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juniorgman187 · 3 years

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Malchance (Reid Fic) - Part 2

Summary: The only thing reader can count on is her bad luck and what it’ll get her into. In this case, it’s the lioness’ den - the lioness being Cat Adams.

Category: Angst, Fluffy Ending Pairing: Fem!Reader x Spencer Reid Content Warning: Canon-consistent trauma, brief mention of daddy issues, blood, manipulation, yelling, deceit (Let me know if I missed anything) Playlist: Call Out My Name by The Weeknd Word Count: 5k

READ PART 1 HERE!

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　

“There’s going to be a key to cracking Cat,” Ms. Prentiss explained to me.

“A key?”

“You’ll know it when you find it.”

That was probably the most ambiguous advice I could’ve gotten, but it’s the one she sent me into the field with and the one that loomed in the back of my head as everything unfolded.

The plan the team and I agreed upon, which ironically Dr. Reid knew no part of, was that after Cat and him went to the rink, they’d come back to his apartment, where I would be waiting. Posing as his concerned girlfriend, the unexpected presence of competition would enrage Cat. With the wrath of a woman scorned, she’ll be furious enough to slip up and make a mistake.

I’ve heard that she’s done her best, or arguably her worst, when she’s prepared, so this curveball might just put an end to the reign of Queen Cat.

As far as the outlined plan of events went, sure, it was simple. As for me?

No shot in hell that I’d be able to pull this off.

There was seemingly no feasible reality where I could outsmart her until she made a mistake or keep on the facade long enough to deceive her. The entire success of the plan hinged on my abilities or her lack of propriety. Not exactly betting odds, if you ask me.

And yet, against everything, I was still walking into the lion’s den on my own volition, making myself right at home, acting like this was exactly where I belonged. When in reality, this was the last place I should’ve been.

“You got this, okay?” Someone in my earpiece chirped. Just out of paranoia, I pressed the device further in, un-tucking the strands of hair behind my ear to better conceal it. Even that wasn’t enough to lower the specter of my doubt. I prayed that she was lax in her vetting tonight.

“Spencie!” A giggly shriek from outside the door sent one large shock wave through my entire body. It was so sharp like they were right there. The sound of heavy footsteps followed, and my stomach churned in anticipation. I already hated this.

How did I even get here?

Oh, right - malchance.

I contemplated cracking my knuckles to self-soothe, but then I remembered what Ms. Prentiss told me about ‘tells.’

“Bodily tells are how people can read the emotions you’re not directly expressing. A majority of what profilers use to study behavior is your body language. Unfortunately, some of the best profilers are the unsubs themselves. She’ll know what you’re feeling if you show her. So stay strong.”

Stay strong.

Try as I might, I couldn’t keep the fear from washing over me when the pair of muffled voices outside became clearer as they entered the apartment.

I must’ve caught them in the middle of something, but I couldn’t exactly deduce what, seeing as they stopped when they saw me, which was before I turned around.

Dr. Reid was floored by my being there, but at least, he had a look of recognition. It wasn’t enough that he merely distinguished me to settle the worry I had about the fact that the BAU hadn’t told him I would be here. If I could, I would have, but they each advised against it. They needed his raw reaction just as much as they needed her’s.

One ghastly look up and down and I could tell she came to the exact conclusion the team anticipated she would - that I’m her new competition.

“Spencie - who is this?”

Her dehumanization of me made Dr. Reid viscerally guilty for having extended an opportunity to let yet another person suffer the corollaries of her cruelty. He shook his head softly at me as though to say, ‘I’m sorry.’ An interesting choice - that that was what he chose to nonverbally say to me first. He didn’t even ask me with his eyes why I was here or what I was doing - he just apologized.

What has this poor man been through?

“I’m his girlfriend,” I answered for him before the silence could get suspiciously long. By inserting myself in the conversation, I was following what the BAU suggested I should do earlier. Stand your ground. You can’t be afraid to speak up to her. “I’m (y/n). You are?”

I held out my hand for a handshake that was never returned. Instead, all I got back was an ice cold stare.

She’s reading your body language, an inner voice I didn’t even recognize called from within me. Soon after I realized it wasn’t my conscience speaking - it was Ms. Prentiss. I’d forgotten I had an earpiece, much less that there were micro cameras littered all over the apartment so they could have a firsthand view of this train wreck. How could anyone voluntarily watch this mess unravel?

“And when did this happen?” Her voice went up an octave as she tilted her head with morbid curiosity, then let it roll back in Dr. Reid’s direction. “Spencer?”

“Five months ago,” he replied without missing a beat, keeping his eyes steady on mine. If I hadn’t known any better, I would’ve believed him, but that stare he was giving me said something more. What’s going on? He wondered.

Oh, Dr. Reid, if only I could tell you.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had a girlfriend?” She asked through gritted teeth and a clenched jaw. Suddenly, the surface of her expressions liquified then melted away until I could see well beneath the anger, revealing the bodily tells of humiliation.

I was profiling her, and I didn’t even know that I could.

“You made me promise not to talk about anyone else except you tonight, remember?” He remarked with an uncharacteristic amount of edge behind his words.

His outer mask was liquefying and transforming in its own right, too. As Cat became easier to read, the Doctor was slowly morphing into the man I first met - the man who was furious enough to throw an entire set of books off a table. The man who’s darkness made him impossible to read - made it impossible to think he’d ever been seen or touched by the light.

She huffed and spun her head around so fast, it made her hair whip up and over her shoulder. The stern look upon her face fell for the briefest moment, and if it hadn’t been for everything I knew about her, I would’ve thought she looked pretty. She was pretty. But her soul, her sensibilities, they just ruined her. It was a shame really.

She was tainted by wickedness in a way that I never would be, and for that, she had already come to the decisive determination that she hated me.

“So how old are you, (y/n)?” Like a hawk hovering over its prey, she began to walk around me in a tight circle so she could scrutinize my every angle, discover every flaw, and poke at every button she could find. Precisely why she asked that question, too. She wanted to know where the similarities started and ended between us. She wanted to compare herself to me. Size me up, tear me down - lioness v. lioness. If she was gonna play dirty, then so be it. Two can play that game.

“I’m 28.” A flat out lie. I’m 26.

“Wow, I didn’t realize you had a type, Spencer,” She ruefully chuckled.

“And what’s that, Cat?” I couldn’t see him, but he sounded so unamused.

“Jailbait.”

There wasn’t much I could do besides move on from the subject. “Cat? Is it?” Considering she hadn’t told me her name before, I think Dr. Reid purposefully included it in his response so that I’d have a reason to know what it was.

Smart move, Doctor.

I wanted to smile from the way he was helping me out and working together with me, but my poker face stayed on.

“Catherine Adams,” She drew out the name to assert herself. I didn’t get to call her Cat like Dr. Reid did. That was his name for her and his name only. She made that point crystal clear. When I finally shrugged, she pounced once more.

“You really have no idea who I am? I’m hurt.” She fake pouted and put a hand to her heart to feign offense. “Spencer’s never mentioned me? Not once in your five months of dating?” Her emphasis on the timing of our ‘relationship’ showed her knowledge of the deceit, but she needed to do more than just put stress on one word. I wouldn’t back down that easily.

“Why would he? You mean nothing to us.” Nastier words have never left my lips, and yet, I still made sure they were coated in the harshest tone I could muster up the courage to use.

She scoffed and stopped walking around me to pull on Dr. Reid’s arm and force her mouth to make contact with his ear. Despite the closeness, he still refused to meet her eyes. He kept them locked on mine.

“I mean nothing to you? Is that so?” Her breath was a jarring enough sensation on his neck to make his eyes shut. He was beyond uncomfortable. “Why don’t you go ahead and tell her what you told me at the rink?”

“What did you tell her, Spencer?” I was forcing him to speak, not because of the case, but because I wanted to know. Was that wrong?

“I …” The words got caught in his throat. “I told her that there’s some part of my brain, some part that she somehow inhabits.”

A pang in my chest told me there was still more. That pang would be correct.

“No, go ahead, Spencie. Tell her the rest. Don’t be shy now.”

He forced himself to look away from me as he said, “And no woman, no matter how good, no matter how kind, no matter how …”

“Say it,” She demanded, firmly tugging on his arm harder.

“No matter how sexy she is, can ever get her out.” He looked repulsed by his own admission, and if I was being honest, so was I.

“Are you in love with her?” Although I was venturing far off script, it felt like an appropriate response as his ‘girlfriend.’ It was my response.

“No. I’ve never loved anyone the way I loved you.”

He’s such a pretty liar.

Cat must’ve been annoyed by her lack of involvement in the conversation as she felt compelled to step in. “Prove it. Kiss her like you kissed me out there and I might believe you.”

Pretending to be hurt wasn’t hard. Not when I didn’t have to pretend.

“You kissed her, too?” I had to ask.

Imagine if I were actually this poor guy’s girlfriend. Forget me - God help that girl. Even if this was all for the sake of the job, that wouldn’t have made it any better hearing what he’d confessed to her or what they did.

Dr. Reid looked incredibly apologetic for someone that had nothing to apologize for. Sure, I was playing his girlfriend, but I wasn’t actually anyone of value in his life. So why did he look like he felt so goddamn guilty?

“Ugh hurry up and kiss already!” Cat stomped her foot impatiently.

As she released Dr. Reid, she gave him a strong shove in my direction, causing him to stumble right into me. He’d caught himself by grabbing onto my hips, while I stabilized him by clutching onto his forearms.

His eyes were piercing through mine. I won’t kiss you unless I have your permission. His eyes read.

Fighting against every reflex in my body that was resisting, I leaned closer. Then, right as I closed my eyes, I felt it.

Not his lips.

Blood.

My blood.

The coin-like taste shocked my eyes wide open so fast you would think I never even closed them in the first place. Abandoning my grip on his arm, I used my hand to block the sight of my bloody nose.

(Y/n), what’s going on? Ms. Prentiss asked in my earpiece.

“My nose is bleeding,” was my answer for everyone listening - Dr. Reid, Cat, and the BAU alike.

“Are you alright?” He unhesitatingly shifted out of the role he seemed to be playing. His guard fell down to the point where it felt like nothing else mattered but to know that I was okay. It wasn’t Spencer and his fake girlfriend talking anymore, it was Dr. Reid and me again.

“HELLO?! What’s going on?” The minute Cat’s shrilly voice hit the air, Dr. Reid shut it down with a steadfast hand.

“Not now, Cat! Time out.” He motioned a T before he let an invisible magnetic force freely connect his hands onto my hips again. It seemed like he didn’t even touch me on his own accord but instead, it was the mere gravitational pull that brought his body back to mine. “This isn’t a game anymore.” His tone was unwavering as he walked me away from Cat and into the bathroom.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He whispered in a familiar tone after shutting the bathroom door behind himself. “You can leave now. You don’t have to keep doing this.” As though I were his grandmother’s delicate china, he hoisted me in the air momentarily to help me onto the sink with an almost unnecessarily large amount of caution.

“I’m fine.” While I attempted to wave off his concern nonchalantly, traitorous butterflies swarmed my stomach at the feeling of his touch.

“Don’t tell me you’re fine!” He scolded through an outpouring of laughter. “I can see the blood!” He underlined his words by pressing the toilet paper he retrieved on the spot under my nose where the blood was centralized.

“Then don’t ask!” I just as playfully responded.

“Alright, fine, fine,” He jokingly put his hands up in surrender. “What should I ask you then?”

I wish I was more uncomfortable than I truly was. Maybe then it would’ve been easier to lie to him. But there was something about how close he was to me or how unrelenting his stare was that made sincerity spill out from my every seam.

“‘Why are you even here if you’re just ruining things?’”

He looked so hurt despite the fact that the depreciation was directed at me. “Why would I ask you that?”

“Because it’s true, isn’t it?” My eyes flashed to the door to ensure it was closed, but without the ability to guarantee that Cat wasn’t right outside listening in, I lowered my voice. “I’m way in over my head here. I have no idea what I’m doing and I feel like I’m just making things worse.”

“None of that is true,” It sounded like a reprimand, the way he was defending me to me. “The team wouldn’t have asked you to be here if they didn’t think you could do it … and anyway, it’s kind of nice having a partner in crime.”

He needed to watch his step before he began charting dangerous waters from which he could never escape. I was already playing with fire by allowing any real genuine emotion seep out around Cat. Except now that he’d thrown me a lifeline with his insinuation of liking my company, I knew, at least to some degree, that the feeling was mutual. I briefly calculated the risk until I ultimately decided to let my boldness rear its ugly head.

With the speed of light, I clicked off my earpiece with one hand and turned off Spencer’s with the other. He caught my wrist only after I’d successfully disabled the devices from allowing the team to hear us and us to hear them.

“What are you doing?” “Why didn’t you kiss me?”

Our questions came at the exact same time, and yet I didn’t repeat myself.

I knew he heard me.

It was out of turn for me, given that I’d only briefly calculated the risk of asking this before doing it. It came out suddenly and then I couldn’t take it back. But I blame his gaze for my oversharing. It brought me so much comfort that I failed to recognize the discomfort my question had posed.

He sort of laughed, saying, “Your nose was bleeding.”

Under any other circumstance, I would have believed him. Unfortunately, he was exceptionally unconvincing, precisely because he didn’t look very sure of that explanation himself.

While I’m sure my nose bleeding was a reason not to kiss me, it was most definitely not the reason. My honesty itself felt something like a nose bleed. For one thing, it annoyed me and was beyond my control. But for another, I wished I could find the source and pinch it off to make it stop. Stop it before I spilled out the words, “Oh, I get it ... you just didn’t want to kiss me.”

“That was definitely not the problem,” He said a little too quickly and a little too adamantly that it made my head spin. In that response - he sounded very sure of himself, a complete contrast to his previous demeanor.

“So why didn’t you?” I wish I could tell you why I was pressing the subject so hard. I’d like to think that if you were in my position, you’d want to know the answer as badly as I do now, which is the best rationale I could possibly come up with to justify what I said next.

“If you weren’t scared and if you didn’t not want to, then why didn’t you?”

“(Y/n),” He averted my eyes by turning his head to the side, revealing a side smirk of contempt. I should’ve been mad that he was visibly frustrated because if anything - he was the one being frustrating. Instead, all I could think about was how I wanted to kiss that smirky mouth. Maybe to make the smirky-ness disappear. Or to control it.

Make it mine.

“You’re running out of excuses, Dr. Reid. You’re going to have to kiss me eventually, so let’s just get this over with already.” Did I really just say that?

“I’m not gonna do that.”

“Kiss me!” Yes, I really did.

“I’m not going to kiss you.”

“Just kiss me!”

“(Y/n), stop.”

“God, Spencer, just kiss me already!”

“No!” His eyes found me again; This time they were wider. “Not like this!”

Silence.

Then he cleared his throat as if they’d somehow cover the confession that had already been said.

“Not - I didn't mean - I just. We can't like that because that's not … do you know? Like it's very ... that's not what-" He continued to stammer until he mouthed one last “What?” to himself in complete disbelief of the words that had left his lips and the words that were still struggling to.

Our brains must’ve been working at the exact same speed because while he couldn’t find the right words to say, I was still trying to process everything he already had.

Without waiting for my response, he fled from the bathroom. When the door slammed shut, I whipped my body around to face the mirror, my fist tingling with the urge to punch the stupid girl staring back at me in the reflection.

I knew I couldn’t take refuge in here for much longer unless I really wanted to piss Cat off. Which I totally did, but not if I couldn’t guarantee that Spencer wouldn’t be caught in the crossfire. As confused and pissed off as he made me, I never wanted to hurt him.

Once this realization dawned on me, another one had followed.

This was the key to cracking Cat. I’d found it.

Like an overexcited bull bursting through the gates, I pushed my way out of the bathroom door seeing red. I saw Spencer first, standing in the corner of the room to monitor Cat from a distance. The aforementioned lioness herself was perched in an armchair, slouching in it comfortably as though she’d sat in that very seat a hundred times before. Not a single display of care in her conduct for the people whose lives she was actively trying to ruin.

“So you finally ready to kiss your boyfriend yet?” If sarcasm were a liquid, it’d be dripping from her lips. She was so casually destructive when she spoke, like a loose-lipped bomb capable of going off at any minute but deliberately delaying the blow until it was guaranteed to wreak the most havoc on the most number of people. Seeing her in that light only made things easier.

“Forget the kiss, Cat. In fact, forget Spencer all together,” I waved my hand in his general direction behind me. Like him, I was standing, giving me all the power I needed to assert myself effectively. “It’s just you and me now. Exactly what you’ve wanted since the minute you stepped in here.”

She laughed ruefully, if only to make me insecure. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you scoped me out. You were doing that to figure out how alike we are, right?”

She straightened a little more to sit up in her chair. She was hooked. “Why would I want to do that?”

With my right foot, I swiped the foot rest out from underneath her legs, making her feet fall flat against the floor. Caught off guard by my swift movement, her upper body hurled forward while I took my seat on the foot rest, placing me directly across from her.

It wasn’t for a lack of dominance that I sat down. No, it was that I knew I had power over her, and I didn’t need to stand up anymore to prove it.

“Feel free to stop me when I’m wrong,” I told her emphatically, knowing that would never happen.

“You have always wanted Spencer. That’s just a fact. But deep down, you know he’s never truly wanted you. Sure, maybe he likes, even loves, the allure of your forbidden connection, but he doesn’t like or love you. And now that I’m here, the person he claims he loves in a way he’s never loved anyone before, you want to know just how similar we are. Because the more similarities you find between us, the more it kills you inside to wonder why he would love me over you if we’re practically the same. But you’ve only judged me from the outside, and we both know looks only go so far. So I’ll make it easier for you, Cat. I’ll tell you anything you want to know that way you can come up with an answer to the question you’ve been asking yourself the entire night: ‘Why her and not me?’”

She couldn’t pretend to be unfazed anymore. I had moved her beyond that. She was finally starting to react.

“You would only be this confident if you already knew the answer to that question.” She concluded through gritted teeth. Her body was shaking all over, like the rage inside of her was boiling and her body was the feverish, bubbling water. “Do you know the answer?”

I had nothing to hide. “Yes, I do.”

“Tell me!” She threw down an iron fist against the top of her thigh. “Tell me what the answer is.”

“You have more confidence in my answer than you’re ability to figure it out yourself? Come on, Cat. You couldn’t have gotten this far without your intelligence.”

“I don’t want to figure it out. I want you to tell me.” Her fist clamped around itself harder.

“You don’t trust yourself to ask the right questions?”

“Just. Tell. Me.” Jaw clench.

“Alright, I’ll give you one similarity to start. We both have daddy issues-”

“I don’t care! Just give me the answer.” Foot tapping.

“My grandma used to call my dad a ‘Bastard’ in French actually -”

“Tell me!” Bodily tell after bodily tell, and I knew, I had done it.

I beat the betting odds.

“Fine, Cat. I’ll tell you what it is,” I had her undivided attention, and if I had eyes at the back of my head, I’d see I had Spencer’s, too.

“The fundamental difference between you and me is that no matter what - I would never, ever, do anything to hurt Spencer. I have no compulsion to hurt him as a way to assert power over him or to make him fall at my feet. I can do that without ever having to go to the lengths that you’ve gone to. The power you wield over him is borne from a long-standing vendetta, whereas the power I wield, I resist using against him for revenge because that is what a morally sane person does. While I use my influence to help Spencer believe that he is a good person worthy of good treatment, you are constantly trying to prove that he is a bad person deserving of bad treatment. That he is anything like you.”

Her eyes just barely starting to water marked the last semblance of emotion I’d seen from Cat before the team swarmed the apartment and whisked her away. Then, the proverbial veneer of her mask had glazed back over her face, never to come off again.

As Luke escorted her out in handcuffs, she gave me one last look over her shoulder.

“How did you know about my dad?”

You might think I slipped up when I told Cat that we were similar because of our daddy issues, therefore accidentally revealing that I knew more about Cat’s backstory than I led on, but that was purely by design. I had done that with the specific intention of setting this exact moment in motion.

This moment where she would recognize that she’d overlooked my ‘mistake’ because of her lack of propriety. This moment where she would have to face the fact that she’d been deceived and outsmarted by me.

This moment that she would think about until the day that needle went into her arm - the moment she realized - she let me win.

_ _ _

As twisted as it may seem, the end to the reign of Queen Cat called for celebration. Penelope - she told me to call her that and not Ms. Garcia - had prepared cocktails galore in the round table room, which I’d actually been invited to enter this time.

“You exceeded any expectations we had. The best we could’ve hoped for was no casualties, so I’m thrilled with the way things turned out tonight, and we couldn’t have done it without you,” Ms. Prentiss pulled me aside to say. “If you want it, there’s a spot waiting for you here on the team, and I really think you should consider taking it.”

To her proposal, I said I’d have to think about it, given that I’d hate to bestow my bad luck upon the team, but after tonight, I was about ready to declare my malchance a thing of the past.

At this rate, I couldn’t distinguish whether I was dizzy from the alcohol coursing through my bloodstream or the job promotion from Secretary to Supervisory Special Agent. In any event, I knew I needed air. I slipped out of the conference room, past the glass doors of the bullpen, and waited patiently for the elevator.

I must’ve caught Spencer after coming back from his ride with Cat to the prison because when the elevator doors opened, he was standing just on the other side of them, looking lost in thought.

“Oh, hi!” I chirped, realizing then that he and I hadn’t said a word to each other since the “Kiss Me Bathroom Incident.”

“Hey,” he called back, his voice already sounding unfamiliar after its lack of use towards me.

“Long time no see,” I joked to first lighten the air that seemed heavy between us. “I was just going to go down to get some fresh air.”

“I’ll join you.”

Because I hadn’t expected him to say that, I fumbled awkwardly into the tiny space that seemingly got smaller by the second, especially now that he was filling the space with me.

The silence was a little too suffocating for my taste, and I couldn’t afford to have my breath be any more restricted by that than it already was being in this slender cage next to Spencer. Just to occupy the absence, I started rambling. “You know I was thinking -”

No sooner did I start speaking than my words were cut off by the sweet, sweet shut of my mouth because of Spencer’s. His lips wholly encompassed mine just as his hands did to my face. I was surrounded by him and for that my breath had truly been taken away this time, but in the absolute best ways possible.

There was simply no air.

His ivy-like enclosure around me somehow made the claustrophobic elevator expand. Or maybe it felt like it had fallen away entirely. Nothing else around. Just us.

His hands moved wherever they pleased and I followed suit, letting my hands go where they wished, never staying stationary in one place for too long.

I had to feel him everywhere. Filling everything.

He’d pulled away first, biting my bottom lip with blunt teeth to take me with him, and then he forced my lip in its place by kissing it back, pushing his lips impossibly closer like he wasn’t close enough. He wasn’t just trying to restore my bottom lip, but rather fuse ours together forever.

He pulled away for real this time but not far. His face and mine were centimeters apart, our breathes mixing in the microscopic air betwixt us.

Still breathless, he rasped, “I meant something like that.”

Now, I can say with absolute certainty that my malchance was a thing of the past.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　

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h0unds-of-h3ll · 4 years

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Sweet and Salty

Sup, so I have found that writing one shots are way much faster then continuing my full fledged story. Although I will be still be furthering the plot on that story, I’d rather get to write something that would rather come out somewhat good. That is why I am continuing on these one shots, so please enjoy!

This is a Dean Winchester x reader one shot.

Based somewhat around Dean not doing shorts, you’ll see about that.

Sweat stained skin and clothes sunken through, hair matted to the scalp and the skin of your neck. You groan the heat taking a toll on you. The bunker AC was shot and it was in the middle of July, the hottest month of Summer. You were sure that you weren't going to make it. But oh lord the sight before you, Dean had shredded his shirt a few hours ago. The heat became unbearable for him as well, and you'd be lying if it didn't look good on him. His chest puffed and broad and he hefted up the shitty thing that made this all happen, the muscles in his stomach tightening.

Dean had easily captured your full and undivided attention without a doubt. You and Dean had an odd relationship of sorts. When he first introduced his idea of calling you his own, he hadn't come to the realization of having to be romantic. Dean, to say the least, was a one and done and to wake up the morning and run from the unknown girl who he finessed into his bed in the night. Although that was before he had met you. One night, your best friend Sam from high school had invited you to come over to his place and watch the new season of The Walking Dead. This wasn't out of the norm for either of you nor Lurch. (Sammy's nickname you gave him one night when you both decided that it would be a not so great idea to go to a house party.) He would invite you over some nights to binge the latest sci-fi series on Netflix, hours without end.

Drool peeking out of your mouth whenever you fell asleep on the brothers' couch. Then, a figure appeared in front of your sleeping form groggily you bawled your hands and rolled them over your eyes to relieve the itch of them opening. The figure blocking the televisions ghastly glow in the dim of the room, the figure turns and you decide to fake being asleep for the fear of not knowing or what the figure is that is now casting over you. The figure's torn and maimed hand softly touched your jaw. Tilted your head back, the figure leans down and its chapped lips pressed against your cheek, the figure's nose gently pressing against your rose dusted skin. The gesture sent your skin on fire. Such an innocent gesture set your skin ablaze, yet, you haven't known who the perpetrator was.

It couldn't be Sam, you never thought of him as a lover and he didn't seem he did either. It couldn't be Dean either because he simply didn't do love. So who could Mysterio be? you decided to just take whatever it gave you and decided in the morning. The figures kiss left your cheek as did his lips as to your dismay, although the figures hand cascades into your hair and tuck a fallen piece behind your hair. The creature being satisfied with its doing it leaves your side and turns off the television, the light being drowned into the dark as well. The figure's form disappears into the imagination but before he departs he lets out; "you look so beautiful, sweetheart." You were nonetheless confused when you awoke the next day but you didn't dare say it wasn't nice.

The boys had given up on the idea that they could fix the ac in a day, supposedly how it short-circuited in the first place. Was because Castiel tried to teach Jack how to revive a baby bird that had fallen outside of the bunker. It was a few miles from the bunker whenever they went on a supply run they had found the fallen creature.

Jack, being Jack used his power a bit too strongly and busted every possible thing that could be breakable in the room. Even a few of the men of letters possessions that Sam was disappointed to have found about, Dean on the other hand was outright ballistic at the fact that they had no cool air. Leaving them here, sitting around the small entertainment center they managed to find in one of the many bunker rooms. The only thing making everyone the slightest bit cooler. Happened to be Sam's fan he brought from college and refused to sell saying in desperate times like these it would become handy. The catch was that the fan was so slow from age it circulated air every few minutes, so everyone drank up their minute whenever it landed on them. Becoming disappointed you got up from your spot on the floor by Casanova since Jack, Lurch, and Dean reserved the couch, you continuously denying Dean's offer for you to sit on his lap.

Cas had forgone his usual attire and opted for one of Dean's old shirts, his heavy overcoat being too obnoxiously warm from the heat. You patted him on the shoulder as you got to know that you were leaving too tired to ask why he just assumed it was lady stuff. He learned the last time that department he wanted to stay out of for the rest of his years on Earth. Dean on the other spectrum shifted his head on the headrest of the ratty couch to stare at you. As you waltzed into the kitchen in search of something that was the least bit refreshing, Dean found something rather refreshing making his mouth water at the sight of it. He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and bit down. Trying to muffle the groan of seeing those short jean shorts riding up your thighs. Giving him a glimpse of where your thighs stop and where your ass began. "Anybody want anything to drink while I'm up?" you sounded out happily once you had found the few Popsicle's left over a few weeks ago. You got a few groans and moans in response but Dean oh so desperately wanted to say 'yeah, you' but he stopped himself when Sam had hit him on the shoulder. "Dude, gross!" he said as he scrunched up his face in disgust once he realized why Dean was so quiet for the first time today. He was worse than a dog in heat, Sam slowly started to reach for the remote that now sat out of Dean's grasp.

The remote that Dean had so unfairly hogged all day since he claimed that any other show was less superior than Dr sexy. M.D. which quite frankly had mixed results from the group. Sam hated it for being so nasty, Castiel being interested just because he was curious of what everything was, and Jack well, saw his first pair of tits. Dean was so proud and clapped Jack on the back and called him a man after that, and you decided that this was indeed the day you would die. Sam had never been so concentrated in his life on something so meaningless, but he'd be damn if he didn't get this stupid remote and save his dignity. His long arm stretched and he was sure his mission had no-fail, but then y/n had to go and ruin it and come back with Popsicle’s in hand. Dammit, now! He grabbed the remote but before he could Dean grabbed his arm and they both had haphazardly fought for the ownership of the remote. Dean weirdly jolted his elbow into Sam's face hitting his nose, he knew he fucked up whenever Sam had lifted his hand to find crimson.

He rolled his eyes socking Dean in his arm "You don't always have to be such a Jerk" Sam snarled out going into the kitchen to find an ice pack they are sadly way too familiar with. Y/n handed out the destined Popsicle’s, a few thank you's coming out of the respected angels, but before you gave Dean his. You went behind the couch and stuck it on his bareback rather than the normal shriek he let out a soft moan the cool ice on his heated back felt pleasant to him. A shiver ran up his spine, his bright venomous eyes whirled around and glared at you. The Popsicle’s in question was quickly forgotten as he grabbed your hand and grabbed the plastic of the Popsicle’s with his teeth and tore it open sending you a wink before he turned around tuning into his show. Whenever you patted Cas on the back to tell him you were back and tried to sit in your destined spot but the arms wrapped around your torso and pulled you into Dean's lap. Jack's eyes widened in shock from knowing all too well as to what was going to ensue from Dean's actions he quickly dismissed himself and went to his room. Cas going into the kitchen to help/heal Lurch.

You squirmed in Dean's arms trying to get comfortable "look what you did you made everyone leave!" you whined gently slapping Dean's sticky chest. Some of the cherry Popsicle's’ syrup running around his mouth “hmm,” is all you had to what seemed like a reply. Your face scrunched from seeing Dean pig out, it wasn’t the first time you've seen him pig out but this. This was something different. Dean, the alleged human incarcerated lust, made it 10 times more intimate. How? Well for starters he would not stop looking at you the entire time his plumped, pillowed, pink lips slurped and sucked the taste of the sweet treat. You couldn’t help but let your mouth fall open in shock at how he didn't care that Castiel and Sam were only a few mere few feet away from the both of you. He had sucked the last syrup-filled ice cube into his mouth and there was plastic somewhere near the couch, you usually were the boy’s maid since they didn't know how to do laundry nor cleaning that being said you knew you were more than likely going to have to pick that up later.

“Dean, really?!” you screeched at him. You thought you had taught him better, you just had gotten him to start cleaning his room. He rolled his eyes shifted his hips so you were now skin against skin, his chest pressed against yours. Stomach against his and God it felt like heaven. He ran his hands up and down your sides mapping out every curve and ditch you had, you didn't think it was possible for it to get even hotter but now it had gotten into purgatory levels of heat. His breath fanned against your face it was surprisingly cold and his eyes half-lidded and clouded in a daze, his hands moved up around your neck and cupped your neck pulling your lips into a rough, demanding kiss. His mouth working wonders on its own, his tongue poked out and ran across your lip his tongue felt as if it was frostbitten, the ice tucked into his cheek cooling his mouth which made it felt like ecstasy. Your hands ran into his hair tugging and yanking the dirty blonde hair each and every way.

Shortly after his hands quickly duck down and cup his hands around your ass kneading the flesh in his palms, although his long fingers skimmed across the torn distressed parts where it couldn't hide your skin. You moaned into his lips when he started to push his body into yours making your hips grind against his own, and then you felt it. You smirked and left his now kiss sore lips, his pupils dilated and telling you he wasn't nearly done with you. You pushed your forehead against his and kissed his nose he scrunched it up as a child would. “Are you packing the colt, or are you just happy to see me?” you whispered your lips turning into a grin, as he grabbed you and hefted you up, you instantly wrapped your legs around his waist. He shoved his face into your neck nipping and licking while he walked past Sam and Cas into his room. “USE PROTECTION!” you heard Sam wail out, and you couldn't help but chuckle.

#dean winchester #xreader #dean winchester x reader #Sam Winchester #sam winchester x reader #Cute and hot at the same time IRTR #jack kline #jack kline x reader #castiel x reader #castiel novak #fluff #dean being a little shit #cuteness #cute butt #sexy cute #deans a warning of his own #fanfic #SPN #supernatural

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brokehorrorfan · 5 years

Text

Blu-ray Review: The Omen Collection

In the pantheon of religious horror, the holy trinity consists of The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, and The Omen. Although The Omen arrived last, opening on June 6, 1976, it arguably offers more excitement than its satanic brethren (which is not to say that it is a superior film). Likely to be considered a slow-burner by today's standards, the picture builds tension and unravels a mystery at a meticulous pace, but it's punctuated by elaborate, Rube Goldberg-ian death scenes.

The Omen spawned a trilogy of films, a made-for-television sequel, and a modern remake. Scream Factory has collected all five movies in The Omen Collection, which is limited to 10,000 units. Besting Fox's earlier Blu-ray set - which omitted Part IV and featured some of the worst box set packaging known to man - each film is packaged in an individual Blu-ray case with original artwork within a rigid slipcover case. It boasts a deluge of extras, new and old.

In the original film, American diplomat Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck, To Kill a Mockingbird) and his wife, Katherine (Lee Remick, Anatomy of a Murder), adopt a baby named Damien (Harvey Stephens) after their own child is stillborn. Beginning with his fifth birthday, a string of mysterious deaths surround Damien. Upon being presented with convincing evidence by a photographer (David Warner, Tron), Robert becomes convinced that his son is none other than the antichrist, and he is faced with the task of stopping him to prevent Armageddon.

Firing on all cylinders, The Omen is an exemplary horror film. Working from a well-constructed script by David Seltzer (Shining Through, Prophecy), director Richard Donner grounds the story firmly in reality. The fantastical elements are easy to swallow, as each and every incident in the plot could be mere coincidence. Peck brings a gravitas to the production, leading a strong cast in which Remick also holds her own. Even the six-year-old Stephens, who never acted before and did very little after, is convincingly malevolent.

John Richardson's (Aliens, Harry Potter) special effects for the proto-Final Destination deaths - including one of the greatest beheadings ever committed on celluloid - remain shocking after more than 40 years. Cinematographer Gilbert Taylor (Star Wars: A New Hope, Dr. Strangelove) captures it all with clean camerawork, while Jerry Goldsmith (Alien, Gremlins) provides a chilling orchestral score elevated to pure evil with choral chanting.

The Omen has been newly mastered in 4K from the original negative, approved by Donner, for the new release. The result is a pristine presentation with improved detail and color saturation over Fox’s previous high-definition transfer. The Omen carries a whopping four audio commentaries. One, featuring special project consultant Scott Michael Bosco, is new. His audio sounds compressed - as if it were recorded on a cell phone - but it's dense with details focusing on the theological aspects. Bosco often digresses, but I appreciate the fresh perspective rather than a historian reciting IMDb trivia.

The other audio commentaries include: a track with Donner and editor Stuart Baird (Lethal Weapon, Skyfall), in which the two old friends reminisce about the highs and lows of the production; a track with Donner and filmmaker Brian Helgeland (Mystic River, L.A. Confidential), which features as much good-natured joking as it does insight; and a track with film historians Lem Dobbs, Nick Redman, and Jeff Bond, largely focusing on Goldsmith's score. A lot of information is repeated across the commentaries, but the varying viewpoints make them all worth listening to.

Seltzer and actress Holly Palance (who plays the nanny whose suicide by hanging is among the film’s most memorable moment) sit down for new interviews. Seltzer's chat is particularly enjoyable, as he's candid and humble. He openly states that his script is not as good as the movie it birthed. He also shares what he would have done if he had the opportunity to write the sequel. Palance, the daughter of the great Jack Palance, recounts her naivety about working on her first film and shooting her iconic death scene. The final new extra is an appreciation of The Omen's score by composer Chris Young, who says he looked to Goldsmith's progression across The Omen trilogy as he was scoring the Hellraiser films. It's fascinating to hear one accomplished professional praise another in their field.

All of the archival extras are ported over: a thorough, 15-minute interview with Donner from 2008; 666: The Omen Revealed, a 46-minute retrospective from 2000 featuring crew members along with religious experts to provide context; The Omen Revelations, which is essentially a streamlined version of 666, recycling much of its footage in 24 minutes; Curse or Coincidence, in which the crew recounts a variety of curious incidents that nearly derailed the production; an introduction by Donner; a deleted scene with commentary by Donner; an older interview with Seltzer, which features a lot of the same information as the new one; and an interview with Goldsmith about his score. There's also an appreciation of The Omen by filmmaker Wes Craven (A Nightmare on Elm Street), in which the master of horror waxes poetic about the influential picture for 20 minutes; Trailers from Hell trailer commentary by filmmaker Larry Cohen (The Stuff), who cites The Omen as one of his favorite movies; the trailer; TV spots; radio spots; and four image galleries: stills, behind-the-scenes, posters and lobby cards, and publicity.

Following the massive success of the first film, Fox fast-tracked a sequel, Damien: Omen II, to open in 1978. Having narrowly survived the events of The Omen, a 12-year-old Damien (Jonathan Scott-Taylor) now lives with his affluent uncle, Richard Thorn (William Holden, Sunset Blvd.), aunt, Ann (Lee Grant, In the Heat of the Night), and cousin, Mark (Lucas Donat), in Chicago. Damien is ostensibly a well-adjusted kid, unaware of who - or what - he is, but those who cross him wind up dead in freak accidents.

Omen II's plotting mirrors that of the first film, but the mystery aspect that made the original so effective is gone. The viewer knows from the start that Damien is, in fact, the antichrist, so they're left waiting for the characters to catch up. The plot dedicates an inordinate amount of time to Thorn's business enterprises, which is only vaguely paid of in the next installment when Damien rises to power. On the bright side, there are several admirably inventive deaths in the tradition of the first, from a bird attack that would make Alfred Hitchcock jealous to a visceral elevator bisection to a harrowing scene of a man trapped in a pond under ice.

Since Donner had moved on to Superman and Seltzer was either uninterested or not asked (depending on the source) to pen the sequel, a new creative team was employed. Stanley Mann (Firestarter, Conan the Destroyer) and Mike Hodges (Get Carter, Flash Gordon) wrote the script, with the latter set to direct. Hodges only shot for a few days, during which he quickly fell behind schedule, before being swiftly replaced by Don Taylor (Escape from the Planet of the Apes). Goldsmith returns to score with a worthy successor, retaining the signature sound while expanding it to incorporate electronics.

Leo McKern is the only returning cast member, reprising his role as archaeologist Carl Bugenhagen in the prologue. Peck's formidable presence is sorely missed, but Holden - who, incidentally, turned down the lead role in The Omen - and Grant bring some prestige to the production. Scott-Taylor is a convincing surrogate for Stephens, but the child acting leaves a bit to be desired. It's offset by a supporting cast that includes Lance Henriksen (Aliens), Lew Ayres (All Quiet on the Western Front), Sylvia Sidney (Beetlejuice), Allan Arbus (M*A*S*H), and Meshach Taylor (Mannequin).

Damien: Omen II's Blu-ray disc features new interviews with Grant, who is proud of the sequel and shares a funny anecdote about discovering her first wrinkle while filming; Foxworth, who was able to get to know Holden, one of his heroes, on their daily commute; and actress Elizabeth Sheppard, who proudly discusses working with Holden as well as Vincent Price (on The Tomb of Ligeia). In a separate featurette, Sheppard narrates a gallery of her personal photos from the shoot, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the bird attack sequence.

Since Omen II's mythology has little biblical foundation, Bosco's new commentary features even more tenuous tangents, but it affords him the opportunity to discuss the franchise more subjectively. An archival commentary with producer Harvey Bernhard proves to be a bit more informative. The disc also includes a vintage making-of featurette consisting of clips, interviews, and footage from the set, along with the trailer, a TV spot, a radio spot, and a still gallery.

The Omen trilogy came to a conclusion in 1981 with Omen III: The Final Conflict - although it proved not to be final after all. As prophesied, Damien (Sam Neill, Jurassic Park), now 33 - the same age as Jesus when he was crucified - has risen to political power. Following the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain’s ghastly suicide, Damien is appointed the position, which was once held by his adoptive father. The only true foe for the antichrist is, naturally, Christ himself. Rather than bringing about the apocalypse, as the franchise had been driving toward since the beginning, Damien attempts to prevent the second coming in a sanctimonious conclusion to the story arc.

While no successor could top the original Omen, its first sequel smartly embraced the gratuitous death scenes. For the third installment, however, director Graham Baker (Alien Nation) made a conscious effort to avoid them. Instead, he delivers inept monks trying to assassinate Damien with the Seven Daggers of Megiddo, while the antichrist’s legion of apostles murder newborn males who are the potential Christ child. Andrew Birkin's (Perfume: The Story of a Murderer) script leans further into religiosity at the expensive of the horror elements while interjecting silly mythology akin to Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.

Omen III: The Final Conflict's Blu-ray disc features new interviews with Baker, who takes a truly retrospective look back on the film, comparing the society of today to that of when it was produced; Birkin, who hadn't seen The Omen when he first met for the gig and wasn't particularly impressed when he finally watched it; and production assistant Jeanne Ferber, who explains how she was among those polled by Bernhard to help choose the lead, with Neill selected unanimously.

For his final commentary in the set, Bosco is back to pointing out the film's connections to scripture, leading to a lengthy tirade comparing Christianity and Judaism. An archival track with Baker has a few nuggets of information among extended gaps of silence, but most of his points are addressed more concisely in the new interview. Special features are rounded out by the trailer, TV spots, and a still gallery.

Although The Omen’s main storyline continued with two more book sequels, Fox opted to use the familiar title for a made-for-television movie on their budding network in 1991. Although dubbed Omen IV: The Awakening, the film largely serves as a remake of the original film but with a female antichrist. After numerous failed attempts to get pregnant, politician Gene York (Michael Woods) and his wife, Karen (Faye Grant, V), adopt an orphan girl. Seven years later, Delia (Asia Vieira, A Home at the End of the World) becomes increasingly violent and manipulative, leaving a trail of bodies in her wake.

Similar to Omen II's production troubles, Omen IV started with Jorge Montesi (Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal) in the director's chair, but he was fire mid-shoot and replaced by Dominique Othenin-Girard (Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers). Writer Brian Taggert (Poltergeist III) keeps the basic structure of Seltzer's original script intact, but the details of each beat are altered and the death scenes are subdued for TV. In addition to gender-swapping the creepy kid, it's the mother who is proactive this time around.

Despite maintaining the general outline of The Omen, the plot is harder to believe this time around, stretching the required suspension of disbelief to include psychics that can read auras. The most ludicrous plot point comes in the form of a shoehorned connection to The Omen mythology. This "twist" canonically positions Omen IV as a sequel rather than a thinly-veiled remake, but it feels more like a low-budget knockoff than an official installment in the franchise.

Omen IV: The Awakening doesn't have any audio commentaries, but its Blu-ray debut includes a new interview with Taggert, who breaks down several of the major choices made in the script. It also contains The Omen Legacy, a feature-length documentary on the franchise that aired on TV in 2001. Narrated by Jack Palance (City Slickers), it finds cast and crew members (including a couple of folks who don't appear in any other special features) and religious figures (the Church of Satan’s high priestess among them) discussing all four films while playing up the alleged curse. The trailer and a still gallery are also included.

Amidst the onslaught of horror remakes that dominated the early 2000s, Fox shrewdly capitalized with The Omen in 2006 - on 6/6/06, to be exact. Director John Moore (Max Payne) offers slick production value and an inspired cast, but it feels wholly unnecessary considering how closely it follows the original script. Seltzer is the only credited writer, but it's unclear if his 40-year-old script was simply polished off or if he was involved in re-writes, as there are some subtle changes to contemporize it. While it fails to bring anything new to the table, it’s a stronger effort than Omen IV.

Liev Schreiber (Scream) and Julia Stiles (10 Things I Hate About You) star as the Thorns. Talented as they are, they lack the chemistry of Peck and Remick. Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick is successfully creepy as the new Damien, while the role's originator, Harvey Stephens, makes a quick cameo. In a particularly motivated bit of stunt casting, Mia Farrow (Rosemary's Baby) plays the antichrist's new nanny. David Thewlis (Harry Potter) and Pete Postlethwaite (The Lost World: Jurassic Park) also have supporting roles.

The remake is the only Blu-ray in the set that doesn't offer any new special features. The existing extras cover a lot of ground, but it would’ve been interesting to hear the crew reflect back on it. Omenisms is a 37-minute documentary exploring the pressures of making a movie with a release date set in advance, even showing Moore losing his temper and yelling at a producer. It feels very of its time, with director Stephen French treating the piece like a hip art film, but it contains a lot of great material.

Moore, producer Glenn Williamson, and editor Dan Zimmermann participate in an audio commentary that's fairly informative but doesn't touch on many of the trials and tribulations showcased in Omenisms. There's also a featurette about Marco Beltrami (Scream) recording his score at the legendary Abbey Road Studio; Revelation 666, a cheesy TV special tracing the history, interpretation, and theories of 666; unrated, extended scenes, including a longer version of the ending; and theatrical trailers.

While The Exorcist remains the be-all and end-all of occult horror, The Omen franchise as a whole is more consistent. The first three Omen films comprise a cohesive trilogy, while Part IV and the remake each offer a fresh, if flawed, perspective on the material. Between the movies, commentaries, interviews, and featurettes, The Omen Collection contains over 30 hours of content, making it an unbelievable value and a must-have for any horror collector.

The Omen Collection is available now on Blu-ray via Scream Factory.

#the omen #gregory peck #damien: omen ii #omen iii: the final conflict #omen iv: the awakening #mia farrow #scream factory #dvd #gift #review #article #damien thorn #liev schreiber #julia stiles #lance henriksen #lee remick #william holden

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antiquesfreaks · 4 years

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According to Buzzfeed, everyone photographed in the 19th century was secretly dead the whole time. The truth is somewhat murkier. From Dr. Minovici's forensic Frankenstein to "hidden mother" portraits and the ice-box incident, the Antiques Freaks dive into the ghastly Victorian habit of post-mortem photography. Posing stand not provided.

#antiques freaks #antiques #antiques fraud #post-mortem photography #goth #oddities #mortuary #funereal

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wondertainmenttoys · 5 years

Note

Attempted to open SCP-001 with a skelekey, skelekey combusted then uncombusted, please send help, there's ghosts coming out of the walls now and the entire room smells of chocolate ice cream.

Dear valued customer,

Thank you for your Inquiry regarding Dr. Wondertainment’s Halloween SkeleKey™! Spice up your Halloween with a visit to Dr. Wondertainment’s Spooktacular Haunted House™, all from the comfort of your own home!

OoOoOooOoh! It sounds like you just opened a door into the Room of the Ice SCREAM! Creepy Choco-Fates™, one of the 999 random rooms in the Spooktacular Haunted House™!

You’ve seen the Dr. Wondertainment Ghastly Ghosts™, but wait until the Ice Scream Creatures™ start to stir! You’re in for a bunch of fun scares and thrilling chases in the Choco-Latte Lake of Doom™!

We can’t wait to hear about all of your spooky experiences after you find a way out of the room! Have a Wonderful time at Dr. Wondertainment’s Spooktacular Haunted House™!

#Inquiry #the SkeleKey bursting into flames is a feature not a bug!#dan-did-a-thing

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archive-of-the-guild · 8 months

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"Well........ Shit."

#Dr. Ghastly IC!#Hunger Games Event!#Dash Commentary!#Didn't even last one round XD #meant to put this on Ghastly's blog. oh well.

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bloody-mad-scientist · 8 months

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"I highly doubt something as mystical as a ghost could possibly exist. If i were to make a theory, it would be that the small creature became fused with the giant gem's natural energy, in turn becoming energy herself!"

"If i can capture and study her, i can probably find a way to reverse engineer the process and maybe even get some new weapons out of it! Maybe even find a way to turn transformed creatures into a source of renewable fuel!!!"

#Dr. Ghastly IC!#She be looking at Tikal and going “...Hmmmmmm.”

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kynky · 6 years

Audio

STRICTLY BASS. NOVEMBER UPDATE.

Tracklisting

1000 Cuts – KUURO, Clockvice

Act a Fool (feat. Bok Nero) – Riot Ten, Throwdown, Bok Nero

AGEN WIDA – JOYRYDE, Skrillex

Aggressive Generosity – Chee

Ain't It Cold? – Skream

Alive – Synova

Alive – Todd Helder

Alive and Well – Go Periscope, John Mode

Amergency – DJ Zinc

Amongst The Gods – Dusky

Are You Sure Now? – Borgore

Away – BUIJ

Axis – Trivecta

Better – Laszlo

Blood – Whipped Cream

Bounce – BeauDamian, Nymfo

Bounce (feat. Snoop Dogg) – Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Julian Banks, Bassjackers, Snoop Dogg

Buggas – Hekler, Mastadon

Bump – Hydraulix, Eliminate

Check It Out – Ephwurd, ATRIP

Coins! – Chime

Control – Ghastly

Crowd Shocka – Growlz

Cura - Electric Mantis Remix – Keys N Krates, Electric Mantis

Deathwish (Feat. fknsyd) – Wavedash, fknsyd

Desert Ride – The Brig

Disintegrate Slowly (1788-L Remix) – The Glitch Mob, 1788-L

Do You Remember Rave? – Tommie Sunshine, Haus of Panda, MING

Dokyo – Vanger

Dr. Death – Figure, Dack Janiels

Drone Warfare – Eprom

The Edge – Grant, Nevve

Eon - Au5 Remix – Celldweller, Au5

Facts – Born I Music, Spag Heddy

FAKE FAKE FAKE (feat. xo sad) – Kayzo, xo sad

Falling - BROHUG Remix – Alesso, BROHUG

First Contact – Sukh Knight

Fractial – Boy 8-Bit

Free Fall - Kompany Remix – Illenium, RUNN, Kompany

Fvcken Greatest – Bok Nero, Shizz Lo

Get High – Oliverse

Ghost Gang – Dubloadz

Ghost In The City – The Crystal Method, Le Castle Vania, Amy Kirkpatrick

Ghost Voices - Raito Old School Remix – Virtual Self, Raito

Goes Like – Gentlemens Club

Hardcore Rave – Raito

Helios – Ekali, SLUMBERJACK

Hit Em – Boogie T, Subtronics

HITMAKERCHINX_BLUE LIGHT_108 BPM – Kelela, Hitmakerchinx

Hoovela – Steve Aoki, TWIIG

I Saw Her Last Summer – Goldie, James Davidson, Subjective

I'll Fight Back – Sullivan King

Ice Cold – Netsky, David Guetta

ID – Boombox Cartel, Flosstradamus

Imposters – Flix, Motus

Infinity – Cat Dealers, Beowülf

KIll Em - Holly Remix – Zeds Dead, 1000volts, Redman, Jayceeoh, Holly

Light It Up – Krafty Kuts, Dynamite MC

Light Up the Sky – The Prodigy

Lions - Doctor P Remix – Black Tiger Sex Machine, YOOKiE, Doctor P

Live Outside - Shikari Sound System Remix – Enter Shikari, Shikari Sound System

Love Is Over – Rob Gasser

Machina – Pixel Terror

Magnets – Zeds Dead, Snails, Akylla

Man Don't Want War – FuntCase, Wooli, Clipson

MDR (Kayvian Remix) – Party Favor, Baauer, KAYVIAN

Meatball Parm – Space Jesus, Conrank

My Place (feat. Reece) – Tchami, BROHUG, Reece

N U / V E R / K A – 1788-L

A New Dawn – Teminite

Nu Goods – Taiki Nulight, Hot Goods

On My Way Out – Getter, Joji

One Two – Virtual Riot

OpTech (140 Mix) – Icicle

Origin – TYNAN

Our Lives Collide – Diskord, Philip Nolan

Papi Chulo – TV Noise

Poltergeist – Rettchit, Megahurtz, Dedbolt

Prism – Protohype, The Arcturians

Pumping – Eidly

The Purge – Mofaux

RISE – League of Legends, The Glitch Mob, Mako, The Word Alive

Shots Fired (Reloaded) – LeKtriQue, Autodidakt

Slow - Convex Remix – Fransis Derelle, X&G, Convex, Kevin Flum, Effy

Snake - FuntCase Remix – Dead Exit, FuntCase

Spectacular – Block & Crown, Xenia Ghali

Spell – MAG3, I M U R

TAKE OFF (feat. Blake Webber) – Bear Grillz, Blake Webber

Takeover (feat. The Qemists) – Zardonic, The Qemists

Tell You Why – Franky Nuts

Tell You Why - G-REX Remix – Dion Timmer, G-Rex

Till We Die (feat. Milano The Don) – Riot Ten, Lit Lords, Milano The Don

Treat Me Right – Savoy, Laura Reed

Vice – Mat Zo

Way It Is – Adair, Tank Parade

We Live Forever – The Prodigy

Whip It – Curbi

Who That – Infuze, Healthy Chill

Wobble – Crankdat, Tisoki

You Make Me – UFO Project

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#edm #electronica #spotify #skrillex #dubstep #zardonic #getter #virtual riot #the prodigy #steve aoki #mat zo #borgore #skream #glitch mob #bok nero

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tabletoptrinketsbyjj · 6 years

Text

Trinkets, Necklaces, 1: Whether they're pendants, amulets, periapts, chokers, beaded strings, chains, charms, lockets or torques, “Neck Slot” type jewelry is a very common item in fiction and roleplaying. These ornaments give an immediate glance into the bearer's personality, wealth, rank or social class and often serves as an iconic part of that character's look. Ranging in obviousness from a soldiers dog tags, cleric's holy symbol or police detectives badges worn front and center over clothing, immediately visible on their chest as a clear indication of who they are, to the cliché locket containing pictures of family or lost lovers that's worn against the skin, just over the heart. Outgoing character's such as Phoebe Bouffette compliment their natural charisma with loud colorful costume jewelry while more reserved examples often go without, though what little ornamentation they do have is meaningful or of good quality like Katara's heirloom choker or Annie's half-a-locket. A locked metal torque can instantly mark the bearer a penniless slave, while a string of lustrous pearls mark their owner a flauntingly wealthy noble. Magical necklaces in fiction are powerful and mysterious from Inuyasha's Beads of Subjugation, Dr Strange's Eye of Agamotto or Yugi's Millennium Puzzle. None of these necklaces are intensely magical in their own right but can serve as basis for a magical or plot relevant amulet. When a DM rolls a d100, the bog standard amulet of protection +1 they were going to give out now has a unique look and personality rather than just a mechanical benefit.

A chain of heavy steel links meant to be worn around the neck. When worn, the bearer can recall the chain's firsthand experience of being forged as if it was a personal experience. The cooling and hardening of the cherry red metal, the hammering of steel, and the rough grip of the blacksmith moving it about. The chain's memories of it's fiery birth are fond and pleasant.

A moonstone pendant that make small laughing noises when misplaced or lost.

A coal medallion that allows its bearer to hear the voices of winter spirits on the wind.

A pendant carved from translucent blue stone that resembles vines or tentacles wrapped around an unseen object. Creatures who stare at it for an extended period of time feel vaguely uncomfortable in a way they cannot properly describe.

A glass pendant filled with water that stays still, churns, freezes or boils to match its bearer's mood.

A simple rounded, pendant on a brass chain that has no effect when worn. Even so, pleasant memories are crucial to survival on arduous journeys.

An old, worn strip of deer hide fashioned into a short necklace. On it hangs a small piece of rock hard, stale bread. If the bearer takes a sniff of the bread, they are momentarily flooded with fond memories of home.

A brass locket containing a portrait of man with fire for hair and smoke emerging from his mouth.

A brass pendant with a jet center. The pendant has different symbols on either side. One is a symbol of a white dove, while the other is that of a birdcage. If the pendant is spun quickly the two images become superimposed on each other so that the bird is both caged and uncaged.

A steel torc engraved with the image of wild boars charging.

—Keep reading for 90 more necklaces.

—Note: The previous 10 items are repeated for easier rolling on a d100.

A moonstone pendant that make small laughing noises when misplaced or lost.

A coal medallion that allows its bearer to hear the voices of winter spirits on the wind.

A glass pendant filled with water that stays still, churns, freezes or boils to match its bearer's mood.

A simple rounded, pendant on a brass chain that has no effect when worn. Even so, pleasant memories are crucial to survival on arduous journeys.

A brass locket containing a portrait of man with fire for hair and smoke emerging from his mouth.

A steel torc engraved with the image of wild boars charging.

A thick lanyard made of soft doeskin from which hangs a pendant of golden amber with hairs of an unknown creature trapped within it.

A rope-like necklace made of coiled dire wolf fur that's coarse to the touch.

A fine gold chain necklace made of delicate links that never break but can be melted down.

A plain silver chain with a large, stunning, heart shaped silver locket on it. Inside is the image of a ghastly looking, snaggle toothed woman and an inscription that says “Together forever, my love.”

A thin, light brown leather cord with a tarnished brass cockroach pendant hanging from it.

A thin white cord with four driftwood beads, surrounding a large, green, sea glass pendant.

A lover's token made entirely of hair, woven into a necklace.

A pewter locket containing a faded portrait of a pale, middle-aged woman.

A long necklace made from colourful glass beads.

An uncomfortable necklace made of gears and other machine parts.

A necklace bearing a dozen glass eyes, no two of which are the same colour.

A multi-layered necklace bearing dozens of small glass beads that change colour with the mood of the bearer.

A necklace made of thin strips of braided sailcloth bearing a miniature, rusted iron anchor.

A ruby pendant that pulses with red light that syncs with the bearer's heartbeat when worn.

A silver pendant depicting an eye contained within an eight-pointed star.

A silver pendant depicting the runic symbol of illusionary magic, strung on an invisible steel chain.

An imposing torque made from an animal's jawbone.

A six-inch elongated teardrop pendant made of glowing crystal that seems to have no weight and very little physical substance.

A small bronze torc engraved on which is a scene depicting five people gathering around a mountain with lightning coming from the summit.

A steel amulet bearing the seal of an order of paladins that were excommunicated under suspicious circumstances years ago.

An amulet depicting the image of Orc god Gruumsh, anyone who wears it finds themselves unconsciously keeping one of their eyes closed at all times.

An iron holy symbol of a God of a Random Evil Domain that has a well hidden secret compartment. It contains a single blood stained gold piece wrapped in scraps of cloth so that it does not rattle.

One half of a white gold, heart necklace. Inscribed on the back are the words “Till next we meet”.

An asymmetrical piece of sparkling red crystal on a simple leather necklace.

A broken pendent in the shape of a silver dragon that’s always cold to the touch.

A braided hemp cord on which is strung a gemstone pendant that changes color every morning.

A necklace formed of the interlinked holy symbols of a dozen deities.

A necklace bearing the fossilized stinger of a giant insect creature that's long been extinct.

A choker necklace made of copper wire and the finger bones of dozens of rats.

A gruesome necklace of humanoid finger bones strung on braided sinew cord.

A necklace of varying spherical and odd-shaped shimmering stones that grants a sleeping bearer vaguely prophetic dreams.

A necklace with a beautiful green-blue gem that, if inspected closely contain the spiraling arms of a galaxy.

A pendant of blue crystalline material from which tiny wisps of blue smoke constantly unfurl.

A huge sinew cord necklace with smooth stones marked with frost giant runes. The necklace carries 17 dried, shrunken, human, right hands in-between the runes.

A silver, drow house-medallion bearing the image of a crimson scorpion. The house name “Ulrather” is inscribed on the back in the drow tongue.

An expertly beaten copper amulet displaying a starburst design.

A necklace bearing a complete set of human teeth strung on a chain of silver wire.

A small, white jade pendant that depicts a galloping unicorn with a cracked back leg.

A silver pendant shaped like a curled-up cat.

A thick rectangular copper necklace set with a small rounded aquamarine.

A pendant in the shape of a candle-flame made of red glass and strung on a chain. The area around the glass is as warm as a candle’s flame but cannot ignite or damage objects. If a creature makes skin contact with the glass itself, they stop feeling the heat. Instead the glass flame feels as though it’s made entirely of ice.

A thin, plain silver chain with a broken clasp.

A clear crystal pendant strung on a fine chain. The entire crystal is small enough to lie upon the outstretched finger of a halfling child and glows softly, and pulses whenever a red object is brought near it.

A prismatic crystal pendant strung on a steel chain, which echoes back (In a deep, melodious voice) every word spoken within earshot two seconds after it has been said.

Nymph's Tear: A teardrop shaped crystal on a fine silver chain. Legend holds that Nymphs who die of a broken heart shed crystal tears. This rare gem is as hauntingly beautiful as its name, and lends credence to the folklore by evoking sorrow and longing in all who view its solitary perfection.

A pewter pendant in the shape of a blooming rose with petals that are soft to the touch

A necklace made from a length of sinew and seven owl feathers.

A broken half of a medallion that emanates dark power untold by mortals. It’s power and true function is inaccessible without its other half.

A slender chain that bears a pendant of rough polished agate that comes from the halfling homeland, Lurien.

A black circular amulet that when closely examined reveals a dark moving swirl of colour at its center.

A gold, seven-pointed star pendant that symbolized an ancient religion that has since died out.

A ceremonial necklace made of desert shells, rumored to be owned only by those marked by fate.

A cold iron amulet stamped with geometric designs not attributable to any current culture. Anyone who wears the amulet does not dream.

A copper torc depicting a raven in flight.

A ceramic pendant displaying a smiling face that speaks in a friendly voice whenever it's bearer is in trouble. The language it speaks seems to be unique, and no one is able to quite understand it but it seems like it's trying to help.

A crystal pendant that shakes violently when wet.

A feather necklace that seems to attract small birds to the general area of the bearer.

A circular glass pendant with a hole in the center that a mild breeze always blows out of.

A golden locket containing a heart shaped black stone that occasionally cries tears of blood.

A small pouch on a braided hemp cord meant to be worn tightly around the neck. It is filled with sacred herbs and fragments of ancestral bones that supposedly attracts the attention of helpful spirits while in battle.

A necklace made from the onyx teeth of an earth elemental.

A hexagonal amber necklace that hums slightly. The intensity of the humming increases substantially when bees are nearby.

A necklace made from leather cord, with six ceramic beads, each one is painted a different Random Colour.

A lace choker with a light jewel in the center. Wearing it to sleep gives the bearer terrible nightmares.

A counterfeit gold necklace. The charm strung on it is a glass pendulum filled with murky ink.

A hemp cord on which is strung an ankh made of desert sand that was turned to glass by magical fire.

A twine necklace with six small bottle corks hanging off of it. When removed and used as a stopper, each of the corks will take on the size and shape needed for the container, expanding up to a maximum six inches wide and four inches tall. They can preform this ability only once each.

A stunningly maroon crystal pendant cut to look like a grape strung on a necklace of braided vines. When worn, the bearer craves red wine and if any other type of alcohol is consumed, the bearer becomes queasy and throw up.

A single ivory piano key hanging from a silver chain. When worn, the bearer believes that they are expert pianists, whether they are or not, and feel compelled to play any pianos available to them.

A hempen necklace strung through a bundle of tree nuts, that clack and clatter around when jostled.

A simple iron amulet in the shape of an eye within a helm.

A silver medallion in the shape of a rose.

A small iron pendant of a demon's face, which chuckles quietly whenever its bearer or any of his nearby allies critically fails at a task.

A necklace made of a shard of purple crystal on a leather thong. The crystal vibrates when the bearer thinks about his past.

A wooden medallion depicting the universal symbol of theater, the opposing twin masks of comedy and tragedy which have been painted white and black respectively.

A beautiful necklace encrusted with a dozen green jewels, each of which causes the bearer to experience a different horrific vision of an apocalyptic war when they are touched directly.

An oval pendant made of polished fine-flecked gray and white stone. When the bearer takes magical damage, the gray flecks grow and the white flecks shrink and vice-versa for physical damage.

An irregularly shaped, chunk of crystal that shines with all the colors of the rainbow, strung on a braided hemp rope.

A small polished piece of amber with a spider trapped inside, held in a silver web pendant.

A dozen ant queens perfectly preserved and encased in small, clear glass cubes, strung on a necklace of steel links

A single dragon hatching tooth encased in a rectangular block of clear glass, strung on a necklace of polished steel links

A thumb sized teardrop of magically preserved blood, encased in a rectangular block of clear glass, strung on a necklace of silver links.

A perfectly preserved, Randomly Coloured eyeball, encased in a small cube of clear glass, strung on a necklace of gold links

A macabre collection of two dozen perfectly preserved, human ears, each encased in clear glass and strung on a necklace of tarnished bronze links. Perceptive PC's will notice that they are all left ears, meaning there must have been two dozen “donors”.

A single perfect teardrop, encased in a glass cube, strung on a necklace of silver links

A large black iron amulet of the Unholy Star, the symbol of the God of the Black Sky. Knowledgeable PC's will know that the amulet is used in dark rituals, where it is heated until glowing red and placed around a sacrifice’s neck so that the heat and shock trauma slows kills them.

A long necklace filled with large, turquoise beads that when submerged in water, glow an eerie blue. Fish are attracted to it and will attempt and always fail to eat the beads, reacting as if burned and swim away unharmed.

An iron pendant adorned with a devil’s face. Inscribed on the back of this strange pendant is the name “Acererak”. The devil face has a large gaping mouth inside of which swirls a strange black energy.

A small sealed glass pendant containing a single grain of sand. Staring deeply into the pendant will grant the creature fleeting, rapidly shifting visions of the entire world bursting forth from the sand. The viewer cannot control the visions but can choose to look away at any time.

A golden honeycomb pendant that smells like honey and is warm to the touch, it brings fond memories of home and hearth. While wearing the pendant all food and drink the bearer imbibes tastes just a little bit sweeter and better.

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funkymeihem-fiction · 6 years

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Metal Flowers (A Meihem Fanfic Drabble)

(The other version of Glow in the Dark)

The attack had blindsided their defense from the left, where Mei and Junkrat had been positioned. One moment everything had been normal, and then the next, everything had turned to fire and pain and hot metal. Junkrat had gone down first, and Mei had thrown up one of her walls to protect them. But not even her ice could stand the barrage, and the last thing she could remember was her screaming for him to hang on, just hang on. She was going to get them through this. Covering her body with his, she felt something collide hard with the side of her head, and after that she couldn’t remember anything at all.

She awoke over a week later in the intensive care unit. She’d had more than her fair share of unpleasant awakenings, but this one had to rank up there. Everything hurt, but she had lived, so her protective ice must have done its job yet again. She would just have to rest and be stuck in the clinic again. She reached for the little buzzer near the bed, summoning Angela to her side. Dr. Ziegler seemed relieved that she was awake and well, taking her hand and squeezing it before puttering about with the IV drips and various devices stacked around her hospital bed. But the doctor was oddly silent, and Mei figured she was likely busy with other patients.

Other patients like Jamison. Where was Jamison? The bed next to hers was empty, and Mei sighed softly and asked where he was and when he would be coming to visit. Likely he’d caused enough trouble that they’d quarantined him to his own personal med ward again. But now that she was awake, she hoped he had fared a little better than her, and wanted to see him.

But Angela said that Jamison wasn’t going to be coming, and paused for a very long time as if searching for other words to say. Mei did not like that at all. So instead she asked, maybe when she was stronger in a day or two, she could go see him instead? No. Angela denied her yet again, and instead placed a gentle hand over hers. Why was she doing that? Why was her expression like that? Shouldn’t she be happy that they were doing better? Why couldn’t she go see him? Mei heard her own tones go from asking, to pleading, to utter desperation. She had to see him. She had to see him, please. Let her go see him. But some part of her already knew that it wouldn’t do any good. No amount of begging would let her see him. And she knew why, even though she wished she didn’t.

Angela stopped her when she started trying to climb out of bed, and in her sad and gentle way, confirmed what she already knew. Jamison was gone. His wounds had been too great, and while she had been sleeping, he had slipped away. While she was sleeping, death had passed her over and taken someone she had loved instead. While she was sleeping, he had not been able to escape the curse that followed her. Everyone she loved died, and every time she woke up, it got worse and worse.

When she slept, bad things happened.

***

Mei’s silence was far more devastating than any amount of crying. She’d always been easy to laugh and easy to cry, and to Jamison’s delight, had always been easy to anger and easy to fluster as well. Even she would admit that she cried a little more often than she would have liked. When anything remotely sad or heart-wrenching happened, she cried. When animals or kids got into dangerous situations in movies, she cried. When lovers were torn apart by drama in her favorite books, she cried. And there was one video that Jamison had always tormented her with, which was just a bunch of baby goats in sweaters romping over a farm field, which always made her burst into tears because ‘they were so happy’. Seeing Mei’s face as red as a tomato and covered in tears was hardly an unusual thing for everyone on base.

It was far more unnerving to see her so small and pale and blank-faced, sitting in her wheelchair and staring out a window, reduced to depressive catatonia. She was still quite lucid, and answered questions as softly and politely as usual. She let herself be wheeled about while her leg and the rest of her healed, and never forgot to say please or thank you. But though she tried to smile at all the attempts to cheer her up, it never reached anything beyond a half-hearted and distracted twist of her lips. Her gaze remained downcast and far away, barely visible over the shadows under her eyes that were getting darker by the day.

She hadn’t been sleeping well. If she slept, someone else might die.

Her friends, both old and new, showered her with gifts and cheer. Zarya had taken her wheelchair out for a stroll around the grounds for some fresh air, boisterously telling her stories and strange jokes that honestly didn’t translate very well from Russian, but Mei didn’t really hear them. Angela made an attempt to put together a menu of her favorite things and tried to get her to eat, but even vitamin-fortified dumplings and nutrient-enriched soups did little to stir an anemic appetite, and she barely picked at them. Winston spent hours at her bedside, coaxing her with cards or word games or her favorite shows, even though he would eventually fall into much-needed sleep almost every time. Lucio’s personalized mix of healing music sat on her tablet, the files unopened. Not even the one entitled ‘J-Man’ that he had put together in honor of the late Jamison Fawkes. The only gift she had made much use of was the knitted blanket that Ana had made for her, after she had told her she was feeling cold.

She had come out of Antarctica and the cold had lingered inside her, sometimes taking her out of her body and her mind, until she would freeze. Sometimes literally. And there she’d remain, trapped by ice and dark thoughts. And the only thing that could truly break through that ice…was fire. Though her introductions to the junker had been contentious at best, he’d battered down every wall she threw up, melted her cold defenses, and exploded into her life despite all her best efforts. Eventually (VERY eventually) she had finally come to embrace his fiery and madcap nature, and had fallen for him as well.

They had melded together surprisingly flawlessly after that. She cooled him down when he got too hot, and he kept her warm and protected from the cold…which was a foolish notion, in the end.

She never should have relied on a flame to keep her warm. Eventually, they always burned out.

***

The junker had never been good about keeping his personnel files in order, and apparently had not filled out anything for his last wishes or any form of will, and ‘returning’ him to the hostile government of Junkertown had been vetoed right out. So they had gone forward with a traditional funeral for lack of any better ideas. They had flowers and ribbons, though none of that seemed in keeping with his character, so D.Va and Lucio had decorated the bouquets with the shells of his smiley-face bombs, which made it a little better. Mei didn’t notice any of it. Dressed in mourning white, her bad leg still confining her to her wheelchair, she sat and she stared at the open part of the casket. The ruffled cloth around him was ridiculous, and if he had been awake, he would have definitely made fun of it. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t going to wake up. Instead he just lay there, his usually warm skin a ghastly pallor of gray blue that no amount of funerary make-up could disguise. His eyes were closed and he was wearing a shirt and tie and they had tried to style his hair and he wasn’t smiling.

It was barely Junkrat at all, just a cold shell long since abandoned. Like her friends and companions had been, too. All of them, cold and empty and locked in boxes or tubes, to be left behind and forgotten.

They lowered him into the hole they’d made at the military graveyard nearby. The clean white headstone read ‘Jamison Fawkes’ and ‘??? - 2084’ since nobody, including Junkrat himself, was precisely sure when he had been born. It was an unusually warm day, fitting for a man who had loved the heat, but Mei sat under her blanket and still felt cold. The funerary chaplain read something suitably non-denominational, but she didn’t pay attention. And while she was distantly aware that some of his closer friends were crying around her, she still had no tears to shed. She sat there, staring at the hole in the ground where he was being ‘laid to rest’, and briefly pondered joining him in it.

She kept reverting to that icy tomb in her mind, more and more. Jamison was no longer there to wrap his arms around her and tease her or distract her or make her laugh. The warmth that radiated off his body would never be pressed against her again. And his little habits of biting on her neck or her ears to ‘bring her back’ were gone with him. She missed it. She missed him. Even all the annoying things she’s scold him for, she missed those so much. His forgetfulness and unpredictability and tendency to smear soot everywhere…What would she give for just one more moment with him, standing on her tip toes and wrapping her arms around his chest because he was too tall, and telling him he was stinky, and arguing with him over something stupid yet again…She missed arguing with him. She missed everything about him. She missed him so badly that it hurt to think of him. So instead, she would just sit there numbly, and stare at nothing, and think of nothing too.

And mostly, she let it happen. Because too often, her thoughts would inevitably wander back to her wishing that she had died with him. And those were bad thoughts to have, weren’t they? Here everyone was, full of light and happiness and trying their best to bring her back to her old self. Her friends still loved her and wanted her to live. But their light and their love was nothing compared to his fire, and no matter how they tried, she still just felt cold.

Angela had tried everything, but Mei’s progress was agonizingly slow. Her wounds had mostly healed but she remained frail. She’d seen it happen too many times. Grieving was one thing, and could cause sickness to linger. Mei’s grieving and guilt had been intense when she had returned from Antarctica, but she had gotten through it. But this was no longer just grief. There were times when a patient simply gave up, and no amount of medical knowledge would help, when living or dying no longer mattered to them. She barely slept or ate or bathed, and merely existed in her little corner, silent under her blankets and alone with nothing but distant echoes of sorrow, and every day she slipped further away into the numbness that had become her world. Even her number of visitors slowly lessened, as life went on and nothing seemed to affect her. Even her best friends no longer thought they could help her.

…Until there was one particular person who arrived, who had not visited her before.

***

Roadhog had barely seemed to react to his younger partner’s death. The pig-masked man had always been a hard read, but he showed no signs of grief or sadness. He had been in the waiting area when Junkrat had first slipped away, and was the first to receive the news. He had nodded once, bowed his head to Angela in farewell, gotten up, and left. And when someone was finally sent to find him again, he was gone. They had eventually tracked his progress to him simply walking off the base, into the city, and catching a civilian flight back to Australia. After his arrival into his homeland, he had utterly vanished. He had missed the viewing, and the funeral, and everything else. Without his younger charge keeping him here, some wondered if he was going to come back at all.

That had been weeks ago. Just as abruptly as he had left, Roadhog had returned. Ignoring Winston’s and 76’s attempts to berate him, he lumbered back into the base with no fanfare, slinging the heavy pack off his back and physically throwing the cleaning bot out of what had been his and Junkrat’s rooms. No bots, he had said, and shut the door behind him. A few hours later, cutting off the requests for meetings and explanations, he left the dorm and headed for the south bay viewing window where Mei usually lingered for most of the day. Just as expected, she was there, sitting in her chair and staring out at the ocean, pretending that was what she was watching.

He greeted her with a grunt, and for the first time that day she actually noticed anything enough to respond. The old junker had expected a little anger and likely well-earned resentment for his absence, but received nothing but a mildly surprised ‘welcome back,’ before she turned away. Even behind the glass of his mask’s lenses, he saw the look in her eye…or rather, that there was no look in her eye. The spark there had all but faded was was left blank and dull. He knew that look well. He’d seen it in others. And in the mirror.

He might have told her that he knew what she was feeling. He could have told her everything. Including the parts about his wife, and his daughter, and his family, and how he had killed them and everybody else. He could have told her about the days when he was Mako instead of Roadhog. And how losing everything made you lose yourself too. But what good would that have done for either of them? He was a private man, and nearly everyone on the base had some sort of tragic incidents in their past. Just knowing of his own torment would have done nothing to lessen her own. Maybe he would save that for another time, if ever.

Instead he told her that he had something for her, took her chair and began to wheel her off. For the first time in a while, she stirred a bit, and asked him where he had been. He had gone back to Australia, to take care of some things and find something that Junkrat had told him to find. He had found it, and told her as much. From then on, there was a small list of things to wrap up and petty vengeance to finish, and then he had come back. To finish the last thing Junkrat had wanted.

He took her down into the laboratory sector of the base, down to the very, very bottom where Junkrat’s former workshop had been cordoned off. Still filled with live explosives, Overwatch hadn’t quite gotten around to cleaning it out yet. Few were allowed in here, but Roadhog and Mei had never been turned away. Even after he was gone, it was the same, and the locked doors opened to their keycards. Hog held up a finger for her to wait, then stepped inside. Mei watched dully, though one brow slowly lifted as she watched him swiftly dismantle two traps, a noise alarm, and a hidden concussive blast panel hidden under a rug, before he finally took her inside.

The old junker searched amongst the absolute melee of trash and chaos that his former partner preferred, and finally came up with a simple cardboard box with the words SECRET: FUCK OFF sharpie’d on the side. Opening it up to check inside, he nodded and then held it out to Mei, telling her that Jamison had meant it for her. She gently denied this. Junkrat had never finished his will, and hadn’t left her anything. Roadhog snorted, rolled his eyes at that particular thought, and just held out the box. Curiosity stirring from somewhere out of her numb state, she took it, and looked inside.

Inside was a tattered piece of curtain cloth, hiding a tangle of metal that had been welded together in the shape of a flower. Several of them, actually, laid out on top of each other, and two of them were unfinished. Very slowly, uncertainty evident, she went to lift one of them out and inspect it. She recognized it as once. It was a painstakingly made scrapmetal peony, her favorite flower. The numerous petals must have taken hours to sculpt on each one, and he had made several of them.

Roadhog said that Rat had made her a bouquet of metal roses once, on one of his many bids to impress her. But once he’d sniffed out that her favorite blooms were not roses, but peonies, he had binned the whole lot of them and started all over again. Working by pictures on the internet, or occasionally pinching a real bloom from a florist shop where he could, he had been working on this new project for months…when he could remember to. He’d told Hog to remind him whenever he could. It was supposed to be done in time for her birthday, after all.

Mei quietly lifted each of the metal peonies, delicately inspecting them. He hadn’t been able to finish all of them, and one of them was…downright bizarre? The stem was hollow, and there was a strange gap behind the face of the petals. Glancing down into the box, Hog sighed. He hadn’t been able to talk Rat out of that idea, and that particular flower was supposed to explode on a timer device once the box was opened. At least he’d been able to convince Rat to use glitter instead of gunpowder. Mei turned the boobytrap peony around and around in her fingers, and uttered a noise that was almost a laugh. Only someone like Junkrat would ruin his own beautiful handmade birthday gift by turning it into a bomb. Only him. She laughed, and it turned into a choked little sob that she cut off quickly. She didn’t know why, but her fingers started tightening around the metal flower, her hands beginning to tremble. The petals squeaked and bowed as her grip tightened, until the metal could no longer yield and one of her fingers slid the wrong way and sliced open along a sharp edge.

She hissed aloud, and Hog almost went to reach for her. But she only loosened her grip and watched as several droplets of bright, bright red blood oozed down her finger and onto the metal peonies below.

It felt…warm.

Her dull expression warped and shifted, into something stricken. Hugging the box to her chest, she bent double until she was curled over it, and her shoulders began shaking. Tears started to patter on top of the drips of red, and she uttered several scraping, gasping whimpers. And suddenly she was just crying, her chest heaving in convulsing dry sobs that tore themselves out of her again and again. Hog stood towering over her in awkward silence, eventually reaching out with one gigantic hand to place it on her back, patting her gently.

She looked up at him, her glasses askew and smeared with water, streaming from red-rimmed eyes. She could barely even manage to choke out her words.

“I miss him. I miss him…”

He nodded and waited for the flood to subside. Scrubbing at her face, she sniffled aloud, hiccuping and then apologizing for hiccuping. Hog visibly relaxed. That was more along the lines of what he was used to from Mei. She gingerly picked up one her metal peonies, its form blurred through her streaky glasses. She’d buy something to put them in, and then put them on her dresser. Maybe she could frame some of their photos from their time together and put them next to it. Next to the pictures of her team from her Antarctica expedition, and the pictures of her mother, and her father…and everyone else she had lost along the way. Put them all together, clustered around the bouquet of metal flowers he had made for her.

She started to try and rise, wincing as her leg sent a lance of pain as a reminder of its state. She still had healing to do. Easing back into her wheelchair, she asked if Roadhog was going to be busy. Probably later, he would be, after the higher-ups had finally cornered him. But not yet. It was a long way to wheel herself to the cemetery, and she asked if he would not mind going with her. Maybe…they could talk, on the way over? Even though it might hurt her throat, to suddenly be talking again. But he said he would, and grasped the handles of her chair to start guiding her out of the lab. Maybe on the way over, they could stop and get some flowers so that she could put them on his grave. She was keeping her metal bouquet…but maybe they could buy him some peonies?

The old junker grunted and nodded, and pushed open the door to the outside with his elbow, pulling her chair after him. Wheeling her across the base’s yard and towards the gates, Hog headed for the graveyard. He didn’t know where the exact spot was, but they could find it. They’d always been good at finding him. Mei clung tightly to the box in her lap, looking down at the way the metal glinted and caught the light. It was a very bright day, after all…and maybe she was a little overdressed for this place.

Maybe she even felt a little warm.

She pushed her blanket to the side and faced the sunlight.

#meihem #meirat #junkmei #mei #mei-ling zhou #junkrat #jamison fawkes #roadhog #mako rutledge #death #character death #mourning #fanfiction #overwatch #writing

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ayellowbirds · 6 years

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Keshet Rewatches All of Scooby-Doo, Pt. 18: "Nowhere to Hyde"

("Scooby-Doo, Where Are You", Season 2 Episode 1. Original Airdate: 9/12/1970)

AKA, "The First One With a Song"

The episode opens on a nighttime view of the "Movart Collection", a display of expensive jewelry highlighting large gemstones. At the window, a ghoulish face appears, casing the joint. He slides open the window, steals a single enormous pendant, effortlessly climbs down the wall, and makes his escape as a police officer catches sight:

THE GHOST OF HYDE!

So, that's one of the oddities we're dealing with, in this episode, in this world of Scooby-Doo. It's the convention of fictional worlds that other works of fiction are real within them; Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is not a well-known novella by Robert Louis Stevenson, but a fact of history.

The scene cuts to a malt shop, where the Mystery Machine is parked, and the Ghost of Hyde opens the back doors and sneaks inside. Fred, that terrible driver, has no sense of security, and has left the van unlocked.

Meanwhile, the gang have just received their orders. Five double-fudge sundaes, one with a pickle on top for Shaggy. After Fred says that they enjoyed the magic show at the high school (mind, not a confirmation that they have been going to classes, but merely that they attended an event there), Scooby declares that he wants to demonstrate his own magic trick: a disappearing act where he swaps Shaggy's ice cream from its bowl and onto his own sundae, and eats it in one go.

I will remind you that chocolate is fatal for dogs. But Scooby is clearly something other than a dog, so i suppose that's okay. For whatever reason, Shaggy’s pickle-on-top is also consistently drawn as a pickled pepper, and i can’t decide whether that makes this more or less appetizing.

The gang wrap things up, and settle into the Mystery Machine, driving who-knows-where as Fred takes a “creepy shortcut”. Unfortunately, the heater is busted, so Scooby reaches back for a beach blanket...

...which happens to be the hiding place of the ghost. As he rears up with a ghastly grin, the gang flip out, and stop the van to run and hide as the creep makes his escape. Velma recognizes him from the papers as the Ghost of Hyde, and the gang follow him to an old house. Shaggy’s not bothered at all by the situation, no.

I’d say “you don’t know where those have been,” but you know exactly where those have been, and that makes this worse. Y’all just walked through a swamp.

A fall through a trap door puts the gang inside a laboratory belonging to one Dr. Jekyll, who enters and discovers them hiding. He explains that, after a test of a “vitamin formula you only have to take once in your life”, he started blacking out and awakening under circumstances that convinced him he was taking after his ancestor and turning into Mr. Hyde... the ghost of Mr. Hyde!

Danny Phantom, he ain’t.

The gang are convinced something’s fishy, because the mud on Dr. Jekyll’s shoes is dry, which makes no sense if he just transformed from the Ghost of Hyde, who was running through the marshlands near the house. The begin to investigate, with Shaggy and Scooby checking out the attic.

There’s a great gag where Scooby draws his paw across a particularly large web framed between some pieces of wood, and it produces a sound like the scales of a harp. Seconds later, Shaggy opens a “creepy old chest” to discover it’s full of live bats, though how they got in there will forever remain a mystery.

The bats are drawn even more adorably than usual. Investigating the rest of the chest’s contents suggests that “somebody around here must’ve been in show biz”, as it’s full of pieces of costumes. More investigation of the attic doesn’t go very far before the boys catch sight of a spooky shadow, and start to run around in a panic, trying different doors.

Scooby opens one to reveal... another, smaller door. Which hides another, behind which is yet another, which conceals one last tiny, tiny door.

A mouse exits the door on its hind legs, squeaks angrily at Scooby while shaking a fist, and slams the door behind. We don’t have time to process the utter absurdity of this comedic non-sequitur (by which i mean, it’s a completely random gag that does not flow organically from the characters or situation and feels shoehorned into the episode for the sake of slapstick, there wasn’t even a second door visible in earlier shots) before the shadow reappears, and Scooby and Shaggy huddle together in a trembling panic.

Except it’s only Helga, the housekeeper. She assumes they’re “friends of the doctor”, with an air of disdain in her surprisingly pleasant and youthful voice—for a cartoon of the era, the way she’s drawn and the name she’s given would suggest an older voice. Her voice actress, Susan Steward, would also be involved in the writing of several songs in episodes later this season.

Helga complains that the boys “have made a mess of the attic, just after I finished cleaning it,” and begins to dust.

In contrast with the mouse door, it’s a gag that flows from the situation and characters: Scooby and Shaggy’s unease with “creepy” environments, the decrepit appearance of the house, and the air of mystery all combine to make it amusing while also adding to the idea of Helga as a suspect.

Meanwhile, the rest of the gang have found something in the fireplace, a scrap of old newspaper that it looked like someone was trying to burn.

To be honest, while this makes Helga’s youthful, teen-like voice all the more dissonant, i want to draw your attention to the smudged “writing” at the very bottom. Part of that looks like it could say, “ON MONDAY”, but there’s even more that is not recognizable as even fragments of Latin letters. There’s a triangle, and a sort of [-] shape. These sorts of glyphs are so typical of newspapers and other on-screen writing not meant to be read, that i have to wonder about who was responsible for them. Was there a standard set of non-letters, or was it made up as they went along?

While Fred, Daphne, and Velma wonder about why someone who specializes in unassisted climbing of walls would be working as a maid in a place like this, the boys are busy in the Doctor’s library.

The episode does a lot to convince you that Helga is the Ghost of Hyde, but let’s be honest, that bookshelf settles Dr. Jekyll as the culprit without a doubt. We see books on Snakes, Plastic Surgery, Ogres, Medicine, Lizards, Plato, Marquis de Saude (sic), Biology, Murders in the Rue Morgue (obscured above by Shaggy), Chemistry, Dracula Manual, a Hundred and One Ghosts and Ghouls, Vipers, History of Make-Up, Origin of Species, and Bats. So, various works of horror, books on stereotypically “creepy” animals, and several more on outright monsters as well as a couple on changing your appearance.

Shaggy doesn’t have time to contemplate the obvious clues the background artists are providing, however, as the Ghost of Hyde is, well, hiding behind the first book he pulls. As they run and hide, the boys try a deception of hiding inside a broken television and playing at being actors on-screen, including a regrettable bit of Shaggy as a 19th century soldier and Scooby as a native complete with feathered headband. The deception doesn’t last, but their flight leads to another “clue”, as Velma insists that Hyde couldn’t have been Jekyll, since she and the others just saw him in his study—and Scooby finds a feather duster, pair of muddy shoes, and green jacket hidden on a fold-out ironing board in the basement.

As the rest of the gang follow the clues and investigate Helga’s room—finding a can of phosphorous paint (an absolutely nonsense “clue”, since the ghost never glows visibly) and a bottle of “knockout drops”—Shaggy waits outside and raids a bowl of fruit. Freddy, Velma, Daphne are convinced they’ve solved the mystery, but Shaggy interrupts...

...and the Ghost of Hyde snatches him from behind! While the gang hunt the house to rescue him, Shaggy finds himself strapped to a table in the basement, where the madly laughing Hyde gestures to a book to indicate he plans to use the Doctor’s chemicals to turn Shaggy into a frog. Or, as Shaggy puts it, “croak me”.

He screams the series title in despair, and so begins the very first musical chase scene! “Recipe for My Love”, a performance credited to George A. Robertson, Jr., who also sang the new opening theme and was better-known for his musical career as Austin Roberts.

As Shaggy and Scooby crash back into the house, Freddy wonders why the Ghost was after Shaggy in the first place, when the rest of the gang was holding all the clues.

The others shrug it off, concluding that “the Ghost of Hyde is a 24-carat phony” (what????) and that they know who he really is.

A 24-carat phony? Did that line make sense in the Seventies?

The boys bait Hyde, luring him to pull apart a curtain, which reveals... another Ghost of Hyde!

Fleeing, he encounters another, with an oddly high-pitched laugh, and a peculiarly petite one who offers a familiar-sounding “boo!” before he runs in terror, screaming about GHOSTS! Velma, Daphne, and Fred remove their Hyde masks in triumph as they watch the original run back towards the very same trap door that caught them when they first arrived, sending the Ghost of Hyde crashing down into...

THE FIRST TRAP THAT EVER WORKED RIGHT

But there’s still a twist. “If our calculations are right, it should be Helga, the housemaid,” Velma says, as smugly as possible

Well, you win some, you lose some.

Fred explains that the Doctor’s repeated failures in utter unscientific nonsense led him to turn to a life of crime, hastily coming up with the idea of framing his maid and coming up with fake clues while hiding the genuine ones—the suction cups he used for wall-crawling, which Helga wouldn’t have needed.

As the episode ends without commentary on the fact that, while this Dr. Jekyll faked his transformation, there was apparently an actual historic Mr. Hyde, the culprit sulks, his head hung in shame.

There will be no “meddling kids”. Will there ever?

(like what i’m doing here? It’s not what pays the bills, so i’d really appreciate it if you could send me a bit at my paypal.me or via my ko-fi. Click here to see more entries in this series of posts, or here to go in chronological order)

#scooby doo #KRAOSD

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