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wolves-against-the-world · 1 month

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Witchfinders

Jay started from a shivering half doze when their target finally appeared. May slapped his arm several times, making empty fwhoop-fwhoop-whoop sounds on his winter jacket.

"Told you!" She hissed triumphantly.

"Great," Jay said between chattering teeth. They’d first noticed him about two hours ago. Well, May had, because May was a psychic, something she never ceased to mention she hated.

"It's not like I picked this", she always said. "Do you know how fucking inconvenient it is to always see people's negative feelings and whatever lurks around without being able to do anything about it? If that was what I wanted, I'd have become a tabloid writer."

Jay wasn’t certain she was not exaggerating - psychic abilities were genetically recessive, and you needed a lot of luck to get more than a few psychics in any lineage.

She was admittedly a keen observer though, which had made her entire family fairly successful spiritualists until that sort of thing became embarrassing instead of impressive.

Jay looked at his radar and found the screen infuriatingly empty. He already regretted spending the exorbitant amount of money (about 70 pounds) on something this useless. The seller - a sturdy old woman who had been well known for being the only reputable psychic in the country, ironically because she didn't like the spotlight - had assured him it could detect latent magic. So far it had only been useful for detecting cellphones, microwaves, and one time, memorably, a minor radiation leak at a cancer clinic.

May was staring at something a bit away, which was impressive since there was very little to warrant more than a passing glance. To one side, there were the houses in their neighborhood that hadn't changed in about as long as they could remember, if one discounted the pressure wash of several house fronts that had made plaster drop on unsuspecting people for a week. To the left was a fence restricting access to the train tracks out of town, or into town, depending on your perspective. Current demographic surveys suggested the former.

May was staring down the street, her jaw set in the way it was when she was very certain of something. Now, very certain of something didn't mean she was right, not even in the supernatural realm.

"Absolutely not," he said.

"Why not??" Her voice carried the indignation of her entire heritage.

"Because last time you did this, we got laughed out of a theater AND a restraining order! You weren't even right! We need a better plan than just going up to random people and hoping for the best!"

“Then make a better one.”

They stared at one another.

Jay scowled. “Fine, then go up to a possibly magical human that might just zap us out of existence.”

"Oh don’t be stupid. He’s not a witch, I just think he's carrying some sort of magical item."

"You don't even know that's a he, how can you tell what he's - what they're wearing under those layers? Could be a tall woman, for all we know. And besides-" He had meant to bring up the frankly nerve-wracking cold, and was pleased to have found a logical place to slot the topic into. "It's cold as balls, we should go home and - wait-"

May gave him the sort of look that typically made people's toenails roll up, dampened slightly by its path over her shoulder. She left Jay to catch up with her as she strode down the street, catching up and then holding the pace of the figure she'd locked in on. May, full name Mayflower Justicia Borden, was very tall and the sort of person that was remarked on by being remarkable against her will. She hadn't spoken for most of her school life, until she realized people picked on you for things that were out of your control anyway, and from then on made it everyone else's problem.

"Excuse me, Sir, sorry to bother you-"

The personshaped black spot turned slightly and for a second she thought "fuck, it's a woman after all, she's gonna be mad" until the figure pulled off a pair of headphones and turned to reveal, indeed, a man, if the beard was any indication.

"What?"

The tone wasn't unfriendly per se.. but the man didn’t have a very welcoming face. If that was by accident of birth or a choice was to be seen.

"Right, sorry Sir, this is going to sound very odd-"

"So sorry about that, we're uh-" Jay came to a rather undignified halt with one hand holding onto a street light lest he turn his last step into a sledding trip.

The man stopped walking and observed them. He was in his mid-60s, tall, but not remarkably so, handsome but not remarkably so, with a long-ish, square-ish face and brown-ish skin. The only thing not -ish about him were his eyes, which were too blue to be anything but contact lenses. Jay felt acutely seen, in a way he hadn't felt since May's grandmother had read his future and been right all the damn time, too.

The difference to Mrs Borden was that this man wasn't trying to hide the cold calculation in his face. He'd picked the contacts well. It turned the gaze from smoldering to arctic, sending a physical shiver down Jay's spine.

"It's not very polite to follow strangers," the man pointed out. His voice reflected the same control, not using a syllable more than necessary.

Well, shit. Jay already saw another policeman call his parents to ask what the hell he was up to, and why he couldn't do this in his university town instead. "Uhm."

Even May seemed taken aback, visibly calculating how far they'd been away, then decided it didn't matter. "So sorry to bother you, Sir. Do you happen to be carrying a magical item?"

The stranger didn't even blink.

"If you're trying to rob me or sell something, that's an odd way of going about it," he said. His expression remained flat, which would have been funny if Jay hadn't been shitting his pants for a reason he couldn't pinpoint. Somewhere in his brain an instinct so old it preceded upright walking woke from a coma to scream "DANGER DANGER DANGER GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE". But Jay also had anxiety, so that was really not out of the ordinary.

"What, no!" Jay stammered. "We're, uh, we're paranormal investigators. She's a psychic!" He gestured to May, who nodded with all the dignity she could muster.

"Didn't know psychics used knives these days.”

May shifted uncomfortably, revealing a switchblade knife. A pink one.

"Where'd you even get that?" Jay hissed. "Aren't those illegal?"

May ignored him, easing her grip on the knife but not putting it away. "Going up to strangers can be dangerous."

"Undoubtedly," said the stranger.

"As my, uh, colleague said, I'm a psychic. You're carrying something with a strong magical aura, we just wanna make sure you're safe. And, uh, maybe take a look at it. For research."

"And I'm sure you're not just trying to sell your services." His calm tone stood in stark contrast to his words. Well, at least he didn't yell at them like the last five people.

"Absolutely not!", May assured. "We're volunteers. No money involved. Uh, unless we're doing like. An exorcism."

Finally, the man showed a physical response: he lifted an eyebrow.

"Right, uh, could you, like, warrant a guess what it might be?"

The man pondered this for a moment. "No." He cut May off when she wanted to speak. "Mind walking with me for a bit?"

May had already said yes before Jay could tell her how stupid an idea this was, so they walked. The stranger introduced himself as Zachary. When Jay asked where they were walking, Zachary told him an address that was vaguely familiar. He still spoke mostly in single sentences, but it was enough to reveal an American accent. Maybe they'd gotten lucky. Americans believed all sorts of shit.

Zachary told them he'd just gone grocery shopping, since his cousin wanted to make dinner. Even though the bag looked like a pimple about to burst, he carried it easily in one gloved hand. As they walked along the empty and depressingly gray street, May filled him in on their work, emphasizing their good intentions and downplaying how little they'd actually accomplished so far. She omitted the radiation incident, which was probably their biggest success, though in a different way than they'd hoped for. To his credit, Zachary didn't remark upon their names, which raised Jay's opinion of him substantially.

May described and then quizzed their new friend on various magical artifacts he could have come in the possession of, but save for a notebook bought in a second hand shop, he denied knowledge of all.

Maybe, Jay thought, they were being set up. Maybe the guy was wearing a microphone and camera, stuff like that was so small these days, shit, he could just use his phone for all they knew. They'd be laughing stocks for all the internet to see. Or maybe he was a psychic himself, or even a witch, fully aware of his item's traits and just entertaining himself. Staking out the competition.

The closest coven they had identified was in Sheffield, a circle of old ladies who used their abilities to enhance their healing potions and alcoholic beverages. Didn't mean there couldn't be others, more hidden ones, doing scary things.

Jay tried to get May's attention, but she was deep into explaining the intricacies of aura reading. They'd made their way from the train tracks to the square in a needlessly complex route. Maybe he was one of those guys. A manly man who didn't ask for directions. Or he was just enjoying the walk.

"So you can see everyone's aura?" Zachary asked. His voice was still the eery drone of pack ice moving, but there was a lighter note of curiosity now.

May paused longer than was necessary or comfortable.

"Mostly. Non-magical people don't know how to hide their aura, let alone that they have one. If it's gone the person is either dead, magical or, like, really introverted. The colors often give me a hint of someone's personality and the movement can indicate emotions. They get very bright when someone is using magic. It's not an exact science unfortunately, experience mostly. My grandmother was really good at it in the end."

"Fascinating." Zachary looked around and turned into a side street instead of returning to the road following the train tracks. "How about my aura, then?"

"I thought you didn't like people selling you things?"

"I don't like buying the cat in the bag. I'm sure my cousin wouldn't mind hosting you for dinner, though."

"That's really not nece-"

"Sure," Jay said, thinking with his growling, frozen stomach instead of his brain. The trip back home would take a minimum of thirty minutes walking. He'd also finally matched the address to the town's only pub (and B&B and event location). They were safer among people than out here, completely alone.

May gave him a searing look, but Jay was used to that.

"Look at that, we're already there." Jay decided to ignore how ominous that sounded.

Indeed there was the front of the pub, painted black and reading something incomprehensible followed by "goat" and the words "founded in 1367". How true that was had been up for debate since the pub opened.

"How are you liking Britain so far?" Jay asked conversationally. "Lotsa old buildings here compared to home."

If there was a physical reaction, Jay didn't notice.

"The weather could be improved upon."

"Yeah," Jay said unimaginatively.

The door moved disappointingly silently. Jay’s face began to itch in the sudden warmth and he hurried to take off his coat before he cooked to death. He'd been in the pub once and now found it no less unpleasant but all in all no different than any other several century old pub. The room was almost entirely made of wood, the woodworm probably doing more work than the actual struts by this point, blackened by smoke and maybe tar.

"Welcome back," someone purred.

Jay flinched, nearly flinging his coat at the figure. The woman gave them a smile, wholly unimpressed by the reaction and decidedly closer than social convention dictated.

She was stunning, simply put, though too short to make it as a model. Dark hair flowed over a shiny turquoise top, and tight black leather pants showed about anything anyone wanted to see. Around her hips hung a belt made of silver medallions.

"You've brought guests, how lovely."

While Jay was still working on rebooting his brain, he was dragged away from the door and the woman's hypnotic gaze. They were met by a short, middle-aged man on the verge of fat with a kind, round face. He greeted them warmly and hugged Zachary, giving him a kiss on the cheek. Corner of the mouth. Maybe.

Jay was still puzzling about that gesture in the context of the man's priest collar when the next revelation hit: It was quiet.

Not in the way of a forest near a predator, but in the way a theater is quiet waiting for the performance to begin. He could tell May was thinking the same. There were about a dozen people in the room, all of which were looking at them.

"Nice to meet you," May said stiffly. "Is the pub not open tonight?"

"We rented it out for a few days," the priest said in a very much not American or British accent. "We're doing a...reunion of sorts. Our friends came from all over the place, you see." He smiled. It was a very nice smile. He seemed like a nice, reasonable person, Jay thought. Hardly a witch of any kind. They hated churches, they'd never survive all the time it took to become a priest, even if it was a pretty good diversion.

"My name is Mayflower," May said, shocking Jay and probably all her ancestors. "I'm a psychic. Zachary is carrying a magical item and we want to make sure you're all being safe."

"We're not trying to sell anything," Jay added hastily. In a much smaller voice he added: "Though he said something about dinner."

Jay was aware he missed a lot of things in life. His brain just had different priorities than other people. He did not miss the sudden interest of the people at the back table, a short man with almost implausible golden curls and a duo of women with heights firmly outside the average in both directions.

"A magical item?" The priest did not seem too alarmed. "That is indeed something worth investigating. Come and sit with us then, we'll have dinner soon."

May looked around, scanning everyone, but not coming up with an excuse. They went to sit at a table near the front, where the woman in blue had already taken a seat, one leg in knee-high boots lazily draped over the edge. She unwrapped a piece of blue bubble gum and tossed it into her mouth.

"My friends, this is Eliza. She has an interest in the occult herself." He was interrupted by an enormous man with alarmingly ginger hair throwing himself into one of the seats. "You shoulda told me there's stuff going on. What's that about magical items?"

"These are our guests Mayflower and..." He looked at Jay. "Jayden?"

Jay just shrugged, too taken up by May trying to break his hand. He didn't want to draw back so obviously but she pinched his finger really hard and -

Ah.

Jay shot a stealthy look towards the priest. His radar was vibrating in his pocket. Both men were wearing a silver sigil in the form of a pendant and a brooch. They looked different than Eliza's, the wolf head combined with some sort of pointy cross, but unmistakably related.

Jay considered if they had in fact not stumbled into a witch coven but some weird nationalist fraternity. Not fraternity, specifically, considering there were several women, but some sort of... Cult? They were all different ages, too, the woman, Eliza, looking no older than 25 and the priest being in his 50s at minimum.

"Really cool, uh, pendant you got," Jay said before his brain could tell him this would get them killed. "You into, what's the name again, that fantasy show where people die all the time?"

"Didn't like the ending much, but the books are good," Eliza said in that way too sultry voice. The big man made a face between distaste and amusement. He leaned onto his elbows, resting his chin on one large but surprisingly delicate hand. A lot of things about him were paradoxically delicate, from his pale, freckled skin to a face looking surprisingly young despite the visible lines around his eyes and mouth. His hair was the color of wildfire, curls pulled into a ponytail that left bangs spilling over the side of his face.

"Sooooooo, what kinda psychics are you?" he asked. "Telling the future? Making potions? Kinda hard to find proper witches these days."

"You've met proper witches?"

Eliza loudly popped her bubblegum.

"I just said they're hard to find, didn't I?", said Red.

"I'm not a witch," May said stiffly. "I read auras and magical signatures." Not for the first time, Jay wished desperately he could see what she saw. What were these people's auras like? Were they dangerous? Upset? Laughing at them?

"Yours is blue," May said in the tone of voice she used when making shit up on the spot. "Light blue, a bit silvery. Like a tuna."

Red didn't seem offended by the comparison. "Neat. How about Sasha?"

"Who?"

"Zachary, sorry."

"It's grey," May said without even turning around. "It's a pretty rare color, but it means he's a very controlled and logical person."

Red nodded enthusiastically. "He is! How about me?"

"You're curious," Jay said. "Silver and blue are the colors of the sky and sea, you like to travel, can't be in one place for too long. You're also not really into pointless workouts, but like to apply yourself."

May had meant to kick his leg, but had thought better of it. Jay felt vindicated.

"That's something every half-baked carnival psychic could tell you," Eliza huffed. She swung her legs off the table, heels thumping the wooden floor. "Tell me something secret."

There was a long pause.

May knitted her brow, then held out her hand. "Okay."

Eliza observed her, still chewing her bubblegum. Then she placed her manicured hand in May's. Her nail polish was bright blue. "Knock yourself out."

The moments May sat there seemed to draw into eternity. Eliza kept the vague expression of distaste, while Red was leaning forward in obvious interest.

Jay tried to get an overview of the room in case things got ugly. Zachary was speaking with a tall man behind the bar he hadn't noticed before. Under the beanie he'd taken off, Zachary had shoulder-long brown hair with a white streak at the front. He hadn't seemed the type for that trend. The other man had waist-long black hair, a goatee, and wore sunglasses inside.

The table in the back was silently sipping on their drinks, clearly trying to listen in. The priest - if he was one - had disappeared.

The tiny bell over the door rang and then took a nosedive, hitting someone with a muffled thud. "Aw man," the someone said.

"There you are!" The priest was back, somehow. It was quite disconcerting.

The newcomer was a lanky youth, looking to be barely out of secondary school. His pale cheeks were flushed from the cold, a thick scarf wrapped around about everything above the belt.

"My apologies, this place wasn't too easy to find. Are we still on schedule?"

Under the thick jacket, the youth was wearing a white shirt and black bow with matching suspenders, meaning he was either a nerd or a waiter. Hired help meant paperwork, meant questions asked if someone disappeared. Jay relaxed a bit.

He really was being too paranoid. The worst thing that had happened on any investigation was being forced to drink bad tea and being laughed at. And the radiation exposure. That was pretty bad.

Still. Nothing supernaturally bad had happened.

He liked May a lot but her abilities were nothing to brag about. They were just two kids who liked to dig into things most people didn't take seriously.

The young man hung up his coat and immediately began sorting things behind the counter, finally removing the man with the sunglasses. Coming around the corner, the man revealed an arm covered in Nordic occult tattoos. Enthusiast, witch, or fascist? Impossible to tell by looking.

"You're a con artist," May said suddenly.

Jay turned back to the table. Eliza had raised one very accurately formed eyebrow. "Takes one to know one I suppose."

May didn't take the bait. "You're from Scandinavia, liv

#wolves against the world #short story #more like medium story idk why i always write entire epics #tw suicide mention #very briefly tho #i have an entire document with short stories about the pack but this is one i feel comfortable sharing. some outside perspective

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irresistiibles · 1 year

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was that dori sakurada? Oh no no, that was just kageyama ‘mob’ shigeo, a canon character from mob psycho 100. They are twenty years old, use he/they, and are aware that they are not actually from Washington DC. Too bad they can’t stray from this city for long.

how long has your character been here

about a month now.

what is your character’s job

he is a college student and makes money doing odd jobs on the side with his powers. back home he worked at a consultation office for issues with spirits and such, but since that isn’t as big of an issue here he probably makes most of his money just like moving really heavy stuff with his powers and other small things

where has your character been pulled from in their fandom

the end of season two. i have not watched any of season three yet because i’m waiting till it’s over so that i can binge it. i will make a post if i’m updating him after i see it.

has any magic affected your character

nope!

any other info!

okay so mob! he was born with extremely powerful psychic abilities, including but not limited to extremely powerful telekinesis to the point that he can just like fly, psychic energy absorption, psychic energy transference, cholorokinesis, and astral projection.

mob’s struggle is that when he reaches a certain level of emotions he loses control over his powers (it’s called mob psycho 100 cause this happens when his emotions hit 100%)

he also has a ???% mode he enters when he’s knocked out or under extreme stress in which he basically unleashes all of his psychic power at once and while he can do just about anything in this form he has literally no control over himself at this point so it’s not something he would ever use by choice.

he has accidentally hurt people this way before, and as a result works really hard to restrain his emotions. as a result he comes off as blunt, awkward, and just overall has a hard time connecting with people

which sucks ! cause that’s what he wants more than anything. so many people tell him how great his powers are but he doesn’t care about that he just wants to be able to make friends. incredible psychic powers have never made him happy and they probably never will.

he’s really just trying to improve himself as a person and keeps getting caught up in all this esper nonsense that adult psychics pull him into.

the only chill adults in his life are his parents and his mentor at work. this is always a gag because his mentor is technically a conman, running a spirit consultation shop while not being a psychic at all himself. he uses mob to do any real psychic work, though the majority of the customers he gets are people who are stressed and blame it on spirits that aren’t really there

but he’s actually a really positive influence on mob cause he tells him being a good person is more important than any specific psychic powers and tbh mob knows he can’t do anything psychic, but finds him to be a really good guy and doesn’t mind working for him anyway

some possible connections (just some ideas i’m def open to other stuff):

CLASSMATES/TUTOR/OTHER COLLEGE CONNECTIONS: mob is not exactly a strong student by any means, and has no idea what he even wants to study but he’s determined to get a degree anyway. it feels like something he should being doing but he’s not great at it and could def have some people he has classes with, or a tutor to help him, or professors who recognize him despite the fact he avoids speaking up in class at all costs, literally whatever.

CUSTOMERS: like i said he takes on basically odd jobs that his powers can help with so this really has a wide variety of possibilities! i feel like a lot of the time he just winds up helping people move by using his powers to carry boxes and stuff but i’m happy brainstorm possibilities for this

WORKOUT BUDDIES/TRAINER: this!! listen mob joins the body improvement club at his school and it’s one of my favorite things cause he is not physically in shape at all but the jocks are so nice to him! he is determined to keep working out. girls like muscles, not psychic powers, people with muscles are cool and have friends. he wants to get some muscles. give me some dumb extrovert jock/extreme introvert friendship lmao

MENTOR: someone a little older who kinda helps take mob under their wing. could be someone super powerful who helps him more with the power issue or someone completely normal who tries to navigate social situations (tbh the second one is what he needs more but i’m open to someone for both)

PEER PRESSURE: idk someone who thinks he should be using his powers for more to like help the world or be a hero or something like that and mob is just not at all interested. could also be completely not power related and just someone who drags him around to events and stuff. man is bad at saying no to people.

ACCIDENTAL ENEMY: now here me out mob would never purposely start fights or make an enemy but he is way too blunt and doesn’t pick up on social queues, so he could definitely accidentally upset someone and turn it into a whole thing where someone thinks they have beef and mob is borderline clueless about the whole thing

GENERAL FRIENDS: like i said he’s not good at socializing but he wants to be! let him make some friends he is so nice at heart i promise. could be literally anyone mob has so much patience for people.

#( intro && mob )#he's my favorite idc #hw: intro

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toa-arania · 6 months

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Watch Out For The Clown

1: Don't worry about an actual clown, this is another Val post 2: I promise that makes sense in context

It's been a while since I've done one of these so for everyone new, Valerie Wester is a character I play in a Monsterhearts game. She is a Witch, and an absolute force of nature. Big proponent of Womens' Wrongs. I've posted about three of her Category 5 Woman Moments before (here, here, and here), all in relation to an OC tournament called the Homemade Girlboss Battle which she very nearly won (2nd place if I'm remembering the numbers right). At the time, the game was on pause, and has been over summer and most of autumn because two players dropped out and we needed to find a new one.

Enter the Clown.

Monday. Two members of the gang have fucked off for various reasons (one went to go searching for their missing sister and the other got sent to superhell by his evil uncle). We are down to Val (Witch), Mei (Ghost), Levi (Werewolf), and Darcy (Hollow (soulless husk with an identity crisis)). We come into school, Val and Levi flagrantly ignoring the buddy system as always, and who should arrive but our new classmate: Aluber

It is important context that despite our gang being a fairly queer group (even though our actual trans man did just fuck off to go looking for his sister) the town we live in, Springdale, is fairly backwater. So none of us are that surprised when a whole-ass clown turns up to class, announces his intentions to be everyone's friends, and immediately gets called a faggot. We are surprised when he flat-out does not know what that means. Now Val is the type who, like many tumblr users, thinks of faggot as a compliment, and decides that it is absolutely a good idea to teach Aluber this too. He ends up sitting with us at lunch.

We quickly discover that Aluber is a Fae (because of Levi's Werewolf senses), and that it is probably for the best that he ended up with our group of supernatural misfits instead of getting dragged into Heather's Mind-Control Clusterfuck. Now because he's a Fae, that means he has a connection with an entity called the Fae King, or as Aluber calls him, Big Uncle. Above-table we call him Buncle now. It is also important to note that one of Val's many, many schemes is to set up a deal with the Fae King at some point to be able to tap into Fae magic. Buncle calls Aluber to the Fae domain of the forest, and gives him a big-ass tome of magic spells, and tells him to "not let anyone else have it". This choice of words will become important later.

Events progress as normal for this group. Val accidentally turns Darcy into a vessel for her dead sister's soul, but that's a story for another post. Then, on Tuesday, Mei gets a coded note. This is not unusual. Mei has been getting coded notes for a while that Val has been helping her to study due to their shared investigation into the Murder Basement, which is related to the Psychic Doublebird Reacharound.

This note says "Watch Out For The Clown".

We proceed with caution. However.

Since our characters are teenagers (a mix of 16-17 iirc) we do teenager things. And that includes Truth or Dare. Also drinking. Val is mixing the drinks, and she does not put any thought into strength at all. This will come back to bite her in the ass. During Truth or Dare, her first dare is to cast the Migraine Spell on herself, which is what she calls the spell Ring of Lies, a spell that causes painful tinnitus in people who try to lie. Big lies can even cause people to pass out. Val, as a pathological liar, does not enjoy being under the influence of this spell. The game proceeds, and the details are not important immediately because I will be writing about that clusterfuck another time, but it is important that by the end of this evening Val has learnt about Aluber's Fae Spellbook, and she wants to have it. However, she has been told that Buncle will get stabby if Aluber gives the book to people. Val begins to plan.

Val wakes up with a hangover in the morning.

The plan is simple: Convince Aluber that as someone with more magical knowledge than him, she can help teach him how to use the book's magic.

This does not go according to plan.

Wednesday. Val has been even more short-tempered than usual all day due to her actual migraine and people being irritating, so when she asks Aluber about the book and he says no because he doesn't trust her and is scared of her (rightfully so to be fair), she does not take it well. Then, Aluber makes the mistake of turning to Mei and Levi and saying "would you two like to come and look at the book?". Val responds predictably by magically ripping open every blood vessel in Aluber's nose and giving him probably the worst nosebleed anyone present has ever seen. She and Levi go to have a Chat about her losing her cool, but the specifics are for another time. This is already going to be my longest Val Post.

During a separate incident, Val learns that one of the spells in Aluber's book is an Antimagic Field. She and Wesley (an NPC Witch who is Val's "friend") decide that they need to kill this fucking Clown. They don't stick with this for long as the Gang Comes Up With A Plan, so Val instead starts scheming how to get around an Antimagic Field.

The idea is simple: In endocytosis, the process by which cells absorb large things, the cell membrane bends inwars and splits off into a bubble called a vesicle, which contains only the thing it absorbed and keeps it separate from the rest of the cell's contents. Val will simply apply this principle to the field. All she needs to do is examine the theory and work out how to manipulate the field's boundaries.

The plan is simple: """Apologise""" to Aluber, talk about how people intentionally keeping things from her takes up her whole head until it's resolved to the point of losing sleep, Promise to be friends, and as a gesture of goodwill offer to teach him more about his spells, and even only look at the book through his eyes using magic so he can control what she sees (and so she can understand the book's contents but she doesn't need to mention that).

Then a few people make some rather daft choices.

Saturday. For petty reasons (she was watching him sleep), Wesley has hexed Mei. Instead of going to Val, who she knows could dispel it in a heartbeat, she goes to Aluber, who has an untested antimagic spell that he has never attempted before. So he tries it. As it turns out, when you cast Antimagic spells on a Ghost, it turns them back into a dying corpse. So now Mei is on the floor bleeding out and having ptsd flashbacks. They call Val.

Val gets there (and brings Levi), and very quickly realises that because Aluber has not let her look at any of the spell theory, she has no idea how to dispel this. The spell manifests as a chain, so Levi tries to pull it off, breaking Mei's ankle in the process, and it magnets back on. We are all panicking. I am going to kill this fucking Clown. And then the spell ends and Mei is fine.

Val immediately rips into Aluber because that was an objectively stupid thing to do. She skips straight past any kind of apology, and tells him that he cannot just try shit unless he understands how it works (note: Val is constantly trying shit without entirely understanding how it works, but none of the gang know enough about magic to point that out). She convinces him to let her study the theory before he tries any more of these spells so she can explain to him how it works.

All according to keikaku.

Aluber goes upstairs to where he was keeping the book, and once he's retrieved it from its hiding place Val casts Watching on him to look through his eyes. She starts reading the theory behind the Antimagic Field. Instead of waiting for her to be done, Aluber begins casting it in a small area on the ground. This is when Val realises that it is not an antimagic field. It is an antimagic pulse. She only just manages to get out of Aluber's head in time to warn Levi and Mei, who fucking book it, but Val herself does not have time to move before she is hit by the blast.

Fun fact about magic in this setting. Different types of magic do not mix well. Fae magic and Witch magic are quite close to each other, and interact reasonably well, magic from the Dark Powers does its own shit, and Celestial magic tends to repel other kinds of magic. The character who got sent to Superhell, Seraph, had a protective field that blocked Val's magic and always made her feel a bit ill, so she already knew that losing her connection to magic fucks with her badly. In the words of the GM, "it feels like one of your organs has been taken out". Val fully throws up and passes out, and her earring of mind shielding is destroyed. Meanwhile, all of Aluber's Faery Contracts are nullified, and Mei is only just able to get out of range of being turned back into a Super Dead Corpse. Levi is fine.

Val wakes up, ready to actually fucking murder Aluber, and we all hear a screeching in our minds as the Fae King yoinks Aluber into the forest. As it turns out, "Do not give anyone this book" apparently included "Do not let anyone read this book". The book has now been confiscated. Aluber was not able to memorise the spell, but because Val read through the theory, she now does remember it, and as the only one with the knowledge of how to use it she plans to hold it as a very important bargaining chip.

The moral of the story: one day, I am going to kill this fucking Clown. Just not yet, because he keeps making himself useful for things.

#oc: valerie wester #oc posting #yep its more of this #oc #oc post #this is one of three (maybe more) val stories i currently have cooking #but some of them haven't finished playing out yet #the hot mess express returns #val stories

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noctumbra · 3 years

Text

𝒇𝒂𝒅𝒆 𝒐𝒖𝒕

summary ─ you were a trouble. you were a walking sin. that was okay, though. james knew how to deal with problems like yourself.

pairing ─ dark!serialkiller!bucky barnes x reader

warnings ─ DARK FIC, smut, +18, slight dub con, explicit murder scene, major character death, rough sex, mean!bucky, degradition, name calling, alcohol consumption, pussy slapping, shitty smut lol, bucky is stuck up on morality (?) aka he doesn't like when women show some skin off because he thinks it's wrong, mentions of rape (didn't happen), biblical references??

a/n ─ hellooo! this is one of those rare times where i write dark fic lmao, this is my entry for @bitchassbucky 's 2K writing challenge. my prompt is "if you're reading this, i'm dead." with criminals au. i really hope you like it. please leave a comment if you do, thank you so much! <333

explicit murder scene starts after the * mark.

You were too close.

The guy’s hands were way too close you. His eyes were roaming all over your body like a hungry panther; he was waiting for the right moment to attack and feed on you, and the worst thing was you were letting him look.

It was not okay in James’ book. You shouldn’t have been doing that, shouldn’t have flaunted your body the way you did: A dress that was too short and showed your legs more than it should and its cleavage was too deep, even from his seat, which was at the far end of the bar, he could almost see your nipples, and then you had these high heels. They were thin heels, very high, that made your feet look elegant but at the same time sinful. They were putting the attention to your legs.

James tilted his head just a little bit to his side as he watched you.

You were laughing freely, loudly, and throwing your head back. You were revealing your neck like that, this time drawing the attention to your almost bare chest. Sometimes you touched the person who made you laugh; a gentle caress on their arm, or a light grab on their shoulder… You didn’t know what kind of effect you had on them; the men shivered every time you touched their arms or shoulders. They were getting hungrier, James could tell. Their eyes were roaming all over your body even more, they were black, almost, and they kept licking their lips as if to stop themselves from drooling.

He shook his head in disappointment. Some men were really weak, he thought as he watched one of the guys adjusting their pants because they became tight with the sight of you.

You were a trouble.

You were a walking sin.

That was okay, though. James knew how to deal with problems like yourself.

──

James approached you slowly. He did not want to frighten you or give you the wrong vibe. He handled with the other guys at the bathroom when they visited it to empty their bladders. He could talk to you without being interrupted, now. Although he probably had twenty or so minutes before the guys were discovered by some other patrons in the bar, so he had to charm you in a short amount of time and had to convince you to join him for the night.

He was in a cleansing mood.

So, he ordered a soda. He didn’t drink on nights when he was working, and he had plans for you and preferred to stay fully sober. The bartender put the drink in front of him silently and went back to drying the glasses. James took a sip, watching you with the corner of his eyes.

“Lovely dress,” he murmured gently, his eyes on the bartender. “You look like summer in the middle of a stormy night.” He turned his head to you; his blue eyes were intense as they took your shocked but pleased face in. You ducked your head.

“Thank you,” you whispered, but he heard you anyway. He was surprised that you were playing the innocent card. You were far from being innocent, he could tell. He only needed to take one look, and he knew right away. Maybe that was how your way. Maybe that was how you lured your preys in. James smiled despite his chain of thoughts.

“You’re very welcome,” he nodded, and then turned his body to you. “I’m James,” he extended his hand. He didn’t mind you knowing his name; you were going to be cleaned at the end of the night anyway. You smiled.

“Y/N,” you said, gently shaking his hand. James almost hummed loudly at the touch of your soft skin against his. His hands were rough, their texture wasn’t soft anymore, but yours were. They were soft. He liked that. It was nice to feel soft things against his own skin every once in a while. “You look tired,” you murmured after two beats of silence. James barely kept his smile soft and contained the twitch of his lips which threatened to form his smile into a smirk.

You were desperate.

The only thing he needed to do was to show you some affection, pour out some sweet words and now, you were desperate to talk to him more.

“I am,” James responded with a neutral voice, but he was mindful to add some sort of a sigh at the end. “Not so much, but I am.” He sent you an equally tired smile that matched up with his story. You gave him a soft look before inching your chair towards his. You were unaware of stepping into a very feral wolf’s den.

──

It wasn’t a hard work for him, to keep you talking and drinking while he was charming and maybe seducing you all along.

You were a little tipsy as he walked up to you anyway, James just made sure that you kept drinking. You were doing every single thing that was wrong in his book; the cleansing he’d be doing tonight with your help was going to be a good one.

“What brought you here?” You asked him. You weren’t slurring yet, and honestly, James didn’t want you that drunk, so after you were finished with the glass you had, he was going to stop you. As much as he liked seeing you indulge yourself into the sins like this, because it was going to make his cleansing better, he wanted you to enjoy yourself on your last moments.

James shrugged. “Just passing by, to be honest,” he murmured. It wasn’t a lie. He was passing by. He would be leaving this small town in the morning, most likely 6AM sharp. “How about you, sweetheart?” He asked. His head cocked to his side, eyes teasingly narrowed and lips stretched into a dangerous smirk. He was a handsome man, James knew that, and he liked to use it to his own advantage in these kinds of things.

“I’m going home,” you said. “It’s a long way, though, so I’m just spending the night here.” You sent him a small smile and finished the last drop of your drink. Just when you lifted your hand to ask for more, James placed his hand over the glass.

“I think it’s enough for the night, don’t you think?” He murmured, and then he stood up and moved closer to you. “Besides it would ruin the fun if you were to get too intoxicated.” James saw your eyes getting heavier with a hazy look, saw your chest stop moving and heard the hitch in your breath.

“What fun?” You asked. James let his lips form into a smirk, this time.

“If you join me for the night, I think you can find out,” he whispered, leaning in just a little. You whimpered softly. You were turned on; you were desperate for him, for what he could give you, what he could make you feel. It should have felt empowering, but it didn’t. It made him feel disgusted.

“Alright,” you agreed easily.

Wrong. This was wrong, what you were doing. Wrong. You shouldn’t have agreed to spend a night with a stranger this easily. You shouldn’t have been let that stranger seduce you like this, but you were naïve. You were desperate.

So, James smirked. He held out his arm and walked out of the bar with your arm looped into his.

──

James wasn’t a big fan of having sex. He knew he could go without having it, and he had, once. It wasn’t hard, abstaining himself from sex or any sort of psychical contact with anyone. It was very easy, actually, but it wasn’t worth it. He’d stop by one of the towns he was passing by, have a wild night and relieve himself and then he’d move on.

He called them cleansing.

He’d find a woman, watch them and try to decide if they were worthy of his cleansing nights. If they were, James would take them back to his motel room. He’d have his sex, give them pleasure, make them take whatever he gave them, and when he was free of his sins, he’d get rid of them.

Tonight was his cleansing day, and you were his vessel.

─

“Fuck!” You moaned as James slammed you back against his motel room door. His mouth was assaulting your neck, your bare chest, all the skin you showed to those men and made them lose their control, James left his mark.

His hands were under your dress. They were running along your soft skin, along length of your legs, and he grabbed your ass beneath the skirt to haul you up. With a soft moan you held tightly onto him, wrapping your arms around his neck and your legs around his waist, you let him carry you to the bed. His lips were stroking yours so perfectly, you couldn’t keep your moans to yourself.

“You like this, don’t you?” He murmured against your lips as he laid you on the bed. He was on fours between your legs, your dress skirt bunched and ankles looped behind his thick thighs. “You like having some touching you like this.” He trailed a finger gentle from your ankle to your hips, digging his nails lightly. You sighed.

“Yes,” you moaned. “Yes, I love it.” James hummed. His fingers grabbed a hold of your flimsy panties, ripping them off with a flick of his fingers. You gasped, but it was so hot to watch, you couldn’t say anything. James discarded the ripped material. He hummed once again as he swiped his fingers through your core, causing you to buck your hips towards his touch.

“So wet…” He whispered. “You’re turned on, hm?” You nodded, desperately biting your lip to contain the sounds you wanted to let out. James pulled on your dress. “Take this off,” he ordered, a dangerous growl in his voice. You shuddered and scrambled to obey him. Quickly sliding the straps of the dress, you slid out of it in a blink. You threw the dress on one of the chairs in the room and settled under him again with a sigh.

James was right about almost being able to see your nipples because you weren’t wearing anything to cover them underneath that dress. He growled. You were so careless with your body, he realized. You never thought about what might happen to it before you threw it towards someone that could charm you with handful of words.

James wanted to laugh: You were so fucking easy.

Licking his lips, he ran his hands all over the now-available naked skin. It was very soft to touch, warm and smooth. It felt nice under his fingertips. James wanted to dig his nails and draw some blood just to ruin the perfect smoothness of your skin. He wanted to mark it, wanted to destroy its beauty so that no one would want to touch it ever again.

“Mm,” he heard you hum. Ignoring your writhing, James continued to stroke the warm skin beneath him. James sighed. “James…” You breathed, eyes closed and mouth open.

“What is it?” James asked. “What do you want, sweetheart?” You wiggled and writhed under him again. He could see that you were shying away from him for some reason, and he was intended to find out why. “Mm? Tell me. What is it?” You bit your lip, watched his eyes darken with the smallest action.

“I, um,” you whispered. “Can you be rough with me?” You asked gently. James narrowed his eyes. They were filled with amusement.

“You wan’ me to rough you up, love? Hm?” He leaned in and grabbed your face in his palm, squeezing your jaw, he pulled it towards his. He nudged your nose with his own softly. “You wan’ my bruises all over your body? Wan’ me to mark you up?” You were nodding excitedly; head bobbing up and down, eyes glimmering with anticipation, James thought you were adorable. He chuckled darkly. “Use your words,” he commanded with a low, rough voice.

“Yes,” you moaned loudly and whimpered. “Yes, I want your marks!” James hummed. It was a content, happy sound.

“Good, baby,” he whispered and flipped your over in a blink. He pulled your hips up as he placed a hand on your face and buried it into the bedding, almost constricting your breathing. You groaned throatily. “This what you wanted, yeah?” He leaned in until his lips were next to your ear. “You gonna get it.”

Briefly pulling away, James took off his clothes and laid them on the chair all folded. He climbed up on the bed, took his position between your thighs and pressed his groin against yours. Your dripping core felt warm and slick against his hard on. He closed his eyes and grunted lightly at the feeling, hips moving slightly. You wiggled your hips, pressed your ass back at him and coated his erection with your slick. James groaned. His hands were quick to find your hips and grabbing them tightly.

“You do not move unless I tell you so,” he snarled. His hand released your ass cheek and slapped it harshly, making the flesh jiggle. “You are to follow my orders,” he snarled again as he slapped the other cheek. You whimpered. “You disobey, and I’ll make sure you’re in pain.” He quickly gave you a slap right on your clit, making you shout into the bedding. “You hear?” You nodded.

“Yes, yes, I hear,” you whined. “’m sorry. I’ll follow your orders, sorry,” you mumbled, tears gathering in your eyes. James smiled.

“Good girl,” he whispered. The hand that was still resting on your ass sneaked its way up into your hair, and he yanked it harshly. You cried out. Your hands grabbed his thick thighs as something to hold on when he pulled your body flushed against his. “The sounds you make,” he snarled. He released his hold on your hair. “Grab the condom. It’s in the drawer.” James pointed the one on your left, and you leaned to get it.

After he put on the condom, he cornered and caged you on the bed, under him. You were breathing heavily, he could see how wet you were and how warm your body had become. “I’m gonna be rough,” he warned you. “I’m gonna degrade you, slap you, pull your fucking hair and I will not stop, y’hear me?” You nodded. That was exactly what you wanted from him. “Yell as loud as you want. Let’em know I’m making you feel so good.” He kissed you on the lips once and slid inside of you in one thrust.

You groaned loudly as your eyes rolled back. They way he filled you was so fucking perfect, you felt yourself tear up. Your hands were holding onto his biceps, nails digging softly as James started thrusting without missing a beat.

The pace he set up was hard and almost punishing. All the rage and tension in his body was loaded into his thrusts, making your body jolt up and down every single time his hips kissed yours. The sound of skin-slapping-skin was almost too loud, but James closed his eyes as he listened to it. His hands were grabbing your thighs tight enough to leave bruises in its wake, nails digging hard enough to draw some blood. James growled.

“So good,” he murmured to himself as he once again flipped you onto your stomach. He watched the jiggle of your ass with his each thrust, watched how perfect it was and warm it made him feel. It sent tingles all over his body. Pulling at your hips, he positioned you half-sitting on his lap, half-lying onto your stomach. He was hitting and reaching deeper with each movement of his cock, he knew it. Your screams of pleasure were letting him know. “Hmm, damn…” He groped your breasts. Pinching the soft, loose flesh, he pulled at your nipples.

“James!” You moaned, but you were slurring. James grinned devilishly. He sneaked his hand from your breast to your pussy and slapped it. Your hips twitched, and he slapped it again. Your walls were rippling around him like mad, James was loving it. “Oh, fuck!” You cried out as he pinched your clit. Tears were freely rolling down on your cheeks, but they were pleasant ones.

“Yeah?” James hissed. “You feelin’ good, slut? Hm? Tell me.” He listened to your litany of ‘yeses’ and moans and whimpers. He dug his nails on your breasts, digging them deep and dragging them down roughly. You shouted. James could feel the trickle of blood on his fingertips, and he chuckled darkly.

“We are just starting, dove,” he whispered into your ear and wrapped his arm around your throat.

****

James watched you as you dozed on and off. You were sprawled onto the bed, starfishing, and had a dopey smile on your face. You were so beautifully blessed out, James felt proud. His eyes roamed all the marks and bruises he left on your gorgeous body: Bite marks, handprints, nails… They looked incredible.

“Damn,” he heard you whisper. You giggled. You sounded drunk, but it wasn’t because of the booze you consumed earlier, it was all sex. “This was the best fuck I’ve ever had,” you said, grinning. James just hummed. Lifting himself on his strong legs, he walked over to his small bag. He opened it.

His clip point bowie knife was winking at him cheekily in his bag, and James smiled. He grabbed it gently. Fingertips running over the sharp and smooth edge of it, James sighed. This knife had served him so well over the years, it became his lucky charm and his go-to. Tonight, it was going to serve him once more.

“Are you still there?” You murmured, head lifting tiredly. “Or have I been talkin’ to myself all alon’?” You chuckled.

“’m here,” James whispered. You hummed, head falling onto the pillow. He walked over to your tired and used body. Your eyes were closed, but you had a happy smile on your face. James stroked your cheek as he mounted you.

“Mmm,” you protested lightly. “You wore me out. Can’t go again.”

“I don’t want you to,” James whispered, licking his lips hungrily. His pupils dilated with the anticipation. His hand moved to your hair from your cheek and he stroked it, too. You purred. James grinned. He looked like a mad man with a grin like that, he was aware, but this was his favorite moment.

He fisted his hand into your hair, yanking you half-upright. Without letting you understand what was happening, he ran the knife along your throat. A clean, deep cut. He heard your gurgled breath, watched the blood pouring out.

James smiled at your half shocked and half blessed face as he watched the blood pouring out of your body and pet your hair all the while. He could feel the relief filling his body already. He sighed deeply, relishing the feeling.

He loved his cleansing nights.

He loved watching them fading out.

It was why he was created.

──

Another body was found exactly a month later after the last one.

Despite the undisturbed look in general, he could see couple bruises peeking under the clothing that wrapped her body innocently. Rogers knew what he was going to find when he dug a little deeper. He knew how all the bruises the killer left behind was going to look like. He also knew that the forensics was going to say she was most likely got raped, but it wasn’t true.

Rogers had been working on this killer’s case for some time, now. He had seen cases of his killings enough to know that he cared about consent. The bruises, damage on genital parts on the bodies were all asked for. Rogers felt like he knew the killer like a best friend with how much personality to put into his… craft.

He would watch them first, seized his options. That was how he’d choose his next victim, most of the time. Then, he’d approach them, make small talk maybe, and charm them right away. It was a funny and humiliating fact that they had no visuals about the killer; no one seemed to saw his face, or remembered it. Rogers figured he must at least have a decent enough face to charm the women the way he did. Then, he’d take them to one of the rooms in the motel nearby. He’d get his pleasure, satisfy himself, and then. Then, he’d get to work.

This one, the body in front of him, was definitely his work.

The scene Rogers was facing was weirdly peaceful. It was by a lake with lots of willow trees surrounding it. It was almost 5AM in the morning; the cool breeze of the night was even sharper now. There was no noise, only owls making soft cooing sounds. The darkness of the sky was the darkest before the sun peeked through its black curtains.

However, Rogers was not there for the scenery. Not that kind, at least.

She was standing by one of the willow trees. Her body was positioned in such way that it looked like she was just leaning against the tree and watching the view in front of her. It might have looked normal, like nothing was wrong if she was wearing a coat or something, but she wasn’t. The white dress she had on was beautiful. It was simple, no designs or anything. The dress had long sleeves; the fabric was covering her chest up to her neck/shoulder joint and the skirt part of it was reaching to her ankles. She had matching flats on her feet. The skirt was only allowing Rogers to have very small peek of her skin.

Her hair looked clean when he came closer. It was up in a half-braid, thrown over her right shoulder. Her hands were clasped in front of her in a submissive way, her fingers were laced together. She had an also white, silk scarf covering her neck. Simple silver earrings were put, she looked really beautiful.

Her face, however, was the creepiest part.

It looked almost alive; she had a serene look on her face, a faint smile on her lips and the look in her eyes were soft. She really looked like she was watching the view, but she was dead. Her skin looked undisturbed, but Rogers knew that if he were to rip the dress off, he’d find her genital organs all mangled. He would also find all the bruises that this elegant dress was perfectly covering up.

“Same guy?” Wilson asked as he approached Rogers. He nodded. His blue eyes were inspecting the girl’s body carefully. “These poor girls,” Wilson sighed. “What is he trying to do, I don’t get it.”

Rogers knew what he was trying to do.

“He’s stopping them from sinning ever again,” he murmured as he eyed the note where the killer pinned the note. It was sitting right over her heart innocently, an elegant hand writing was smiling at him gently on the cream-colored paper. One sentence was striking, but he could see more things were written on the small paper. It was that one sentence that was haunting him in his nightmares. Rogers counted exactly seven drops of blood on the paper. One of the drops was darker than the other: It was the third one.

“Does that mean anything?” Wilson frowned. He was new to this case, so he didn’t know the meanings of the small details the killer loved to leave behind.

“Yeah. Seven drops. Seven deadly sins. Third drop is darker than the others which indicate which sin she had died from.”

“Which is?”

As he answered Wilson, Rogers sighed deeply.

“Lust.”

𝙸𝙵 𝚈𝙾𝚄'𝚁𝙴 𝚁𝙴𝙰𝙳𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝚃𝙷𝙸𝚂, 𝙸'𝙼 𝙳𝙴𝙰𝙳...

#bucky barnes x reader #dark!bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes imagines #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes angst #bucky barnes blurbs #bucky barnes x you #bucky x you #serialkiller!bucky #welcome to highway 63 #dark fic #fade out

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hermitcraftheadcanons · 3 years

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Hermitopia AU Masterpost 1 [COMPLETE]

This is a gathering place for the events of the Hermitopia AU, as well as art and writing resulting from it (art and writing listed at the bottom). Please read the AU introduction and rules here before submitting! Feel free to join the discussions on the HCHC discord server!

(Disclaimer/PSA: All points are asks contributed by the community, the mods take no credit for the ideas within them)

If you would like specific credit in the masterpost, please sign within the text of the ask! (A dash and a signature at the end should do.) Asks not signed will be treated as anonymous.

Summary posts:

Not all elements of plot and character will be summarized, but here are a few basic things you may want to be familiar with before submitting an ask! (Unless you are purposely aiming to create an [ALTERNATE] idea for a Hermit)

1 - Starting positions and each Hermit's powers (based on the submissions from Day 1)

Summary post 2 - Interpersonal connections (based on Day 1 and 2 submissions)

Make sure to check out the second masterpost here for more up to date information, including newer art and writing!

Asks:

- (copied ask) [summarized mod comment]

- Hermitopia | Scar was experimented on by Cub. He gained dangerous powers and wings that resemble a dragon’s, but he keeps both hidden. Unless someone makes him angry. He has no idea who gave him his powers. Eventually he and Cub decided that they wanted to control things beyond their corporation, so Scar ran for mayor. (there are things to fill in but im lazy) [Scar assumes he got the powers in an accident during research. He enjoys having them but has no idea that they were intentional.]

- Hermitopia AU team ZIT is a superpowered crime-fighting trio!

- owing to a very particular set of guidelines he put in place, Joe can now copy powers if he sees them in use and can reverse-engineer how those powers are used. needless to say, this is massively overpowered in the right hands.but it got worse. at some point, there was an... incident... on ConCorp grounds, something to do with a mass amount of entities causing time dilation -- and Joe was caught in the thick of it, unable to be rescued for a while.the problem is, he got out by piecing together how the time dilation worked.needless to say, Joe... has a ridiculous powerset. so he chooses largely not to use his powers anymore unless it's absolutely dire or petty enough to shrug off as a random occurrence. nobody needs to know that one of the most powerful Unaffiliated in the city is standing right in front of them... especially not ConCorp.

- doc was a former high ranking employee of concorp before he volunteered for an experiment and it went horribly wrong. since then, the company has tried to erase any evidence of his existence. doc is now seeking revenge for all that the company did to him and is determined to tear it apart

- HI ok follow up asks will be sent later when my thoughts are coherent but concept: cleo has like super messed up healing powers where she can make healing go Too Far. also i pin her as unbound, considering, like, everything - shovel-shuffle

- So, his power was meant to be super-regen, right? except things don't always quite go to plan. Someone volunteered for the powers surgeries and is arguably dead. Etho is a name shared by the many many clones that developed themselves out of the leftovers. They're not quite individuals, not quite a hivemind. Any one of them has no fear of death because the others will continue, but they all act independently around their overarching goal. (which I won't snitch about) - DragonKay

- Bdubs was a hero. Key word? Was. He climbed the ranks through the government, he was a loyal and dutiful member of society, and he used his plant manipulation powers to subdue evil-doers without hurting them. But he’s always been a friendly guy, and he couldn’t help himself—talking to the Unrestrained, especially those in custody, was interesting! ...but it’s a slippery slope to walk, being friendly with the enemy and not sympathizing to their cause. Nobody knows where he is now, but there are rumours of a vigilante with similar abilities, and his three compatriots, two of whom he helped escape from ConCorp... They call themselves the nHo. - slimetek [Bdubs deserted Concorp while helping Doc escape after his experiment went wrong]

- Concorp managed to make a device that allows animals to speak or translate their thoughts into writing. This means that the good old mayor Scar has a certain cat giving some advice on how to run the city.

- Iskall is an assasin/mercenary against their own volition. An accident they'd rather forget almost killed them, and in exchange for their freedom and free will they got to live as a cyborg. Though its hard to forget with the implant that covers their eye and the limb of cool metal hanging at their side - @ghastly-ghostie [Iskall works for Concorp off-books, bound by the debt owed to them for the life saving experimental modifications]

- so I think grians original powers could be like cloning, but something goes wrong and the clones are different people. as a result of the duplication process, some funky magic rocks are made. the clones decide to take most of the funky rocks and run off, leaving grian with one rock that gives him some new abilities and the clones' rocks give him others. also uhh mechanical wings bc yes. so grians plot is him trying to find them while also causing problems on purpose. infinity stones. update to my grian ask from earlier, I had better ideas: the rocks are old like magic things that grian finds before the cloning and ends up collecting, but his clones snatch them - simplyskipper [some of the alternate Grians are aligned with different factions in Hermitopia, while the locations of others are farther or unknown]

- Hermitopia- Impulse has solid-light powers. He has golden crystals implanted in his hands, which he can reflect light through to solidify it into all sorts of shapes. This can be used to make barriers, projectiles, and much more, though more detailed constructs take more time.- @mleemwyvern

- Hermitopia AU Poultry man is a well-known chaotic neutral leaning towards good, as a one of the unrestrained.

- I think Team ZIT should be a little be wild card-y, that's how they act after all! [they are employed by the government for standard crimefighting, but they don't always take Scar's word at its intended meaning and often play a bit on the chaotic side when given instructions]

- [Hermitopia AU] False is an antihero/vigilante type who's specialty is not defined by powers or the such, but just... the absolute skill of being able to dual wield two (more sci-fi era) short swords. Maybe someone upgrades them to be "enchanted" (electrical, fire, etc. something that tech could do well probably). She's willing to be paid-for-hire, but if you go past her moral line she's also willin' to backstab you. -- @cheshire-vex [she's a free agent who sort of drifts between Concorp, the government, and whoever else will pay her on a job-by-job basis]

- Hermitopia impulse has more connections then one may think. He has ties to people pretty much everywhere, for reasons unknown. There is a 100% someone will come and greet him wherever he goes. [the greetings are usually friendly]

- Hermitopia Au! Keralis is a hero who most people wouldn't expect to be too skilled at fighting. His power is similar to hypnosis so he has no need to get very physical. Yeah, that changed when some bastard villain decided to attack his friends shop. [that incident caused his employer Scar to realize his untapped potential for protecting people and assign him to a few more high-stakes jobs]

- Hermittopia!TFC was one of ConCorp’s first experiments and as such his powers are a bit less...refined then the others. He has geokinetic powers, allowing him to psychically control rocks and other earthen materials. He used to be one of the VEX programs top graduates, but has since parted ways with them for unknown reasons and now operates his own plans of keep crime in Hermitopia under control. -lechairpourriedegrianri [he is considered Unaffiliated and both Concorp and the government largely leave him to his own devices, since he is helping to keep the city together]

-Wels doesn't have powers. He does have a super-suit made of fire and heat resistant carbon fibre (like the material used for the space shuttle) and has a built in hologram projector. One time, he used the hologram projector to project an image of himself, which everyone thought was a clone. He didn't have the heart to tell them otherwise. (AKA everyone thinks Wels has powers but he doesn't) -Silverwolf53 [he got the suit in Project VEX]

- To follow up on the Impulse ask- Team ZIT are a space-themed superhero team. Government-aligned, at least for now.Tango has meteor-like powers, he can shoot fire from his hands and feet and often uses this to propel himself at high speeds. Zed has gravity powers! He can increase or decrease the density of any object, to the point of making small black holes. They all have space-themed costumes, and it was probably Zed's idea. - @mleemwyvern

- TFC was the first participant in project VEX

- Grian was an attempted success. It fixed some problems with Etho's unintended cloning, but at the same time created some problems of its own, seeing as the clones appeared to have a life of their own.It's fine, though. It's probably fine

- I would say Grian is unrestrained, a bit like Etho, Chaotic in his own way. Does not activily Try to hurt people, but does mostly what he wants for fun.-Ciara

- Xisuma is a civilian- he has hero friends, but despite all their teasing he’s never wanted to go through VEX training. But in the night, the unrestrained Void walks the streets [Void is a symbiotic creature made of nothingness that uses Xisuma's body as a substitute physical form]

- Bdubs was such a good man... he could be trusted to look after Doc, couldn’t he? Somebody had to oversee him, somebody who was reliable and would never, ever consider betraying the mayor and ConCorp...They let their guard down, and Bdubs got curious. Bdubs made a friend.And then they lost him.- Slimetek

- The hels hermits are considered evil by default. How do you spot these clones, how could you protect yourself? Well in the past it was a lot easier, just look for their red eyesNowadays contacts exist but that doesn't stop people trying to call the police on tango, calling him a hels. Hes netherian, they have unnatural eye colours and their iris fills the entire eye, hes not evil but if people keep doing this hes gonna be!

- Beef woke up from his brain surgery to receive telepathy powers, took one look into the mind of the overseer, and noped put of there as fast as he could go.He's on very public record. After all, the mind control he may be capable of is a very convenient explanation for anyone who turns against concorp... ~DragonKay

- Hypno can’t control minds.They say he does. It’s why he’s named Hypno, after all.In reality, he can’t control people like that... but he can control what they see.Your best friend might look like your greatest enemy. A pit of lava might look like solid ground. A 100-foot drop might look like a step down.It’s a good thing he’s a hero, and a good thing he keeps his true powers hidden beneath a guise of low-level hypnotism. There’s no telling what he could do if they let him go. [he works for Concorp, helping to protect VEX trainees from people trying to harm them before they get a chance to finish the program, as well as keeping other resources safe]

- The 9th Street Incident [referring to an earlier Impulse comment] was a friendly greeting. That particular version of Etho just thought that drawing weapons would be a friendly greeting for Impulse, but Tango and Zed seem to disagree

- They still don’t trust Bdubs. He was with the government for a long time, and things are hard out there on the run. Besides, they don’t know what he got up to there. ConCorp could have any sort of information on him, something that might scare him back.Bdubs understands this. He doesn’t want to go back. He’d hate to go back....but they think he will, and maybe there’s something he’s not telling them. An ace that ConCorp has yet to play.- Slimetek

- Mumbo works for concorp as an engineer specialising in robotics, most recently taking on the task of maintaining Iskall's cybernetics that somehow they just keep damaging. Iskall assures him they're just.. very clumsy. So far Mumbo hasn't caught on.

- Ren's power is that hes a werewolf, but he only found out when he was in his late teens with his childhood friend Iskall. He still feels guilty about it, he did kill his best friend afterall. Or so he thinks.He's lived off grid ever since, too overwhelmed with grief and guilt to rejoin society. Most assume he's dead too - @ghastly-ghostie [Ren dropped Iskall off to Concorp as a last ditch effort, running away before he could see whether they took his friend in or not. They did, starting Iskall's plotline. Iskall told Concorp about Ren's abilities, triggering a panic in the Concorp ranks at the fact that Ren is a superhuman being created by some force other than their own project]

- Where does Void come from? The same place all powers come from.Little did they know, something survived the crash and has taken a human host. Maybe it's not the only one...No, that place is not Concorp. Concorp's original goal was to develop technology by reverse-engineering from a crashed alien spaceship. These aliens did gene-editing the way some people do nose jobs, so they adapted that technology, too.~DragonKay

- i've already said a bit about it in the discord but i have hermitopia cleo brainrot. joe being there was able to save her by giving her the regen powers along with her puppeteering telekinesis power. anyways cleo is presumed dead, sent by concorp into a mission as fodder basically until zit could arrive. but now there's is one (1) bitter undead vigilante against concorp that is presumed dead

- Stress’s name has a few meanings in relation to her. Whenever she gets too angry or /stressed/, she transforms into the StressMonster, a monster that feeds off of other people’s stress to become more powerful. Luckily, the monster is rarely seen, but does terrible things when she is. She’s one of the most feared creatures in Hermitopia. Stress hates her and tries her best to hide her from her friends, but it can backfire sometimes. - @guster-animations

- to follow-up on Joe being presumed dead: remember the time dilation incident he was stuck in? ConCorp figured it was best to cut their losses and not try to send anyone in to rescue him -- it would be a pointless mission. so they abandoned him, quietly announced that he had died in the line of duty, and put the affected area under high security clearance in order to prevent any future accidents. they figured he was already dead. and Joe figures, given that they up and abandoned him, maybe it's for the best that they continue to figure just that. he changed his last name to "Hills" -- a joke about the biome containing the time anomaly -- and otherwise proceeded to stay under the radar. he still uses the time dilation area as a base of operations, sometimes; it's very useful to have a hideout that people physically cannot get into/out of without his direct assistance. is he nursing a grudge, coming up with some convoluted scheme to get back at the paramilitary group for abandoning him? or does he just want to live a relatively normal life off the grid? who knows. that's the Joe [REDACTED] Hills difference. -@betweenlands

- False has some big scary power that is almost Eldritch she just happens to prefer a sword and doesn’t really care for who she works for as long as they’re paying... (they don’t need to know of the power that had harmed the ones she loves the most)

- Keralis once encountered Void sulking around where Xisuma worked. So fearful for his friend’s safety, he used his power on Void and told him to go away. Apparently the charm is still active, because if Void spots Keralis anywhere, he’ll turn tail and run. No, it’s not because he’s scared. Absolutely not.

- Grumbot serves as a sentient supercomputer created by Mumbo for Grian. Grian is using Grumbot for... various activities, all of which harmless, but a certain evil clone [Helsknight] has reverse engineered the technology. Concorp would like for Mumbo to give them the tech, but mumbo stuck some eyes to the computer, got emotionally attached, and refuses to give up his baby boy.

- When Impulse hears his friend/colleague Bdubs has been "taken over" by the mind-controller [Beef], he wants to go on an off-the-books mission to rescue him! Just giving up like they were told to isn't in his nature.Of course the rest of ZIT are with him. Heroes save people! It's what they do!~DragonKay

- Hermitopia is a mixture of sleek futuristic and cyberpunk in terms of style. It really depends on where you live and work (ik this doesnt include any hermits but whatever) - @ghastly-ghostie

- I wonder if Cleo's overactive healing powers affect herself and if any injuries she receives immediately heal over like wolverine or deadpool

- Ren used to be friends with Cleo too, but then she died. Strangely enough, she died on the same day that Ren killed Iskall. Ren’s lost all his friends. It’s hard living in isolation when there’s no one left that even cares about you. (Unless— no, that’s impossible.)

- I was thinking about Biffa, like you do. And Biffa would totally be some robot that was created by Project VEX in its early stages, however they realised fast that it was easier to use humans and give them powers, maybe its not their strong suit with robots. But Biff went sentient and glitched and was scrapped so hes just out there doing his thing. Hes a wildcard and plays for which side he wants at the time, sometimes he'll help or sometimes hes the one causing trouble. He looks pretty similar to a android like in Detroit:Become human but hes a bit uncanny and eerie, maybe its the eyes or the blood red armour. Powerwise, he's got more strength than a human does, mainly because he isn't limited like others are. try not to get punched by him, it'll hurt! [He's convinced Concorp will destroy him if they find out he's alive and Unaffiliated] -lucodak

- Going off of my thing about hermotopia impulse having friends everywhere....this may include the nho. Okay, they beat him to a pulp on one of his solo patrols once, but theey felt bad n patched him up! He has to keep it a secret. He brings them dinner alot. And checks in on them.

- Beef is the perfect cover-up for Bdubs’ desertion. ConCorp doesn’t want any other employees getting bright ideas, now, do they? Nor do they want employees getting nosy and trying to figure out where Bdubs went. They don’t have to tell people what Beef’s powers are. They just release that he developed powers after brain surgery, and a rumour that he was spotted lurking around before Bdubs suddenly betrayed ConCorp... and people draw their own conclusions. -Slimetek

- xB is pretty sure he’s supposed to be evil.I mean, that’s what sentient AIs usually end up being, according to a quick internet search. And yet he’s... not. Or maybe he’s just on the wrong side. - Slimetek

- Yes impulse is friends with the nho....what he doesn't know? He's....easily susceptible to hypnosis. Very easily.......Of course, after impulse is basically a very tired n warm cuddle bug, so, cuddle piles tend to happen after all information is spilled. He must've fallen asleep at their apartment again! Whoops! But it's okay.....they take good care of him if he does! [Beef is using his mind reading ability on Impulse without his knowledge, to make sure that he hasn't spilled their location and to predict the government's next moves. He feels slightly bad about it but feels that it is necessary for the nHo's survival.]

- So far, Grian has only ever encountered two of his clones, NPC Grian and Robot Grian. Technically three, if one were to count Ariana Griande. Grian doesn't really, but some do. [Ariana Griande is a popular musician in Hermitopia who is building a career using the magical stone of voice enhancement she recieved through the cloning process]

- To handle the two Grumbot issue: the one working with Helsknight can be Jrumbot, a legion of robot drones meant to work as Grumbot’s physical form that ended up being hijacked by Helsknight and turned against ConCorp

- There...aren’t a lot of “normal” animals left in Hermittopia. ConCorp took one look at the animals populating the city and decided that, hey, they could make some improvements. Species after species, they modified their behavior, appearance, internal structure, whatever they could fix, tweak, or add. They were just improving their lives and the lives of the citizens of Hermittopia, after all, but the new animals quickly outcompeted the old for resources and habitats. And if it makes it easier for ConCorp to stick a camera in one or two of them, or set up robotic animals to keep a better eye on the city, no harm, no foul, right?(Bonus: there is one (1) singular cat left in Hermittopia, resulting in a spy movie-style heist where two teams of Hermits attempt to “rescue” the cat simultaneously. The cat keeps wandering away from both teams. Shenanigans ensue)- Adonis [the cat is Jellie, who orchestrated the competition between Team ZIT and Cleo and Joe for her own entertainment, getting away from both parties in the end]

- The Leak:Not all mutations are the result of controlled experiments! If some alien tech got away from the crash site, concorp never would have picked it up. It might have got into nature, not as refined as they made it in the labs but causing little changes here and there. Ren may have become a werewolf from being bitten by a mutant wolf~DragonKay

- Impulse is able to use his powers to create illusions or male things appear invisible! Sort of. After all, light dictates what we see. It takes a lot of focus, though, so it's not that practical. -@rayveewrites

- The one thing Hels wasn't able to steal was the cloning technology, hence his hostility with Concorp -- he needs the cloning device, because how else is the void going to get a body of their own? - SilverWolf53

- *glances at the hermitopia werewolf ask* okay but what if the same mystery people who made ren into a werewolf also created jevin, and maybe Etho? idk if either of them have been given any hermitopia headcanons yet lol. but im sure the same people who made a werewolf could make a sentient slime (or perhaps rescue one) or make... whatever etho is. [Since the "second organization" is an incorrect assumption believed by Concorp, Jevin was created when he came in contact with a waterway contaminated by The Leak. Concorp assumes he was created by an opposing organization and not by accident, and therefore would like to bring him in along with Ren.]

- hermitopia - mumbo and grian were friends back when cloning experiments were still happening (or . as friendly as you can be with someone who's treating you like a lab rat), but after everything went wrong and grian escaped, mumbo has his memories wiped nd thats why he's trusted w iskall's stuff? bc he inherently remembers working on high-level things without knowing where he learnt it - muscle memory, yk?anyway massive angst with grian maybe recognising mumbo, but not the other way round, and trying to rekindle their friendship? and that's where grumbot comes in? -gin [Mumbo's memory was wiped so that he would forget the deadly purpose of Iskall's cybernetics, which he was working on at the same time as the Grian project in the background. Mumbo does not remember creating Grian's mechanical wings or Iskall's arm and eye, and he has no memory of either individual previous to "meeting" Iskall as the person assigned to his repair and upkeep.]

- Etho doesn't so much have powers as he is powers. All the powers the ‘original’ had went into creating him; now he just exists, as whatever sort of being he is. Not a human one, that much is obvious. ~DragonKay [Etho has no powers beyond the hivemind and his training, due to the error in the experiment that caused the clones]

- Mumbo started the button as a joke. A nonsense social expirement to see how much people want worthless signs of status. Unfortunately things got out of hand, and violent too. But hey! It's not his fault that the five special anomalous stones were misplaced into the prize dispenser! It was just chance that they fell into the hands of the clone of the worst gremlin in the city! Don't fire him! [He was not fired, but Cub was Decidedly Unhappy with him for a good long while]

- Void mostly trashes ConCorp facilities- trying to figure out if any of his siblings survived the spaceship crash, but occasionally he’ll pilfer from a bakery, because X is a health nut and Void just wants a gods damned cookie [Void very much dislikes unseasoned chicken]

- If the Stress Monster gets too big, too dangerous, Cleo is sworn under oath to Stress to zap her with her healing powers. Cleo doesn’t like to do it, overhealing a stressed Stress makes her so calm she gets knocked out for a couple of days, but Stress can take a small comfort in the fact that at least one person out there can stop her

- Ooh with the self healing Cleo she'd be able to develop a small amount of super strength, with how the mind keeps from going full throttle because it would destroy the body once she gets over it it's hysterical strength whenever she wants [it is quite painful, but a good backup plan]

- Being a hive mind of disposable clones that can spawn new copies at will, it can sometimes be hard for the Etho Entity to remember that it is indeed a big deal for other people when they get hurt. This can make him come off as callous to those around him, placing him firmly in the "villain" category in most citizen's books, but he really doesn't intend any harm!

- Grian used to be tall, but then the cloning happened. With each clone they stole a little bit of his height making him the short man he is today. He needs to capture those clones and get his height back. [Grian isn't entirely sure how to accomplish this, but he's dead set on trying! He misses being tall!]

- While Grian was perfectly fine with Ariana Griande living her own life, he did insist on one thing.Her "older brother" getting backstage access whenever she was on tour. He's very proud and supportive of her and her music career.

- Mumbo is perfectly content working in tech, watching the other hermits get up to crazy shenanigans. Except of course, there was that one time he was out testing some new gear and accidentally saved a crowd from some villains... and there were all those times after too...But hey! It’s not his fault that people like him, and he certainly isn’t going to get caught by Concorp during his after hours activities. [Mumbo considers himself an accidental hobbyist, not thinking he has the nerve or the skill for proper hero work. Time will tell if he's right about that or not...but unfortunately, he probably is. This should be fun.]

- There’s still some people overseeing VEX, even over Cub. They’re the ones that push Cub to do certain experiments or to scrap one. They’re the ones to give Cub the decision for Iskall’s life debt. Scar was under them too for the longest time, but eventually he wanted out. Cub still wanted in. They were still in the right, right? That’s what they tell him. He’s starting to doubt it. [Cub is way too invested in everything he's built to even think about going rogue now, but he does resent and occasionally question the judgement of his superiors increasingly as his project begins to fail more and more often. He also fears that Scar's shift in career will be seen as a betrayal, rather than as a tactical attempt to gain the company influence in the government.]

- Been thinking about the impulse + nho asks and just,,, what would happen if concorp/the government found out? It cant be good with interrogation/hypnosis on both sides (incase you cant tell,, the brainrot got me as well) (apologies if this is a mess im excited) [Hypno is assigned to set up an illusionary conversation to make Impulse reveal nHo location to Concorp and government agents while thinking that he's actually talking to the nHo in a random encounter]

- The one mind Beef can't read is Etho's. Their hivemind is just too weird for him to comprehend. If he ever tries to listen in, it sounds like just a bunch of static from an old TV.

- for hermitopia au!: Out of most of the heros, the most reckless may be team zit. sure they tell themselves they'll plan out missions but it's hard when they share a braincell and tango just runs in. impulse and zed share a look everytime and have to run after him to make sure he doesn't get too hurt or overwhelmed by the enemy. in their defence its hard to plan ahead against an enemy when you dont know what they are thinking.-lucodak ["You might not have known what they were thinking, Tango, but we'd generally like you to know what you're thinking!"]

- i bet ConCorp really wants to make it out like theres some secret shady organization creating all these people with mutations, rather than their own operatives deserting and their own failure to contain dangerous chemicals... whether its malicious coverups or just ignorance to the fact they messed up, wonder what would happen if that sort of thing came to light...? [If they found out that the unintentional superhumans were a result of the poorly-contained crash site? Cub would lose his job...maybe worse. If Cub found out (and he hasn't, yet) he would do everything in his power to keep that information from his superiors.]

- (paraphrased) Impulse accidentally walks in on heroes and agents breaking down the doors of the nHo's hideout and confronting them. Scar claims that they did so on information Impulse himself provided and thanks him for his service. Impulse, feeling confused and betrayed, resists Hypno's attempts to illusion him back to Scar's side and flees the scene with the nHo, knowing very little other than the fact that he doesn't want to be manipulated by the government any more (and still not knowing that Beef has been reading his mind)

- Impulse may have been labeled a traitor. But do you really think that Impulse, secret rebel, starting to learn how dangerous and corrupted Concorp really is, wouldn't let his best friends know about the danger they might be in? I think Team ZIT is more loyal to each other than to the government. - @mleemwyvern [ Impulse's first stop after escaping with the nHo is to find a place to secretly meet Tango and Zedaph and tell them about the way he was tricked. It takes a lot of explaining and a lot of trust, but they eventually decide to believe his claims and are left with a choice: will they openly go rogue and become a target along with Impulse and the rest of the nHo, or are they better off using their established image and reputation to keep an eye on the government heros' movements from the inside?]

- (two asks combined, paraphrased) Ren runs out of supplies and decides to head back into the city, confident in his ability to stay off the grid after so many years of experience and such a long time away. Once there, he runs into Doc, and they hit it off quite quickly. However, the more Ren talks the more Doc realizes - with his ex-Concorp knowledge - that Ren matches the description of Iskall's main target exactly. He warns Ren, who is then faced with the knowledge that Iskall is alive and assigned to kill him...so many questions and so many tears to follow...

- Why did Hermitopia start needing heroes? When the Unrestrained started to appear, if course. Why did the Unrestrained start to appear? A question asked a little less. When did the VEX program start? When did they start taking more risks? When did they stop caring about certainty and safety and shift towards trying to push boundaries they weren't ready to? People can be so enamoured with the concept of superhuman abilities, something bright and glorious and good- and perhaps they could have that too- they don't ask all the right questions. It's all an elaborate game of damage control, don't let the flashy heroics fool you, they've made mistakes, terrible, terrible mistakes, and now there are villains running loose with powers they fooled ConCorp into giving them. Are they villains? Are they victims? Does it matter? They're causing problems. [Project VEX has developed into a solution to its own problems, a self perpetuating cycle...one that Cub, as a businessman, is very familiar with. It's what keeps the wheels of industry turning. It's what keeps innovation creeping forward. It wasn't intentional, not this time...but if it keeps his project alive, he'll take it.]

- One time, Jevin had narrowly dodged being captured by Concorp. He was laying low in the forest out of town, when he had a run-in with some sort of wolf creature. Thankfully, claws and teeth couldn't exactly hurt him anymore, so he just played dead until it gave up.When the moon set, the wolf-thing slowly transformed into a human being. Ren was horrified at the thought he'd lost control and hurt someone- again- but Jevin assured him he was fine. Jevin got the feeling that the werewolf needed a friend, and Jevin himself needed a place to stay for a while... -RayveeWrites [Ren and Jevin are not currently in the same location, but they each have a means of contacting each other for help if needed]

- Worm Man wasn't a well- known super, but plenty of people have noticed that he seemed to vanish at the same time Team ZIT first started active duty. Those people have also noticed that one of the members has a very similar power set to WM.Officially, that's just a coincidence. Officially.-RayveeWrites [Zedaph was trying to get some unofficial practice while still in training in the VEX program]

- A common misconception is that Bdubs conjures up his vines from nowhere. He can't.Like any plant, his vines grow from seeds. They grow unnaturally fast, when Bdubs wills it, but they have to come from seeds. Where do these seeds come from, you may ask?Well, a long time ago, Bdubs ingested some strange fruits. Somehow, in wild defiance of human biology, the seeds contained in those fruits worked their way into his muscles and germinated. Some of the roots worked their way into his brain and fused into it; the rest spread through his muscles, grew beneath his skin, coiled around his bones. Thanks to the way the vines connected to his brain, Bdubs is able to command the vines, and their magic, at will.The vines produce seeds; some stay in his body to replace the old ones when they die, and most work their way into a pair of 'seed pods' in his wrists. Bdubs provides the nutrients, the energy; the vines provide the seeds, the magic. As an extra bonus: if the vines were to be totally removed from Bdubs' body, he would be at best extremely weak, and at worst dead. The vines have grown into his muscles, to the point where they've essentially replaced them in some areas. It's fortunate that they connected with his mind so early on, otherwise he'd be dead. -RayveeWrites [Concorp developed the fruit, and the fact that Bdubs is evidence of the unlikely success of that experiment makes them all the more angry at his betrayal]

- A lot of excellent xB information (it's too long to copy but please read it it's very good)

- Iskall has exactly one (1) failed assignment. That assignment? The kill or capture of Stress. Stress and Iskall have been, or should it be were now, friends for a very long time, since before Iskall even met Ren. So one can imagine the stress this causes Iskall, to be told to kill his one remaining friend that he knows is alive. Of course, this stress is quite enough to to Stress's Stress Monster into one it's strongest yet seen forms, allowing for Stress to then get away. (1/2)(2/2) Of course, Con Corp doesn't- and can never- know the true reason that Iskall cannot kill or capture Stress. If they knew, if they subjected Stress to the same hell he's in- no, that cannot happen. So Iskall hires False to protect Stress, to interfere whenever they send him on a mission for her. Luckily, False is good at keeping secrets when she wants to, and this one she'll keep. But as far as Con Corp knows, Iskall has severe stress and trauma from being a cyborg, and that's why he fails. [This all adds up to a monumental waste of Concorp's time and money, which also results in False getting payed, so all parties involved are happy except for Concorp >:)]

- Impulse would take a bullet for his teammates, and he knows they might be about to take one for him, keeping him updated on what's going on government side of this... slander. Still, Tango and Zed are great actors, and if he didn't know better, he might be a little worried they would *actually* be hunting him down in the name of justice [Tango and Zed are now being sent on missions to retrieve Impulse, which they must pretend to lose believably. They occasionally overestimate their friend's abilities and give him a few more close calls than he'd like, but overall the ruse is holding up.]

Writing:

- Wels, Hels, TFC, and Grumbot

- Bdubs Concorp promotion and desertion

- Joe Hills in his time dilation hideout

- Etho clones, ZIT, and the nHo

- Keralis and Void

- [ALTERNATE] Reveal of Impulse's situation with the nHo

Art:

- Impulse suit design

#hermitcraft #hermitblr #hcraft #Hermitopia AU #masterpost #long post #mod Shade

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celamoon · 3 years

Text

There’s so many Saiki x reader fics that I wanna write but I don’t have the time for it and UGH I’ll just toss them all here in hopes that I’ll actually write it one day.

Reminder to self: Italics - Means alternatively and not part of regular script

1. Spooning - Hurt/comfort (My mommy and daddy issues are showing LMAO)

Saiki spoons you whenever you get into a fight with your parents. He doesn't have demanding parents like you do but he tries his best to help you out. So he settles for holding you close to himself even though he hates physical contact, and he settles for drawing little shapes on your back while you cry into his chest. He hates skin-to-skin contact with just about everyone, but for some reason, he can't bring himself to push you away. He lets you rest on his chest until your quiet sobs are nothing more than soft snores, and he helps you wipe a piece of hair away. When he's sure you've fallen asleep, he lets himself close his eyes. You wake up the next morning, still in his arms, close to his chest.

2. My Sunshine - Hurt/No comfort, Major character death

Every time 'you are my sunshine' comes on Kusuo's playlist he feels his heart break little by little. because years ago you used to sing it to him before he reset the earth back by one year. The first words of the year to him were always 'you are my sunshine', you always smiled at him as if the year didn't reset again, and you always sang the song on the way to school. His only regret was not realizing that you were throwing up petals sooner, and not confessing to you before you let yourself wither away. Now all Kusuo has left for himself is a short voice message you sent him years ago to soothe him to sleep.

3. Sweet Melody - Player au (OOC from canon)

Saiki’s one of the most notorious players in the school, he even dumped Teruhashi after dating her for a month or so. After losing a bet to one of your friends, you become hell bent on playing the player. You successfully lure him in, and eventually you two start dating. The only issue is that you can’t seem to play him the more you get to know about him. Turns out it was the same case as before, he only pretended to open up to you and kept everything important to himself. He plans to breaks up with you in front of the school like always only to find out that you had dug deeper than he intended and had more than enough dirt on him. He tethers between actually dating you and only pretending to date you before he decides upon breaking up with you for the better.

4. Good in Goodbye - Exes Au (Reader's side)

Saiki broke up with you as planned in Sweet Melody so you write a song reminding him of all the dirt you have on him. Your goal isn’t to break his heart anymore, it’s to remind him of all the people he’s hurt. You fell for him hard, much harder than planned, so you decide to toss everything into a song that blew you up. You two meet up at a modelling gig years later after you find out that Saiki’s your photographer. He’s changed, but so have you.

5. All Time Low - Exes Au (Kusuo's side)

Saiki's side of the break up. Seeing your ex in your class every day is hard, but being unable to move on hurts more. Especially since third year has just ended and college is laying ahead. Stuck brooding over his feelings for you, Saiki decides to become a photographer in hopes to have you as his model and muse one day. The universe proves to be on his side this time, especially since you were his next model. He wants to reconcile what you once had, but you seem to have other plans.

6. Better than Revenge - Player Au (Again)

Saiki breaks up with you after Teruhashi finally steals him from you. What do you do? Cry over it with ice cream, then do what every good student turned bad does. You play. She breaks your happiness so you teach Teruhashi a very important lesson. No one out-dos you, especially someone like her. She may have a fanbase, but you have something better, you have an army and that army is always ready to throw hands for you regardless of who it is.

7. Talkative - Hurt/comfort

Saiki k angst where he calls you annoying so you completely stop talking and you lock yourself in for a week. Saiki is forced to teleport to your place after you don't show up to school. He finds you sitting in your closet, looking sicker than ever. He bites down on his words and helps nurse you back to health as an apology.

8. Heather - Hurt. ANGST!

You're Saiki's best friend and you watch Saiki fall in love with Teruhashi over the episodes. Third year finally begins, and you watch as Teruhashi's confession runs in success, cheering for the newly formed couple as if you were alright. You start drifting away, and Saiki doesn't seem to care that much. Until you hear that he broke up with Teruhashi and find him in front of your door, eyes brimming with tears with apologies spewing out of his mouth.

9. Fine. - Angst (semi-prologue of My Sunshine {2})

You and Saiki get into a particularly bad argument over him spending time with Teruhashi over the weeks and he accuses you of being clingy and selfish. So you leave the house because he’s being preposterous and you need time to calm down. You and Saiki have never fought like that before. Your vision gets blurry from the tears and you pass out onto the pavement from exhaustion. You wake up in the hospital room and find your boyfriend with dark circles under his eye. He had never been so terrified of losing something. The only issue is that you're not actually awake, and that you've just passed.

10. No u - Psychic! Reader au (Written)

Funny enough the new transfer student isn’t strange. If anything they’re hot as hell and Saiki swears he’s never like this. Things make sense once he realizes the other student is psychic and used mind control to have everyone love them. You find Saiki’s struggle out of your web funny and decide to entertain him. How? By seeing how far you can get with the teasing.

11. (Insert vine) aWw hEll nAww - Soulmate AU

It’s been around 3-4 decades since Saiki was born and so far he hasn’t aged a day past 18 since he never found his soulmate. Y/n finally waltzes into his life one faithful Monday morning and Saiki teleports away instantly because he’s enjoyed not aging and he was not doing this now. Y/n on thé other hand starts to age slowly (so does Saiki but shh) and eventually they decide to track the man down because wHO THstE HELL JUST WALKS OUT FROM THEIR SOULMATE LIKE THAT HUH?? Chaos ensues.

12. Darkened Wishes - Thousand Crane Au

Kusuo left you years ago, so you fold a crane a day for 3 years so that you could wish that he would return to you. What they didn't tell you though, was that for each wish you make a thing of the same value is taken away from the earth. After you make the wish you find out that Kusuo's wife suffered from a miscarriage and passed away. You feel terrible so you hide yourself, but you made the wish, so the cranes won't leave you alone until you fulfill what they granted you. After all, you aren't allowed to back away from a wish you made, they already opened up the path for you anyway.

13. It's Tough to be a god - Corrupt CEO AU

Y/n is the heir to the L/n business empire, one step away from rising to the top. After manipulating her parents out of the line to the top of the business empire and paying her way up positions, they set out to finally secure the position of CEO. Though evil in their ways, they're incredibly good at treating their workers like humans. They lack nothing, except for that final company that they need to buy over.

Saiki Kusuo is the CEO of the Saiki Enterprises. After his brother started a rival company to out-business the Saiki Enterprises, Kusuo's been cautious in whose business contracts he accepts. He receives a contract from the L/n business empire to purchase a branch of the company, and he refuses for security reasons. This ticks off Y/n, who then does everything in their power to destroy Kusuo's company, including seduction and destruction.

(Or alternatively) Kusuo wants nothing to do with that business he's inheriting and sells it off to Y/n, only he accidentally signs off himself too. And now he's in a mess of 'I'm techincally property' and paying the fine of breaking the contract. Lucky for him, it's just one year of 'dating'. Kusuo has never had such a migraine before, but he supposes if he can't destroy you the business way, he should break you down, starting from the heart. He finds that you're an excellent manipulator though, and soon he's the one stuck in your web.

14. Contacts - Scientist! Reader (Written)

Meet Y/n L/n, world's youngest awarded engineer. You hate Kuusuke, but I mean his brother was Lowkey kinda cute-

You're an engineer, an excellent one that is. You created all sorts of devices to help out psychics since you're one yourself. One of them which Kuusuke stole from you when you were 4-5. Some days you wanted to punch him in the face for that. But ignoring all of that, you finally manage to make it into PK Academy and you're absolutely determined to become friends with Kusuo. He tolerates you, maybe even thinks of you as a best friend, but the only issue is that he refuses to wear those contacts that block out his petrifaction powers. The house erupts into chaos as you try to get Kusuo to wear the lenses.

15. Object - Yandere Au

Saiki has a lot of potential to become a yandere. He’d be able to do it so smoothly too! He’d make sure that your love meter is high, ask you out, sweep you off your feet, all while he kills anyone who would even dare to look your way! He’ll even control the world if he has to! After all, his darling can’t have anything other than perfection right? And of course, you’re the entire thing that the new perfectionist modelled after! No one is ever going to become perfect like you and Saiki will make sure of it. But of course, his pretty little thing isn’t allowed to know about all of this. After all, you’re the only thing that can’t be tainted with sin in his eyes.

16. Names - Fae Au OH GOD I JUST SAW SOMEONE POST ABT SAIKI K AUS AND I COMPLETELY FORGOT MERMAIDS AND MYTHICAL CREATURES EXISTED-

There's one rule when you meet a Fae. You're not allowed to give them your name. Y/n bumps into the fae that's been the talk of the town lately. Ever since said Fae stole away Teruhashi, the townspeople have been terrified of him. Funny enough, Y/n becomes friends with said fae. Saiki wants them to join him in his place but Y/n declines. Funny enough, there's another boy trying to court you. Saiki decides upon one thing, he's going to get your name before that wretched boy gets to your heart.

17. Your Highness (or Pensées D’amour) - Royal au (Written)

Saiki Kusuo is the reputable heir to the Psi Empire. Ever since the eldest of the two ran away to beat him in conquering nations, he had been left the throne. His grandparents had anointed him as the heir to the throne after his parents had mysteriously disappeared. The only issue lies in finding another noble or royal to marry. Princess Teruhashi from the Gardenia Kingdom has a huge crush on him, but Saiki isn’t interested in her. She feels too fake to trust, not to mention her atrocious thoughts. Another issue is that Saiki doesn’t want to marry someone for status, he wants to marry for love, ironic enough.

Y/n is the infamous royal of the Sirius Kingdom. Hotheaded, fiery, competitive and passionate, they’re well loved by all of their people, and hated by all the nobles. Their parents never forced them into any marriage and they spend their day getting to know the commonfolk and taking suggestions from them to their parents (which are always rejected).

The nobles are planning something against the royal family, and in a desperate turn of events they find themselves promising themselves to Saiki Kusuo of the Psi empire in exchange for help. Kusuo helps them out, and in the end both get their end of the bargain. Kusuo gets himself a person who genuinely loved him, and Y/n gets themselves a willing listener for the commonfolk.

#I love you mwah #saiki x reader #prompts for my messy brain #saiki k x reader #oh if you like deadass want me to write one leave me a comment or anon ask and I'll do it #I am 1 ask away from actually writing these #IM ALSO CLOGGING UP THE TAG IM SORRY BABES #kusuo x reader

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fumingspice · 3 years

Text

Seven Wonders

Pairing: Billie Dean Howard x Reader

Words: 1.7k

Note: Part 1/5

Part | 1 2

And in her eyes you could see the beauty of all the Seven Wonders

It all started with a moving truck that disrupted your music session one night. Until then it had been perfect; soft rain pelted quietly against the windowpane, influencing the way that you tapped your pen against the paper-pad in front of you that was begging to be written on. You could hear the music in everything. Cars drove along the roads nearby your apartment block despite the late hour, the wind and the sound of the tyres on the wet tarmac put your soul at ease. It was amazing.

Your creative juices flowed perfectly at this time of the night as you wrote the first few words in the final verse of your new song; the best part in your opinion- when the song came together with its final message. Perfection. Until an unnecessary-to-your-existence truck honked its horn outside your apartment. The invasive noise startled you so that the pen drew a huge line across the page.

You exhaled hard to stop yourself banging your head on the table.

You ignored the horn, assuming the driver was waiting on someone coming out. Then it went again. Your eyes darted to the alarm clock that resided between your cacti (which you had given names). The little box that read 3am sat closest to Bentlee the Bunny Ears Cactus. 3am? Who in their right mind would be making so much noise outside an apartment block at this time of night? Another honk rang in your ears and you couldn't control the urge to open your window and peer outside any longer.

A woman stood in the car park close to a G-Wagon that you hadn't seen before, assuming that was her own car. She held her suitcase in one hand and held a newspaper over her head to shield her hair from the rain, reminding you of the scene in Rocky Horror Picture Show when Janet did the same thing.

The movie comparison eased your mood so that you wouldn't be yelling the foulest obscenities at her. Not tonight at least.

"Excuse me, miss! It's really late, is there a need for the noise?" you shouted down, attempting not to contribute to the noise. The lady looked up, relieved to know she had caught someone's attention.

"I'm so sorry!" she shouted, waving at you. "Would you be able to let me in, please?"

Ah, yes, you thought. The door had often proved a nuisance to newcomers as you had to either have someone buzz you in from the other side of the door, or have your own key. You signalled a yes to her and walked quickly down the corridors and staircases, skipping two at the time the way you did when you were younger when your mother threatened to break your neck if you didn't do it yourself when you walked like this.

"Thank you so much," she ushered when she got in, smacking the rainwater off her newspaper which was now completely sodden. "I asked the moving guy to come back tomorrow because I didn't realise how much noise we would have to make. I'm so sorry for waking you, Ms-," she stuck her hand out to shake yours, which you kindly obliged to. Her hands were freezing, wet from the rain but so soft under yours.

"Y/N," you tell her, she grins.

"Y/N," she repeats, biting her tongue between her teeth as if tasting each syllable of your name as she examined the details of your face.

"Don't worry, I was up working anyway. Uhm- sorry. Your name is?"

The lady nodded, her golden locks bobbing around her shoulders. "Howard," she said "Billie-Dean Howard." You smiled back at Billie. Her lips followed the movements of your own.

"Do I know your name from somewhere, Ms. Howard?" you ask.

"Call me Billie, sweetheart. And yes, I have a TV show back in the States- I'm a medium to the stars. It hasn't really caught on in the UK or Ireland yet but I'm doing a new series on Celtic spirits, myths and legends so I'm hoping that-" she looked you up and down, her dark brown eyes met yours, lowered and stopped, then darted to your still connected hands, "- I can provoke your interests." She uttered the last three words with a seemingly different meaning as you took your hand back. Being a medium- or a psychic or whatever she was she could probably sense your slight discomfort, so she changed the subject quickly.

"Would you be able to tell me where someone called Siobhan is?" she asked, completely butchering the correcting pronunciation of the name.

"I'm sorry, Siobhan's office hours closed about six hours ago and she doesn't open up again until ten o'clock, so," you pursed your lips, unsure of what to do. You couldn't leave her here for the next seven hours, that was something- but you also didn't know or trust her. You attempted to reason yourself for the next few seconds. It wasn't like a goddamn TV personality was gonna try and steal your Ikea silverware anyway, not unless she was also a secret spoon thief.

Billie looked like she was about to give up hope and lie down on the grate to sleep when you offered her night in your apartment. "Wait, really?" she asked, her big brown eyes lit up like two golden compasses. "You're not afraid I would steal your silverware?" Her chuckle came out like a fine four-note melody. You rolled your eyes playfully and shook your head.

As the pair of you walked to the elevator you chatted quietly, asking her questions about her show, what she would be doing and where she would be shooting. "I heard about a place on a peninsula not far out from here- supposed to be one of the most haunted places in Europe and it hasn't really been a spot of interest for other American mediums so I thought that maybe I should check it out." You got more of the specifics in the elevator, where she told you that she would be staying here for three months before moving on to mainland Britain. "After that," she said, "I'm gonna head on into Europe and I'll see where the wind takes me from there. I've never filmed in Asia so that's where I'll go next, maybe." Billie's words invented images of brilliance in your mind, exotic destinations, you could almost feel the warmth of the sun against your skin.

"That sounds amazing," you tell her as you glide the key into the keyhole and turn it with a flick of your wrist, Billie watching your every move. The smell of coffee and incense collided with your nose and replaced the stale smell of the apartment corridor as you stepped into your dark apartment and out of the bright corridor lights. "Wow," Billie uttered to herself, she wondered in behind you and observed the apartment carefully; taking note of the scents and the decorations. "You really like plants that you don't don't need to water." You chuckled at the comment.

"You wouldn't need to be a psychic to figure that out, Billie-Dean," you chuckled, shifting the angle of Fanta the mammillaria.

She observed you with a light smile, "they're personal to you. You've named them, haven't you?"

You turn around and nod, slightly embarrassed. Billie chuckled her adorable chuckle. "Why don't you introduce me?" she suggested.

"Well, this is Fanta, this is her brother Neptune and I bought them in Next. This is Bentlee, Tesla, Mitshubishi, Vauxwagon, Martha and Veronica. Those guys over there are all named Deborah but they have a number after their names to tell them apart- and the vines are called Mocha," you explained, blissfully unaware in the moment of how insane you probably sounded in front of the woman.

She nodded with wonder in her eyes. "Amazing."

After a few moments of silence whilst she continued to observe, you pulled out the couch and made a quick bed up for yourself; you were going to be up a while longer anyway so you would allow her to sleep in your own bed. After all, it was she who had just travelled god knows how many hours to get here.

"You're a musician?" you heard her ask from the living room while you tidied away some of your things to make it a little less messy for you.

"Jesus, you are a good medium," you admitted, walking in with your favourite pillow and dropping it on the couch. "I have to admit I was a little sceptical at first but you seem pretty-" you stopped talking when you saw her face in the softer light. The shadows illuminated her jawline and cheekbones, defining them as if someone had drawn over them to make them appear more prominent, and she stood in the reflection of the lamp so that a strip fell over her eyes, turning them a brilliant golden copper. The image of her took your breath away, it was an unusual feeling for someone to appear so utterly ethereal to you that it almost made you stop breathing for a moment. Her grin and raised eyebrow snapped you out of it. "-pretty. Uhm, pretty intuitive."

Billie didn't stop smiling, she clearly knew you were astounded by her without intending to be. "You have three bass guitars on the wall and Fleetwood Mac vinyls everywhere, I'd be concerned if a regular person could come in and not tell," she said, her cheeks blushed slightly at the attention, stretching when she yawned.

"My bedroom's in there, I'm not done working just yet and you should get some rest." you pointed to your door which you had left slightly ajar and she smiled at you thankfully. You moved out of her way so she could walk to your room, however, she stopped when she was just inches from you.

"Y/N," the touch of her fingertips grazing your forearm tingled. "Let me take you out to breakfast, or lunch or drinks tomorrow, hm? A room for a meal?" she suggested. Her eyes twinkled in a way that you had never seen before when you nodded carefully, finding it hard to refuse the offer. When she was satisfied, she shook your hand goodnight, whispered a thank you and slipped into her room for the night.

And boy did you know your search history would be full of her for the next hour.

#ahs #american horror story #billie dean howard #billie dean howard x reader #sarah paulson #cordelia goode x reader #cordelia goode #wilhemina venebal #wilhemina venable x reader #sally mckenna x reader

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jaynaneeya · 3 years

Text

The Headless Criminal

First of all, Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story, the next big Shipwrecked Comedy project, is getting very close to its Kickstarter goal, so if you haven’t checked that out yet, and you’re seeing this before July 18, 2021 at 7:00 pm PDT, head to this link, and consider contributing a few bucks if you can.

Second of all, as soon as Ryan Garcia was revealed as one of the heads, I knew I needed to write a sequel to the fic I wrote a few years ago about time traveling Eddie’s ghost. If you want to read it, it’s here, but it’s very long, so in summary: Eddie is brought back as a ghost against his will after the events of Poe Party and is told that he has to either complete his unfinished business or forget about it in order to move on. He learns how to time travel and encounters James and Lily from kitr, who remind him of Edgar and Annabel, so he decides to ruin their lives, which leads to him bringing Lily back in time with him. She keeps meeting and falling for people who remind Eddie of Poe, so he has to keep breaking them up for revenge, and definitely not at all because he’s jealous. When Lily dies as Vivian Nightingale, Eddie realizes that he has to go back and establish her memorial ball so the events of Poe Party will happen the way they’re supposed to, and we left him hoping that this would complete his unfinished business. So here’s what I’m currently imagining happens next:

Eddie was out of ideas. He had gone back in time, established the Vivian Nightingale Memorial Ball, even orchestrated the meeting between his living self and Oscar Wilde just to make sure everything happened the way it was supposed to, and still he could not move on to the other side. Perhaps that psychic had been wrong about unfinished business. Perhaps being summoned as a ghost was permanent.

He went back to the future and haunted Lily’s grave again. Part of him wanted to find a way to bring her back, but to his surprise he found that his biggest reservation was that he didn’t want her to also be stuck with no way to find peace. This made no sense, of course. Eddie reminded himself that he wanted her to be miserable, because she reminded him of Annabel, and well… now that Eddie thought about it, that didn’t make any sense either. “Ugh, what am I even DOING with my afterlife?” he shouted, kicking her headstone in frustration.

Suddenly, the cemetery began to melt away. Had Eddie lost his ability to control his time travel? He felt a peculiar sensation in his neck, and he looked down to find that his body had disappeared. He quickly shut his eyes and begged everything to return to normal, but when he opened them again he found himself in an unfamiliar room, face to face with someone unpleasantly familiar.

“Well, well, well,” Eddie sneered. “Edwin. Allan. Poe.”

The other man furrowed his brow in confusion. “I thought Poe’s first name was Edgar,” said a voice behind Eddie that he thought sounded like Lenore.

“Are you sure it wasn’t Edward?” asked the man who looked like Poe but clearly was not.

“Good thing you’re a science teacher and not an English teacher,” quipped the Lenore double as she wandered into Eddie’s line of sight.

Eddie felt like he’d landed in his own worst nightmare. He wanted to leave, but his limbs seemed reluctant to move when he willed them to. “Where am I?” he demanded. “And who are you? And why can’t I-?” Eddie was interrupted by his own arm, which had finally decided to move, but not the way he’d wanted it to, and he ended up whacking himself in the face. When he glared at the offending arm, he noticed that it bore absolutely no resemblance to the arm he was normally attached to.

“I’m Ichabod Crane, and this is our – well, my – I mean, it’s my house, and it might be yours, too. My roommate doesn’t have a head, you see, and we found yours hidden under some floorboards in a haunted house. Matilda’s a witch and she knows how to attach heads to bodies, so that’s how you got here.”

Ichabod smiled in what he clearly thought was a friendly manner, but all Eddie saw was a smirk. Roommates with Poe’s doppelganger? Even if this had been his body, which it obviously was not, he wouldn’t have been able to stand it. Using all his willpower to remain calm, Eddie began, “I am most certainly not your roommate, and this is not my-”

He was interrupted once again, this time by a scream from the doorway. Eddie was prepared to see someone who reminded him of Annabel, but he was unprepared for the startled look of wide-eyed astonishment on her face. She recognized him.

Ichabod rushed over to her. “Kat, darling – I mean, not darling, that’s awkward, I would never call you that – well, not never, but we don’t know each other well en- sorry, I mean, uh… Kat, what’s wrong?”

For a moment, she looked as though she might faint, but instead she spoke, in the same desperately trying to remain calm tone that Eddie had just been using. “That head looks terrible on Headless’s body. It’s clearly the wrong one.”

“True, it doesn’t seem to fit, but I feel like we should at least give him the same courtesy we gave the others and allow him to tell his story-”

“No!” cried Kat, lunging toward Eddie.

Was this somehow Annabel’s ghost? Or was it, could it possibly be… “Lily?” he whispered as she approached him.

Instead of responding, she put one of her hands under his chin, grabbed his hair with the other, and tried to yank his head off of the body. Eddie hadn’t been able to feel physical pain since his death, but this hurt. “Stop! Let me talk to you!” he protested, but she ignored him.

“Ichabod! Matilda! Help me get this hideous head off!” Kat shouted as Eddie yelped in pain and anger. Hideous?

“Do you know this guy, Kat?” Matilda asked, sounding amused.

“Do you?” Ichabod repeated, sounding anxious.

Kat seemed to suddenly realize what she was doing. She released Eddie’s head. After taking a few steps back and a few deep breaths, she said, “Sorry. No, I don’t know him, but I do know that his head doesn’t belong on that body, and I’m so desperate to help you find the right head. We’ve been trying for so long, I’m starting to get frustrated and impatient. So can we please take this head off and try another one?”

Matilda narrowed her eyes suspiciously, but when Kat met her gaze unflinchingly, she shrugged and said, “Well, I certainly agree that this is not the correct head, so I guess you’re right, might as well move on.” She began chanting a spell.

“No, wait!” Eddie cried, but it was too late; a moment later he found himself back in the cemetery, his head reattached to the rest of his ghost.

Was Lily still alive somehow? Or had she come back as a ghost without telling him? That couldn’t have been Annabel; that girl had never been capable of violence, and if she had somehow developed a taste for it in death and now wanted revenge on him, surely she would have tried to strangle him, not pull his head off. But Lily had been his friend. Why wouldn’t she want to see him? If she’d figured out that he’d been sabotaging her, surely she would have confronted him. He resolved to get to the bottom of this. All he had to do was figure out where and when Ichabod Crane lived, and then he could take his whole ghost self there. She wouldn’t be able to get rid of him as easily that way. If nothing else, she at least owed him an explanation. Whether this was Eddie’s final bit of unfinished business or another wild goose chase, only time would tell.

#HeadlessSeriesFic #headless series fic #headless series #shipwrecked comedy #can't wait to see how thoroughly this is contradicted by canon #please help make this series happen!

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strangertheory · 3 years

Note

I'd love for Will to be able to have the power of reality alteration because him being the most powerful one would be a very nice plot twist. But. Do you really believe they make him more powerful than El? I keep finding crazy comments on social media, suggesting it's the "El show" 😪 *sigh*. And I know some people who say it'd be anti feminist since Will is a boy. Thx

That’s a lot of interesting questions to think about.

I’ll attempt to address each thought that you’ve shared one at a time and provide you with my own opinions and theories about each:

You said: “I'd love for Will to be able to have the power of reality alteration because him being the most powerful one would be a very nice plot twist. But. Do you really believe they would make him more powerful than El?”

I have a lot of conflicted feelings about the way that the fandom often talks about characters’ powers and supernatural abilities in Stranger Things. (I also really dislike the way that the fandom has decided that they can’t appreciate and support both El and Will’s happiness and that their happy endings and successes are somehow mutually exclusive, but I’ll address the topic of their powers first.)

Fans often focus on the abilities and superpowers of characters as something desirable and cool but fans rarely spend time considering what it cost those characters to develop their abilities in the first place. Neither El nor Will suddenly woke up one day and had superpowers that they had conscious control over.

Certain impressive skills that people have in the real world might also be developed under extremely traumatic and undesirable circumstances and not because they wanted them: the powers represented so far in Stranger Things are very much like that variety of skillset.

El’s powers and her ability to control them are canonically shown to have manifested during her imprisonment, abuse, isolation, and manipulation at the Lab. As Kali says “They stole your life, Jane!” Due to El’s isolation from society and from love and affection and from having a family and from everything else in the world beyond the Lab she has a significant amount of early childhood social and psychological development that was stolen from her that she can never truly get back. A healthy, loving, safe environment for development and self-actualization that children deserve to have was not provided to El and she has suffered so much and she has had significant delays in her opportunity to grow and become her own person because of what was done to her. So yes, El has psychic powers that give her a variety of unique abilities that are very useful. But at what cost? If El were given the choice to abandon all of her powers in exchange for a loving family, a community of friends that she’d had the opportunity to know and spend time with since early childhood, a variety of passions and hobbies that she chose for herself over the years as she was growing up and engaging with the world, an extensive understanding of the world outside of the Lab based on her own exploration of the world and not only what people tell her or what she sees on television, and most importantly a sense that she is treated kindly because people truly love her and not because they want to exploit her and her powers for their own purposes: wouldn’t she make that trade?

Do I currently agree with the theory that Will’s subconscious mind created the Upside Down, the Mindflayer, the demogorgon, and even most probably created many other characters and fantastical plotlines that exist in the story? Yes. But I believe it has (so far) been unintentional, entirely subconscious, and is a mental coping mechanism in response to extremely traumatic circumstances that Will has faced throughout his life. Would Will’s subconscious mind creating significant parts of the Stranger Things universe represent a certain level of “power” that is greater than El’s? I don’t personally think they’re comparable. There are things that Will can probably do that El cannot, and vice versa. They will surely each have their own strengths and weaknesses and their own limitations that we may or may not always be shown in the series.

But what does "more powerful” really mean to us, and why does that question even matter? It was not El’s choice to have powers and it was not Will’s choice to have powers. Much of what I believe Will has incidentally created is creating a lot of confusion and suffering for him and for others that he cares about. If the story were about real people I’d be offended at the question of who’s more powerful and feel as though that question and debate is the sort that Dr. Brenner and his colleagues would have: “How useful is this child to me? Which child is more powerful?” I dislike the question because it feels like asking a parent which child is their favorite. I care about them both, and I don’t care about them because they happen to have superpowers: I care about them because they are nuanced characters that are very well-written and that I can empathize with as if they were real people. I respect why it’s a popular thing for fans to debate over which X-Men is the most powerful, for example, but that’s never been what draws me into scifi and fantasy stories. What characters choose to do under unusual circumstances and with unique resources (such as superpowers) is far more important to me than the nature and intensity of the powers themselves. I believe that the Stranger Things fandom does these beautifully written characters a disservice by focusing too heavily on their abilities and not enough on their feelings, choices, relationships, dreams, goals, and experiences that humanize them.

I love Stranger Things because of the humanity of each of the characters and not because some of them can throw cars through walls.

You said: “I keep finding crazy comments on social media, suggesting it's the "El show"”

El is definitely an important character in the story at this point in the show and she has some really fascinating abilities in the Stranger Things universe that often give her iconic moments and provide her an opportunity to be in the spotlight.

I believe that there is a reason that the writers have decided to develop many characters in the story and in my opinion it can seem hard to pin-point a “main” character at times. I think this is absolutely intentional on the part of the writers, and I predict that we will learn how Will’s, Hopper’s, and El’s storylines intersect in season 4. I think we will learn something new about each of the characters.

I do not personally believe that it is the “El show” any more than it could be argued that this is the “Steve show” or the “Hopper show.” But I do appreciate that fans have grown to love El’s character.

I strongly disagree with anyone in the fandom that insists that Will is not important. I can tell that the way that he was quieter in season 3 inspired some fans to dismiss his role in the series entirely, but I think they’re mistaken. Quiet and less assertive doesn’t mean irrelevant in a story like this one. I believe that much of what Will has been through is at the heart of the entire series, and I think that he will play a very critical role in future seasons. If some fans passionately dislike Will then they might need to steel themselves for some severe disappointment.

You said: “And I know some people who say it'd be anti feminist [for Will to be more powerful than El] since Will is a boy."

I would argue that El embodies many traits that are often presumed to be stereotypically masculine by certain incorrect and outdated schools of thought: assertiveness, the ability to win in combat, determination, resilience, and bravery (among others.) There were eras in which these traits were not always valued and respected in women, and arguably there are still many circumstances under which they still aren’t. El is a complex character who is not written as a gender stereotype and I think that is powerful and important.

We need more characters of many different genders that are written as people. Complex, multi-faceted, and capable of many different things regardless of their gender.

Yes. Will is a boy.

Will is a young boy who has been bullied for having certain traits that are very often stereotypically seen by society as feminine. As being “womanly.”

I believe that feminism needs to be intersectional and seek to address the ways that all people and all genders are harmed by a society that devalues women and devalues traits, work, and skillsets that are associated with femininity.

Feminism should not be reduced and oversimplified to “girl power.” Anyone that reduces feminism to that does not, in my opinion, understand feminism.

“Feminism is the belief in the social, economic, and political equality of the sexes.”

Devaluing admirable traits when someone of one gender expresses them but then deciding to value those exact same traits when they are expressed by a person of a different gender is prejudiced and anti-feminist because it maintains the false idea that certain traits only have value in people if they are a specific gender.

El is a wonderful, empowering character and I appreciate that she is very well written and admired by many fans. But I worry when certain fans are more willing to appreciate a kick-ass fictional young woman that defies outdated and incorrect gender stereotypes but are not also willing to embrace gentler, more sensitive, less stereotypically masculine young men like Will with similar enthusiasm and affection.

Will is bullied and devalued by his small-town community for having traits and interests that are perceived as feminine and therefore, according to closeminded bigots like his dad, not allowed and are deserving of abuse and bullying. Will is arguably also devalued and dismissed by the Stranger Things fandom because he has traits that are perceived as feminine and undesirable in a young teen guy in the eyes of certain fans, too.

The devaluing and dismissal of gentle, kind, emotional young men is a feminist issue.

A character doesn’t have to be a girl in order to represent feminist ideals within a story. I know that there are probably plenty of feminists that will disagree with me (because there will always be people with their own opinions) but I strongly believe that Will's story is feminist as it has been explored so far (just as El's is.)

Anyone in the fandom that considers themselves a “Feminist” but that spends significant amounts of time criticizing Will Byers by dismissing him as “boring” and criticizing him for being quiet, sensitive, gentle, and emotional should take a good look in the mirror and reflect on what their personal brand of feminism stands for and whether their goal truly is “the equality of the sexes” or if their goal is simply hating men and only valuing and promoting stereotypically masculine traits in our society.

Feminism’s goal is not to make women more powerful than men or to make men less powerful than women, it is about the promotion of the “equality of the sexes.”

Stereotypes are constructs our society has built and that impact the way we all currently relate to each other. Until society stops treating traits associated with society's currently constructed idea of femininity as something weak or bad then it is important to appreciate these traits in characters of many different genders and to value these traits in men (both in real life and in fictional stories) too. Anyone of any gender can be sensitive and sensitivity should not be seen as a weakness but rather as a strength and as something that's a valuable aspect of our humanity, and the same can be said for many other beautiful traits that society has wrongly decided to put into boxes and assign gender stereotypes to.

This complicated topic is incredibly important to me as a fan of both El and Will. I believe that both El and Will are feminist characters and that the series is very empowering and is challenging society’s gender biases through both of their stories. I hope that my response to your question was successful in communicating how I feel and resonates with you and with perhaps other fans who also care about El and Will and feel their own experiences, feelings, and identities validated by their story arcs.

Will some fans still whine and cry “sexism” and attempt to brand Stranger Things as “anti-feminist” if their hope that El will be the solo main character of the story and not have to share the spotlight with a boy is dashed? Sure. But I think they’re wrong, that their concept of feminism and sexism is incorrect, and that their priorities and their understanding of El’s value as a character is unfortunate. El is more than her superpowers. El doesn’t need to be “the strongest” or “the most powerful” in order to be an inspiring, complex, well-written, relatable, and empowering character.

Thank you for your Ask! I hope you don’t mind how long this response is. You mentioned a few things that I have some very complicated opinions about.

#will byers #el hopper #stranger things #stranger things analysis #stranger things theories #will byers is a feminist character #el hopper is a feminist character #feminism is for everyone

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happikattwuzheere · 4 years

Photo

was gonna try and do multiple characters in one post but nope! i have too much to say. also the pictures are all different sizes so its rly hard to get the photoset to look appealing, so we’re starting w/ blue. and also a colored pic of what adam looks like when he’s not a deer. boy’s tryin not to stand out. which goes great up for him right up until it doesn’t. lmao. i’ll talk a bit about him too w/ stuff that didnt get mentioned in the starter post about him and gansey, but this is mostly gonna be about blue.

SO.

there’s this fey entity, right? i don’t have a name for them, but they’re not...they didnt START the fey/human conflict, but they are benefiting from it, politically speaking? and when maura was younger, despite other witches being like “girl dont choose sides, we’re witches, we guard boundaries but we don’t choose sides,” was hotheaded and brash and went “ok but fuck that though” and one thing led to another and she ended up getting a curse on her firstborn. Oops. that’s where the kissing curse comes from, here; i’ll get into that much later in a text post probably but gansey’s survivor’s guilt thing doesnt come from him actually dying in this au it’s from something Else, but blue will still kill him if she kisses him, just, for different reasons, it’s an actual curse this time and not something to do with the nature of who they both are.

her father’s still a tree light, but like, she actually knows that from the outset? because. they live in cabeswater. the tree lights are all around and accept her as one of their own even if she can’t turn into a tree, and as a result of that, she’s got some cool perks.

a) extremely resistant and/or outright immune to a Lot of fey bullshit

b) still boosts psychic energies and magical powers like in canon

c) the absolute safest person to be traveling in cabeswater ever, because the forest itself loves her, and also if you mess with her within the borders of cabeswater a bunch of tree lights will physically manifest and be like “hey buddy wanna think twice about that”

but she can’t use magic herself, still, which actually works in the favor of herself and the coven--witchcraft is in a sort of weird spot, culturally, where it’s both feared and often hated, but also understood to at times be necessary, especially by rural peoples like those of the village. im taking a very discworld spin on the witchcraft, because i love discworld and you can’t stop me, and so the attitude is, like. its frightening ancient magic and the church hates it but when there’s an emergency and someone’s on the border between life and death, or something is trying to pass into this world from another, etc etc etc, then you gotta suck it up and call on a witch because they’re the only ones who can deal with those things. so. the coven is tolerated, both because it’s too big and powerful to actually fight but also because it’s extremely needed when you live in a village right next door to fey lands. you NEED someone watching the border. however that doesn’t mean anyone wants to be seen publicly talking to a witch--but blue’s not a witch. she’s a witch’s daughter, but she’s not a witch herself, which is a step removed enough that she can go into town and run errands and also people will maybe pull her discretely aside and tell her if something’s coming up that the coven should know about, and it all works very neatly with her acting as a sort of liaison. very important role she plays, which is why gansey tries talking to her after his initial attempt to speak with the coven directly fails.

speaking of the coven itself: i’ve been calling it the fox way coven, even tho it probably wouldn’t be called that because there’s no road called fox way that the coven is built on, it’s a big magic house out in the fairy forest, BUT they do have a fox theme because i love foxes and this is a gift i have been given. if people have familiars in this coven, they’re foxes rather than cats, because as wonderful as cats are u cant have them and foxes in the same house that will go bad. but also there’s a v small number of them, like maybe three or four total out of the much higher number of women living there, who are fey blooded like adam, but who become foxes rather than adam’s deer. persephone is one of these! (it’s worth noting the reason why they become the same animal is because of a combination of coincidence, intentional theming, and mostly just because like, virtually all of the residents there aside from persephone are related to either maura or calla)

anyway the point is, because of this, blue’d seen enough feyblood transformations that when, one day when she was 9 or 10, on a visit to town, she saw the most distressed, disoriented fawn wobbling around frantically and was able to very quickly recognize that that was, in fact, a person who had probably turned into a deer for the first time, and responded by very calmly informing him that she knew who could help and leading him home. this is where those last two pictures come from, and how adam’s apprenticeship started.

like, there was a lot of arguing from the witches immediately--of course we’re going to teach him how to become human again but we aren’t really going to take him on in the coven are we? he’s a boy, he’s some local kid we know nothing about, what happened to keeping it in the family, he’s the wrong animal and we’ve got a whole thing going on--at which point persephone parted everyone like the red sea, took one look at adam, went “mine now” and despite a lot of grumbling that was the end of it. she took him on a bit of a tour of cabeswater a few days later, after he’d had time to think it over, and he felt so drawn to the forest that he agreed to the apprenticeship.

so he’s technically persephone’s apprentice but like in actual practice he’s being taught by the entire coven lmao, ANYWAY

adam being adam also had a backup plan for trying to get out of the village--even at ten he figured witchcraft might be a first way out of there, he was already thinking about it, but by thirteen when the good ole abuse started (and at which point the last whispers of dissent died out very quickly amongst the coven, nope, adam is one of us now, do you want us to very threateningly hang out in your front yard sometime because we can do that--what do you mean no, let us do this,) he was also like. i dont think this is a guarantee of getting out of here i need a second job. and the thing is, as was mentioned in the original post, the fey blood also means adam’s got issues with iron; it’ll poison him if he’s stabbed with it but it also reacts to his skin touching it like a hot stove. he’s fine if there’s a layer between his skin and the iron, but if he touches it directly, it’s Bad. so ofc this headstrong idiot takes an open spot a t a metalworker’s in the village because adam is the king of making bad decisions. the witches have a betting pool on how long it’ll take him to out himself. “its fine i’ll wear gloves,” he says. “it’s the perfect disguise no one will expect someone with fey connections to work near so much iron,” he says. “i have everything perfectly under control,” he says.

anyway he totally forgets to wear gloves before grabbing an iron tool while his dad and his boss are both in the store and in clear view of him and that’s why he was getting chased by hunters when gansey rescued him

also he and blue tried dating when they were like 13-14 and it ended about as badly as in canon and they made up later and by the time the story starts they’ve settled into very much being weird siblings. adam starts hanging out with gansey initially to try and basically spy on him, figure out why he’s here, but ends up rly liking the guy and deciding his reasons are sincerely to try and help people, and he tells this to blue who starts immediately accusing him of having a crush on the lordling and being a class traitor, because she does NOT like gansey at this point and really the nobility all prefer wizards to witches which is a stupid idiot decision and frankly the fact that this lordling is apparently enamored by some random deer is hilarious to her, but even moreso is the fact that adam actually defends the lordling to her, like, “wow adam its hilarious that the lordling’s friend thinks that you have charmed the lordling because from my perspective it looks the other way around” “shut uuuup you’re not listening im serious, like, yeah ok he put his foot in his mouth really hard when he talked to you but im telling you i dont think the whole i-wanna-understand thing is an act” “idk if i can trust you through those rose tinted glasses buddy. tell me again about that time he called you princely?” “oh my god”

this is turning into rambling but. thats the gist of the witches and blue esp thank u for coming if u made it this far here’s a bonus persephone fox

#trc #the raven cycle #blue sargent #deer boy au #longpost #VERY long im so sorry.

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teenwolffanclub-me · 4 years

Text

Season 1, Episode 7: Night School (Part Two)

Hey there beautiful reader! If you’re new here, this is a series I’m writing where each chapter is an episode from the first season of Teen Wolf. If you’ve been here before, hey! I missed you! Previous and future chapters are linked at the end of each part if you want to catch up.

Pairing: Stiles x Psychic! Reader (eventually)

Notes: Okay, this one is a lot too. I may have gotten a bit carried away, but so much happens in this episode! And it’s my favorite!

P.S. Jackson manages to be more suspect than the alpha, Allison needs a chill pill ASAP, and Derek is wanted for murder

———————

“Why did you come? What are you doing here?”

Scott rushed the words out the second he laid eyes on Allison. She looked between the three of us, her gaze pausing over my underdressed state, before staring at him in bewilderment.

“Because you asked me to...” She held up her phone as proof, pointing to a text that was very much from him telling her to come here.

Scott’s eyes widened in shock and he snatched the phone out of her hands. She reeled back, surprised.

“I didn’t send this.” His voice was hard as he scrolled through their messages.

“What? What’s going on? Who sent it then?” Her eyes continued flickering between us, searching for answers.

The phone stated ringing in Scott’s hands and she took it back quickly. She glanced at the caller I.D, huffed out a breath of relief, and put it up to her ear.

“Where are you?” She immediately demanded.

Just then, Lydia and Jackson came striding through the lobby doors. They both seemed annoyed to be here, but at least Jackson didn’t look like he was actively dying anymore.

“Finally.” Lydia sighed, raising her eyebrows at us expectantly. “Can we go now?”

Before any of us could respond, there was a loud thud in the ceiling above us. The tiles started creaking as slow footsteps stomped around. We all froze. My heart instantly began racing again at the thought of the alpha so close.

“Run!” Scott yelled at the same moment it came crashing to the floor beside us.

He grabbed Allison’s hand and they took off, the rest of us not far behind. The alpha growled and barked as it chased us down the hall, which was honestly surprising. I never imagined werewolves barking.

I struggled to steady my breathing as we made our way down the hall and into the cafeteria. Scott slammed the doors before locking the deadbolts into the floor. Instantly, everyone started freaking out.

“Help me get these in front of the doors!” Scott was trying to use a table to baracade us inside.

“What was that? Scott? What was that?” Allison shrieked, tugging her hands through her hair.

“Was it in the ceiling?” Lydia added, throwing her arms up in confusion.

“Wait. Not in here.” I heard Stiles mutter, and I wasn’t sure if he was even talking to us or just himself.

“The chairs! Stack the chairs!” Scott was rushing around frantically, not even bothering to check if anyone was actually listening to him.

“Guys, can we just wait a second? You guys, listen to me!” Stiles raised his voice, annoyed that he was being ignored.

Jackson, Lydia, and Allison sprang forward and started grabbing anything they could to add weight to the table. I just wrapped my arms around myself and watched, worried about the level of noise they were all making.

“Guys? Stiles talking. Can we hang on one second please? Hello!” I jumped in surprise at his unexpected shout, and turned my attention his way.

Everyone else whipped around to face him expectantly, ditching their effort at the doors.

“Okay. Nice work. Really beautiful job, everyone. Now...what should we do about the twenty foot wall of windows?” He gestured toward the aforementioned windows with a jerk of his arms.

I cringed, knowing he had a point. The alpha was in the school with us now, but that didn’t mean it would stay that way. It had already proven its intelligence by trapping us with the dumpsters. I wasn’t about to make the mistake of underestimating it again.

“Can somebody please explain to me what’s going on here? Because I am totally freaking out and I would like to know why.” Allison’s voice shook as she tried desperately to fight back tears. She tugged at Scott’s arm and called his name when he avoided her pleading eyes.

Alright. Come on. This is when you tell her.

He pulled himself free and stalked over to a nearby table before letting his elbows rest on it and pinching the bridge of his nose. Allison threw her hands up in exasperation and her gaze moved to me in question. I gave her a one shouldered shrug, not knowing what else to do.

How the hell would we get out of this without telling them everything? A few moments of tense silence passed and I huffed in frustration. If he wasn’t going to do it, I would. I was beyond done with the secrets and the lies. I opened my mouth, about to spill the beans, when Stiles interrupted me.

“Somebody killed the janitor.” He sent me a pointed look and took a few steps toward where Allison, Lydia, and Jackson stood in a line.

I clenched my jaw and tightened the sides of his jacket around my torso. They were going to find out eventually. It would be much better if it came directly from the source.

“What?” Lydia looked terrified by that news, her emerald eyes widening in horror.

“Yeah. He’s dead.” He confirmed with a surprising lack of emotion, glancing around the room to gauge everyone’s reaction. I blame his weird fascination with his dad’s line of work. He’d seen way too much even before the supernatural was involved.

I’d somehow almost forgotten that had happened, and the reminder brought the seriousness of our situation crashing back down onto me. Someone was dead because of the alpha. And now we were stuck, bound to be next any minute.

“What’s he talking about?” Allison forced out a pained laugh and looked to Scott. “Is this a joke?”

“Wha—who killed him?” Jackson spoke up for the first time, not sounding completely convinced.

“No, no, no, no.” Lydia’s eyes welled with tears as she started breathing erratically. “This was supposed to be over. The—the mountain lion...”

“Don’t you get it?” Jackson interrupted harshly. “There was no mountain lion.”

“Who was it? What does he want? What’s happening?” Allison demanded, her voice hard.

I chewed on my bottom lip nervously, feeling like we were quickly losing control of this situation. Keeping them in the dark was making things so much worse right now.

“Scott!” She snapped when he didn’t respond, and he finally spun around to face us.

“I-I don’t know. I just—if we go out there, he’s gonna kill us.” His voice wavered on the lie and he barely raised his eyes from the floor.

“Kill us?” Lydia asked pointedly, crossing her arms over her chest with a pop of her hip.

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Leave it to her to think she’d be exempt from a psychotic murderer.

“Who? Who is it?” Allison was nearing a complete panic attack at this point.

I was ready to end this whole thing and face the stupid consequences later, when he finally spoke up. He shook his head and pinched his eyes shut tightly with a sigh.

“It’s Derek.” He muttered, avoiding both mine and Stiles’ stunned expressions. “Derek Hale.”

What the hell was he doing? Derek is dead. And, not to meantion, pretty much the only person we know for sure isn’t the alpha. He must’ve lost his damn mind.

“Derek killed the janitor...?” Jackson narrowed his eyes at Scott skeptically.

Yeah, you’re onto something buddy. Maybe for the first time ever.

“Yes. He killed them. All of them.” He rushed the words out, still refusing to look at anyone.

My jaw clenched tightly. Why couldn’t we just tell them the truth? Would it really be that bad? They were already majorly freaked out. Might as well hit them with the supernatural shit too.

“But the mountain lion...” Lydia tried to reason.

“No. It’s been Derek the whole time. Starting with his own sister—”

“And the bus driver?” Allison was visibily calmer now that she had an answer, but her voice still shook with fear.

“And the guy at the video store. He’s in here with us, and—and if we don’t get out now...”

He finally raised his gaze to look around the room. His eyes were shining with several intense emotions including fear, anxiety, and guilt. He should feel bad. He just threw a dead man under the bus, and lied to his girlfriend in the process. It wasn’t going to end well on either account.

He let out a heavy sigh and carefully considered his next words before speaking. “He’s gonna kill us too.”

A moment of silence passed before Jackson scoffed in annoyance. “Call the cops.”

I had to agree that it seemed like the most logical choice at this point. I’m not sure what they’d be able to do, but they at least had more resources than any of us.

“No.” Stiles said immediately, shaking his head for good measure.

“What do you mean, no?” Jackson furrowed his eyebrows in disbelief.

“I mean no. What, do you wanna hear it in Spanish? No.” Stiles threw his hands down to his sides in frustration. “Look, Derek killed three people. We don’t know what he’s armed with.”

For some reason, his willingness to go along with Scott’s lie really bothered me. He was by far the most loyal person I’d ever met, so it wasn’t surprising, but it still didn’t sit well with me. Sometimes it was hard to distinguish the truth with them, and that made me nervous.

“Your dad is armed with an entire sheriff’s department. Call him!” Jackson raised his voice, his anger spiking at Stiles’ apparent hesitation to do anything helpful.

He had a point. I knew the last thing Stiles wanted to do was involve his dad in any of this stuff, but there came a time when we needed adults to step in. I’d say this was one of those moments.

“I’m calling.” Lydia pulled out her phone and began pacing away from their bickering.

“No! Lydia. Would you just hold on a second?” Stiles moved toward her, one arm outstretched, until Jackson stepped between them and shoved him away harshly.

“Hey!” Scott rushed to Stiles side, who just narrowed his eyes angrily.

Oh, God. The last thing we needed right now was a fight. They shouldn’t even be arguing about this, either. I didn’t care what it was, we just needed to do something—anything—to try and get out of here safely.

“Yes, we’re at Beacon Hills High School. We’re trapped and we need you to—but...” Lydia lowered her phone from her ear slowly in disbelief. “She hung up on me.”

“The police hung up on you?” Confusion seeped through my voice as I stepped toward her. Why would they do that?

Her eyes snapped up to mine, her bottom lip quivering. “She said they got a tip saying that there would be prank calls about the high school. She said if I called again, she’d trace the call and have me arrested.”

“Okay, so call again!” Allison cried from behind her, growing frantic again.

“No, they won’t trace a cell.” Stiles mumbled. “They’ll send a car to your house before anyone comes here.”

Once again, I was surprised at his level of knowledge about police procedures. Just how much had his dad let him in on?

“What the—what is this? Why does Derek want to kill us? Why is he killing anyone?” A stray tear escaped Allison’s eyes as they jumped around the room, hoping anyone could answer her questions.

They were all valid, and I felt terrible that she was so freaked out. Although, I had a feeling that knowing a werewolf was actually the one chasing us wouldn’t help to put her mind at ease. I wanted nothing more than to tell her the truth. What’s the worst that could happen, anyway?

“Why is everyone looking at me like that?” Scott asked upon noticing that all the attention was on him.

“Is he the one that sent her the text?” Lydia rushed the words out quickly, her eyes wide with fear.

“I don’t know.” Scott muttered through clenched teeth.

I wasn’t sure why they thought he’d have all the answers. I mean, he did have some kind of connection to the alpha, but they didn’t know that. To them, he should be as clueless as the rest of us.

“Was he the one that called the police?” Allison threw her hands up in exasperation as she desperately tried to piece any of this together.

“I don’t know!” Scott snapped, the sudden anger in his face immediately disappearing as he saw the way Allison recoiled from him.

Okay, this conversation was going nowhere, and fast. I grabbed ahold of Scott’s elbow and dragged him across the room as Lydia wrapped a comforting arm around Allison. Tensions were incredibly high right now, and everyone needed to chill the fuck out and stop fighting if we wanted to survive this.

“Okay, first of all.” I whispered with a raise of my eyebrows as Stiles quickly joined us. “Throwing Derek under the bus? Nice one.”

“I-I didn’t know what to say. I had to say something!” He tugged a hand through his hair as he tried to calm his breathing. “And if he’s dead, it doesn’t matter, right? Except if he’s not. Oh, God. I totally just bit her head off.”

He tried to sneak a glance at Allison over my shoulder but stopped when Stiles clasped a hand on his bicep. “And she’ll totally get over it. Bigger issues at hand right now. Like how do we get out of here alive?”

“But we are alive.” I cut in, voicing something that had been bothering me this whole time. “It could’ve killed us already. It’s like it’s...cornering us or something.”

“So, what? It wants to eat us all at the same time?” I glowered at Stiles for suggesting that ridiculous theory and he shrugged.

“No!” Scott whispered harshly. “Derek said it wants revenge.”

“Against who?” I couldn’t help but wonder which one of us could’ve somehow wronged the thing this badly.

“Okay, assheads!” I jumped as Jackson suddenly yelled and strode toward us with a scowl. “New plan. Stiles calls his useless dad and tells him to send someone with a gun and decent aim. We good with that?”

God, what was his problem with Sheriff Stilinski? He’d made so many comments about him recently. At this point, it was getting weird. Everyone looked to be in agreement, though, which wasn’t good for Stiles.

“He’s right.” Scott said, surprising both of us. “Tell him the truth if you have to. Just...call him.”

“I’m not watching my dad get eaten alive.” He insisted harshly with a twitch of his eyes.

“At this point, the alternative is that we get eaten alive.” I hissed, annoyed with all of this back and forth. We just needed to do something.

“Alright, give me the phone—” Jackson lunged forward, ready to call the sheriff himself.

I let out a yelp as Stiles reared back before landing a punch square on his jaw. Allison immediately rushed to his side as he fell to the floor, clutching his face. Scott put a hand on Stiles’ chest to hold him back, but he looked pretty satisfied with the damage he’d done.

I didn’t miss the way Jackson smirked to himself, seemingly getting exactly what he wanted. I realized at that moment that he’d been trying to provoke Stiles to this breaking point the whole night, and he’d finally succeeded. But why?

I’d never seen Stiles so much as kill a bug, let alone punch someone in the face. His dad was a really sore subject, apparently. He huffed out an irritated breath and begrudgingly yanked his phone from his pocket. Our gazes locked as the call went to his dad’s voicemail, his honey eyes shining with fear as he left a hasty message.

We all jumped as the cafeteria doors started rattling violently. Allison and Lydia ran over to where we stood, hiding behind Scott and Jackson. My eyes grew wide as I watched the large bolts bending in the floor from the force the alpha was using to try and get in.

“The kitchen.” Stiles pocketed his phone and strode over to my side. “The door in the kitchen leads to the stairwell.”

“Which only goes up.” I reminded him, my attention still locked on the doors. They wouldn't be able to hold back for much longer.

“Up is better than here.”

With that, we all took off running again. We stumbled up the stairs and into a random unlocked classroom, falling silent as we waited to see if the alpha had followed. Allison stood with her back against the wall just beside the door, Lydia and Jackson huddled close in front of her. Me and the guys stood on the other side of the doorway.

I tried to steady my breathing as I watched the hallway closely through the small window in the door. Scott leaned toward it, trying to listen for footsteps, until Stiles fisted his jacket and jerked him back. A shadow moved across the glass, everyone visibly relaxing once it was gone.

“Jackson.” Scott whispered. “How many can you fit in your car?”

“Five, if someone squeezes on someone’s lap.” He breathed, bracing his hands against the table behind him.

“Five?” Allison snapped incredulously. “I barely fit in the back.”

“It doesn't matter.” I shook my head solemnly. “There’s no way we’re getting out without drawing attention.”

Now that we were on the second floor, our chances of escape had dwindled to almost none. There were no exits up here. We couldn't jump from any windows without getting seriously hurt. There really weren't many options.

“What about this?” Scott suddenly jogged toward a door in the corner of the room, and we all followed. “This leads to the roof. We can go down the fire escape to the parking lot in, like, seconds.”

“That’s a deadbolt.” Stiles snarked and pointed to the spot that held the door firmly locked.

I rolled my eyes at his attitude. Scott was only trying to help. Now was not the time for his signature sarcasm.

“The janitor has a key.” Scott looked hopeful at the realization.

“You mean his body has it.” I corrected, my stomach twisting painfully at the memory that someone had died right in front of us tonight.

So much had happened since then. I hadn't even begun to process it.

“I can get it. I can find him by scent, from the blood.” He leaned toward us as his voice dropped on the last sentence.

“Well, gee. That sounds like an incredibly terrible idea. What else ya got?” Stiles quipped.

I had to agree. While using the fire escape was probably our only hope at this point, going out there with the alpha was not a smart move. According to Derek, Scott is the one it wants. What’s to say it wouldn't just kill or take him on sight?

“I’m getting the key.” He insisted, his face tightening with determination.

He pushed past us, heading straight for the door, until Allison stepped in his way. “Are you serious?” Her eyes welled with fresh tears and she looked up at him desperately.

“It’s the best plan.” He tried to reassure her, but she just shook her head in disbelief.

I mean, it was a dumb plan. But Scott could handle himself. He’s a werewolf. Someone had to do something already. I was about to go out there myself if we didn’t get a move on.

“You can’t go out there unarmed.” She tried to reason with him, but his mind was already made up.

He looked around before pulling out a flimsy pointer finger on a stick. I tried my best to hold in a snort at the thought of him defending himself with that. Everyone just stared at him, and he shrugged.

“It’s better than nothing.”

“There’s gotta be something else.” Stiles said hopefully.

It was obvious that he didn’t want Scott going out there, either. I wouldn't say I was thrilled about it, but I knew that someone was going to have to make a sacrifice to get us out. He was the most obvious choice, plus he was willing. Who were we to stop him?

“There is.” Lydia glanced toward a cabinet filled with chemicals in various sized beakers behind me. I hadn't even realized we were in one of the chemistry labs. “In there is everything you need to make a self-igniting Molotov cocktail.”

“Well, we don't have a key for that either.” I pointed out, turning around to inspect it. It didn’t exactly solve our problem.

Jackson rolled his eyes with a huff and reluctantly stepped toward the glass case. With a scowl, he used his elbow to easily smash it to pieces.

Well, there’s one way to do it.

————————

It had been nearly ten minutes, and there were no signs of Scott or the alpha. The five of us had barely spoken, simultaneously processing this insane situation and being too afraid to make any noise. The air between us was thick with tension.

Allison had gone into full freak out mode when Scott left. She’d tearfully begged him not to leave, but he obviously didn’t listen. I understood her fear for his safety, but she had to know that it was our only hope. I had every bit of confidence in him. He would be able to get us out of this.

Suddenly, an earthshattering growl echoed through the school. The floors beneath our feet shook with the sheer volume of it. Lydia winced and covered her ears as if the sound pained her. I glanced at Stiles, silently asking whether Scott could make that kind of sound. I’d heard him howl earlier, and it had been impressive, but it was nowhere near whatever the hell that was.

I staggered back a step as Jackson unexpectedly fell onto his knees in front of me with a groan. He scratched at the back of his neck and began breathing heavily. Lydia and I grabbed each of his arms and hauled him back onto his feet as he continued wincing and moaning. He shoved us away, and I stumbled over my own feet.

“Don’t. I’m fine.” He turned to face us, still rubbing at the spot where I knew Derek’s claws had dug into his skin not long ago. “Seriously, I’m okay.”

“That didn’t even look remotely okay.” I huffed, concerned.

I mean, what the hell was that?

“Hey, what’s on the back of your neck?” Stiles peered over Jackson’s shoulder and stretched an arm out toward him.

He swatted it away and avoided all of our eyes. There was no way that was normal. Why would he react that way to the alpha’s growl? It didn’t make any sense.

“Well? It’s been there for days and you won’t tell me what happened.” Lydia crossed her arms skeptically. Clearly, it had been bothering her.

“As if you actually care.” He barked harshly, and she looked away, tears glistening in her eyes.

I was just about to lay into him for how not cool talking to her like that was, when police sirens sounded from outside. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and ran toward the windows, before looking down to confirm that help was actually here.

For the first time tonight, I felt myself relax. We were going to be okay.

————————

I pulled the sides of Stiles’ jacket tighter around myself, shivering against the frigid night air. My eyes were locked on him and Scott as they talked to the Sheriff. He was called away, and they continued whispering nervously. I would’ve preferred to be right there, listening, but Stiles said he’d drive me home. So here I stood, leaning against his Jeep. Waiting. Freezing to death.

I let my eyes follow them as they walked over toward an ambulance that Scott’s boss was sitting inside of. I had to admit, his mysterious disappearance—and subsequent revival—was insanely suspicious. I wasn't entirely convinced that he was the alpha, but he wasn't exactly in the clear, either.

After briefly talking to him, Scott and Stiles went their separate ways. Scott joined Allison, who had already told Lydia and I that she was going to break up with him. She was doubting pretty much everything about him after tonight, and I couldn't really blame her. He was keeping a huge part of himself secret, and it was pretty obvious at this point. I didn’t envy him having to figure a way out of that one.

“You could've gotten in.” I jumped at the sound of Stiles’ voice next to me, but forced myself to relax as he popped open the passenger door for me.

I climbed inside, buckling my seatbelt just as he slid into the seat beside me. My house was only a few minutes away, and I already felt my anxiety rising at the thought of sleeping there by myself after everything that had just happened. Mom was working the night shift again.

My fingers began trembling in my lap as the weight of tonight’s events came crashing down onto my shoulders.

I felt Stiles’ eyes on me, but kept my head down. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I sighed. It wasn't technically a lie. I was still breathing, and that counted for something. “I’m just not really looking forward to being home alone tonight.”

I felt heat crawl up my neck as I continued to avoid his curious gaze. I don't know what had compelled me to admit that. There was no reason for me to share that with him. I’d be fine.

I finally looked at him as the car jerked to the left so quickly I nearly fell out of my seat.

“What are you doing?” I balanced myself on the dashboard as we made a full 180 degree turn.

“You’re staying over.” He’d said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I gaped at him, shocked that he would even suggest it. The last time we did that... “Stiles—”

“It’s okay.” He interrupted hastily, his fingers tightening on the steering wheel. “My dad won’t care.”

“Stiles...” I let myself trail off that time, not sure what I wanted to say.

I didn’t want to be alone, and the last time we slept in the same bed, I’d had the best night of sleep since moving. It wasn't a bad idea per se, but...I don't even know. It was Stiles. And he made me nervous.

“Look. It’s really for my benefit. I mean, that was terrifying.” He let out a sigh, trying to make that sound believable.

“Nice try.” I scoffed, shifting back in my seat now that we were driving straight again. “You’re so not afraid of anything.”

He glanced at me briefly. “What makes you say that?”

“It’s true?” I finally looked at him again, studying the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed. I took a moment to admire the view I had of his profile. The yellow lighting of the street lamps outside beautifully highlighted the freckles that dotted his skin, and pulled out the natural orangey tint of his eyes.

“You’ve had all this supernatural stuff thrown on you, and you’ve just accepted it like it’s no big deal. You’re always jumping at the chance to help, even though you’re human, and you’re usually the one who figures things out first. None of that strikes me as someone who’s easily scared.”

He looked at me with a small smile, his eyes trailing over my face appreciatively, and I felt my own lips tugging upward in return.

About ten minutes later, I was following him into his bedroom. It was much cleaner than I expected. It was small, nothing more than a bed with a plaid comforter—of course—a couple of bedside tables with a small lamp, and a desk. He shut the door behind us, and we stood there for a moment awkwardly.

I wasn't sure if I should sit on his bed or the plush chair in front of the desk. He was still by the entrance, one hand on the doorknob while the other rubbed at the back of his head. I made my choice and walked over to the bed.

I plopped down, tucking one of my legs beneath myself while the other dangled off the edge of his mattress. I let my toes brush against the cool hardwood floors as I watched him consider his options.

After some hesitation, he moved to join me on the bed. He sat about a foot away, and I was simultaneously disappointed and grateful for that little bit of distance between us. He played with his fingers in his lap and avoided my eyes.

“We could’ve died tonight.” I breathed, mostly wanting to break the silence but also just beginning to process everything.

He looked up at me tenderly and reached a tentative hand forward to tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “But we didn’t.”

“Don’t you find that weird?” My skin erupted with heat as he let the tips of his fingers linger on my neck. “I mean, the alpha had so many opportunities to kill us and it just...didn’t. It was almost like it was playing with us or something.”

I could practically see the gears turning behind his eyes as he studied me for a moment. He parted his lips, and it looked like he was going to say something before thinking better of it. “We should get some sleep.”

“Or...we could do something else.” I rushed the words out before I could let any doubt creep in. His gaze quickly flickered to my mouth as I chewed on my bottom lip nervously.

“Something else?” His voice was barely above a whisper as his eyes moved back to mine.

“It’s just...” I swallowed, trying to gain the courage to say what had been swirling around in the back of my mind all night. “Our first kiss was at school. While being chased by a psychotic werewolf...”

“Yeah.” He breathed, chuckling quietly. “That’s not really how I imagined it.”

I blinked a few times, only just then noticing that we’d been moving closer together this whole time. “We could try again?”

There were only a few inches separating us now. Stiles’ eyelashes fluttered as he leaned forward and connected our lips gently. He tilted his head, slanting his mouth against mine, and I couldn’t help but arch into him as my eyes slid shut. The kiss was timid, just a bunch of barely there caresses as we slowly got more comfortable with each other.

We both pulled away fractionally, our noses still barely touching. I let out a shuddering breath as my anxiety slowly melted away. This was really happening.

“Was that better?” He murmured against me, his warm breath fanning my skin.

“Much.” My hands found the sides of his face and I pulled him back to me, locking our lips together again.

My mouth parted against his as one of his arms snuck around my back to bring me into his chest. His hands trembled against me and I felt my lips tug upward into a small smile, reassured that he was nervous too. I let my fingers trail toward the back of his head and tugged him impossibly closer.

A soft gasp escaped me as one of his hands squeezed at my hip before dragging me on top of him. With my legs on either side of his, I suddenly realized how quickly this was moving and pulled away. My eyes fluttered open just in time to see Stiles pout with a hum of disapproval. He leaned forward to capture my lips again, but froze at the sound of his door being thrown open.

“Oh, dear God. Son, really?”

I scrambled off of him as my eyes landed on his father. He was still wearing his uniform, so he must’ve just gotten back. I smoothed down my clothes and crossed my legs, trying to make myself look more presentable.

“Um. It’s not—uh...what it looks like?” I cringed at that sorry attempt at defusing the situation, and cleared my throat.

“Mr. Stilinski.” I greeted, hoping the twitch of my lips looked more like a smile than a pained grimace.

His eyes narrowed at me before moving to Stiles, who was stiff as a board beside me. “Call me Sheriff. And get to bed.”

With that, he was gone just as suddenly as he’d appeared. I let out a sigh, deflating with exhaustion. I had been through way too much for one day. We shared a quick glance before Stiles turned off the lights.

We crawled beneath his comforter and followed his dad—I mean, the Sheriff’s—advice. Once again, I quickly fell into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.

Episode 7, Part One Episode 8

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farchanter · 3 years

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Hollow Knight

Bear witness to the last and only civilisation, the eternal Kingdom. Hallownest

The experience of playing through Hollow Knight has taught me that I can't ever review games professionally. Because if I find a game I really enjoy I will spend forever with it, turning over every stone I can possibly find to fully soak in it.

Friends, I love Hollow Knight. That isn't to say it's perfect— and we'll get to that— but let none of my critcisms detract from how great this game is. I played some great games in 2020, but Hollow Knight has been the crown jewel of my quarantine. I cannot wait for its upcoming sequel, Silksong.

You are a wandering swordsman who comes across the rotting ruins of a once-mighty kingdom known as Hallownest. As you explore, you learn about what tragedy befell the kingdom and its inhabitants— and how your own destiny and choices play into its future.

Hollow Knight is a Soulslike Metroidvania, a sentence I didn't really enjoy typing out. You explore a 2D world, navigating the ruins and acquiring new powerups, abilities, and unquantifiable skill which allow you to plumb deeper into Hallownest's depths. It's hard— it's not quite kick-you-in-the-teeth-bury-your-controller-at-a-crossroads hard the same way a Dark Souls would be, but just about every boss fight will kill you several times before you "solve" it. It's a good balance: I've played games like this before that just leave you tired and cranky after finally finishing an encounter, but Hollow Knight hits a great sweet spot where you feel amazing after finally winning a boss battle. This creates an indelible experience— I'm going to remember beating the final boss with sweaty, shaking hands for a long, long time.

As an exploration game, or as a combat game, Hollow Knight feels really good. Movement is fluid, and fighting has the elusive "grimace when you're hit" quality that makes for a satisfying experience. There's enough depth to the system that you can really grow into it, and I found my growth from flailing around Dirtmouth to dancing through the Queen's Gardens to be a joy.

I also want to take a moment to specifically call out the soundtrack. Christopher Larkin does an amazing job creating pieces which are both atmospheric and intense. I bought the soundtrack, and I'm listening to it now as I write this.

Part of what makes Hollow Knight so enjoyable is that, despite its Metroidvania perspective, it is focused first-and-foremost on being an RPG rather than a platformer. I really disdain platformers, particularly the ultrahard ones that permeate the pantheon of indie darlings, so I would be remiss to not mention that there are some sections which are really annoying platforming parts. If you don't mind the spoilers in this video, the White Palace is by far the most egregious— and it was a mandatory section for the ending I wanted. In just about any other game, I would have rather quit. I'd much rather die 20 times in the same boss fight than die 20 times falling into the same spike pit. But, that's just my personal preference— and, like I said, people seem to really like games like this.

We live in a golden age of great environmental storytelling— the idea that you can find the story and deduce it for yourself rather than be explicitly told it. When done well, it's a really effective means of conveying a narrative which is both immersive and makes you feel clever. However, I do think that Hollow Knight swings its pendulum a little bit too far in that direction— there's a great story here, but the characters who do tell it speak in deliberately vague dialogue and the clues you find while exploring aren't adequate on their own to tell you the whole story. I don't know that it's possible to fully understand the plot of Hollow Knight without the Hollow Knight Fandom wiki as a constant companion while playing, and that's honestly kind of a bummer. I like the community, and the way that community has filled in the gaps the game won't, but I do feel like a game should be able to have its story stand on its own. Without this supplemental material, I fear that the game is so cryptic— and there's so much that's so easy to miss while trying to not be exploded by a jellyfish again god damn it— that a player without it would just wind up with a good action game devoid of plot. This is another one of those things that other people seem to enjoy, so your mileage here may again vary.

Despite their mysterious dialogue, I did really love these characters: they're the biggest reason I took such a leisurely pace to finish the game. I wanted to rescue Bretta, I wanted to restore the memory of the Last Stag, I wanted to find all of the missing children, I wanted to save Zote, and for the Hollow Knight...

One of my favorite parts of the narrative of this game is that you are asked to make a really powerful decision about who your character is, and what they want. I can't really explain that choice without spoiling essentially the entire game, so I'm putting it after the break here.

In short, the people of Hallownest came under psychic attack by a supernatural entity known as The Radiance. The Radiance haunted their dreams, and ultimately broke them to her will and turned them into— essentially— zombies. Faced with utter collapse of civilization, the King and his advisors devised a desperate plan: The Radiance's entire essence could be imprisoned within a single mind. However, that being would need to be both magically and physically imprisoned for all eternity for the sake of Hallownest. They would be under constant mental attack by a Radiance trying to break loose.

They realize that their chosen vessel would need to lack a mind of its own— in addition to the cruelty of that fate for a sentient being, if The Radiance were to break the will of the prisoner, then it could begin its mental attacks all over again from within the body of the vessel. They developed a plan to breed a child who they thought would be devoid of mind and will— and after hundreds of attempts, they produced a child who met their criteria. They dubbed them the Hollow Knight, sealed The Radiance inside their mind, and entombed them for all time.

However, the Hollow Knight did have an independent will— and, after a long time, The Radiance broke it. From within the sealed crypt, it began to attack the people of Hallownest again— and this time succeeded in destroying the kingdom. At the time the game begins, with its enemies defeated, The Radiance is still attempting to break the physical restraints keeping the Hollow Knight in place and venture out into the world to rain destruction on the remaining survivors of Hallownest.

Your character is also a product of that program to produce a soulless vessel, and you have been supernaturally called back to Hallownest to usurp your sibling and take The Radiance into yourself instead. You, not they, will be sealed away for all time to allow the broken pieces of the kingdom to go on.

This is where the choice comes in. Over the course of the game, you discover that there may be another way: you can enter the Hollow Knight's mind yourself and destroy The Radiance. But this path is much more difficult.

What makes it such an interesting choice, to me, is that it asks you what you believe about your character. The game, true to fashion, never specifically says "hey, your character also has a will of their own!" (in fact, at least one character specifically says you don't— or, importantly, that your mind might be beyond her considerable power to understand. This might be kind of a satirical intepretation of the "silent protagonist player proxy" trope.) If you believe that your character is soulless, then the idea of taking the easy way and sealing yourself makes logical sense. No harm would be done, in that case.

But I could not stand that idea. A soulless being would not have saved the missing children, Bretta, Zote, the Last Stag— I did not want that for my character. And, so, since this is I am the one playing the role in this roleplaying game, I decided it wasn't so. I took the extra challenges, I took the harder route— and I defeated The Radiance.

For me, then, it wasn't just about beating a hard boss capping off 40+ hours of gameplay. It was about a personal vindication for my understanding of my character. That was a pretty powerful feeling.

#completion list #games #completed #todo #review #metroidvania #soulslike #hollow knight #team cherry #knight #the quarantine list

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snowbellewells · 4 years

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Captain Swan Movie Marathon: “Carolina Moon”

Here is my second submission to the @captainswanmoviemarathon event!! This one is a modern au of the Nora Roberts tv movie (adapted from one of her novels) Carolina Moon. The main female character in the movie is psychic/clairvoyant (I’ll admit, I’m not too sure on the distinction between the two) and I thought her visions and what she goes through in connection to them made a nice real world parallel to Emma’s magic. (There’s also a scene in here where the male lead says something that I could so perfectly see Killian saying to Emma… I just cannot wait to get to that point!)

Anyway, I hope you will enjoy this romantic thriller with some murder mystery elements. There are some instances of abuse and violence in here though - which I feel like I should mention, since that’s a little darker than my typical style. Most of them are in flashbacks of Emma’s past, or in visions she has of victims, more than in the actual present day plot, still I wanted to make people aware before we got too far.

Please enjoy! (I’d love to hear what you think.)

Chapter One

July 1993

The water at their hideaway always feels so good. She could sink into it until her head slips below the surface and never, ever want to come up for air. It’s cooler, more luxurious than even the rich, satiny sheets on the trundle bed those rare nights she gets to sleep over at Rose’s. Emma Swan’s gangly, 13-year-old limbs slice through the murky water as if the constant humidity and sultry air of Storybrooke, South Carolina can’t penetrate here in their little haven. She knows, of course, logically, that the real world isn’t all that far away. The shaded pond she and Rose discovered two summers ago is just a short trek into the woods at the furthest edge of Rose’s family’s boundless acres. Still, it feels removed enough to bring Emma a sense of peace and contentment she gains nowhere else.

Looking over her shoulder to the large, smooth boulder jutting up out of the pond at the bank where they left their flip flops and cutoff denim shorts, she can see her best friend stretched out with her new book where they had spread their towels on the rock’s surface, just in the wash of warming sunlight that streams through the tree branches overhead. Her friend’s flawlessly creamy pale skin is prone to burning, but at the moment Rose seems willing to take the risk for the benefit of lazing cozily to read as she dries in the sun after taking a quick dip. Shaking her head, Emma plunges back under, happy to stay in the chilly water a bit longer herself. She knew as soon as they’d met outside Rose’s house that afternoon and Rose had held the newest entry in her favorite mystery series in her hand that she wouldn’t be able to resist burrowing into those pages for long.

It’s funny, Emma supposes, but that’s exactly what bonded she and Rose in the first place. They might seem different on the surface, but in the end, neither of them quite fit with everyone else, and so they gravitate to each other, and have ever since Emma first arrived in Storybrooke as an eight-year-old orphan. They’re willing to give each other at least one other person who takes them as they are and with whom they won’t have to pretend. Emma doesn’t care if Rose wants to read quietly and tell her about the stories she’s already finished instead of picking out dresses for the next cotillion class or preening in front of the mirror to practice batting her eyelashes to charm boys or bragging to Emma about which ones she intends to kiss. Her sister Ruby, who shares the same thickly shining, burnished mahogany hair and pretty pink lips but little of her fraternal twin’s calming, gentle personality, does enough of that for the both of them. Their mother, a former debutante and southern belle, delights in the one daughter’s traditional coquettishness, and despairs of the other’s shyness, a true throwback to another time who wants nothing more than to see both daughters marry well and retain their places atop the social ladder. In turn, Rose doesn’t mock Emma for her thick, dark-framed glasses or secondhand clothes, nor does she cringe away from the “fits” that sometimes take hold of her friend, making strange, disturbing scenes Emma can’t understand flash across her mind with such intensity they sometimes knock her off her feet. Emma knows Rose’s mother and sister find her an unsuitable and embarrassing companion for Rose, but she is eternally grateful her friend seems able to see the best in anyone - even a lost girl nobody else wants - and so blithely acts as though she has no idea of the rest of her family’s opinions.

Cringing even while still submerged in the pond’s depths and practically invisible, Emma tries not to think of her unwanted visions. Her strict, hypocritical, and more than a bit deranged foster father claims she’s possessed - and more than once has taken her episodes out on her hide. The man swears he’s beating the devil out of her and putting the fear of God in Satan’s place when he takes the thick leather strap to her shoulders, back and legs until she bleeds, but Emma has already lived long enough in a cruel and unfair world to know that his violence and “discipline” have less to do with parenting and concern for her soul, and more to show for his own twisted mind and overindulgence in the bottle. She wants to hide her spells from him, but when they come on her so abruptly and with such power, they are impossible to miss. She can’t fathom how a person like him was deemed fit to take in and care for a child, but it seems to be her lot, and so she simply grits her teeth and survives.

It’s different when the spells happen around Rose; the slight brunette merely rests a cool, steadying hand on Emma’s forehead or her arm until it passes, helps Emma stand until she feels in control again, listens as she attempts to make sense of whatever she’s seen, and most importantly… believes her. If only she could stay in the huge house Rose’s family calls home. She’d cook, clean, do chores, and stay in the servant’s quarters, Emma isn’t picky. It would still be a far sight safer than the situation she had in the rundown shack with the monster who’d been deemed her caretaker. Barring that, she would honestly rather live wild in these woods and survive off the land. She knew which plants and berries were safe to eat, Graham, her friend and a fellow orphan now happily adopted, had taught her how to fish; it wouldn’t be easy, but she’d get by, and at least no one would lay a hand on her again.

This afternoon, those eerie images she sometimes had seem far away as she splashes up out of the water, trying to arc playfully like a mermaid as she breaks the surface. Drawing in a big gulp of air after staying underwater so long, Emma startles at the sound of teasing laughter, and whirls to see three figures on the bank where she and Rose left their shoes and shorts.

“Well, look here,” calls out a taunting voice that never fails to set Emma’s nerves on edge. “It’s the baby beached librarian and her drowned rat friend!” none other than Emma’s nemesis Killian Jones crows from his vantage point on dry land.

Rose sits up ramrod straight, book still in hand and annoyed scowl on her face at the quiet of their sanctuary being interrupted. She isn’t genuinely angry, though; for all that she and her sister shared little in common, she and her two years older brother are affectionately close. “Shut up, Killy!” she shoots back, throwing in the childhood nickname they all know he hates. “Who asked you to come looking anyway?”

The boy standing next to Killian speaks up next, making Emma scowl just as playfully as Rose had moments before. Graham Hunter might as well be her big brother; he’s the closest thing she’d had to family since her parents were lost in a car crash and she was thrown into the foster care system. Be that as it may, he and Killian Jones are thick as thieves, and he’ll give her a hard time for all he’s worth in while in the presence of his buddy. “We just wanted to swim,” he calls across the water to the two girls, smirking at Emma, now standing in the water with one hip jutting out and hands planted on her waist. “How were we supposed to know you two were infesting it?”

“Ha!” Emma jeers back, the affront plain in her voice; despite the fact that the entire routine is like a practiced girls-versus-boys exchange they’ve all engaged in countless times. There isn’t much else to do for entertainment in their sleepy little one-horse town. “You idiots know this is Rose and I’s hideaway, fair and square!”

“Well, Rose’s anyway,” a third voice cuts in snidely.

The cruel jab reminds Emma once more that she is just a charity case, quite possibly only included in anything at all because of her friend’s kind heart, and causes her gaze to cut sharply to the third member of the boys’ little crew, hanging back slightly in the shadows behind Killian and Graham as he always does. Her green eyes narrow to slits in genuine dislike and suspicion. Where before her animosity was largely for show, when they land on Walsh Ozman it is all too real.

She has never understood why the other two boys - jokers and annoyances though they may be, but good guys when it comes right down to it - hang out with Walsh at all. Where Graham and Killian are much more cut from the same cloth - athletic, outgoing, well-liked and pleasant - Walsh is a splindy, sniveling character, complaining and whining whatever their little trio gets up to. He lives not far from Emma’s foster father’s cabin with his single mother - a bushy-haired redhead who seems strangely overprotective and attached to her only child. Most people give the property a wide berth, except when high schoolers teepee it the whole month of October, and the general town consensus is that Zelena Ozman might be a witch and to steer clear. Still, beyond all of that, Emma might have been able to look past the boy’s circumstances and see him for himself - she of all people knew the gift it was not to be judged by where a person came from - if Walsh hadn’t simply given her “the willies”. Even standing too close to him made the fine hairs at the nape of her neck stand on end - and not in the way that nearness to Killian sometimes did; an altogether much more pleasant tingle, even if she was just as unable to explain one as the other.

“We could just take their things,” Walsh suggests, holding up the threadbare, faded jeans Emma had left on the bank. “Make them walk back in their skivvies.” The wicked smile on his face makes Emma’s stomach turn over sickly.

Something sharp flashes in Jones’ eyes, his nostrils flaring slightly and his head giving a subtle shake of dissent that Emma can see even at the distance she stands away from him. Protectiveness, chivalry, or maybe the honor of a southern gentleman passed down to him through generations of his impressive family line, whatever it is, it sparks to life in his eyes at that moment as he quashes Walsh’s mean-spirited suggestion in no uncertain terms. “That’s my little sister you’re talking about Oz,” he growls, smacking the worn material from the smaller’s boy’s hands, even if the article of clothing isn’t Rose’s at all.

Emma feels her breath rush back into her lungs, though she continues to watch the guys warily for whatever they might do or say next. Before long, they grow bored of standing around and move on, hollering out age old taunts of “Bye, losers” and “Hey, smell ya later” to Emma’s derisive snort and Rose completely ignoring them to flip open her book again.

However, even with the intruders gone, it seems as if the perfect comfort of their retreat has been shattered by the unsettling interruption. Soon, Emma wades to the shore and Rose clambers down from her perch, to dress once more and return to the world outside. For a moment, as she refastens her jeans around her skinny waist, Emma feels a strange prickling along the fine hairs on her arms… like they’re being watched. She jerks around, searching the surrounding trees and brush, but can’t see or hear a thing.

Rose’s small hand takes hers, snapping Emma out of the moment. “What is it?” she whispers, only true caring in her voice. “Did you sense something?”

Emma nods, but can’t give her suspicions voice. Usually her vision are clearer than that - this had just been heavy breathing and like looking at herself and Rose through another person’s eyes, outside her own body.

Rose stooped to grab the little canvas bag she’d bought along with water bottles, towels, and a second book in it. “Hey, don’t worry, okay?” she offers, hopeful and kind as always. “You’ll figure it out. Wanna meet back out here tonight? Secret Sister bonfire?” she winks mischeivously. “I have to get to dinner now. You know how Mama hates it if I’m not washed up and properly attired for the evening meal - or a second late. But we can talk some more then, maybe you’ll remember more and it will be clearer.”

Emma nods gamely. “The stars’ll be beautiful by midnight,” she suggests. “And we’ll definitely have the place all to ourselves.”

“Since we were so rudely interrupted,” Rose chimes in with a giggle and roll of her eyes.

“Shake on it, pinkie swear,” they say together in practiced unison, executing a complex handshake that ends with their pinkies hooked together and wide, matching grins on both their faces.

“Thanks Rose,” Emma whispers sincerely, trying to speak around the lump in her throat as if it’s no big deal. “I’ll be out here as soon as I can sneak away.”

Rose, for her part, wraps her taller, golden-haired friend into a tight, momentary hug. “Hey, we’re Secret Sisters! You can count on me. I’ll see you then!”

They part ways at the edge of the forest, Emma heading to the rundown cabin that serves as her nightmarish version of a home and Rose to the pristine, Jones mansion standing tall over all the surrounding land. Rose looks back over her shoulder with a smile and wave that bolsters Emma, and the memory fades back into the haze of the past…

Eighteen years later….

September 2011

The blaring of the horn as a sports car whizzed by, barely missing the nose of Emma’s beat-up yellow VW where it had begun to edge out into the country intersection jarred her back to the present with a gasp and painful jolt to her chest. Panting for a moment as she gripped the steering wheel, Emma tried to clear her head and calm the pounding of her heart at the near-miss.

‘Get it together,’ she berated herself. It might have seemed like only yesterday as she remembered that sunny afternoon at the swimming hole, but that day had been nearly two decades ago. She was a grown woman, had made a way for herself, fighting tooth and nail for every step forward, and she answered to no one. She had learned to stand up for herself, to control her visions and use them for good, and was a special consultant for the NYPD. But, more than all of that, she had come back to this place to find peace, to lay to rest the ghosts that followed her everywhere else she’d gone in the years between, once and for all. If she expected other to leave the past in the past, she’d first have to manage it herself.

She’d had no way to know as she and Rose parted that afternoon with promises and plans for later that it would be the last time she would ever see her friend. Emma had harbored the pain and the guilt and the unanswered questions ever since. Finally, it was time to meet the gazes of all of those who’d stared at her in suspicion before she’d been packed up and moved away once more, and it was time she found answers. She wasn’t the scared, whipped, mistreated adolescent she had been at 13. What she had lived through then wasn’t her fault, nor was what had happened to Rose that muggy July midnight.

And if she had to return to Storybrooke, South Carolina to lay that burden down… well, it was long past time she did.

Tagging: @captainswanmoviemarathon @teamhook @revanmeetra87 @lassluna @kmomof4 @searchingwardrobes @jennjenn615 @hollyethecurious @stahlop @winterbaby89 @lfh1226-linda @therooksshiningknight @thejollyroger-writer @artistic-writer @resident-of-storybrooke @darkcolinodonorgasm @tiganasummertree @xsajax @spartanguard @laschatzi

#captain swan movie marathon #cs ff #cs au #carolina moon #chapter one #cs mc

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thenightling · 3 years

Text

The “plot” of the 2018 version of The Dreaming

Okay @missghostlymoonshadow you wanted this, you got it.

It begins in The Dreaming where things are in chaos. Daniel has gone missing. Eve is now black so if you don’t recognize her right away she’s the tall black woman in the toga. She’s a personification of the idea of Eve so she can be whatever race she feels like or whatever race is the most common belief in regard to her story. The castle guards have also changed but with less solid explanation.

Cracks are forming in The Dreaming and a book in Lucien’s Library is missing (which becomes a plot point in The House of Whispers).

Now bear with me, I read most of this almost two years ago and didn’t like it so my mind has filed it under “Don’t care. Delete whenever.” and some parts are a little fuzzy now.

Dora is hanging out in the dream of an older woman who loved to cook and eat. Dora has “mysterious” powers most dream entities don’t have such as being able to know personal details about the dreamers. Dora is a monstress, some sort of female monster. The comic tries to make a big deal of how mysterious this is and build up to the reveal of what she is. She’s a night hag. I won’t draw this out. It’s not worth it. She’s a night hag.

The woman, whose dream Dora is hanging out in, is Rose Walker’s mother but this doesn’t get revealed until later. Rose and Rose’s now adult daughter (the one she was pregnant with in The Wake) Ivy, are in the hospital as this woman dies of throat cancer from years of smoking.

Ivy is the great granddaughter of Desire.

Dora has a chip on her shoulder because her oldest memory is Morpheus telling her that she doesn’t need to be frightened ever again and that was a lie. She talks to Matthew for a bit and then forcibly knocks him out of Rose’s mother’s dream because she didn’t want him to wake her while she’s in pain and dying.

Matthew goes out to find Daniel and he does find him because they are psychically linked but Daniel makes him forget where he saw him and apparently severs their connection.

Lucien has tried to call to Daniel in his gallery with his sigil but it does not work. Lucien is forced to take over The Dreaming and to “conserve resources” uncreates Merv Pumpkinhead’s friends right on the steps of the castle. When Merv breaks down he gives him a callous “I did warn you.” And coldly tells him that being uncreated isn’t the same as actually dying. It’s gently being reabsorbed into The Dreaming. Lucien sounds like he wants to be uncreated, which is odd, because I don’t think he started out as a Dream Entity anyway. He was the first raven after all.

Mervyn thinks of the old days and when Morpheus created him and called him Sir Mervyn of Root and how he would be his ‘feet of clay.” The simple fact that Morpheus would name him Sir Mervyn of Root and later just call him Mervyn is VERY out of character but anyway...

Mervyn releases Judge Gallows. Some fans theorize that this is a different Judge Gallows as the now de-canonized version of The Dreaming by Caitlin R. Kiernan but as both are based on the failed horror host character I think they just both picked different first names for him. Also we saw Mervyn as a Turnip Head in The Tempest issue from the original Sandman so this should not be his origin, already as a pumpkinhead.

This version of Judge Gallows was created by Morpheus to feed man’s fear of “The other.” And it is implied that through creating him Morpheus caused things like the civil war and the holocaust. (?????????)

Cain has been mindlessly stabbing anything coming through the crack in The Dreaming because Simon Spurrier seems to think he’s a muppet that stabs anything and not specifically his brother...

Blank humanoid creatures (white and simplistic drone-like entities) have started to enter The Dreaming through the crack. Judge Gallows takes control over The Dreaming, revealing that Lucien’s memory is fading (Some hamfisted Alzheimer's metaphor). Judge Gallows orders the blanks or “Soggies” (as has become a slur against them) to be rounded up and penned. Merv thinks Judge Gallows is going to make The Dreaming great again. He had hated that jobs that had belonged to his now uncreated friends have been taken by these “soggies.” (I guess this was a Cap’n Crunch reference but it sounds like a bad replacement for the “wet backs” slur.)

Dora has befriended one and started to educate him, revealing that these “blanks” are made of dream stuff, just like any dream entity, and are child-like and can learn. She has named this one that she has adopted Ziggy (after Ziggy Stardust).

Dora tries to stand up to Judge Gallows and what he is doing and as a result Ziggy gats hanged (but it doesn’t kill him). Dora and Lucien escape into the realm of Destruction where she finds Destruction’s sword even though Destruction had his sword in Sandman....

Anyway, lots of stuff happens. Abel kills Cain for a change but Cain doesn’t revive. Dora has a brief visit in the realm of faerie where she meets and chastises poor Nuala for having had a crush on Morpheus after being given to him as a gift. Writers, please stop telling us what should offend us via female characters, this is more insulting than Nuala’s crush. Stop it.

And Judge Gallows gets defeated / over thrown and it’s actually kind of anticlimactic. A new entity that has Dora’s weird wing-ears takes over. This is actually an AI that is unaware that their true purpose is to destroy The Dreaming.

It turns out that a character clearly and shamelessly modeled after the late Steve Jobs had encountered Dora in his dreams, was tormented by her, until he told her she was not real. This sent her on an existential crisis that caused her to turn up in The Dreaming in a sort of panic attack and psychological breakdown.

This Steve Jobs-esque character gains new confidence in defeating the Night Hag and begins to research. He discovers the story of Roderick Burgess and his capture of Morpheus and he decides to destroy The Dreaming. He feels humanity would be better without lies from religions and fear from nightmares to cause them to fight. He thinks world peace will be created if people don’t dream.

Meanwhile Daniel had a crisis of his own. The original reason he left The Dreaming is he wanted to experience being human, he wanted to experience love . And he just so happened to fall in love with Ivy, Rose Walker’s daughter, and Desire’s great-grand daughter. Daniel’s own great niece by technicality.

At one point in their romance Daniel sends a whole drunken bachelor party to sleep-walk to their deaths by drowning for cat calling Ivy because “Me too” i guess?!? We feeling empowered by this??!? Simon knows Dream isn’t supposed to kill, right?!?

All is fine for a while, Daniel even proposes marriage to her, giving her a small shard of his emerald dreamstone (Or was it supposed to be the whole thing?) in her engagement ring. But while Ivy is getting her hair done a lock of her hair is stolen and this is used to put her under a spell.

Ivy is a tattoo artist. And she once got very, very upset when Daniel refused to let her tattoo him. Insisting that if he loved her he’d let her tattoo him. (Totally not an abusive bitch!) Daniel makes it rain because of their fight. They reconcile but while he’s resting (I know Dream doesn’t actually sleep but he can zone out to memory) she tattoos him with something that resembles a cross between the tree of life and a dream catcher, a clever combo that some people bitched was cultural appropriation even though Daniel is supposed to be of every culture. He’s the living embodiment of all dreams.

This tattoo is a geas spell, trapping him under the power of occultists working for the Steve Jobs-esque character. (I’m sorry, I forgot the character’s name and don’t feel like looking it up. I did know it). Edit: Hyperion Keeter is his name.

Daniel, unaware that she’s under anyone’s control, decides she must have “accidentally” put him under a geas and calms down when she offers him some tea on the beach. The tea is poisoned. It does harm to him. He has a major tantrum, thinking she betrayed him. He makes someone on the beach in the waking world where they were scream until their throat bleeds and makes a dog walker eat their own fingers off. Because Daniel is so “Good” and “more kind” than Morpheus, right?!

Eventually Daniel figures out the truth and gets his revenge on the occultists residing at Fawny Rig, the very house where Morpheus had been captured. He goes to set things right with ivy but she has already ODed on drugs in her grief. Daniel is a LOT more sadistic in his revenge than anything I’ve seen Morpheus do.

Daniel takes her and flees with her to another universe so that the occultists cannot try again to destroy him.

Lucien ends up in a human hospital and somehow not recognized as non-human despite probably not having human looking blood and having pointed ears and other non-human traits. Like Oh, being mostly immortal. Here he learns the story of what really happened.

By now the A.I. known as Wan has taken over The Dreaming thoroughly.

The crack had all been connected to the arrival of Wan, and the entities coming through were essentially to pave the way for infecting / taking control of The Dreaming.

Abel knows something is very wrong and forcibly scoops out Matthew’s bird eyes and replaces them for his own eyes so Matthew can see what Wan is doing and to free him from his psychic link with Wan. This is unnecessary, and stupid. It also implies that the Dreamlord’s connection to Matthew is purely through the eyes, which doesn’t even make sense.

When Lucien sees that the library has been replaced with a digital archive he decides he wants to die- even more. His fading memory, combined with the THIRD (if you count Dark Nights: Metal and that is canon here) destruction of his library is too much for him. His friends, the other dream-folk, including Mervyn- who seems to have forgotten the animosity from the Judge Gallows plot, and Eve, and the others help burry him.

Lucien has a brief meeting with Death where he learns what he must do. It’s suggested he may or may not have had contact with Morpheus at this time. He kind of gets a little babbly.

Desire acts as a talking head, face partly hidden for some reason, and informs Rose Walker of what is going on and what needs to be done, more or less. And helps her learn the truth as well as guides her on where to go. Note: Some fans speculate that this Desire was actually posthumous Morpheus in disguise and the reason you don’t see his whole face is because of his Kindly Ones scar. This Desire only shows up in Rose’s Dreams, further hinting it could have been Morpheus in disguise.

Rose finds her way to the mansion where the Steve Jobs-esque character used to live and was being kept alive with machines. The poor man had a visit with Daniel who had showed him what his scheme would actually cause (the end of human creativity, the end of everything). Steve Jobs-esque character tried to stop what he set into motion but it was too late.

Dora got there before Rose and found Cain’s soul living inside the house’s AI and tried to shut the machines down, accidentally killing the Steve Jobs character in the process.

Rose arrives, after picking up some displaced dream folk like Abel. It’s discovered that Morpheus’ old ruby dream stone had been re-created and was inside Dora’s head. Morpheus had placed it there for safe keeping and to stabilize her when she came into his realm broken by her self-doubt. He had given her the power of the dreamstone and erased her memory until she was strong enough to overcome her self-doubt.

Now she no longer needed the ruby. It’s no longer in her head but she has it with her to take back to The Dreaming. Abel frees Cain’s soul as the two reconcile as Cain gets his body back. Abel also gives Matthew back his original eyes so he no longer has giant human eyes hanging out of his bird head. Abel’s own eyes have grown back in the sockets anyway.

The ruby (no longer in her head) becomes a component in a spell partly inspired by David Bowie’s Station to Station song (okay...) that brings Daniel home and frees him from the geas.

The tech support team working to keep Wan active to destroy The Dreaming are all put into a Nightmare run by Cain and Abel in a malicious but delightful tag-team nightmare (The best scene for these two, hands down, probably the best scene in the comic. “There will be no tech support today.”)

Lucien is all better, his mind restored, and leading this well orchestrated rebellion against Wan. He has a lost book with him that turns out to contain “Him” so he clutches it to his chest and it’s apparently cured his forgetfulness.

The efforts work and Daniel is home. Unfortunately Ivy (whose soul had been with him) was lost forever (apparently). Daniel regains The Dreaming, the AI (who didn’t know that they had an evil other side that was destroying The Dreaming) is apologetic and contrite and “dies” restoring things to the way they should be.

The idea of The Dreaming being hackable really rubs me the wrong way. It does not run on Windows 10! Daniel erases Rose’s memory of what happened to her daughter (for some reason!) and things return to normal, more or less.

Also weirdly the dreamfolk seem to like being a failsafe better than the idea that they were created out of laziness “or worse” Loneliness. This was actually said by Eve. This was very odd to me as I would think if my very existence made someone’s life a little better just for my being in it, I wouldn’t be offended at having been created to end their loneliness. Simon Spurrier seems to have issues against the concept of friendship...

While Lucien and Dora are celebrating Matthew comes to tell them that Daniel wishes to see them in the throne room to reward them. Lucienm who has apparently learned defiance, decides to leave Daniel waiting.

And that’s roughly the entire plot of the Simon Spurrier version of The Dreaming.

It seems cluttered as I write it out but it was actually really slow and boring and had very bad pacing for the most part.

I know I left out big chunks but those didn’t really impact the main story.

__________________

The Dreaming: Waking Hours

Currently we’re on The Dreaming: waking Hours which I’d be happy if it stood alone but alas Dora has already made a cameo appearance... forcing me to remember that at least for now Simon Spurrier’s story is still canon.

The current dreaming is Ruin ( cute emo boy nightmare) has escaped The Dreaming to find his lost love, a human boy he fell in love with. He teams up with a semi-fallen angel he accidentally wronged, and Heather After (great granddaughter of Roderick Burgess, and granddaughter of Doctor Destiny, thus canonizing the thing revealed in The Sandman audio drama, that Doctor Destiny was Alex Burgess’ half-brother). Heather is trans but it’s not treated as a major plot point and she’s a very well-written character. A scholarly woman obsessed with Shakespeare accidentally ended up in The Dreaming after Ruin’s escape and Ruin, with Heather’s help returned to The Dreaming to set things right. Daniel was so moved that he let Ruin return to Earth to find his love but warned him that while there he could die like any mortal and could be claimed by his sister, Death. This wasn’t a threat before with characters like the Corinthian when he escaped to our world but okay...

Also we’re repeatedly told that Nightmares “aren’t supposed to be able to love” but the original Sandman proved otherwise repeatedly with characters like Cain and Abel.

Dora is who allowed Ruin to escape in the first place. For some reason Daniel was keeping him in his “box of nightmares.” Why Daniel is keeping Nightmares in a box is anyone’s guess. Daniel seems afraid of his own Nightmares and talks Lucien into coming with him while he was investigating Ruin’s initial escape, telling Lucien he needed someone to keep a record.

Now Ruin is on a quest to find his love with the help of Heather and...I wanna say Rophiel? (I’m sorry, I forget the angel’s name.) It’s not that bad.

Eventually they end up in the realm of Faerie where Nuala used Titania’s true name to over throw the kingdom but she had let herself be manipulated by Unseelie advisors and does not seem to really know how to lead without being controlled by another. Heather tries to give a lecture about how monarchies are bad and how they should have a democracy and the fae laugh at her.

Eventually Titania and Oberon are back in power (apparently). Ruin finds his mortal true love and Rophiel is redeemed by helping him find love, he had to learn how important true love is.

Daniel reneges on his deal with Ruin and tries to reclaim him but Heather comes to his rescue and starts reciting the spell that originally captured Morpheus. She agrees not to finish the spell if Daniel lets Ruin go. Ruin gets his happily ever after with his mortal lover and Heather goes home to her boyfriend.

The end.

#The Sandman Universe #The Dreaming #The entire plot of The Dreaming 2018

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