity of own prowess and pedigree ; they are only about a few dozen to a hundred or so strong , which is absolutely NOTHING in comparison to the dominant clans of the time and of the modern eras which remark on their heritage in ill-favor.

Their staying power in the community is relative to their near-perfected techniques - known for such craft as necromantic rites , conjuring , curse-bearing , illusions , and so on - which have been used to manipulate and mangle the control ( & spirits ) of the greater clans for many generations.  These techniques are OF FEMALE HERITAGE ONLY , and the Valhyr clan has followed a very strict matriarchal code ever since this was discovered ( however , practices of male infanticide have thankfully fallen out of favor , but the manipulation of the womb & body to propagate female offspring were still enabled ) .  Their code is so enforced , in fact , that they view men as LESSER & WEAKER than women ( think the exact opposite of modern patriarchy & more extreme ) .

Their techniques - colloquially considered “dark craft” by Scandinavian Jujutsu society - are CONSUMPTIVE IN NATURE , which simply translates to : every time a technique is used , the individual sacrifices an equivalent part of themself to utilize the technique in question ( at a soul-based level ) .  The Valhyr’s have come to understand that they can “recover” this damage to their existence by devouring / cannibalizing others ( yes , including people’s souls , too ) .  The clan will oftentimes have LARGE BANQUETS & FEASTS to celebrate the sacrifice of the people they hunted , slaughtered and prepared for consumption ; it is considered a venerable way to die , to feed their technique and to sustain their livelihood.

However , because these techniques are so dangerous to practice , most women often die before their mastery can be obtained ; the current Matriarch of the clan , alongside her councilwomen of masters , achieved their marks with great price ( sacrificing aspects of own humanity ) .  Typically , most young women ( ~20s ) die before they can secure control over their power , being consumed and/or entirely possessed by their techniques.  For this reason , many women in the clan are often hurried along into arranged , usually political , marriages to produce “strong and stable” offspring ( for every generation , the valhyr power grows ) .  This is also part of the reason as to why the clan is small ; there’s a lot of death and uncertainty in their existence.

Life ( birth - adolescence ) :

Born in late-19th century ( Oct. 31st amid the 1890s ) Scandinavia to the Valhyr clan.  Not the most noble of bloodlines , but certainly one of the most INFAMOUS & DANGEROUS , with relatives dating as far back as the Viking Age ( ~8th century ) , recorded in Old Edda as “savage priestesses” and “barbaric sage-women”.  The name is relatively well-known throughout the Scandinavian region , holding root in FEAR & FEROCITY .

Verona was baptized , like all of the infants , in blood and ash , and smudged by purifying smoke under the watchful eye of the BLAZING GLORY itself ( the benefactor of humankind , kaëltyr , who watches over all souls , indeed took notice of this child … as she took notice of it , looking down upon her with a knowing smile upon its maw ) .

From birth , Verona was considered strange , if not “ill” ; even during baptism , where most infants would shrill and squirm , she was CALM & STILL , her eerily gleaming silver eyes fixed pointedly at a place above the council’s heads , upon a figure none could perceive.  All throughout her infancy , too , Verona gave off this uncanny aura of vigil quietude , hardly ever crying , barely ever stirring ( as if , some said , she was possessed since inception ) .  The Matriarch of the clan disapproved of her immediately , taking note of her eyes and the trance-like stare , the sharp and malignant glint she perceived within them and their demonic appearance ; “OMEN” she called her , and the clan henceforth regarded her as such.

By adolescence , Verona’s traits only grew increasingly more concerning ; her silence preceded her , a “death-like” gait , able to stride about from place-to-place in complete quiet , undetected like a spirit.  She was forced to wear a chime so people could sense her coming ( one , of course , that she would displace onto other children or wandering curses to play tricks on the adults ) .  It became apparent that the Matriarch was right about her eyes , about the strange presence the young girl possessed ; her stare only grew more potent , more pervasive , able to render others within the clan ENTRANCED & ENRAPTURED .  She would use this mean little trick of hers to sneak off-grounds and wander into other clans , leaving her own people struck dumb and dazed for several hours before it was even discovered she’d gone missing.  As punishment , the Matriarch ordained that she wear a blindfold that would suppress this newfound technique of hers ( one only a few others in the clan held at all ) .  Even in wearing it , people continued to say they felt her staring , watching , observing.

Verona swiftly began education , both in the natural order ( science , history , math ) and in combat order ( training her techniques ) .  Because her mother - Prym - was a councilwoman , Verona was tutored also in politics and in the arts , being privately groomed to usurp control of the clan when she reached an appropriate age ( ~16-18 ).  The training regime - for both aspects of her upbringing - were IMMENSELY STRICT and left little room for the young girl to enjoy being a child or to savor her innocent years.

Because the techniques of the clan progressively increase in power ( but also reasonably destabilize ) with each new generation of daughters , it became quickly apparent that Verona was A PRODIGY amongst her classmates , just as her mother was.

Life ( teen - adulthood ) :

Verona , unlike her peers , made for a very troubling , very hard to control young woman.  With immense potential at her disposal , she was arrogant , devious , and cruel , with little moral bounds to speak of.  There was one training session where she continued to exert an illusion onto another young woman , even when being told to stop , until her peer became a sniveling husk that collapsed onto the ground in a drooling , convulsing heap.  And another time , when she was performing the mastery course for a technique when she extricated the soul of her opponent in front of the entire council ( including her mother and the Matriarch ) and proceeded to devour it and the other’s essence in whole.  Appalled , but not entirely surprised , the Matriarch CONDEMNED Verona and her rapidly growing aptitude , denying her any further education and resources.

Prym , however , was stalwart in the idea that she would push Verona to take over the clan and upraise it to new heights.  Although disgusted with her daughter’s practices and brutality , even despite the clan’s own rites , she went against the Matriarch’s wishes and , in blackmailing a few other councilwomen to participate , continued to train Verona.

Verona’s prowess grew to be no secret , a newfound master of the unified trinity - mind , body , spirit - with techniques to match ( necromancy / necrosis ; illusion ; enchantment / possession ) at just 16.  As with all former masters , and due to the nature of the techniques themselves , Verona sacrificed measures of her own mind , body , and spirit to PERFECT EACH ONE , leaving her arguably less human than most of her counterparts in the clan.

And by the following year , at 17 , she challenged the Matriarch for control of the clan : a battle to the death , wherein the loser would be butchered and symbolically consumed by the clan to “return to her daughters”.  Predictably , Verona won and became the new Matriarch , successfully heralding a bloodier era for the Valhyr clan.

Verona was … AMBITIOUS as a leader ( perhaps overly so ) .  And she had every reason to be , with her strength.  However , when she proposed an all-out insurrection against the rest of the Scandinavian territories , she was met with concern ( the clan is too small to survive a war , they warned her , we have the techniques but we don’t have the manpower ) .  But Verona assured them she had the ability to provide the resources.  Confused and mortified , everyone watched as she invoked an “old friend” : KAËLTYR , effectively supplanting it , beseeching it for a boon of both virtue and power.  When Kaëltyr laughed , “You seek a boon to begin a war ?”  Verona , still knelt at its hooves , replied , “Nay , I seek a boon to WIN A WAR , to usher my clan from the shadows and into the light , to stand hand-in-hand beside the divine , as is our right.”  Amused by the response , Kaëltyr granted the request , offering favor , though cautioned that “All great things do fall , as all great people so do too”.

In the 1910s , the clans had fallen into widespread civil upheaval ; a bloody , brutal feud ensued with Verona at the helm , painstakingly claiming the whole of the Scandinavian territory and removing control from former clans , devouring the men and preserving the women to bolster their numbers ( which were already granted leverage by Kaëltyr’s cursed progeny enlisted to their aid ) .  She became known by the moniker , “THE MATRIARCH” ( an infamous warmonger & fearmonger which assuredly earned a place in history henceforth ) .

With control secured and the clan’s numbers increased , a modicum of peaceability had been bartered.  And Verona set out into economic and political affairs ( obviously with a side-business of slaughter ) , one of which was starting up several businesses ( namely a gin company at the end of the brief prohibition era in this time period ; this , still operated in modern-day ) and beginning to seek the company of European society elites ( many of whom had already heard of her various exploits & frowned upon her appearance in the upper-echelons ) .

It was through these jaunts in high society that Verona met Lenore ( aged ~mid-twenties ) , a simple human woman who did not practice Jujutsu sorcery but enraptured her just the same.  Shortly after meeting her , Verona began to court her ( perhaps a little dubiously ) .  And though both respective families disapproved of the union , they married and settled together ; the era of “THE MATRIARCH” dissolved all because of a single woman.

By 30 , Lenore and Verona were living in domestic bliss while the world continued to turn chaotically around them.  Lenore eventually convinced Verona to have a child ; they have a daughter and name her Ravona.  But 4-5 years later , as Verona is out - as usual - speaking to Jujutsu elites , away on business , a raid is performed on the estate , razing it to the ground and arresting several members , executing Lenore and Ravona for the sins committed by Verona herself.  Always privy to death , Verona senses the conflict , but especially the fall of her family , before she has a chance to act any further , she too is seized and contained.  Unwilling to take any chances with her powers , authorities sew her mouth shut , conceal her face , bind her body and chain her in an underground chamber where , they assumed , she would simply rot to death.

But one does not come under attack underprepared.  And again , even in her weakest , even flayed by her grief and scorn , she manages to conjure enough energy to invoke Kaëltyr.  It is uncertain what transpired within Verona’s body within those days she was chained and isolated , but when she was taken to trial , brought before a judge who would assuredly sentence her execution , Kaëltyr was there , amid the masses , commanding all authority , and stating simply , “I reclaim this woman.”  There was nothing to be done about it.  Thus , rather than kill Verona ( & rather than risk insighting the spirit’s terrible wrath ) , those in authority simply sentenced her to exile ( & thus into the god-curse’s hands ) .

Life-Death ( present-day )

Verona is serving a life-debt to Kaëltyr ; having sought its benevolence many a’time through her existence , she has incurred penance to be repaid in full.  Following the god-curse’s proclamation , Verona was inoculated ( she consumed its flesh , she bonded to its immortality & essence , she sold her soul ) and now lives in constant cycle of sacrifice , a process of dying and undying over and over again to not only repay its favor for her , but also to seek the grace of being permanently absolved of her transgressions ( & inevitably death , released from the cycle ) .

Verona is registered as a SPECIAL GRADE CURSE USER ; but categorically exiled and removed from all Jujutsu society for the rest of time.

After having endured the grief of losing the only two people who matter to her , Kaëltyr offered her PEACE ( read as: it removed Verona’s human heart , her body & spirit now remarkably sustained off of Verona’s necromantic technique & Kaëltyr’s immortal will ) .

Because Kaëltyr ( Kaen ) is in Japan , Verona is there , too.  Where it goes , Verona HAS to follow , per their pact.

Verona’s immense negativity conjured a curse some several years ago ; a massive , chimeric entity that tried to kill her when she was asleep.  Rather than kill each other , Verona “tamed” it and named it - Pandora - and it , he , now lives in her shadow , serving as her companion.  Pandora , ever since , has been feeding upon Verona’s sorrow , rage and innate strength and progressively becoming more powerful himself.  They often fight in tandem to one another , together.

Although Verona appears as a woman in her mid-thirties ( she stopped aging ) , she has this uncanny beauty and ethereal aura that speaks to something NOT QUITE HUMAN at all ; too sharp , too predatory , too dangerous... But remarkably alluring.

Verona presently lives like a rich , influential bachelor ( per Kaëltyr’s own influence ) ; she brazenly flaunts her power , flirts with ( married ) women , and continues to manipulate and murder humans , consuming them for sport and pleasure.

Verona is also the last member of her clan’s bloodline.  However , she claims she cannot carry children and thus , when she is released from the cycle of penance , the Valhyr name and likely the power , too , shall die alongside her.

Although the moniker , “THE MATRIARCH” did not carry into the modern-day , she is sometimes known as “St. Valhyr” ( again , something Kaëltyr propagated ) .  The public is privy to this information and are skeptical of whether or not Verona is a legitimately canonized saint … Though some DO IN FACT refer to her by this title.

[farsidejr]

do you ever get so mad at someone that you just wanna go and punch their skull in?

i might not put it that violently but certain people (like extreme criminally terrible people) do get me pretty worked up

more importantly

are you good man ? /gen

[bhaalborn]

@angshel liked

there has not been a moment since awaking upon the nautiloid that ulysses has considered themselves HEROIC in personage. earnestly thanked by residents of the grove, tieflings bending over backwards to express their gratitude, sharing drinks in the aftermath of slaughtering the goblin leaders and rescuing archdruid halsin.

but all they can think is- i hope i'm making up for something.

they don't know whom they were before. what they were willing to do. but there are thoughts that they have that SHAKE them to their very core. just as much afraid of themselves as they are afraid of what they'll do to others.

ulysses has separated themselves from the pack, unsteadily perched upon a rock with their head bowed towards their knees. breaths come ragged and gulping, harried, uncontrolled, like the air they breathe is poison. they are fighting themselves with every ounce of strength that they have- SALIVATING AT THE THOUGHT OF ENDING THE LIVES THEY JUST SAVED- and grit out words from behind their clenched teeth.

" now is not a good time, " they say in a croak, " please- please leave. "

closed starter, STILL ACCEPTING

[streetcleanrr]

[erythristicbones]

She's waited a long time for this.

Lazloceos stands on the far side of the room, between her and the balcony. There is nowhere for the lying bastard to escape to and she chose now to strike because of that. Ciielyn is smart- she knows that at the end of the day Laz is a survivor like her. He will choose to live another day every time, even if it means running from a fight. She knows him in the same way she knows her own name.

"I didn't give the order." He says, like that will change anything.

"But you did break a promise." Ciielyn wags a finger at him, "You knew from the minute you stepped in my home that it was meant to burn down."

"I was just doing what the Empress told me to."

She tilts her head to the side, as though considering his words and the truth to them. There is a fraction of a moment where Laz looks at her and he seems hopeful. Laz is not as clever as he thinks. One step forward and the color drains from his face. Another and he backs himself against the wall. One more and he knows that there is only one place he can go.

He runs to the balcony. 

Ciielyn stalks forward with the gait of a predator, she has no need to hurry. It's a sixty foot drop off a cliff and no easy handholds on the building itself. You'd think Laz would know his own home a little better than this. It doesn't take long for her to catch up to him and the man spins around with a snarl.

"Do you want to know what I'm going to do to you?" She asks, with a vicious grin. 

Laz glares at her.

"First I'm gonna cut off your right arm…for Arlo."

She lifts the machete and it glints in the light.

"Then your left…for Warner."

 She takes a step forward.

"After that I'll cut off your left leg…for Silver." 

Laz's eyes dart around desperately.

"And then your right leg…for Quincey."

By now Ciielyn is up in his face and she can practically smell the fear rolling off of him in waves. A soldier who has fought in dozens upon dozens of battles, reduced to a sniveling, cowardly mess. The rush of adrenaline makes her feel like she's walking on air. This is it. The moment she's been dreaming of for three fucking years. 

"When there is nothing left of you to save yourself, then I'm gonna drag your bloody ass back to the edge of this balcony…and, well, I think you know what'll happen next."

Ciielyn looks at him and she feels strong. She feels weak. She feels nothing.

And she revels in it.

[lordofluxury]

Dear Redacted, 

How do I explain that you’re a dick sometimes? How do I explain that when I melt down the entire world goes upside down and I'm screaming and I can’t do it and I want to hurt everyone and everything and sometimes that includes you. 

You don’t listen to me. You push and push and push and ignore what I want for what your think is the best for me and I hate that I want your to stop but I’ll never tell your because you hate when I’m honest with your and push it back around to what’s upsetting you and your needs and I hate it and you sometimes act so selfishly with me that I want to set everything on fire and let your burn with me. 

Sometimes I want you to burn with me. 

You tell me that you want to scream at me and only don’t because you’d get in trouble and I hate that. I want to scream at you sometimes but I don’t do it because I love you, because I respect you, because you are one of the people that I care about. You don’t deserve to be screamed at. 

I want to hurt your sometimes. I want to hurt everyone sometimes. I’m sorry. 

I won’t apologize for my anger, but I do feel better now that I’ve written this. 

I’ll never show you this. 

Maybe I will when I can run away from you. 

Love, 

Your sister.

[daisys-gard3n]

Mariya visits her aunt Aya pretty often at her salon. To get her roots touched up, a rather normal act people can look past. But they don't know.

They dont know the true terror when Mariya finds light brown starting to grow out of her scalp.

Seeing the color makes her want to vomit, obsessively digging into her hair and trying to find more brown growth from her roots. It makes her sick to her stomach, it makes her want to pull her hair out. She usually makes last minute appointments to Aya...As annoyed as she is that she never schedules, the look of terror in her eyes was enough to shut her up and lead her to a chair. The feeling of dread was far too strong, the light brown color that haunted her from her old gang days.

Oh god, she was such a terrible person...What she did to those people she could never take back. Under the false sense of 'family' and 'trust' with those girls and that gang leader, she was the type of bully she despises the most - one that took advantage of those innocent with fear and brute abuse. Using the bat that was lovingly given to her by her mother to bash into other people's head, stealing their wallets afterwards, or 'putting trash in their place' under the gang leader's orders. Sometimes, the noise of their bones cracking and the screams of agony kept Mariya up at night - tears rolling down her eyes and choked up.

All Mariya wants to do is to forget her past...But that's not realistic. She made those choices back then, she needed to own up to them by becoming a better person. But she can't help but obsessively control her image, it was the only thing that could calm her.

That's why Teru asking her about relationships made her laugh...Mariya? In a relationship? That wasn't gonna happen...She wasn't maidenly at all, she was a yankee in her heart...And it's not like she can tell the person she liked how she feels, he'll definately run away figuring out her disgusting past. That's why she hardly talks about middle school, in fear that the new friends and family she created would run off at this information. It's not healthy at all, Mariya knew this very well...Maybe one day she can finally talk to someone about this.

But for now, she'll dye her roots and continue to uphold her parent's code of honor.

[furys-burn]

There was blood in her mouth and her ear wouldn’t stop ringing where the Minotaur had clipped her with his swing. She tried to make herself focus in on Finnick’s face but it was going in and out of her vision. The words he was shouting at her came through the haze and she forced herself to make sense of it. 

“ damnit, jo! i TOLD you not to play the hero! “ | ( FINNICK & JOHANNA ) | @madefate​ 

Hero? That word made heat burn her chest and she tried to reason why she was angry. Why her adrenaline picked up and why she wanted to rip his arms away and run in the other direction. Hero. 

She spat blood onto his converse and felt a little better. 

“ I’m fine. He barely touched me and I got us time didn’t I ? Just thank me for saving your life again...and stop staring at me like that. I really am ok.” She caught herself on the wall as the world tilted again and she slammed a fist against the grimy wall. Fucking maze. 

[strywoven-moved]

@londonfallen​ asked : ‘  there is absolutely nothing  &  no one who can stop me.  ’ — from silas, to kaen 💃

PROMPTED.

          Some great effort is taken to keep the DISDAIN from their features.  It does not suit a preacher of Silas’ caliber to invest in such paltry s i n s as greed and vanity , it stains his mantle , it decays his lorded power— Such devices ( such proclamations ) were so predictably HUMAN !  But then – the faun looks up from the tea sitting in their lap – Silas was in fact h u m a n .  He , like all his disciples , were capable of dying and becoming a victim of their destruction.  When his gaze flicks to their face , their own eyes drop back down to their cup , immersing themself again in the liquid within the porcelain ‘fore taking a contemplative sip.  If he suspects anything , he never says a word , simply s m i l e s as he always does , leaning forward as if EXPECTANT that the wee godling should procure for him some profound retort.

          Yet they’ve nothing to offer.  They are caught on the very idea that HE IS HUMAN and they are not ; if e v e r their will to obey fell to the wayside , they could very easily burn him alive ( would he scream ? beg them to stop ? how mighty would he feel when choking on his own ashes— ? ) .  Even so – Kaen stretches to put the empty cup atop the saucer on the table ‘tween them – they b o t h knew the faun was both wise and foolish enough to remain under his thumb.

          Clearing their throat softly , Kaen rises from their seat and moves to settle there beside Silas.  They no longer shy away from the proximity , electing to be n e a r enough to let shoulders and hands graze.  “Aye , yer right.”  The faun agrees , lifting their head enough to rest a kiss to the corner of his quirked lips.  “An’ if anyone SHOULD get in th’ way , jus’ say th’ word an’ Ah’ll get rid of ‘em.”  Words are spoken ‘gainst his skin , warm and heavy ; the tension working its way ‘tween them fit to strangle the doe and remind them of their place god or otherwise.  They smile , drawing away slightly to meet his gaze.  “Ah’ll do whate’er ye like , s i r .”

[strywoven]

we could absolutely call what kaen did to their mother a PSYCHOTIC BREAK ; that is to say , although deserved , kaen brutally murdered their mother after years upon years of her abuse and neglect. and ever since , they've not been the same. they are , in essence , haunted by her ( seeing her in places when under severe stress , hearing her phantom voice , sensing her touch when they know she's dead ) . and when they look in the mirror it's worse ... because they resemble each other , all fiery mane and miserable blue eyes. i cannot describe to you how many times kaen has avoided looking at themself because they see HER and not their own face.

and to the point of how anyone found out - because , back then , kaen and their mother were excommunicated from the wyrd and lived out of bounds of most human towns - well , i should tell you they made the report THEMSELF . because of how their mother was , kaen got to know the local authorities rather well. so let's just say it helps to have friends in the right places. and that midsummer night , shortly after blowing a few holes into their mother's body to ensure she was dead , kaen made the call to a friend in the department and simply said , "ah did a bad thing , ah need 'elp."

a confession off the bat , yes. as the authorities were taking kaen away , likely to be evaluated before interrogated , they turned to their friend and again cryptically spoke , "ah only did wha' ah 'ad ta' do." you would think this friend would say yep , i don't want anymore of that. but no , and despite it being a conflict of interest , she actually got kaen an attorney to help them ( a real big-wig one too that made their case infamous ) . when kaen asked her why she would put herself on the line for them she laughed and said , "i don't know , kae , maybe it's 'cause there's some people worth making mistakes for." a terrible choice , really.

afterwards , kaen was thrust into the spotlight , instantaneously granted a moment of unwarranted FAME & RECOGNITION . headlines wrote their story in big , bold letters , painted them as "the sweetest little murderer you ever did see" ! and kaen kept all those articles. the collection sits in a weathered old scrapbook under the floorboards in their room. as we know , kaen was acquitted and was sent off free. but who said history wouldn't repeat itself under the right conditions ?

[idiot-mushroom]

was going through it last week

[raaorqtpbpdy]

Suspended in Time and Space

For the Prompt: Wandering lost in the Ghost Zone, Valerie comes across a familiar sight, but this is not the Casper High she knows. Here the red of her suit sticks out like a beacon of color in a realm of black and white (but mostly white). Despite the hateful glares the ghosts throw her way, she knows this school stuck in the past holds the key to her way home, if only she can find it. [from @the-oaken-muse]

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[Warnings for segregation era racism, canon-typical violence, and mentions of suicide]

It was official. Valerie hated the Ghost Zone.

Honestly, it wasn't much of a surprise considering how much she hated ghosts, but the whole place had always rubbed her the wrong way, and now that she'd been there for who knew how long, wandering around lost, she hated it with a fiery passion rivaled only by her hatred for Danny Phantom himself.

She couldn't remember exactly when the sparse scenery of floating islands, and doors had vanished, but she noticed when the sky turned from lime green to black as night, and speckled with stars that didn't match any constellations she knew, not that she knew all that many, admittedly.

She tried to turn around. She might know know exactly where she was or which way she was going, but she knew the Fenton Portal that she'd chased that wily ghost through before it disappeared came out into a green expanse, not the night sky. But when she turned around, the green behind her was gone.

Every direction she looked was dark sky and stars.

She didn't remember even flying into it, just noticing immediately when the color of her surroundings had suddenly changed. Now, it seemed like she was trapped, with no way out of the vast, inescapable dark night, and back to the vast, inescapable green of the rest of the Ghost Zone.

She tried of course. She picked a direction and pushed her hoverboard as fast as it would go, but she never reached the end of the darkness.

After... well... she didn't know how long it was exactly. Time was impossible to gauge in this place. But after a while, she finally came across seemingly the only thing floating in the night.

More unexpected than finding something in what she had thought was an empty nothingness realm in the Ghost Zone, was finding something so familiar. It wasn't just another door, or another random building on a floating rock, or a strange landmark floating in the void. It was a school. Valerie's school.

Curiously, she steered her hoverboard towards it to get a closer look.

It was Casper High, but it wasn't the Casper High she knew. There were no colors. Here, the glowing red of her suit was practically a beacon, a bright, neon sign in a realm of black and white.

Mostly white, she amended in her mind when she looked through the windows and saw the student body. The hall was crowded with students, but they were all white kids, every single one of them, and not just because they were in monochrome colors. She examined all their features, the shades of gray, and didn't spot a single person of color in the bunch. And Casper High wasn't the most diverse school, even now, now but it was way more so than this place.

However, she also noticed in her examination, that the clothes and hairstyles worn by the students she saw were... outdated to say the least. They looked like they were straight out of the fifties. And, based on the fact that this was the Ghost Zone, it didn't seem like much of a stretch to think they actually were.

Whatever the time period, however, this was still Casper High, and if Valerie wanted to get back to Amity Park in the real world, she had a strong feeling that this place held the key to get there.

She flew around to one of the school's back entrances in the hopes of drawing as little attention as possible. Thankfully, no one seemed to be there. With a tap of her heels and her hover-board stowed itself. Now, she just had to find her way home.

The question was, if this school really was trapped in the nineteen-fifties, how was she supposed to search it. Ruby Bridges had to have police escort her to school because people threw rocks at her, and she was a six-year-old at the time. The Little Rock nine were similarly harassed and threatened. And all that was after the courts mandated the girls be allowed to attend.

This version of Casper High was pretty obviously still segregated, but even if it wasn't, there was little doubt that no one here would take too kindly to her presence.

Valerie was strong, determined, thick-skinned, and a ninth-degree black belt, so she was pretty sure she'd be able to handle herself until she found the way back to Amity Park. She only wanted to get through this as painlessly as possible. At the very least, she should try and get with the fashion. Maybe she couldn't look like she belonged at this school—even though she was a registered student there in the real world—but she could at least look like she belonged in this time.

As stealthily as possible, she made her way to the school theater.

Everything was exactly where she expected it to be. Evidently, the school building hadn't changed much in the last fifty years. Unfortunately, she didn't find any 50s clothes in the costume storage. She supposed that made a certain amount of sense. If these students needed 50s clothes for a play, they would just wear their own clothes, or borrow their parents'.

Still, she supposed she could make do with what was there. Then at least she wouldn't have to choose between her ghost hunting outfit, the short-shorts she had underneath, or the mini-skirt she had to change into—all three of which would have been equally scandalous in the fifties.

With some minor modifications, she was able to turn the even-older-fashioned clothes into a decent approximation of what a standard 1950s high school girl would wear. The fabrics these costumes were made of were a lot nicer and more sturdy than most of what the drama club had nowadays. Go figure.

When she stepped into the halls, it took a few seconds for ghostly students to notice her, but as soon as they did, she was met with glares. Every face watched her with some variation of a hateful expression, anger, disgust. None of them seemed to notice anything off about her clothes, at least, so there was the silver lining.

She ignored them. There wasn't much else she could do at the moment besides ignore them. So far all they were doing was glaring at her, and she could handle dirty looks. She knew this school stuck in the past held her way back home. She just had to find it.

She stiffened when one of the students yelled a slur at her and told her to 'go home to the ghetto', and she just about ran up and kicked him in the crotch, but she held herself back and held her head high. She could handle insults too, even if they were foul.

With a stoic, disinterested look on her face, she tried to make her way down the hallway, but two burly boys blocked her path, presumably football players, judging by their Letterman jackets.

"Let me pass," she said coldly.

"And how are you gonna make us?" one of them asked,

Her lips quirked up in something close to a smile.

"I'm happy to show you."

They were ghosts, so she couldn't just hit them, since her fists would pass right through. She called her suit down her arms and hands under her long-sleeved shirt. Her fingers glowed like they had glowing red veins which thrummed with the sort of energy that let her punch a ghost directly in his face.

She imagined knocking this bastard's jaw clean off and took a swing at him with all her strength.

He instantly fell backwards, landing on the floor, unconscious. His buddy reacted quickly, trying to punch her back, but he swung so wide she saw it coming a mile away and ducked. As his fist passed her by, she saw his class ring, upon which the year was engraved: 1955. Good to know.

She punched him in the stomach, the knee, and then the jaw like his buddy, and sent him falling prone.

"You asked," Valerie pointed out as she stepped over the two of them while the handful of other students in the hall watch on, not daring to get involved.

God, that was satisfying, Valerie thought to herself.

There were plenty of racists in her time, too, but few were so open about it that she could beat the shit out of them and still come out looking like the good guy. Of course, it probably didn't seem like she was the good guy to the most likely equally racist ghosts in the hallway, but she sure felt like she was.

Honestly, though, she should be trying to draw less attention to herself. She let her suit recede so that her hands were bare, and bent her knees under her wide, mid-calf-length skirt just enough so that her face wouldn't be at eye level for most of the other students as she walked by, and most people would only see her black hair unless they were looking. In that manner, she made her way down the halls, turning her back when she noticed anyone starting to look too closely at her.

These people were just a product of their time, and beating them up wouldn't change their minds about her. It was a waste of time that could be put to better use finding her way back home. An extremely gratifying waste of time, but a waste of time nonetheless.

It had been almost an hour since she first got here, and everyone was still wandering the hallways, carrying books, and pencils, like normal students, but not entering any of the classrooms. Was there just no actual class in this place? What was the point of a school with no classes?

Come to think of it, she hadn't seen any teachers either, or any faculty of any kind. She looked through the window of the principal's office as she passed by, but no one was inside. The administration office next to it also appeared to be empty. The school was brimming with students, but... no teachers. No adults at all. Why?

Something was up with this place, and she had a feeling if she found out what it was, she'd find her way home. There had to be some kind of reason Casper High was here. She should start by figuring that out. And how would she do that?

She... didn't really know. Maybe a look at the yearbook would show her if there were any noteworthy Casper High students attending at this time. Or... more likely, a Casper High student that had died. Luckily, Valerie was on the yearbook team—or had been before she'd quit so she could get an after-school job—and she knew where all the old yearbooks were kept. Provided, of course, that they were kept in the same place back in the fifties that they were in 2005.

"This place has been so boring since Poindexter left," Valerie overheard a girl saying. "I mean, I proud of him and all—and I can't blame him for cutting-out when he had the chance, I would have too if I could, but I'm just washed out from this place."

Poindexter? Why did Valerie recognize that name? She shrugged and kept walking. Maybe the yearbooks would answer that question.

Casper High, it seemed, was not all that big on updating or renovating because Valerie found the yearbooks exactly where she expected to. Unsurprisingly, the classroom was empty. It seemed like none of the students had any interest in going inside them when there weren't any classes, and she couldn't exactly blame them. The yearbooks themselves were actually more organized then she remembered them being in the present. All lined up on the shelf by graduation year and everything.

She took the most recent one off the shelf and flipped through it to the class photos. She recognized a lot of the faces in the yearbook as students she'd seen in the hallways. But they hadn't all died. If an entire graduating class had somehow died at the school, Valerie was pretty sure she would know about it. Probably the school would have been shut down, too.

But if they hadn't died, then what were they all doing here?

Then she got to the end of the yearbook, and she saw it.

On one of the last pages, an obituary had been clipped from the newspaper and included in the yearbook, along with handwritten well-wishes, mostly from teachers, but it looked like a few students had written them too.

Sidney Ian Poindexter January 9, 1938 - March 10, 1955

At just seventeen years old, the young Mr. Poindexter threw himself from the roof of his school, taking his own life. A suicide note found in his pocket cited "unbearable an unrelenting bullying" as the primary reason for the jump.

Sidney was a bright student, a gentle soul, and a beloved son to John and Mary-Lynn Poindexter, and younger brother to Malcolm Poindexter, a family by whom he is remembered.

His funeral service will be held on Sunday, March 13. His family asks that in lieu of flowers, please teach the children and young people in your life just how harmful bullying and bigotry can be, and urge them to be kind, even to those who are different from them, and whom they may not understand.

The handwritten messages were mostly apologies, for bullying him, for not helping him, for letting it happen and never saying a word. Valerie scowled at them. Seemed like an empty gesture to apologize to someone after they were already dead, especially when you were the ones who drove them to it. Too little, too late.

She remembered the story now. Back in the 50s, some poor kid named Poindexter had been bullied so mercilessly and relentlessly by the Casper High student body, they said picking on him was a graduation requirement. That is, until he committed suicide jumping off the roof of the school.

The story went that he'd been shoved in his locker so many times then when he died, his soul was shoved inside it, too, and he haunted his locker to this day.

If that was true, then maybe this was the Ghost Zone inside Poindexter's locker, where his soul was trapped. In which case... maybe finding his locker would mean finding her way out. It was a promising lead, but there was just one problem. For the life of her, Valerie couldn't remember which locker was the one Poindexter supposedly haunted.

Damn... she was gonna have to ask somebody, wasn't she?

With deep sigh, she put the yearbook back where she'd found it and stepped out of the classroom. This hallway didn't have as many people as some of the others she'd passed through. She sized up the people in the hall and the way they were all looking at her, and walked up to the one who seemed the least aggressive, a girl with curly blonde hair that looked more nervous than hateful, a refreshing change, if not exactly better by much.

"Sorry to bother you," Valerie said, keeping her tone even and apologetic and her body language as open and pacifying as possible. "My name is Valerie, and I was wondering if you might be able to tell me Sidney Poindexter's locker number?"

"Um..." the blonde girl said, but Valerie never got to hear if she was actually going to answer, because a tall, dark-haired girl who must've been her friend stepped between them.

"If you're so sorry, then don't bother her in the first place," the second girl sneered.

Then she spat.

Directly onto Valerie's face.

And Valerie lost it. She wiped her face off with her long sleeve and activated her ghost hunting suit under her clothes, calling it to cover everything but her face so this bitch could see exactly how angry she was. She grabbed the girl by the collar and slammed her against the wall. She was a good four inches taller than Valerie, but it didn't make a difference.

"You think you can talk to me like that?" Valerie shouted, slamming her against the wall again. "You think you can treat me like that? Think again you hussy! I take no shit, not from you or anyone."

A pair of boys came over and grabbed Valerie to pull her off the girl, but she was having none of it.

"Don't fucking touch me!" she jeered, kicking them in the knees to make them drop her. "I was just tryna have a polite conversation with this girl and you spit on me? You grab me? I'm startin' to think the only decent people in this era are the parents who wrote Poindexter's obituary, but apparently you all have never read it."

One of the boys got up and tried to grab her again, but she slammed the heel of her palm into the underside of his jaw before he could get his arms around her and he fell back.

"I've had enough of you people," she scoffed. "I'll just try every locker until I find it."

With that, she stormed off down the hall, heedless of the looks she was getting. All she had to do was stomp and jeer at anyone who dared to get close to her. She was not gonna be some passive victim like Poindexter was. If they thought they could pull shit with her, they'd better think again.

She started with locker number 001, hoping that going in order would save some time by keeping her from accidentally checking the same section twice. Unfortunately, she had no idea what she was looking for. She was kind of hoping that if she opened the right locker, there would be a swirling green portal inside, like the portal she'd come through. Unfortunately, she had no such luck.

She punched out two more assholes by the time the ghosts all finally seemed to get the message that they were better off leaving her alone. She'd finally gotten into the 100s when they started gasping and turning around to go another way when they saw her. Good.

She was on locker 176 when someone finally had the courage to come down the hallway and face her.

"If you're here to pick a fight, I'm happy to oblige," Valerie said, not looking to see who it was as she slammed the locker door to 176 shut.

"No!" a girls voice squeaked behind her.

Valerie turned to see the blonde girl she'd approached earlier standing there, holding up her books to protect her face.

"Relax," Valerie told her. "I don't punch unless provoked."

Slowly, cautiously, the girl lowered her books so Valerie could see her face. "You said your name was Valerie, right?" she asked. "I'm Emily-May, but everyone just calls me Emmy."

"Nice to meet you, Emmy," Valerie said. "Nicer than meeting most folks here has been, anyway."

"You're in color," Emmy noted.

Valerie raised her eyebrow, apparently prompting Emmy to catch the double meaning and quickly correct herself.

"No I just mean, you're not in black and white like the rest of us. You look... real."

"I am real," Valerie said. "I'm human, and I'm trying to get home."

"Is that why you're looking for Poindexter's locker?" Emmy asked.

"Yeah," Valerie confirmed. "I'm pretty sure Poindexter's locker is my way home, but I can't remember what number it was... can you help me?"

Emmy nodded. "Poindexter's locker was number 724," she said. "But Poindexter's not here anymore, and he was the only one who knew how to get out through it."

"I'll just have to figure it out on my own, then," Valerie said, resigned. "Thank you, Emmy, truly."

Emmy smiled. "I haven't forgotten what was in Poindexter's obituary," she said. "Nobody deserves as bad as he got, it makes no nevermind who they are, but you've been getting that and worse, and it's not fair."

"It's not," Valerie agreed, rather proud of Emmy, even though she was kind of stating the obvious in Valerie's opinion, it was obviously a revelation to her. "If you don't mind, there's one more thing I'm curious about."

"Lay it on me."

"Poindexter was the only one of your class who died, so why are you all here?"

"We're not," Emmy said. "Well, what I mean is, I'm not actually the ghost of Emily-May Peterson. I'm just a conjuration of Poindexter's memories of the real Emmy, back when he went to school with her. This whole place was conjured out of Poindexter's memories, and his emotions about all of us."

"Is that why everybody's so cruel?" Valerie asked. "Because he remembers you all as the bullies that drove him to suicide?"

"That's part of it, but a lot of us were just as cruel in real life as Poindexter remembered us," Emmy admitted with a melancholy shrug. "The only difference is, out in the real world, we had the chance to learn and change, but in here, nothing changes.

"I hope the real Emmy changed. Even in Poindexter's memories, I'm not as bad as everybody else is, but I'm too afraid to go against their bullying when anyone can see me. I hope the real Emmy stopped being such a square and got brave."

Valerie looked her up and down and nodded thoughtfully.

"Emily-May Peterson, right?" she said. "Once I'm out of here, I'll look you up and see how much you changed."

Emmy lit up. "Would you?"

"Why not?"

"Oh, then let's bust you out of here,"

Valerie smiled, and the two of them hurried through the halls toward locker 724, and for once, it seemed like Emmy didn't mind people seeing her going against the status quo as she went along with Valerie the whole way.

Once they got there, the crowded hallway quickly cleared out. Valerie was quietly proud of herself for getting an entire school to unilaterally fear her in a matter of hours. That said—or thought, rather—she couldn't wait to be back in the real world.

She quickly opened up locker 724. Even though she didn't know the combo, she knew a trick that would open any locker in the school, and it worked just as well in 1955 as it did fifty years later. She turned the dial ten times to the left, then three times to the right, then slammed her fist against the door and it popped right open.

Eagerly, she looked inside the locker... but there was no swirling green vortex waiting to take her home. It looked just like any of the other lockers, dirty, with a couple of books and a single personal decoration, a round mirror hanging in the back. A broken mirror, at that.

"I told you, only Poindexter knew how to split through his locker," Emmy said apologetically. "I wish I could help you more."

"That's alright, Emmy, you've helped plenty," Valerie assured her. "I'll take it from here."

"Alright, if you say so," Emmy said, and headed down the hallway, leaving Valerie to figure out the secrets of the haunted locker on her own.

The textbooks were for history and math, and neither held any clue as to how to get out. She pushed against the walls of the locker, but nothing so much as budged, so clearly that wasn't the trick.

Upon closer inspection, however, the mirror hanging in the locker wasn't actually broken. It looked broken, but when she carefully moved her hand over the glass, it was smooth and perfectly intact. It seemed like this side was in perfect condition, but somehow... the backside was broken, or the inside... or the other side. Maybe this was a Through the Looking Glass situation, Valerie thought.

She reached into the locker and pressed both hands against the mirror as hard as she could. After a moment, she fell right through. There was no way she should have fit through the mirror. It was only about ten-inches in diameter and she was... more than ten inches in diameter... especially around the hips. But it didn't even feel like a tight squeeze as she tumbled out of the locker on the other side and found herself in the Casper High of 2005.

A sigh of relief escaped her and she pushed herself to her feet.

The hallway was empty, but the clock read 6pm, so that made sense. Unlike the Casper High in the Ghost Zone, the students at this one could actually leave when school was over, and Valerie followed their lead, dropping off her borrowed 50s costume in the lost-and-found on her way out.

She did look up Emily-May Peterson when she had the chance. Her name was Emily-May Barton now. She'd joined the civil rights movement in 1959, and married a black man named Robert Barton in 1967, shortly after it was legalized. They had three children, one of whom was a lesbian with the full support of her entire family. Emmy was 65 years old now, and still lived in Amity Park with her husband, both of them retired.

Valerie wrote it all down, and taped the piece of paper on the 2005 side of Poindexter's mirror, hoping that Emmy might be able to see it. Valerie was proud of her. She'd managed to 'stop being such a square and get brave' after all, just like 1955 her from Poindexter's memories had hoped.

[one-black-rotary-phone]

Griffin Stagg Headcanons

Headcanons for the youngest boy in the cast: Griffin Stagg. No reader. Will update as I think of more.

TW for bullying, kidnapping, violence, death, gore (mentioned), does teeth count?.

Griffin is max eleven years old; probably ten. He's easily the youngest of the group. In fact, I headcanon he's a few months younger than Gwen. He uses this to his advantage, though, always bragging about how he'll live longer than her because he's younger. Not quite how it worked out, unfortunately.

I headcanon he's got an older brother who went to university/college recently before his kidnapping/death. He was pretty close with his brother; he always took Griffin out to play games or get food or just hang out. His brother was his closest friend, considering he barely had any friends of his own. His brother immediately came back home after he went missing to look for him, too.

This doesn't stop typically sibling fights, though. If you read my headcanon on who's the biggest tattletale, Griffin is number one. And his brother is not exempt from that. Growing up, they would constantly threaten to tell on each other for stuff and kept their word about it, too. Still, they always felt at least a little bit guilty about it, and would apologise and try to get each other out of trouble if the punishment was truly that bad.

Since his older brother's in college, his parents are on the older side. I don't know why but I feel like his mother would have arthritis in her hands, so as a little kid he had to be careful to not yank her around too hard. His father, on the other hand, is as fit as anything. They both take on pretty stereotypical roles in the family; his mother being a bit of a housewife (she still has a job, though) and his father doing all the handiwork.

Griffin's also had a lot of pet fish growing up, partly because he's a bit scared of dogs and is allergic to cats. They've always been some variation of goldfish or fighter fish, and always have the most classic names possible. "Goldie" or "Sunshine" or "Bluey" or some name based on some famous boxer were the most common. Strangely, no matter how similar they looked, he could always tell them apart. Or so he thinks, at least.

However, life wasn't all Lesley Gore's Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows. He was bullied a lot during his early years of school for having no friends. In turn, the bullying pushed people away from wanting to be his friend because they didn't want to join in on getting bullied. It only really died down because Griffin just didn't become a fun target after a while. He was too boring and didn't have as much of a reaction as the bullies wanted. He wasn't emotionless to it--don't get me wrong--but he just wasn't as explosive as they wanted.

Still, people didn't really want to be his friend after it. Griffin wasn't exactly considered cool either, so that tarnished his reputation a bit. He pretended to like being left alone, but it did get to him. Still, he's a "two's company, three's a crowd" type person. He just wants one friend outside of his family. Is that really too much to ask?

Ankle-biter of a child. If he gets forced into a fight his first weapon of defense is his teeth. Will sink those guys into whatever he can get to first. And they're sharp, too. He will draw blood if he's not careful.

Speaking of ankles, when he was a little kid he'd cling to his mother's leg when being dropped of at kindergarten/preschool. He'd cry and cry about having to go (something that would come back to haunt him in the future). Griffin definitely had some separation anxieties as a kid. Nowadays he's just lonely. Poor guy.

This kid loves candy apples. What more can I say? They're tasty. It's his favourite treat.

He also is a big Halloween fan. He loves to watch whatever horror movies his parents will let him. He barely even gets scared during them. The only thing he doesn't like is massive gore. It makes him feel uncomfortable. Though, he also likes to dress up the skeletons in his front yard with silly outfits. And there's always the love of trick-or-treating, too.

He gets good grades naturally. He's in an easier stage of school, so he'd definitely have to study more in future grades, but for now he's cruising.

Okay, now for some I'm taking from @tnmdfhgkg. 1), He'll do anything for a dollar (a dollar was worth more back then okay). 2), he's a shit-talker about other people, but 3), he's very nice once you get to know him. 4), he gets a lot of bug-bites during summer (mainly mosquitoes), and 5), he's a messy eater. Oh, and 6), he's the silliest goober in town; takes nothing seriously when he's in a goofy mood (always). Hope it's okay to tag you!

---

Will update this as I think of some more!

[cepheusgalaxy]

Someone: There is a special place for people like you in Hell!

Mafia member Anthony, sent to kill them off: Oh how thoughtful :)

Angel, on the Hotel that is falling to pieces eating a melting popsicle: Well, fuck