#she may not have believed in her wilderness stuff but she definitely looked to her for help/advice etc 🥺😫

[lvcygraybaird]

shauna + looking to lottie

#she may not have believed in her wilderness stuff but she definitely looked to her for help/advice etc 🥺😫 #yellowjackets #yellowjacketsedit #96yellowjackets #yellowjacketssource #lottieshauna #lottie matthews #shauna shipman #shauna x lottie #lottie x shauna #1x09 #2x02 #2x07 #parallels #mygifs #mygifsets #myedits

[taduki]

The M6 w/ an MC who gives them books to read

This headcanon post includes books for each character !! I’ve only read a couple of these books so sorry if they’re not good or fitting……… Please enjoy !! I put lots of time into it, and I STILL want to write more on these entries !!! Alas, I will save my energy for another headcanon perhaps. :)

Asra

They were open to reading long before you met them, and you found they were HUGE on comedy books.

Their favorite one you've given them is "My Family and Other Animals" by Gerald Durrell. When they finished it, they lent/bought a copy to give to Aisha and Salim, and it was a fantastic decision because they fell in love with it too. Now when they come over to visit, their conversations are full of inside jokes and laugh attacks.

When you give them a good, new book, the next few reading sessions are filled with Asra’s cackling and giggles. They are so excited to read bits and pieces to you, but if it's really bad, they'll be trying to explain it to you for like ten minutes between laughs and gasps for air.

Sometimes, they’ll stray from their usual genre and try something new like thriller, but they find those are too serious for them. They’re looking for fun!! Laughs !! Sillies !! Eventually, they find one or two books they like with serious undertones and those are the ones that they hold so dear to them.

Asra struggles to find good enough books for themself, as adventurous as they are. That’s why they hold your recommendations to such high opinion. You know where to find the best ones for them.

Julian

Julian’s choice of fiction books either range from, “Who makes this stuff?”, to, “What kind of genius wrote this?!”

Definitely likes to read fun and weird screenplays like “Some Like it Hot (1959)” by Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond so you two can act out the scenes.

For the most part, he does prefer nonfiction books, particularly encyclopedias.

He never wants to go anywhere near a textbook about biology ever again!! He says as he picks up books about flora… He was referring to animals, of course. He’ll pull you over to the side of a road just to inspect a seemingly normal weed, and that is in fact what it will turn out to be.

It’s becoming a scavenger hunt for him, so if you indulge him, you’ll draw little stars or check marks on the ones he’s seen already. It may save you time if he’s not that interested in those particular ones. Otherwise, be prepared for a full day trip around Vesuvia.

He’s bought so many different encyclopedias about the same things, you’re not sure about specific favorites, but they tend to be of the thicker variety with many pictures.

You have to give it to him though. Sometimes he comes across the most amazing things. Besides flaming flowers and clouds that chase each other, you’ve seen trees with branches in such formations that they sing when the wind blows. He wants to show you the world…

Portia

Her favorite from your recommendations is still “The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd, as mentioned before.

Gossip. Gossip and DRAMA.

If the Palace drama wasn't enough, you've opened up a whole new world to her. Fictional drama is so juicy and unbelievable, she is so entertained. When she gets really into it, she likes to rant about the crazy stuff like, "I can't believe she picked him over the emperor! He's so much nicer to her, but no00000! Now she has to deal with this new guy and his jealous ex."

Sometimes you're not completely sure what goes on in those books... But you're happy for her nonetheless.

There are occasional sob sessions while you two popcorn read. She requires time to recover before she starts another book because some of the books she reads have emotionally taxing endings.

But for the most part, your popcorn reads consist of comically dramatic acting, courtesy of Julian’s influence. You’re pretty sure she’s just making fun of him…

Pepi likes to block Portia's field of vision when she reads. She sniffs each page turn and if Portia's not careful enough, she will pounce on the book like it's a toy and rip a page.

Nadia

It would be surprising to recommend a book she HASN'T read yet.

She is used to high literature, so you thought about bringing her books from the shop, but it turns out she's fairly knowledgeable and politely uninterested about the contents of the ones you suggested. She was looking for more fiction than magic journals. (She is afraid of looking at a spell the wrong way, lest it activate).

You go back and forth with her on which ones she’s read and what types she’s interested in, and you just about run out of ideas until you dig up a book Asra had tucked away called “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho. Asra found it hard to read but didn’t feel like returning it that day, so they just shelved it and hadn’t touched it since.

She gets started on it during her free time and finds it very easy to read, but she didn’t like it. It had some nice quotes here and there, but most of the book was just preaching and buzzwords to her. It felt like waiting through a really long and unnecessary speech at wedding ceremony. And don’t even get her started on the contents!! The material is unrealistic, insensitive, and — oh dear, she’s ranting.

The experience ends with Nadia slowly growing a penchant for trash novels she isn’t actually interested in…

To curb her junk fiction fix, she opts to reread books you recommended previously. Whenever you have a reading session in the library or just a moment together, she likes to ask for your thoughts on specific parts and what she thought of them as well. Her thoughts are rarely anything bad with your taste though, so much so she can’t decide which suggestions are her favorites! She likes seeing into a little part of your brain that makes you who you are.

Muriel

Picture books of animals doing human things… He has no favorite either! It could literally be from “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” to “Peter Rabbit”.

It’s not that he doesn’t like reading novels! He just prefers things he can see in front of him, like you like drawings and his carvings. He finds it hard to visualize certain things, especially if they’re things he’s never seen nor imagined before.

If you can draw, you could read him stories like that, but whether you can or can’t, Muriel might still be confused…

So, you tried another alternative. You learned to create figures with your magic! You already knew some basic knowledge on it, but you couldn’t have a handle on the image for too long, much less while reading something.

After months of work and patience (and Muriel’s DELECTABLE food), you managed to read one page straight while visualizing it in front of you like a movie. When you finally tell him, he’s still confused but also incredibly flustered that you spent so much time and energy on this. You tried keeping it a surprise, going into the forest to practice, but he definitely went looking for you a couple of times. The first time was because he was worried. The next few times were just to see how you were coming along. He never told you though. He wanted to see you happy for when you showed him the final product.

When the time came to finally watch your “movie”, he prepared some snacks and the comfiest furs in the hut, and waited for you to feel comfortable enough. You had been working on this for a while. It was only natural that you’d feel nervous. When you opened the book and began to read, Inanna definitely tried to bark the apparition away, but once she calmed down, you read the book to him, making the room a real life movie. He was positively enchanted…

When you feel too tired to read on, Muriel gently holds your hand to reassure you this is more than enough and lets you rest on him. He already feels like the luckiest guy in the world. Now, he must be the luckiest guy in the universe.

Lucio

It’s apparent to you that he is not much of a literary scholar. He claims it’s because he’d probably rip the pages with his arm.

Reading still wasn’t much of his thing even after you guys got together, so as a joke, you bought him a children’s book, one of the big, flat ones with pictures of mice in cute human clothes, and he was unamused.

He didn’t want anything to do with it. In fact, he didn’t even want to go near it. Until one fateful day when you’re away, Lucio gets curious and opens the book up to the first page (after mentally arguing with it for a while), and MELTS upon seeing the cute little mice waiting for the mama mouse to finish cooking supper. He got so invested and was oh so disappointed in how short it was. He wanted more, but was way too embarrassed to admit it.

Every time you took him to a bookstore to look for your own thing, he’d let his guard slip and eye the children’s section for a second.

You didn’t notice for a while, but when you did, you bought another one for him in secret and placed it right next to the first book. Eventually, he snuck over to reread the first one and was absolutely delighted to find a new one.

It becomes a cycle until he is reassured enough that he can buy his own books and read them next to you, regardless of contents. Every week, he’s upgrading to a slightly longer children’s book, or even a new series. He finds them fun and sometimes healing. His favorite book(s)? “Dork Diaries” by Rachel Renée Russell, and nobody can tell me otherwise.

#the arcana headcanons #the arcana muriel #muriel of the kokhuri #asra alnazar #asra the arcana #nadia satrinava #the arcana hc #portia the arcana #the arcana game #lucio the arcana #lucio morgasson #lucio montag #julian devorak #the arcana julian #the arcana imagines #portia devorak #ilya devorak

[itsapeterthing]

Paint || Peter Parker

pairing: peter parker x reader

summary: peter sees a figure walking through the trees during his run and investigates only to meet a girl named y/n painting in the woods.

a/n: requested by anon! a short and sweet meeting story.

word count: 2.1k

warnings: none, fluff

masterlist || request

Peter was almost regretting his decision to join the Avengers at the moment. Nearly getting himself killed dozens of times by adversaries was nothing compared to the run Cap had him and the other Avengers going on in what he considered to be the middle of nowhere. Although he had superhuman abilities that had definitely aided in his run at the beginning, he could feel himself struggling for air and his legs beginning to ache.

A few of the others had already fallen behind a while back and Peter felt himself about to trip over his own feet as he began to run slower.

“Getting tired?” None other than Steve himself asked, running up behind him.

Peter jumped, but then began to push himself to run faster. “N-no. No sir.” Peter huffed. “This... is... easy.”

Cap eyed Peter. “You should take a breather, kid. There’s no harm in that.”

Although Peter was always one to go out of his way to impress the Avengers- especially Captain America- he could barely breathe and his whole body felt like it was just begging for him to take a break.

“A- are you... sure?” Peter asked in between breaths.

“You know your way back?” Steve asked, matching Peter’s pace.

Peter, running out of breath, no longer able to speak just nodded.

“Alright kid. I’ll see you back at the Compound.”

And with that, he picked up his pace, leaving Peter behind. Peter slowed to a stop and doubled over with his hands on his knees, heaving and struggling for breath. He attempted to salute in Cap’s direction, but he had already run past Peter’s point of view.

Still breathing heavy and exhausted, Peter stumbled over to the side of the road and flopped down on his back onto the grass. He turned his head to the side and as he did he saw a figure making their way through the trees.

He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “H- hey!” He called, but no one answered.

Peter pulled himself up, balancing himself on his elbows to get a better look before calling again. “Hello?”

After he once again did not receive an answer, he pulled himself onto his feet. He questioned whether he really did see someone or if the figure was just a figment of his imagination. He was unable to ask any of the others for reassurance since they either fell behind a while ago or they were ahead with Steve. Deciding to trust this own instincts, Peter began walking through the woods, using his “Peter tingle” as Aunt May liked to call it, to know where to go.

He stopped when he heard the snap of a twig and the rustling of leaves. Following the noise, he carefully walked over the branches scattered across the ground, not trying to alarm whoever he had just followed into the woods. As he approached where the noise had come from, he stopped and attempted to hide himself behind a tree.

In front of him he saw a girl pulling a chair up and off from the top of a table, onto the ground. He watched as she sat down in the chair, opening the bag at her side and pulling out a pad of paper, along with a tray of what he assumed to be paint and brushes. 

He knew he probably should have turned around and that this was an invasion of privacy, but he couldn’t help but watch as she painted. He was lured in by how peaceful she seemed. Around them was a peaceful quiet, with only the sounds of birds and the breeze flowing through the trees able to be heard. 

It was so much different than what he had been used to. Even before he discovered that he had superpowers, he had lived in the city and there seemed to never be a moment of complete silence- from sirens at all hours of the day to groups of people chatting outside his window at all hours of the night. He thought he had found peace in the noise, but he had barely known the peacefulness of quiet.

Now that he was Spider-Man, it was even harder to find peace whether he was in the city protecting locals or tagging along with the Avengers to save humanity. He was so busy all of the time, it was difficult for him to find peace and quiet, never mind the serenity he felt around him in this exact moment.

Just as he was becoming lost in his own thoughts, he was pulled out of them by the snapping of a twig beneath his feet. As he did, his eyes went wide and he watched as the unnamed girl, jumped from her seat to her feet, scattering brushes and papers along the ground.

He threw his hands up in the air. “I’m sorry!” He spoke.

“Who are you?” She asked. “Did you... did you follow me?”

He could tell her heart rate was speeding up, worried that some random boy had followed her into the woods. That’s fair, he thought.

“No!” He said, quickly. “I mean yeah- yes. But not in a creepy way! I just saw someone walk into the woods and I called and no one said anything so I- I just wanted to make sure that everything was okay.”

She just stared at him.

“You know what? I should go. Yeah. I’m gonna leave you alone.” He said, about to turn around.

“Wait.” She called, finally speaking up and stopping him. “Are you... an Avenger?” 

Now his heart was the one racing. “What? No!” He chuckled nervously. “Why... what would make you think that?”

She smiled, pointing at his t-shirt. “Because you have their logo on your shirt and it’s the only place out here for like a mile.”

Peter glanced down at the gray t-shirt he was wearing with the Avengers logo printed across his chest. Quickly, he attempted to spin a lie. “Oh this? No. Nope.” He shook his head. “I just... work... at the Avengers Compound. I... hand out waters and stuff to um Thor and ya know... other... people.”

There was a pause as the they stared at each other.

“I’m Y/n.” You told him, moving your hand out to shake his.

He calmed down as you introduced yourself and your own heart settled, knowing now that you weren’t scared of him- meaning you either believed what he said or just simply accepted his lie about working at the Avengers Compound. It wasn’t a whole lie, he told himself though. He did “work” there and occasionally, as the youngest person there, was asked to fetch water from time to time.

“Peter.” He said, taking your hand. “So... what are you doing out here?”

You then remembered what you had come out here for in the first place. You spun around turning back to look at your set up. “Oh!” You exclaimed. “I come out here sometimes to paint. It's really peaceful, you know?”

Peter nodded. He had just been thinking the same thing before he first saw you. It had been difficult for him to know peace for a long time, but here he felt as though he could breath even if it was for a short time.

“I know what you mean.” He told you, then glancing at the mess he had caused when he first spooked you. “Let me help.” He smiled, gesturing to the paint brushes and loose papers scattered along the floor.

You turned around, looking at the mess behind you. “You don’t have to. It’s okay!” You told him, striding over to your workspace and beginning to haphazardly organize the area.

Despite your assurances that you could clean up yourself, Peter followed behind you and began picking up your scattered paintings on the ground.

“You did all of these yourself?” He asked.

You watched as Peter stared at each of your quick paintings in his hand. He, admittedly, did not understand much about art, but he was in awe at the work he saw in front of him. The paintings he held in his hands depicted what he believed to be fairies sitting light as a feather on flowers and hidden in the trees. The design itself was soft and gentle and he was afraid to ruin something so precious in his hands. 

“Yeah,” You chuckled.

“They’re really good.” He told you, impressed. “I wish I could do stuff like this. How do you even do this?”

You smiled. A part of you was always nervous showing your paintings to someone else, especially a stranger, but it made you feel warm inside to have this cute, sweaty boy complimenting you on your art and impressed with your skill.

“Everyone has their thing.” You told him. “What about you?”

Peter then thought about his abilities, but for obvious reasons he couldn’t divulge on his strengths without the risk of exposing his identity. Although he couldn’t share that part of himself with you- someone he just met- it made him remember who he was without his abilities- the skills and talents he possessed without the assistance of an accidental spider bite.

“My friend and I build lego sets.” He shrugged.

“That can’t be it.” You laughed. “Come on! What are things you’re good at?”

Peter hadn’t been asked that question in regards to just himself in a while. He felt that people only cared about him recently because he was Spider-Man, not because he was Peter Parker. It felt good for someone to care about him for more than the things he couldn’t control.

“Sciency stuff I guess.” He told you as the two of you stood up and he handed you back your paintings.

You smiled, accepting the pages back and placing them on the table. “See! And you thought you weren’t good at anything.”

Peter smiled before scratching the back of his neck. “So... do you always hang out here in your free time?”

You sat back in your chair, this time organizing your desk space again. You placed your current work-in-progress in front of you and set out your paints. Taking a brush from one of those scattered across the table and dipping it in your desired color you laughed. “Not all the time. Why do you ask?”

Peter felt himself stiffen up. He knew why, but he didn’t want to say it out loud. It wasn’t often he met new people and felt comfortable enough around them, but around you, there was a carefree air. Although he had barely learnt anything about you besides your name and your inclination for painting in the wilderness, he wanted to learn more about you.

“Oh... well... you know...” He began. “Maybe we could hang out sometime? Not in the woods I mean. Not that there’s anything wrong with it! I just- you know-”

At that he heard the strokes of your brush halt on the page as you lifted it and set it down in the glass of water in front of you. You turned back in your chair to look at him, leaning your arm over the back of it. “Like a date?” You asked, cutting him off.

Even though Peter had been through a lot that most teenagers his age had never experienced- that some would even claim required an excessive amount of bravery- he still got flustered when you asked him whether it was a date or not. He thought you were interesting and wanted to get to know you regardless. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t interested in going on a date with you, but he also didn’t want to risk facing rejection and embarrassment.

What do you have to lose? He asked himself.

“I’m sorry if that was forward-” You began as he took a bit longer than you had anticipated for him to answer.

“Yeah. Like a date.” He cut you off. “If you want to anyway... you don’t have to.”

For what felt like the hundredth time since you first met him a few minutes ago, you smiled. “I’d like that.”

And with that you and Peter exchanged numbers before he insisted you go back to painting and that people would begin looking for him soon if he didn’t get back to his run. When his feet hit the road to start running again, he felt a new bolt of energy and pride rush through him as he thought about the cool painter girl’s number he had just gotten in the woods and the date he would share with you that upcoming weekend.

#peter parker x reader #peter parker x you #peter parker x y/n #peter parker fic #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker fluff #peter parker oneshot #peter parker imagine #peter parker blurb #spiderman x reader #spiderman x you #spiderman x yn

[twink-appreciation-posts]

Lashing Out - Spencer Reid x Reader

chapter nine of “all bets are off”

the first rule of sleeping with a coworker is DONT FUCKING SLEEP WITH YOUR COWORKER

warnings: ANGST, plot-heavy set up for next chapter which will have zero plot, seriously this chapter is important to the plot but the next one is gonna be very nsfw and pretty much skippable if it’s too much for u guys but THIS CHAPTER IS IMPORTANT and also kinda short sorry 

“What the fuck were you talking to Rossi about?”

The words may have come out a bit more aggressively than you had intended, and maybe a bit too loud, but you were barely keeping it together. You were standing at Spencer’s desk, foot-tapping nervously, eyes darting around the room to your coworkers.

“What? Nothing,” Spencer replied quickly. “Just typical Rossi stuff.”

“What does the even mean?” You whisper-yelled. “Did he…. did he hear something?”

Spencer let out a sigh. “I… I don’t know. All he asked was where we had gone. I told him we were looking for old files. I’m sure it’s fine.”

Perfect. Yeah, you were sure that Rossi totally bought his story, right? No way. He knew. He had to have known. “You think he believes that? Spencer, how can you be so nonchalant about this? What we did was totally unprofessional. We could be fired.”

Spencer finally looked up at you and met your eyes. “We’re not going to be fired. Even if Rossi does know, he’s not going to tell anyone, and he wouldn’t get us fired over it. You’re right, what we did was risky, but it was a calculated risk and nothing bad is going to come of it. You trust me, don’t you?” He spoke methodically, without much emotion, like he would have explained any other random fact or statistic. You hated it. How could he be so calm? How could he not care?

“Nothing bad?” You quoted back at him, rolling your eyes. “Best case scenario is that Rossi knows and doesn’t say anything about it. That still means that someone on our team that I trust and look up to knows that I fucked someone in a backroom during work. I don’t wanna even think about the lack of respect he must have for me now. Do you really not care what he thinks?”

He considered your point for a moment. You weren’t even sure what you wanted him to say. An apology would mean nothing and empathy wouldn’t help your situation either. “Sexual relationships with coworkers are more common than you’d think, according to some studies up to 40 percent of people reported having some form of intimate relationship with a coworker in their life. Plus, it’s Rossi. I’m sure he’s done wilder things-“

“I don’t care what Rossi has done! I don’t care what 40 percent of people have done. I care what I’ve done. I care what we’ve done. Sleeping with you is one thing, but doing it repeatedly and doing it at work is crossing a line. This was a mistake. All of it was a mistake. I don’t know why the hell I let you drag me into this… whatever this is. I feel so fucking stupid.” Your emotions were getting the better of you, you knew that. It was as much your own fault as it was Spencer’s and crying about it wouldn’t help. But you did feel dumb. You felt dumb for a lot of reasons.

Spencer opened his mouth to reply, but he was cut short by Hotch calling a team meeting. Great. Just what you needed. You walked away from his desk, making a promise to yourself:

’I’m never having sex with Spencer Reid ever again.’

The rest of the day was typical other than the fact that you couldn’t find it in you to speak to or make eye contact with Spencer or Rossi.

It was definitely obvious to everyone else that something was up. That was the downside of working with profilers: even the smallest change of behavior was enough of a tip for them to notice.

As you packed up your stuff for the day Rossi approached you. You forced your best ‘nothing is wrong’ smile as he spoke.

“I’m having dinner party at my place this Saturday,” he explained. “Everyone’s invited. It’s my duty to teach you folks how to make a real carbonara.”

“Ah, yeah!” You nodded, still avoiding his gaze. “I’ll be there.”

“Great! See you then.”

The rest of the work week was miserable at best, but it’s not like you were particularly looking forward to the weekend either. Dinner at Rossi’s sounded peachy keen until you considered the fact that it meant awkwardly avoiding friends for an extra day. You would’ve felt bad not showing up, though, so Saturday evening you were sitting in Rossi’s kitchen watching him cook. Everyone but Spencer was there, but you were assured he’d be showing up. You secretly hoped he wouldn’t.

30 minutes into your cooking class there was a knock at the door.

“I got it!” JJ left the kitchen and returned with Spencer at her side.

“Sorry I’m late,” he smiled sheepishly.

“What was more important than this? You have a date or something?” Derek teased him. Spencer shook his head and turned red.

Wait. Had he…? No. No way. And even if he had, what did it matter to you?

“If Spencer had a lady friend I’d expect we’d never know, anyway.” Emily chuckled. “He’s not the bragging type unlike some of us here.” She elbowed Derek playfully. You frowned. Why did this upset you?

You dared to glance towards Spencer only to see that he had already been looking at you. Oh fuck. You turned your head back towards Rossi immediately, sighing. Spence took the only free seat, which was conveniently next to yours, and put down his bag.

“Well now that we’re all here,” Rossi popped open a bottle of wine, “let’s toast!”

You had a surprisingly fun night. You even talked to Spencer and Rossi a bit, forcing down any embarrassment. At the end of the night you had mostly resolved your issues internally, and you realized that you might’ve been a bit too cold to Spencer during the week. So you made the adult decision that you were going to apologize. As you walked out of Rossi’s house, sorry mansion, you pulled Spencer to the side. “Can we talk?” You asked quietly.

“Of course,”

So you went on a bit of a walk.

“I, um, I just wanted to say I’m sorry for being such a bitch to you this week. And before you say I wasn’t, it’s okay. I know I was. It was just as much my fault as it was yours that everything went down the way it did. It was a two-way street and I just didn’t wanna take responsibility for my own actions.” Your eyes were glued to the ground, twiddling your fingers nervously.

“It’s okay,” Spencer reassured you with a smile. “You were under a lot of stress and I understand why you’d lash out.”

You nodded, relieved that he wasn’t upset with you, though you knew he probably wouldn’t be. He wasn’t the type to get mad about stuff like this.

“Well, if that’s what you were worried about, don’t sweat it.” He told you when you stayed silent. He began to walk back towards his car.

“There was something else, actually…” You stuttered out. Spencer paused, turning on his heel and locking eyes with you.

You opened your mouth to speak but the words caught in your throat. You took a moment. Composed yourself. This was stupid. Why were you even asking? But now if you didn’t say anything it would be even weirder. Fuck. You really were a dumbass. “Did you uh, actually come late because you were on a date?” You mentally face-palmed. What a stupid fucking question.

Spencer chuckled. “No. I didn’t. I was writing a letter to my mom.” He explained, and for some reason, you felt relief wash over you. You laughed a bit. You had gotten all worked up over nothing. “Why do you ask?”

Your face fell. How were you supposed to answer that when you weren’t fully sure of the answer yourself? I mean, you could guess, sure, but in the end, you were lost. The question had just been plaguing you all night. That’s why you asked. “I don’t know. I guess I was just curious.” You shrugged. It wasn’t a lie. You had been curious.

“Fair enough. I’ll see you Monday.” Spencer began to walk away again and your brain began to buzz with too many thoughts to keep track of, but one was repeating at top volume, a desperate reminder of the rule you had set.

I’m never having sex with Spencer Reid ever again. I’m never having sex with Spencer Reid ever again. I’m never having sex with Spencer Reid ever again.

But despite the voice in your head screaming at you, besides your attempts to be reasonable about things, even though every inch of your rational brain was saying let him walk away, you spoke. Words flying out of your mouth before you could catch them. “Or maybe I was jealous.”

You thought maybe he didn’t hear you because he didn’t react at first. Maybe that was for the best. But your hopes were soon shattered when he turned around, looking at you with a mix of desire and confusion. Regret washed over you. God, you wished he hadn’t heard.

You stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, both plotting your next move, weighing your options. How much weight did your words carry? How would he take them?

You took a step towards him, and he did the same, and you were close enough to lean forward and put your lips on his and fuck did you want to but you shouldn’t and you knew that it would only make things worse in the end but at the moment you didn’t care and now it was too late because his lips were on yours before you could find the strength to walk away.

You didn’t know who leaned in. You didn’t care. It had been less than a week since your last encounter with him but you were starved and so was he. Whatever fucked up toxic thing that kept you two coming back to each other was too strong to fight and god the feeling of being with him like this was intoxicating. You pulled back eventually, needing to breathe, and you hated it. You wanted more.

“Where are you headed after this?” You asked breathlessly.

“I don’t know. Where do you want me to go?” He replied, eyes searching yours.

You gulped, swallowing down your self-respect and pride. Maybe Spencer had always been right. You needed him. You needed whatever this mess was. “I’ll see you at my place, then?”

“I’ll see you at your place.”

You parted ways with Spencer and walked to your car in silence, your mantra still ringing in your ears.

’I’m never having sex with Spencer Reid ever again.’

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[alarawriting]

52 Project #30 (Writeober #15: Mortality): Everybody’s Happy As The Dead Come Home

Ever since my mother died of breast cancer a few years ago, I’ve been making time to go visit my elderly father about once a month. That may be conjuring up the wrong image in your head, so let me clarify. My father’s over 70, but he still has a lot of the energy he had as a younger man. He works as a consultant for the big corporation he spent his entire adult pre-retirement life working for, for about three or four times as much money, and he enjoys it. He’s got an active social life, spending time with friends he had shared with Mom as a couple, and new friends he’s made from his bereavement group or his consulting work. And my sister, the baby of the family, lives with him, and my two younger brothers come to visit him a lot more often, since they live a lot closer than I do. So if you’re imagining a lonely, stooped old man pining away in a house that smells like stale cat food – that’s not my dad, and I can’t imagine it would ever be.

I arrived late on a Friday night, as usual. My sister met me at the door, and actually looked me directly in the eye. Stephanie’s autistic; she never looks anyone in the eye. “Eleanor,” she said, and that was another strange thing, because she almost never calls anyone by name… unless she’s doing it for emphasis. “When you find out, don’t say anything about it,” she said.

“About what?” Most of the time Stephanie makes sense, but every so often she says something that sounds like her mind has jumped ahead in the conversation without realizing all the missing pieces she never bothered to say.

“You’ll know,” she said. “And you’ll want to ask ‘why’ and ‘how’, and I’m telling you that you can’t do that. Don’t ask any questions. Just come talk to me after you’re done.”

“Done with what?” I asked.

And then a voice called me from the TV room. “Lennie? Lennie, is that you?”

Only my mom and dad are allowed to call me Lennie. And that was a woman’s voice. I froze in place.

“Go see her,” Stephanie said, and headed off to her room.

I turned toward the TV room, slowly. “Lennie! Come out and see me!” my mom’s voice called.

I didn’t know whether to be terrified, or to start crying and fling myself into her arms. I walked very slowly, very cautiously, to the edge of the kitchen, where I could see my parents in the TV room. Both of my parents. My dad was smiling.

“Lennie!” my mom said, standing up. She hadn’t been able to stand up without help for months before she died, but here she was, standing up easily. She didn’t look any younger than she had when she died, but she looked healthier. The extreme thinness she’d suffered from at the end after it had metastasized and she’d barely been able to eat was gone; her flesh was filled out, her skin as taut as you could expect from a woman her age, and healthy-looking. Pale, but her natural paleness, not the weird, sallow, almost yellow color it had been at the very end.

“Mom?” I whispered.

“Come here. I need a hug,” Mom said, sounding exactly like she always had – joking, but there was always that note of truth under it. She didn’t wait for me to make my way to her – she never had, not until she was too ill to get up – but came straight for me and gave me a hug, and she smelled like herself. Not like a rotting corpse, not like ozone or nothing or whatever a ghost is supposed to smell like.

When I was a kid, my brother Jeff and I watched the miniseries version of “The Martian Chronicles”. In particular, he was always impressed (and terrified) by the part where the astronauts meet their long-lost loved ones, who turn out to be Martian shapechangers luring them to their deaths. I always wondered, if the people they saw on Mars were dead, how did they fall for it? How did they not know that dead people could not somehow be on Mars?

As I held my mom, who’d been dead a few years now, I understood. They’d wanted to believe. I wanted to believe. Stephanie had warned me not to ask anything – no “how are you not dead”, “how can you be here”, “why are you alive,” nothing like that. I assumed that was what she’d meant, anyway.

“Mom, I’ve been trying to trace some of my past that I’ve forgotten. Do you remember the name of my third grade teacher?”

“Huh.” My mom seemed to be thinking about it. “I think it was Mrs. Wilder, but I’m not a hundred percent sure. Second grade was Ms. Jenner, right? And fourth was Mrs. White?”

“Yeah,” I said. I didn’t, in fact, remember my third grade teacher’s name, and neither did my dad. The Martians in the story had been telepaths; they’d been able to perfectly impersonate the astronauts’ loved ones because they could read the astronauts’ minds. Now I had a piece of information whose answer I didn’t know, and no way to easily confirm it unless Jeff remembered; he was only two years younger than me and had had some of the same teachers. But some of the people I had friended on Facebook were high school classmates, and a tiny number of my high school classmates had also been with me in elementary school, and might remember my third grade teacher’s name.

“I haven’t seen you in so long,” my mom said. “What’s going on in your life?”

“Oh, you know,” I said. “Things are going okay. Mom, if I’d known you were here I’d have brought the kids.”

“You can bring them up next time,” Mom said.

This was so weird. My mom was definitely dead. I had seen her body in the coffin, lying in state, looking nothing like she had in life. But here she was, impossibly, and I was holding an almost normal conversation with her. “Have Jeff or Aaron come over since you’ve… been here?”

“Jeff was here last weekend,” Dad said. “And Aaron lives next door, so he’s been over nearly every day.”

My grandparents used to live next door. When they died, my mom and my uncle inherited the house. My uncle bought out my mom’s share and rented the house out, and my youngest brother ended up renting it. My other brother lives in an apartment down in the city; I’m the odd one out, living in a completely different state, with a husband and kids.

So all of them had known, and none of them had told me. I expected Stephanie and Aaron to never tell me anything, but I was more than a little irritated with Jeff.

“Let me go drop off my stuff,” I said, since I was still carrying my bag.

I went back to Stephanie’s room, which used to be my room, a long time ago. The boys used to room together, but my room was too small for Stephanie to share with me, and she had needed a lot of space of her own… so they’d converted the loft in the garage into a bedroom. It had never been warm in the winter, though, so as soon as I moved out, Stephanie had moved in.

Stephanie was, as usual, on her computer. I shut the door behind me. “Okay. What the hell is going on?”

“She’s not the only one,” Stephanie said, without looking away from her computer. “I’ve been doing research. They’re all over the place. There’s no explanation yet, and apparently none of them will talk about it. I asked Mom and she said I was really rude, and sulked and was really passive-aggressive.”

“So we’re not worried about Mom turning into a Martian shapechanger or vanishing, we’re just worried that she’ll get mad?” To be fair, making Mom mad had always been a thing worth avoiding at all costs. “When did she come back?”

“I don’t know exactly, but presuming that she came to see me right after she came back, it would have been Monday around 3 pm.”

“And no one told me? You have my email address!”

“…It just didn’t feel right, telling you something like this in email. I felt like I should wait for you to be here.”

“And Jeff didn’t? And Aaron didn’t?”

Stephanie shrugged. She still didn’t look away from her computer. “They probably felt the same way.”

“Does Dad… know? Like, does he even remember that Mom is dead, or does he think this is normal?”

“I didn’t ask him.”

I sat down on her bed. “Steph, I’m asking you to make an informed guess. Has he said anything to you that would either suggest that he’s aware this is abnormal, or that he isn’t?”

“I don’t read minds, but I haven’t heard anything from him one way or the other. He’s very happy, though.”

“I got that impression,” I told her. I went to the guest room, which used to belong to the boys, opened up my laptop, and sent Jeff a question on Facebook about my third grade teacher.

Mom appeared while I was debating whether or not to also ask him why the hell he hadn’t told me about her. “Lennie, don’t hide in your room. Come out and talk to me and your dad. You need to catch me up on your life!”

Part of me wanted to break down crying. Part of me wanted to run to the car. Part of me was annoyed the way I always used to be annoyed when my mom wanted to spend time with me and I had stuff to do. And part of me hated myself for being annoyed by my mom for any reason at all. She was back from the dead and I wanted to hide in my room? But I wanted to hide in my room because I wanted to do research to figure out if this was really my mom or not. And what had Stephanie meant by “all over the place”? People all over the place had returned from the dead? Why wasn’t this all over the news?

What I said was, “Okay, mom,” and I went out to the TV room to talk to her.

***

Here I was, having a completely mundane conversation with a dead woman.

Yes, my husband was doing well at his consulting business. Yes, my oldest daughter was doing well in college. My youngest daughter had a rough spot a few years ago but was doing better. The daughter in the middle was putting a lot of time into her music, and was getting really good. I didn’t mention that my oldest daughter had gotten a diagnosis of autism like her aunt, or that my middle daughter was failing all her subjects because all she cared about was music, or that my youngest daughter was openly bisexual and dating a nonbinary teen in her class, because those would be fraught topics around here. My mother would be openly disapproving of the failing in school – as was I, but I wasn’t here to listen to a lecture about what I should be doing differently to make sure Rhiannon passed her classes – and she’d be what she thought counted as supportive about the other things. Are you sure it’s a good idea for Janie to have an autism diagnosis on her medical record? Lots of people will discriminate against her, just ask Stephanie, it’s not a good thing to admit to the world. And if Lori wanted to date a person who claimed to have no gender, good for her, but was she sure it was a good idea to admit to the world that she was bi when the world is so prejudiced? Blah blah blah. No. I wasn’t going there, not with my mother back from the dead.

All the questions I wanted to ask. How? How was she back? Why? Was there an afterlife after all? What was it like? Are you absolutely sure you’re not a telepathic shapechanger who wants to eat us? Is anyone else coming back or is it just you? But I couldn’t do it. My mouth wouldn’t make the words, and I felt like Mom being alive was a soap bubble that might burst any moment. If I said she was dead, would she disappear? I couldn’t take the risk.

Now I knew why Jeff and Aaron hadn’t told me. The compulsion not to talk about it, the fear that talking about the circumstances of her death and her apparently-no-longer-deadness would cause her to stop being no-longer-dead. I wouldn’t be able to tell my husband about this, or my kids, not unless they came here. Not without feeling like Mom might disappear if I did.

Which was probably how Stephanie had gotten away with it, in the beginning. If this was some kind of emotional pressure, something emanating from the presence of a dead woman... Stephanie was typically immune to emotional pressure. Or pretended she was, anyway. She hid behind her monotone and her face that barely expressed anything until she couldn’t, and then she’d go and have a meltdown in the bathroom. But she wanted to please Mom. We all wanted to please Mom. So if Mom had told her she was rude for mentioning the death thing, Stephanie would be unable to mention it again. Because she wouldn’t want Mom to think she was rude.

This felt very much like I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Dead mother back to life, check. Weird inexplicable pressure not to talk about it, check. But Mom clearly remembered things that had happened shortly before her death, and showed no evidence of knowing about anything that had happened since, unless it was public knowledge. She talked about interests the girls had had three years ago, interests they’d all outgrown since. She talked about my plan to remodel my own garage – I had completely forgotten that was even a thing we’d planned at one point, because I’d lost my job shortly after Mom died and then the money wasn’t there for the remodel. She didn’t know I was working with my husband in the consulting business now, which a telepath would obviously know because it dominates my life nowadays. Obviously a Martian telepathic shapechanger would have to pretend not to know things that supposedly happened while they were dead, but if I’d forgotten about the garage, what were the odds a telepath could pull it out of my head? There had to be more accessible thoughts in there, after all.

I didn’t know what to ask Mom. How do you feel? That was always a good one, back in the day, because Mom’s chronic illnesses meant there was always something she could complain about, but she wouldn’t do it until she was asked… she’d just quietly resent the fact that no one had asked her. But did dead people still feel things? Would that intrude on the topic I wasn’t supposed to talk about? What’s going on in your life? Oh, nothing much, Lennie, I’m back from the dead, how about you?

So I talked about myself. I was learning to work leather and I’d made myself a wallet, but I left it at home, I could bring it to show her next time. I was also learning to repair dolls. The girls had all abandoned theirs and I felt bad about it, so I was cleaning them up and repairing them and putting them in dioramas. Mom was very interested in both topics, and asked if I could repair some old dolls she had up in the attic. I was pretty sure I’d already done it – if it was the dolls I was thinking of, Dad had given them to me right after Mom died, and they were the ones I’d learned on. But was it safe to talk about? Dad wasn’t saying anything; had he forgotten he gave me the dolls, which was entirely possible, or did he think it wasn’t safe to talk about either?

I’d wanted for three years to be able to tell my mom that she was wrong about all the weight loss advice she’d given me because now it had come out that scientists had never proven that fat made you fat and the low-carb diets were probably better for you than the low-fat ones, but I didn’t know if she could still eat. Also, my mom was back from the dead and I wanted to start an argument with her about a topic I’d always hated when she talked about? Didn’t I have anything better to do? That really kind of made me a shitty person, didn’t it?

When Mom had been dying, I couldn’t talk to her about the future. I didn’t know how to bring myself to talk about things she’d never see. I’d never known how much my conversations with her consisted of me talking about future plans until I couldn’t any more. Now I couldn’t talk about the future or the past, at least not the past three years, and large parts of the present had to be left out too, because I didn’t know what would remind her that she was dead and make her go back to her grave. Even though, logically, I knew that was unlikely to happen because Stephanie had done it and had just gotten a rebuke that that was rude.

At the same time… I knew I had to say something that Mom could talk about, because if I just talked about myself all night, later on she’d probably make some passive-aggressive remarks about how everything always had to be about me. In desperation, I asked her if she’d seen anything good on television lately.

“Oh, I haven’t been watching anything in a while,” Mom said. “It’s been so long since I felt well enough to go anywhere, so I’ve been going for walks, and your father and I have been taking trips to museums and historic sites. We’re going to be going up to Boston next week.”

“I have a client up there,” Dad said, “and they want me to do a training thing. And I was telling them, no, no, Boston’s too far, but I remembered how much your mom loved Boston, so I asked her if she wanted to go and she said yes, so now we’re going. We’re going to fly, though. The days I was willing to drive that kind of distance are long over.”

“You could take the Amtrak.”

Dad made a dismissive gesture. “It’s gotten so expensive. Flying’s actually cheaper.”

“When are you going?”

“Next Wednesday we’re going to fly up there,” Mom said, which said something about her opinion of the future, at least. “Your dad’s got his presentations to do on Thursday and Friday, and I’ll wander around the city, and then we’ll spend Saturday seeing the sights together.”

“There’s this fantastic restaurant I went to last time I was up there on business,” Dad said, “and I checked their web page, and they’re still open. So we’re going to go there.”

So Mom could eat. Or Dad wasn’t afraid of talking about eating with her, anyway. Maybe ruled out vampire, but Martian shapechanger was still on the table.

I didn’t literally believe my mom – or the entity that appeared to be my mom – was a telepathic shapechanger from Mars like in The Martian Chronicles. But it was obvious that something so far outside the norm that it was only imaginable by making references to fantasy and science fiction was happening.

I tried, very carefully, “How have you been feeling, Mom?”

“I’m great!” She laughed. “I haven’t felt this good in ages. Sugar’s under control, I can see pretty well, none of the usual aches and pains… I’m doing pretty good!”

Did she remember she had died of cancer? Did she even remember that she’d died?

It was 2 am before I got to go to bed.

***

6 am and I was up and out the door before there was any chance of my mother or father being awake, assuming my mom even slept anymore. But at the very least, she was in her bedroom with the door closed and no view of the driveway I’d parked my car in.

Do I sound like a terrible daughter when I tell you I’ve never visited my mom’s grave? I haven’t been back there since the funeral. I always knew my mother wasn’t really there – that if any part of her had still existed in any form, it wasn’t trapped in a coffin under six feet of dirt. It made it somewhat difficult to find the graveyard, though, because I couldn’t remember where it was, or its name, or which church it was associated with, and it wasn’t exactly like I could ask my mom. When I finally found the place– it wasn’t that hard in the end, my parents live in a small town and there aren’t many graveyards – it took me half an hour to find her grave.

It seemed undisturbed. But if Mom had been back from the dead since Monday, that would have been time to fill in a grave. I went looking for the caretaker.

They get to work early in the graveyard caretaking business, I guess; I found him pushing a lawnmower over on the other side of the graveyard.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“This is going to sound stupid,” I said. “But I got an email from a jerk I used to know in high school claiming he was going to dig up my mother’s grave, and I just wanted to make sure nobody’s touched it.”

“Nobody’s touched any of the graves, ma’am,” he assured me. “Aside from a couple of funerals we’ve had this week, no one’s done anything to disturb the ground here at all.”

“Thanks,” I said, “that’s reassuring. He was talking like he was actually going to do it, but I guess he was all talk.”

“Well, if anyone comes by and disturbs any of the graves, we’ll have them arrested,” he said.

I had my answer. My mother had not climbed out of her grave. Which seemed impossible anyway, now that I knew enough about the funeral industry to know exactly how hard it would be to smash a coffin open, let alone dig through six feet of dirt. I couldn’t rule out her turning immaterial and floating out of her grave, but my mom had seemed very material and biological when she’d hugged me. I’d always thought of ghosts as something that were almost never solid enough to interact with the world, if they even existed.

***

If I was going to get up this early, I was going to get a pancake breakfast at the diner. My parents still think sugarless cold cereal is a reasonable thing to eat for breakfast. They were always night owls; I made myself breakfast and school lunch every morning but the first day of school, every year after about third grade. I was also a night owl, once I didn’t have to get up for school anymore, but I used to make my girls a lunch every night and store it in the fridge for them. Now they’re too old and too cool for Mom lunches. They’re eating something, but it might be cafeteria food, lunch they pack for themselves, or for all I know sandwiches from 7-11 or Starbucks with their allowance.

The point is, I hardly ever get a nice breakfast, because I am hardly ever willing to wake up early enough to cook myself one, and my parents certainly weren’t going to. So I went to the diner.

Normally I don’t talk to anyone at a diner, beyond smiling at them and telling them my order in an upbeat, cheerful voice because waitresses get too much shit from too many people for me to add to it inadvertently. Also because I don’t want them to think I’m eating alone because I’m a sad, lonely bitch no one would love; I want them to know I’m doing this because I really, really enjoy not having to socialize. But today I had something I needed to know.

“I’m a writer,” I told the waitress, “and I’m doing research on ghost stories in the area. Have you heard anything, you know, Halloweeny or spooky? Ghosts appearing, dead people walking around, poltergeists, that kind of thing?”

“Can’t say I have, but I’ll ask around, see if any of the girls know any good stories,” the waitress told me.

And then she took my order back to the kitchen, and I surfed the net on my phone while I waited, and then I got my pancakes, and I ate them. I was chasing the last blueberry around on the plate when another waitress approached me. “Stacy told me you were collecting creepy stories for a book?”

“From the local area, yeah.”

“I don’t know if this is the kind of thing you’re looking for, but… my cousin says that a lady on her street, her husband died a few years ago? But she just saw the guy walking with the lady down the street, having a conversation like the guy never died.”

“Do you think you’d be able to give my email to your cousin and have her reach out to me? That sounds like exactly the kind of story I’m looking for.”

“Uh, sure.”

I gave the waitress my email address. This was probably going to come to nothing; I doubted the waitress would even remember to give it to her cousin. But it’d be really good if I could get the details from someone who knew more about it.

***

Jeff’s more of a morning person than I am. I got a response on Facebook, but I had to wait to get back to my parents’ house, where my laptop was, to read it. On mobile, Facebook will only let you read messages if you have the app, which tells Mark Zuckerberg exactly where you are and what you’re doing with your phone, all the time. I don’t have the app. Sometimes this means I can’t read messages on mobile, but I prefer that to having an evil data empire know everything about my movements.

My parents weren’t awake when I got home. Or they were still in their bedroom. They used to do that a lot. Mom’s desk was in there, and Dad had a laptop… which he usually used on Mom’s desk, since she died. I wondered where her machine was, and if she had made a thing about it once she came back.

“I’m not sure I remember what your third grade teacher’s name was… I can barely remember my own third grade teacher. Were they the same? I can’t remember. I think my own teacher’s name was… Wil-something? Wilber? Wilkins? You’d be better off… well, you’re at the house now, or are you back at your home? Kind of important to know, because I could give you some advice about who to ask, but it’d be a different thing if you were at Dad’s house.”

He meant, “You’d be better off asking Mom, but I don’t know if you know Mom is back from the dead or not.” I was pretty sure, anyway.

I responded. “I’m at Dad’s house. Wondering how I’d be able to tell the difference between someone who’s real and a Martian shapechanger. Could the name have been Wilder?”

Five minutes later I got my answer. “Mom isn’t a Martian shapechanger. It was the first thing I thought of, so I checked.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

That answer I didn’t get until half an hour later. “I… just didn’t feel right, talking about it in an impersonal medium like the internet. I know you have a cell phone and I probably even have your number somewhere, but I remember you’re not the biggest fan of actual phone calls, so I didn’t want to disturb you.”

I replied with my phone number and the message “Call me.”

And then I had to sit by my phone, doing nothing important, nothing that would engage my attention in any serious way, waiting for him to call. Which took twenty minutes, despite the fact that I could see that he was online.

Finally the phone rang. “You raaaaang?” I answered in my best parody of The Addams Family.

“I’m pretty sure I must have, or you wouldn’t have known to pick up,” Jeff said. “Of course, I might have buzzed. You could have your phone on vibrate. Or maybe I sang, depending on what you have for a ringtone.”

“’You saaaaang?’ doesn’t have the same je ne sais quoi to it.”

“Wow, how long has it been since I heard someone put je ne sais quoi in a sentence? I think we’re old. I think that’s an old person expression now.”

“What’s going on with Mom?” I asked, quietly, in case anyone might be in the hallway to hear me.

Jeff sighed. “I don’t know what is, but I can tell you what isn’t,” he said. “Stephanie confirmed that she eats, sleeps and goes to the bathroom normally, and I confirmed all of that for myself. The toilet in their bedroom is still broken enough that they don’t flush it unless they have to.”

I winced. That was a level of detail I could have done without. “So, not vampire or undead. How did you solve the Martian thing?”

“On Monday, Dad woke up and she was laying next to him in bed. If the goal was to kill him, it would have made more sense to do it then, before he woke up, than to put on this whole elaborate performance.”

“You’re taking me too literally. I’m not worried about aliens trying to take our family off guard so they can kill us. There’s any number of things they could be up to, and they don’t have to be aliens. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The Stepford Wives. My Little Pony.”

“…My Little Pony?”

“There’s creatures called Changelings that feed on love. They impersonate ponies and take the love that other ponies feel for the ones they’re impersonating, as food.”

“Kind of psychic vampires mashed up with Martian shapechangers.”

“Yeah, but without the telepathy, so they’re not as good at it as you’d think. It’s a children’s show; they have to telegraph to the kids that these aren’t the real ponies. In real life, anyone who did something like that would be more competent.”

“How much verisimilitude do we need, though? She’s got moles in the same places Mom had moles. She’s missing a toenail just like Mom. Things I didn’t consciously think about, things I might not have remembered if you asked me to describe Mom.”

“That just means that if it’s not Mom, it has the ability to rummage deeper into our memories than we’re consciously aware of. That’s why I asked you my third grade teacher’s name. I genuinely don’t remember. Mom would, I’m pretty sure. Dad wouldn’t and Stephanie and Aaron were both too young.”

“I’m not sure I remember, but when you said Wilder, that sounded like it could be right. Do you know anyone from elementary school? Some of them went to high school with us.”

“I have some Facebook friends from high school, and maybe one or two went to the same elementary we did, but I haven’t been able to locate any actual people that I remember from elementary school. They don’t have a Classmates.com thing that works for elementary—”

“It says it does.”

“It lies, there’s nowhere to enter your elementary in your profile. All it lets you put in is high school, and it’s from a drop-down, not even freeform.”

“Huh. Guess I never tried it. I’m still in touch with anyone I cared about from back then.”

“I literally don’t care about anyone from back then, but that makes it hard when you’re trying to figure out your third grade teacher’s name.”

“If she can probe our memories,” Jeff said, “then nothing you or I know, or ever knew, would be safe. You’d have to come up with something to ask her that Dad wouldn’t know, or me, or Aaron, or Steph, or yourself, but that you know Mom would know and that you know someone else who would know it too.”

“I could ask Mariana for something.” My mom’s close friend and high school classmate was one of my Facebook friends. We don’t generally communicate directly with each other, but I follow her posts.

“That’s a good idea.” I heard the sound of a whistling teapot in the background. “That’d be my hot water for my oatmeal. If you get anything from Mariana, can you tell me about it?”

“Yeah.” I’d wanted to tell him about the story I’d heard in the diner, but no one got between Jeff and his oatmeal. “I’ll talk to you later. Probably online. Voice is making me paranoid.”

“I know what you mean. Do you need me to come up this weekend? I could make a day trip tomorrow.”

“That might be a good idea. I want to talk to Aaron, do you know what schedule he’s on?”

“He works nights now, so you’ll want to get him around 2 pm or so.”

“All right. Enjoy your oatmeal.”

“I will!” he said, putting a ridiculous amount of emphasis into it as a joke.

***

Before I could finish writing a message to Mariana – before I could really start, honestly, because how could I explain why I needed what I needed without admitting Mom was back from the dead? – someone knocked on my door. It was Mom. She was wearing one of her usual kind of shapeless but colorful nightgowns, and her hair was not brushed, so it was kind of a wreck. I noticed for the first time that it was grey. Mom had always dyed her hair since she started going grey, and it had still been auburn when she’d died. I’d never seen it fully grey. “Your dad and I are going to the arboretum,” she said. “Do you want to come?”

“Since when have you been into trees, Mom?” My mother had always been fascinated by history, and to some extent natural history like dinosaurs, but I’d never seen her express an interest in nature per se.

“I never was, much,” she admitted, “but the world is so beautiful. I was always more interested in the way humans shape the world than the way it came out of the box, but things like arboretums, Japanese gardens, zoos and aquariums… they’re made of nature, but they’re made by humans, and they say something about the people who chose to make them the way they are. And you know that your dad has always enjoyed nature.” My dad was interested in science, in general, and considered the natural world part of that. He was not exactly the kind of guy who would go camping.

In the past, I would have said “no, thanks.” I was never all that interested in nature myself, certainly not trees – maybe beautiful rocks or interesting landscapes, but looking at trees wouldn’t have seemed interesting to me. I still didn’t care much about trees… but my mom was back from the dead. I’ve gone much stupider and more boring places than an arboretum with her in the past, and now… if this was really her, if she was really alive again, I was going to spend all the time with her that I reasonably could.

“Sure, I’ll go,” I said. “I’ll take my own car, though. Just give me the address.” I always took my own car if I possibly could, because I’d get carsick if I wasn’t the one driving. “Should I ask Stephanie if she wants to come?”

“Sure, you can ask. I doubt she will, though.”

Stephanie, however, surprised me. “Yeah, I’ll go with you. We’ll meet Mom and Dad there?”

“Yeah.” Dad had texted me the address, so I pulled it up in my GPS. “About half an hour from here.”

In the car, she asked me, “Have you found anything out? I know you were looking into the whole Mom thing.”

“Jeff thinks she’s really Mom. We have a plan to get Mariana to give us a question that we don’t know the answer to, but that Mom and Mariana both would, so we can confirm she really knows things and isn’t just reading our minds. And a waitress at the diner said her cousin has seen what looks like someone else coming back from the dead.”

“It’s all over the place, actually,” Stephanie said. “I’m finding reports from everywhere.”

I glanced at her. “Why wouldn’t this be making the news, then? People coming back from the dead!”

“I feel like maybe no one wants to go on the record.” Stephanie looked out the window. “Nothing on Twitter or Facebook. No pictures of dead people on Instagram. I’m seeing things on Reddit and Tumblr – places where people use a consistent pseudonym, not like 4chan, but where that pseudonym can’t be tied to their actual identity. I’ve posted about it in both places, but I can’t make myself tweet about it.”

“Any idea why not?”

“It—” She shrugged, hands exaggeratedly widespread and head canted forward slightly. “It just feels wrong,” she said. “Like… we’re getting away with something. There’s a natural law we’re breaking here. I can post as toomanymushrooms or u/catonahottinroofsundae and no one knows who I am, but if I post as Stephanie Robbins and I tell everyone that my mom Suky Robbins is back from the dead…”

“What if that brought it to the attention of, what, some kind of authorities?”

“Yeah, pretty much. And even if I was just posting under my own name… I don’t have to say Mom’s name. I don’t have to put a mention to her Facebook in a post. But everyone knows my mother’s name, or they could find out from my name if they wanted to.”

“And you think maybe there are a lot of people with these weird feelings?”

“I don’t think so, I know so. A lot of posts explicitly talk about the fact that they can’t bring themselves to say anything in public, or talk about it with their real names on it.”

“Are they all parents?”

“No. It’s all kinds of people. Best friends, siblings, spouses, children… the only pattern I see is that nobody died a long time ago. It’s all, ‘my brother who died last year’ or ‘my aunt who died two years ago’ or something. Longest I’ve seen anyone talk about was a son who died five years ago.”

A thought occurs to me. “I can add something to your pattern, though.”

“Yeah?”

“You’d expect that, even if everyone with a resurrected relative feels this sense of dread about telling anyone about it with their name attached, because they feel it will, I don’t know, maybe cause the dead person to disappear back into their grave… you’d think somebody would do it anyway because they don’t care. Someone whose alcoholic abusive father came back and they wish he’d go away again, someone’s asshole brother, someone’s former best friend who betrayed them. But so far, no one has. How many people have you seen talking about this?”

“It’s hard to say because no one’s using their real names. Someone might post from their main blog and their side blog, or maybe they have a different name on tumblr vs reddit but they posted to both. But I’ve tracked thirteen separate names, and of those, I can tell for a fact there are at least nine unique ones because they talk about different people.”

“Thirteen isn’t ‘all over the place’.”

“I didn’t mean all over the Internet, I meant people coming from all over. I’ve tracked the UK, California, North Dakota, Ontario, France, India and New Zealand. Nobody’s tagging their posts and no one is willing to contribute to a master list, so it’s hard to find anyone outside of the people I follow or the subreddits I’m in, and I don’t know where everyone comes from. But it’s geographically widespread. I suspect it may also be happening in other places where people don’t generally speak English or maybe don’t have Internet access.”

“And what’s their sentiment? Like, are people frightened? Upset? Excited? Weirded out?”

She took a moment to think about it. “They’re happy. People are happy it happened. Weirded out, yes. But happy.”

“No whacked-out conspiracy theories about how it’s the contrails raining down adenochrome or something?”

“Not from the people it’s happened to. There was one flame war I saw where a religious person was saying that the person whose sister was back from the dead had to repudiate her. She’s not really your sister, she’s a demon from Hell sent to trick you, et cetera. And the person whose sister was back turned out to be just as religious, and they threw a holy fit. Literally. A holy fit.” She giggled. “A whole lot of stuff about how the righteous were coming back and Jesus had granted some people eternal life and this was that, and how dare you call these beings demons when they’re obviously blessed by Jesus himself and you’re the kind of person who would have called for Jesus’s crucifixion if you’d been alive then, and all that kind of thing.”

“Did anyone else who’d had returned people say anything?”

“This was Tumblr. None of the people who have had returns are communicating with each other in any way I can see. I reached out to a few on Tumblr private messaging but no one has answered. The only places I’m seeing conversations about it between people with returns have been on Reddit, because it has a forum structure. Tumblr is more like a whole hanging web of disconnected strings.”

“Still, you’d think that someone would be publishing a news article about it. Even if no one is willing to go on the record with their real name…”

“Maybe it’s not enough people. Nine unique instances, maybe up to thirteen, maybe more in places I haven’t surveyed. It’s not like I have access to literally all of Tumblr, after all. But that’s all I can confirm, and what if there isn’t any more?”

“If anyone came back from the dead I would expect the news to take notice.” I turned onto the final road; the arboretum was at the end of this stretch. “I went to the graveyard today. Mom’s grave hasn’t been disturbed. I checked with the groundskeeper. So either Mom’s body floated ethereally through the grave dirt, and her coffin, or her original body is still in there and whatever she is now, it’s not the same as what she was then.”

“It’s too bad we can’t have her exhumed,” Stephanie said.

“It probably wouldn’t tell us much anyway.”

“She’s younger-looking than she was before. Not by much, and the grey hair hides it, but she’s healthier-looking and less wrinkly. And I don’t see any evidence that she still has diabetes, or that she’s taking any pills at all. I haven’t seen her take any insulin shots, or anything.”

“Huh.” She wasn’t restored to her youth, or her hair wouldn’t be grey and there would be no wrinkles at all. She wasn’t restored to what she was at the moment of death, obviously. She wasn’t restored to what she’d have been at the moment of death without the cancer that killed her, if she didn’t have diabetes anymore. I felt like there had to be a pattern here I wasn’t seeing. I really wanted to talk to some of these other people having this experience.

I pulled in to the arboretum’s parking lot. Mom and Dad weren’t there yet; Dad doesn’t drive like an old man, but he doesn’t drive as fast as he used to, either. “Do they do this kind of thing a lot? Arboretums, parks, et cetera?”

“They don’t usually invite me, and I wouldn’t usually come if they did, so I don’t know. They do leave the house a lot.”

Dad’s car pulled in, and he and Mom got out. For the first time I could remember, Mom was actually moving a bit faster than him. Both Mom and Dad were the kind of people who walked quickly everywhere they went, but for a long time, Mom was slowed down by her various illnesses. Dad was still healthy for his age, but he’d slowed down a good bit since Mom’s death – grief was hard on his health, it seemed – and now Mom seemed healthier than he was.

“Did you know there are people who come here from all over just to see our leaves in the autumn?” Mom said.

I did know that; it was typically a factor in making it hard for me to come visit during the autumn. “I think it’s the mountainsides. There’s leaves turning colors all over the country, but not on mountainsides.”

“In California they don’t even consider these mountains,” Mom said. “They call them hills when they come visit.”

“No respect for the elderly,” Dad said.

“Yeah, these young mountains think they’re all that, but wait 100,000 years and see how tall they are then,” Stephanie said.

We strolled around, looking at the trees, reading what it said on the plaques in front of them. American Elm. Yellow Birch. Eastern White Pine. I’d seen trees just like these my whole life, and a good number of them, I’d never known the names.

“You never think about how beautiful the world is,” Mom said. “We’re all rushing through it, trying to accomplish the next thing. Or entertain ourselves. Read a book, watch TV. So few of us really want to interact with nature.”

“Careful, mom, your hippie roots are showing,” I said, teasing.

“I think if my generation had remembered what we were back when we were the hippies, the world would be better off.”

“We didn’t forget, Suky. The hippies were always big news, but you know as well as I do how many people our age just wanted to go punch a clock, buy a house, vote for Ronald Fucking Reagan… We thought we were the generation that would change the world, but it wasn’t our generation, it was us. People like us, who wanted to see a better world and weren’t content to just live like the sheep our parents were… but there’s people like that in every generation. And they’re always outnumbered by the assholes.”

“Actually, they’ve done a study,” Stephanie said. “The reason generations get more conservative as they get older is that at every point, the poor are more likely to die than the rich, and the rich are more conservative than the poor. So by the time you get to middle age, a lot of the people looking for social justice and diversity are dead. And there’s a lot more dead by the time they’re elderly.”

“I don’t buy it,” my dad said. “There’s entirely too many stupid poor people in this country who are brainwashed into supporting causes that help out the rich people and screw themselves over. They’re not living longer than anyone else in this country. The math doesn’t work.”

“Let’s not talk about politics,” Mom said. “I think we all know there’s something more important we ought to be discussing.”

“Mom?” Stephanie said, and looked at her, which is not a thing Stephanie does very often.

“Suky?” Dad said.

I didn’t say anything. I watched as Mom looked up at a tree and said, “It’s time we dealt with the elephant in the room, don’t you think?”

“Are you going to tell us about—” I couldn’t say anything more. I couldn’t bring myself to make the words.

“About the fact that I was dead, and now I’m not?” She looked at all of us. “I think we should talk about it, yes.”

It felt like there were eyes, watching us. I wanted to yell to my mother, to tell her not to talk about it, that someone might hear… but who? And why would it matter?

“Is that something you’re okay with, Suky?” Dad asked.

“I’m fine, but I’m getting the impression the rest of you aren’t,” she said. “Why haven’t any of you brought it up, except Stephanie, the once?”

“Well, you told me it was rude,” Stephanie said.

Mom sighed. “I guess I did. I’m sorry. This isn’t really easy for me either.”

She sat down on a bench, and Dad sat with her. Stephanie and I sat on a short stone wall around a tree. “I suppose I should start by saying, I don’t really know much more than you do. I don’t have any memories of being dead. I woke up in bed, next to your dad, on Monday morning, and for a while I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there… I assumed I went to bed the previous night, but I couldn’t remember what had happened the night before. I couldn’t pin down anything I remembered as to exactly when it happened, not in the recent past. And when your father woke up, the shock on his face and the fact that he kept asking me if I was really here made me think, wait, the last thing I remember was that I was in a hospital dying of cancer, so why am I here now?”

“So you don’t remember any kind of afterlife?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I believe I had some sort of existence, but I don’t remember anything about it. When I wake up, I have flashes, feelings that I dreamed something about it, but I can’t hold it in my head long enough to write it down or even talk about it. It just… disappears, leaving behind only the memory that something was there a few minutes ago.”

“You know how unlikely the idea that an afterlife exists is, scientifically, though. Right?” Dad said. “Consciousness is an emergent property of a trillion neurons working together. Imagining that there could be some sort of construct that exists outside the brain and body is like imagining that a video game character could be waltzing around in front of us.”

“And yet I’m here,” Mom said.

“Time travel or a Star Trek transporter with some modifications would make more sense than something supernatural, like an afterlife,” Dad said stubbornly.

“It doesn’t matter,” Stephanie said. “If Mom doesn’t remember…”

“Have you had a medical exam?” I asked.

Mom laughed. “I don’t have health insurance anymore. I’m dead, remember? I can’t even begin to figure out how we’re going to address getting me a legal identity again, and to be honest… I can’t know I’ll be around long enough for it to matter.”

“None of us know that,” I said, “about ourselves or anyone else.”

“True, and it’s going to be hard to travel if I don’t have a legal identity. So I suppose I’ll have to address it eventually, if I last that long.”

“Thank God your state ID hasn’t actually expired yet, or there’d be no way we could fly to Boston. The passport’s expired,” Dad said. Mom had been legally blind when she died, so she’d had a state ID rather than a driver’s license.

“Is there any reason you might not? Aside from the things that could kill anyone?” I asked.

Dad said, “Your mother and I discussed… when she first appeared, I found it nearly impossible to talk about the fact that she’d been dead. When she broached the topic, I could talk about it to her, but I couldn’t tell you kids.” He shrugged. “My working theory is that there’s some kind of alien experiment going on or that time travel is somehow involved, but the fact that none of you kids were able to tell each other about it until you knew the other one knew suggests to me that someone with the ability to directly affect human emotions or thought is, for some reason, making it hard to talk about this. Maybe that means it’s a short-lived experiment.”

“Maybe I escaped from hell and no one wants to talk about it for fear the devil will take me back,” Mom said, but she was laughing. Mom had never believed in hell. Dad was an atheist; Mom definitely had strong spiritual beliefs, but they were kind of a package of woo that included reincarnation and ghosts, even though she’d been raised Catholic.

“There are others like you,” Stephanie said. “None of them have talked about it themselves, but family members or friends have talked about it online, under pseudonyms. I haven’t found any evidence that anyone has mentioned anything under their real names.”

“A lot?” Mom was surprised.

“So far I count between nine and thirteen unique individuals, plus Eleanor heard a rumor that someone who might live in town might have come back. We don’t know any details, though.”

“We need to find them,” Mom said. “I need to find them. I have a second chance at life, and I’m not ashamed of it. I won’t be silenced about the fact that I exist.”

“It might not be the best idea, Suky,” Dad said. “There are a lot more crazies out there than there were when you died—”

“—there were plenty of crazies then, Dee—”

“—right, and even then it wouldn’t have been a good idea. There might be some religious nut job who thinks that if you were dead you should stay that way. Or someone else thinks that you know how you came back, and wants to force you to tell them.”

“Those are valid points,” Mom said, nodding. “And to all of those people who might want to harm me because they think I shouldn’t be alive or they think I know how I came back, I say a hearty ‘fuck you.’ I won’t be silent because there are crazy people in the world. I’m not afraid of death, not anymore.”

“You’re going to risk Eleanor’s kids?” Dad asked sharply.

“I agree with Mom,” I said, standing up. “Nobody should have to keep quiet about the fact that they exist. But I have to tell Will.”

Stephanie made a face. My family doesn’t like my husband. They have justifications, but in the past few years, since Mom died, Will’s gone to therapy and has done a lot of work on himself. Mom was the only one in the family ever willing to forgive anything, though, so I’ve never tried to get them to change their minds.

Mom said, “Well, is he still a total asshole?”

“He’s… been trying not to be. He’s in therapy, and we’re doing couples counseling, and he’s working through a lot of baggage from his upbringing.”

“Why not tell him to bring the kids up and join you here, then. Coming back to life, might as well start a clean slate and see where things go from there. And you’re right, he needs to be involved in the discussion. Your girls, too. They all are old enough to understand what’s going on here, and what could happen.”

“You know I will never stand in the way of anything you want,” Dad said, which is the kind of thing Dad says rather than “I love you”. Things like, “If they ever fail to respect you, I will smite them” – talking about us and our treatment of Mom – or “You have always been my worthy opponent.” Yes. Sometimes my father talks like a comic book character.

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” Stephanie said, “but I know you taught me to be who I am to the world and fuck anyone who gives me shit about it, so… same principle. I don’t think you could be you and lie about who you are.”

“And we need to involve Jeff and Aaron,” Mom said. “I’ll call them and get them to come here.”

“We turned off your cell phone ages ago,” Dad objected.

“Dee, we still have a land line. I know we do because I hear it ring, and sometimes you even answer it.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s right, we do.” Dad shook his head. “This world where everyone carries around their phone in their pocket all the time… it’s strange how you get so used to a technological or societal change that you forget that you did it a different way for 67 years.”

Nothing ever stopped my mother when she wanted something strongly enough, if she believed it was right. I hadn’t even thought of the considerations my father brought up before he talked about them, but I’ve never believed it’s okay to hide in conformity and live in fear. I didn’t think Will had ever believed in doing that, either, and my daughters had grown up going to political protests.

“We need to find out more about these other people,” I said to Stephanie on the way home. “See if we can contact them directly, find out if any of the actual returned people are planning on going public like Mom. We could coordinate if they are. Strength in numbers.”

“The religious right are going to crap their pants,” Stephanie said, laughing. “A Deist who believes in reincarnation, is married to an atheist, and has a gay son, came back to life. Jesus Christ hasn’t got a monopoly anymore.”

“That is probably going to be the most fun part of this going public thing,” I said.

***

So now I don’t know what will happen. My husband’s driving up from home with our girls, my oldest younger brother’s on a train, and Mom’s been looking up contact information for journalist friends she had once, checking which ones are still alive, using Facebook – we never deactivated her account – and my dad’s LinkedIn. Stephanie’s found two other people who have family members who came back from the dead, and one of them’s been willing to talk to her in private messaging on Tumblr.

I still have a hard time telling anyone who doesn’t already know, but it turns out, I can write about it without feeling the pressure, the fear. Don’t know if I can post it, yet. I guess we’ll see. I’m hoping that if I can get more information from more people who’ve been through something similar, maybe we’ll find a pattern, a point of commonality… maybe even an explanation for why we all feel this pressure not to talk about it.

Tomorrow we’re all going to talk about whether we’re going to do this or not, but I know my family. What my mom wants, she gets, if it’s possible and if it’s ethical. My husband and my kids are going to be in favor of her going public, and my brothers won’t stand in her way any more than my dad would. So we’re going to do this. The thing we’re really going to talk about is how to keep ourselves safe when we do.

Everything in the world is going to change. I just don’t know exactly how yet.

***

***

Obligatory notes because I’m so fucking late with this piece: 

I have fucked up royally. I went into this without an outline and about 6,000 words in I realized I had attempted to consume a ball of energy larger than my head. This is going to end up being novel length, most likely. I struggled really hard to find a place I could reasonably end it as a short story, and yeah, it is absolutely not an ending. No followup on the Martian shapechanger thing, new idea is brought in and then treated like it’s the climax, protagonist is almost entirely reactive and passive. As a short story, it’s shit.

Unfortunately I found this out after I was already late. Not going to bore everyone with why this was a week late except that it’s allergy season and I’ve been exhausted lately. So there was no time to try to write something else. I hope you found it entertaining, if somewhat frustrating; it’s shit as a short story because it’s plainly a piece of a novel. Which I’m not going to write real soon because I have like 3 novels ahead of this one in the queue, but if I live long enough it will get done.

It’s kinda cute that story #30 falls on the 30th now because I’m late and story #31 is the last of my Spooky 5 Halloween-appropriate stories. But not cute enough to justify how late this is.

BTW, while this is not as autobiographical as “Radio” from Inktober, it is heavily drawn from real life. I altered some things because this is fiction, but the mother and the father in this story are pretty close to real life. Except that my mother hasn’t come back.

#52 project #writeober 2020 #alara's october 2020 prompt fics #spooky5 #late!

[elsewhereuniversity]

When I first started here, I called myself Ada, because my wordpress as a teen was adamantiumhalfdragonx523 and it was the first thing I thought of when they said I should pick a nickname.

...I know, it’s kinda ridiculous, and I was hoping to present a somewhat more mature persona at college. But at least Ada is an actual name, and I could claim it was after Ada Lovelace instead of my RP blog.

Anyway, I dove into class quickly. Engineering, with an accidental minor in physics: I liked the required courses so I took a few electives, then realized I was only like nine credits away from qualifying for a minor so I went for it. Got immediately bogged down by homework as usual, barely scraping C minuses through humanities requirements and getting extensions wherever I could. I’ve never been good with time management? It’s the adhd.

There were always rumours of strange things happening on campus, but I mean, it’s college. You get drunk larpers and people hallucinating moving shadows from lack of sleep and old buildings with confusing layouts and it’s enough for weird rumours to be spread for months.

There was this weird girl who moved in a couple doors down from me: she turned up around March, I think she was a transfer? Her roommate literally burst into tears and ran away down the hall when I mentioned her, so I didn’t push it. It was a bit weird but I guess they were close with their previous roommate? Don’t know why they left, maybe they dropped out. Anyway, near the end of the semester the girl — she went by hazelnut, I think — invited me to this pre-finals rager out in the woods. I think it was late April, maybe the first of May? Mysty (my roomie) said not to go but I was feeling pretty prepared for my exam so I figured I’d go check it out. She kept, like, tutting at me, and made a big show of pouring salt lines at the window and door and around her bed? I don’t know how you can pour salt sarcastically, but she managed.

It was a pretty decent party, honestly, all through the woods. There was obviously much wilder stuff happening deeper, bright lights and screams and music and stuff, but I met up with a group I vaguely recognized from some class or other, spent a good couple hours playing, like, a music-based chase game around this awesome spiderweb of a slackline rope course someone had set up in the trees, falling off laughingly as we got progressively drunker. Also Cuttlefish (trans dude, marine bio major) with the Bluetooth speaker started skipping erratically between songs with dramatically different genres and beat structures until we all ended up tackling him to make him stop. I was just thinking of heading back to dorm when this girl with really cool dark-fantasy makeup stumbled out of the trees, obviously in distress.

She was dressed in this kinda ragged-but-flowing translucent robe thing over incongruous muddy cargo shorts, barefoot, exhausted-looking, and screaming about being chased. Lark (short girl, I think geology major?) immediately grabbed some big hoola hoops I’d been ignoring (I mean, when there’s a huge multi-tiered rope course with ladders and slack lines and trapezes, hoola hoops don’t stand out) and threw one over Spider-makeup-girl immediately, who kinda collapsed to the ground sobbing in apparent relief, and Lark yelled for everyone else to sit in one as well. Something something salt circles? So we did, kinda bemusedly, two to a hoop.

Spider-girl’s chasers burst out of the trees a moment later, and, like, I had figured Elsewhere must have a pretty substantial cosplay community, considering the larping I’d heard people talking about, but damn these guys’ costumes were good. One had to have been like six and a half feet tall, but they were on tall digitigrade stilts that raised them closer to eight, if you included the mask, and the other had this really clean 4-arm rig and I swear the arms were moving separately. Like, I’m an engineer and I couldn’t figure out how either had put the costumes together, the movements were so smooth they looked practically natural. I hope they get into whatever film studio or props company they want, the prosthetics were definitely movie quality.

Anyway, they came bursting out of the woods, making growling sounds, but they both stopped abruptly when they saw the probably-ridiculous sight of nine twenty-somethings sitting in plastic circles on the grass. I expected them to start laughing, but they were really deep in character.

They kinda circled around us for a moment, sniffing the air. I wanted to comment on their costumes, but everything seemed super serious all of a sudden. Then one of them spoke.

“Have they trapped you, weaver? Do you take salt chains over calm oblivion? Do you think they can hold you against the hunt?”

Their voice was kinda deep and raspy, oddly resonant in the chill night air, like I was only hearing part of it. This was obviously part of some scene, but I dunno. Spider-girl was curled into a ball, shaking, and I felt these guys were taking it too far.

There were a couple moments of tense silence, then Lark spoke up.

“Our bargain is with her, not with you. Leave, or wait out the dark. We aren’t moving.”

The four-armed one literally hissed at that, raising up this ragged crest along their back and flexing all four of their clawed hands.

“If you take her, human, then you take her debts. How certain are you, that you believe yourself capable of filling them? Do you think her gifts worth the cost of her entrapment?”

I still couldn’t tell how the rig was working, there wasn’t much space in their costume for complex pneumatics or anything, which was kinda annoyingly obscure. Was it just puppetry? How the fuck did they get the arms to DO that? And the tall one’s mask, were those articulated eyelids AND ears?

“She is ours, human, hunted and caught. You mettle in affairs of what you know not.”

The big one was circling faster now, striding long-limbed on those stilts. They sounded ominous, but I saw a loophole there, so I spoke up.

“You obviously didn’t catch her? She escaped long enough to find us, and if I understand the setting of your game well enough, we count as scenery or props, not players on the same level as you. So it sounds like she got away on her own and found a hiding place she can wait out the sun, which means you lost and she’s free. Go bug someone else.”

They both roared at that, making charging motions towards us, but thy kept pulling up short about two feet away from the hoola hoops. I’m not gonna lie, it was super intimidating, but they didn’t seem like they were going to get any closer? After like five minutes of this, the tall one broke and ran into the trees and the four-armed one followed, both shrieking.

We stayed in the hoola hoops after that. I would have liked to go back to the dorms, but any time any of us moved Lark started shrieking at us to stay still because it was “dangerous” or whatever. Cuttlefish turned the music back on and we ended up playing a trivia game someone had on their phone. It was super uncomfortable but it could have been worse, especially since I was still pretty drunk, so it was all a kinda pleasant foggyness. I must have dozed off at some point because next thing I knew it was a bit brighter and spider-girl was standing over me.

Her makeup was even better in the twilight, extra eyes and weirdly-textured skin and everything.

“If you are, as you said, merely scenery in which I have found my own escape, then I owe you nothing.”

She looked around at all of us, then at Lark, who was getting up with a murderous expression, then back to me. Up close, I could see my reflection in her eyes, including the six fake ones. They looked intimately real.

“Your words unwind me altogether, even from your would-be friend,” she whispered, just to me, “and I owe you, gift for gift.”

Then, suddenly, she was gone. I saw her bolt to the rope course and up one of the support ropes, much further up than I’d noticed it went, until she disappeared into the treetops. It was impressive.

Lark yelled at me a bit, something something she could have made us all rich? I don’t know, I don’t understand the larp setting well enough to understand the context. And then I went back to my dorm and collapsed into bed. I only got three hours of sleep before I had to get up and take my exam, but I did pretty well on it anyway, got a solid 83%.

Couple days later I heard a sound at the window, and when I went to investigate I found a bundle of fabric on the sill. Unwrapping it, i found a hooded knee-length asymmetrical vest thingy with this really cool greyscale-geometric pattern on it, made from the same flowing material as spider-girl’s robe. It fits perfectly. Mysty made a bit of a fuss when she saw it, but calmed down a bit when I told her the context. I’ve been wearing it ever since, it looks really good over jeans.

Anyway, yeah. Probably the weirdest story I have, though there are some solid contenders, actually....College, you know. Stuff happens.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21751201 (wrote this back in December, forgot to submit it)

#the oblivious #ada hs no fucjing clue what’s actually going on? probably for the best #the salt is in the hoola hoops fyi. portable insta-circle! #submission #long post #stories #i LOVE this #ada #the wild hunt #this is pretty much exactly how I imagine it when i talk about how a majority of students just write weird things off as #just Weird College Stuff #and i think this is the first fic I've read where people USED the hoola hoops full of salt #which is DELIGHTFUL

[terramythos]

TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 3 of 26

Title: Acceptance (The Southern Reach #3) (2014) - REREAD

Author: Jeff VanderMeer

Genre/Tags: Horror, Science Fiction, Ecological Horror, Cosmic Horror, Weird, First-Person, Second-Person, Third-Person, Unreliable Narrator, Female Protagonists, LGBT Protagonist

Rating: 10/10

Date Began: 1/11/2021

Date Finished: 1/20/2021

Area X, a self-aware wilderness along the coast, has existed for decades behind a mysterious border. The landscape itself annihilates humans and repurposes them for its own ends. Hundreds of people have died attempting to uncover its secrets. But no one has yet discovered its origins or true purpose.

Now, Area X has spread past its former borders, perhaps to the entire world. Acceptance follows several key figures through the history of Area X, and their attempts to fight against an impossible threat.  

You feel numb and you feel broken, but there’s a strange relief mixed in with the regret: to come such a long way, to come to a halt here, without knowing how it will turn out, and yet... to rest. To come to rest. Finally. All your plans back at the Southern Reach, the agonizing and constant fear of failure or worse, the price of that... all of it leaking out into the sand beside you in gritty red pearls. 

Full review, major spoilers, and content warning(s) under the cut.

Content warnings for the book: Extreme body horror, altered states of mind, and psychological manipulation, including hypnosis. Several characters lose their sanity, and you see it happen in real time from their perspective. Intentional self-harm/mutilation as a plot point. Some violence and gore. There are brief references to animal abuse and terminal cancer. Not many happy endings in this one.  

This review contains major series spoilers. It’s also super long, as the book covers a lot of material. 

Acceptance is the most narratively ambitious book in the Southern Reach trilogy. While Annihilation and Authority feature a single protagonist/perspective, this one has four rotating POVs and one guest narrator partway through the book. It also covers a broader timeline than previous entries, from the origins of Area X 30-ish years ago to the ongoing present-day apocalypse. Acceptance is one of the few books I've read that utilizes first-, second-, AND third-person narration in a single volume, adopting whichever one makes the most sense for the character and their situation

While this sounds complicated, it's basically just a way to tell four different stories at the same time. VanderMeer also uses each storyline to address the major questions of the series. How did Area X come to be? What happened to the biologist? What was the former director of the Southern Reach trying to accomplish? And perhaps most pressing-- what is the fate of the world now that Area X has spread? Not everything is resolved, but it's definitely a conclusion.

The stories have some unifying connections, containing similar themes and callbacks/references to each other. However, for the purposes of this review I will be looking at each story and protagonist individually.

First up is Saul Evans the lighthouse keeper. He's been mentioned before, but never in much detail. Going in, we know a few things-- (1) he knew the director/Cynthia when she was a child and (2) something happened to him that turned him into the Crawler, the eldritch creature which writes the sermon on the walls of the tower in Area X. In Acceptance, we learn he's a former preacher who had a crisis of faith and left his old life, taking up the role of lighthouse keeper on the forgotten coast. It's implied this is partially due to him realizing he's gay and fleeing the resulting homophobic fallout. His past vocation explains the elevated, sermonic language of the words in the tower.

From the onset Saul is an intensely likeable character. He's trying to build a happier and more genuine life for himself. This part probably takes place during the 70s or 80s, but he's cautiously optimistic about his new life with a local fisherman named Charlie. He also forms an unlikely friendship with Gloria (aka Cynthia), a local kid who loves exploring the coast. However, he is tormented by the "Séance and Science Brigade", a shady organization that investigates/worships(?) paranormal phenomena. They sabotage the lighthouse beacon, which we learned in Authority is a marvelous piece of technology with a mysterious history. Shortly after, Saul accidentally absorbs a fragment of the beacon into himself, and shit goes downhill real fast.

While the catalyst of Area X may seem a little weird, the reader can piece together that part of the beacon has extraterrestrial origins, and Saul unintentionally activates part of it. The gradual shift from a normal life to something deeply unsettling has its appeal. I especially like seeing his logs/journal entries and how they devolve as proto-Area X overtakes his mind. The disturbing bar scene near the end is great as well. We know going in that this story has a bad ending (from a human perspective), but learning specifics about Saul as a person gives this more impact. Saul's is a sad tale of a man who wants to make a better life for himself and gets screwed over by bad luck.

Cynthia/Gloria/the former director is the next perspective character. In Annihilation she serves as the antagonist, but in Authority we learn it isn't that simple. She had ulterior motives, handpicking the biologist for the expedition in order to use her as a weapon against Area X. And, of course, we learn she was the little girl in that old picture of Saul, which means she probably grew up there before the border came down. 

This part opens with Cynthia/Gloria's death as "the psychologist" in Annihilation, but told from her perspective. From there, the pacing is a little slow, in similar style to Authority. We learn how Cynthia lived her daily life, how she infiltrated the Southern Reach, and her interpersonal relationships with Grace, Whitby, and Lowry. However, her storyline ramps up when detailing Area X and the lead up to twelfth expedition. Lots of old scenes/dynamics from Annihilation hit different with the new context. Especially interesting is the interview between Cynthia and the biologist; turns out there was a lot more context that the biologist obscured in her story. On some level we already knew she was an unreliable narrator, but it's fun to have it pop up again in a different book entirely.

I admire how VanderMeer makes someone who comes off as a throwaway villain into the one of the most complex, important characters in the series. This part is also really cool as it's written in second-person perspective, and the story justification for this (Area X examining her memories) is neat. While I like Cynthia's characterization in this part, the additional bits in Saul's story and his interactions with Gloria add helpful context and emotional impact. The end of the book being her letter to Saul is so damn sad.

The third main storyline follows Control and Ghost Bird in the "current" timeline-- exploring Area X in the immediate fallout of Authority. I love this part for several reasons. The contrast between the two leads and how they perceive themselves, Area X, and the current situation is great. Control is very much losing control, feeling "the brightness" taking over (a callback to Annihilation). Meanwhile, Ghost Bird is in her element, seeing and experiencing things the regular human characters do not. There's the sense that she's truly something "new" in terms of both humanity and Area X.

We also learn a ton of stuff about Area X that is hinted in earlier volumes but confirmed in Acceptance. (MAJOR SPOILERS) The first is that Area X isn't on Earth at all; something briefly hinted at in Annihilation, when the biologist doesn't recognize the stars in the sky.  Instead it mimics Earth, or something representative of it. The second big thing is that time works differently here. The uncanny state of decay noted in earlier books isn't actually a direct result of Area X. It's just the passage of time, because way more time passes in Area X compared to the "real" world.

The guest narrator/story is told within the Control/Ghost Bird storyline. The two meet up with Grace, who has managed to survive the Area X attack on the Southern Reach. She took shelter on the mysterious northern island and discovered an old journal written by... the biologist from Annihilation, which details what happened to her over the last THIRTY YEARS (yeah, the time thing) until she finally decided to give into Area X.

This section is sobering and sad; basically a glimpse at how the biologist's isolation slowly made her go mad. She finds an owl (hello cover) that she believes is her husband post Area X conversion and the two live together for decades. When it dies, the biologist loses the will to keep fighting Area X. It's ambiguous if the owl really is her husband, or if she's just projecting, but her heartbreak at the end is probably the strongest emotion she shows in the series. But what is interesting about this part is it confirms a cool detail. Injury and pain can halt the progression of "the brightness" within someone. Which is how the biologist managed to survive 30 years, how Grace survived what turns out to be 3 years, and so on. Even more interesting, when someone DOES finally succumb after warding off the brightness this way, they turn into something more strange and alien. Hence the moaning creature, and Saul/the Crawler. It's also probably why some creatures have incongruencies, like the dolphins with human eyes.

The biologist? She transformed into a giant, oceanic eldritch abomination COVERED in eyes. Just primo aesthetic. We get to see her from both Ghost Bird and Control's perspectives. Ghost Bird feels solidarity and a sort of euphoria meeting her alternate self. Control... basically breaks in the face of something like that, full cosmic horror style. Again, the contrast here is really appealing to me.

Both of their story arcs end in a way that is narratively satisfying, though the ending is open. The future seems hopeful in a bittersweet way, but presumably Area X has destroyed humanity as we know it. Whether that's a good or bad thing depends on your perspective and is a central thesis of the series.

So, I said I'd discuss how this series approaches aliens. While there's an appeal to anthropomorphic alien species one can talk to and communicate with, I think an "unknowable" perspective is more realistic. After all, who's to say alien life formed under similar conditions or has any resemblance to our own? The extraterrestrial element in The Southern Reach is very much this type. But it's a fine line to walk in fiction, because handwaving the weird alien stuff as impossible to comprehend (and thus conveniently ducking any responsibility for explaining it) is lazy writing when done wrong.

The thing I find interesting about this series is the human characters understand lots of the what of the alien elements, but not the why. For example, Area X transforms humans into various plants and animals. We know it instills a sense of "brightness" in humans exposed for too long, which encourages assimilation into itself. Humans infected in this way, even if horrified or resistant, have thoughts of this being inevitable, even a good thing. The biologist takes samples in Annihilation and finds several plants and animals have human cells. Control logically knows what Area X does to people, but he is ultimately helpless to resist the process when he experiences it firsthand.

As for the why of it all... we don't really know! There's multiple ideas presented throughout the story. Ghost Bird probably gets closest to the "truth"; that Area X is part of a machine organism from a dead alien civilization, and that it has a bizarre effect on Earth's biology based on its now defunct programming. Other worlds would have their own Area Xes based on this idea, as it's implied the Earth version is just one piece of many. But it's worth noting that Ghost Bird is a creation of Area X and sees things differently than the other characters. Unreliable narration is ironically consistent through the series. So it's hard to say if this is true or not; perhaps it's silly to think any explanation would be understandable to a human mind. Obsession with finding the answer is a recurring theme that drives characters insane. I think this is an interesting compromise when discussing the unknowable; to have some facts and theories but not necessarily a concrete answer. 

If I have a criticism for this book, it's the role of the "Séance and Science Brigade", especially in Saul's storyline. While they're set up earlier in the series, we only really see them in this book. Our limited perspective via Saul leaves a lot of ambiguity as to their purpose, function, and goals. There's an implication that Control's family influenced the organization's decision to sabotage the beacon and create Area X. But I consider the subplot with Control's mom/grandfather to be one of the weaker ones in the series, and this book didn't help. The S&SB comes off as campy and ineffectual, which is perhaps intentional? But since they're narratively the fanatics who caused Area X to happen, I really wish they felt more sinister and impactful. There's some attempt to make them scary, but it's not very convincing when compared to Area X. Kind of like a Saturday morning cartoon villain vs the unknowable cosmic horror of the universe. This is a nitpick, though.

While rereading the series, I discovered there's a planned fourth book which may or may not star a minor character from Saul's story. I'm interested to see what else there is to explore about Area X and the Southern Reach. As it stands, I still really like this series. Between the horror and general weirdness, it's not for everyone, but it sure does appeal to me. I think this is one of those series that you'll either adore or hate. Obviously I recommend it.

#taylor reads #2021 reading challenge #10/10 #long review lmao

[mst3kproject]

Curse of Bigfoot

This is a very bad mummy movie from the 60’s which was re-edited and re-released as an unbelievably bad bigfoot movie in the 70’s.  It would belong on the Satellite of Love even if it didn’t have a small part for Jackie Neyman Jones.  Remember her? Debbie from Manos: the Hands of Fate?  Yeah, as far as I know she’s the only member of the cast ever to do any non-Manos-related film work for the entire rest of her life and it was this.

Once upon a time, somewhere in the American Southwest, Primitive Man was terrorized by Even More Primitive Man.  In modern times, a Bigfootology professor is giving a guest lecture to a class of students.  First he shows them a clip of a movie just as bad as the one we’re watching, then we get an inaccurate history of bigfoot, including the tale of two idiots in a pickup truck who get a big, hairy ass-whooping.  Then, half an hour into the movie, we finally get to what’s supposed to be the main plot.  A professor of archaeology takes some of his students into the wilderness to help excavate an ‘ancient Indian campsite’, but along with the expected potsherds and prayer sticks, they find a tomb containing a mummy from a lost prehistoric civilization.  It comes to life and shambles off into the forest to kill people, because it’s a movie and mummies do that.

This movie does not waste time.  It starts sucking right out of the gate.  Almost everything that’s going to be wrong with it is introduced in the first ten minutes, as if the movie wants to prepare us for the ordeal ahead.

The opening sequence is an incredibly drawn-out scene of a woman getting up in the middle of the night to calm her barking dog, only to be killed by a zombie that wanders out of the woods.  This scene is around six times longer than it needed to be. We almost have to watch every moment of the dog drinking a bowl of milk she pours for it.  The woman’s voice was dubbed in post, and neither the voice nor the physical acting is any good.  The sequence is supposed to take place in the middle of the night, but was clearly filmed at high noon, reaching Attack of the The Eye Creatures levels of not giving a shit in having the sun appear in several shots, standing in for the moon!  The actual attack happens off screen, because the film-makers could not afford effects.

Then this part ends, and we realize that what we just saw was supposed to be a clip from a horror film that the professor was showing his students.  This provides a fleeting moment of hope, as we think perhaps its overwhelming badness was intended as parody. No such luck.  We then move into the two loggers getting stalked and killed by bigfoot.  The monster costume is different, but this piece is identical in anti-quality to the zombie scene.  The film-makers were just morons, and these mistakes continue throughout the entire ninety-minute run time.

It’s actually astonishing that the movie is so consistent in its incompetence, because we are in fact watching two different films here. Curse of Bigfoot has a backstory similar to that of They Saved Hitler’s Brain, in that somebody in the fifties made a short movie and somebody else, years later, added useless filler to expand it into something they could show in a late-night TV slot. They Saved Hitler’s Brain feels very bifurcated, the new material being both narratively and stylistically different from Madmen of Mandoras.  But if you didn’t know that Curse of Bigfoot was twenty minutes of extra film sewn onto a 1963 movie called Teenagers Battle the Thing, you might not immediately notice.

If you’ve been following this blog for a while you’ll probably remember that I thought Madmen of Mandoras was a significantly better movie than They Saved Hitler’s Brain (even if it still was definitely not a good movie) – the added footage was distracting and pointless.  These two films, however, I would say are about equally awful.  The footage added to Curse of Bigfoot is still pointless, but it looks exactly like what was originally shot for Teenagers Battle the Thing, the only noticeable difference being a slight change in the film stock! Both are depressingly earth-toned movies in which it takes for-fucking-ever for anything to happen, with night scenes shot in the blazing daylight, and lines dubbed in by bad voice actors over bad physical performances. Both feature shitty monster suits and every possible cost-cutting measure.

This leads me to wonder whether Curse of Bigfoot might be terrible on purpose.  The people tasked with turning Teenagers Battle the Thing into a full-length movie got a couple of the actors back to play their older selves in the added footage.  Making stuff match was clearly on their minds.  Could they have actually thought things like, “we’d better use the wrong filter for this, or it won’t be as bad as the day-for-night in the original footage!” or “we need to pad this attack a bit, to match the pace!”?  If so… I don’t know whether to be impressed, or just to crawl under the bed and cry.

On the other hand, Curse of Bigfoot does at least try to do one thing better than Teenagers Battle the Thing – it wants to have something to say.  It spells this thesis out for us in the opening narration and in the professor’s speech about horror movies: our society has forgotten about monsters.

We in the twenty-first century don’t spent much time thinking about monsters unless we happen to be film-makers, political commentators, or maybe paleontologists trying to figure out what the fuck this bugger is.  It wasn’t so long ago, however, that they were very real to many people.  Archaeological evidence suggests that people in New England believed in vampires as recently as the 1820s.  Nowadays, monsters have been taking out of the ‘scary’ category and placed in the ‘fun’ one, and so when people report things like bigfoot or a sea serpent, we don’t take them very seriously.

Bigfoot, sea monsters, and vampires don’t really exist, obviously, but in losing our fear of monsters we may have lost a proper respect for nature.  Every so often the newspapers in my city carry a story of some tourist who tried to get a better selfie with a grizzly bear and got mauled.  We are so used to thinking that we have tamed nature, that there are no monsters left, that we don’t recognize danger when we’re confronted with it.  This certainly seems to be a theme of the stories we’re presented with in Curse of Bigfoot: it never occurs to the woman in the opening that her barking dog may be trying to warn her of danger, or to the two loggers that the mysterious figure in the woods might mean them harm.

The party of archaeology students certainly don’t think they’re heading into any danger, despite the fact that they repeatedly do dangerous things.  A group of them climb to the top of a cliff to see where a fallen stone came from, and never worry about falling.  When they pry open the tomb entrance, the strange smoke that wafts out might be considered a warning sign, but they ignore it.  They head right into this dark hole without any worries about rodents, rattlesnakes, or cave collapses.  When one character warns the others that the mummy has just moved, they laugh it off. A couple go for a walk through the dark woods at night to get to a vending machine, without a second thought.

Lest you think I’m in any way praising this movie, I’m not – I just like my reviews to be at least a certain length, so sometimes I really dig for material.  This was a dig on the level of saying The Incredible Melting Man is about how we treat the elderly.  My high school English teacher might buy it, but I doubt anyone else would.

One thing I do wonder is why they chose to reframe this as a bigfoot movie.  The footage from Teenagers Battle the Thing makes it very clear that this is a mummy movie, although they couldn’t afford any of the genre’s traditional accessories.  Instead of a museum and a treasure, we get one cabin in the woods and… that’s all. When the characters talk about the situation, they always describe the monster as a mummy, and even when they theorize that it’s the product of a lost civilization, the idea that it may not be human never crosses their minds.  It is not particularly tall.  It is not remarkably hairy.  It looks nothing like the bigfoot the two loggers saw, although it does somewhat resemble the zombie from the opening.  Why the man telling the story decided this being must be bigfoot is an absolute mystery.

The only thing I can come up with as an explanation is that bigfoot movies were popular in the 1970s.  Having seen a number of these, I can’t say I find them particularly inspiring.

Curse of Bigfoot is almost incomprehensibly boring, to the point where I’m not sure MST3K could have done much with it if they had featured it.  In the opening sequence it takes forever for the woman to be attacked and then we don’t see it.  In the logger sequence it takes forever for the guy to be attacked and then we don’t see it.  And in the main plot it takes forever for anyone to be attacked and then we don’t see it! The only attack we see is when the mummy attacks the sheriff at the climax and that really, really wasn’t worth the wait.

Congratulations, Jackie Neyman Jones – you managed to be in a movie worse than Manos.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #curse of bigfoot #teenagers battle the thing #fuck this movie #all these movies have bigfoot in them #70s #we're running out of plots #cryptid cinema

[lonestarbabe]

Another wild card- if you could write up a backstory for the characters of lone star, what would they be? I’m talking for Grace, Carlos, Judd, Mateo, Marjan, Paul because we know bits and pieces of their lives but really not much at all. Judd’s has kind of been teased from the crossover episode so that I guess is kind of canon. I feel like Carlos was a quiet kid and teen who got okay grades and was nice to everyone. Wasn’t an outcast but wasn’t the popular guy. Then he came out he felt more confident but also acted in a way to protect himself from getting hurt- hooked up and focused on his job as a cop- (remember the line ‘it doesn’t always get weird, Michelle’- and Michelle gave him a look like she didn’t believe him. I feel like that needs to be explored. Is his relationship with TK his first real relationship? I would say yes but I just wanna know more about him) - anyway Marjan would be interesting too because she seems so confident and said she hates bad leadership and stuff like that from the moment we saw her- aside from wanting to help people, I would love to see a backstory that explores the real reason why she loves to be so daring- is it like Buck’s case where she just wants to get her parents attention and acts like that to act on a tragic backstory she never knew about from childhood? Or is she just naturally daring and loves to help people? She doesn’t give off the vibe of having a sad backstory like Buck and Maddie do, but I could be wrong. I’m curious either way

Ohhhh your thoughts are quite interesting. I definitely can see a lot of what you’re saying because it would show an interesting evolution to who the characters are today. There are some headcanons I have but they’re not necessarily right lol just based on the impressions I get.

Carlos: I think Carlos was always the kid who wanted to be perfect for his parents. He kept things to himself to spare his parents, and he always got good grades and stayed out of trouble. He was probably close to his parents, very loyal and obedient, but as he started to realize his sexuality, he started to pull away. I don’t think he acted out, but I do think that he had a lot of internal tumult. He probably tends to want to avoid conflict when he can and puts pressure on himself to everything right.

Grace: From what we’ve seen, I think Grace probably idealized her father and was a daddy’s girl. I think her dad doted on her, and her mom was probably always someone that Grace could confide in. I think there were underlying issues but for the most part, she had a happy and secure childhood. I think her parents raised her to be responsible for her actions, and they also were there to guide her but they gave her space to work through her mistakes herself.

Marjan: I feel like Marjan maybe had some kind of limitations and people (not her family) told her that she couldn’t do certain things because of various reasons based on who she was at her core. So, she learned to prove them wrong and to listen to her gut rather than letting other people try to tell her what she should think or how she should act. I think she doesn’t mind authority when that authority does what is right, but she isn’t going to blindly listen to authority. She learned that her moral compass is her best authority, and she uses her religion to help focus herself and understand her greater purpose. I can see that people in her past made her doubt herself, but she learned to challenge those doubts, which made her more confident in herself.

Mateo: I think Mateo always felt stupid as a child and back then he didn’t know about his dyslexia, so he just thought he was too dumb at school. I think people probably mocked him a lot behind his back and he was probably the butt of a lot of jokes. Despite his dyslexia, Mateo always went above and beyond to do good work. He had to work harder to show people how good he was. I think he found solace in comic book characters. A lot of them started off with hardships, but then, they were able to overcome those hardships and save the world, and I think Mateo found that comforting. He also liked the idea of a world where there was a clear distinction between good and evil and in the end, good always won. I also think he had some religious conflict thrown in there somewhere. He believes in God, but there may also be fear and apprehension and doubt in the mix.

Judd: I have this theory that Judd had a third brother who something happened to, and at some point, Judd started acting out, which led to him going to the wilderness camp for troubled kids. His parents had a lot of issues too, which contributed to the angst that Judd felt, so he understands a complex family dynamic all too well, which is part of the reason that it was so hard for him to tell Grace about her dad.

Paul: We shall find more about this one tonight, but his mom seems lovely and supportive, while I very much may need to have some words with his sister. I also have a headcanon that Paul’s observation skilled are influenced by both his high intelligence and his need to be observant. To keep himself safe, he had to learn how to notice things and stay vigilant, so I think he is always good at noticing things, but I also think he can relax his skills a bit when he is in safe places.

#asks #lone star ask game #ask game #head canon #headcanons #Anonymous

[sunbird-tells-stories]

Some dumb Team Spicer OT3 headcanons no one wants to hear but I’m gonna say them anyways:

Jack has a thing with personal space and doesn’t like being touched by pretty much anyone and hates physical contact as a whole, except for maybe hugs from Mom. However, he’s severely touch-starved and the more he falls for Jermaine and Timber, the more he not only allows for physical contact from both of them, but he initiates it too. Sitting closer to them, leaning on their shoulder, that sort of thing.

Eventually when they do become a thing he then becomes this barnacle that is always hugging or leaning or lounging on one of them at all times. They’re his safe space and he shows it by being close to them.

I’m still debating on whether Timber’s short hair becomes a permanent look, but I like to think that if it becomes long again, Jack has a habit of playing with it and petting it because it’s so soft and fluffy. And because it’s Jack, Timber let’s him.

Since one is a martial artist and the other is a wilderness nut,Jermaine and Timber are both pretty physically strong. And Jack 👏 is 👏 here 👏 for 👏 it 👏 He’s into physical strength.

Before Xiaolin training Jack is pretty wimpy and nowhere near as physically fit as he should be because he spends most of his time building robots in a lab. Since he’s so slow and kind of a load in an emergency, Timber often just picks him up and carries him. He pretends to hate it and won’t stop complaining when she does it, but he actually kind of likes being carried around like that. He’s always lowkey impressed by it.

He has tried or will try carrying her just to get back at her and it never ends well.

Jermaine is the strongest of Team Spicer and can carry both of his partners. However since he’s also the shortest member he rarely does it because it’s way too easy to lose balance.

Timber never really played any sport except hockey because...well, because Canada (and also no friends), but I like to think that Jermaine teaches her how to play basketball and she just loves it. She likes playing it and when he finally takes her to a game she likes watching it too. Jermaine loves the way it brings out her competitive spirit and her sense of wonder as a whole.

Jermaine’s favorite things about Timber are her enthusiasm, her curiosity, her creativity, her ability to stand on her own two feet, her outspokenness, her wild nature (pun intended), her wilderness skills, her thirst for adventure and knowledge and her smile.

His favorite things about Jack are his innovative nature, his feistiness, his intelligence, his competitiveness, the cute and silly faces he makes when he’s sketching out new blueprints for one of his inventions, his eyes, his awkward and adorkable moments, his defiant nature and the way he just doesn’t quit no matter what life throws at him.

Jermaine also likes Timber’s laugh and Jack’s smile. Neither of them are prone to laughing or smiling and as they grow closer Jermaine makes a point to try to get each one to do both. He genuinely wants to see these two disasters realize how beautiful and amazing and incredible they really are.

Slight spoilers but Jermaine ends up suffering from nightmares after the events of MW! due to reasons I won’t go into. He’s alright but healing is a slow process and it takes time to get over trauma, and the nightmares are intense and leave him in a cold sweat and make it hard for him to get some rest. The only way he feels safe enough to go back to sleep is if he’s with Jack and Timber. So for a long time after the fic, the three have nightly sleepovers so Jermaine can actually get some sleep. He wakes up, freaks out, talks it out with them, sometimes Timber makes him some tea with her super potent lavender and chamomile flowers and after they just all fall back asleep.

Jack is the first to catch Feelings. Next is Timber. Jermaine, for all his virtues, is incredibly thick and can’t seem to understand that both of the people in his party are crushing on him pretty hard. Sadly it’s because he doesn’t really think he’s good enough for anyone to like him.

In this universe, Jack and Jermaine are both bi, but only Jack is aware of his own orientation. Jermaine is not. At least, not for long.

Jack’s color motif is mostly black, Timber’s color motif is mostly blue and Jermaine’s is mostly red with yellow accents. Why?

They’re the colors of the poly flag :)

Spoiler but once they start dating, everyone’s in a tizzy about it. But hands down the person who is most shocked and/or disturbed by this turn of events is...Chase Young. Despite the fact that he used the boy as a pawn in a scheme, he did get somewhat attached to Jermaine. He was after all a good student and Chase is honorable enough to respect legit talent and effort. The moment he hears that his talented former Apprentice is dating both the student of his oldest rival AND Jack freaking Spicer, he goes through all five stages of grief before running straight to the Xiaolin Temple, finding Jermaine and telling him “I’m sorry for your loss”.

As you can imagine, Jermaine isn’t pleased.

You better believe I have an entire YouTube playlist dedicated to this ship, but this one in particular, and this particular mix made for this AMV, is definitely one of my favorite songs for their ship. https://youtu.be/SYcODDcNSIk

Timber’s family is dysfunctional and abusive, and Jack’s family is distant and neglectful, if well intentioned. So I like to think they both find a healthy family dynamic in Jermaine’s mom, grandmother and older sister.

They try to keep their relationship a secret from anyone outside the Temple, but eventually their families find out. Jermaine’s family is very supportive, but you better believe Ivory grilled Jack and Timber pretty hard once she realized these two idiots were in a relationship with her baby brother. But eventually they do have a supportive dynamic with each other (with Timber slightly more successful than Jack on the grounds that Jack is a show off and Ivory doesn’t like show offs).

Jack’s Dad is shocked and doesn’t really know how to handle it but since Jack is genuinely happy for once in his life he’s got no beef and just quietly lets them be - with one exception. Jack’s Dad is relatively famous and in the news all the time, so he’s used to being paparazzi fodder and having tabloids spin stuff on him. But the moment they try to belittle Jack for his relationship with his partners, Jason puts an end to it. IMMEDIATELY. Jason may not understand his son, but he will always love him.

Jack’s mom is devastated, but not because he’s poly - it’s because as a hardcore supporter of Jack getting married and giving her lots of grandkids to spoil (she’s that kind of mom), she’s been budgeting his future wedding for years, LITERAL YEARS, so that the moment he finds The One, they can get hitched with no fuss. And now suddenly she has to budget for a whole other person. One and a half decades of planning RUINED.

Timber’s mom and step-dad.....even I’m not sure. But Kallik and Hanta still care about their sister, even if they’re terrible at showing it. And once they get wind of what’s happening, Timber’s brothers get overprotective and overstep their boundaries in an effort to drive off these “playboys” from toying with their sister’s heart. That is, until Timber puts them in their place.

I like to think that Kallik and Hanta eventually do find a way get along with Jack and Jermaine, if only for the fact they can watch over Timber when they can’t....but it’s a slow process. After all, they’re still working on repairing their relationship with their sister.

Poly families exist in real life (and happily so depending on the family) so maybe when the members of Team Spicer are all grownups and are at a good age to start a family, they get married and have kids? I dunno. It’s a hypothetical situation for now since the whole “Xiaolin Dragon” thing is more or less a lifelong deal and that would get in the way of raising kids. But I like to think that if they do have kids, they have a boy named Jake who raises a lot of Hell (like his birth Dad), and a girl named Jazmine who likes to kick evil’s butt (like her birth Dad).

Slightly spoilery but our Team each end up with an army of their own - Jack has his robots, Timber has her plants and Jermaine has loyal jungle cat soldiers. So if they did have kids, those would hands down be the most well protected kids on the face of the earth. Also maybe the most...interesting, since being raised with killer robots, killer plants and dangerous animals might make for some unnaturally fearless kids.

Jermaine is the glue that holds them all together. Jack and Timber come to love each other dearly but Jermaine is so influential to the both of them that neither one can imagine life without him.

Same with Jermaine and both of them. Timber and Jack are both crazy, they’re both stubborn, they’re both unpredictable, they cause trouble and break rules and he never knows what they’re gonna do next - and he loves that about them.

You know that person in the relationship that steals the other person’s hoodies to wear them? That’s Jack. And he doesn’t even say sorry.

Jack likes to flirt and tease Jermaine and Timber but when either of them reciprocate he gets all flustered and tsundere.

Jack and Timber both have jealousy issues but neither of them compare to Jermaine’s. He gets majorly angry when someone flirts with or gets too close to either of them - he just hides it well and is smart enough to know that Jack/Timber weren’t asking for it.

Jermaine is very protective and sometimes even overprotective. It’s an issue he’s gonna need to let go of.

Jermaine is pretty short for a boy and Timber is very tall for a girl. Jermaine doesn’t have issues about it, Timber does...but if anyone insults either of them, Jack throws hands. Like seriously he will fight you if you make a nasty comment about their height.

You see these three often chilling with each other because they are each other’s safe space.

Because they fell in love with each other while traveling the world, their idea of a date together is grabbing the Tiger Claws, warping to a random location and exploring it together. It’s a tradition they keep up even as they get older.

They genuinely love and care for each other very, very much.

That’s all for now but I have more headcanons for these guys. Trust me.

#team spicer ot3 #the good the bad and the wilde #jack x jermaine x timber #Jack x Jermaine #jermaine x timber #Jack x Timber #Youtube

[dailyaudiobible]

04/22/2021 DAB Transcript

Joshua 24:1-33, Luke 21:1-28, Psalms 89:38-52, Proverbs 13:20-23

Today is the 22nd day of April welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it's always great to be here with you. Always great to see everybody coming in around the Global Campfire just settling in as we take our next step forward. We have been reading in the Old Testament from the book of Joshua for a little bit. Today we will conclude the book of Joshua and move into some brand-new territory tomorrow as we begin the book of Judges but let's finish the book of Joshua strong. We’re reading from the New Living translation this week. Joshua chapter 24.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the gospel of Luke today we saw this very very brief story just a very very brief couple lines. Jesus is in the temple complex and this is all before His disciples are admiring the temple and all the buildings of downtown Jerusalem. And this is where Jesus is like, “this is all coming down. Like, there won’t be any stone left unturned. The whole thing is coming down.” And of course, this is referring to what will happen in the future within the next 50 years. Jerusalem will be destroyed by the Romans. We’ve talked about this. They were looking for a Messiah. Jesus came. They got rid of Him and then they decide to take matters into their own hands later and rose up and revolted against Rome and were…were crushed in that process. So, we’ve talked about that. But just before all of that Jesus is in the temple, and there's this…well…there’s a collection box. So, the offering is being given and they’re just watching people put money into the collection box to care for the temple. And it's here that we learn something really interesting about the way God looks at things because they're watching people give plenty of money and then they watch a poor widow give 2 minas…2 small…like pennies…2 small kinda…kinda coins, the smallest amount of currency. Jesus comments on that, that the poor woman who put the two tiny little coins, like really hardly any money at all, that…that she had given more than everybody else because everyone else had given out of their surplus. They still had plenty in their own control, but she had given all that she had to God. In other words, she put all of her trust about her existence in the future, including the next day in God's hands. And, so, as Jesus comments on this this tells us how God is looking at things. It's not like, “o, you can stroke the million-dollar check because you're so wealthy and God's so impressed with that that somehow you’ve gotta have high honor when stroking that million-dollar check is way more than almost any of us could do. If that's your surplus, if you worth a hundred million dollars and you give a million dollars, certainly that's more than almost anybody else could give but the person who gives two cents and that's all that they have and they are completely and utterly dependent upon God from that point forward. God sees that.” So, it's not about how much you can accumulate it’s about how much you're willing to trust God with what you have. And that brings out quite a bit of clarity when Jesus is like, “it's very difficult for rich person enter the kingdom of heaven”, right? Because a rich person has a lot under their control, and they feel a lot of control about what they have. So, if they give a bunch of money that's a bunch of money, that's great and it's a blessing to the kingdom and everything but they still have a surplus that's way way way more…like everything is…nothing has changed. Like they’re still in control, when entering into the kingdom is the profound awareness of complete and utter surrender, and dependence on God for the next breath and everything else. And, so, that's definitely some things to think about from the gospel of Luke today.

Then in the book of Joshua, we concluded the book of Joshua today. And, so, we will be turning into the book of Judges tomorrow and that is sort of the story that comes next and it's a very very different story than the one we've been reading. So. we’ll get to that tomorrow. But we remember when we said goodbye to Moses, and we took a minute just to honor that. Like we traveled a long way with Moses, went through a lot of stuff and bore witness to the wandering in the wilderness and the message of the wilderness and just the story of the wilderness. And then Joshua led the people across into the promised land and settled the promised land and now we’re saying goodbye to Joshua. He was 110 years old and Joshua did similar things to what his mentor Moses had done. He gathered all the people together to…to essentially give them a final charge. He reminded them of where they came from and how they had gotten to where they are and who God was and then he said something that is very very famous, “as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” And that was sort of the…the apex of what he was trying to say, the pinnacle of what he was trying to stress to the people, and they responded in kind, that they would serve the Lord as well, that they would remain in the covenant that the Lord had made with them and that they would honor and serve God. Then Joshua said something just profound, profound enough that it echoes all the way into our laps. “You are a witness to your own decision. You have chosen to serve the Lord.” And the people responded, “we are witnesses to what we have said.” Can we just make that immediate? We are witnesses to our own decision. We have chosen to serve the Lord. Our lives are the witness to whether or not we are honoring that covenant. That right there cuts to the chase. Like it…it…it cuts to the bone, like gets to the bedrock after the same fashion that…that Jesus would speak and answer questions with questions and speak into situations that are the bedrock of what's really going on. If we, if our lives, if the weight of our lives in this world, the influence, the impact of our lives in this world does not serve as a witness to our decision than all we have is words. And we have learned from the Scriptures plenty, but we also already know this, talk is cheap. It can say anything. But how you live, that's what you believe. And, so, Joshua is bringing that front and center to the children of Israel who are now settled in the promised land, a story that we have been chasing since the book of Genesis basically this whole year. Now they are settled in the promised land and their leader Joshua is bringing things front and center. This is what he wants to stress before he becomes history. It's that important. And, so, let's take it from Joshua, let's take it from the Scriptures as that important. You are a witness to your own decision. You have chosen to serve the Lord.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit come into that declaration. This has been our declaration all along but maybe we’ve never thought that our lives are a witness for or against us, that our lives are a witness for or against You, that often what we say and how we actually live are different. And that should not be. And, so, as we leave the book of Joshua and begin to turn the page into the story that comes next, we will certainly learn plenty. But we’re right here right now being a witness to our own decision. And may we hold it with the gravity and the honor that it deserves. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

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And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement there are a number of numbers that you can use. Well, first of all you can just press the Hotline button, the little red button at the top in the app and share from within the app no matter where you're at in the world or there are some phone numbers. If you're in the Americas 877-942-4253 is the number. If you are in the UK or Europe 44-20-3608-8078. And if you are in Australia or that part of the world 61-3-8820-5459 is the number to call.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi fellow DABbers this is Rosanna and I'm from Johnson City TN and this is April 15th, and I just heard the prayer request from Alec and Tyrone. Alec has a wife named Jesse who has terminal cancer and she's out of treatment options and Tyrone has a wife who is an unbeliever. And, so, I just want to pray for both of these gentlemen. Dear heavenly Father we come to You and we petition to You on behalf of Alec. Lord Jesus You are the giver of good gifts and You bring healing to our bodies. You still do that today and I pray that You would be with Jesse. I pray that You would supernaturally touch her body and I pray that this cancer would fall away from her body in the name of Jesus. I pray that You would bring a full healing, a supernatural healing that brings glory to Your name. I pray for Tyrone. I pray for his wife. I pray that You can open her eyes, open her heart, open her ears so that she can see Your great love for her, and she can see the fact that You are still pursuing her. And I pray that she would strengthen their marriage and that You would just overcome her with Your love and help her to see You. And God, I thank You for the Daily Audio Bible. I thank You for the fact that it helps so many people to know about You and Your…and Your word and Your love for us. And I also pray for my own mother who has terminal cancer and she's in the exact same position as Jesse. I pray that You would supernaturally heal her and touch her body and bring a complete healing. We love You Jesus. We know You're in control.

It's April 16th Friday my name is Ted from California. All week since the weekend I've been going through a lot of anxiety spiritual battles depression. Something triggered it. I'm not sure. I'm hurting right now, and I just need a lot of prayer and I'm trusting in God to pull me out of this and to make it better and I just want to tell pastor Brian that without this this app and everyone else in the DAB community I would be lost for sure. And, so, I just ask for your prayers and your support. I love you and I thank you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Good afternoon today is Friday April 16th, 2021 my name is Shondra Brooks and I'm calling from Maryland and I wanted to leave a two-part message. The first being a song, a simple song that's always in my heart and just as a reminder for everyone who hears this call and sings. And the song is somebody's prayed for me, you put them on my mind, you held…I'm sorry…you put me on their mind, they took the time and prayed for me. I'm so glad they prayed. I'm so glad they prayed. I'm so glad they prayed for me. As simple as it is it means so much and it's a major representation of Daily Audio Bible and I'm grateful for Brian and Jill and everyone who even works in the background because truly just the opening message when I first started listening in 2014, I just felt like crying because I was like wow, you know, someone will be able to hear me, and they'll be able to…and pray with me and for me. And it is appreciated. I also wanted to say I am so grateful and thankful for this. I haven't even gotten to the 1st of April as far as the podcast, but God is so faithful and so awesome that the parts that I hear, they directly coincide with where I am and my life and what I need to hear to encourage myself. And in saying all that just to keep it short and sweet, I love you guys. I'm constantly praying for those whose prayers come through and everyone just continue to be faithful even if you feel…feel…feel…feel fearful to call in. God knows your heart. He knows what you stand in need of even…

Good morning family I’m Honeybee from Louisiana. I called in in August expressing my frustration over 20 years of eye surgeries, over 20 eye surgeries but now I'm in a very desperate place for a miracle. I had a macular hole appear the left eye in August and in February there was bleeding in my eye, in the right eye, and the doctor went in and he said there were two blood tumors, and he couldn't remove them. He did laser them and remove the blood and put it a gas bubble, all that fun stuff, but it's been two months and he said the eyes full of blood, the pressure is so low that the muscles are starting to lose their shape and what happens is the I caves in and this is the first time in 20 years I said I don't want to have a surgery. I just want to keep my eye. I've lost my sight in my right eye. I can't see it all for the last two months, but he said you will lose your eye if we do not do this surgery. And then he said if we do it you still might lose the eye. So, please pray for me. I need…I'm discouraged, and I need a miracle. I need God to remove these tumors and restore the pressure and restore the site and I appreciate your prayers. Thank you, my family. I love you.

This is Steve from Branson Mo and I just want to lift up two fellow DABbers in prayer. The first one called in a few weeks ago and I've been praying for you daily since. Your name is Jermaine and you're in upstate New York and you're incarcerated. And I just want to let you know that I've been there. I understand what you're going through. I'm thinking of you and I'm praying for you. And the second one is a man who didn't…didn't give a name. He just called in and said that he was not worth anything to anyone and I am praying for you too. I've had those feelings and continue to have those feelings. And Father I lift up these two gentlemen to You in the name of Jesus. Touch their lives. Heal them emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically. Father, touch their lives and make them whole. Give them self-worth in the name of Jesus. Amen.

[unohanadaydreams]

hello! i've found your blog a little while ago and i like it so much?? and so, i was wondering what your headcanons might be for kenpachi&yachiru post-series? i find it interesting because yachiru-nozarashi- has been trying to get zaraki to acknowledge her existence for such a long time that she manifested in a way never seen before for a zapakuto, and now it's his turn to try to make an effort to have her presence again in his life.

Aaaah thank you, omg!

Kenpachi & Yachiru

Okay, so firstly, I think that Kenpachi would probably return to the “scene of the crime” a lot. He would be making a lot of trips back to the rukongai where he first met Yachiru and he’s not exactly sure why other than it feels comforting once he gets there. No, he doesn’t feel better when he leaves, but for a few moments, when he sits in the wilderness, he doesn’t have to remember. He closes his eyes and opens them thinking ‘maybe it’ll work like that again’; it doesn’t, but he comes again and again and again and keeps trying.

The concept of an inner world is so strange to him; he’s lived so much of his life not giving a shit about the particulars of zanpakuto that his hackles are up whenever he visits. He feels on edge in a place crafted for him and Yachiru can only stave off the unease for so long. Especially toward the beginning, I think his visits to actually SEE her would be sparse and there would be a lot of hurt feelings on Yachiru’s end.

He feels more at ease doing small things that remind him Yachiru is still in the real word. He keeps confetti candy in his pocket, leaves crayons out on the dining room table, gets lost on purpose, and starts sprinkling her nicknames for his underlings into his speech. The little things that remind him yes, Yachiru is still with him even things can’t go back.

Yachiru got so used to being a shinigami that, in the beginning, it’s extremely taxing on her to not be able to explore the world like she once did. I think she would try to manifest in the beginning as she used to, with not much success and it would frustrate her to no end. She misses her friends, she misses the noise and excitement of people always being around her. She sits in Kenpachi’s inner world and waits for things to get better.

Yachiru would send little messages back with Kenpachi to tell Yumichika and Ikkaku (maybe some others, but mostly them) and it would help ease things. Kenpachi would send back responses until they were in tune enough that Yachiru just knows whats going on because they’re how they should be; connected well and truly.

Although things would be very hard to deal with and sad in the beginning, I think eventually, they would find a rhythm that works for them and they both would change, which is something that hasn’t really happened to either of them in an extremely long time. Think about Ichigo’s inner world and how much his inner world changed through out the series; I think the likelihood of Yachiru changing in appearance would be quite likely, especially as Kenpachi matures his handle on working with her. I think Yachiru is a child because Kenpachi’s handle of his zanpakto has always been rudimentary. His strength, which is massive to the point of trying to get rid of it, comes almost exclusively from himself. Yachiru’s strength combined with his? Would be ridiculous and I think they would both have to mature and become a bit more disciplined in how they battle to cope with it.

It truly would be a case of Kenpachi having to be there for Yachiru! She could have stayed silent and despondent, leaving him to stagnate after years of neglect, but she didn’t! She manifested to be his largest supporter and foster a close relationship with him and Kenpachi will have to buckle down and show an ounce of that energy. His biggest hurdle would be acclimating to the new routine and coming to terms with the fact that Yachiru is with him in a very different way now; spiritually, she’s closer even if he has a hard time seeing it that way.

I really don’t think Kenpachi would have paid one lick of attention to his zanpakuto if Yachiru hadn’t done what she did and it’s largely due to the fact that Kenpachi KNOWS Yachiru that he starts to put real effort in to working WITH her. No, meditation isn’t as fun as a nap, but Yachiru is there and maybe the next fight he gets in will show something new. No, he doesn’t like feeling trapped inside his own mind, but Yachiru is there and he can train to abandon there. No, things aren’t the way he’s used to, but Yachiru is there, so they don’t have to be.

On the subject of Yachiru manifesting like she did, it brings to question if she could realistically ever do it again? If down the line, when they are more in tune, could she do it again? Kubo seemed really fond of the zanpakuto rebellion arc and incorporated a lot of design as canon, so I’m leaning toward it’s probably likely that eventually Yachiru could shift into a “human” form again. The entire subject of zanpakuto seemed like it was going to get a lot of big reveals in the last arc, which unfortunately didn’t happen. They can take multiple forms and hold multiple souls, and “human” transformation is possible so why is it uncommon? I mean, Mayuri literally changed Renji’s zanpakuto’s souls to look like a busty woman and kid (per rebellion design) so, I think a LOT is possible.

ALSO, we may not know of many zanpakuto manifesting like this, but Nimaiya claims to know the location of every zanpakuto, created them, and has assistants who ARE zanpakuto souls. He doesn’t seem to have a connection with the current Zaraki or Yachiru and the liklihood he knows about who Yachiru is, is high, so why say nothing if it’s SO odd? This begs the question: is the status quo we see in Soul Society not what it used to be? Nimaiya’s attitude toward zanpakuto is more of working together, while SS at large seems to see them as something to conquer and alter as shinigami need.

Sure, most shinigami have soft spots for their zanpakuto, but their main concern is not “connecting meaningfully with this soul” but “how can I get stronger with the use of my zanpakuto”. Were zanpakuto universally more like Yachiru; has the procedure for discovering your zanpakuto’s name changed drastically? If you think about how Ichigo viewed his zanpakuto (how we viewed it from his POV) before he realized that Zangetsu was an ACTUAL SOUL being negatively affected by Ichigo’s pain, it doesn’t go against how SS at large treats their zanpakutos does it? 

A super indulgent one here: I think Yachiru was probably a HUGE fan of fun kid stuff in the human world and while she didn’t get to go often or maybe even at all, I think it would be so like her to manifest a huge carnival or amusement park in their shared inner world to have fun days. Also, who’s gonna believe that Kenpachi spends time in his inner world imagining ridiculous roller coasters instead of fighting? No one (except like Ikkaku and Yumichika, who expect nothing less).

#kenpachi zaraki #yachiru kusajishi #nimaiya oetsu #bleach headcanons #bleach imagines #bleach scenarios #idk if i should tag chire in this?? would that be annoying?? #but yes i obviously love the implications that this has like IS yachiru really that odd??? #also i love them so much; scary dad and knife baby are so good

[haich-slash-cee]

Is the print publishing world picking up online/fandom terms? How they are using them? How do we feel about this?

So this is... attention-getting, for folks who like to follow publishing and meta stuff.

https://twitter.com/sapphicxrey/status/1215065948677443584

https://twitter.com/TorDotComPub/status/1233391556750647299

(2nd tweet -- TW, mentions of non-con)

Are we seeing the beginnings of book publishers directly borrowing from online/fandom culture in promoting their books? How do we feel about these examples?

More below cut.

Exhibit #1: screenshots of Bonds of Brass promo from Jan 8 2020. (Which is probably going to have reactions of “haha, cute” at most.)

Transcript of blurb: 

“If you like... 

forbidden romances, “there’s only one bed”, cityships, weaponized umbrellas, powersuits, secret princes, best friends, best friends PINING, fake dating between PINING best friends, tactical streaking, the minivan of starships, cigar-chomping cyborg ladies, scary empress moms, galactic-level bisexual disasters, LEGACY (WHAT IS A LEGACY?), rooftop hopping, golden trios, rumblin’ drums, bootleg fireworks, BIG SPACE BATTLES PEW PEW, a surprisingly functional public transit system, mob trouble, one hell of a pilot, the inherent DRAMA of empire, a nice interlude in a river, smoking a joint that’s been on the floor, sick stunts, slick grifts, hiding in a dumpster, or any combination of the above,

 Then you might like 

BONDS OF BRASS”

The Twitter responses seem to be generally enthusiastic. (And also, “FinnPoe! FinnPoe!”)

Personally, I’m intrigued from a meta-view of “oh so that’s definitely pulling from online world and fanfiction world, interesting. I wonder how much fanfiction culture is starting to influence print book culture and promotion.” Maybe I’ve got some questions like, “Ok so moneymaking companies such as Penguin are now using culture developed by the not-moneymaking-world of fanfiction? How do we feel about this?” Anyway, the book looks cute, I’m interested enough and I might get it from the library.

I suspect many people’s reactions are along the lines of “hm, interesting”, “sounds like a lark”, or “haha they’re using AO3 tags as promo”, etc. 

Exhibit #2, screenshots of DOCILE promo, from Feb 28 2020 (today is March 1 2020), and screenshots of Twitter responses so far:

(*CW, non-con discussion)

Tweet transcript:

“DOCILE by @KMSzpara:  

-Dubcon/Noncon 

-Dramatic Trillionaire Content 

-BDSM and then some more BDSM and then a lot more BDSM

 -Hurt/comfort and hurt/no comfort

 -Cinnamon roll of steel 

-The most scandalous kink: love 

-Courtroom, bedroom, & Preakness drama

[Tor book website link]”

So this is getting mixed reactions on Twitter. All dozen or so reactions, so far. Here’s text transcripts and bio info from repliers, below. I’m being a little obsessive, mostly to show that there’s a mix of queer, book-ish people in the replies (including the author).)

Noncon is nonconsentual sex, rape. Even in fandom it's a content tag, not a promotional term. I can't imagine being a rape survivor and seeing this come across my TL. -- @WriteSomeGood [queer rainbow] [Cis queer homemaker, aspiring author, maker of incredible cinnamon buns. She/her] [has a Tumblr page]

I’m not a survivor but it was an instant “no thank you” from me. And I was sincerely looking forward to this prior to. This is the most immediately off-putting marketing push I’ve seen for a book in a long damn time. -- @AGAWilmot [Author, editor, artist. Co-EIC of @anathemaspec. @SFU alum. The Death Scene Artist/W&W 2018. Ace/enby. They/them. Horror is my comfort food.]

Whichever intern wrote this tweet, deserves a full time job. With benefits. -- @simeontsanev [Aspiring writer, post-aspiring musician, and overall geek  He/Him /[queer rainbow]/ To the world we dream about, and the one we live in now! http://simeontsanev.com]

Idk why everyone thinks it’s always an intern writing copy and not a team comprised of extremely skilled social media experts, editors, publicists and marketers, and their assistants  I worked on those tags with my editor and a good friend!! -- @KMSzpara [Kellan. [queer rainbow]  Speculative fiction writer. Queer agenda.  Hugo & Nebula finalist.  DOCILE 3/3/20 from Tor Dot Com Publishing.  He/him.  Rep @suddenlyjen] *The author, bio page and twitter page.

this is CUTE! -- @MSSciarappa  [queer rainbow] I do books. he/him.

I am Extremely Ready for this content thank u -- @JessicaBCooper [Journo ☽ Writer of faerie, villain fuckery & cruel desires ☽ Lestat & Loki's love child ☽ Aleksander Morozova's side-hoe ☽ Rep'd by Kate Testerman @ktliterary]

I’m listening -- @MerynLobb [Government worker. Weightlifter. Nihilist. Aspiring cult leader. Avid user of words, often bad ones. #AMM R6 Mentee. she/her]

Soon! Soon!! -- @castrophony [Geek. Gamer. Cosplayer. Bibliophile. Scientist. She/Her.]

[happy reaction gif] -- @TorDotComPub [Providing a home for writers to tell SFF stories in exactly the number of words they choose. All our titles are available globally in print and DRM-free ebook.]

[throwing stuff in dumpster, unhappy reaction gif] -- @cursedgravy  [name's xavi, im a transman and i like to daydream about making content] 

For more context, here’s the blurb from the author website. Below is the blurb from the publisher’s site:

“Docile

K.M. Szpara

K. M. Szpara's Docile is a science fiction parable about love and sex, wealth and debt, abuse and power, a challenging tour de force that at turns seduces and startles.

There is no consent under capitalism.

To be a Docile is to be kept, body and soul, for the uses of the owner of your contract. To be a Docile is to forget, to disappear, to hide inside your body from the horrors of your service. To be a Docile is to sell yourself to pay your parents' debts and buy your children's future.

Elisha Wilder’s family has been ruined by debt, handed down to them from previous generations. His mother never recovered from the Dociline she took during her term as a Docile, so when Elisha decides to try and erase the family’s debt himself, he swears he will never take the drug that took his mother from him.

Too bad his contract has been purchased by Alexander Bishop III, whose ultra-rich family is the brains (and money) behind Dociline and the entire Office of Debt Resolution. When Elisha refuses Dociline, Alex refuses to believe that his family’s crowning achievement could have any negative side effects—and is determined to turn Elisha into the perfect Docile without it.

Content warning: Docile contains forthright depictions and discussions of rape and sexual abuse.”

So that’s a lot of info and reactions.

Personally: at first glance, I absently skimmed the tweet and “hurt/comfort” popped out, and I was like “What? Mainstream publishing is cool with this now? I was wondering if ‘hurt/comfort’ would one day become commonly used in publishing [related post]. But this is way sooner than I thought.” And then I read the rest of of the tweet and thought, “Wait, what?” 

And then I started reading through the tweet replies and thought, “OK, at the risk of getting a bunch of Tumblr drama, I want to bring this to the whump community and see how people feel."

As for myself, one of my squicks is non-con, and I’m not really interested in hurt/no comfort. So just from the tweet, I know the book is not for me. The official blurbs confirmed that. In this sense, this is like skimming Ao3 tags on a fic and saying “pass” on a story.

However, I have questions about the specific promotion of the book. So the official blurbs are pretty standard. What about that tweet, which Tor (and the author, who helped put it together) put out? Because I think an official publisher’s Tweet comes with different context than Ao3 tags.

First, the different internet spaces. You can filter tags on Ao3 and Tumblr. I know you can mute words on Twitter, but is that the same thing? Also, would people be expecting these tags on Twitter? Compared to Ao3 or Tumblr or Tumblr Whump spaces?

Within the Tumblr Whump community, from what I’ve browsed, the community attitude (guidelines?) seem to be “Write and discuss what you want. Be sure to tag it, use content warnings, or otherwise clearly communicate if you have things that may be triggering. Respect people’s squicks/triggers. Walk away from what you don’t like.” Like, tumblr whump has a very specific culture of trying to balance discourse/stories about potentially very dark stuff, but also wanting to make sure the IRL people and Tumblr users are okay. There’s always posts going around about how to do this, are we doing this in the right way, ethics, so on. Also -- and people can correct me -- the whump tumblr space might be where tags are content warnings for people to stay away, and also what people might actively look for. So if any space is going to discuss if this promotional tweet checks out, I feel like it’s this space. 

Also, to note again, Tor Tweets are in the money-official-publisher-world, not unpaid-tumblr-people or unpaid-fanfiction-fandom-world.

Maybe I just want to ask, “Hey those first two tweet responses, does they have a point? Tor using ‘noncon’ as official promotion? On Twitter?” I mean, I’ve previously written, “The CW and TW tags that Ao3 writers use, I really wish those were used with published books as well.” But somehow, the Tor tweet was not quite what I was expecting. Maybe for reasons similar to that first tweet response. (I guess one could debate if a tweet is really promotion or just information... you know what someone can correct me, but I’m gonna say that a Tor.com tweet is promotion, compared to information like Ao3, and that tweet was there for promotion.)

Those tags operate within specific Ao3 and Tumblr cultures and infrastructure. I don’t hang around Twitter for whump stuff, IDK what the culture is. Anyway, does dropping these tags into a promotional tweet from Tor.... translate?

The tweet is evidently gathering the people who are there for it, and the people who aren’t there for it are quickly realizing that they are not there for it. But personally, the Tor website blurb does a better job at that, using writing that I’d expect from a publisher for communicating fictional non-con situations. (Maybe the blurb content warnings are what I wanted more of, when I said I wished for CW and TW in books.)

Anyway, there’s no huge drama about that Docile book promo on Twitter, as far as I can tell. So this is a niche thing, right now. But. The promo for Bonds of Brass and for Docile might be the beginnings of a trend of well-known book publishers borrowing from online writing / fandom culture and terminology in order to promote or categorize their books. These two promos might set a precedent or have other significance.

So if anyone has discourse on the tweets or potential future trends... 

#meta #discourse #publishing #bonds of brass #Docile #publishers #future trends #maybe #non-con #trigger warnings #content warnings #fanfiction #ao3 #tumblr #whump #hurt/comfort #hurt/no comfort #books

[toooldforfandom-liveblogs]

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power S01E07 - In the Shadows of Mystacor

I'm trying to remember if Mystacor has ever been mentioned but I'm drawing a blank. The title sounds portentous enough that it makes me doubt the episode is going to be about the Ice Princess but she's the only one left so I'm guessing that's what it’s going to be about! Let's do this!

...why does Bow have hearts in the soles of his shoes?

"Because I can" he'd probably say

Also, what's up with them sleeping in the wilderness? Was the technology for tents and/or shelter lost in whatever catastrophe the First Ones went through?

I had this without subtitles and for a second I thought "Hey, she's having nightmares about Light Hope, maybe because of the infection?" but then I recognized the voice. Of course, the subtitles don't leave a lot of room to wonder who's talking.

Sure, leave your friends and tell no one you're leaving. Great idea!

That's some cute bed hair. I'm still weirdly bothered about the fact that they straight up slept on the grass. Like, it gets wet! And there are bugs!

How long has she been standing there watching? It was still dark when she stood up.

* gasp * Continuity~

Wait, did Glimmer just tell them "let's go sleep in the woods" without telling them their destination?

Oh, so there's magic beyond what the Princesses can do.

...I think Castaspella takes the prize for being the most literal name in She-Ra yet.

oooh, is Adora going to have problems seeing it? Drama~

As an aside, after last episode I wonder if all magic in Etheria is actually just very advanced technology from the First Ones and the entire setting of the show is post apocalyptic. That'd explain why they the princesses need to recharge in very specific circumstances instead of just sleeping it off like most wizards in most other settings.

The biggest mood. I _am_ writing this during another bout of insomnia after all.

ooh, plot

What's Shadow Weaver's problem with Catra? Is it just "Adora's the good one daughter, you're the bad one"? Whatever it is, Catra's self value and resentment problems are 1:1 linked to that, especially considering how Shadow Weaver keeps poking at Catra's insecurities.

The red rock can probably still work under the "all magic is tech" theory since Entrapta's problems were all because of a gem but I'm not so sure about the stone basin and the liquid inside.

(that's a fantastic Glimmer face)

Oh. So she didn't have friends when she was growing up? She didn't seem to know the other princesses, and the castle seems to have mostly soldiers and her mom so I guess it makes sense? But still, that's sad.

oh no she's a grandma

So, magic definitely isn't something only Princesses can wield. Unless it's different from their powers? They do seem to have very specific powers versus what looks like these generic sparkles.

It looks like Glimmer's inability to be taken seriously goes beyond her mother. That she didn't have a lot of friends feels like an important piece of that puzzle, since it could mean she was overprotected when she was a child (maybe because of the war?) and only recently she's been "acting out"

I was thinking that maybe Castaspell was the other princess's mom but now I really hope she isn't. That passive aggresive personality would be incredibly toxic.

I can't figure out Shadow Weaver's plan. Does she want to freak her out for some reason? Is she leading Adora somewhere (how does she know Mystacor enough to know where she wants to lead Adora?)? Hm.

Also I'm really bad at recognizing voices but Castaspella's voice reminds a bit of Shadow Weaver.

oh my god I was going to write the same thing

OH MY GOD I WAS KIDDING

I can't believe they are exploring Glimmer's weirdly normal family issues.

Welp, that'd explain how Shadow Weaver's shadowy thing knows how to move around Mysticor. How long ago was she exiled? It'd need to be at least 20~ years ago to match with her adopting Adora.

Sure, _now_ they have blankets.

Huh. Interesting design choice to keep Bow's chest covered. Now I'm wondering if he's trans and that's a binder.

It wouldn't be my first guess considering it's so direct and trans characters are mostly limited to background characters if at all but that quote from the showrunner about her characters being gay unless otherwise stated makes me think it could be a possibility.

GLIMMER HAS WINGS

Aw, the cuteness couldn't last.

The design of those wings remind me a lot of the ones in Card Captor Sakura, I wonder if it's an intentional reference.

Aw. Adora really has a ton of stuff to work through, huh? I'm glad they are taking the time to do it, it'd have been so easy for the writers to just let Adora cast aside everything Horde related but nope, she has a past, conflicted feelings about her "mom" and definitely some trauma.

oh my god this is so wholesome. I mean, he's wrong, but still wholesome.

He's such a good boy. He's even willing to accept Adora's different way to dealing with her emotions.

Uuuugh, that has to be Shadow Weaver, right? A lifetime of experience manipulating Adora, she knows exactly what to say, how to gaslight her.

This level of emotional manipulation is killing me. Shadow Weaver knows exactly what buttons to push, exactly what Adora fears hearing the most. And she's probably has been doing the same for years to both Adora and Catra.

Welp, I hope all those crystals were not important.

My heart. Glimmer did not jump to conclusions or blamed her even though she just lost a ton of credibility with her aunt. What a wholesome marshmallow.

I guess someone could go and say "they are wrong because they don't believe her" but this really feels like it's completely out of their life experience so I can't blame them at all. And they are probably going to apologize once it's all clear, right? I'm not sure you can ask more from them, they have been extremely supportive.

nooooo, don't do this to my heart (or Adora's) this has to be Shadow Weaver but that almost feels wrong because if she's so powerful why hasn't she done this before?

uuuuuuuugh

Rainbow energy~ Is She-Ra going to have to recharge the shields?

yup

I can't believe I'm going to say this but this almost feels out of character. Why would Shadow Weaver reveal the shadow if she's been so good about manipulating Adora so far?

Aaand she's back.

I'm glad they didn't leave that as a mystery. Wait, Light Spinner? Is Spinnerella a relative?

I _love_ this. I mentioned how it felt like it seemed like some people (like Angela or Perfuma) cared more about She-Ra than Adora, to the point that even Adora herself seemed to prefer being She-Ra for a while and it was all on purpose!

Shadow Weaver is manipulating Adora but this is probably something that has been festering in Adora's mind for weeks and I love that it's something that's been present enough on the show to be noticeable instead of something we have to extrapolate.

AAAAAAAA

I didn't expect Adora to confront all her dark mom issues and trauma so soon but this is gooood.

whoa wait what, that's cheating

Aren't you like one more subordinate of Lord Hordak?

This is some heavy stuff that I didn't expect this show to handle.

I'm going to be slightly dissapointed if that's the end of Adora's issues.

she's in

This is so wholesome and cute.

Is it a coincidence that her gem works the same way as the distress beacon in Entrapta's castle?

Nooooooo.

I feel so conflicted about Catra, she obviously has a lot of problems but after this episode I'm finding it very hard to blame her. Shadow Weaver _liked_ Adora and was horribly manipulative to her, imagine what she has been doing to Catra every day her entire life.

---

What a surprise! It's been pretty episodic so far with the introduction of the princesses so a return to the Horde and Shadow Weaver was a completely unexpected. It even included some consequences from last episode's infection!

There are a couple of things I want to talk about but before anything else, let me gush about how Bow and Glimmer are amazing friends to Adora.

When the episode starts with Adora not being in the right mood, it only takes one look from Glimmer to notice there’s something wrong with her friend after she doesn’t react to her jokes. She doesn’t get angry at Adora’s moody response, instead she tries to understand what’s going on and offers her a vacation.

While I was watching, I thought this was after returning to Bright Moon but it makes a lot more sense if they are on the trip back from Entrapta. Had Glimmer already decided to go to Mystacor or was it in response to Adora’s bad mood? In any case they really emphasize Mystacor’s healing properties because they see how much Adora needs that.

And then during their stay they never get frustrated at Adora’s increasing paranoia, instead they keep trying to help her by suggesting ways to relax.

How easy it would have been for Glimmer to give up on Adora after the third time of being rebuffed? No one would have blamed her or Bow if they got annoyed but they just keep trying. Bow even shows he listened to Adora about what she did to relax in the past and suggests it back to her after the “normal” stuff fails. And then they give her space the second Adora asks for it!

Even after Adora’s breaks the crystals in the Lunarium and seemingly kills any bit of “grown-up” credibility Glimmer may have had with her aunt, she doesn’t get angry.

I understand that there’s a reading here that could say that Glimmer and Bow are in the wrong because they didn’t trust Adora about her weird visions from the get go but I feel this was a lot more realistic. How long has been Adora with them? How much of their past do they even know? Before this episode they hadn’t heard about Shadow Weaver and that’s Adora’s _mom_. In fact, I’m sure they don’t even know who Catra is, and that’s Adora’s strongest “positive” link to the Horde.

Would _you_ believe a new friend if they started seeing shadows after a traumatic experience that affected their cognition? Or would you try to help them in the way that makes most sense to you?

I think a plot where they believe her right away could have worked as a mystery but I’m not sure I’d have liked it as much as this one.

That last scene where Adora wakes up from a nightmare and shows her new trust in Glimmer by falling sleep right away was * chef kiss *

With all my unbridled gushing out of the way, let’s talk about Shadow Weaver. It’s interesting that they took a mystery that could have worked for a multiple episode arc and then revealed it in the same episode.

If the episode had _only_ Bow’s line “Mystacor is protected by a spell so evil can’t find it” plus Shadow Weaver’s shadow hanging around it would have been enough to set up a mystery about how she wasn’t affected. A couple of episodes later they could have shown Light Spinner’s statue. And afterwards they could have confirmed it. That they took the possibility of stretching something like that for episodes and episodes makes me optimistic about the future since I assume they have much better ideas in their pocket.

What I am _not_ optimistic about is how this episode felt like it was “the one where Adora overcomes the trauma from being raised by Shadow Weaver.” She’s still dealing with nightmares by the end but it still felt very rushed in that regard. I’m hoping I’m wrong and this is just her first step.

Glimmer’s struggles in making adults take her seriously have been interesting so far. It makes me wonder what will be the event that’ll change everyone’s minds. I doubt this show will go _too_ dark but a battle their side loses because they didn’t listen to her or a battle they win only because they listened to her could work. Technically, the Princesses Alliance is that but I’m pretty sure Angella won’t care much about it until they prove themselves.

Bow is still a mystery. An extremely good boy, but a mystery. I’m hoping that Catra’s sudden focus on him will develop him more. I’m still curious if he’s intended to be read as trans but it’s a nice head canon to have if not.

Oh, and Catra. This good has been very, very good about not being black and white but Shadow Weaver’s behavior tilted the scales towards Catra being a very sympathetic but tragic figure. She may be the black sheep of Shadow Weaver’s wards but it looks like she learned the lessons SW was teaching the best, probably because she was subjected to them the most during their life.

I think that's all for now. There's still a princess left and whatever's Catra is planning so I can't wait! Until next time!

#shera #shera liveblog #shera s01e07 #spop

[welcott]

Meet Wes

BASICS

Name: Wesley Emerson Alcott

Age: 18

Grade: Senior

House: Fenwick

Cabin Room: Cabin 1, Room 4

How long have they been at Broadripple: four years

Where are they from originally: Lorehill, MA

Extra curricular: gardening club (formerly) field hockey, drama department (set design)

TRAITS

Positive Personality Traits: sensible, utilitarian, hardworking, faithful, even-tempered

Neutral Personality Traits: simple, nature-loving, outdoorsman, quiet, athletic

Negative Personality Traits: unambitious, resentful, inhibited, judgmental

FACTS

The Alcott family has always had a strange relationship with Broadripple Academy. With roots winding back to Lorehill’s settlement, their family name holds a good deal of respect among members of the area. During Broadripple’s inception, Rebecca Alcott was a beloved nun who played an instrumental role in the Academy’s success, serving with the clergy until her passing. Although her death is long in the past, the legacy she left behind was never forgotten, paving a place for all members of the Alcott family to attend the university with limited tuition fees. It is due to this family history that Wesley is able to walk the halls of Broadripple at all, let alone afford a uniform. 

Raised on the fringes of Lorehill, the Alcott’s worked as fur traders, then loggers. With the sudden decline in the logging industry, the family was pitched into poverty that lasted several generations. Wesley Alcott, in many ways, is exactly what anyone would expect from an Alcott boy. He learned how to handle a gun the moment he was able to hold one, he spent his days digging through the woods for plants, hunting with his father, and helping at the mechanic’s shop owned by his uncle. 

Having grown up without much, Wesley learned to always make the best with what little he had. He developed a skill for carpentry, often working with his father to complete odd jobs for the townsfolk, repairing broken furniture, decks, and occasionally building something entirely new. He’s never been the brightest of the bunch and has little desire to be. He continues to attend Broadripple because it has always been his mother’s wish for him, but he can’t shake feeling like he doesn’t belong in a world of polished floors and stuffy classrooms. He is content to live the rest of his life in the same town the rest of his family lived and died in, one day taking up the keeping of his father’s farm. 

But financial insecurity has pushed Wes away from his desires for the sake of bettering his family’s prospects. He doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life or if he’s any good at anything other than who and what he currently is, but he shoulders the responsibility of this uncertainty none-the-less. He can’t imagine himself succeeding in college or choosing an academic major, but he has been convinced that is the route he has to take in order to provide for his family. Although he often struggles in school, Wesley puts effort into everything he does. Serious and mature for his age, he has never been the type to goof around, participate in petty gossip or bully others. If anything, he keeps to himself or the small group of friends he’s collected over his time at Broadripple. 

On weekends he spends most of his time at home and often returns to school with a plastic bag of venison jerky he offers to anyone he considers a friend. He helps out the drama department building sets and regularly volunteers to help the groundskeepers with any tasks they’ll allow him to participate in. A skilled field-hockey player, Wes has earned a sport’s scholarship his mother hopes will lead to similar advancements in the college sector, although this doesn’t inspire his genuine interest.

 A simple person, Wes tends to take things at face value. Or at least he did until the sudden disappearance of Maggie. Having known her since childhood, Wes can’t shake the suspicion that something awful happened to her. While he may feel more at home in the cabins than he ever did in the dormitories, her absence continues to haunt him. Worry festers in his chest like a wound he can’t heal. 

While he gives little heed to rumors and ghost stories, Wes fears for her wellbeing, regardless of whatever excuses the school came up with. It has made him rather protective of his fellow classmates, often looking out for them when they otherwise wouldn’t look out for themselves.

HEADCANONS

Wes knows how to play the acoustic guitar. he usually sings off key, but that won’t stop him from doing it around the campfire

definitely a dog person. he grew up around dogs for his entire life, specifically hunting dogs that helped his father track and trap prey. while the family has had several dogs throughout the years, the one Wes has bonded the most with is an English Setter named Birdie.

Wes knows his way around a car and usually has to spent decent amounts of time touching up the engine on his truck. A hand-me-down from his father, Berenice is a Ford pick-up-truck from the 1970s. She was once blue but time, wear, weather, and a few car accidents have left her scuffed up, patched together and hastily painted over. she isn’t exactly pretty to look at, but even with a white replacement door on the driver’s side, she’s very reliable.

Wes usually spends his summers doing odd jobs or working as a camp counselor at the lake a few miles out of town. due to his childhood in the area, experience hunting, camping etc. he knows the area pretty well and could easily feel comfortable wandering off and finding his way back.

Wes almost always has a small pocket knife on hand ( when he can get away with it ). he usually stuffs it in the neck of his hiking boots, using it for small repairs, cutting branches and other small tasks.

wes is actually very good at sewing and has a small, portable sewing kit he keeps in his cabin. having grown up without much  money, his mother taught him the importance of maintaining the goods he already owns. if anyone ever needs a patch up, wes can have a busted seam, tear, or hem fixed in a jiffy.

his family owns horses, his grandfather and father always believing it wise to keep a few good work horses on hand in case their tractor broke down. while expensive, wes is fond of the horses and grateful he grew up knowing his way around one. His mother even managed to make a modest income giving horseback riding lessons to the kids in Lorehill and a few eager students of the Academy.

the eldest of several siblings, Wes learned responsibility from a young age and has an unconscious habit of slipping into the role of ‘caretaker’ without meaning to.

his little sister, a junior named Annie, also attends broadripple. they have a close bond, although she does get annoyed with what she calls his ‘older brothering’ her.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE RETREAT

What do they think about The Retreat

Wes doesn’t mind the retreat. he actually feels much more at home in the cabins than he ever did in the dorms at the academy. he prefers the noises of the woods and the way the world looks so much bigger when it isn’t standing opposed to tall brick walls. he believes there truly was a locust infestation in the dorms, but remains suspicious about the disappearance of maggie. having grown up together, Wes feels deeply concerned about her disappearance and nervous about other students wandering around the woods with little to no survival knowledge ( or sense of direction ).

Do they have any previous experience with camping or other outdoors?

Y E S. Wesley has sO much experience camping it’s honestly egregious. he and his family spend a good portion of their summers in tents, cooking up cans of beans over the fire and skipping stones at the lake. Wes has gone on hiking trips, slept under the stars, and fished for his own dinner. If he ever broke his leg during a hiking accident and was left stranded in the woods, he has sufficient knowledge of how to survive in the wilderness to put himself in the best possible position to preserve his life and be rescued. he truly is That Bitch.

What does their cabin bunk look like? How will they decorate their space?

Wes’s bunk space is decorated minimally, as he keeps most of his personal items at home. Knowing his classmates might be feeling bored without access to the internet, he did bring along a couple board games from his house in the hopes that they might find enjoyment in it. Other than this, he has a few potted plants he takes care of and a home made quilt on his mattress. He would have been content to sleep in a sleeping bag but his mother insisted on getting him proper sheets and bedding.

Do they believe in the supernatural? To what degree?

No. Wesley knows all about the rumors and ghost stories but has rarely paid them any heed. he is suspicious of events going on with the school and Nighmore, especially since his family has had negative feelings towards the academy for generations, but supernatural beings were never the source of that concern. he’s the type to listen to ghost stories around the campfire, but tell people to talk about something else when it’s clear someone is getting scared.

Are they easily spooked?

Not really. Wes can be wary, especially knowing the potential dangers of the woods, but he was raised in an environment where keeping a level head is necessary. he still experiences fear, but he tends to manage it well and keep it concealed. he probably wouldn’t be the type to panic at a shadow in the woods and start running, but it would catch his attention and he’d respond accordingly.

AND FINALLY,

A very dumb but (hopefully) fun quiz made by your admins, please share what result you got

“you will sacrifice yourself for someone else.”  he would tho tbh

#retreat:task1 #hcs #about

[sgtrolandhills]

A Perfect Storm || Luce & Roland

Luce listened intently as the cop filled her in on the details. So he was put on shit duty out here, figures. That kind of thing seemed to happen around her. Someone transfers in from one city or another, then they either can’t hack it or they become one of the locals. She idly wondered which side of the coin Officer Hills here would land on. “It’s a nice place. Small place, but we keep busy here. I’m Luce.” She said, not bothering to add her last name. It was hardly necessary and, if he was like any kind of the normal newcomers, he’d probably head to Illusions of Grandeur at some point. She’d rather not be associated with her sister’s sideshow act. “If you’re looking for a sports bar, Dell’s is pretty good about keeping the game on.” She said. Staring out the windows, Luce watched as a streak of lighting flashed across the sky. Pretty, in a deadly kind of way. “I’m a tattoo artist. I work at Ink Inc. I do a lot of geometric and black work, but I can roll with traditional too. You got any tattoos?”

Roland nodded along as Luce spoke. She had certainly been right about White Crest keeping busy for a small town. Crime and death rates alone spoke to that fact, though he wouldn’t consider that one of the town’s positive attributes. It had its charms and he had more than enough work to keep him busy. “It’s good to meet you, Luce. There’s definitely more going on here than you’d think for a small town. You go hiking out here often?” There was only a hint of concern in his voice. There were more missing persons reports than he’d like coming out of those woods. He’d hate to see her as one of them. She knew the area though, he had to believe she knew how to keep herself safe out there. It looked like she had a hiking pack which meant she was prepared. Now he learned she was a tattoo artist. It seemed more and more that Luce definitely had the know how to fend for herself. He’d never met a tattoo artist who didn’t have a little bit of grit to them. “Thanks for the tip,” he paused before adding, “Tattoo artist, huh? I don’t have any myself, but I’ve always thought they were cool. I don’t even know what I’d get if I were to get one. How long have you been doing that?”

“I usually just go running along the easier paths, but I like to mix it up with hikes.” Luce replied, jerking a thumb to the pack sitting in her lap. “I bring gear when I’m out and about. First aid kit, stuff like that.” She nodded. Plus, some miscellaneous magical odds and ends that wouldn’t attract too much attention. A lump of red tourmaline, which to most people wouldn’t look like anything other than a shiny bit of rock. To her, it was a focus for her magic. A small knife, in case she needed to fuel her flames with something beyond just her will and energy. But, she hardly ever used that. Not unless she wanted to pass the fuck out in the middle of the woods. Which, having done it a couple times before, was a sure fire way to catch a fucking cold when you were out setting fire in the middle of a storm. “No problem,” She replied, “Fair enough. I just know we have a couple folks on the force who come in from time to time. I’ve been tattooing for five years, but I did a three year apprenticeship beforehand.”

“As long as you’re being careful out there. Sounds like you’re well prepared. Just be on the lookout for wildlife. I know it keeps our Animal Control unit pretty busy,” Roland said with a gruff chuckle. It was good to hear she had safety supplies on her. Luce seemed nice enough and he’d rather not see her face in a missing persons file. Roland knew his way around in the wilderness, but it had never been something he specifically sought out. He got the appeal of it though and it was a practical hobby. He listened carefully and nodded along as Luce spoke. Eight years was a long time to be tattooing, he wouldn’t be surprised if she was good at other art forms as well, which sparked a question. “Do you do any other kinds of art? I don’t personally have any art, but I’ve been wanting to make a shadow box with some of my dad’s old uniform pieces. You good at that kind of thing?”

“Ah yeah. Growing up here, you get used to scaring off the local animals. I’m a pro at scaring away moose at this point.” Luce said with only the slightest amount of sarcasm. Moose weren’t anything to fuck with, and she’d been on the Mooseventure tour often enough to know that they could wreck your shit without a second thought. But, it helped when you could huck a ball of fire at an angry moose. “I do charcoal art. Woodburning too. Dabbled in oils a while ago, but it’s not my thing.” She nodded. A bit intrigued at the idea of a shadow box, Luce glanced over at the police officer. “I’ve never done one before, but it sounds like a simple enough premise.  Was your dad on the force too?”

“Are the moose here particularly violent? I always thought they kept to themselves,” Roland mused. If that was the case, he’d do his best to avoid them. Death by moose would be an embarrassing way to go out. It was far more likely that he'd go down in the line of duty than by a moose considering he didn’t spend too much time out in the woods. Roland was sure to pay close attention to directions while driving. He was still learning his way around. The main parts of town he had pretty much covered through patrolling, but the Outskirts were still new territory. Eventually even the roads surrounded by the woods would become familiar enough. He smiled at the thought of being able to nicely display his dad’s badge and uniform jacket. He’d always been proud of his father and hoped to live up to his example. “Yes, he was a Lieutenant for the Boston Police Department. If you’d be able to do something like that, I’d be happy to commission it.”

“They can be. Apparently the fuckers can run at 35 miles per hour and, to make it worse, they can swim. Nothing like going for a dip and then getting drowned to death by an angry moose.” Luce said, recalling the more gruesome fun facts she’d gleaned from the last time she’d been at Mooseventures. “The ones around town seem more ballsy than most, but I chalk that up to the fact there’s a literal company that hauls tourists out to see them. Like whale watching or something.” She laughed with a shake of her head. Listening to the man, Luce regarded him with an intrigued eye. A Boston boy, huh? Family ties and all must be why he had joined the police department. That said, it made it all the more interesting that he was here and not back in Boston. “Yeah, I could definitely help you out with that. You’d have to give me dimensions of what you’re looking for, but I’d be happy to work on a project like that.”

“I think I may have to skip out on potentially making a moose angry. Guess I’ll be skipping out on that moose tour. I was already a little iffy on it,” Roland said slightly amused that there was a moose tour to begin with. You didn’t get much of that kind of thing out in the city. Occasionally, you’d get a rabid racoon in your trash which was a lot less dangerous and easy to get away from. He relaxed into his seat, finding conversation was moving easily enough. He liked people well enough, Roland just found that sometimes he always didn’t have the easiest time relating to others. Luce seemed to make jokes easily enough which always helped these sorts of things. He imagined she had to make a decent amount of conversation being a tattoo artist. “Thanks, I’ll measure the space I’d like to put it in and get back to you. Do you have a website or something?”

“Sounds like a smart idea. But, I’ve been wrangled into more than my fair share of trips to Mooseventures. It’s better than the fucking mime restaurant.” Luce grimaced at the thought of Kaden’s awful fucking birthday. “Another good piece of advice? You wanna go to a strip club, just make the drive to Bangor and go to one there. The Stripe Club? Fucking awful. Worst place ever.” She said with a shudder that was only partly exaggerated. As they continued down the road, she couldn’t help but be amused at the situation. One of the good ol’ boys in blue, dropping her off back at home? And, even better, that she was in the passenger seat? Funny stuff. Not that Luce had ever been in the back of a cop car, but she had to act the part. Everyone assumed that tattoo artists were rough and tumble and she wasn’t going to argue with that, if it meant they continued to treat her with the respect she wanted. “No worries. And yeah, I do. Ink Inc. has a website that’s linked on the town’s message board. If you go there, you’ll be able to see my work under my artist’s page.” She replied.

Roland’s brow furrowed at the mention of a mime restaurant. That seemed to be very oddly placed in a small town. Wasn’t that French thing? He’d have to ask Langley about it. “I didn’t realize mimes were a big enough thing here to warrant a whole restaurant dedicated to them. I think I’ll be avoiding that.” When Luce went on to continue about there being a Stripe Club, he grimaced further and couldn’t understand the appeal. He didn’t really enjoy regular strip clubs much let alone mime strip clubs. “I don’t think I’ll be going to either if I can help it, but that Stripe Club sounds like a nightmare. Thanks for the tip. You have a bad experience there or something?” He mentally checked off places to avoid unless there was a crime to investigate. Roland sincerely hoped he’d never have to investigate The Stripe Club. There were some things that just couldn’t be unseen once you saw them. He supposed he was lucky to have found Luce in the woods. He hated the thought of her trekking all this way in a storm. “I’ll have to check that out and reach out to you with some dimensions.” He paused for a moment before he asked, “Have you ever been to Boston?”

“You and me both. If you can manage to figure out why people are so obsessed with them, you’d have cracked the mystery of White Crest.” Luce joked. Though, if he really did manage to figure that out, she’d honestly love to hear it. It had been years since she’d tried to tackle that particular oddity of the town she called home-- in a very literal way. She’d tackled a mime. When Roland asked if she’d had a bad experience, Luce’s face turned grim. “Yeah, you could say that. I accidentally got shanghaied into the most fucked up birthday party I’ve ever been to. One of your new co-worker’s actually. Kaden Langley, with animal control. If you really wanna make him angry, just mention “mime lapdance.””She said with a knowing look. “No worries. And yeah, I’ve been there a couple times. Work trips. I went there for a tattoo expo once and then the second time I was there, I was doing a guest spot at a friend’s shop. It was a fun couple weeks.”

“I have the feeling that maybe some mysteries are better left unsolved,” Roland said letting out a single laugh. Whatever the appeal was, he wasn’t too sure he even wanted to understand. As long as it wasn’t a front for some sort of illegal business, he could live without ever stepping foot inside. He was sure his face was visibly disturbed when Luce mentioned that Langley had his birthday party at a mime strip club. He was relieved he missed the invite on that one. Being the new guy around the station had its perks and not ever having to see a mime strip was definitely one of them. “I’m sorry you had to witness that. Didn’t know Langley was into mimes like that. Should’ve guessed he had unconventional tastes with all the animal skulls on his desk. Glad I got here in time to miss the invite to that birthday party.” Even imagining it was enough to ruin his appetite. There wasn’t enough bourbon in the world to make that sound bearable. “Oh, yeah, we always get a pretty good crowd for that expo. There’s some nice hiking trails at the Boston Harbor National Park.” As they came up to an intersection, he asked, “Where am I going from here?”

“It was a fucking shit show, I can tell you that much.” Luce agreed. She’d gotten real fucked up that night, on the combination of whiskey and Blue Velvet. Even after spending a little bit of time merging into the alleyway outside of the Stripe Club she still couldn’t wipe the memory of the cursed mime lapdance from her brain. She had a sinking suspicion that little gem would be with her till she was six feet under. “He’s got animal skulls on his desk? What a creep. But yeah, you definitely dodged a bullet.” She reassured him. Glancing at the road they were coming up to she pointed to one of the dimly lit off shooting roads-- Bea’s house was closer to town than her own cabin, but it was still firmly placed in the outskirts. “Just turn left down here and keep driving. We’re the only house at the end of this road.”

“Sounds like it. Can’t say I get the appeal of mimes stripping. I’m not the chattiest guy around, but no conversation seems a little weird,” Roland responded, still incredulous that his coworker had a birthday party at a mime strip club. He definitely could have gone his whole life without the mental image of Langley getting a lapdance from a mime. There was something seriously disconcerting about it. If he had bad dreams tonight, he’d have that story to blame. He chuckled as Luce mentioned the animal skull thing was creepy. He never thought too much of it considering he worked in Animal Control. He slightly shrugged while driving and said, “A little bit abnormal for desk decorations, but he’s an Animal Control Officer so I guess it’s not that crazy.” Roland turned down the road as directed. It seemed like she still lived out near the forest which made a lot of sense if she loved hiking. “That must be nice. This part of town seems like a great place to live if you love spending time with nature. Did your family hike a lot when you were younger?”

“Right? And, as someone who had the misfortune of witnessing it, I can tell you that it’s incredibly fucking weird.” Luce shook her head, as though that might help cast the cursed memory from her mind. No such luck, but a girl could try. “I don’t know if that makes it any better. That’s like saying that since I’m a tattoo artist, it’s totally chill for me to have like… tattooed skin hanging up or something.” She grimaced. She never really understood the whole collecting animal skulls thing anyways. They were dead already, how would you like it if someone killed you and then used your skull as a paperweight? It just felt insulting. “It’s a good part of town. I didn’t originally live here, though. Grew up in the East End before moving out here.” She said before nodding. “We went hiking quite a bit as a family, yeah. It was a fun way to hang out with the family without really hanging out, you know? Because when you’re hiking, you can just kinda… go.” Luce grinned. “I prefer solo hikes, in case you didn’t notice.”

Roland wasn’t jealous of Luce having to endure what sounded like one nightmare of a birthday party. He guessed she had a point on the animal skull thing, but it seemed like a widely accepted decoration by most standards. “That’s fair enough. It’s not really my thing either.” His own decorating standards were pretty much nonexistent. The only not work related thing on his own desk was a photo of his father. When she mentioned the East End, he casually said, “That’s where I’m at now. Figured might as well live close to the station.” It was nice to hear she got to go hiking with her family a lot as a kid. Must have been what inspired her love for it. It was a productive and heart healthy hobby that he could get behind. “That sounds like it must have been fun. I did pick up on that part,” he said with a slight laugh at the end. He followed the road and pulled up to the only house on it. He was definitely glad she didn’t end up walking back home in this. “Here we are, it was good meeting you, Luce. I’ll be in contact with you about that piece.”

#a perfect storm #luce #wickedswriting