#leechy's talking time

[cheezy-moon]

My Moots List

"This moon has had some friends they've walked with... Whether in the past or present they still hold a special place in this moon's heart... "

This is in no specific order, so pay no mind to where you are! @keii-starz- Kei🍮 Tbh I think Kei was my first moot, besides Minty. Their writings are so good!! Chefs kiss even. A very passionate person when it comes too their interests! @eynnwwyjth- Faye🧚‍♀️ SUCH A SWEET PERSON HFJSKAIAI. Everytime I interact with them my day gets better! @dove-da-birb- Dovey🕊️ Y'all KNOW how much I love their fics. And their OC's?!?! They seem so cool! Dove is always a great person to interact with:3 @i-like-forgs- Ryo💪 LOVE THEM I'm pretty sure they were one of my first moots. Ryo is also a very funny person! @angelhairpastawithherbs- Angelhair💞THEIR WRITING IS GORGEOUS MUAH MUAH MUAH. Also very funny, and the rizzler💯/j @red-viewe- Red👹The emoji says it all/j Funny person also. I know a lot of funny people. OMG THEIR WRITING IS ALSO GORGEOUS. DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THOSE GENERAL LILIA FICS. @twistwonderlanddevotee- Sofia🪷 First impression of her, Cinnamon roll, now impression of her, Cinnamon roll. Her wallpapers are so pretty and cute and gorgeous and amazing and-(she's also so sweet as I said before and I'd give her my soul if needed) @citrusitonit- Citrus🍊 Fine, fine. Citrus is a comedian. Makes me laugh my ass off sometimes istg. Art= Very pretty, Writing= A+ @the-banana-0verlord- Lilian🍌Amazing person! Also seems very interesting! We don't interact often, but we do every now and then! They support me in most of the things I do, and usually leaves a comment on my things. @krenenbaker Krenenbaker🌾 I call them honeybun for a reason. Krenen is a very sweet person in my eyes who I love very much(platonically):3 @azulashengrottospiano- Auburn🐙 THEIR WRITING??? HOLY SHIT-*dies* Anyways, an amazing person! Love interacting with them:3 @v-anrouge Aster🪻 Isn't afraid to say their opinions and I respect that💯 They don't listen to any hate and stick with what they say. Anyways, often a sweet person! Love intereracting with them! @haruhar-u/@17k-a Haru🖤 Funny dude! Chaotic sometimes too lol. @ithseem- Ithseem🐈‍⬛ A interesting and cool person! Also pretty art! @leonistic- Soru🍞 THEIR WRITING HDJSUUAJAIA*dies* Anyways, another cool moot! I smile as I interact with them bc my day gets better! @theleechyskrunkly- Leechy🤡 Oh dear another silly person like Minty😔/j Anyways, also very funny! @xxoomiii- Melice🍬- THEIR MOODBOARDS R VERY PRETTY! VERY NICE IMAGES! Anyways, Melice is SUCH a sweet person! And also seems like a great friend! @edith-is-a-cat Edie🕔 I GOT SO EXITED WHEN THEY FOLLOWED ME. They seem like a sweet person, a bit hmmm... chaotic? At times, but sweet. THEIR ART. IS. GORGEOUS!!! @saturnslastgoodbyes Saturn🪐- THEIR ART IS SO SO PRETTY GORGEOUS AMAZING, also seems like a kind person! @moonlitnyx Moon🌕- They seem like a very silly person! Haven't talked a whole lot to them yet, but every conversation with them is fun! @hydra-sea Hydra🦋- THEY SEEM LIKE SUCH A SWEET PERSON URISKJSHS AND OMG THEIR WRITINGS???? HOLY SHIT- @xen-blank Xen🐀- Xen is a GREAT person! Also funny!(goat kisser/mole rat kisser) @officialdaydreamer00 Irene✨ SUCH A KIND PERSON!!! THEY'RE LITERALLY SO SWEET! And omfg their art?!?! It's so pretty, I love their art style so much! AND THEIR FUCKING WRITING. AHHH- @whspermy-name- Minty🍄/ Whisper🍃 The whole reason I'm on Tumblr. If Minty didn't introduce me to Twisted Wonderland, and then fanfiction, I probably wouldn't be on this app. A very great friend also! And very silly:3 Part Two!

#Kei🍮 #Faye🧚‍♀️ #Dovey🕊️ #Ryo💪 #Angelhair💞 #Red👹 #Sofia🪷 #Citrus🍊 #Lilian🍌 #Krenenbaker🌾 #Auburn🐙 #Aster🪻 #Haru🖤 #Ithseem🐈‍⬛ #Soru🍞 #Leechy🤡 #Minty🍄 #Melice🍬 #Saturn🪐 #Moon🌕 #Hydra🦋 #Xen🐀 #Edie🕔 #Irene✨ #Whisper🍃

[georgiapeach30513]

Another blog posted soba and her bff cup noodles together and I just have to say: Either Ramen was busy and just told cup noodles to escort soba as her date or soba and cup float better together in their MSG pond and that’s why they walked the red carpet together.

It’s painfully obvious to me these two want to be in glitz and glamour and fashion and red carpets. It’s the only time they show up to do anything besides trolling on IG. Fashion shows. Leeching off brands and bigger names to get 5 mins of attention. They don’t want the quiet life and it’s been quite obvious to me since day one.

That being said…cup noodles definitely is talking shit behind the scenes because you just know his leechy ass does not want to spend vacations skiing and looking at trees. He wants Cartier and flashing lights. Imagine how disappointed he must have been to find out hanging out with ramen wasn’t going to be any of that.

(I’m only kidding here because obviously no one knows these people but I don’t think it’s that far of a stretch 🤣)

Cup noodles 😂 you guys are great.

I think top ramen is reflecting still. Reflecting on which posts to delete.

I think it’s painfully obvious that soba and cup noodles love attention. And yet a shiny watch got more attention than they did.

Did you see how much it sparkles!!

[d0rky-0utfits]

Ok I have noticed this several times probably hundreds of times and I need to talk about it now

Ok so basically I've noticed that sometimes leechy is missing this lil part of his hair. This has happened so many times like I'm going crazy

#ratposting #THIS JAS HAPPENED SEVERAL HUNDRED TIMES #and I've noticed this like every single time

[multifandomteddybear]

Here’s a chart for the relationships of my younger brother's OC, Carol.

Friends:

Oskar

Gothetta

Stoker

Leechy

Klot

Ashley

Sunshine Polidori

Bruno (met with him through Paulus)

Best Friends:

Count Alarich von Horrificus

Professor Oxblood

Lady Kryptina

Nestor

Big T and Lefty (after they started living with Hardy in the castle)

Crushing On:

Paulus Polidori

Stranger:

Dr. Ironfang (sees him during his visits to the castle but spends little time in his company)

Vampello (knows about him through Rosering but has never met him)

Cout Frakula (same as Vampello)

Walpurg (same as Vampello and Frakula)

The Feratus (wasn't around when they visited)

Dracula

Complicated:

Sunshine Polidori (they haven't actually met in person yet, but Paulus told Carol everything about Sunshine and told Sunshine everything about Carol, though the girl, as expected, didn't believe that the lady her grandpa met is a ghost; also, Carol and Sunshine wrote notes and letters to each other and talked on the phone)

Link: Relationship Chart Extended Meme

Meme by Ninilene

#die schule der kleinen vampire #school for vampires #school for little vampires #oc #my brother's oc #my sibling's oc #my art #carol #carol pages #meme #relationship chart #multifandomteddybear

[movedto-clifflix]

I totally agree with the one anon make your blogging experience yours, don't let anyone else change that because it really does the mental health some good when you just kinda say fuck it. It's your space and if they are being leechy enough to keep stalking your blog that's their fault, like it's extremely petty to do and then to get pissed about it. Like people pick up fos from other people, prime example, what happened between us and Phillip, like it just happens sometimes and people just tend to be petty. It's unfortunately how some people in the community are.

But my advice, fuck them. Be spiteful, ship with who you want too and if they and their lackeys get pressed that's on them, it's about time they go touch grass in my opinion.

You are genuinely a good person Cliff, I love talking with you and seeing you on my dash. You aren't in the wrong here and I'm genuinely sorry someone is going out of their way to make your life hell because that's not fair to you, you've done literally nothing wrong. And if they were a "friend", in the end if they are acting like this they really aren't.

— @neonaiche

@neonaiche by now im so done with it yk i dont even care in the slightest no matter how bad i get insulted n all really idc its so stupid HAHA YEAH SEE !! the thing with us n phil . we made it work out perfectly, no ? cuz we both . used the "knowledge" of our age . n not act like idk a child over it smh grass aint enough for them anymore methinks 💀

i love talking to you n seeing you on my dash too :(( <33 showed theyre true colors ig. idk somehow im the bad guy here cuz i stole him yada yada yada idc i love him he loves me its so childish really

#🦉 owl deliveries 📬

[qhawekazii]

I would like to admit how much I hate people. I don’t understand them, they don’t get me. Hate might be too strong a word but I’d honestly just rather not deal with humans, I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want small talk, I’m not interested in your opinion, I don’t care who has a bigger ass, idc who is pregnant please leave me alone. Come talk to me about cats or just simply leave me be. Literally every time I go to the corner shop I come back unsettled, exhausted, and with the awareness that humans really do exist and they really are leechy even in an energetic sense and no amount of yoga or blunts can restore my zen.

[theleechyskrunkly]

I didn't get the notif, thanks!

Omg Leechy now you know I feel with Lamentations (it actually makes me heart ache)

Aww Aurinelle... the siblings thing is complicated bc like

How do you explain something like that. "Hey honey btw I'm haunted by the ghosts of the siblings I cannibalised in the womb. They're permanently tethered to me and constantly cause me terror and nightmares and stop me from sleeping at night."

Like how do you say something like that? Finn struggles with expressing himself at times (saying I love you is easy but this? Nuh uh) The fact that talking about them scares him too doesn't help.

He also doesn't know how Aurinelle would react to such information. Would he be horrified? Disgusted? Think it's not worth all the emotional pain and worry that being with Finn while he suffers like that will cause (This is Finn over thinking things)

Aurinelle probably only finds out about the ghosts when the travel through the mirror in Spectral Soiree. That is, he sees them along with everyone else present.

Help me lord for I am destined for hell after laughing at the word cannibalized for a straight 3 minutes 😭🙏

And regarding how Aurinelle would react if Finn were to tell him, he'd take a few minutes to process, but he'd hold Finn in place so he wouldn't try to bolt. Then he'd sigh and rub his eyes, shaking his head and then looking up at Finn that showed no sign of disgust nor terror nor anything Finn assumed would be there. Rather, there's just this softness and sympathetic gaze to his eyes before he abruptly pulls Finn into a tight hug that promised love and protection.

He'd then explain to Finn how the only reason the ghosts are still tethered to him in a negative way is because he feels guilty about something he hardly had control over. Finn was hardly conscious in the womb, he was just an embryo in search of nutrition. Only once Finn accepts that and let's go of his guilt will he be freed from the ghosts (and if they don't dissappear, maybe he'll grow fond of them?)

If he finds out the second way, Aurinelle would use his UM to divert everyone's attention and potentially delete their memories (or gaslight them into thinking they were just random ghosts that got attached to Finn). Once they return home, Aurinelle will not press Finn to talk to him, but he makes sure to let him now that he'll listen to him whenever he's ready. Once Finn does tell him, it will follow as it did in the previous two paragraphs.

#Poor Finn #My poor baby #twisted wonderland #twst #disney twst #quinny 🐙 #Twst ocs #finn clearcove #aurinelle sireiwen #Oc x oc

[leech-hearts]

#1k :D #f/o #self insert #self shipping #sad meme :( #angst #original tweet: https://twitter.com/tayallard/status/1140776736302309377 #ppl on twitter explain the cat is ok! #leechy's talking time #i thought of this all by myself so i wanna post it

[nastyboker]

For fandom - "School for vampires", for a ship - Leechy/Gothetta, for a character - Ashley (потому что я неожиданная). Полагаю, ты выберешь что-то одно, но мне интересно всё :ДД

Для друзей всё что угодно! :D

001 | Fandom – School for Vampires

Favorite character: I can't pick just one, so... Oskar and Leechy. Also, I like to theorise about Stoker.

Least Favorite character: Sometimes Polidory and Bruno annoy the shit out of me.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): - Any type of Oskar/Sunshine/Stoker; - Leechy/Gothetta; - Oxblood/Cryptina; - or V-type Alarich/Cryptina/Oxblood (Cryptina tops obvy); - Alarich/Lenny.

Character I find most attractive: Alarich, I guess. But if I watched the show as a kid, I would probably have a crush on Oskar.

Character I would marry: Nobody. x)

Character I would be best friends with: Oskar.

A random thought: What if Oskar is a half-vampire?

An unpopular opinion: Russian dub is better than English dub.

My Canon OTP: Oskar/Sunshine. I believe that Oskar won't be able to date a vampire and building a normal vampire family will be too stressful for him.

My Non-canon OTP: Leechy/Gothetta (more about them down below).

Most Badass Character: Alarich. Sometimes he is just the worst.

Most Epic Villain: The vampire dentist. He is not actually a villain, but he is really epic and terrifying.

Pairing I am not a fan of: Ashley/Buck. I don't like ships without any canon justification or a good headcanon. Canonically Buck is a minor and Ashley is 360 y.o. adult (comparing to Alarich who's around 430, Oxblood who's 800 and Lenny who's 200-something and haven't changed a bit since he got bitten). There's absolutely no reason to give Ashley his child body back just to ship him with a kid he doesn't know.

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): Sunshine is too dull. I expected her to get to know the truth about Oskar being a vampire and to learn how to deal with it, to build friendship with other vampires and to have enemies-to-friends dynamic with Gothetta. Unfortunately, the writers didn't develop Sunshine's character in all 4 seasons. The writers also ruined Alarich when he was too cruel to Klot.

Favourite Friendship: Ashley/Klot. Their friendship is just the purest.

Character I most identify with: Oskar. I am also a sensitive people pleaser and picky about food.

Character I wish I could be: Actually I don't know. X)

002 | Ship – Leechy/Gothetta

When I started shipping them: Quite recently, while I was watching the series for the first time. Unfortunately, I don't remember what episode gave me the idea to ship them.

My thoughts: Firstly, Leechy is Gothetta's second best friend after Oscar. They often work together as class partners and teammates. They also like hanging out together without the others, for instance, dancing at a rock concert or swimming in the swamp. So, Leechy and Gothetta seem to enjoy each other's company. Secondly, they share some interests: they both like to learn vampire chemistry and history. Gothetta loves plants and Leechy once mentioned that he had a Venus fly trap but Stoker cut it with Leechy's army knife. Thus, Gothetta and Leechy have something in common but they are quite different characters and that gives potential for an interesting dynamic.

What makes me happy about them: Just seeing them together makes me happy. X) Sometimes they give me an impression of parent-friends that take care of the rest of the gang.

What makes me sad about them: I wish there was more of their dynamic. It is also sad that when Leechy saves the night or makes a significant contribution for the good of the school, Gothetta praises and kisses Oskar, which is unfair.

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: The fact that there's no fanfic about them.

Things I look for in fanfic: IDK, anything! X)

My wishlist: I don't have much to add here except that Gothetta needs to realize that she likes Nosferatu-in-shorts kind of guys and nerds with whom she has something to talk about. :^)

Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: It's hard to tell, 'cos I think they are perfect for each other. Like I said, I think Oskar should date a human or at least a human and a vampire, so Gothetta/Oskar/Sunshine could work, I guess? The show clearly hints that Stoker has feelings for Gothetta. He even got jealous when he saw her dancing with Leechy. Stoker tried to manhandle her and force her to dance with him, which is why I'm not really sure if they should be together. Maybe someday when Stoker becomes a better person. As for Leechy, he got a gf Ravena in one episode, but all we know about her is that she is all nice and interested in inventions as well as Leechy. Basically, she is an invention herself that was made just for the cliché. So, I don't really mind the Leechy/Ravena ship to exist but I'd like Ravena to have more personality so I could understand their dynamic better and be happy for them.

My happily ever after for them: Okay that's extra corny, but I think of Leechy and Gothetta growing up and becoming new teachers of the school, getting married and maybe having kids in a century or two. c:

003 | Character – Ashley

How I feel about this character: I was mad at first 'cos Ashley was more of an object than a person – nobody paid much attention to him and he almost never participated in everyone's adventures. Things got better when Leechy made that little robocar for him.

Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character: Nobody, I guess. X)

My favorite non-romantic relationship for this character: Ashley/Klot. I even thought they were brothers at first but it turned out they were just friends.

My unpopular opinion about this character: Like I said, since he is 360, I see him as an adult. Plus, his voice from English dub doesn't sound childish at all.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: It would make more sense if Ashley was either a teacher or a child student that turned into a pile of ash not so long ago. Also, it would be interesting if he was a wheelchair kid who lost his legs on the sun. Maybe I should draw this AU idea later. :D

Favorite friendship for this character: Ashley/Klot. Like I said, PURE!

My crossover ship: Pff, Ashley/His Highness (A Kind of Magic) 'cos they are totally soulmates! xD

#school for vampires #die schule der kleinen vampire #ask me #ask meme #fandom memes #shipper memes #otp meme #my otp #my ot3 #oskar von horrificus #ashley von ghoulfangs #leechy von lebanlos #gothetta gothetticus #leechy/gothetta

[juchumice]

MORE QUIRK SWAP HAHA

this was mainly for me to kinda get a handle on hizashi’s character design and personality points that are affected by the au

P.S. THANK FOR @leechy FOR ADDING SOME TOUCHES TO THE INSOMNIAC DRAWING IN THE LEFT SIDE OF THE 1ST PIC, he made it look SO MUCH COOLER UGHHH I LOVE WHAT HE DID SO MUCH

SO hizashi needs caffeine and drinks a LOT of coffee, he’s a bit of a coffee guru at this point because he needs it to help keep up with the ‘eye heaviness’ that erasure causes. so, he does it to give him a rush that allows him to keep him up and energetic since he hates the thought of idling. but because of all that caffeine, he’s a whole lot jittery and instead of being the high energy radio host dude, he’s the high energy radio host dude on speed yo!: extremely talkative, a lot of speaking himself into circles where he starts stuttering, too much fidgeting, etc. he also has these ‘crashes’ where if he hasn’t had caffeine in awhile, all the exhaustion from his lack of sleep (insomnia due to drinking so much coffee) and the caffeine itself, suddenly piles on him and he just slumps asleep where ever he’s at as for hizashi’s relationship with erasure itself, it’s quite a bit more controlled and strong than shouta’s. i like to think that hizashi was more of a character who liked to rely on his quirk while shouta was more of a physical heavy fighter, so i wanted to carry it over to this au.  this means that hizashi spent more time honing his quirk, so he’s able to unlock more abilities with it and it’s stronger, thus having his hair defying gravity 24/7 instead of just when erasure is active (however when he is using his erasure, his clothes and anything he’s holding begins levitating as well). whenever he’s low energy though, esp during his crashes, his hair flops back down because of him being too tired to subconsciously keep it up. ALSO!! here are some differences btwn hizashi’s erasure vs regular shouta’s:

hizashi is able to keep up erasure longer

when his target gets out from his line of sight, erasure still affects them, but only for 1-3 seconds at most before hizashi has to look at them again 

his erasure is more ‘effective’ with dealing with mutation quirks. while before mutation quirks like giving someone the natural strength of an animal or something couldn’t be erased, hizashi’s able to ‘shrink’ them down-- not back to normal size, but they become closer to the strength of an average person

welll apart from that all i can really say now is how he’s got a quieter normal voice! usually i like to think his quirk makes him adjust to a louder regular tone, but now he’s at the usual volume level! 

AND THERE WILL BE ONE FOR SHOUTA NO WORRIES!

#quirk swap au #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #erasermic #hizashi yamada #present mic #eraserhead #shouta aizawa

[wildfire317]

Ok so re-watching the show, I've noticed a few oddities that i thought were worth mentioning:

1) First season Ashley's last name is Von Ghoulfangs, but at the start of season three episode three its been changed to Ashenbecker which was/is his uncles last name so was he adopted by his uncle or what happened?? And a similar thing happened with Klot, season one it was Pumpkinfiend-Trantzum but during the episode his father visited the castle it was changed to Pumpkinfiend, so what happened there (divorce? marriage?) ??

2) During the episode where Asha is introduced its hinted at that Stoker doesn't exactly have the best home-life but its never brought up again??

3) One episode in season two it's explained that Oskar was brought to the count by papyrus (the vampire post bat) in the mail as a baby thus hinting that both of his parents are dead, but in another episode in season three Oskar gets a present that is supposedly from his mother which he only seems mildly surprised about. So one of three things happened, either 1 his mother is still undead and well but something happened that made her incapable of caring for him (possibly the death of his father?), 2 his mother, suspecting something would happen to her she planned gifts to be sent to him in advance before she died or 3 it was actually Gothetta who sent it and she just didnt want to admit it and they've developed that as sort of a code for "i sent this to you but i dont wanna hear about it from the others".

4) as far as we know everyone except for Klot and Stoker could be orphans, for Leechy we don't really know anything about his family since nothing has been mentioned about them at all, Ashley's uncle is still around but as for any other relatives they aren't mentioned outside of their whole family having bad luck, for Oskar as far as we know his uncle and possibly his mother are the only family he has left, much like with Ashley and Leechy, Gothetta's family is never really mentioned besides her cousin Batoria.

5) its been atleast a century since Ironfang got squished by a tombstone and yet he still hasn't noticed, you would think he'd have noticed by now that before he was as tall, if not taller than the count but now he's barely taller than Gothetta.

6) its hinted that Asha and Ravena build at least semi-romantic relationships with Ashley and Leechy respectively but after the episodes where they are introduced they are never mentioned again during the episodes that are supposed to be on romantic vampire holidays.

7) Leechy is an inventor who also has atleast half decent sewing skills and his inventions usually work really well, and Ashley can "possess" a body by going inside of it, both are equally aware of these facts. And yet Leechy hasn't made a robotic or atleast semi-robotic body for Ashley to possess. (Then again does this fandom really need its own equivalent of mettaton from undertale?)

8) Sunshine did a complete 180 when she was turned into a vampire for a short while, while Lenny who was also turned into a vampire was almost completely the same as he was when he was mortal (however i have several theories). Also it was never explained if her grandpa noticed she was missing and what all happened when he saw she was missing?

9) Ashley seems to be much older than he lets on, that or getting ashed slows down the aging process by quite a bit (or the writers couldn't decide on his official age or a consistent aging system unless i have the aging wrong myself)

10) the school officially has its own equivalent of Pennywise the dancing clown, Vampello.

11) Lenny's backstory has changed at-least twice. (I mean unless he somehow got his hands on a magic violin and then lost is to a vampire before becoming one himself)

12) Ashley and Klot seem to have known each other a lot longer than just going to school together.

13) Oskar has fainted and hit his head on either the hard, rocky ground or hard stone floor at least a hundred times and yet somehow he still hasn't given himself a concussion.

14) All six of them can be considered friends on some level, and all six of them have been sharing the same room for quite a while (100 years to 17 years atleast depending on which of them you are talking to) and yet there are still secrets between them? I wouldn't think this was weird if it hadn't been such a long time, by that point I atleast wouldn't think there would be any secrets between any of them besides the whole being friends with a mortal on Oskars end (but they all eventually find out one way or another) by then i'd think they know literally EVERYTHING about each other. Although that may be why Oskar and Klot were so confused during the episode where Stoker is sleepwalking after drinking that "lemonade" that Gothetta made, when they found both Stokers footprints, favorite snack laying around, and a lot of things that seemed like they would be Stokers doing and later found him back in his coffin, because he's not normally a sleepwalker.

15) has nobody else noticed that during several episodes Ashley looks like he is stoned/high i mean that may just be because being sort of an amorphous pile of ash might be giving him a bad case of resting stoner face but.

16) also does anyone else find it a little weird that all the kids share the same bathroom and all the adults share the same bathroom and there seems to be only two bathrooms in the entire castle?

17) Despite constantly poking fun at each other Ashley and Stoker seem to be closer friends than they let on not as close as Ashley is with Klot but still, I noticed this during the episode when Ashleys uncle visits when he implies that the woodworm in his cart makes Ashley look like a hippie, asks him if he is one with mild distain and Stokers immediate reaction was to angrily reply "Who are you calling a hippie" before cutting himself off so he doesn't blow his (and technically everyone else's) cover, that and the only time Stoker ever tried to tattle on Ashley was when he was inviting Asha, who was at that point almost a complete stranger; over to the castle before the one night visitors are allowed and the others (more specifically oskar who is his rival) were helping him, meanwhile Ashley is quite a bit more tolerant of Stoker's shenanigans than the others and seems to be the only one out of their classmates who can actually put him in his place and actually bothers to when he goes to far.

#school for little vampires #school for vampires #die schule der kleinen vampire #Oskar #Ashley #Leechy #Stoker #Klot #Gothetta #Ironfang #Asha #Ravena #Batoria

[whokenobi]

Hey Nati, peeps have been talking about AO bro no longer following SS. I'm sure in time she will unfollow also. I know its not SS style to unfollow an ex but the girls and i were chatting at lunch when this topic came up. Would you continue to follow an ex on social media or hit that unfollow? I personally did because it was a very bad situation. But would you still follow or not?

It would depend on how the situation ended. Some break ups aren’t contentious and end on good terms/because of distance/just not the right time/etc. I think if it did end badly, I wouldn’t hesitate to unfollow immediately. But I am also not Leechy who uses people and her connections to them for personal gain and clout.

[hypnoticwinter]

Down the Rabbit Hole part 35

Just looking at Makado makes me realize how incredibly tired I am. “Makado,” I say, trying to put a little bit of that weariness into my voice, “please, I just want to get Elena out of here.”

“I don’t give a fuck,” Makado tells me. “Take your helmet off.”

“Makado,” I start, but she raises the gun and coaxes a threatening-sounding click out of it.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, and reach up and pop the helmet open. 

“Now take it off slowly and drop it.”

The helmet thuds to the floor with a dull clunk. I keep my hands open, bent at the elbows, roughly shoulder-height. I guess it’s a testament to how often this has happened to me lately that I’m not particularly panicked or flustered, even though she has a gun on me. I look into her eyes; they’re about as kind as a brick wall, a far cry from the Makado I knew - well, that I thought I knew. I don’t think she’ll shoot me but I don’t want to push her. 

“Makado,” I try again, speaking softly, “I know that you’re upset, but -“

“Upset?” she laughs. “That is a big understatement, Roan.”

“As if you have any right to be upset at me,” I snort. Makado’s eyes flash but I press onwards anyway. “You’re the one who was trying to literally fucking frame me for all the illegal shit you were doing -“

“You got Peter killed,” she says. My mind goes blank for a moment before I nearly laugh. I choke it back down; if I started laughing, either out of terror or nerves or just pure exasperation, I know I’d never stop, and I know Makado would probably shoot me.

“Makado,” I say, stammering a little bit, “I didn’t - there was nothing I could have -“

“Then how come you lived and he died, huh?” she says. I think I hear a crack in her icy demeanor and I look at her - really look at her. She glances away after a moment or two, and when her gaze swings back and hits mine whatever I thought I might have seen, whatever small vulnerability, has already faded away. “How come you lived?” she asks. 

The barrel of the gun trembles gently.

“Mak,” I start. I want terribly to be angry at her but something about the way she’s acting is just making me sad instead.

“Don’t call me that!” she yells. She slips her finger inside the gun’s trigger guard and I feel my breath catch. Maybe she really will shoot me; if she’s mad enough, if she thinks that somehow I caused Pete to get…to get leeched, or whatever the hell…

“Peter was the only one who ever called me that,” she murmurs. I know I’ve called her ‘Mak’ before and she never made a fuss about it but I guess this is special circumstances.

“Pete is - was - a fully trained ranger with dozens of expeditions under his belt, he might have - “ Makado licks her lips and tries again - “he might have gone a little downhill after 2007 but he was still sharp. He would have gotten out of there no problem. But he dies and you live?”

“Was that the plan?” I ask. If I can keep her talking maybe I’ll be able to pull something, but deep down I doubt it. “You send me down there hoping I’d die in an accident or something?”

“Of course not,” she says. “But if I had to choose between you and Peter…”

“That’s cold,” I tell her. She starts to say something, but I continue before she can. “But I get it. You loved him, huh?”

“Of course I loved him,” she says, sounding mildly scandalized. “You wouldn’t understand, I’m sure.”

“Why, because I - ? Oh, whatever,” I grunt. “Whatever, Makado. Just shoot me and get it over with.”

“I don’t want to shoot you.”

“Right, of course,” I snarl, putting as much venom into my words as I can. “You want to hand me over to the feds so I can suffer for your sins, right? That’s the endgame here, right?”

She has the good graces to flinch, at least. “I don’t -“ she starts, but I shake my head.

“Whatever,” I tell her. “What happened to Elena?”

Makado looks round, her eyes resting briefly on the wreckage of the autodoctor unit. “I don’t know,” she says. “When I got down here it was like this, and Elena was gone. I was going to -“

“Kidnap her so you’d have some leverage?”

“Bitch, will you stop fucking assuming the goddam worst of me? I was planning on tracking her down and getting her out of here.”

“I don’t believe you,” I tell her, my voice flat. “How did you even know she was here?”

“Because I heard the two of you sopping all over each other on the radio,” she tells me, her voice hard-edged with disdain. “Soon as I heard she was here in DUSA, I split off from my team and rushed up here. Guess I was too late.”

“Goddam it,” I mutter. My cheeks are burning a little from the knowledge that we’d been overhead; I guess I could have assumed, but it still had felt like it had been something private, something special we had shared. Maybe I wouldn’t have broken down quite so hard if I’d known Makado had been listening in. “It must have been the Leechman,” I mutter, glaring at the gaping hunk of metal torn away from DUSA’s hull. My eyes are stinging and I wipe them hurriedly, not thinking, and when I take my hands down Makado is glaring at me very seriously over the sights of the pistol, and I realize that the quick motion nearly made her shoot me. My stomach does a backflip and I stammer out the beginning of an apology before she mutters a curse and takes a length of rope from her suit pocket.

“Hands together,” she orders me, and with a sigh I slap my wrists together and hold them out to her. She comes to me with the rope and hesitates for a moment; I know it’s because she’s only just realizing that she will have to put the gun away to tie me up. 

“I’ll hold that for you,” I offer, and in spite of herself she laughs.

“Turn around,” she says. “Hands behind your back.”

My heart is thumping heavily in my chest as I do. I am trying very hard not to imagine the Leechman bursting into here like a demon straight out of a horror movie and swallowing Elena up into its swollen leechy body. I can feel my hands trembling as Makado takes my wrists and lashes them tightly together. The rough synthetic fiber cuts into my wrists and I grunt. Makado steps away from me and I flex my hands experimentally but it’s no use, she’s tied me tightly enough that I’d never be able to free myself unless I had a knife. She’s already taken mine from the sheath on my belt and tossed it casually to the dusty, oily floor.

Elena’s dead. I can’t stop the thought from echoing around my skull, increasing in severity with each impact. She’s dead, she’s gone, I was too late. If I had just been a little quicker, if I hadn’t stopped to sleep, if I hadn’t…

“Hey, what are you - oh, Jesus Christ,” Makado grumbles. I sniff and look away from her. I try to keep it down but a quiet sob bubbles out of my throat.

“Goddam it,” I mumble. I can’t even wipe my eyes. My shoulders are shaking with the weight of it, with the weight of knowing that -

Makado sighs behind me. “You didn’t kill her,” she says. “If she’s even dead. We don’t know.”

I let out a terribly mirthless laugh. “You didn’t kill him,” Makado continues, begrudgingly. “I know you didn’t, it’s not like you put a gun to his head and shot him. I just…”

“Don’t want him to be gone,” I suggest, and out of the corner of my eye, through a veil of tears, I can see her nod.

I feel as though I might rip in two the next time someone touches me, but in spite of everything I do want to reach out and touch her, brush my thumb along the knobby edge of her wrist, feel her warmth near to me. Maybe it’s pathetic and stupid, maybe I should be spitting and cursing and swearing revenge but I can’t bring myself to. I want to just curl into a little ball and cry. 

Makado is rustling around behind me, and then I hear the click and crackle of a radio. “Peterson, Rodriguez,” she says, enunciating clearly. “Status check, over.”

A moment passes and then the response comes burbling up through the airwaves. “Peterson, checking in. I’ve got Rodriguez here with me but he’s carrying the crystal so he couldn’t call himself. Everything’s good down here. ETA 20 minutes to DUSA. Over.”

“Thanks. You were able to disable the specimen? Over.”

“Hard to say. It backed off but Emmanuel is hurt pretty bad. One of those leeches, it got into her suit and chewed the hell out of her leg. We’ve got her on a stretcher and we’re bringing her back but I don’t know if she’ll make it. Is the autodoc functional? Over.”

“Negative,” Makado says. Her voice is tight and fraying. “Negative, it’s smashed. It looks like the Leechman got here before we did. Over.”

“Shit. Well, Emmanuel is fucked, then. Do we have support from topside? Over.”

I hear Makado mutter a quiet curse below her breath. “Give me a second,” she says. “Out.”

I sniff hard and duck my head down into my shoulder, try and wipe my eyes against the rubber of the ranger suit. Makado is tapping at the pad in the arm of her ranger suit; she’s put the gun away at this point, tucking it into her holster at her hip. I could make a run for it, I reflect. Instead I fold my legs beneath me and sink into a huddle on the floor a little like a gazelle bedding down for the night. Makado glances over at me and then back at her screen. “Who’s Emmanuel?” I ask. My voice creaks partway through it, and when I clear my throat it comes back thick and congested.

“None of your business,” she tells me, a little absently. “You’d better stop crying,” she adds. 

“Fuck you,” I tell her, but I can’t put much heart into it. “Fuck you for trying to walk all over everything and try to do it your way. You walked all over me, you walked all over the team, you walked all over Peter -“

Makado looms over me, ruddy bolts of fury sparkling behind her eyes. “You have no idea, you have no idea -“ she starts, but I roll my eyes at her.

“Do you have any idea how many people are dead because of you?”

That catches her, and I get a vicious little thrill out of seeing how it impacts, how she absorbs it, how her eyes grow even wearier. She starts to say something but I start listing off names.

“The Sergeant. Peter. Slate. Erica and Marcus. Klaus. Crookshank. Euler. Ellis. Emmanuel, whoever that is. And El - Elena,” I say. I have to swallow hard to get that last name out but I manage it. “They’re all your fault, Makado. If you hadn’t gone off the deep end because of this stupid fucking crystal none of this would ever have happened. Does it really matter? Does it really matter this much? Is it worth it? Tell me. Please. Do you even know?”

“They knew the risks,” Makado tries to say, but she isn’t meeting my gaze. “You wouldn’t understand,” she says, a little bit of strength returning to her voice. “You don’t know what it’s like to -“

“To have an obsession take over your life?” I finish, and she blows a breath out.

“I’m the only one trying!” she yells. “I’m the only one fucking trying to stop all of this! That crystal is the only thing that we have that we know can shut down the Pit if it wakes up again. Getting it back should be our top priority -“

“And the last time one of those crystals was used,” I point out, “it infected - I’m sorry, how many people? - with a fucking personality-destroying disease that spreads when you feel emotions and forces you to crawl into the Pit to die.”

“We know better now,” she says, hands on her hips. “We know what we did wrong. If we don’t shatter the crystals -“

“How do you even know? Aren’t you just guessing?”

“You have no right to tell me how to do my job,” she tells me. I can see her knuckles whiten with rage. “I’m doing what needs to be done. If the Pit woke up and became fully ambulatory, it’d be the end of the world as we know it. If you think that isn’t something worth stopping by any means necessary, then you’re either stupid or insane. Maybe both. If I -“

“Okay, Makado. Whatever,” I tell her. I feel as though if I shut my eyes I’d be able to fall asleep in about a minute. My heart hurts. 

Makado glares at me and for a moment, just a moment, I think she might be about to draw her leg back and slam the hard edge of her boot into my gut, but instead she spins on her heel and walks away, fishing the radio out of its holster on her belt and talking quietly into it.

I think for a while about struggling to my feet and just walking out. I don’t think Makado would shoot me, I really don’t. I think she wouldn’t have the heart for it. Maybe she’d just let me go.

Elena’s dead. You haven’t seen the body, a little voice whispers in the back of my mind, but I don’t need to see the body. If the Leechman got her, I’m not sure I want to see the body. I would want my memory of her to remain clean. I want to remember her in the tent smiling down at me, I want to remember her hands on my body, the way her lips felt when she kissed me, the way my heart felt when she kissed me. 

I spend the next twenty minutes or so agonizing myself before the clunk and hiss of heavy machinery, burbles glutinously up from outside the rent in DUSA’s hull. With a little difficulty I manage to sit up and look outwards, and I see three orange figures in ranger suits marching up out of one of the vents leading to this organelle. Two of them are carrying a fourth on a stretcher, and the third…

My mouth drops open. The third is incredibly bulky, far more so than a normal person in a suit, and as they come closer and step into range of DUSA’s flickering floodlights, I realize that they are wearing something like a white enameled arthropod over their arms and legs, a squat mechanical spider perched on their back like a backpack. Its limbs extend along the ranger’s arms and fill out into armored gauntlets encompassing their hands.

And in their hands, hefted with an assurance and strength borne, I imagine, solely from their armor’s assistance, is the crystal, green and spiky and menacing, with an ugly luminosity flaring somewhere deep inside of it. I think again that I can see something moving within its murky depths.

Makado rushes out to meet them, leaving me forgotten, and again I consider getting up and just walking away. I think I’ve missed my chance, though; if it was just Makado, she might let me go. With everyone else here, all of these other rangers, there’s no way I’d be able to get away with it. And who knows if she’d have any compunctions about letting someone else shoot me.

Makado, to her credit, only paused briefly to tell the ranger with the crystal where to set it down before rushing to the ranger on the stretcher. Even from a distance I can tell that she’s hurt badly; her orange suit is splattered with blood and there is an enormous hole in her side. I think I can see teeth marks. One of the rangers shows something to Makado; it looks a little like a very thick, dark length of rope, and I realize with a horrible twist in my gut that it’s a dead leech. It looks to be about three or four feet long; it’s head has been torn off and it trails a thick, foul-smelling ichor behind it in a long oozing trail. 

The huddled conversation over the wounded ranger continues a while longer before the group breaks apart. The ranger with the exoskeleton carries the crystal into DUSA, moving with almost exaggerated care through the hole in the wall. He looks down at me as he passes, craning his neck around the crystal to make sure he isn’t going to bump into me. “You alright?” he asks. He has a thick Texan accent that makes me smile in spite of myself.

“Yeah,” I tell him. “Do you think you could untie me?”

He pauses. “You’re tied up?” 

“Yes,” I say, rolling halfway over and waggling my fingers at him. “See?”

“Why are you tied up?”

“It’s a long story.”

“You’re Dzilenski, aren’t you?”

“I, uh. No.”

“No? What’s your name, then? I haven’t seen you around before.”

The weight of the crystal doesn’t seem to be troubling him at all. He cocks his head at me.

“Merriweather,” I tell him. “I’m new.”

He waggles a finger at me; the servos of the exoskeleton make little whining noises as he does. “Nice try,” he tells me, but I can tell from the shape of his voice that he’s grinning. I shake my head a little and give him a halfhearted smile.

“Can’t blame a girl for trying,” I suggest, and he laughs as he stomps off towards the stairwell, the crystal glowing malevolently in his arms. 

A few moments later someone is taking me roughly beneath my armpits and hauling me to my feet. I stagger a little but keep my balance. I look over and see Makado glaring at me from a few inches away, but it seems as though her temper has died a little; there isn’t quite as much venom in her gaze as before. Without uttering a word to me she marches me out of DUSA and towards one of the rangers, standing on a small, bulgy lump of flesh with their hands on their hips. I feel a spike of fear in my stomach. “What are you going to do with me?” I ask her.

I can see Makado’s lip curl out of the corner of my eye. “I’m not going to kill you,” she tells me. “Peterson there is just going to take you up to the surface and give you back to the feds, that’s all. Then this whole stupid thing can be over and done with.”

“So that’s it, huh?” I ask, breaking out of her grasp and turning to face her. “You’re just going to throw me to the wolves? You really think that you can get away with this?”

“Roan,” she groans. “Do you think I want to fuck you over? Do you think I want to do this?”

“Well, from the way you’re acting -“

“This thing is bigger than you or me,” she says. “And I’m - I’m sorry,” she tells me. To my immense surprise I actually believe her. “I’m sorry, and I don’t want to ruin your life like I know I’m going to, but I - I have to do this. I’m sorry.”

Before I can say anything Peterson takes me firmly by the arm. Makado swallows hard and nods to him. “Take her up. There should be a contingent of FBI agents somewhere up there, I know it’s a mess but they should still be hanging around, probably yelling at Admin. Let them know she’s Roan Dzilenski, they’ll take it from there.”

“Right,” he says. “Come on, then.”

I stare back at Makado all the way over to the vent leading up to the passage out of here; she refuses to meet my gaze.

“I’m sorry about all this,” Peterson mentions, adjusting his grip on me to push a hanging fold of flesh out of the way.

“If you’re so sorry, let me go,” I tell him. He has a quiet, apologetic tone.

“I’m not that sorry,” he explains, and I can’t help but roll my eyes. “Look on the bright side,” he suggests. “You’ll be out of here soon. I’m sure that will be a relief.”

“Yeah,” I snap, “I’m sure that -“

Something falls onto my shoulder and I let out a shriek. It rolls off and slaps onto the ground with a wet, meaty thump and slithers away.

“Are you okay?” Peterson is asking. “What was that?”

I look up, knowing what I’ll see, but the Leechman actually comes at us from the side, the leeches boiling out of the fleshy wall with a noise like a million hungry mouths gnashing and chewing and slurping simultaneously, leaving the wall pockmarked and collapsing. Peterson blurts out a surprised curse and lets me go, his hands darting to his holster, but the Leechman is faster. It reaches out with a massive, dripping, writhing paw and fixes it around his head, lifting him bodily off the ground. Rodriguez screams and I hear commotion from behind, in the main organ housing DUSA, but his screams quickly become muffled and gurgly and thick. His hands and legs are shuddering and jolting like he were being electrocuted, and then my stupid, shell-shocked nerves finally, finally kick into motion and I stagger backwards. My foot catches on something and I fall; the ground comes slamming upwards to meet me and the breath whooshes out of my lungs just as the Leechman drops Peterson. The helmet of his suit is bent and crushed and although he lands on his feet, his body sways gently back and forth like a wind were catching it. The Leechman stomps past me and I cringe away from it, but it ignores me entirely. Its footsteps resound through the meaty floor and rattle my teeth in my jaws.

I am so scared I think I might throw up. Every fiber in my body is screaming at me to get up and run away, but I can’t force myself to move. “Hey,” I whisper, as the Leechman ducks its broad, wormy head and pushes into the organ. “Hey, uh, Peterson, are you okay?”

Rodriguez turns and looks at me and I scream. His face has been eaten away to nothing and his jaw is hanging from a few stringy tendons on the left-hand side of his skull. He shambles towards me and I scream again, and I hear my screams echoed from back behind me in DUSA’s chamber. It’s only a few moments later that the gunfire begins.

I kick my feet and try and push myself away from Rodriguez’s corpse. As I watch a leech crawls out of his mouth and plunges its snub-nosed head into the wreckage of his eye. The body lurches closer to me and into the light and I get a better look at him; my stomach nearly turns. I scream again and try to kick at him but he just catches my leg and drags me closer. The bone of his skull and the scraps of meat and flesh on his face are stained a dark, inky black with a dripping, noxious ichor. Without any preamble the body straddles me and shoves its fingers into my mouth. I choke and cough and try to kick and bite but it’s simply too strong. My eyes are filling with tears but I can still see the body’s cavernous mouth yawning and yawning and the body of an enormous leech slowly struggling up Rodriguez’s pitted, masticated throat. Though it has no eyes or face I imagine it leering at me, and though I redouble my efforts to get away, my throat convulsing in anticipatory terror, I can do absolutely nothing to stop what is about to happen to me. At the very last my courage fails me and I just squeeze my eyes shut and wait for the leech to barrel down my throat, wait with an anticipatory cringe to feel its needle-sharp teeth dig into my insides.

Instead I feel more than hear a horrific, bone-shuddering crunch from just ahead of me, and when I snap my eyes open it takes me a moment to comprehend what I’m seeing. Jutting from Rodriguez’s chest amid a thorny cluster of broken ribs is a bulky mechanical hand absolutely slick with gore and ichor. With a harsh mechanical whine it makes a fist and withdraws from the grapefruit-sized hole it made in Rodriguez’s chest and then seizes the body and flings it off of me. The body lands against the side wall of the vent with a wet crunch and then flops to the floor and lays still. 

“Joker,” I breathe. The robot’s blocky, flat-panelled head is staring down at me with what I imagine to be a rather odd expression. It’s pitted and stained and rusted and every couple of seconds sparks burst from its torn left arm socket. Its armored torso is battered and dented and it moves with difficulty, but it still leans down over me and with incredible gentleness tucks its blood-drenched hand beneath me and brings me lightly to my feet. A moment later it has untied my hands and I can feel the blood rushing back into them with a clustering ache of pins and needles.

I can scarcely breathe I am so relieved but I still manage to reach up and put my hand on the machine’s metallic chest. “Jesus Christ,” I tell it. “I am so fucking happy to see you.”

But before I get any more out, a tall, blonde-haired blur slams into me and wraps me up in long, strong arms and lifts me off of my feet and nuzzles her face against mine. “Oh god,” Elena says, and before she can say any more my greedy, bruised lips find hers and for a moment, just a moment, amid the gunfire and the screams, I feel completely okay.

* * *

When we finally break apart and Elena sets me down on my wobbly, weak-kneed legs, I reach up and take her face in my hands. I still can’t quite believe that she’s here, that she’s alive, that she’s okay. My heart is beating so quickly that I almost feel nauseous and I don’t trust myself to speak. Elena’s eyes are wide and slatey; they flicker over me, dancing like roulette balls, just as she runs her hands over my arms, my legs, my sides and back. “Are you okay?” she asks. Her voice is shaky. I try to speak a few times but I can’t get any words out so instead I just nod. Elena leans in and kisses me again, briefly this time, and then, with her lips brushing my ear she murmurs, “I was so scared, Roan, I was so scared that I had lost you, I thought -“

“It’s okay,” I tell her. There’s another scream from DUSA and we both jump. I grab onto her desperately as she starts to pull away. “Listen, are you alright? The gunshot -“

“I’m okay,” she tells me. “I promise I’m okay. Jesus Christ I thought I lost you. Let’s get out of here.”

Next to her, Joker shifts on his damaged heels and creaks forward further down the vent, towards DUSA. Elena curses. “Hey, wait. Stop. We have to go.”

Joker ignores her. “Elena,” I ask, “what the hell happened? Why is Joker -“

“Whatever the Leechman did to him down in the barrows jarred something loose or damaged him somehow, he’s operating completely autonomously.”

I stare at Elena. “You’re not controlling him?”

“No,” she says. “He - I think he heard our conversation on the radio, that’s how he knew to come to DUSA to get me. It’s a good thing he did or Makado would have gotten me. He burst right in through the wall, it was fucking terrifying.”

“Joker did that? I thought it was the Leechman, I thought you were dead -“

“No, no, it was Joker! Oh, god, baby you must have been so scared -“

“I’m just glad you’re okay. Where did he take you?”

Joker looks back at us, then returns his gaze to the scene inside the organ ahead. The screams have largely died down now, but I can hear Makado shouting something, and a high-pitched electric whine that sets my teeth on edge.

Elena shakes her head. “He must have been monitoring Makado’s transmissions, I think he has to have a radio receiver in there somewhere. He grabbed me and brought me down to a little organelle maybe a mile away and we just sort of hunkered down there for a while.”

“Did he hurt you? If he -“

“No, no, he didn’t, it’s okay, I’m okay. Joker!” she yells. “We have to go!”

Joker ignores her. There is a curious sense of animation about its pose and its motions, quick and precise and birdlike. As I watch, its fingers flex tightly enough to dig deeply into the fleshy wall it rests against. Again its head swivels and glances back at us and I think I can feel its nonexistent gaze resting on me. “Elena, if you’re not controlling it, then who is?”

“I don’t know,” she says, glancing over at me. “I think nobody.”

“But how could it -“

“Roan, listen, forget about that for a moment.” Her lips are tugging upwards in an irrepressible smile and I can’t help but mirror her. I want to hold her and kiss her and - “there was something I needed to tell you, something I needed to tell you face to face,” she says. My stomach swoops upwards in a surge of delight and I reach out, take her hand in mine. 

“Yes?” I ask, trying to sound innocent and oblivious.

“Roan, I -“ she starts, but before she can get more than a few words out, there is a whipcrack of thunder in DUSA’s chamber, and Joker bolts forward like a sprinter off the starting line, and we both scramble into action and chase after him.

DUSA’s wet, fleshy cavern is in utter disarray. Dead leeches are littered everywhere and there are massive stains of ichor and blood splattered all across the cavern, as though someone upended buckets of paint and flung them. A crushed, distended corpse in a black-stained suit has been driven so deeply into the flesh of the floor that it has nearly been snapped in two. Of the Leechman there is no sign, but as we watch, Makado and three other rangers come storming out of the other vent and take up defensive positions around it, hunkering down and training their weapons on DUSA’s hull. Makado is carrying a long grey brick of a rifle, bulky and supremely un-ergodynamic, with what looks like a lens in place of a barrel. I wonder about it for a moment before a sickly green glow floats into view and the Leechman emerges from DUSA, ducking its titanic head, with the crystal beneath one of its arms, held as casually as one might carry a basketball. It pauses there for a moment, peering out at the four small figures opposing it. 

Makado looks scared; her face has paled to a sickly white and I can see the rifle shuddering in her trembling hands.

I can’t see where Joker’s gone; I catch Elena’s eye and frown, but she nods upwards a little, and I see the robot just above us, clinging to the ceiling like a monkey. It seems content to wait for someone to make the first move.

Behind the Leechman an orange-suited figure takes a juddering, unsteady step into the light, and I can see the limp exoskeleton clinging to its limbs like a length of sodden rope. Another figure follows, and then another, and even in the dim half-light, lit by strobes and flashlights and headlamps, I can see their bodies bulging and throbbing with the gallons and gallons of leeches seething beneath their skin.

My stomach betrays me and I bend double and vomit, trying furiously to wipe the image from my mind, but I can still see the man’s distended belly glistening beneath the orange ranger suit, pregnant with its load of parasitic cargo, and the thought sends a wave of furious revulsion scurrying up my limbs, coaxing rank, cold sweat out of my pores.

The Leechman takes a deliberate step forward and Makado pulls the trigger on her rifle. A  coruscating lance of blinding white light jolts from the barrel with the same deafening whip-crack we’d heard before and spears the Leechman through the core of its body, blowing a meter-wide hole open clean through it and filling the air with the smell of burning leeches. The Leechman staggers back a step or two and reaches out to steady itself, dropping the crystal; it clunks to the floor with a strangely musical tinkle and I can see a few of the spikes shatter and fall to pieces.

Makado rises to her feet, a little color returning to her cheeks, and fires again. This bolt catches the Leechman through the head and forces it down to its knees. It puts one massive hand forward to catch itself and Makado burns it off. She advances on the Leechman, firing again and again until the thing is just a pile of writhing, dying leeches, slowly burrowing into the ground and the walls and the ceiling, trying to escape. The bodies of the parasitized rangers shudder and twitch but they hesitate, standing still as though bereft of any governing intelligence.

Finally Makado pulls the trigger and the gun hisses a loud, screeching complaint and vents an enormous gasp of steam from recessed ports in its side; through them I can see the gun’s innards glowing white-hot, and Makado tosses it aside after glaring down at it in disgust. She draws her pistol from her holster and trains it one-handed on one of the rangers, squeezing one eye shut and glaring down the sights.

I open my mouth to suggest to Elena that it might be time to leave, but before I can get a word out the Leechman charges past us, out of the mouth of our vent, forcing a shriek from my mouth, and bowls into Makado headlong, sending her flying. She slams into the wall on the far side of the organ so hard that I can see a Mak-shaped bruise forming in the Pit’s flesh when she flops to the floor, limp and helpless, either stunned or unconscious or dead. 

The rangers open up on the Leechman but if the laser wasn’t enough to kill it, bullets clearly aren’t going to be enough either. The three parasitized rangers surge forwards as well, wading into the fray, but the Leechman is doing the heavy lifting. I cringe back against Elena as I watch it pick up a hapless, screaming ranger and pull him in half, a spray of gore and guts flooding from the man’s cleft torso and legs. I clutch at Elena, trying desperately to get my legs beneath me, and she pulls me up and steadies me.

“We have to go,” she says. I can hear a note of hysteria in her voice. I take a shaky step backwards into the vent and feel a leech writhe and squirm beneath my cleats. Another one leaps at me and thuds into my back. I can feel its jaws working to pierce the thick latex of the ranger suit, and I hop frantically, trying to reach backwards and dislodge it. Elena brushes it off of me and crushes it beneath her boot just as the Leechman vomits a tidal wave of blunt, wriggling bodies into the pried-open chest of another ranger, struggling weakly in the creature’s squirming grip.

More leeches patter against us, driving us unwillingly out of the vent as we crawl and duck and dodge, trying to avoid them. A nerveless, exoskeletoned paw swipes at me clumsily and I scream and throw myself out of the way. From my vantage point on the ground I see Elena shove the infested ranger back and unload the entire magazine of her pistol into his gut, but the body staggers towards us still. I can see Elena’s teeth bared, a mad glint in her eyes, and I know that she is about to charge the thing and I know that it will kill her, but I haven’t enough breath to tell her not to.

Deeper in the chamber, the Leechman plucks the head off of a ranger’s pinioned, struggling body as easily as separating an apple from a tree and fling the chunk away like a bloody comet. It slaps wetly to the ground only a few feet away from me and I roll back from it, nearly mad with terror. I can see the Leechman slowly turning towards us and I am so afraid I think I might die just from fear alone.

“El - El - El - “ I try, again and again, but I can’t breathe, I can’t speak, I can’t think -

Joker drops from the ceiling directly onto the parasitized ranger, landing with a sickening crunch and a whine of servos. Its head snaps upwards and regards the Leechman with a calculating stare, and the Leechman, impossibly, stops. It seems to cock its head at Joker, and then it takes a step forward, heavy and inevitable and menacing, but before it can go any further Joker launches itself at it with a scream of straining metal and whining pistons. I struggle to my knees and brush the leeches off of Elena, checking her suit for holes or punctures.

Joker is losing. The Leechman has torn its other arm off and tossed it aside, and now it’s yanking at Joker’s leg. Joker is lurching spasmodically back and forth, trying to get free, but the Leechman has too strong a grip on it. The leeches are flowing over the robot’s metal form and in a few more moments it looks as though it’ll be enveloped entirely. I can see Joker’s head turn with what seems like a titanic effort and peer back at us, and then it disappears beneath the surface of the Leechman.

I tug Elena to her feet and take a few faltering steps back towards the vent before there is a colossal wave of sound and light and heat from behind that bowls me over and knocks me face-down in the sopping, bloodstained flesh. Elena falls over me with a scream and for a while all we can do is cling to each other and pray that whatever the hell happened is over quickly.

A moment passes, then another. I roll over and, with more than a little trepidation, sit up. 

It looks as though a bomb has gone off. There is a bloody, charred crater in the floor, and all that remains of Joker are a few metal fragments, embedded like shrapnel in the floor and walls and ceiling. The parasitized rangers have all been cut down, most of them separated into small pieces of flesh, both leech, and human, smeared across DUSA and the organelle like daubs of lumpy paint.

Of the Leechman there is no sign, and when I glance over at it, I realize that the crystal is gone as well.

After another few minutes of utter stillness, Elena and I look at each other. “Are you okay?” she asks, and I glance down at myself.

“Somehow,” I say, “I think I am. Are you?”

She pats at herself cautiously, peers down at her legs, wiggles her foot. “I think so. Did Joker - ?”

I point to the crater. “He must have exploded. Either there was some kind of self-destruct or whatever engine or motor it used was damaged, or…”

“Jesus,” Elena breathes, getting shakily to her feet. She offers me a hand and helps me up and for a little while all we can do is survey the carnage. I feel as though I want to cry and laugh and throw up all at the same time. 

I squeeze Elena’s hand. “What were you going to tell me?” I ask.

“Is now really the time?” she smiles, and I bite my lip to keep myself from grinning back at her.

“At this rate, if you don’t say it now you’re never going to.”

“Roan,” she says, putting a hand on my cheek, “I -“

There is a groan from across the cavern and we both snap around. Over there, on the far side of the wall, Makado is starting to sit up. She looks shaky and shell-shocked and terrified. She sees us and tries to get to her feet, but her leg buckles beneath her and she falls back to the ground. Elena’s eyes narrow and she lets me go, starting towards Makado, her hands curling into fists. I have a knot in my stomach.

“Elena, wait,” I call after her. She spins and stares at me and then shakes her head.

“Don’t look,” she tells me, and for a moment, just a moment, I think of going after her and stopping her from - from doing whatever she’s about to do.

But instead the coward in me wins out and I avert my gaze, squeezing my eyes shut, my insides tensing in anticipation of a gunshot. I hear Makado cry out weakly, and I shudder.

There is a loud, satisfying smack, as of fist on jaw, and then a flopping sound. I look up and see Elena wringing her hand, cursing beneath her breath, before she flips an insensate Makado onto her stomach and, folding the woman’s hands behind her, begins to lash her wrists together with a length of paracord. She looks up and sees me staring, registers the expression on my face and gives me a laugh.

“You thought I was going to kill her?” she asks, and I blow a breath out and try to calm myself before I answer.

“I didn’t know what you were going to do,” I say, truthfully.

“I’m not a killer,” Elena tells me, hefting Makado’s slim frame onto her shoulders in a fireman’s carry. “Jesus Christ,” she adds, adjusting her load a little. “This little shit is heavy.”

I kick at a piece of wreckage, a folded metal panel, bent from the force of the blast, and then reach down and with difficulty pull Joker’s battered torso out of the crater. Elena sets Makado down none too gently and comes over and squats beside me.

There’s something that looks a little like a car battery, jammed into a slot in the torso. I tug at it, using my foot to hold the hunk of metal steady, and it breaks free with a hiss like a seal being broken. “What is that?” Elena asks. I shake my head.

“BCPU - Property of Anodyne Berlin,” I read. “Mind Impulse Unit - B. Walken.”

“Walken?” Elena asks, incredulous. 

“No,” I say, “this can’t - no, that’s ridiculous.”

“What is?”

“Burt Walken was Erica’s husband,” I tell her. “B. Walken, Burt Walken. She told me he died from the psychic illness from 2007, that Anodyne had never returned his body.”

The top of the box is translucent plastic, but it’s too dark to see inside. Elena reaches down and grabs her flashlight and shines it onto the box, and we both squint at it. When I comprehend what I’m seeing I nearly drop it - for there inside the box, soaking in a briny, gelatinous fluid, festooned with wires and covered in metal electrodes and circuits, are the ridges and folds of a clearly human brain.

* * *

“What were you going to tell me?” I ask Elena again once she gets off the radio. She’s spent the last fifteen minutes begging and cajoling and cursing someone on the surface to try and get them to send someone down to get us and finally, finally gotten a begrudging affirmative. I can slowly feel my spirits rising, and Elena even gives me a secret little smile as she comes to sit next to me, sinking down against the wall of the vent with a groan of relief. I lean my head on her shoulder and she kisses me gently on the forehead. A wash of warmth floods down my arms and legs and I have to restrain myself from seizing her and clutching her to me.

“You sure I shouldn’t just leave it a mystery at this point?” she asks, and I elbow her lightly in the ribs.

“Tell me,” I insist.

Elena leans back and takes my chin gently in her hand, inclining my face upwards to her. I can see her studying me, see her pupils dilate as they flick from my eyes to my cheeks to my nose to my lips. “I love you,” she says, and my heart jumps in my chest as though struck by lightning. I can feel myself grinning madly, and then our lips brush and then fit together as though they were made to do so.

And then, when our breath has finally grown short enough to force us to break apart, we slowly rise, Elena’s hand in mine, scarcely daring to tear our eyes from each other, and begin to gather our things for the long journey up.

Continue with the Epilogue

Back to Table of Contents

#mystery flesh pit #Down the rabbit hole #writing #writeblr #alt lit #mystery #fiction #Novel #Michael Crichton #caving #disaster #the end

[lovelyelbowleech]

So. I may have seen your re-blog about you wanting to talk about your fic. So first of all.... GREAT FUCKING JOB, I love your fic.

Love it & I’m not sure what you want to talk about but I can try to come up with some stimulating questions...

1. What caused you to write an AtLA Zukka fic?

2. How long do you plan on carrying on the story?

3. Do you consider yourself a writer or just having fun writing some fanfic on your free time?

4. What is your favorite part about writing your current fic?

Alright Leechy! Can’t wait to see what you say. :D

Love the gif! 😂

Thank you for the questions! So....

1. I love Sokka and Zuko, as both shipy and platonic. Their dynamic has so much potential, and I wanted to write Sokka POV Bec I thought it would be fun. But what triggered off actually writing it, was when I came across a post about how creepy Zhao was with Zuko in Ep.3, and I rewatched the ep and he really, really was. His whole personality is kind of predatory, so it got me thinking about what kind of predator he would be (age and gender irrelevant, all about the power) So then I accidentally wrote a 90k fic about it. I think another comment on that post was about what would happen if Azula found out Zhao was creeping on her brother, which leads us to your second question...

2. The Azula thing got me thinking about her relationship with her dad, and what might just push her over the edge to get her treason on. So then I started planning part two. So, the answer is, it is going to carry on for some time because I have somehow got myself repotting the whole rest of the show and its now a huge sprawling mess. But I am having a lot of fun 😬. There will be 3 parts, War Crimes, War Games (covering the war) and Peace Talks (post war).

3. Tough one... I consider myself a writer because I write, but I only write fanfic atm and only for fun!

4. Dialogue - it just comes so easy for these characters, I don't even have to think about it. There is also a moment when the chapter is a horrid mess of barely connected points and drivel, when suddenly it just slides into place and fits together. I like that moment.

Thank you for your questions! Sorry it got a bit wordy, lol!

#fic asks #warcrimes #ssreeder

[multifandomteddybear]

Chart for the relationships of my OC, Rosering.

Family:

Sunshine Polidori (sister figure)

Paulus Polidori (grandfather figure)

Best Friends:

Oskar

Gothetta

Stoker

Leechy

Klot

Ashley

Count Alarich von Horrificus

Professor Oxblood

Lady Kryptina

Nestor

Sunshine Polidori

Paulus Polidori

Vampello

Cout Frakula

Walpurg

Big T and Lefty

Bruno

Friends:

Dr. Ironfang (literally the only thing keeping him from being a bestie is the fact he lives far away and only visits the castle occasionally)

Klaus Tratzum (same as Ironfang)

Crushing On:

Bruno (likes the guy more than just a friend but feels very comfortable not starting any romantic relationships: she just likes how the things are between them and doesn't want to change anything at the moment; she's likely to make a move when she's older though)

One-sided Crush:

Bruno (with the girl keeping her crush quite platonic, the guy is completely unaware of her deeper feelings and is sure the extreme amount of affection she displays with him is just Rosie being her usual friendly self)

Stranger:

The Feratus (wasn't around when they visited and her parents didn't talk to her about them)

Complicated:

Paulus Polidori (with the two of them having compatible personalities and him not knowing she's a dhampir, they quickly became friends and, in a way, even a family, after the truth came out, they had a temporary rift in their relationship, mostly on Paulus's side, but in the end they found common ground again, both learned from the situation, saw each other's prospectives better and returned to their gradfather-and-graddaughter-like relationship)

Walpurg (the girl, despite him nearly killing her the first time they met, saw him as a great potential bff material while he mostly found her annoying at first, but, as the time went on, he started to appreciate her cute obliviousness, unbreakable positive attitude and great survival skills, which led to them growing closer and serious fights turning into fun and mostly harmless friendly wars and then into usual hangouts as friends)

Cout Frakula (a vampire outcast just like Walpurg)

Vampello (same as Frakula)

Link: Relationship Chart Extended Meme

Meme by Ninilene

#die schule der kleinen vampire #school for vampires #school for little vampires #oc #my oc #my art #rosering #meme #relationship chart #multifandomteddybear

[theplaguedoctorturnedmegay]

I have a serious Julian deficit. Are you doing headcanons? o.O If so, could you do Julian's guilty pleasures? (SFW or NSFW, don't know where you stand on this, but I take anything, I love the leechy pirate bitch T_T). Thank you! Your previous HC was 11/10!

Julian has a lot of guilty pleasures so ive broken it down into three categories: food/drink, affection/kink, and activity.

Activity 🐞

He is not shy about crying or masturbation, but he will never tell you he has done both at the same time.

Definitely learns tiktok dances in his free time

Still dabs

Steals random street animals and fixes up any problems they might have (cleans wounds, casts any broken bones, takes them to Nadia so she can find a vet, etc.)

Breaking and entering into his friends houses/businesses to move their shit around and make them think they have a ghost.

Twerks to Beethoven

Has played twister naked

" What's the point in these clothes? Let's skinny dip bitches."

Affection/ Kink 🌹

Julian definitely likes to be tied up, but you already knew that.

He's a bitch for tender touches. Squeeze his hand, rub his waist, play with his hair.

He has whips and paddles that he won't show you until he knows you won't kinkshame him.

He likes his hair pulled

Sometimes he baby talks when he wants something wholesome "Y/n..want snuggles.."

Takes masochist to a WHOLE new level

Baby bottom bitch boy

Leather.

Food/Drink 💞

Fries and milkshakes

The fufu "lady" drinks

He has definitely gotten curious and taken a bite out of pepi's food. It was not good.

When Lucio was sick he put paprika in his soup to watch him suffer.

Couldn't take spice even if it was life or death

Once cried after eating a taki

#julian devorak #the arcane julian #the arcana julian #the arcana #sexy plague doctor #plague doctor