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silenceinternalmonologue · 3 years

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A Review of Loki (2021)

[The following is an exact transcription of Twitter user @/diolesbian ‘s thread linked here . They gave me permission to cross-post their thread on my Tumblr. Keep in mind that this review is fairly long and quite critical of the series. I agree with this review wholeheartedly, and would be welcome to discuss it with anyone else.]

Loki is a character who has died many times, but his own series may be his most brutal character assassination yet.

1. Loki’s role in the series. Instead of tackling Loki's most villainous state of mind in Avengers 1, the series literally speedran through his development in the subsequent films, after which they almost entirely halted his character progression.

Because this series was set right after Avengers 1 it had the responsibility of developing Loki further in place of The Dark World and Ragnarok. In Episode 1, this development was kicked off by having Loki watch a reel of some of his defining moments in the MCU, allowing him to see his future all the way up to his death in Infinity War. Sadly, this scene ended up being the most development he received in the entire series. And arguably, this isn’t even true development but more like a speedrun of his character up until that point, serving as a simple tactic to explain why he wouldn’t be acting all dictatorial and murderous during his own series. As soon as he had been made “good” (read: docile) enough to follow along with the plot, his agency was completely thrown out. From that point on, the series wasn’t about Loki making things happen but about things happening to Loki.

Loki was supposed to be the main character, but he wasn't the protagonist in this story. In fact, he was more of a side character than we’ve ever seen him be in the MCU before, perhaps excepting IW and Endgame.

A protagonist is by definition someone whose important decisions affect the plot, whose development is followed most closely by the audience, and who is opposed by an antagonist. Loki exhibited none of these traits in this series. Especially the latter half of the story, he was reduced to simply reacting to the revelations around him, such as the reveal that the TVA members were all variants and that Kang was the true mastermind behind everything. He never truly involved himself or acted based on any of these plot points, and hardly played a key role in what was supposed to be his own story. Even in the films, where Loki is a side character, he makes choices which impact the plot to a larger extent. He almost seems more like a background character in the role of protagonist than in the parts he plays in the films.

2. The antagonist. The TVA could have worked as the perfect setting for Loki to have a new arc. It’s a thematic antithesis to who we know Loki to be. But when this Loki turns out to not be who the audience thought he was the TVA’s thematic significance falls apart as well.

In Episode 1, the TVA’s Agent Mobius enlists the help of Loki the Variant to pin down a greater foe who we are told is another, more malicious version of Loki. Order and chaos meeting in the middle, teaming up to take down an enemy, who even happens to be the protagonists’ literal evil self: that works, it sounds promising. But this dynamic is soon undermined when Loki leaves with Sylvie. Still, the benefit of the doubt is easy to grant here: a story about tricksters is bound to contain twists. But by Episode 3 the series is halfway done and the TVA has been appointed as the main antagonist again: we’ve now established villains three different times. And then the Cloud Monster At The End Of Time is introduced, and finally Kang. In other words, the Loki series has no consistent antagonist, no one to pit its main character against. And this is where we once again miss out on an enormous aspect of Loki’s potential characterization.

Protagonists are always defined by an antagonist, whether a purple Titan, a flat tire, or themself. Loki is not given anything to define his morals, motivations, or development in opposition to and this is a huge oversight. Especially given the fact that Loki has taken on the villain’s role in the past: how is the audience supposed to know that the “bad guy” is now a “good guy” if there’s no “even worse guy” to stand up against?

3. The plot. A plot should show off its MC’s strengths and match their personality. The Loki plot hardly relied on his presence at all, he didn't play a key role. The story had so little to do with Loki that it seemed as though he has barely any impact on “his” narrative.

One of the most central conflicts in the Loki series doesn’t involve him at all: it’s between Sylvie and the TVA. This plotline was a good concept overall, but its main problem is that it’s practically the only conflict in the series. Loki himself, as mentioned before, isn’t set in opposition to anything or anyone. And thanks to his relationships with Sylvie and Mobius being weakened by conflicting storytelling devices, he appears to be in a bubble by himself away from the rest of the cast for much of the story. First he follows Mobius around, then Sylvie, then he wanders aimlessly in the void before following Sylvie once again and learning that Kang is a Really Bad Guy who he should be opposed to even though by this point he has interacted so little with the story unfolding around him that the audience doesn’t even understand why he should be choosing to play the hero.

The plot and the characters both suffer by being so incredibly unrelated to each other. A series, especially an MCU one, should tell an overarching narrative through the perspective of its main character.

In the beginning of the series, when Loki was still getting his bearings in the TVA, this lack of decision-making was more understandable, especially since some of his skills were still being shown-- he discovered Sylvie was hiding in nexus events, and he made the choice to leave Mobius and follow her. But by the latter half of the series he still hasn’t had much impact on the story or taken any actions of his own, and simply allows plot points to happen to him. Just because the Loki series had to introduce the TVA and Kang didn’t mean it had to forgo telling a story about its protagonist. If Loki’s story had been intrinsically tied to the overarching plot points, if his choices had been some of the primary factors determining how events ended up taking place, the series would have succeeded in every aspect. But instead Loki is pushed aside by the plot of his own series, a plot which subsequently ends up coming across as largely hollow and pointless due to its lack of character drive.

4. Loki’s arc. One of the main reasons MCU Loki is loved is for his excellent character development across his films. TVA Loki was extremely lacking in that aspect and chances to take his character in interesting new self-aware directions were thrown away without much thought.

Throughout the MCU, Loki is on a journey with many highs and lows. He goes from a bitter and disheartened prince standing in the shadow of his brother, to a self-loathing Jotun bent on destroying his own people in a desperate attempt to win his father’s love, to a half-mad partially mind-controlled dictator with delusions of grandeur fueled by his own insecurity, to a prisoner wondering what there is left for him to lose, to a savior of Asgard’s people finally coming to accept his place in what is left of his family, to a tragic sacrificial victim who knew he had to die so the true hero might live on. That’s a hell of a journey, incidentally shown in less than TWO HOURS of screen time, and the prospect of TVA Loki embarking on an equally stimulating one, this time told over the course of over four hours and shown from his own perspective the entire way through, was exciting. But as it turned out, this relatively simple expectation went completely unmet.

For a story trying to say so much about individuality and self-acceptance, the Loki series seemed to pass by every obvious opportunity to tackle those questions.

Sylvie’s introduction seemed like a good idea at first: Loki would be able to literally bond with himself and learn to accept who he is that way, and forays could be made to explore what Loki’s personality could have been like if he grew up under different circumstances! But aside from a scene or two in Episode 3, this was not how things ended up going. Loki didn’t come to any grand or important conclusions about his identity, he didn’t choose to act differently, all that happened was a vaguely-worded confession of pseudo-romantic feelings which was cut off in the middle, made no sense, and weakened the narrative in a whole host of other ways explained elsewhere. Loki’s encounter with other versions of themself in the Void was similarly meaningless: Loki didn’t end up expressing or demonstrating a single thing he learned from meeting all of those alternate selves, despite the fact that there was potential for massive self-discovery there.

Less than 2 hours of MCU screen time portrayed Loki more coherently than this entire series. Loki is loved because of how much he changes, and it felt like he didn’t in this series. He started off lost and stayed that way throughout the entire plot.

By the end of the series, it was impossible to identify who Loki had become. He said he didn’t want a throne, but it was not obvious why not. He looked sad to be betrayed by Sylvie, but never expressed what that meant to him. He seemed afraid once Kang was unleashed, but why? Why did he care about the Sacred Timeline? What were his motivations? Throughout the series the answers to these questions became less and less obvious, culminating in the final episode which ended without a single moment of reflection or explanation as to who Loki had become. He wasn’t a villain, but only because he wasn’t murdering people. He was in some capacity a hero, for… being against Kang, probably, but once again with no explanation as to why Loki had decided to feel that way. He never seemed self-assured in his heroism, as if he hadn’t chosen the role for himself. Again, making one’s own choices that shape the narrative are what differentiates a protagonist from a side character, but Loki did not do that in this series.

5. Loki and Sylvie’s relationship. Loki and Sylvie had the potential to be a powerful duo representing the process of self-acceptance but instead they were reduced to a strange pseudo-romance.

Despite Loki’s many developments in the films, he never truly liked himself. He has been known to act extremely confident and self-righteous at times, but this is merely the opposite side of the coin containing his self-loathing and insecurity. Having him literally meet and subsequently befriend himself in Episode 3 was a move towards developing this aspect of him and potentially teaching him to finally accept himself as he truly is, but this buildup was all shattered in Episode 4 when the relationship is portrayed to have romantic undertones. Instead of a powerful struggle to accept oneself, the relationship between Loki and Sylvie becomes a twisted thing which is memeable at best (selfcest LOL amirite?) and outright damaging to both characters and the very concept of loving oneself at worst.

Ultimately, Loki and Sylvie's relationship didn’t add anything to either character’s development and actively detracted from what could have been a touching story.

Romantic love is extremely different from self love; romantic love has connotations including dating conventions and sexuality which are impossible to ignore and in this case serve as a distraction. And on top of ruining a potentially powerful storyline, this strange relationship makes both Loki and Sylvie seem out of character. Loki is once again one thousand years old and he has never even had a true friend, so why would he possibly fall for someone after knowing them for only two days? Meanwhile in Sylvie’s case, Loki’s “feelings” for her cause the audience to pay more attention to her romantic life and gestures rather than her actual character and motivations.

6. Loki’s Sexuality and Gender Fluidity. Loki’s sexuality and gender has been shown in several comic runs, and the series was advertised as featuring this representation as well. But due to several fundamental errors and problematic storytelling this also fell flat.

Sylvie’s introduction filled many fans with hope regarding the portrayal of Loki’s identity. In the MCU neither of their LGBT identities had ever been touched upon, while the series introduced a female variant of Loki and explicitly stated their sexuality. But this portrayal soon unraveled, most notably in Episode 5, in which many other Loki variants were shown but not a single one besides Sylvie was non-male. On top of that, when TVA Loki mentioned Sylvie and referred to her as “a woman Variant of us”, the other Lokis agreed that that sounded “terrifying”. Why should a genderfluid being be afraid of a version of themselves presenting as a different gender? It read as both fluidphobic not to mention strangely sexist.

The pseudo-romance between Loki and Sylvie only aggravated the situation. Not only did the nature of the “relationship” seem to follow heteronormative storytelling tropes (falling in love after a couple days of knowing each other, one party being reduced to a love interest, valuing romantic love above any other type, etc) but it also seemed distressing and offensive to many genderfluid people. A romance between a male and a female Loki, one of which doesn’t even call herself by that name, seems to be implying that an individual becomes someone else when merely presenting as a different gender, which of course isn’t at all the case. The writing wasn’t necessarily malicious here, but it was certainly ignorant and potentially even harmful. The opportunity was there to translate Loki’s powerful comic representation into the framework of the MCU, but this attempt did not succeed.

7. Loki’s characterization. Loki is a chameleon, but there are certain traits fundamental to his character. These traits were either ignored or actively mocked in the series. The audience already knew “what makes a Loki a Loki", but the series threw that knowledge away.

Episode 1’s premise of stripping Loki of everything he is used to was an intriguing setup to ensure the discovery of the core of who Loki truly is. The only problem was that this truth didn’t end up being found at all. Mobius made fun of Loki’s most defining traits, such as his habits of lying to manipulate people and acting out of a place of insecurity, which seemed to be a signal for the narrative to forbid Loki from exhibiting any of those traits from that point on in any way. This reduction in Loki’s character was reflected in everything, from his lack of humor (in the films he’s even funny while he’s taking over the world!), the underpowered way in which he fought against Sylvie (he’ll use magic to dry his clothes, but fight with a damn vacuum cleaner?) to the way that he wore the same boring outfit in every single episode-- it may sound shallow, but clothes are important when presenting a character. Every one of Loki’s looks in the films said something about him and his state of mind, and sadly that bland TVA outfit seemed to convey that Loki really was nothing more than a subservient pawn in what was supposed to be his own story. Ironically, the writing stripped Loki of everything that made him Loki, and left us with nothing but a Jotun-shaped void to be swayed by the whims and wills of the characters and plot devices surrounding him.

8. Loki’s past and abilities. This series could have elaborated on aspects of his character which had been teased at in the films and theorized about by fans, but ended up being a disappointment in this aspect as well.

Aside from Loki’s characterization and development, something else the series ignores is much of his canon story in the films. Since Thor 1, a truth that always overshadowed Loki was his Jotun heritage. He struggled with it up until the time of his death, clearly visible in his relationship with his foster family. It’s understandable that Loki was supposed to be independent from Thor in his series, but that’s no excuse for completely ignoring this central part of who Loki is. It doesn’t matter how much he goes through or how much his circumstances change, this feeling of unbelonging sits deep in Loki’s core and should have been both explored and explicitly discussed in the series. A series all about Loki was the perfect opportunity for him to finally confront and explain his relationship with his heritage, and potentially come to terms with it as well. And this isn’t even to say how cool some more insight on Loki’s Jotun inheritance could have been-- hypotheticals aren’t the point of this review, but it would have been fascinating to see Loki reacting adversely to heat like he has been hinted to in the past or even using his ice powers like he did in Thor 1.

Loki's magic was tragically underused. It felt like he was stripped of all of his magical powers even after his TVA chains had been removed, and this was never explained.

A second huge oversight is his magic. His powers are all over the place in this series. They were always a bit vague in the films, but this series was the opportunity to set that right and explain exactly what Loki was capable of as a sorcerer, especially now that the MCU has embraced magic more than it had ten years ago. But instead, Loki showcased an inexplicable lack of magic use-- again, the vacuum cleaner fight can be presented as evidence. There is a single scene in which Loki says that he learned his magic from Frigga, but no information is given as to how much he learned or why he doesn’t always favor spells. His power levels are incredibly inconsistent (he forgoes using magic when first confronted by the TVA, but is later shown using telekinesis to save himself from being literally crushed to death). And, strangest of all, there is a scene in which he tells Sylvie that he “can’t” enchant living beings. Loki, the millennium year old Trickster sorcerer god, who can hold an Infinity Stone with his bare hands, reanimate Surtur in the Eternal Flame, and trick the average person using illusions with ease, can’t cast a little enchantment? And if so, why not? The series offered precious few explanations concerning Loki’s magical abilities and instead only raised more questions. And in this way, Loki is once again relegated into the background and left with not a single shred of any new characterization or development.

Loki contains multitudes, but the series reduced him to two dimensions.

This isn’t to mention every other facet of Loki’s story that could have potentially been explored to great success in this series-- his torture and subsequent partial mental influence at the hands of Thanos just before the events of Avengers 1 is one obvious example, as is his youth on Asgard, as are his suicidal tendencies (people don’t tend to survive falling off the Bifrost, and he knew that when he threw himself off of it), plus infinite other facets of him. Of course, it was both necessary and more interesting for this series to be its own story rather than one which lingered on past films-- but that’s not to say that none of these plot points should have come back, at least subtly, to play a role in this story. Plot points exist to be brought back later, not completely ignored. Otherwise a story may as well be written about a completely original character.

#loki #loki 2021 #loki disney+#loki discussion #loki discourse #loki spoilers #lokius #loki x mobius #loki x sylvie #sylki #marvel #marvel discourse #loki review #mcu loki #loki series #loki season finale #loki season 1 #loki ship

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darkshadow90 · 3 years

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Loki x Reader: He Transforms into Lady Loki and flirts with you

Summary: Loki notices you spend a lot of time around women. He becomes curious, and being the trickster he is, he transforms into a woman and flirts with you. When you see him the next day, you tell him about the mysterious woman and you’re in for shocking discovery.

A/N: Hey guys. I’ve had this idea for a very long time. Loki is a shape shifter and I know Lady Loki is a thing in the comics. So I wanted to give this a try. The reader’s sexuality isn’t specified, but she may be bisexual. There’s no sexual content, just flirting and Loki being a seductive little shit. I’ll refer to him by male pronouns when he first transforms to describe the difference in Lady Loki’s appearance. Warnings: Deception, reader being confused about her sexuality. Hope you like it :)

You had been on Asgard for quite some time. You spent a lot of time around the women. Something about being around them made you feel extremely comfortable and safe. Loki noticed this, and it made him curious. You got along with the men well enough, but you didn’t talk to them much. He decided to transform himself into a woman and see what he could find out. He thought it was a great idea and an opportunity to have a bit of fun with you.

He transformed himself into a woman. He looked at the beautiful, elegant woman in the mirror. His Asgardian armor was now a beautiful green dress with bits of gold. His hair was now a longer, but still black. “This should get Y/N to open up to me. She’s normally so skittish around me as a man. This will be fun indeed.” Loki saw you in the galley talking with some of the women. She was content to watch the conversation awhile longer. When the women left, she made her move.

You were sitting in the corner reading the book you had brought along with you. “Well. this is rather interesting. I don’t believe I’ve seen you before. You must be Y/N.” Her voice was sultry bordering on seductive. You looked up at her. She was beautiful. She was wearing a beautiful green and gold dress. Her hair was long, black. Her eyes were green. There was something regal about her, almost like royalty. “Yes, that’s my name. How do you know my name?” “People talk about you. They seem to like you. You might say a certain someone is intrigued by you. I can see why. If you’re not seeing anyone, does that mean I have a chance with you?” You laughed. “That’s a good joke.” “I assure you it’s no jest. I quite adore you, little dove.” She put her hand on your shoulder. The look in her eyes was intense. They were mischievous. Something about them looked familiar. You looked away, blushing.

The way she carried herself seemed familiar to you. You couldn’t figure out why. It seemed almost like you knew her. She turned your head so you were facing her. “You don’t need to feel intimidated, love. These conversations only need to be between us. No one has to know if you don’t want them to.” “It’s not that. For some reason, I feel like I know you. I don’t know why. I don’t know how he would feel about it.” She nodded. “You mean Thor. Of course you like him, most of the women do.” “No, actually. It’s his brother. I’m intimidated by him and I don’t think he’s interested.” “Well, have you asked him?” “No, but--” “How can you be sure? I wouldn’t be so sure about that myself. I think he would love to have you around.” You blushed again. “Seeing you flustered is a sight to behold.” You still couldn’t say anything. “I wouldn’t worry about it, dove. Go talk to him. You might be surprised.” You still felt unsure. “I just don’t know how he would feel about this.” You hoped she wouldn’t hear you, but she did “Oh darling, you really are a delight. Trust me when I say the prince would find all of this delicious. Now go on. Talk to him.” She got up to leave. “Wait!” “Don’t worry, my dear. We’ll see each other again.” And she left.

The next day you went and sat at the large table. You couldn’t stop thinking about the mysterious woman. You never saw her before, but she looked so familiar. You couldn’t figure out why. Loki came in a few minutes later. He could tell you were deep in thought. He managed to keep a smirk to himself. He knew exactly what you were thinking about. “Something on your mind, dove?” Dove? Why would he call you that? “Hm? Oh nothing. I met a mysterious woman yesterday and we talked.” “Really?” “Yeah. I don’t remember seeing her until yesterday. I don’t know why but she seemed so familiar. She didn’t tell me her name.” “I believe I know who you’re talking about. The two of us are well acquainted.” Loki enveloped himself in a green light, and you were speechless. It was the woman you met the previous day. “Hello, my love!” You felt the color drain from your face. He changed back to his normal form. “Wait a minute. Loki?! The whole time it was you?! What the hell?” He thought it was hilarious. “Oh Y/N. You should see the look on your face. It’s a sight to behold.” “It’s not funny. God, you have some major issues, you know that?” “Darling, I’m the God of Mischief, remember? It was just a bit of fun. Besides I got you to open up. It’s still me I just took on a female form. You’ll come to understand in time. I don’t think you’re entirely opposed to it.” It all made sense why she was so familiar. Her facial expressions and mannerisms were exactly like Loki’s. You kicked yourself internally for not figuring it out sooner. And he wasn’t entirely wrong. You weren’t opposed to his female form.

@ohallthecrushes

#loki laufeyson #loki imagine #loki fandom #loki x reader

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illwynd · 3 years

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what is Blood Brothers? I see thorki shippers reference it sometimes but idk what it is or how it relates to thorki.

Ohohoho. Oh nonny. You have a treat ahead of you.

See, well, there’s a 2004 Loki comic four-issue miniseries written by Robert Rodi with art by Esad Ribic (the artist who did that fantastic cover with Wolverine’s beer bottle boner, if you’ve seen that story floating around XD), and there’s also a motion comic version of it (called Thor & Loki: Blood Brothers). So you might see it called either Blood Brothers or Loki (2004).

In this particular timeline, Loki has defeated his opponents (including Thor, Sif, and Balder) and locked them in Asgard’s dungeons while he takes the throne... even though he is completely bored by the “ruling” part as opposed to the victory part. He also spends pretty much the whole comic trying to manipulate himself into killing Thor to prove he can... and ultimately finds he really doesn’t want to, and that what he wants instead is, after years of mistreatment at Thor’s hands, for Thor to love him again and be on his side. (This Thor, unfortunately, is not the most sunshiney and merciful thunder god ever, so... well, Loki’s desires do not come to fruition.)

You can tell Loki is super evil because of the size of his horns /s

(That’s him telling off Hela after having already promised to kill Thor for her. Because he doesn’t! want! Thor! dead!)

And even Hela’s threats to kill him instead don’t work because...

Yeahhhh oh Loki you are a tangled mess.

I think the series gets overlooked by some fans because of the art style (as you can see, Loki is not a Hiddleston-esque young and pretty Loki in it, which makes sense considering when this book came out). It’s a damn shame, though, because it’s a good one for being very much not a straightforward story, and the picture it paints of Asgard (if Loki’s version of events is to be believed at all) is not the kindest depiction. Which is not to say that Loki is a cinnamon roll in it; he has decided that becoming the self-styled God of Evil is a step up from being a trickster, so clearly things have gone Very Wrong. But there’s a lot of meat to the story. It’s one you can really sink your teeth into in terms of Loki’s psyche and his relationship with Thor, with Asgard as a whole, and with his own choices and fate.

I mean. This poor bastard. siiiiigh.

There is also an interesting running theme of mercy--very early on, Loki spitefully tells someone they’re an idiot to expect mercy from him. But then the above panel. And then, when his ultimate decision on what to do about Thor is this...

The series is also the source of these gems:

Dom!Loki with Thor in bondage lol

Loki sitting on the throne Like That, as he does

Loki le casually doodling a heart in the dirt while bored during childhood lessons with Thor

(You may have also noticed the “What is Loki without Thor?” in that upper panel there. A fandom fave!)

Loki creepy-staring at Thor

And I don’t even know what to say about this

*sobbing* Thor you jerk. Love him again!!!11!!!!!one!eleventy!!

A few other fun tidbits:

It’s made clear in this version that Loki cut off Sif’s hair explicitly because he was jealous that Thor liked her better than him and was hanging out with her more.

Also, Karnilla sends Loki a celebratory concubine after he takes the throne, and he has less than zero interest in doing anything with her (as little interest as he has in like. actually doing the ruling part rather than going and staring at Thor in chains in the dungeon and angsting about why everyone expects him to kill Thor when he just wants Thor’s attention and love like he always has). l mean seriously: at first he literally tells her like you wanna do something to please me? how bout you rule this hellhole for a while -_- He has zero interest, at least, until he’s particularly lonely and sad about Thor and accepts the distraction.

(She’s the “not so, my lord” there. And even then he is not particularly... invested in the proceedings? He shrugs her off the moment he thinks about Thor again lol.)

So like. The whole series is an angry, vengeful Loki... chaining Thor up and then spending the whole damn book obsessing over him and pining for him and wanting Thor to love him. It is an insanely thorki book and if the art made them all “pretty” you can bet everyone would talk about it a whole lot more.

But anyway. Yeah. It is well worth the read for thorkis and for Loki fans in general.

#Anonymous #replies #anon #loki #thorki #back when we got good comics sometimes

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becauseicantthinkwritings · 3 years

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I. Am. Sobbing.

No you don't understand, I'm not exaggerating, I'm literally sitting in bed, clutching my cat to my chest and ugly sobbing.

This has to be the most beautiful, exquisite writing you've honored us with to date. If I could tattoo it all over my body, I would.

"Delve into the depths of a lifelong yearning, escape into the woods and lie in the grass and stare up at the sky and not have a single thought in your head beyond your mere existence" This here feels like you snuck into my head and stole my deepest longing and put it into words so beautifully. Like I had to pause and read that several times, tearing up because, yes. Yes, yes yes.

The way reader relaxes and perceives the forest has a physical reaction in me, I shit you not, I can feel myself relaxing with her.

*deep inhale*

BILLY AND LEMON. BILLY AND LEMON!!!! MY WHOLE FUCKING HEART BELONGS TO THEM I WOULD DIE FOR THEM I AM NOT KIDDING WHY WOULD YOU PUT THAT IMAGINE IN MY HEAD IT LEGIT MADE ME SCREAM INTO MY PILLOW. TOO MUCH. TOO SWEET. TOO SOFT. I CAN'T TAKE IT.

Of course, he's read Dorian Gray. Of fucking course.

"He smiles, and you wished you would turn to stone if only to stop yourself from experiencing such intense longing" !!!!!!!!! MA'AM. THIS. THIS RIGHT HERE. KILLED ME BECAUSE IT'S SO RAW. SO REAL. SAME SAME SAME. I FELT THIS IN MY NERVE ENDINGS. GOOD GOD.

Her explaining her fear...*cue ugly sobbing* as someone who allows fear to govern most of her life, let me tell you, I was on the verge of flinging my phone away because of how overwhelmed I was. Am. How the actual fuck.

The scene before the oak tree...girl, that was the final nail in the coffin. "-completely unmemorable in every way, and yet, I could never forget this." "-and for the short moments that we stand here, it will always remember us"

I HAVE TRANSCENDED. FLOATING OUTSIDE MY BODY. THAT WAS VISCERAL, LANDED STRAIGHT INTO MY HEART. THEN SHE KISSES HIM OVER THE MASK????? I HAVE NEVER IMAGINED SOMETHING SO OPPOSING, BEING SO TENDER, SO GENTLE. IM SCREAMING AGAIN. TEARS ARE FLOWING MA'AM AND YOU DID THIS.

*composing myself*

Parting with this chapter is definitely a sweet sorrow. Will I be spending the rest of my day obsessing? Yes. You already know. Thank you, scary, intense, talented angel woman <333

Oh man, oh gosh, oh heck

BILLY AND LEMON, so I imagined that he'd been following her silently since she entered the woods, and he only decided to step in when Lemon ran up to her and almost woke her. Lemon, you little trickster, up to no good.

Of course he's read Dorian Gray, under all of that, he's still Billy Russo.

You know the line, "I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door." From Hozier? I try to capture that emotion when I write about the way the reader feels for Will, like, he may never love her, and she's kinda okay with that, content to experience him.

NOW THE OAK SCENE

So, here we have two contrasting views that meet right in the middle.

Will is a god, timeless, his perception has been altered because of the length of time he's been alive. Reader is mortal, and constantly confronted by her own mortality. Reader sees the beauty in the little things, and she has to show him how to love deeply, on her level. Their perception of time and reality differ, and for them to fall in love, they have to meet somewhere in the middle, and the oak scene was just my small attempt at bridging that gap. He's lonely and big, she's lonely and small (I hope that makes sense) they're still both two creatures aching for something more.

#ask #forest god!billy #forest god!billy russo

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linkspooky · 4 years

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The Monkey King vs the Budha

Gojou and Toji are rivals and complete opposites in everything, even in the mythological stories that both of their characters reference. Toji referencing Sun Wukong (the Monkey King) and Gojou representing the Budha himself. I’ll be going over the mythological references in their characters under the cut.

1. Journey to the West

The journey to the west is one of china’s four great classical novels. It’s an ancient allegory for enlightenment. Though not the main character, the first seven chapters are dedicated to Sun Wukong, the monkey king, a trickster type character who made it his mission to disrupt the order of heaven. There’s a very long and simplified summary of the legend, here.

There are several in story references to the legend. Toji refers to himself as a monkey for not being able to use Jujutsushiki. Toji, much like Sun Wukong is an exile from the heavenly order. In this setting, the analog for heavenly order or the keepers of the peace is Shaman Society as a whole and the four great noble families system.

Toji is the strongest possible a human can get without using Jujutsu Sorcery. If Getou refers to all humans who aren’t sorcerers as monkeys, that makes Toji symbolically king of the monkeys. Son Wukong possessed an immortal body. Toji is brought back from the dead because the special quality of his body won out against the soul when it was transformed.

Toji also ends up using a bo staff to fight that extends or compresses based on whether or not the four pieces connected by chains are together. Sun Wukong’s most famous and iconic weapon was a staff that could change size.

The staff itself is called ‘playful cloud’, Sun Wukong is also famous for flying on top of a cloud.

Gojou is symbolically the Budha for a separate reason, first he’s a character who revolves around the idea of attaining personal enlightenment. He quotes the Budha himself.

In Chinese and especially Japanese Buddhism, the statement 天上天下唯我独尊 (Japanese tenjou tenge yui ga dokuson; not sure about the Chinese transliteration), which is typically translated as "On heaven and earth, I alone am honored", is considered to be a well-known statement of the Buddha, spoken when the Buddha first emerged from his mother's womb. The quote is sometimes truncated to just the latter half 唯我独尊 "I alone am honored".

This is specifically a statement that the budha first said when he emerged from his mother’s womb. Gojou is someone shown to be special from the moment he was born.

In Journey to the West as a result of attaining enlightenment, the budha is one with everything. Gojo’s special ability is seeing everything, into the void because of his six eyes. His territorial expansion is essentially forcing that enlightenment on others, look at the line Jogo uses when caught up in it “I can see everything, I can feel everything!” that’s enlightenment, babeyyy!!!

In Journey to the West, Sun Wukong fought against the Jade Palace and the Emperor of Heaven, until eventually the Budha was called to settle things with him.

The Budha made a wager with Sun Wukong. If he could successfully jump out of the palm of his hand then he could become the new king of heaven. Sun Wukong jumps off of his hand and makes it all the way to the edge of the universe. He sees five pillars at the end of the universe. He fights grafittis the pillar and then jumps back to the Budha. The budha reveals his hand and shows the same grafitti, as a result of attaining enlightenment the budha is one with everything in the universe therefore no matter where Sun Wukong went he would always be in the palm of his hand. The budha then defeated Sun Wukong and sealed him under a mountain.

Gojou and Toji fight for similar reasons. Toji could have made his escape but he wants to fight Gojo over his pride to prove that he’s the strongest. Gojo as a result of nearly dying against Toji in their first round, has attained enlightenment and because of that Toji can’t possibly win against him.

2. Opposites Attract

Gojou and Toji are opposites always meant to oppose one another. Toji eventually became a rogue mercenary who took great pleasure in killing sorcerers to prove his family wrong about him. Gojou is someone who holds basically the entire Jujutsu World on his back and wants to raise other sorcerers to be as strong, or stronger than him. Gojou is the one groomed to be superior from childhood, Toji was made to feel inferior. Gojou uses his power selflessly, almost always making himself a tool for the sake of others. Toji is someone who acted selfishly, for the sake of money, pride, eschewing other people’s values for his own twisted ones.

However, they both have a unique understanding of one another. Toji says the first and last time anyone was aware of his presence was when he visited Gojo as a child. Gojo is defined by how untouchable he is, the last person to even put a scratch on him was Toji.

There’s actually a lot about Toji and Gojou that is similar making them poised to understand each other. Toji is also a one of a kind genius, specifically because he was born with a body that eradicates curse energy. Toji was always powerful, he was just mocked and belittled because he didn’t fit into the mold of Jujutsu society.

They’re just geniuses, it’s just that Gojo was born to fit the mold of the ideal jujutsu sorcerer, from a family, carrying the technique of his main family, and Toji breaks that same mold.

Gojo and Toji are also two people who didn’t have to be on bad terms. Their conflict represents the families they were born into. The Gojo and the Zen’in have always been on bad terms as revealed to us recently. They’re both individuals shaped by the households they were born into, and they also carry the conflict between those two households on their shoulders.

Gojo and Toji are characters who value their strength above everything else. However, Toji lives trying to deny his pride and destroy it because he hates everything the Jujutsu world values.

Toji’s referred to as the “one who threw everything away”. It’s revealed in his extras that after Megumi’s mother died, he tried to stop caring about everything which is why he distanced himself from his son.

Toji is the extreme result of Gojou’s rampant individualism, in a different way than Sukuna is. Toji is strong, but his strength never really matters. He failed to protect Megumi’s mother. He was going to sell Megumi to the clan. He only ends up all alone because of his decision to value strength above all else and throw everything away.

Gojo is also someone who despite being the strongest, fails to protect others. He wasn’t able to save Geto from his breakdown. He failed to save Rika before that. For both characters even though they believe the only good thing about themselves is their strength, strength is not everything to them.

Megumi is the connecting knot that ties between them.

Toji, who is eternally bitter about other jujutsu sorcers being born with what he didn’t have, named his son blessings. Toji who tried his best to stop caring about anybody besides himself...

Can’t ever deny the part of himself that loves his son. Even his attempt to sell him to the Zen’in household while grossly misguided and irresponsible, was also out of a wish that growing up in that household would be better than what a jaded and disaffected deadbeat of a dad Toji was could give him all alone after Megumi’s mother died.

Toji is genuinely happy when he learns that Megumi has had a better life than he had. Which once again ties back to Gojo. Gojo and Toji are characters who live mostly for themselves, but the best parts about them are what they give to other people. Toji’s most redeeming quality was his affection for his son, and his genuine wish for Megumi to have a blessed, better life than he did. Gojo went out of his way to protect Megumi from the Zen’in family. They’re both opposite in so many ways, but Megumi is their connecting thread. Both, Gojo and Toji want to give him a better world, and a better life than the one they grew up in.

#zenin toji #fushigoro toji #megumi fushigoro #gojo staoru #gojou satoru #jjk meta #jujutsu kaisen meta #gojou family #zenin family

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sister-morticia · 3 years

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The Long Road Ahead PART 1 (Eric Draven x Reader)

So here’s another one, can’t help myself-what can I say

WARNINGS: FLUFF, PURE FLUFF

You never took Eric for the camping type. He was a musician, which meant he would have travelled on the road a lot while touring, but you never pictured him as the kind of guy who always had a tent handy. So when he told you one weekend that he had planned out a whole three days out in the wilderness alone with you, you couldn’t hide your shock.

“Camping?”

A smirk crossed his lips, mischievous—devilish even. “Absolutely,” he

He busied himself packing, while you just followed him around, lost and befuddled. “Wait, wait, wait. Actual camping?” you raked your fingers through your hair, stopping when he paused by the sink to rinse out the thermos.

“Well what other kind of camping is there as opposed to actual camping?” he quipped, giving you a quick peck on the lips before moving around you.

The next thing you knew, you were sucking in the cold air as you clung to him on the back of his motorcycle. You were going hellishly fast, not that it seemed to bother Eric one bit. You, on the other hand, gripped him so tightly you could feel his ribcage restrict with each breath.

“Hey, baby, could you ease up a little back there?” he yelled over the cutting wind that snapped through, “I kind of need to breathe if I’m going to be able to steer this thing!”

You quickly retracted, screaming a little when you lost your bearing. You latched onto the back of the seat, while Eric’s hand instinctively found your leg. He kept a pressure on your thigh with one hand, grounding you.

“You alright?” he kept his eyes on the winding road ahead, and with your affirmative “uh-huh”, he released you and the distance between the two of you and the first stop slowly began to close.

Eric made a start on the tent, a banged up husk of the thing that said it was built for two. It looked as if it could barely fit one. It was torn and tattered, the zips choked when pulled and the flyscreen seemed to no longer serve their purpose. You watched on with amusement as Eric continued to wrestle with the line tensioners, grunting and chuckling to himself as he did.

“Need any help over there?” you teased him, taking your polaroid camera to capture the hilarity.

He turned at the perfect moment for a candid shot. He gestured to you in feigned annoyance, his expression dramatic. “Really, babe? Come on,”

You giggled from your distance away, waving the polaroid in the air as it developed. “Oh, this one’s a keeper,” you said loudly, smirking to yourself.

He dropped the line and within a second he was right there in front of you, eyes gazing into yours. His hands found your waist and waited there, while your arms curled around his neck.

“The picture,” he plants a kiss on your forehead, “or me?”

Your chest rumbles to life with a hearty, well-earned laugh. “Need you ask?”

You kissed him then, all flirtations melting aside. He ran his hands through your hair as the wind picked up behind you. Your hair whipped around your face, obscuring your features. You pulled away from his kiss then and huffed. You groped at the strands wildly, before Eric tucked a large tuft behind your ear. He leaned in to kiss you again, but a loud flapping sound drew both of your attentions away. You looked over your shoulder and saw the tent rolling across the field. Eric had forgotten to ground the tensioners, of course.

“Ah, shucks.”

You managed to get the tent back, so you had a place to sleep for the night—the first one, at least. Eric was excited to reveal that he’d packed hand warmers and a pack of cards, as well as some extra soft blankets and one large pillow. He lit a rusty old camping lamp at his side, leaving only the left of his profile visible, his other side hidden in shadow.

“Do you want to hear a scary story?” he teased, bringing the lamp to his face below his chin to create an ominous air.

“No,” you pointed a finger at him almost in accusation, “the last time you told me a scary story, I couldn’t sleep for a week.”

He chuckled, shaking his head, “That was a good one though, huh? Managed to get you all bothered. Bothered enough to cuddle up to me.”

You slapped him on the arm playfully, “You lapped it up!”

“Couldn’t resist,”

But you nestled into him anyway, letting all your breath fall out of your chest where it’d been building. You relaxed in his embrace then, and he let out a contented sigh. He ran his hands over your hair, winding a strand absentmindedly around his index finger.

“I love you,” he said suddenly. You shot up and stared into his eyes. He placed his hands on either side of your shoulders to steady you.

“What did you say?”

He looked evenly at you, his eyes still soft and smiled, “I said I love you, Y/N.”

Your jaw drops and you blink rapidly, like you’d been smacked in the face with ice cold water. But then the brightest twinkle shone in your eyes and beamed across your face. You reached out to touch his cheek, your fingertips feather light on the curve of his jaw.

“You really mean that?”

His smile was sure, warm. He leaned in and planted another kiss to your lips, slow this time.

When you pulled away, catching your breath, you looked at him expectantly.

“Does that answer your question?” he quipped, wriggling his brows together in the trickster way he always does.

“I love you, too.”

And all the tension in your bones melted away as you fell asleep in his arms, listening to the faint pitter patter of raindrops on the tent. You could feel the damp seeping inside, soaking your pyjamas, but Eric pulled you closer to him with a smile. He was warm enough to keep the cold from getting to you.

#eric draven x reader #the crow 1994 #eric draven

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ladymiseria · 4 years

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Smut Alphabet - Belphie

Finally, I’m posting Belphie’s entry in this little series. I could’ve elaborated more on some points, but then I would never shut up so. I’m also kicking my own ass because I’ve thought of additional things I could have included in Levi and Satan’s but now it feels dumb to go back and edit them. Oh well. Hit up my ask if you’re really curious about what I left out and I’d be happy to talk to your ear off lol

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

-Lots of cuddles and kissing and just overall closeness. He doesn’t like to be left alone even if he’s just going to fall asleep right afterward: he feels better if you’re still there with him, especially if it was a particularly intense session. He wants to be reassured that you still want him and want to be with him.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

-He loves basically everything of yours from chest to thighs: that’s the best place to sleep on another person, after all. But he also loves it because it’s so soft and warm and comforting. He loves listening to your heartbeat while his head is on your chest or falling asleep in your lap while you play with his hair.

Belphie is very fond of his demon form, probably the most so out of all the brothers. He loves when his tail and/or horns are incorporated in your sexual encounters, and even gets excited when you pay attention to his cow spots.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

-He always wants to come inside, but if he’s in a submissive mood, he’s really into you making him come all over himself.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

-He would never admit it to anyone but you but he yearns for punishment. Belphie is a switch and, whenever he’s submissive to you, he loves to be punished, especially physically.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

-Fairly experienced, and probably the most so when it comes to being intimate with humans given his past affinity for visiting the human world. This makes him an exceptional partner for a human like you, though.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

-Anything that lets him lay back and be close to you, so side-by-side or you on top. Basically the most intimate position(s) possible.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

-Fairly serious, but he still loves to tease (and be teased) during the actual act, and making you smile feels like a victory to him. He’s quite capable of levity, despite what his brothers may think.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

-Belphie doesn’t pay much mind to his body hair situation, but he does clean himself up a bit for you.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

-Intimacy is very important to Belphie. He loves spending one-on-one time with you, and you’re one of the few people who can actually get him out of the house. He likes to do little things for you that may seem insignificant from the outside, but you appreciate the hell out of them.

It was mentioned before, but he loves any position that’s particularly intimate and allows him to touch as much of you as he can. He likes feeling wanted and trusted.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

-Belphie masturbates fairly frequently, mostly because it’s easier than engaging with another being in hopes of sexual satisfaction, and he can do it from the comfort of his own bed. He’s cut back since you got together, but it’s still a simple indulgence for him.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

-Breathplay/choking is at the top, but he was very nervous about bringing it up to you after, well, that whole incident. Belphie also loves PDA of any kind, dom/sub (he’s a switch so he finds pleasure in both roles), impact play, orgasm denial (for either of you), and consensual somnophilia (again, for either of you).

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

-It’s Belphie so his bed or your bed, obviously. Anywhere soft and comfy is fair game for him.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

-The teasing really gets to him, hence why the two of you keep up a constant stream of it. Also, making out! He could kiss you for hours and it’s the quickest way to get him excited.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

-He’s not into sharing you with anyone (though he’s not opposed to getting Beel involved).

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

-He very much enjoys both giving and receiving, and he’s quite good at the former. His favorite is when you play with his horns while he’s going down on you.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

-Avatar of Sloth so...slow, generally lol That doesn’t mean that he can’t pick up the pace when the situation demands it, though. He has bursts of stamina as opposed to a consistent speed.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

-Not really into them since he generally likes to take his time and go at his own pace (which is slow obviously), so quickies kind of go directly against this. They’re not a hard no for him, though. The two of you tease each other enough that sometimes he simply gets too riled up and needs you right then and there.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

-Yes, very much. He loves pushing your boundaries and seeing how far you’re willing to go with him. Pushing your limits plays into his more demonic tendencies, but it’s also because he wants to see how deep your love goes for him (and what he should avoid if he wants to keep you all to himself).

As mentioned before, he’s also very into PDA of all kinds so he has no problem fooling around in places where you might get caught.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

-Quite long, though probably the shortest of all the brothers given, you know, the whole sloth thing. That said, still significantly longer than any human.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

-He honestly never cared all that much, but he’s now been converted. Using them on you means he can still pleasure you even if his mantle is working against him in the moment. And he’s down for almost any toy used on him if it’s for punishment purposes.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

-Belphie loves to tease more than anything. He’s a snarky little trickster so teasing is all part of the sexual game for him. Touches, whispers, suggestive texts, you name it and he’s probably used it to get you into his bed.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

-Belphie’s not very loud; he prefers for any noises he makes to be just for you. Little groans and whispers and growls are the most common for him. On the flip side, though, he loves when you get loud. He loves your voice and the thought of his brothers (or anyone, for that matter) knowing exactly what the two of you are doing together.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

-He’s a little bit of a brat, but an even bigger brat tamer. He’s never fully admitted it, but he loooves when you push back against him when he’s domming you.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

-Belphie’s cow spots cover a lot more of his body than just his neck/shoulders; they’re also on his dick. He’s bigger than most humans and it’s highly textured. He also has a piercing on the underside.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

-Pretty high, but he’s lazy. You’ve learned how to properly motivate him, though.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

-Almost instantly: it’s Belphegor, after all. Sex is a big energy expenditure so he’s passing out almost as soon as his head hits the pillow. Not before making sure you’re right there with him, though.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #shall we date obey me #obey me belphie #obey me belphegor #Smut Alphabet #ABCs of Smut #obey me headcanons

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covenstrays · 2 years

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@whinedarksea sent a lil 🎶 to get a song that i think fits a battle with/against our muses! ( literally always accepting these btw )

this meme was just a clever trick to talk about the niche basque folk band to whom i once had to pay 50 dollars for two cds because they didn’t have their shit online and they were in spain. so.

anyway, the song is andria alagurne by kalakan ( let me know if the link doesn’t work in the u.s. ;; ), which i’ve posted before in a different context, but on this album they collaborate with an orchestra, so it gives it a slightly more epic feel!

i figure this is less of a fight, and more like a situation where odysseus sees nahia get beat up enough times, to where it eventually wears him down to be like “no disrespect, but do you...know how to fight? at all?”

the answer is no! nahia is not trained in hand to hand combat, and the only reason she is so good with her bow is because she has help from upstairs -- otherwise, she is literally just a teenager with the reading level of a 5th grader. she’s strong, but she has no idea how to direct it.

sounds of odysseus sighing for 400 years. nahia’s whole virgin mary thing might have something to it because kids like this in the army lasted all of three seconds. and yet here she is. Alive.

odysseus might also want to help her figure out How Exactly to get her bow to manifest, because until she finds the real one, she’s got a magic stand-in. and she doesn’t always have it. so part of the reason she comes back so beat up a lot is because her bow just. doesn’t come to her.

so it’s probably a sparring situation! where odysseus fights nahia just to See what she actually is capable of, aka, his whole thing where he’s Mean to get more information.

the song is kinda sorta slow to start because for the first few minutes of the fight, it’s just...nahia trying to psyche herself out for a fight against someone she loves. the piano, the flute, all remind me of her innocence...she doesn’t want to hurt him!

but the drums come in, as well as string instruments. the drums remind me of both odysseus’ strength and direction in the fight, and the strings remind me of ... tricksters. like literally always. not just directionless brute strength, but something artful.

at this point, it’s probably a lot of odysseus on the offensive and nahia being too (!!!) to fight back. so she falls on a lot of old habits, namely maintaining distance and dodging where she can. the flute is still there!

odysseus, frustrated at not knowing how a girl so tepid could maintain herself in a fight and win, says something ... mean ... something like “you aren’t any good to your goddess fighting like that.” hence the pause in instruments at around 1:38

that ... hurts ... nahia has to get good grades in marian martyr class Or Else :( the idea of mary being disappointed in her makes her uh. desperate. so like...what if he’s right??

1:40, nahia gets her ass In Gear -- the flute is still there, but now there are little bells! yes, i do associate nahia with little jingle bells because of their nod to christmas, what of it.

even the strings get more intense, because odysseus actually has to start putting in Some Effort! wow, the desperation for approval sure is something, huh?

the bow still ain’t there though. and her technique is still kinda sloppy.

hence the slowness from around 2:09 to 2:43 -- nahia slows down the fight a little so she can tune into some heaven radio, if it’s there.

it is. but odysseus doesn’t know this, and when she comes back to the fight (jingle bells!!), and her form has become more refined (flute is a lot quieter!). that penchant for dodging starts to look like a purposeful technique as opposed to just running away -- it starts to look like that she’s just hard to catch, and all the while she’s “landing” tiny hits, but they add up.

nahia finally responds to odysseus, telling him that she isn’t here for approval. this is not for her, but for others.

the cymbal crash at 3:13!! a single arrow arrives in her hand, and it burns, but it’s there and it’s now an improvised weapon!

and the instruments stop at 3:18 ... nahia didn’t win the fight, per se, but now she has her whole bow in her hand! and maybe if he squints .. he can see a faint halo around her head ... or is it just the sun? who knows.

and now odysseus has at least some of the information he had been looking for and maybe he won’t have to see a kid being beat up so often.

jk she has matt murdock disease, where she will still get beat up but at least she looks cool while doing it now

#`` this is long but i'm not going to apologize for it.#`` this is just how i Am with music.#`` y'all just have to deal.#( MUSE: THE PILGRIM. )#( PILGRIM CONNECTION: ODYSSEUS. )#WHINEDARKSEA

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atiny-piratequeen · 4 years

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Character Analysis, Choi San- the 'Usurper'

Languages: English, Arabic (Post Transformation), Japanese (Modern Day), Korean (Modern Day), French (Modern Day)

Crew Position: Sailing Master + Navigator +Map Maker

Powers: Blood Manipulation (Inherited by Egyptian God, Set)

Compass Position + Arrowpoint Stone: Northwest, located on his left pectoral (mirrors Wooyoung’s), Pigeon Blood Ruby

Eye Color: Brown(Natural)/ Heterochromatic Pink Right Eye, Lime Green Left Eye (Demonic Form)

Hair Color: Dark Brunette (Both Forms)

Likes: His space, Sitting in the Crow’s Nest, Drawing Maps, Weapons, Talking Shit

Dislikes: His family, Letting Too Many People Close to Him or Wooyoung, Mirrors, His Own Reflection

*The above artist rendition of Set is used courtesy of the game, Smite

Oldest Son, Choi San.

Born the one and only son of a family of four, somehow didn’t gain him enough of his family’s respect-or love-growing up. San is actually the child of two aristocratic parents, something that clashed with his personal desire to be his own person. Rebelling for as long as he could walk, San grew to resent the tightening noose around his neck from his family and began running away more frequently from his family.

They couldn’t even remember his own birthday, and he couldn’t be bothered to remember theirs. When the opportunity arose and he was forced aboard a pirate ship, the small voice on his shoulder told him as the shackles were placed onto his wrists and ankles, that he’d never see them again.

San couldn’t help the quirk of his lips at the thought.

Sailing Master Choi San

Suppressing his aristocratic side has never been so easy. Though standoffish at first, San has had the opportunity to prove himself as a new, useful man. For once, he finally understands what a ‘family’ is and how it feels to be ‘loved’. Wooyoung was the first to make him feel like more than a burden on the people around him, and to this day, while he loves all of the members and his lovers in his own way, Wooyoung will always be his first love and one of the first ones he’ll ever turn to when he’s in trouble.

With a pencil in hand and the sea breeze blowing his bangs, San can finally draw his own future and feel peace knowing he is loved by those around him.

-Mythology-

Set, also known as Seth, is the Egyptian God of the desert, storms, chaos, and violence. Depictions and understandings of them vary depending on who’s drawing, writing, or viewing him, but he has been represented as a male figure with a humanoid body and an animal head like many other Egyptian gods and goddesses were. Such animals he has been depicted as include several canines, including jackals, fennecs, and greyhounds. He has also been depicted as having a donkey, okapi, aardvark, antelope, or oryx’s face, instead. The inconsistency of his figure in Egyptian depictions is also believed to stem from Set himself being more like a chimeric being who changes his forms.

Set, like many other Egyptian gods, can change his forms into several animals, and also has a form to mimic the appearance of the god Anubis.

A destructive force of nature and often regarded as a trickster, Set was credited for creating natural disasters such as sudden, flash flooding, sandstorms, and thunderstorms. He is considered to be one of the mightiest of the Egyptian gods.

Egyptian familial trees are often complex and overlap, but some depictions of him and his family, Geb and Nut are his parents, with Osiris, Horus, Isis, and Nephthys being his siblings and Ra being his grandfather. In other depictions, Horus and Anubis are his nephews and in some, Anubis is his illegitimate child after disguising himself as Osiris and courting Isis.

One of the driving factors of many of Set’s tales is his burning jealousy and rage, especially towards his brother Osiris.

Set was apparently the only of his siblings that didn’t have a traditional birth. Some say he tore himself from his mother’s womb, others say she spat him into existence and this was believed to foretell his existence of a being of chaos and disorder.

At one point, his brother Osiris, known to be a benevolent king that brought positive changes to the lands he ruled and graced, left out of his kingdom’s reach to help in other areas of the world, and as such, appointed his wife Isis to rule the lands in his stead.

While he was away, Set would set into motion the of the largest scaled affair in all of Egyptian mythology, an event that included many of the Pantheon’s major players in some way shape or form.

After conspiring against him with several others, Set would end up trapping and murdering Osiris. Not content with simply killing him, Set eventually tears Osiris to pieces, tossing his remains all across Egypt in another attempt to keep him from ever being whole again. Isis managed to find all of the pieces of her husband despite Set’s efforts. Well, most of the pieces.

She never located his dick, so that’s fun. She replaced it with a golden one, though! Yay innovation!

Through the use of magic, Isis managed to revive Osiris, though he would never rule in his original kingdom ever again, and would instead be in the Underworld.

Set tried several times to steal Osiris’ body from the underworld, and each time was punished severely for his intrusion by the jackal-headed god of the dead, Anubis. Eventually, after repeated attempts, Anubis grew tired of the chaotic desert god and killed Set once and for all.

Despite his chaotic and volatile actions, Set did have moments of redemption. In the afterlife, Set protected the great Sun God, Ra, from the serpent Apophis as Ra embarked on his daily journey through the Underworld. Set placed himself in front of Ra’s barque and would attack and kill Apophis every time he would rise to attack Ra. The serpent could be killed, but would rise again the very next day.

Set would be there to slay it night after night, thus granting Ra safe passage and being one of the reasons the sun rises each day.

-Power Applications/Demon Transformation-

As Set is one of the more violent of the gods that the boys have inherited their powers from, San’s fighting style has remained just as violent and wild. When he is fully imbued with the effects of his powers, his eyes go bright pink and lime green. His lips turn into an onyx color and runes appear across his face, from his forehead, all the way to his chin.

San’s blood manipulation allows him to turn any blood around him into a weapon, be it a series of daggers to propel through the air, or his go-to favorites, a large spear or scythe for attacking. Despite his aristocratic upbringing, San is incredibly good at hand to hand combat and isn’t afraid to fight ’dirty’. He’s only gotten more proficient at fighting without his powers thanks to Yunho taking the time to teach him capoeira.

San’s runes only appear when he begins using his blood manipulation, and he prefers to use other people's blood, as too much blood loss from himself may still make him pass out and leave him prone in battle. He also has a few light blades weapons from Wooyoung he uses when there hasn't been any bloodshed on the battlefield yet, but if push comes to shove, he's not opposed to asking the slightly younger immortal to cut into him.

-Character Song Breakdown-

All of the main boys have a song assigned to them in the AtT playlist to go alongside their origin chapters. San's song, which he shares with Wooyoung, is Mist by Ateez. I will go over some spoiler things, but if you made it this far, you may know this already.

Mist is used as an in-story device that goes over Wooyoung and San’s budding relationship and them coping with the uncertainty of life while being prisoners aboard a slave ship.

-If I can’t see anything

If I can feel you, I’m fine

I want you to make me sure

I need you to help me out of my misery

I can see the light in the dark,

It quickly blurs

Step back in place.-

San spends the majority of his life feeling isolated and alone. He had no friends, as his mother’s aristocratic status left him with limited options for people he could make friends with. His sisters resented him as much as he did the entirety of his family, and he usually kept to himself. His general dislike and distrust for those around him persist until he meets Wooyoung, and it’s through the other boy’s positive outlook on life that San slowly begins to understand that not everyone in the world is out to get him.

- Lost and wandering hands again

Hold me and hug me

Your whisper is my compass

Even if we’re going back for a long time

Stay with me, always

I’m not sure. I don’t know the way

I’m just Like Alley Cat without you....-

San doesn’t know what it means to love, be it platonic or otherwise until he meets Wooyoung. He has a disposition much like that of a feral and volatile alley cat due to what he went through all through life, but it’s through Wooyoung-and eventually Hongjoong and the crew-that he’s guided towards the more positive aspects of life.

They soon become his new moral compass.

-Character Blurb-

“You’re just like the other pirates. I won’t let you take away the only person that’s ever loved me.”

San’s eyes grew as he watched his body move against his own will. The runes on his face gleamed and pulsed with chaotic energy as he attacked Seonghwa and Hongjoong, laughing maniacally and screaming about them giving Wooyoung back. Across from him, two eyes gleamed in the darkness.

He stepped away, his foot sinking into the sand that was below his feet.

A snort came from the figure, as he approached, his blade dragging through the sand.

“Long lives those who are strong. How strong are you, cowering under something as fruitless as ‘love’? I choose you because you are full of rage, you have all I need to take back this world and get my revenge. Give in, it’ll all be over soon.”

“San!”

San looked behind him, eyes wide as he saw Wooyoung. No, he had to get out of there, he couldn’t-

“It’ll all be over soon.” The figure repeated, and in a gush of sand and wind, he saw his body fly forward and a blade of blood sliced into Yunho. San screamed inside his head as the dark figure controlled his body, eyes gleaming in malice as he raised a blood sword.

“Rid yourself of such fruitless emotions and useless people. Let it all wash away in the sand and blood. I’ll do you this one favor. Then, this body will be mine.”

“So please,

If this is my way

Hold my hand

So we won’t wander for much longer…”

The sound of Wooyoung’s voice finally spurred San to action and he sprinted forward before the large being could kill Yunho. He snatched a small blade from his hip and buried it into his back with a scream. Blood splattered onto his cheek and the large man tossed him aside, pink and green eyes turning on him as he broke into a run towards San, a scream of rage and pain rattling in the sandy area inside San’s mind.

San threw his hands up, and the blood from the being’s wounds sharpened, impaling him from all sides before his claws could slice into San’s face.

His hand trembled as he let out a growl.

“No! Not...Not again…!”

San stood, feeling himself regaining control as the dark dessert began to fade away from his vision. Before he completely regained his senses, he looked back at the dying entity, his lips pressed into a firm frown and his fists clenched.

“I’m my own person. I have no strings on me. Not anymore.”

-M.List-

#fie writes #against the tide #att character analysis #choi san #san #tw blood #tw violence #tw death

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lo-mindpalace · 4 years

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19 - Pour One Out

(BALTHAZAR’S POV)

Alternative Universe where Balthazar and Gabriel are still alive. The time period is during Raphael and Castiel’s battle. Castiel didn’t work with Crowley.

I never thought I could be back in the game. I just wanted to retreat from all this whole Heaven thing. During the battle that opposed Raphael and the rebellion lead by Castiel, I took the opportunity to sneak out with all the weapons Heaven could have and that I could carry with me. What a great decision it was. I was finally free from all these feathery dumbasses. I could do whatever I wanted, and that’s what I did.

I first took the initiative of hiding all the weapons, and then I put a kind of spell on me which turned me invisible on the Angel radar. You can never be too careful. After these precautions, the first thing I did was to taste a fine French red wine. Château Lafite. Exquisite. Angels can only taste molecules, that is true. But if you force yourself, you can feel some tastes like sweet things, spicy things and strong tastes like alcohol. So, I tried food and alcohol in France and Oh my Dad it was so delightful. Then I went to Italy, Spain, England, Germany, Russia – Russians are so interesting -, Japan, China, yada yada yada. I went everywhere. I spent a lot of time in Brazil though. I don’t like humans. Well, I don’t care about them. I don’t worship them or anything. They are just… humans. So, I’m living among them, and I admit, some of them know how to have fun. I think the most interesting thing is sex. Really. Sex is… Sex is life, for real. Angels are so prudish with sticks up their asses. Anyway. I really enjoyed my life for like… a few months.

My pleasurable new life didn’t last too long, unfortunately. Cassie found me… and he wasn’t alone. What a surprise when I learned he was still with those hairless apes, the big dummy Winchesters. They are interesting, in a way, and I saw Castiel was very fond of Dean Winchester – well he has been fond of him since he saved him from Hell. Poor Samantha, living between his brother and mine and all this tension. Ew. Anyway, the thing is they asked me to help them to beat Raphael’s ass, and I don’t know why I told them I had Heaven’s weapons… But that was not the most surprising thing this year, because what was unexpected was our dear big brother Gabriel coming back whereas everyone thought he was dead. Damn, that dude really is a trickster. He is a true model for me. Really. And I was glad he was here to help us with this battle against Raphael whom I’m pretty sure wasn’t expecting his big bro either.

It wasn’t a simple fight. We had to kill numerous brothers and sisters and the loss on our side was pretty much the same as the loss on the other side. But we won. Or… Well, we defeated Raphael. But that wasn’t a satisfaction. Since Michael was gone with Luci in The Cage, Heaven was purely chaos. I mean don’t get me wrong, I love chaos. I love living freely. But up there? They need orders. We are born like this. Without a ruler in Heaven, Angels are lost and it can be destructive. Gabriel wasn’t really overjoyed about ruling in Heaven. He was the only Archangel available but he didn’t want to stay in Heaven, and I understood him very well. Cassie wasn’t ready to be on board and that was surprising. He led a whole army of rebels and now he didn’t want the leader seat.

So, here we were, Castiel, Gabe, Inias, me and some other Angels of our garrison, sitting in a bar somewhere in Arkansas. This was a really bitter win. We had some glasses of whiskey and rum on the table, the music was kind of nice but none of us were enjoying the victory. I sighed and tapped the table with my fingers. Castiel scratched his neck. Gabriel rolled his eyes and cleared his throat.

“Okay, guys.” He said before he paused in order to have everyone’s attention. “We are clearly not in a good mood but… This is a victory somehow. Without Raph, there won’t be another Apocalypse.”

“You forget the Winchesters, Gabe.” I said with a smirk.

Castiel looked at me with dark eyes. I rolled my eyes.

“But if none of you want to be our leader, what is going to happen?” Inias said. “We need a ruler, we need orders…”

“I understand your fear, Inias.” Castiel said quietly. “But I really don’t want to be the leader of Heaven. Leading rebels, yes, why not. Because it was a good cause in my opinion. Leading Heaven? Too complicated. I’m a Fallen Angel. And I… I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“You prefer staying with the Winchesters.” I said. Castiel frowned at me but I shook my head in defense. “It’s not a mockery, relax, Cassie. You have all rights to prefer those humans. Who am I to judge you?” I chuckled. “I prefer staying on Earth too, to be honest. But, damn, I don’t want Heaven to fall in chaos. What would happen if hundreds and hundreds of Angels lose it? There are billions of souls up there, and Dad we know how powerful a human soul can be. We need to find something to keep everyone calm.”

“What are you suggesting, then?” Castiel said, a bit impatient.

“I don’t know, brother. And you don’t know either. That’s why we are all sitting here like desperate feathery assholes.” I said before drinking a bit of whiskey.

“Okay fellows.” Gabriel said while getting up. “Look at us. Victorious fighters, full of wounds, looking like shit in a bar. I’m pretty sure there are plenty of ‘good’ angels, ready to rule Heaven very well. The majority of our kind is trusting us because of our victory against Raphael. Maybe we can just help finding a good ruler. When it’s done, bye bye Heaven, that was a pleasure now imma go back to Vegas and have sex with pornstars.”

There was a silence after Gabriel’s words. Inias and the others were blushing, Castiel was passing a tired hand over his face and I was chuckling slightly. Then I got up too, filling my glass while everyone was waiting for me to say something.

“Okay, boys. We will do what Gabe said. Inias, Camael, or I don’t know who will lead Heaven. I don’t care. Right now, we have to celebrate the victory. So, let me pour one out to all our brothers and sisters who fell during the fight.” I raised my glass and I saw everyone doing the same. “To having avoided another Apocalypse. To freedom, orders, sex, alcohol, or anything you want. To our victory. To… Heaven.”

“To Heaven.”

Everyone said it and we clinked our glasses before drinking the entire container. Even if the future was now uncertain, we really needed to relax and enjoy simple things and victory, all together.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Hey, sorry I didn’t have inspiration for this day...

#suptober20 #supernatural #day19 #pour one out #balthazar #castiel #gabriel #inias #angels #heaven

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longitudinalwaveme · 4 years

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Where Are The Ghostbusters When You Need Them?

Hi! Thanks for checking out my story!

Despite the title, the story actually does not feature the Ghostbusters, but it does feature the Flash Rogues. That's almost as good, right?

The story can't really fit anywhere canonically since Evan and Sam are alive simultaneously, among other things, but hopefully it'll be an enjoyable story anyhow.

Mirror Master I: You ever seen one of those creepy houses? You know, the ones with broken windows and crumbling spires and ivy growing all over them? The ones that used to belong to super rich people and are now allegedly owned by some mysterious “third cousin once removed” that no one’s ever actually seen? The ones that stupid teenagers dare each other to spend the night in? Well, Central City has one of those creepy houses. Or, more accurately, Central City’s Pine Woods suburb has one of those creepy houses. It’s commonly known as the old Jackson place. It's a three-story mansion, with broken windows, crumbling stone, a creepy staircase, massive spires....the works. It was even used as a set for a horror movie back in the 80s. Even though it technically isn’t in the city proper, it’s close enough that everyone knows about the house-and the stories surrounding it. Allegedly, the old Jackson place was built by Adolphus Jackson in 1792, after he immigrated from somewhere in Ireland with his family. They were Central City’s first settlers (the Rathaways were second). He and his wife, Betty, had sixteen kids (although only ten survived to adulthood). All the dead kids were buried in the backyard of the house, so things are already getting creepy. (Some people say that you can hear crying when you go by the house, and other people have claimed to see ghostly children.) His oldest son, Jared, inherited the house when old man Jackson died in 1846. (He was buried behind the house, and yep, people have claimed to see him, too.) Jared worked alongside Martin Garrick (yes, he IS related to Jay Garrick) and my great-great-great-great-grandfather, Shawn Scudder, in Central City’s Underground Railroad. (Am I shaming my heritage? Yeah, probably. Moving on.) People have claimed to see the ghosts of slaves and such around the old Jackson place, and they’ve also claimed to see the ghosts of Harold and Rufus Jackson, an uncle and nephew who fought on opposite sides of the Civil War. In 1877, Jared died, and his second son, Arnold, inherited the house. (His oldest son was Harold, who died at the Battle of Chancellorsville.) Arnold got married to his second cousin, which is several levels of weird, and he added onto the house, making it a lot bigger and more impressive looking. He died in 1885, after adding to the family’s sizable fortune, and his son, Bernard, inherited the house and made it even fancier. Bernard is also where the really messed up stories about the Jackson place begin, as his oldest son, Robert, fell in love with a girl his father hated (partially because he had planned for his son to marry Lydia Rathaway, Piper’s great-great-great aunt). Their arguments over it got really nasty, and so eventually Robert ran away with his chick and got married to her, only for his father to threaten to cut him off. Sonny boy decided that he wanted the money more than his wife, and he abandoned her and was remarried to Piper’s great-great-great aunt. There was only one snag: his old wife had gotten pregnant and drowned herself in the pond (now dried up) on the back of the property to get revenge a few days after her baby was born. (People claim to see her ghost quite frequently.) Her parents, the Desmonds (and the Rathaways, who were mad that Bernard had had his son marry their daughter when he already had a wife) sued the pants off the Jacksons and the family was reduced to semi-poverty. Robert hung himself a few weeks after the lawsuit was settled (he allegedly haunts the house, too) and Bernard started drinking. A lot. He died in 1910 (probably from alcohol poisoning) and the estate was inherited by his only surviving offspring, a 19-year-old daughter named Alicia, who became a librarian and never married. (Alicia didn’t live in the house after the age of 21, probably because of all the bad memories, but people still see her ghost there.) She died in 1971, and the house, which had sat unused for over three decades, had already gained a reputation as being massively haunted, a reputation that only increased when some stupid 17-year-old broke into the house on a dare, fell down the old stairs in the dark, and broke his neck in 1995. (Since then, people have claimed to see HIS ghost as well.) So you get the point: the old Jackson place is massively haunted, massively creepy, and massively empty, so, of course, Captain Cold decided that we needed to break into the place on Halloween. Now, to be fair, we do something to get our adrenaline up every year on Halloween, but there’s a difference between going to a commercial haunted house, where nothing is real, and going to an old house that might actually be haunted, especially when said old house is falling apart and everyone is wearing ridiculous costumes (as we do every year). Earlier in the month, we had decided to dress up as classic movie monsters. Or at least I thought we had. As it turned out, some people had badly missed the memo….

Mirror Master II: Okay, so maybe the scarecrow costume I had wasnae all that scary, but it wasnae my fault! How was I supposed to ken that all the scary scarecrow costumes would be sold out by October 24? I wasnae PLANNING to be the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz! But I’m off topic. All of us had agreed to meet on the front lawn before we broke into the haunted house, so at 7:00 PM on Halloween night, I got into me costume and went to the lawn. Golden Glider (dressed as a vampire), Scudder (dressed as a zombie), the Trickster (dressed as a bedsheet ghost), Captain Boomerang (dressed as Frankenstein’s monster), and the Pied Piper (dressed as the Phantom of the Opera) were already there, and, of course, as soon as he saw me costume, Scudder started laughing. “They were sold out of the scary costumes, ye eejit,” I said. “Then why didn’t you alter it or something? You don’t look scary at all!” Scudder asked. “Hey, at least I look scarier than the Trickster. And besides, not all of us be seamstresses, Scudder,” I replied. (He’d made his own costume and thought that nobody knew. Eejit.) Scudder flushed and suddenly became very interested in the bushes. At this point, Captain Cold showed up in cat ears. That was his whole costume. Otherwise, he jus’ looked like a hockey fan (which he be). His sister-a bonnie lassie, she-wasnae pleased with that. “Lenny, you were supposed to dress up as something scary!” “I did. I’m a werecat.” I’m nae sure why he thought that would be convincing. “Oh, come on! You didn’t even try!”“I never try. Why are you acting like this is something new?” The Glider threw up her hands. “Because you promised me you would try this year!” “I have a tail. Does that make it better?” The Glider rolled her eyes.“I give up.” She tossed her golden hair over her shoulder-I tell ye, she is a bonnie lass-and went to talk with the Piper. The Weather Wizard showed up a few seconds later, and I saw soomthing I never wanted to see: him in a dress. “What are ye supposed tae be, me gran?” The Wizard scowled.“I’m a witch!” I looked at him oddly. “Ye could have been a werewolf, and ye decided tae be a witch?”“It’s thematic! You know: wizards are magic; witches are magic….” I laughed. “Look, if ye want to dress up like a lassie, ye kin. Just donae expect me tae understand why.” The Wizard stormed off, and the Top arrived on the lawn, dressed as a gigantic top. Scudder laughed so hard that he had tae sit down, and I laughed pretty heartily myself. “What is so amusing?” the Top asked. Naebody bothered to explain that it was because he wasnae cooperating with the theme, because we all knew he wouldnae listen. “They’re just being stupid, sweetie pie. You look amazing,” the Glider said. (I’m nae sure if she meant it or if she was just trying to calm him doon.) Luckily for the Top, Heat Wave decided to show up at this point, and his costume made Captain Boomerang laugh so hard he wet himself and made me laugh so hard that I had to join Scudder on the ground, so everyone forgot about him. “Why are you wearing a tutu?” Captain Cold asked (as soon as he was capable of speech again.)“Well, I was gonna be Frankenstein, but Digger stole my idea, and I didn’t have any other ideas, so I decided that me in a tutu was scarier than any monster,” Heat Wave replied. I looked him over again and immediately wished I had nae doon it. He was right; the sight of a 6’6”, 250 pound man in a frilly pink tutu is more terrifying than any monster. His logic seemed to work on everyone else, too, because Captain Cold quickly changed the subject. “Okay, are we ready?” Scudder raised an eyebrow. “To break into the creepy ghost house? No, but I know I’m doing it anyway,” he replied. (At the time, I thought that he was being a wet blanket, but as it turned out, he was right to be a tad worried.) “As long as we’re bringing flashlights, I suppose so,” the Piper said. (He had been against going to the haunted house, tae, but he had been opposed to it because of some kid who had died there back in the 90s because the house didnae have lights, not because of Scudder’s ghosties, which he didnae believe in. Because of that, he had changed his tune after Cold promised him that he could bring a flashlight if he wanted tae.)“Then let’s go,” Captain Cold ordered. With that, Scudder and I transported everyone to the house via Mirror Realm. Having only lived in Central City for a year, I had never seen it before, and I was a tad freaked out by what I saw. The house itself wasnae too bad, but the creepy dead grass and trees, and the graveyard in the back of the house, were spooky, especially under the huge moon.“‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here?’ Really?” Golden Glider said scornfully, pointing at a sign in the yard. Her brother shrugged. “Probably some kid’s idea of a prank.” Piper, meanwhile, was looking nervously at a different sign. “Cold, this sign is from the government. It says the building is condemned. Are you sure we’ll be safe to go in there?” he asked. “Since when do we care what the government thinks?” Captain Cold replied. “When a building might collapse on our heads!” Piper exclaimed. “And when it’s haunted!” Scudder added, sounding happy to have an excuse tae go home. Captain Cold sighed and rolled his eyes. “Piper, if the house seems like it’s gonna collapse on us, we’ll just have Scudder and the Scotsman transport us out. We’ll be fine,” he said. Piper seemed to relax.“Good point,” he said. Sam didn’t look as calm. “But what about the ghosts?” he asked. “Sam, ghosts don’t exist. They’re a product of overactive imagination and too many horror stories,” the Piper replied, only for Captain Boomerang to join the conversation.“They are too real! My second cousin’s ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend’s dad’s third cousin’s aunt saw one!” he exclaimed, sounding offended. Piper didnae look convinced. “That’s hardly conclusive proof of-” he began, only tae be cut off by Captain Cold. “Enough about ghosts! Let’s go inside already!” he exclaimed. With that, Trickster picked the lock on the door. He pushed it open, producing a loud CREAK, and then we went inside.

Weather Wizard: I’m going to tell you a secret: the witch costume was an accident. I swear, I thought I ordered the Dark Wizard costume, but when I opened up the package a week before Halloween, I found a witch costume instead, and because I didn’t have another two weeks to wait (or any more money) I was stuck with it and just decided to pretend it had been my plan the whole time to save face. (At least it matched the theme, unlike cats, tops, and ballerinas.) But I digress. So, after the Trickster picked the lock, we went inside and Piper and Cold turned on their flashlights. The hallway contained cobwebs and a moth-eaten carpet, but nothing else.

“We'll cover more ground if we divide and conquer, so let’s split up into groups and search this place for valuables. Lisa, you’re with me. Scudder, you’re with McCulloch. Mardon, you’re with Rory. Rathaway, you’re with Jesse. Dillon, you’re with Harkness,” Cold barked.

“WE’RE SPLITTING UP? That’s like the #1 way to die in a haunted house!” Scudder whined. (As it turned out, he was right to be worried, but at the time, I thought he was overreacting.) Hartley sighed.

“Sam, ghosts do not exist,” he said. (He was wrong.) Then he turned to Cold and asked,

“How will the Mirror Masters be able to transport us to safety if we’re not in the same part of the house?” Cold rolled his eyes.

“Piper, unless there’s an earthquake, the Mirror Masters will be able to get to all of us before the house falls. They basically have access to a teleportation system. We’ll be fine,’” Cold replied. Piper didn’t look entirely convinced, but he didn’t keep arguing.

“Why am I with Harkness? He’s an uncultured boor,” Dillon demanded.

“Well, I ain’t too fond of you, either, you wowser!” Harkness yelled.

“Why can’t I be with Roscoe, Lenny?” Lisa asked. Cold sighed wearily.

“Fine. Dillon, you’re with Lisa. Harkness, you’re with me. Sam, stop whining. Now let’s go!” Cold exclaimed. McCulloch saluted, dragged Scudder into a mirror, and vanished, and the rest of us fanned out to search the house. After walking through some more cobwebby hallways, Mick and I reached what I assumed was the living room. The room was filled with decaying furniture and mysterious old knicknacks, everything was covered in cobwebs, and part of the roof had fallen in. Seeing this, I had to wonder if the Piper had been right about the dangers of the building.

“How long do you think it’s been since someone touched any of this?” Mick asked me.

“If I had to guess, I’d say at least forty years,” I replied. I glanced out the window and noticed that a cloud had covered part of the moon and that the rest of it had turned red, and I shuddered. “Mick, there’s a blood moon.” I said quietly.

“So? They talked about that on the news,” Mick replied as he started pawing through the knicknacks laying on the floor.

“Never mind,” I said quickly as I joined him. I didn’t want him to think I was scared or anything. Several minutes later, we were still sorting through things and had found nothing but a broken teacup, a broken porcelain doll, and a dusty beaded shawl.

“I hope the whole house ain’t like this. If it is, Captain Cold’ll be mad,” Mick said. I shrugged.

“That’s his problem, not mine.” I heard a rumble of thunder in the distance, and, a few seconds later, the sobs of a child. Mick looked up from the floor in shock.

“Did you hear that?” he asked me.

“The thunder, or the kid crying?”

“The kid crying!” I nodded.

“Yeah, I heard it too. Why?”

“Because we need to go help that kid!” he replied. I rolled my eyes.

“Mick, we’re here to get rich, not help some kid.” Mick ignored me and pulled me in the direction of the crying sound, despite my attempts to break free from his grasp. We had gotten halfway across the living room when we saw a little girl. Her hair was in...uh, ringlets, I think they’re called?-and her dress came down to the floor. She was crying (of course) and Mick went over to her.

“Hey, there, little one. Are you lost?” he asked gently. I thought about leaving Mick with the girl and continuing to search for loot, but there was something about the little girl that made it impossible for me to pull away, and NOT in a “she’s so small and helpless” way. Mick reached out to put his hand on the girl’s shoulder-and his hand went straight through her! My knees went weak under me, and then the world went black. When I came to, I found myself on a dusty couch. I looked around the room and saw Mick waving good-bye to the vanishing ghost.

“Oh, hey, Mark. Glad to see you up-although there wasn’t really a reason for you to faint like that. Georgia was just worried that we were gonna hurt her doll. When I told her we weren’t, she cheered right up and went away,” he said cheerfully.

“The ghost has a name? And is friendly?” I asked. Mick nodded.

“I don’t even think she knew she was dead. Poor little thing,” he said, and I sighed in relief.

“In that case, let’s get back to work. If she’s the only ghost here, we’ve got nothing to worry about,” I said. (Famous last words.) With that, the two of us continued our search of the living room.

Trickster: The Piper and I- James Jesse, con artist extraordinaire-decided to investigate the attic. I’m a horror movie junkie, so if I’m breaking into a haunted house, what better place to get that adrenaline rush than the attic? Piper and I climbed three sets of narrow, creaky, cracked, cobwebby stairs to the attic (although Piper got winded halfway up the second flight and I had to drag him up the last one). Then I opened the door to see lots of cobwebs, a shattered mirror, a broken window, an old, rusted bedframe, some old-fashioned cabinets, a sword, an old rocking horse (sadly, it was too small for me), and a bunch of other old stuff. The roof was low, and it was really dark. My heart pounded, but in a good way.

“This is so much better than the fake haunted houses! We should go here every year!” I exclaimed. Piper swept his flashlight from left to right, and then started examining the boring knick knacks that were lying around. I pulled out a yo-yo and some bubble gum and waited eagerly for the walls to start dripping blood. After about two minutes, Piper pulled a stack of old papers out of one of the cabinet drawers.

“James, these are from the Civil War!” he exclaimed excitedly. I yawned.

“So?” I asked. Piper looked shocked.

“James, these are valuable historical documents! If they’re really as old as they look, they could provide priceless information about the role of Central City in the Civil War!”

“Can they summon a ghost?” Piper sighed.

“No. They cannot.” I blew a particularly large bubble.

“Then I’m not interested. Let’s find something that CAN summon a ghost!” Piper rolled his eyes.

“James, you’re not going to find something that can summon a ghost, because ghosts-” Suddenly, the windows rattled and we heard a loud moan.

“Don’t exist?” Piper squeaked. Five seconds later, a transparent man with a noose around his neck appeared and floated towards us. Piper screamed and bolted down the stairs, and I whooped with joy and followed him, narrowly missing the ghost’s clammy hands.

“Catch me if you can, you stupid ghost!” I yelled. I followed the Piper to the second floor and into a spooky old bathroom, complete with dusty mirror, a big tub with clawed feet, a broken toilet, and a sink. Mold was growing in the sink and on the walls, and I grinned. This day just kept getting better and better! Piper slammed the door and locked it behind us.His chest was heaving and he looked exhausted. (Rich kids don’t have much reason to be athletic.)

“You were saying?” I asked ‘sweetly’. Piper gave me a death glare.

“NOT the time!” Piper said. I laughed.

“Do you really think a locked door will keep out a ghost? It can’t even keep us out!” I asked him. Piper’s face went white, and he ran over to the dirty mirror.

“Sam! McCulloch! Get us home now!” he yelled. There was no response.

“Piper, you know the Mirror Realm doesn’t work that way. You can only talk to them through it if they want you to, and if they haven’t had the good luck to run into a ghost, they won’t be able to guess that you might want them to pick us up.” I said as I played with my yo-yo. Piper whimpered and buried his head in his hands, then started muttering incomprehensibly as I whistled merrily.

“How can you be so happy?” Piper demanded after a few minutes.I grinned.

“Kid, we’re being chased by a real, honest-to-goodness ghost! It doesn’t get more awesome than that!” Just then, the ghost drifted through the door, and I pulled out my camera and started snapping pictures as Piper screamed.

“We’regoingtodiewe’regoingtodiewe’regoingto die !” He darted to the door, fumbled with the lock, and opened it just as the ghost brushed his clammy fingers against his back. He screamed louder and ran down the hall. I snapped a few more photos, stuck my tongue out at the ghost,and followed Piper. The ghost roared angrily and flew after me. I caught up with Piper after about a minute and lead him into a dumbwaiter, then slammed the door behind us.

“James, how is this closet preferable to hiding in the bathroom? The ghost can still walk through walls!” Piper demanded.

“Piper, YOU’RE the one who had all the servants. Shouldn’t you know what a dumbwaiter is?”

“I know what a dumbwaiter is,I have just never seen one before. I was not allowed to spend time with the servants.You can hardly blame me for mistaking it for a closet. Besides, my point still stands: why would hiding in here keep us safe from the ghost?” I laughed.

“Piper, that ghost is Robert Jackson, who hung himself because he wasn’t rich anymore and gave up the love of his life for money! Entering the dumbwaiter that the servants used would be beneath him. As long as we’re in here, we’re safe. For a guy who’s college educated, you sure are stupid,” I explained. Piper frowned.

“You were taking selfies with the ghost, and I’M stupid?” he yelled. I smiled “innocently”.

“I never said I wasn’t stupid...but I’m not a graduate from Harvard, either. But I knew how to save us from the ghost, and you didn’t,” I replied. Hartley sighed wearily.

“Whatever you say, James...but how did you know what a dumbwaiter is? You thought that the American Civil War started in 1961 until last month, so you cannot have known about them from history, and you were not wealthy, so you cannot have had servants who used one,” he asked.

“My Nonna Gianna was a maid for a wealthy family in Italy when she was a girl, and she used a dumbwaiter when she worked for them,” I explained.

“Wait...you’re Italian?” Hartley asked.

“Sí. Well, Italian-American, anyhow.My paternal grandparents immigrated from Italy in 1935 after Mussolini took over and invaded Ethiopia. When they got to America, they joined the Big Circus because my Nonno Antonio had been an acrobat in Italy. They had a whole lot of kids, and my dad was the youngest. He was born in 1955, and he married my mother, who was a second-generation Italian immigrant herself, in 1980. I was born eight years later,” I explained.

“But your name is James Jesse! That doesn’t sound remotely Italian!” Hartley protested.

“Hel-lo! My nonni were Italian immigrants performing for the American public at the height of World War II! They took stage names: Jesse for the last name, and Rosie and Jared for their first names. By the end of the war, they’d gotten so famous under the Jesse name that they couldn’t really change it back to their real one, so they just kept the stage name. My dad’s real name was Alessandro, but he called himself Jacob. My mother’s name really was Helen, though, because her parents had given her an American name. My real name’s actually Giovanni Giuseppe. How’s that for a mouthful?” I exclaimed.

“Sai parlare italiano?” Piper asked.

“Nonni, nonna, nonno, pizza, spaghetti, Venice, Rome, sí, il Dulche, Mamma Mia, madre, padre, nipote, figlia, figlio,Ti amo, caro, Coinvolgimi, bella noche, Dov'è la birra? That’s all the Italian I know. Well, that and a lot of swear words,” I replied.

“En d’autres termes, tu sais autant d’italien comme vous le français?” Piper asked. I looked at him oddly.

“English?”

“So, in other words, you know as much Italian as you do French?” he replied.

“Yeah, pretty much. Not everyone can afford tutors for twenty languages,” I said.

“I only speak six languages-Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese, and I can only write in the first four. I’m passable in Arabic and Russian, too, but I’d hardly say I can speak twenty languages.” I grinned evilly.

“Let’s go find some more ghosts!” I exclaimed.

“No! I’m staying right here, where it’s safe,” Piper yelled.

“Spoilsport,” I said. I started using my yo-yo again.

Captain Cold: So, as I guess you already know, I ended up partnered with Captain Koala, because he and Roscoe insisted on being stubborn morons. I wanted to look for the safe, but Digger insisted that we go to the kitchen because he was hungry, and, since Digger seems to have an immunity to food poisoning, I figured it would probably be safe to let him eat 85-year-old food, and feeding him would get him to shut his big mouth besides. Digger, who practically has an internal homing device for food, found the kitchen in about a minute flat. The kitchen was dusty, covered in cobwebs, and filled with a lot of rusted-out junk, and it was so dark that, without my flashlight, I don't think I would've been able to see two feet in front of me. It was a little creepy, I’m not gonna lie. But I don’t scare easy, so I started pawing around for valuables while Digger found the world’s oldest box of crackers and started digging in. I found a bunch of silver spoons and shoved them into my bag…and then something weird happened. A really attractive lady appeared out of basically nowhere and walked right through me like she couldn’t even see me. It felt like when I accidentally shot myself with my cold gun, and I frowned. Ghosts weren’t supposed to exist. However, I had business to do, so I ignored the ghost lady and went back to my work. Digger, on the other hand, didn’t take the ghost so well. He let out a string of Australian swear words, yelled something about a “ghost sheila” (knowing him, it was probably the exact opposite of polite), grabbed his crackers, and started to run. I grabbed him by his scarf before he could exit the room.

“Let me go, you bloody loon! You’ve got kangaroos loose in your top paddock if you want to stay here with a ghost, Cold!” Digger yelled.

“Stop freaking out, Digger. She doesn’t have any weapons, she’s not dripping blood, and she’s not bad to look at besides. Just ignore her. We have work to do.” Digger looked closer at the ghost and grinned.

“Bloody oath! She is a beautiful Sheila, ain’t she?”

“Yeah, she’s pretty. I just said that. Now get to work.” I said. Digger ignored me and walked over to the ghost.

“G’day, Sheila. I’m Captain George Harkness of the Australian Secret Service. Who are you?” he asked. (He tells every girl he takes a fancy to that he worked/works for the Australian Secret Service. It’d be a great pick up line if it wasn’t a total lie.) I rolled my eyes as I helped myself to some fine china plates. Was Digger seriously hitting on a ghost?

“Is Australia a northern state, Master Harkness?” the ghost asked. She sounded terrified, and had an accent I couldn’t quite place. Digger laughed.

“Oz? In the North? Sheila, it’s called the Land Down Under for a reason,” he replied. The ghost looked terrified and started to cry. I tried valiantly to ignore the sound and shoved the remainder of the china into my bag.

“What’re you crying for, Sheila?” Digger asked, sounding annoyed.

“B-b-because if you a Southern soldier, you gonna take me and my baby back to slavery!” I noticed that she was, indeed, carrying a baby and grimaced. I did NOT have time for dealing with this crud. Digger walked back over to me.

“I didn’t notice she had an anklebiter. She’s a lovely sheila, but not enough for me to want to be a daddy. And why’s she wailing about slavery?” he asked.

“How should I know? I dropped out of high school at 14, and I don’t have many dealings with ghosts,” I replied in annoyance as the ghost’s wailings got louder. She moved rapidly toward Digger and fell on her knees.

“Please, don’t take my baby, Master Harkness. Let him be free, please, please!” she begged. Digger shot me a pleading look, and I sighed wearily. How did Digger get himself-and me- into these situations?

“Look, lady, we don’t want you or your baby. Now go on, shoo. You and the kid are free, and “Master Harkness” and I have business to do,” I said. The ghost stared.

“Ain’t you Confederate soldiers?” she asked, obviously confused.. Digger and I looked at each other in equal confusion.

“What’s a Confederate?” Digger asked the ghost.

“They’s the soldiers who be fighting to make their own country,” she replied.

“What’s she talking about?” Digger asked me. I shrugged.

“The Civil War…..I think,” I said, drawing desperately from my memories of 8th grade history.

“You mean the war you Yanks had between each other? What’s that gotta do with this sheila?” I racked my brains for any connection between the two and wished that I hadn’t chosen 8th grade history as the class to sleep through.

“Um...she was talking about slavery…I think the South had slaves...probably….and that was maybe why the war started? Possibly? And-and since you said you were from the South, and she’s probably about as well-educated as we are, she didn’t realize that you meant you were from another continent entirely, and so she thought that you were gonna want to make her a slave again,” I said, feeling pretty proud of myself for figuring all that out.

“Didja hear that, Sheila? I’m not a Confederate, whatever that means! Australia’s an island. It ain’t part of America. Now, it’s London to the brick that I’m dangerous, so you probably wanna steer clear of me, but I’m not gonna be taking you to slavery, neither. And, hey, if you got any single friends without anklebiters,, tell ‘em t’ look up Captain Harkness, will ya?” Digger told her cheerfully.

“I..I’m free?” she asked quietly.

“As a bird. Now get outta here. You’re safe in this city,” I told her flatly.

“Thank you, sir! Thank you!” she said. She kissed her baby, and they passed through the kitchen wall and vanished into thin air. As soon as she was gone, I glared at Digger.

“Okay, now that you’re done hitting on a ghost, can we get back to work, please?” I asked.

“If you want to, that’s fair dinkum. I’m gonna go back to my chips,” Digger said. He tried to walk back to the table, but I grabbed him by the scarf before he could and forced him to clear out the rest of the valuables while I took a smoke break. He swore colorfully in Australian the entire time, but I ignored him. He was just packing the last of the chinaware away when another ghost, this one holding a gun, showed up. One look at him told me that we were in trouble, and so I ran out of the room, Digger hot on my heels.

Golden Glider: So, while Mick and Marky-Mark were in the living room, James and Hartley were running around like lunatics, and Lenny and Digger were running away from history as much as they were running away from ghosts, Roscoe and I had decided to investigate the backyard. It contained a rotting porch and a small cemetery, one which was surrounded by a wrought iron fence. It was quite dark, because there were no porch lights, but that just made it all the more romantic. As soon as we left the house, I snuggled up close against Roscoe and we both sat down on the one intact porch step. “Isn’t the darkness so romantic?” I asked him. He looked puzzled, and it was adorable. “I believe that the darkness is the absence of light, my darling,” he said. I tittered. “You’re so funny, Roscoe,” I cooed. He smiled. “I am glad I have pleased you, sweetums,” he said. A cloud moved and revealed the moon, big and red and lovely. I pointed at it in excitement. “Roscoe, look at the moon! Isn’t it beautiful? Doesn’t it remind you of us?” I asked. Roscoe looked concerned. “My darling, the moon is a celestial body that revolves around the Earth. I do not see how it can remind you of us. Did no one teach you about the nature of the moon? It is not a human being,” he said. I sighed; having forgotten how literal Roscoe can be. “Roscoe, dear, I was speaking figuratively. I said it was like us because it’s beautiful, just like we are,” I explained. Roscoe’s eyes lit up in understanding. “I see. Forgive my confusion, my darling,” he said. I kissed him on the cheek. “Of course, honey,” I replied. He kissed me on my cheek, and then I kissed him full on the lips. We were still embracing five minutes later, when a young girl in a white dress appeared. She was completely transparent, and stared at us in silence for a few seconds. “Are you lovers?” she asked quietly. “We are indeed, and my Lisa is a goddess among women,” Roscoe replied. Her face fell, and then twisted into fury. “How dare you flaunt your happiness in front of the grave of a poor rejected woman? Is it not enough that I was rejected by my Robert? Is it not enough that I killed myself of despair? Must I be mocked by your love as well? For your impudence, I will make you suffer as I have suffered!” she screamed. She moved over to Roscoe, kissed him on the lips (please don’t ask me HOW) and then disappeared. Roscoe shoved me off his lap violently and stood up. “Get off of me, you wretch!” he spat. The words felt like a blow. “R-R-Roscoe, what….what’s wrong?” Roscoe had never talked to me like that before, and in that moment I saw Lewis-my “father”-in his face. “You are what is wrong! I am a gentleman, and you-you are common trash. Why I was mad enough to kiss you I’ll never understand!” Roscoe said coldly. “What are you saying?” I asked. “I am saying that I have had enough of dating a welfare queen,” Roscoe replied. Normally, I would have struck back, but I was so bewildered by his behavior that I just stared at him. After a few seconds, he scowled. “What are you staying for, you pathetic wretch? Leave me!” he ordered, and I found my tongue. “No, Roscoe. I am staying right here with you. You may not think you love me anymore, but you will not drive me away. I won’t give you the pleasure of ordering me around like a dog,” I said. “Why not? You are a dog,” Roscoe spat. I moved to slap him, but before I could, we were interrupted by another ghost, this one wielding a old-timey gun, who charged at us. I kicked at the ghost on impulse, but, of course, it went straight through him. While I was distracted, Roscoe abandoned me, but after I regained my balance, I rushed after him and we went into the dining room. “Stop chasing me, you hussy!” he yelled. “I’m not chasing you, I’m running away from the ghost,” I said. As if on cue, the ghost lifted a table and threw it at Roscoe’s head. I pushed him out of the way and narrowly avoided being hit myself. “Why did you save me? It will not make me love a woman like you,” he demanded harshly. This time, I did slap him. “You’re welcome,” I spat. Roscoe frowned. “You dare lay a hand on a gentleman?” he demanded. Before he could continue, however, the ghost levitated all six chairs in the room, and so I grabbed him and pulled him into the hallway. A series of loud crashes followed almost immediately. “I notice that you don’t complain when I touch you in order to save your life,” I said pointedly. Roscoe sniffed haughtily and didn’t reply. Under normal circumstances, I would have led us to the door and left the house, but with Roscoe acting so strangely, I couldn’t. I didn’t want to leave only for Roscoe to keep treating me like dirt, so I decided to stay and take charge of the situation. “All right, so where do we go from here?” I asked. Roscoe scowled. “‘We’ are not going anywhere. Have I not made my disdain for you utterly clear? I am going to one of the bedrooms to go to sleep, and you-I care not where you go, so long as you stay away from me,” he said. I shook my head firmly. “No, we’re staying together. Even if you really do hate me, from a logical standpoint you’re obviously safer with me around,” I replied. Roscoe pondered this for a few seconds, then nodded. “Very well. We will stick together. However, let me make one thing clear: I do not love you. Our current predicament does not change that,” he said, and I felt my heart break. I slapped him again and said, “Fine! See if I care!” With that, I pulled Roscoe up the stairs to the second floor and into one of the bedrooms, which contained an canopy bed, a broken window, an old armorie, and a painting of a handsome young man. The plaque beneath it read "Robert Jackson, beloved son". It was a picture of the man who had spurned his lover. How appropriate. Roscoe laid down on the bed and fell asleep almost immediately (he is definitely not a night owl) and I started crying. How had this perfectly romantic night gone so badly awry?

Mirror Master II: After a quick trip through the Mirror Realm, Scudder and I arrived in the basement. It was awfy dark doon there, I’m nae gonna lie, but the way Scudder was reacting, you’d have thought it was a torture chamber. He was jumping at every little sound and keeping so close tae me that I was practically tripping over him. After aboot a minute of that, I got fed up with him and decided tae tell him tae grow a spine.

“Stop acting like a wean, will ye? It’s hard eno to move doon here without having tae avoid you,” I told him. He moved about an inch further away.

“If we run into a ghost, I’m feeding you to it,” he muttered. I laughed and started looking for trinkets, while he stayed right next tae the stairs. After a few minutes, I uncovered an emerald ring.

“This is worth something, int it no?” I asked happily. Scudder shrugged.

“Great, you’ve found your prize. Now let’s get out of here!” he said.

“Not yet! I need a bigger haul than this!” I replied. Scudder frowned.

“Look here, you second-rate Mirror Master. I am not about to have my brain turned into soup by a ghost just so that you can sell two rings instead of one. We’re going upstairs now,” he said.

“Who are ye calling a second-rate Mirror Master? I use the Mirror Realm better than ye ever could, ye minger!” I yelled.

“You don’t even know how it works. You just swiped my equipment, you Glaswegian thug!” Scudder replied. Then I punched him, and he punched me, and we got into a fist fight. He was trying tae get oot of my stranglehold when soomthing weird happened: a ghostie showed up. You ken those drawings of fat rich people? It looked like that. I was so surprised that I let Scudder go, and he screamed like a lassie and dove intae the Mirror Realm. Me? I just froze. I didnae have a clue how to fight a ghostie, so I did soomthing pure stupid: I waved at it! The ghostie levitated a lamp and threw it at me head, only narrowly missing me. I dove intae the mirror after Scudder. He was panicking.

“I don’t wanna die I don’t wanna die I don’t wanna die; please don’t let me die please please please don’t let me die!”

“Calmy doony, Scudder. The ghostie canae come intae the Mirror Realm,” I said. Ten seconds later, the ghostie came intae the Mirror Realm.

“You just had to say it!” Scudder wailed.

“Dinae just stand there, run!” I yelled. Both of us took off running, and only stopped when the ghostie vanished. I grinned.

“We did it! We escaped the ghostie!” I yelled. Scudder smiled slightly, but then he looked around and his smile vanished.

“Oh, no. This is bad, this is bad, this is really bad,” he said.

“What do ye mean? We escaped from the ghostie!” I replied.

“Look around you! Do you recognize any of this?” I looked around, and realized that we were in big trouble: I didnae recognize anything around me, and I ken most of the Mirror Realm like the back of my hand.

“We’re lost,” I said.

“No duh, really? I had no idea,” Scudder replied sarcastically. I tried tae punch him for that, but he dodged me swing.

“I don’t see why you’re punching at me. I was against coming to the creepy ghost house from the start, and if we had stayed home and watched A Nightmare on Elm Street like I suggested, we wouldn’t be in this mess! But did you-or anyone-listen to me? Oh, no! “Ghosts don’t exist, Sam.” “Stop being such a wimp, Scudder.” “We’ll be fine.” “Stop being such an idiot, Scudder.” Well, WHO’S THE IDIOT NOW?” he yelled hysterically, and I wished that Captain Cold hadnae put me with him, because he looked downright loony.

“Ah am, all right? Now help me find a way oot of here!” Sam laughed weakly.

“Find a way out of the Mirror Realm? You might as well tell me to beat Superman in a fist fight. It’s impossible. There’s a reason that I never go out of sight of the mirror portals: the Mirror Realm is so vast that if you get lost, you’ll probably never find your way back to them-and they’re our only way out of the Mirror Realm. I can’t get us out without the portals, and, thanks to you, Len, and that ghost, I have no idea where they are. Heck, I don’t even know where WE are!” he exclaimed.

“The Land of Abstract Art, mebbe?” I suggested. We were surrounded by swirls of colors and strange shapes, ye ken? Scudder didnae seem to find that as funny as I’d thought it was.

“Really? We’re lost in a never-ending mirror maze, and you’re cracking jokes?” I shrugged.

“Aye. Beats whining aboot it, ye jerrie.” To tell the truth, I was just as freaked out as Scudder was, but I wasnae about to let him know it.

“You’re a lunatic,” he spat.

“Ah am’nae!” I yelled back. I punched him, he punched me, and we ended up in another fistfight that only ended when both of us collapsed from exhaustion. Apparently, all the running had taken a lot oot of us. Scudder basically ended up falling asleep on my lap, and I was too tired to move him. After aboot a minute of embarrassment, I fell asleep tae.

Heat Wave: Hi, there. I’m Mick Rory, but you can call me Heat Wave. Everyone does. So, uh, while everyone else was running away from angry ghosts, Weather Wizard and I were still searching for valuables, and not finding any. After about an hour of searching, I got bored, pulled out my flamethrower, and lit the sofa on fire. It was beautiful and pretty and warm, and I decided to touch it. Bad idea, because I was still wearing the tutu, and..well...tutus are really flammable. The fire didn’t exactly hurt me (the prison doc tells me my skin’s so badly burned by this point that it doesn’t feel pain anymore), but it did freak out Weather Wizard, who doused me (and the sofa) with what felt like a gallon of water.

“Hey! You put out my beautiful sofa fire!” I complained. The Wiz scowled.

“In case you didn’t notice, YOU were on fire, too!” he said angrily.

“And now I’m sopping wet AND don’t have my precious fire. I don’t see how that’s an improvement,” I replied. In response, the Wiz beaned me over the head with his wand. (He doesn’t have a good swing, so it didn’t really hurt.)

“Being wet doesn’t kill you, you big oaf! You know what does? BEING ON FIRE!” His face was red and his eyes were crackling with electricity, so I knew he was pretty upset. Because he can create tornadoes, I decided to apologize.

“You’re right, Mark, and I’m sorry. Thanks for saving me,” I said. His eyes stopped crackling.

“Just don’t do it again,” he said. I nodded and sat down on what was left of the sofa, and Wiz went over to the window and gazed out of it.

“A storm’s brewing,” he said. I don’t think he was trying to sound spooky, but with his tone of voice and his witch costume, he did. A few seconds later, lightning flashed and thunder boomed. Wiz opened the window and leaned out. The wind whipped his (impossibly spiky) hair, and he stared at something in silence. After a few seconds, it got creepy, and so I went over to him and dragged him away from the window. I closed it as soon as he wasn’t in the way.

“Come on, Mark, let’s go to another room. Captain Cold’ll be mad if we don’t find something valuable,” I said. When he didn’t move, I picked him up, threw him over my shoulder, and took him up the stairs and into a bedroom which looked like it might have belonged to a little kid at some point, since there were a bunch of old toys in it. One of the windows was broken, and everything, including the toys, a rocking chair, and a crib, was covered in dust and cobwebs. It was very spooky, although it was in better shape overall than the living room had been. I started looking for something valuable, and the Wiz made a beeline for the window.

“Hey, knock that off! Just ‘cause you’re the Weather Wizard doesn’t mean that you get to look at the weather and not help me!” I said. Wiz turned around and locked eyes with me.

“The storm...it’s an ill wind that blows no good,” he muttered. It was almost like he was in a trance or something. And then it happened: a ghost appeared. Now, it wasn’t super gory-really, it just looked like a transparent teenager-but let me tell you: it was scarier than anything I’ve ever seen in a horror movie. At almost the same time, it started to rain heavily. The Wiz passed out again, and the ghost advanced on me. I decided that discretion was the better part of valor (what? I saw Shakespeare on TV one time), threw the Wiz over my shoulder, and ran downstairs and out of the house with him. (Question: Why is it that he was WAY heavier when he was unconscious than when he was conscious?) I wanted to make Captain Cold happy, but I wasn’t gonna fight a ghost just for some loot. As soon as we got out the door, the ghost stopped following us, so I dumped the Wiz on the ground and began what proved to be a LONG wait for the Mirror Masters to come pick us up. Wiz woke up about five minutes after we got out of the house and cleared up the rain (thank goodness), then took a look at me and smiled.

“You should see yourself. Your tutu’s unrecognizable and I can see your underwear,” he said. I felt my cheeks heat up. Man, that was embarrassing.

“Yeah, well, you fainted twice, so I think we’re even,” I replied. The Wiz flushed, and looked at the ground. A few seconds later, he yawned, then produced a wind that dried up the ground.

“I’m gonna take a nap. Wake me up when Scudder shows up,” he said. With that, he curled up on the ground and dozed off. After a couple seconds, I sat down next to him, and, after a few minutes of trying and failing to come up with an excuse for not finding any loot, I dozed off too. (One of the benefits of being….less than legally employed is that you learn to fall asleep anywhere.) I woke up about twenty minutes later when the Wiz poked me in the side with his wand.

“Huh?” I asked drowsily.

“Where are the Mirror Masters at? Surely they’ve gotta be finished by now,” he whined. I shrugged.

“Maybe they’re still looking for stuff. Or maybe they hit the jackpot and are still gathering up all the stuff they found,” I suggested.

“Well, they better hurry up. I’m bored and tired and I want to get back to my nice soft bed,” the Wiz replied.

“I’m sure they’ll be here soon,” I said. Then I fell back to sleep and was dead to the world for another forty minutes.

Pied Piper: After being trapped in the dumbwaiter for about ten minutes, I turned off my hearing aids. Not being able to hear is never a pleasant experience, but it was highly preferable to listening to a bored Trickster sing “This Is the Song That Never Ends” again and again and again. This solution worked reasonably well until I realized that I very much needed to use the powder room and needed advice as to how to do so without attracting the nightmare creature that wanted to devour my internal organs. Therefore, I had to turn my hearing aids back on, because none of the other Rogues have ever bothered to learn sign language and I had no desire to play charades. As soon as my hearing turned back on, I was greeted with what must have been the fortieth rendition of “This is the Song That Never Ends”.

“James. James. JAMES! I, um, need to use the powder room. Do you have any idea as to how I can do that without meeting the ghost?”

“Depends. What’s a powder room?” He batted his eyes and smiled in the most irritating manner imaginable.

“You know full well what a powder room is!” I exclaimed. James’ smile grew wider as he shook his head.

“I can’t help you if I don’t know what you need, Piper,” he said. I sighed and gave in.

“It’s a restroom,” I said, blushing terribly. James laughed and did a particularly impressive trick with his yo-yo.

“Oh, so you need to pee! Why didn’t you say so?” he asked.

“Because my parents did not allow me to discuss bodily functions in public. Ever,” I replied.

“Did your parents allow you to breathe without their say-so?” I frowned. My parents had indeed controlled my days down to the second before they disowned me, but I didn’t want to admit it, so I said,

“Never mind that. Just tell me how to use the powder room without getting killed!”

“Oh, that’s easy. I’ll close my eyes, and you can do your business in here,” James replied. As I did not have access to a mirror, I cannot be sure about this, but I believe that I blushed even harder.

“No!”

“Why not? You can even blindfold me if you want. Believe me, I do NOT want to watch that,” James replied. I scowled.

“Because that is disgusting, James.”

“I don’t see why. It’s what we did in the circus,” he said, sounding genuinely confused.

“This is not the circus!”

“Well, it isn’t exactly Rathaway manor, either. I’m not saying that it isn’t gross, but this place is in bad condition already. You can’t make it much worse,” James replied.

“I think I would rather face the ghost,” I said. James laughed.

“I can’t believe that you’re more scared of breaking your parents’ rules of being “proper” and pretending that you don’t have bodily functions than you are of a literal ghost,” he said.

“This has nothing to do with my parents!”

“Somebody’s in de-ni-al!” James singsonged.

“I’m not in denial. Just because I do not want to be Digger does not mean that this has anything to do with my parents,” I insisted.

“Yep, definitely in denial,” James said. I ignored him and pulled out the mirror that I had brought with me in order to contact the Mirror Masters.

“Sam! McCulloch! If you can hear me, I need you to get me-and James-out of this house!” Nothing happened, and I sighed wearily. There went that idea. About three minutes later, I decided that I couldn’t wait any longer. I opened the doors nervously and, not seeing anything, bolted down the hall to the powder room, used it, and was on my way back when the ghost reappeared. I screamed like a little girl (which is quite humiliating in hindsight) and just froze up in terror. If I had been alone, I don’t want to know what would have happened next, but, luckily for me, James showed up at exactly this point and yelled,

“Hey, Casper! Over here, you preposterous poltergeist!” The ghost howled and started chasing him, and he whooped with glee and ran down the hall in the direction of the staircase. Thirty seconds later, I heard a loud cry of pain from James. I bolted to the top of the stairs and saw that one of the steps had given way under James, and that he had clearly broken his ankle. Worse, the ghost was floating over top of him, and, for the first time, he looked scared. I stared at the scene for a few seconds, unsure of what to do, and then pulled out my flute and started playing it in the desperate hope that its hypnotic powers would work on a ghost. I tried to ignore the fact that my knees were shaking under me as I played, and, after a few seconds, the ghost stopped howling and floated away from James. I carefully went down the stairs to my partner, still playing, then knelt down beside him and put the flute away.

“Do NOT do that again! You scared the daylights out of me!” I snapped. James smiled.

“Aww, you do care,” he said. All his fear seemed to be forgotten and I shook my head in amazement. He had almost been killed (possessed?) by a ghost, and he was already making jokes.

“I did owe you. After all, if you had not attracted the ghost’s attention, I might have been killed. How’s your ankle?” I asked.

“It hurts like the dickens,” he replied.

“Can you walk?” James stood up shakily, winced, and quickly sat back down, then smiled and said,

“I can walk on my hands!” He proceeded to demonstrate. In spite of myself, I laughed a little.

“Can you keep that up long enough to get to the front door?” I asked him after I stopped laughing.

“Probably. Why?”

“Because we are leaving. I don’t know how long my hypnosis will last, but it will wear off eventually, and I do not want to be here when it does,” I explained.

“Aww, but I wanted to see some more ghosts!”

“Can you run on your hands?” I asked. James grinned slightly.

“Maybe?” he asked. I shook my head.

“Let’s go. We can watch The Shining when we get home if you want,” I said. (It’s James’ favorite horror movie, and very useful as a bribe.) James’ grin widened.

“You know me well, Piper. Let’s go home,” he said. With that, we left the house-only to find Mick and Mark asleep on the lawn; Mick in little more than his underwear.

“There’s something you don’t see every day,” James said.

“What, Mick and Mark sleeping on the lawn or Mick in his underwear?” I asked.

“Both, but mainly Mick in his underwear. That’s an image I’ll never get out of my mind,” he replied.

“Me, neither,” I agreed. After a few seconds, James sat down on the ground and pulled out a pack of bubble gum.

“I swallowed my gum when that step broke under me. Want some gum?” he asked.

“I suppose,” I replied. James handed me a stick of gum and then took out one for himself as well. I sat down next to him, unwrapped the stick of gum, and started chewing it. James blew a huge bubble.

“How do you do that?” I asked.

“Blow bubbles? Haven’t you ever had bubble gum before?” he asked. I shook my head.

“My parents said that gum was for plebeians,” I replied.

“Well, if they really did cut you off, you are one now, so that shouldn’t be a concern anymore,” he said. I smiled.

“You have a point. So, carnie, how about teaching this ex-patrician how to properly blow bubbles with bubble gum?” I asked.

“You’re on!” James exclaimed.

Captain Boomerang: I hate all the bloody ghosts in that bloody ghost house! (I also hate Cold for making me go into the ghost house, but that’s beside the point.) After Cold and I ran out of the kitchen, the ghost chased us through several rooms and to the basement stairs. We exchanged a brief look and ran down the stairs into the basement.

“If that bloody ghost follows us, I’m gonna be as mad as a cut snake,” I said. I was tired of all the running, tired of risking my life, and even more tired of not getting to eat my chips.

“I think he’s stopped chasing us,” Cold said as he looked around. Then he gasped.

“What is it?” I demanded. Cripes, I need a coolie , I thought.

“The Mirror Masters...at least one of them left their Mirror Gun here. It’s their only way back into our dimension. They’d never leave it here.”

“Well, if they’ve carked it, there’s nothin’ we can do. Let’s take our loot and leave this spooky place before another ghost shows up!” I said. I thought that I’d made a good point, but Cold disagreed and punched me in the face.

“We don’t have any proof that they’re dead, so we’re goin’ in after them. They’re too valuable to lose, and besides, the Rogues don’t abandon their own,” he said. Cold activated the portal to the Mirror Realm and dragged me inside by the scarf. As soon as I got inside, I had a sickie and vomited all over the floor.

“Scudder? McCulloch? It’s Cold. Where are you?” Cold yelled. No answer. I stopped vomiting and looked around, then noticed something shiny. I went over to it and discovered that it was an emerald ring.

“Cold, have a Captain Cook at this! We’re rich!” I exclaimed. Cold looked at it...and went pale.

“Oh, no….one of the Mirror Masters must have been spooked by something and dropped it-and if they ran that way and were so panicked that they didn’t notice that they dropped a valuable thing like that, then they’re lost in the Mirror Realm,” he said.

“Okay. They’ve carked it. Oh, well. Let’s go home,” I replied. Cold shook his head.

“No. We’re gonna find them,” he said.

“Cold, you just said that they were lost in the Mirror Realm. If THEY got lost, we’ll get lost, too,” I protested. Cold didn’t listen.

“We ain’t gonna get lost, because we’re going to make a trail to follow,” he said. He drew one the spoons out of the bag and placed it on the ground next to his feet. Then he moved about ten feet forward and did the same thing, and did it again about seven feet after that. He’s got kangaroos loose in his top paddock for sure, I thought.

“What are you doin’, Cold?” I demanded.

“I’m making a trail,” he said.

“Outta spoons ?” I asked.

“Didn’t you ever hear the story of Hansel and Gretel?”

“I don’t read fairy tales. They’re for wusses,” I said. Cold scowled.

“Look, I have a little sister, okay? Anyway, Hansel and Gretel didn’t want to get lost in the woods, so they used bread crumbs to mark where they’d been. That way, when they turned around, they’d know which way would take them back to their starting point. This is the same idea, only our markers can’t be eaten by anything,” he said. With that, he started dragging me by my scarf towards the direction he thought the Mirror Masters had taken.

“You know, I can walk on my own,” I said.

“ Maybe so, but if I let you go, you’ll probably be walking towards the exit, so I’m keeping ahold of you to be on the safe side,” Cold replied. I stuck my tongue out at him, but he ignored it. After about twenty minutes of walking, we entered the weirdest place I’d ever seen. There were all these bloody weird shapes and colors, and I couldn't tell which way was up. It freaked me out, but for some reason, it didn’t seem to bother Cold at all.

“Cold, this is really freaky. Can we go back now? We’ll never find the Mirror Masters in this crazy place,” I said.

“Shut up, Digger. We are going to find them, and we are not going to stop walking until we either do or run out of silverware,” Cold replied.

“Ace!” I muttered sarcastically.

“What was that?”

“Nothin’,” I lied.

“That’s what I thought.” He dragged me along for about ten more minutes before I opened my big mouth again. (I think that must be some kind of record.)

“Can we stop now ?” My legs were killing me (not to mention my neck)!

“No. Stop acting like a six-year-old,” Cold replied. I really need a coolie, i thought.

“I wouldn’t be actin’ like an anklebiter if you weren’t actin’ like a dictator,” I snapped. Cold punched me in the side and continued to drag me along like a bloody kelpie. After about four more minutes, i decided that I’d had enough of being dragged around and stabbed Cold in the arm with one of my razor-sharp boomerangs. He swore in pain and let me go, and I grabbed the mirror gun and ran towards the exit. Sadly for me, Cold managed to bean me over the head with a plate and knocked me out. When I came to, I awoke to see a pair of unconscious Mirror Masters. Normally, I would’ve been crosser than a frog in a sock that Cold had knocked me out, but at the moment I was too glad that Cold wouldn’t be dragging me through the Mirror Realm anymore to really care.

“You little Ripper! You found them!” I exclaimed happily.

“No thanks to you,” Cold muttered. He shook McCulloch awake.

“Cold? How did ye get in here?” he asked.

“Either you or Sam dropped your Mirror Gun outside of the mirror in the basement, and I used it to get in here,” Cold explained.

“But how did ye find us?”

“Stubbornness, mainly,” Cold replied. I laughed.

“That’d be right!” I exclaimed. Cold looked at McCulloch oddly.

“Why is Sam sleeping in your lap?” Cold asked.

“ WHAT? ” McCulloch yelled. He quickly moved Sam off his lap and stood up. This woke Sam up, for obvious reasons. Once he realized what had happened, he noticed Cold, gave him a huge hug, and then punched him in the face.

“I’m...getting some mixed messages here,” Cold said.

“I’m happy you found us, because I thought we were going to die here, but I’m about equally angry at you, because you wouldn’t have had to rescue us if you hadn’t decided to take us to the creepy ghost house in the first place,” Sam explained. I laughed. It’s always good to see Cold get taken down a peg, the arrogant knocker.

“I do nae see why you being here is a good thing. We do nae ken how to get back to the Mirror Portals from here, we’ll all die here,” McCulloch said.

“Actually, we won’t. I marked the path we took from the portals with our loot, so we’ll able to get back fine,” Cold replied. McCulloch grinned, and my stomach growled.

“Can we go home now? I’m hungry,” I asked.

“Ye and me both, Digger,” McCulloch said. Cold nodded.

“Let’s get back to our reality,” he said. With that, we started the long walkabout back to the Mirror Portals.

Top: My nap lasted precisely twenty-five minutes and fifteen seconds. Then I awoke to see Lisa crying quietly. Normally, I would have felt horrible upon seeing such a sight, but at the time, I simply felt disgusted.

"Stop sniveling, you piece of gutter trash. I will not be moved by your feminine wiles,” I spat. (I have since apologized profusely for this comment, and for all others made under the influence of the ghost, but my darling Lisa is still distrustful of me, and her brother would have beat me to within an inch of my life for them had she not stopped him.)

“All right. I WILL stop crying. I should have known better than to show weakness in front of a man who’s just like my father,” she replied angrily. If I had been myself, I would have been horrified by this accusation, but as I was, I merely sniffed dismissively.

“I am nothing like your father. He was an alcoholic boor who lived off of welfare for most of his life, and I am a gentleman,” I said haughtily.

“And yet you’re calling me names just like he did,” Lisa replied. (In hindsight, her self-confidence was quite admirable, but at the time, I found it irritating.)

“Shut your mouth!” I snapped, unable to refute her argument.

“And let you walk all over me? I don’t think so,” Lisa said. Furious, I raised my hand to slap her, but thankfully, the Civil War-era ghost interrupted us before I could. Lisa grabbed me and pulled me out of the room before the ghost began to levitate anything, thereby saving my life for the third time that night.

“I told you not to touch me!” I said icily. In response, Lisa kissed me on the cheek and I pulled away sharply in utter disgust. (I believe that she was trying to make me uncomfortable in an attempt to snap me back to my senses.)

“I just saved your life again , and you want to complain about me touching you? AGAIN?” she yelled.

“I was aware that we were in danger. There was no need for you to touch me,” I replied coldly. The ghost drifted out of the bedroom we had been in, and the two of us ran to the stairs-only to find that one of the steps had collapsed. Lisa sighed and slid down the banister to the bottom of the stairs, and I reluctantly followed her when the ghost appeared behind me and it became apparent that there was no other means of escape. (We were able to keep our balance because my darling Lisa was a figure skater and I am very resistant to vertigo.) We ran back through the dining room and back into the backyard, and were greeted by a most unusual sight. The ghost who had kissed me was holding hands with another ghost, this one with a noose around his neck.

“Oh, darling, you’re back!” she cooed. The other ghost kissed her.

“Yes, and I’ll never leave you again. I’m so sorry that I abandoned you all those years ago. My father was wrong: you were more important than our money ever could have been,” he said.

‘I forgive you, Robert,” she replied. Lisa started to cry again.

“Oh, shut up, you sniveling hussy! You are too far beneath me to deserve my sympathy,” I said harshly. Lisa frowned and dried her tears rather angrily, then elbowed me in the side.

“Where have you been, Robert?” the female ghost asked.

“I don’t know. All I remember before seeing you tonight was a lot of anger at something,” the other ghost replied. The female ghost embraced him.

“Oh, well, you’re here now. That’s all that matters,” she said. They kissed again, and then the female ghost noticed us and frowned.

“Are you the lovers?” she asked.

“Formerly. I thank you profusely for showing me my folly,” I said. Lisa nodded sadly.

“Why do you want to know? You can’t possibly make me any more miserable,” she said. The ghost smiled.

“Because I am going to show you both mercy. Since my happiness has been restored, I will restore your happiness,” she said. She kissed me once again, and all my love for Lisa came flowing back-as did a crushing sense of guilt.

“My darling, I am so sorry for what I said. I don’t know what came over me, but I swear to you that I do not care how rich you are. You are a goddess, and I adore you. Please, please forgive me,” I pleaded. I felt like an utter cad. Lisa frowned.

“R-Roscoe?” she asked nervously.

“Yes, sweetums,” I said. I tried to kiss her, but she pulled away.

“Don’t , Roscoe. After what you said to me tonight, I just don’t trust you. How can I be sure that you aren’t saying you don’t care that I’m “gutter trash” only because of your hormones? What if two or three years down the line, you don’t find me attractive anymore? Will you still love me, or will I suddenly become a “welfare queen” again? I still love you, but I can’t trust you anymore,” she asked

“You...you are breaking up with me?” I was heartbroken and rather tempted to attack the ghost (if that was even possible), but I could not really blame her.

“I’m not sure. Let’s call it a vacation,” she replied quietly. There was an awkward pause, and then I said,

“In that case, since our date is off, perhaps we should go to the front lawn and wait for the Mirror Masters to take us back to our hideout.” Lisa nodded, and we left the backyard, walked quickly through the house, and made it to the front lawn of the house without issue. Upon arriving, we saw Mark curled up on the lawn, fast asleep, Mick napping in little more than his underwear ( a sight that will haunt me until my dying day), and James and Piper blowing bubble gum. James waved at us.

“Hi there, lovebirds! How was your date?’ If there is one thing that James is the master of, it is saying things at the most inopportune times.

“Badly,” Lisa replied. With that, she left my side and sat down next to Mick. James looked at me quizzically.

“It is a very long story that is frankly none of your business,” I told him. I walked a few feet away from him, sat down, and buried my head in my hands, ashamed of what I had done to the one person in my life I ever cared for. Apparently, I dozed off at some point, because the next thing I remember was the two Mirror Masters arriving alongside Digger and Leonard.

“Look alive, everyone! We’re moving out!” he barked. Five minutes later, we were all back in our hideout (thanks to the Mirror Masters). Lisa immediately ran over to her brother and started sobbing. My stomach twisted with guilt and I looked away.

“Shhh..shh...shhh..Sis, what happened?” In response, Lisa told him the whole story through hiccups and sobs. When she was finished, Leonard marched over to me.

“ Is this true, Dillon?” he demanded.

“Sadly, yes,” I replied awkwardly. In response, Cold punched me so hard he knocked me to the ground.

“Then you’re gonna wish you’d never been born. NO ONE hurts my baby sister,” he snarled. He moved to hit me again, but before he could, Lisa ran over to him and grabbed his arm.

“Lenny, don’ t! He was under the influence of a ghost! It wasn’t all his fault,” she said. Cold scowled, but he walked away anyway as Lisa helped me back to my feet.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“Better than I should be after treating you so terribly,” I replied.

“It’s good to to have you back, Roscoe,” she said.

“Does this mean that we’re back on?” I asked eagerly.

“No, Roscoe, I’m afraid not. It’ll probably be awhile before I feel comfortable around you again,” she said. She left me and went upstairs, and I was left to mentally berate myself for my idiocy.

Mirror Master I: And...that was basically it. We managed to get home alive from the creepy ghost house, everyone changed out of their costumes, and most of us, exhausted, went to bed (except James and Piper, who decided to watch The Shining for some reason.) The next morning, Trickster went to the hospital to get his broken ankle treated, and the rest of us decided to never, ever go to any house that was supposed to be haunted again. A week later, the Flash caught Len trying to fence his loot, so he’s in prison again. Lisa still hasn’t forgiven Roscoe, and James’s ankle is still very broken, but otherwise, things are pretty much back to normal for us Rogues. So, with that in mind-we would like to wish you all a Happy Halloween!- What James said.

FIN

#flash rogues #ghosts #dc comics #lisa snart/roscoe dillon #len snart #sam scudder #evan mcculloch #james jesse #hartley rathaway #george digger harknesss #mick rory #mark mardon #fanfic #@gorogues

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lothiriel84 · 4 years

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Just a few random considerations after my latest rewatch of series 1 of BBC Ghosts last night.

Ghosts vs. the living

It’s extremely interesting that while as a rule humans are completely unable to see/hear ghosts, (some) animals are in fact shown to be able to sense the presence of a ghost, to the point of attempting to interact with them - see Tali (?) the dog barking up at Robin, and then wanting to be petted by Pat.

It remains unclear whether that’s down to some kind of sixth sense specifically possessed by animals (dogs? bears? any animal at all?) as opposed to humans, or it somehow implies that the animal in question had a scrape with death at some point in the past. (Although the latter doesn’t sound very likely when it comes to Barclay’s dogs, or I should hope so, at least.)

Another interesting point is how often exactly do dead animals turn into ghosts. So far, the only animal ghost (or should that be ghost animal?) we’ve been shown is Button House’s resident pigeon - could that be because animals don’t often have any real unfinished business barring their access to whichever sort of afterlife is reserved to their kind? (But more importantly, was Arthur Shappey right in believing heaven is, in fact, full of otters?)

Schrödinger’s (attempted) murder

As I mentioned elsewhere - probably in the tags while reblogging someone else’s gifs, to be honest - I believe Julian being genuinely unable to tell whether he successfully pushed Alison out of the window or she basically lost her balance and fell as a consequence makes for a much more interesting scenario.

To be absolutely clear, that would make no difference when it comes to him being guilty of attempted murder; he is shown to have no qualms whatsoever about killing Alison, and when all is said and done, it hardly matters whether his goal was reached by his own hand or through dumb luck (plus a non-indifferent dose of carelessness on Alison’s part).

All I’m saying is, think back of how much trouble he had with pushing a vase which was comparatively not all that bigger than a cup. And even if he did know for sure - admittedly, he might be capable of feeling the reaction of the object he pushes against, should he succeed in doing so - I, as a viewer, would very much rather be afforded a little room for doubt. Not for the sake of Julian’s character, but as I feel it somehow raises the stakes of this particular storyline.

Alison as one of the coolest characters ever

Not only does Alison figure the whole seeing-dead-people situation mostly by herself - with a little help from the ghost therapist at the hospital, but she could have easily written off the entire episode as yet another of her alleged post-traumatic hallucinations - but more importantly, her reaction when she realises she’s effectively stuck with a haunted house as well as a potentially bankruptcy-inducing mortgage is one of the coolest moments in the entire series.

I dare say most people would be inclined to lose the plot a little bit, when faced with such simultaneously dire yet completely absurd circumstances; Alison, on the other hand, simply unbuckles her seat belt, gets out of the car, and confronts the ghosts head-first. And not only that, but she’s smart enough to call them out on their real reasons for haunting her, to the point they actually confess what they really want from her. (Which sums down, in most cases, to trivial requests such as being allowed to watch war documentaries, or having an incriminated portrait removed from a room.)

Forget her questionable choices when it comes to financial matters, she’s a feisty young woman capable of handling a herd of recalcitrant ghosts, and that’s more than can be said of almost any other character in the show.

The Captain and the morality of choices

It’s hardly a mystery the Captain is a bit of a bastard, and we all love him for that. Right at the beginning, he is presented to us as someone who would make a show of wanting to ‘say a few words’ about the dearly departed just so he could immediately proceed to ‘bagsy her room’. I’d say his general mindset could be summed up as something close to the end justifies the means - with the caveat that we actually know very little about him aside the military persona he chooses to present himself as all the time.

If I had to hazard a guess, facing everything life death throws at him as a military campaign could either be a subconscious defence mechanism, a habit so deeply ingrained he couldn’t shake it off if he wanted to, or something he elects to do as a way to cope with the listlessness that comes with being stuck in limbo (potentially) for eternity. And, quite possibly, a combination of all three.

The main thing is, rules are important for him, but so is winning whichever military campaign he embarked upon at each particular moment in time. When his plan to enroll the plague victims as his new army fails, he resorts to strategic subterfuge in order to win the war; as they say, all's fair in love and war, and more often than not, battles are won by military tactics rather than such things as a superior army. He is very much the Odysseus of Button House, with the significant difference that he’s not so much attempting to conquer an enemy city as he’s fighting to take back control of an outpost he used to be in charge of.

In this (probably unfortunate) parallel, I’m afraid the poor Kitty serves as the infamous Trojan horse. (Juan Domingo, please, we’re not getting into this all over again.) The Captain knows Alison trusts her, and his subterfuge will therefore go undetected until it’s too late; and yet, remarkably enough, he still decides to offer Kitty a choice on the matter. Admittedly, he’s already counting on the fact that Kitty is neither particularly smart, nor in any way prepared to give up on Alison anytime soon - however, he still offers her a choice, and I feel like that is very much relevant to his character. He is, for all intent and purposes, tricking Kitty into fooling her friend/the person she loves; but while he’s concealing all the important facts from her, he’s not robbing her of her choice entirely.

(Should Kitty have decided to prioritise Alison’s happiness over her own, I daresay the captain would have come up with yet another plan to overcome the temporary setback. Neither scenario makes him any less of a bastard, but he’s still a man of principles after his own fashion, and that’s how I choose to read him, regardless.)

A final note on Robin

I’ve made no secret of how Robin is my favourite character by far, just as I believe he is for a significant portions of fans of the show. As mischievous as he loves to be - which is, all things considered, a comparatively tame reaction to being stuck as a ghost for an incredibly long time, with very little hope of ever moving on - his pranks are mostly harmless, and he is at heart the kindest, most emotionally mature of all the ghosts. (Yes, even when he’s scampering around, marvelling at the builders’ equipment. If anything, it’s a sign of his natural curiosity and intelligence; we are, after all, repeatedly shown he is particularly good at problem solving as well as playing what basically boils down to blindfold chess.)

As often as the other ghosts tend to remark upon his language skills or lack thereof, they should probably pay more attention to all the occasions in which Robin’s brains made the difference, and I’m including his emotional intelligence in that category. As others pointed out before me, he’s a trickster with a heart of gold, and the only sane man among what is basically a swarm of squabbling children.

And he faces all of that armed only with his peculiar brand of humour, and his enthusiasm for new things to discover, including - why not? - new ways to scare the living daylights out of Alison, just for the fun of it.

#BBC Ghosts #Ghosts spoilers #series 1 #meta #sort of

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sserpente · 5 years

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A/N: Request from anon. I received this prompt during Christmas season and decided to keep it. I had so much fun writing it, so… enjoy, my lovelies! ;-)

Words: 3406 Warnings: shameless smut

Tony was grumpy, to say the least. It was Valentine’s Day and with his fiancé Pepper Potts miles away on a different continent to do press work for him, there was no one around to spoil with expensive jewellery, thousands of roses and countless boxes of chocolate. And whenever Tony was grumpy, someone else would suffer for it.

Usually, it was his snarky comments that put the rest of the Avengers in a bad mood as well, be it during meetings or shared meals. This time, however, the billionaire was a ticking time bomb. You all knew that staying away from him and letting him noodle around in his lab until he had cooled off again was the best thing to do—provoking him any further never went well.

Unfortunately though, Loki did not know that—or much rather, he did not want to believe it. He was a god, after all. Tony Stark was by no means entitled to intimidate or threaten him with his stupid remarks.

Tony and Natasha were in the vast living area in the Avengers compound, about to pour themselves a drink when Loki entered, seemingly displeased that he would not have the black leather couch to himself to read in peace.

Stark was still cross with him, of course, and Thor was no help. Apart from you, he was about the only one who treated the God of Mischief nicely, more or less.

It was thus no surprise he heard the two of them whispering together when he approached, glaring them both down with slight annoyance. Not soon after, they were joined by Clint and Thor.

“There you are! I was about to drink the whole bottle myself… again.” Tony announced with a shrug.

Loki rolled his eyes. He should have stayed in his bedroom.

“Brother, why don’t you have a drink with us? It’s Valentine’s Day!” Stark flinched when he mentioned the holiday, eyeing something in his hand which Loki could not see from the corner of his eye. The God of Thunder was playing right into Tony’s cards. It was about time somebody pranked Loki in return for all the mischief he had caused around the compound already—besides, he didn’t exactly like the Trickster.

Meanwhile, Loki sighed. Alcohol… well, it did do its job and helped numbing his stupid anxiety for a while. There was no reason to decline. He could always come back for more at night when the others were sleeping.

Quickly, he nodded in approval and watched Tony fill five glasses with his most expensive whiskey and add two ice cubes each. What he did not see, however, was that the last one, however, he spiked with a liquid blue substance. A few drops usually sufficed for a man to get him to perform more reliably, with Loki, however, he wasn’t quite sure. He was a god, after all—not from this world. So, without thinking, he poured the entire contents of the small glass bottle into his drink.

“Bottom’s up, Reindeer Games!” He yelled, fighting back a wicked smirk as he handed out the drinks and made sure that Loki received the one he had spiked with liquid Viagra. Oh, this was going to be so much fun, even if he wouldn’t witness himself the agony Loki would be going through in but a few hours.

He almost choked on his drink when the God of Mischief downed the whiskey in one go without clinking his glass with the others, then rolled his eyes once more and left. He really couldn’t wait to see how groggy, spent and utterly unsatisfied Loki would be tomorrow morning. He should tell FRIDAY to get the cameras ready.

Loki gasped, shifting uncomfortably on his bed. He had been reading the same chapter over and over for the past hour and had still not picked up its content. Something was horribly off. He felt like he was on fire, burning from the inside out and the heat, consuming and demanding, crept right towards his crotch.

His manhood twitched, hungry for attention and satisfaction as he felt himself growing so incredibly hard his loins were aching by the time he stood from the bed, moaning to himself. Granted, it had been a while since he had attended to his sexual needs but why did his Jötun body decide now, for Heaven’s sake, to ask for such carnal relief? Now that there was no royal concubine near that he could lure into his chambers for pleasure?

Gasping once more, he gave his cock a gentle squeeze, learning fairly quickly that whatever he was experiencing was most certainly not a normal erection. Much rather it felt like his arousal had been forced on him, like his own body had turned against him, manipulated by… Stark.

Loki tensed up. He must have put something in his drink. Cursing in Old Norse, he flung his book onto the bed and groaned. He should have known better. His malicious smile had been treacherous and he, for once, had been too naïve to act on it. What harm could an arrogant mortal being do to a god of royal blood, after all? He would have his revenge but for now, in his current state—a large bulge lurking in his leather trousers—there was no way he would let any of the Avengers catch sight of him.

He was unfamiliar with whatever Stark had spiked his drink with, his seidr was therefore rather useless until he could identify what had poisoned his body and whether it was permanent. Something told him, however, that if he simply jerked off and brought himself relief with his hand, his problem would not be solved.

Loki hated to admit it but he needed help—and there was only one person in the compound in line for the task.

You frowned when somebody knocked on your door. If this was Clint or Natasha asking you to get ready for another mission, you would positively throw the lamp on your nightstand at them. It was Valentine’s Day and you had all right to pout in bed, eat popcorn and chocolate and watch cheesy movies all day long.

You certainly didn’t expect Loki of all people to spoil your plans though. You got along fairly well, had shared quite a few late night conversations about life, his past and your future, yet most of the time the God of Mischief behaved rather restrained and never initiated any kind of socialism.

His jaw was working fiercely as he looked down at you with a dark glare. You smelled trouble.

“I need your help.”

Raising an eyebrow, you felt the corners of your mouth twitch. “Yes, I am fine, Loki, thank you for asking. Don’t worry, I wasn’t busy at all.” You said sarcastically.

The God of Mischief only rolled his eyes before he entered your bedroom and shut the door behind him so forcefully you flinched, sending a wave of worry through your body.

“Okay, what happened?” You continued a little softer. “Are you alright?”

“Clearly I am not.” He snapped back, pointing at his crotch. When you looked down, your eyes widened. Jesus Christ, he was hard. For a moment, you were utterly confused. Obviously, Loki was aroused, you just could not figure out why he would ask you for help.

“Um…”

“Stark spiked my drink,” he explained to enlighten you. “He put something in it and now…” Helplessly, he lifted his hands and dropped them again.

Oh. Holy shit… it didn’t take you long to put one and one together. The only logical explanation was that Stark had secretly poured liquid Viagra into Loki’s whiskey and he was now desperately dealing with the consequences. What you still couldn’t understand, however, was why he would march into your room with a giant bulge in his trousers.

The urge to burst out laughing grew with every second you looked at his pained expression. Being this hard without any form of relief working him towards orgasm felt unpleasant to say the least, yet the irony of the situation was hilarious. Loki, the God of Mischief, tricked into taking Viagra by Tony Stark.

“You’re a healer, do something about this… condition of mine.”

“Doctor. We call them doctors here on Earth and I am not. I mean, not yet. I had to pause my studies to help save the world, remember?”

“Whatever,” Loki hissed. “I need your help.”

Sighing, you gulped to stop yourself from grinning, attempting to remain serious.

“Okay, so it appears Tony has… spiked your drink with Viagra, also known as sildenafil citrate. It’s a very common pharmaceutical used to treat erectile dysfunction. That’s why it does what it… well, does.”

Loki narrowed his eyes at you, shock written all over his face. “Well, how do I stop it?”

“Um… you can’t, really. All we can do is wait for it to go away. Viagra is not harmful to your body, not if dosed correctly. I can imagine Tony exaggerated but your anatomy is much different from ours. I’m sure you will be fine.”

“How long does it last?” Loki asked with a dark voice.

“It can last up to five hours. If I am correct and Tony overdosed…” Then he might even stay hard after experiencing an orgasm. Why on Earth did the thought of this get you all hot and bothered? You had to admit it was rather sexy and arousing to see the God of Mischief stand before you with an impressive erection, desperate for someone to help him to some relief.

“I am not going to put up with this agony for five hours. There has to be something you can do about it.”

“Nothing that I know of, Loki.” At least, nothing that would be ethically and morally correct for a prospective doctor. But the excited glistening in your eyes gave you away. Loki took a step closer. You had a feeling he knew exactly what was going through your mind.

“You are a doctor, no?”

“Prospective d-doctor…”

“So I hereby ask for a treatment. Have you not sworn to help people out of their predicaments when you committed yourself to your medical studies?”

Swallowing thickly, you noticed your heartbeat speeding up.

“Y-yes but—“

“So help me then.” His voice was hoarse and devastated when he spoke, his body so close to yours you could feel his cool breath on your lips. You could tell his desire for pleasure was growing—and even though you were not opposed by the idea of him freeing his hard member from those tight leather trousers and stroke himself before your eyes, eventually, you agreed.

“Fine. Let me… take a look.”

Pleased with your answer, Loki nodded. It seemed like time was passing in slow motion when he undid the buttons of his trousers and pulled out his aching cock. It twitched under your scrutinising gaze, sending waves of heat and wetness straight to your own private body parts.

Stop. You had to remain professional. Clearing your throat, you knelt down in front of him, placing your palms on his strong thighs for support. Tony had definitely exaggerated with the dose. You could tell that Loki was in pain and while you did not understand why he didn’t just jerk off in his own bedroom to take away at least some of the pressure in his sack, the desire to touch him grew with every passing second.

So you simply did. What was there to deny? You wanted him. Gently at first, you let the tips of your fingers slide over his warm shaft, feeling the velvety skin and tracing the bluish vein until Loki involuntarily bucked his hips to meet your touch.

There was a tempting drop of precum glistening at the tip, inviting you to lick it off and suck him into your mouth. In fact… in fact you might actually be able to help him, screw a doctor’s principals and morals.

Licking your lips in joyful anticipation, you leaned forward and wrapped your lips around his cock, your tongue teasing his slit. A moan escaped your lips when you tasted his hard flesh.

“What… in Valhalla… are you doing?” He panted, eyes widened with shock.

With a silent smack, you withdrew, gazing up at him with innocent eyes. You understood the irony of the situation, of course. He had wanted mortals to kneel before him—and now you did, worshipping his cock because you were greedy and perhaps even delusional.

“I am helping you…” You choked out only a moment before you busied yourself with his aching length once more, licking over it with relish and causing him to grunt and throw his head back in pure bliss.

Now this was certainly an interesting turn of events but who were you to judge? This was so much better than watching cheesy movies and eating heart-shaped chocolate.

Soon, you were bopping your head in frenzy, taking in as much of him as you could while your hands attended to his balls to caress them gently, your other hand taking care of what your throat wouldn’t cover. Saliva was dripping down your chin, your delicious moans only fuelling his arousal as the sweet sounds echoed through the room and the vibrations teased his cock even further.

His weak attempt not to thrust wildly into your lovely mouth failed rapidly, hips bucking uncontrollably in a steady but frantic rhythm all the while his hands came up to hold your head in place for his pleasure.

“Norns, I am going to…” His last words were interrupted by an animalistic growl as he came, spilling his seed down your throat. Eagerly, you swallowed all he gave you, suckling on the tip until he was completely empty.

Several seconds passed after you had released him, your lips swollen and pink. Licking over them to devour the remnants of his seed, you only noticed when you shifted on the floor that you had soaked your panties.

Loki looked you directly in the eye. He was hungry. Hungry for more.

“Get on the bed,” he growled darkly, blue eyes fixed on you like a predator. He was still hard. How much Viagra had Tony given him? Usually, an erection disappeared again after climax—very apparently, however, like you had even suspected, this did not seem to be the case for Loki.

Swallowing hard, you remembered your own words. Up to five hours…

Actually, you had no idea what made you obey him. Was it his commanding tone, the stern and aroused expression on his face or your own need for relief and pleasure? In the end, it didn’t matter, not really.

You squeaked when Loki climbed on top of you so fast you had barely time to blink. Greedily, he began to tug at your clothes, staring at them as if there were made of living insects. Clearly, they were in the way. So they had to go.

Without much effort, the God of Mischief simply ripped the fabric off your body, making you whine in response. Those were your favourite pyjamas. Right now, however, you couldn’t care less. Much more important was the outrageously handsome god hovering above you like a hungry wolf, ready to devour its prey—and that he did.

His blue eyes roamed over your now naked body hungrily, devouring each and every curve with his gaze. One of his large hands came up to fondle your breasts, exploring your mounts passionately all the while his other hand travelled down over your stomach, leaving a trail of goose bumps to sneak between your legs.

You whimpered when Loki’s fingers parted your heated flesh and gave your clit a teasing stroke before wandering down to your slit to make sure you were wet enough for his intrusion. Oh and you were positively dripping for him.

The God of Mischief smirked as he withdrew his hand. Effortlessly, he snatched your wrists and pinned them down above your head all the while forcing himself between your legs, his hard cock grazing your folds. With but one firm thrust, he buried himself inside you to the hilt, moaning out loud in the process.

You could only gasp in response. Obviously, with his girth and length, you had not expected any man to be a patch on him, yet when he filled you so fully, deliciously… you felt your eyes rolling to the back of your head as you arched your back, urging him on to fuck you. And with the amount of Viagra cursing through his body… who was he to deny you anyway?

Loki chuckled hoarsely, making you shiver in joyful anticipation. Picking up a quick pace, he began to ram his hard meat into you, over and over until you were ready to burst from all the pleasure. Oh damn… he had officially ruined you for any other man to come after him.

With every single thrust, Loki appeared to hit all of your hidden pleasure spots—pleasure spots you didn’t even know existed. And now, they carried you right towards an earth-shattering orgasm that threatened to take away all of your senses.

Rutting into you relentlessly, he lowered his head to wrap his lips around one of your hardened nipples, nibbling and sucking on them until his name burst from your own lips like a prayer. Your hips came up to meet his thrusts, encouraging him to go even deeper and faster which he happily obliged.

“You… need… to… cum… for… me.” He panted. “Now… Norns… CUM, NOW!”

You felt your walls contracting around him the moment he shot ropes of his seed inside of you, coating the inside of your pussy with his essence. Your orgasm rippled through you like liquid fire, pumping pleasure through your body so intensely you desperately gasped for air. You could feel Loki twitch and pulse inside of you as he released himself, his cum seeping out of you when he pulled out and collapsed on the bed next to you after allowing you both to ride out your orgasms.

Both of you had expected he would not soften as of yet. His erection still stood, proudly, waiting for him to go on and take as much pleasure as was needed to help him make use of all the Viagra in his body.

So he pulled you on top of him, earning him another squeal from you. Your frantic giggling, for you were still high on your climax, stopped the moment he made you sit down on his length to fill you once more.

Only moments after you were bouncing up and down on him for all he was worth, your nails digging into his pale chest.

By the time he was done with you, you both were a sweating and panting mess. Your hair stuck to your moist skin, your cheeks were reddened and your limbs shaking, the bed and your thighs wet with your slick juices.

Seven and a half hours. Seven and a half hours had passed until his aching erection had finally gone away and he could rest, spent and utterly satisfied.

You had begged him for breaks, asked him to slow down. In return, you had brought him pleasure with your hands and mouth to soothe his undying arousal and then, after one last shared orgasm, Loki’s lips came crashing down on yours, his tongue fighting for dominance which you granted him all but willingly. He kissed you so ferociously you knew that not only you had lost control over your body with him but also control over your heart.

You had fallen asleep in his arms fast. Keeping up with a god was exhausting, to say the least. Loki had forced you into countless of orgasms, almost making you lose your mind to him. Well, you were not going to complain.

Loki grinned to himself as he stroked your head lightly with an almost loving gaze. He had set his eyes on you ever since he had arrived at the Avengers compound, one of the very few bearable mortals to be around with. He had to admit, however, he had not known how much he had desired you until you had knelt before him to inspect his rock-hard member.

It mattered not. Now, you were his. If only Stark knew he had actually done him a favour in the end…

A/N: If you enjoyed this story, I’d be flattered if you supported me on KoFi! kofi.com/sserpente (or hit the “Support me” button on my blog) ♥

Check out my masterlist for more Loki stories, for Tumblr has been swallowing a lot of my posts lately...

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