my problem with the ‘harry becomes lord of 2/¾/5 ancient noble houses’ trope is so unbelievably petty because its that fic writers don’t take it to the potential extreme. like, okay, you wanna make harry the bossest of bitches i get that, i understand, i have that urge too from time to time, but c’mon, be a little more creative about it please
so how about a fic where harry goes to gringotts after the fighting is all over to try to make peace with the goblin nation because this boy does not need more problems and after much hostility and some groveling and promises of future payments for damages caused a plucky goblin lass comes and shuffles harry into her tiny cube office to discuss the nature of his financial situation
(this is a grave insult among goblins. getting handled by a female, first of all, because they are supposedly less capable bankers, hello misogyny among other species, and because they consider anyone who needs help with his money to be lower than cave scum. harry doesn’t know about his. and if he did, he wouldn’t care because he does, desperately, need help)
and plucky goblin lass (who we will call PGL for short) brings out this MASSIVE tome of parchment and slams it down on her desk. a cloud of dust rises. harry sneezes and gets a terrible feeling. some of the parchment is mildewing. the stack is taller than his hand is wide. this can only end badly
PGL tells him that he’ll need to read the entire book to fully comprehend the new scope of his property and harry kind of weakly says “what??”
and it turns out that heyo, when the death eaters swore to follow voldemort with all their lives and souls and magic in their little racist hearts they actually swore a modified liege lord oath which also has the coincidental side effect of ceding all titles (and property connected to said titles) held to the lord in question too. haha how funny who knew
and that’s an ongoing thing. so voldemort was the de facto head of two dozen magical houses at the beginning of the war and he just picked up more as he gained more followers and he probably could have just voted himself and his crew into every position of the government and run the country like that if he cared to do it but voldemort was not about dat political life. he wanted change and he wanted it now. he wanted to MAKE AMERICA MAGICAL BRITAIN GREAT AGAIN. so he started a civil war and just never informed his loyal death eaters of that little fact because they didn’t need to know.
and you might think that gringotts vaults are tied into bloodlines but they’re really not. the malfoy family vault belongs to whoever is the current head of the malfoy family. normally, that’s a malfoy and his malfoy spawn becomes the next head and so it passes through the family, accumulating inherited wealth. it was a working system until voldemort got involved and exploited the ever-living hell out of it.
now this all becomes harry’s problem because it turns out that Right of Conquest is an actual thing. what was voldemort’s is now his and voldemort has has the time to accumulate A Metric Fuck Ton of stuff.
also connected to titles are votes in the wizengamot. and whoo boy, this is where harry’s problem becomes really really really problematic. because the noble families squabble over those votes like children, hoarding them and passing them down, occasionally trading them for advantageous marriages and such, but mostly jealously guarding them like the politcal gold they are. it’s such a bitterly tight-fisted market that any one family has ~maybe~ three or four votes.
and now harry bloody potter has a hundred of the things and a completely unintentional stranglehold on the government. whoops
and then hermione would shotput harry straight into the
wizengamot
against his protests and things would become so hilarious i just
some jerkass attempts to increase his own salary for doing basically nothing
“how about no,” harry and his hundred votes say.
somebody attempts to tighten restrictions on where magical creatures like vampires and werewolves can work
“how about no.” harry crosses his arms. “actually, how about we repeal those bullshit laws already in place that make it almost impossible for werewolves to get a job right now, hmmmm? and how about we put something in place to catch abusive owners of house elves? and make sure they get paid? and vacation days? and healthcare? actually how about we get healthcare for EVERYBODY HOW ABOUT T H A T?”
ten generations of purebloods cry out in horror. look upon him ye mighty and despair.
the years after voldemort’s defeat don’t go down in history as The Golden Era. in fact, thanks to harry bloody potter (and some incessant nudging by hermione granger), they go down as The Decade of Frankly Astonishing Strides Toward Equality *cough* enforced by a semi-plutocracy.
(all thanks to a third tier plot never really explored by a would-be dictator YOU’RE ALL WELCOME)
Omg this is beautiful.
Harry as an accidental Lord Vetinari, oh my god.
Harry dealing with that all these pureblood families outright hate him. They were loyal to the Dark Lord, loyal to blood supremacy, loyal to their own enrichment and empowerment via the casting down of others, and now here’s Harry Potter, who opposes all of these things, who killed the Dark Lord and vanquished their dreams: their new Lord and Master.
And they can’t do anything about it because not only is it a binding magical contract but it’s their tradition, their law, their way of doing things, and they can’t attack Harry without shattering their own foundations in the process; they can’t even really convey their dislike of Harry because it would be disloyal to their own House.
So, all these pureblood wizards from old families who both hate Harry Potter and everything he stands for but also as a point of honor are perversely proud of him. He’s a wizard; he’s a half-blood, but he’s also the scion of a House of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, and he’s a powerful and talented wizard who vanquished the greatest Dark Lord history has ever seen. And he’s the Head of a dozen great and ancient wizarding Houses, he’s their Head of House so to speak, and they tie themselves in knots trying to figure out how to feel about him.
And the ones who don’t have a noble House, but only have their votes in the Wizengamot that Harry Potter owns, and you just don’t throw tradition out and start casting votes on your own inclination, well, they aren’t honor-bound and pride-bound to claim and embrace him, but they make their social standing from copying the greater Houses, and when their betters are quietly and gracefully saying “he’s a chaos-minded tyrant, but he’s our chaos-minded tyrant,” well, they buck up and agree.
Harry Potter, unlike Voldemort, isn’t lashing out at random or threatening to kill their children, so it’s sort of an improvement in many ways, even as they want to scream and throw things over all his reforms.
And after all, the old Houses value power. And Harry, above all, has power.
He goes down in pure-blood history as the Tyrant. The most powerful Lord their family lines have ever known. The man who reshaped their world. Elderly wizards tell their great-grandchildren long after his death that “I knew the Tyrant.” “I beheld him when my father took me to the Wizengamot, and he spoke to me.” “When I went to Hogwarts, he gave a guest lecture.” This far removed, at the end of their lives, the details of his rule are forgotten, the overturnings of tradition lost to history, and he is remembered with pride, even with adoration.
Their Tyrant. Their Lord. Harry Potter, the Greatest Wizard that Ever Lived.
(There are pictures of Harry at Hogwarts, at the Ministry, at St. Mungo’s, outside the Auror Office and in front of the Minister’s Office and in the entrance hall to the Wizengamot and in both the entrance hall and the Headmaster’s office at Hogwarts, and in every House he ruled. He wears stately robes and an impressive hat, gold jewelry, a beard (dark in some pictures, silver-shot in others, pure snowy white in still more, for he lived to be an old man himself, older than Dumbledore, older than Griselda Marchbanks, who lived to dance at his wedding), his glasses accentuating his brilliant green eyes, his scar more prominent in the pictures than it ever had been in life, surrounded with such trappings as the Sword of Gryffindor and the Elder Wand and a skull that purports to be that of Lord Voldemort.
Also at Hogwarts, in a back corridor next to a set of of dancing trolls and an overzealously combative knight, is a portrait commissioned by the executor of Harry Potter’s estate, in response to directions left in his will. This portrait depicts an eleven-year-old boy in brand-new wizard’s robes, with broken glasses and untidy hair that happens to cover his forehead. The portraits of his older selves go wrapped in the lofty dignity of the position he attained later in life; this child, filled with the untarnished wonder of the magical world, goes freely among the portraits with an anonymity Harry Potter never found in life, and loves it.)
GIVE ME THESE BOOKS.
HARRY POTTER AND THE ACCIDENTAL POLITICAL STRANGLEHOLD
IT GOT BETTER
“I’m going to grow a beard,” says Harry, looking through the mirror at about six days’ worth of stubble because in between Voldemort, the after-party, and the spectacular mess with the sociopolitical fallout of Voldemort’s downfall he hasn’t had time or energy to shave. “It might look more wizardly, eventually.”
Ron shrugs, eyeing Harry with what feels like an unusual sort of apathy. He’s spent the last six days kissing Hermione, and for the first time in several years there isn’t even a twinge of jealousy at his better-looking and more-famous best friend. “It might. Think Hermione’d like it if I grew a handlebar mustache?”
Harry says, diplomatically, “I think you should ask Hermione if she’d like that.”
“When she gets back.” Hermione’s in Australia, tracking down her parents and, presumably, explaining to two incendiarily furious Muggles why she rewrote their memories, sent them halfway around the world, and spent almost a year running through a war zone without them. Neither of them envy her the task. It also means that she hasn’t heard any of this; the Daily Prophet has suffered a truly impressive amount of magical vandalism in the past few days, much of it involving the sort of things that can be bought at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, and is taking a small hiatus while its staff writers and senior editors recover from the effects of multiple Bat Bogey Hexes per person.
Harry shrugs and turns away from the mirror. “So,” he says with some distaste. “Do I look like the Lord of seventeen Noble Houses?”
He doesn’t. He looks like a seventeen-year-old boy in a worn-out school robe made for someone several inches shorter and about ten kilos heavier, with wild hair that brushes his shoulders and what will perhaps someday be an impressive beard but currently looks like he’s forgotten to shave for several days. Ron thinks about the answer for a long moment. “Nope.”
Harry’s face splits into a relieved grin. “Oh, thank Merlin. I thought I was the only one who could see how much of a tosser I looked.”
“Nope. Plain as day.”
Harry looks one more time in the mirror, as though coming to a sort of peace with that he’ll probably never feel like a Lord. “Good,” is what he says.
–
That feeling lasts for all of a minute. Professor McGonagall intercepts him on the way down and drags him into her office, where she hands him a robe that hasn’t been dragged through multiple battles and a year-long camping trip, and a pair of shoes that aren’t falling apart. “I’m sure you don’t want any part of this, Harry, but you should try to look a bit more neat. It will show respect for your new position, which will make things a bit easier for you in the long run.
The shoes are leather, black, old-fashioned and fine. He has a moment’s thought of Dobby, polishing Lucius Malfoy’s boots in between being kicked, and bile rises in his throat. He puts the shoes on, and then the robe, which is not a school robe, but elegantly cut in some fine fabric, and it fits him. He finds himself standing up a bit straighter, and Professor McGonagall nods in approval. “That will do. Good luck, Mr. Potter.”
Another memory tickles at him, their conversation right after Dumbledore’s death, him declining to confide in her and her return to formality. “Harry,” he tells her.
“Harry,” she says, and gives him a hint of a smile.
–
The next person he runs into is Ginny, who runs up to him, hugs him, kisses him (Ron makes a coughing noise here, and is ignored), and steps back to look at him. “Don’t you look dashing,” she says, and Harry grins at her, feeling a bit more human. He wraps her up in a hug and is about to kiss her again when he’s hit about the head by a live chicken.
He lets go and flails about comically instead. Beside him, Ginny is doing the same thing, shoving the bird off him and in the direction of Ron, who is leaning against the wall guffawing. Ginny turns to yell down the hallway, “Just because you almost died doesn’t mean I won’t hex you!”
A pair of identical faces peek around the corner. “Good morning, dearest sister of mine!” Fred sings out, dramatically throwing one arm out towards the nearest sunlit window.
“Like our newest product?” George asks, coming up behind him; if they’re standing noticeably closer to each other than they would have done before, Harry doesn’t comment on it. He gets it.
“A chicken?” Harry asks, dubiously.
They both grin. “Not just any chicken,” says Fred.
“We started by improving our line of fake wands,” says George.
“So instead of rubber chickens and fish and parrots–”
“–They’d turn into real chickens–”
“–And squirrels–”
“–And ferrets,” George adds, and they all share a grin, knowing exactly who that particular fake wand is going to make its way to.
“But then we decided to go one further–”
“And make the spell triggered by kissing instead!”
Fred holds out what looks like a tiny, decorative egg. “We’re calling it the Cockblock, what do you think?”
Ginny smiles sweetly, though she’s toying with her wand in a way that has both brothers looking a tad wary. Then her smile turns full-on evil, and she says, “I think you should make a quill that turns into a really angry swan when someone uses it to write something untrue.”
Harry, sensing where she’s going with this, says, “Make it lime green.”
–
When he finally gets down to the Great Hall, Harry’s feeling a lot better about everything. It’s hard not to, with friends like he’s got.
The Great Hall is about two-thirds full. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner these days have all had their hours extended, to better serve the influx of families, refugees, repair workers, ministry officials and assorted others who have been in and out of Hogwarts quite a bit in the aftermath of battle.
As usual, all eyes turn to Harry as he comes in. As usual, several people detach themselves from their groups and conversations and start heading his way. As usual, he contemplates turning around and leaving rather than face an invasion of questions, requests, and unsolicited advice while he eats his French toast, but then he sees Draco Malfoy, hunched over a bowl of porridge with neither parents nor remaining sycophant in attendance, and with a polite smile to the converging adults and a silent astonishment at his own audacity he goes over and sits across from Draco.
Just as anticipated, everyone who wanted to talk to him finds themselves unwilling to interrupt somebody else’s conversation with him. At least if that somebody else is a Slytherin pureblood, and one of his new vassals.
Draco looks up. “Fuck do you want, my Lord?” Bitterness, underlaid with exhaustion, resignation, and months of despair.
Harry says, “Call me Potter, you tosspot.”
Draco’s lips twitch. Harry’s willing to bet it’s the closest thing to a smile to cross Draco’s face in months. But it’s gone almost instantly. “Can’t,” Draco says. “You’re my Head of House.”
“What, you didn’t have any problem disrespecting Snape last year.”
“Not that kind of Head of House. That’s just school. You’re head of my House, of the House of Malfoy, and that’s supposed to be my father!” This last is almost a snarl.
“And then you,” Harry reasons. “And then your kid.”
Draco nods. “And now it’s you instead, and you don’t give a shit for our traditions, or for blood, or for anything, and you look like you just escaped from Azkaban and I’ll bet somebody else chose that robe for you because you have the fashion sense of a coat rack.”
Harry giggles. Then he remembers he’s supposed to be eating breakfast here, and serves himself a slice of French toast from one of the platters. “Here I thought,” he says, looking at the traces of despair on Draco’s face, “that you were the one who just got out of Azkaban.”
Draco considers this. Harry pours his syrup and takes a bite while his longtime rival mulls this over. “Maybe, sort of,” Draco allows finally. “Still one prison to another.”
Harry frowns. That isn’t what he wants. Maybe for some of the nastier of Voldemort’s supporters, but for Draco? He casts about for something to offer that wouldn’t be rejected as empty comfort or held in contempt as though Harry were tossing him scraps.
“Maybe,” he repeats Draco’s word. At the other’s curious look, he says, “I could use someone to help me understand all this tradition and power I’ll be dealing with.” Draco looks at him, wary and yet obviously, keenly interested. Harry wonders when he got to be such an expert at reading Draco, who probably got actual lessons in not letting such things show.
Tradition, Harry thinks. Tradition, and power, or access to it. Influence. That’s what matters to pureblood Slytherins. That and lineage. He thinks back to the battle, to Draco’s mother lying to Voldemort in exchange for knowledge of her son’s survival; the image mingles momentarily with that of his own mother, standing before Voldemort, shielding him.
Family.
“For example,” Harry says, “If I adopt your firstborn as my heir to your House, do they become Head of it after me?”
The stunned widening of Draco’s eyes, the sudden blaze of naked hope, are shockingly intimate, and Harry almost nonchalantly busies himself pouring a cupful of orange juice.
“Yeah,” says Draco finally. "That … yeah.” A long, vaguely suspicious silence. “You’d do that?”
Harry nods. And feels like bursting with something like happiness when Draco straightens up, smiles genuinely, and says, “Well, then, you’ve got yourself an adviser. Have you considered growing a beard? Is that where you’re going with that?”
Harry nods, and is about to ask Draco’s advice on the matter when someone shrieks in the Entrance Hall.
“HARRY!” Hermione yells, standing in the doorway, rigid with shock but at the same time clearly missing a tension that’s been with her all year. “You’re a WHAT?!”
IT GOT BETTER.
@cywscross i feel like this is something you would like
This is all amazing. But especially “The Cockblock”. That is beautiful pun.
the historical relationship between race / white supremacy and capitalism, & the attendant relationship between race and class, are multifaceted and complex. anyone who tries to tell you that these relationships are settled and simple, that either race or class has absolute primacy over the other, that white supremacy and capitalism aren’t in many ways dependent upon & respondent to each other in how they were formed and in how they continue to shape the world in which we all live, is oversimplifying a question that’s been at the core of a lot of anti-capitalist, anti-racist, & anti-colonialist thought for decades at least. the issue should not be one of conflict–asking “which of these systems overrides or matters more than the other”–but one of synthesis–working to understand how these systems function with and in relation to each other, albeit sometimes in troubled or complicated ways. to have any hope of inquiring into these issues we cannot be afraid of complexity.
the makings of race & the makings of modern capitalism are historically inextricable from each other. if race as we know it today (and specifically the categories of white, Black, & Indigenous american) can be understood as having arisen from european colonialist expansion and the attending enslavement & genocide (/ “removal”) of Indigenous populations, and, slightly later, the more systematic enslavement of and trade in African people–things that, in the late 1600s, began to demand a post hoc explanation as to why some people were subject to enslavement and not others–then, equally, that very imperialist expansion that gave rise to race can be understood as a driving force in the birth of modern capitalism (see especially Fields). and european imperialism and colonialism elsewhere in the world, along with, most recently, neoliberalism, have continued to develop and reinforce the relationship between white supremacy and capitalism (see especially Harris). historical evidence suggests that racism and racial ideology had to be invented and then, in many contexts, had to be taught–and taught diligently–to European peasants, especially indentured servants, in order to suppress their tendency to organise against their masters alongside African slaves (see Federici, 106-107). it took another couple hundred years even after all of this for race to be considered in quite the manner it’s considered in today–as a matter of “biology,” rather than of climate or environment (see especially Harvey). “race” is a set of fictions subject to constant shifting and re-negotiation, & seeing its construction and foundations will require recourse to capital (among other things) at every level.
to claim that race is trans-historical, or that it predates and supercedes capitalism, is to remove race from the circumstances that led to its creation, and therefore to naturalise & to essentialise it. but there is nothing natural or naturally arising about racial ideology or racism.
to claim that racism is an ingrained sense of hatred for non-”white” people that exists in “white” people for reasons entirely unrelated to the material realities of enslavement and colonialist and imperialist expansion, and to the “transition” from feudalism to capitalism as it occurred in Europe and elsewhere, is to claim both that there is some sort of biological or metaphysical truth to the (often troubled) category of “white,” and that there is somehow something naturally detestable about the people who fall outside of that category. on both counts this viewpoint does white supremacy’s work for it. it is also, in its essentials, the accepted liberal view of race, no matter what language you dress it up in.
certainly europeans prior to their colonisation of the americas had cultural and aesthetic ideas and ideals that, viewed through the distorting lens of hindsight, seem to be referencing race, and they’re commonly brought up as early examples of racism & anti-Blackness. indeed, europeans recalled and repurposed these ideas & aesthetics concurrently with the invention of race, subsuming them into the developing system & discourse of white supremacy (and also things like anti-Blackness and colourism). but it’s ahistorical and disingenuous to call this “race” in the context of a conversation in which the term is being used to denote a more specific set of historically contingent (since ~ the very late 1600s) and biologised (since no sooner than the 1850s) ideas & categories.
to claim that race supercedes capitalism, or that struggle against white supremacy is in any way divorcable from, or is even counter to, struggle against capitalism, is also to erase or otherwise misrepresent the legacy of countless racialised peoples & colonial subjects who understood & understand their struggles against these two systems to be inextricably linked. anti-colonial & anti-racist organising have been socialist for decades and it’s downright silly to pretend otherwise. acting like communist or socialist activism & organisation is somehow inherently a white thing is to deny agency & complexity to the many Black revolutionaries, peoples in the Global South, & other nonwhite people and people of colour whose resistance to white supremacy and capitalism provide frameworks for communist organising to this day. socialism is not “white” and never has been (see especially “Who is Oakland”).
of course the other, equally misguided, side of all of this is the tack taken by a lot of white leftists who ignore the roles of imperialism & colonialism in the formation of modern capitalism, ignore the roles that race & colonialism play in creating superexploited subjects in the periphery of empire whose labour can be extorted for the benefit of the ruling class, and ignore the ways in which white supremacy works as an institutional barrier to accumulating wealth for Black people and other people of colour in the West. to claim that capitalism is material while race is merely social, that the relationship between capitalism and race is one of base vs. superstructure (yes, I have really had this argument), or to claim that there is any way to dismantle capitalism without confronting white supremacy, is equally to disregard and disrespect the work & lived experiences of racialised & colonised socialists and revolutionaries.
to disregard any attempt to account for the material realities of race as mere “identity politics” that subvert nonwhite people’s loyalties away from “purer” class struggle–implied or stated to be the only legitimate arena for resistance of any kind–is to ignore how race materially (including, yes, economically) impacts the lives of racialised people. it is also to ignore the role that race has played in subverting the loyalties of white wage labourers against people of colour by giving them small concessions (slightly better jobs & working conditions, plus the mere psychological satisfaction that hey, at least they were white) as incentives against organising alongside working class people of colour. this racial divide between members of the working class needs to be addressed–not merely swept under the rug as an example of white workers working against their own self-interest (as if–while, yes, still worse off than they would be if capitalism were not in place–they did not materially benefit at the expense of other workers). white supremacy and racism need to be confronted in any struggle against capitalism. ignoring all of this is flagrantly to disregard things that Black revolutionaries in the U.S. have known, again, for decades, as well as to express a profound lack of care for nonwhite peoples across the board. and that’s why white leftists get on my damn nerves, lmao.
yall knooow. my boi tom hiddleston. my husband. the love of my life.
2. are you single or taken?
married to tom single lol
3. rant. just do it
it fucking appalls me that there are people who are homophobic and transphobic and racist and sexist and all that. like WHAT THE FUCK. hating someone for something they have no control over. how fucking dare you think that any person is lesser than you, lesser than a person because you don’t like that they’re different than you. how fucking dare you.
4. do you think its ok to separate the artist from the art?
it all depends on context tbh. example: if i ever end up playing a racist woman on stage, or writing a racist character, you have to look at the work as a whole. you’ve also got to look into the artist themselves and figure out the intention. if the artist has a history of making racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. art, then you really can’t separate it and it needs to be looked into. but every piece of art has a piece of the artist in them, somehow.
5. how many accounts do you have?
six? main, aesthetic, writing, three others i keep to myself lol
6. how many pairs of shoes do you have?
no clue probably upwards of 20 or 30
7. opinion on… (specify to the person you’re asking to)
whelp i don’t have a topic so i’ll give my opinion on white chocolate. i fucking hate it.
8. how many accounts do you follow?
1903 jesus christ
9. favorite brand of clothing?
reformation!!!! they’re trying to achieve 100% sustainablity with their clothes! their slogan is “
Being naked is the #1 most sustainable option. We’re #2″
12. what’s the most interesting schools gossip you’ve ever heard?
uhm? not sure? I guess that someone was cheating on their boyfriend? idk
13. ever prank called a store?
nah i don’t have the heart to
14. what’s your coffee order?
tea
15. what’s a question do you constantly get asked?
is it julia or julie?
16. if you had to get a tattoo right now, what would you get and where?
on my rib cage, the celestial coordinates to either the center of the galaxy or the center of the universe.
17. google the top song from the year you were born
“believe” by Cher. It’s a sign.
18. rant about your favorite musician
it pisses me off that Brendon Urie and P!atD aren’t given more recognition! like, yes, there are the Emos here who listen to them, but I NEVER hear them on the radio, not the pop station. pop just means popular. and they’ve got some bops that are charters, hallelujah comes to mind first as it is most recent top. it hit 40 on the charts! like!!!!!!
I just got off the phone with mom, and we came to the realization that my family has lived in a series of unplottable houses for a couple generations now.
-The First Unplottable House is on my dad’s side of the family, in Delphi, Iowa. The directions to it are the stuff of Buried Treasure: Turn off the county road with a fraction in it’s name, to the Named Dirt Road, then turn at The Discount Eggs Sign on to the Unnamed dirt road that takes a meandering path THROUGH a corn field, DO NOT take any forks on that road or the farmer will shoot your ass, then take the paved road that dead-ends on ALL the way to the end- No, farther, the road keeps going it’s not a cliff-The only indication that You Have Arrived At The Correct Driveway is that a fat gray pony will charge the car, screaming, then escort you the rest of the way there.
It’s on the side of an enormous river, they’ve owned the property since 1911, and that’s the ONLY route there.
-The Second Unplottable house is in Bedford, Ohio and belonged to my mother’s parents. It’s at the corner of two side-streets, right across from the tiny Italian grocery store. Due to strange development decisions, the house is about 30 feet above street level and rendered invisible by a chestnut tree so majestic Hyao Myazaki would probably put it in a movie. The driveway, however, is VERY visible from any of the surrounding houses, the grocer, or the street.
At least in theory and old photos, becuase if you actually GO there, your eyes slide right past it to the neighbor’s lillac bush, or to the retro neons of the grocery store or up the Chestnut tree. it is literally HARD to look at that driveway, all the world around it wants to pull you away.
-The Third Unplottable house is in Salinas, CA, home of my paternal grandparents. It is the single most BORING house possible- like, if you were to ask a third-grader to draw a prototypical house, they would draw my grandparent’s house. Utterly Unremarkable.
Except for the part where my Grandfather, spurred by his success with the “non-fruiting” peach tree, decided to plant a California Redwood Tree, and it grew to approximately 150 feet over the course of a few short decades. It is the tallest damn thing for miles around, and SOMEHOW deliveries keep being missed, mail is delivered to the neighbors, and any non-blood family that tried to visit would end up on the other side of town.
-The Fourth Unplottable House was the one I grew up in CA. The Directions to it are as follows: It’s the Bright Orange house Right Across From The School. You know, the one with six flamingos and the Volunteer Avacado Tree.
SOMEHOW, we got everyone’s mail but OURS (we still wonder about the letter from Fort Knox for Mr. Thomas Saxophone), the other kids got lost trying to visit and ended up in Mr.Phan’s yard on the other end of the block. Officer Brown, Mom and Dad’s friend, who had GPS back in the early 90′s becuase silicon valley, regularly got lost looking for our place. The Flamingos did nothing.
-My parent’s current house is the second house on the right after two right turns off the state highway that runs through town. Sounds easy, right?
Except that due to a couple small trees and a bend in the road, the house is invisible from the road. I have to stand out in the road if i want my pizza delivered. The Mailman is the only person who could reliably find the box, but he drives a subaru that’s older than my sister from the passenger side by leaning over, and delivers mail based on the aztec lunar calendar, so he’s probably not actually human. I tried to host a party, tied rainbow balloons to the mailbox, and all nine friends had to be waved in from the street.
-My current apartment building Does Not Exist, according to my Bank, medicaid, Google, and City Hall which was a bit exciting when I first moved in and had to call everyone that yes, I was sitting in a building that really exists.
Unless it’s my classmates, becuase they can apparently come to parties I don’t host. This Friday I had a friend telling me she had a great time at my place last Teusday… when I was home alone. She assures me that I held a houseparty with “Those polish things you make” (I make great mini klatchky, but haven’t served them to her) and that “You were definitely there, we talked about Carvaggio and you drive me home”
The only thing that offers any explanation is that you were drunk at the anecdote about your recent house party 🎉 nothing else is explainable
I’m deathly allergic to alcohol, and was definitely at home alone, emailing a former professor about werewolves. Got the chatlog and everything.
Guliya’s roommate recalls me dropping her off at the dorms, which is really peculiar. Another classmate, Jeff, was at the party with Guliya, and they thought it was my place too. Jeff is a jackass and I’d never invite him to my place.
God, I hope I don’t have another doppelganger.
… /another/ doppelganger???
The year is 2014, October. I have the beginnings of what will prove to be a rotten cold, and I decide to take the precaution of getting an enormous bowl of Pho from my local Vietnamese place in hopes of staving off another respiratory infection.
No sooner do I set foot in the door, and Mrs. Nguyen snaps up and shrieks YOU!! and I am much distressed and confused, because I adore Mrs. Nguyen. She kept My Intended alive last passover when the cafeteria covered literally everything in flour.
She insists that some time in august I had dined with a large group of friends and then skipped out on a $200 dollar tab. This is even more distressing and also impossible, as I had been in Oregon at the time, and only have like 3 IRL friends. She is livid, and absolutely insistent that it was me, and that I pay the tab or she’ll call the police. Being very distressed and not eager to have a panic attack in front of police, I pay up $216.87 and am banned forever. I go home in tears, without my Pho and am very sick for a fortnight.
Two months later, it’s Polish Butter Christmas, and I locate the source of my woes.
Polish Butter Christmas is the invention of my Intended’s friend/domesticated internet troll, where everyone deemed a friend or at least interesting party diversion is invited to their house and we all consume massive amounts of Traditional Polish Cooking, which is about 60% butter by weight. everyone eats way too much, most people also get shitfaced and i usually end up on the floor playing with 4-6 corgis, depending on who’s invited that year. in 2014, it was all six of them, rustling under the table like a pack of obese furry sausages.
Among the guests invited are myself, my Intended, The Troll’s girlfriend, and her friend. The latter is 5′2″, whiter than mayonnaise, with bright purple hair and green glasses. I also am 5′2″, glow under black lights, had bright purple hair and still have green glasses. We learn furthermore, that we have the same first name and live on the same side of town. This is laughed off as Most Amusing, at first.
The celebration goes on, and I become steadily less amused as I learn that Not-Me is a BITCH. Racist jokes, yelling at the dogs to make them cower becuase “They look so funny!”, and generally abrasive and cruel. Everyone is uncomfortable and Troll confides quietly to me in the kitchen that she is not invited next year, but needs an excuse to throw her out, or his dad will have a fit. Troll’s family is as much a gang of cryptids as mine, and cannot go around Un-Inviting people without Due Cause. So we agree to suffer quietly and laugh about it next year.
Eventually, the conversation turns to “Youthful Shenanigans”, and while most people have the sense to tell stories where they did something dumb but not actually illegal, Not-Me recounts with utter glee “That time me and my hoes dine-and-dashed that one chink place hahaha”
I suddenly put two and two together and realize that This Bitch Has Personally Wronged Me.
“You CUNT.” I tell her, furious at the realization ad the fact that she’s been steadily ruining Polish Butter Christmas for the last three hours. “Mrs. Nguyen thinks I did that! I HAD TO PAY THE TAB!”
“Oh, uh my bad, haha…” She laughed awkwardly.
“HA. YES. FUNNY. WE ARE GOING TO THE PLACE, YOU ARE APOLOGIZING TO MRS. NGUYEN AND PAYING ME BACK YOU INSUFFERABLE BITCH.” I yelled, grabbing her arm and dragging her towards the door, Corgis yapping excitedly at our ankles.
“Whaa? No! fuck you!” She said, winching her arm out of my grip and doing an amazing four-inch-heel-sprint for the bathroom, locking herself in.
She has made a rather serious error in the Troll is both 1. a 6′6″ Sasquatch of a man, and 2. TOTALLY WILLING to take a crowbar to the bathroom window he’d been planning on renovating anyway, esp if it mean he gets to haul a bitch out and toss her into the back of the minivan with the three least-obese corgis, so that we may drive her, sobbing about injustice the whole way.
Nothing in my life will ever be so satisfying as dragging Not-Me into Pho 67, and seeing the look of horror and recognition cross Mrs. Nguyen’s face as she realized what had happened, then having Not-Me withdraw the money from the ATM at the front.
We then returned to Polish Butter Christmas and had a splendid time feeding buttered pork to the corgis.
But you see why I am loathe to deal with another one.
Every sentence that gets added just reinforces that this is a Neil Gaiman story in the Sandman universe near the Ocean at the end of the Lane.
And no one’s gonna question the werewolf email to Prof?
Congratulations on being the first person to ask about the werewolves! Prof Hoffman teaches a course called Freaks And Monsters, which was THE BEST literature course I’ve ever taken and she was the first person to get my idiot brain to understand symbolism.
I’m writing a book about Crypids In America and was emailing her to see if she had any recommended reading for me, and to introduce her to my Botany professor becuase I think they’d be friends. She was a little late replying to me becuase she’s in Rome documenting gargoyles, but she and Botany prof are planning an expedition to Moscow to retrieve a book for rare mushroom plates before the crazy cat lady who’s keeping it accidentally destroys them.
You sure the party doppelganger is not the same doppelganger as Bitch Doppelganger?
THANK YOU FOR ASKING BECAUSE I HAVE AN UPDATE.
So last night I’m out walking Charlie at 2AM becuase it was the first break in the lightning we’d had since 6PM, and I go around the corner and literally for half second I thought I was about to walk into a mirror becuase I found my local doppelganger and this time it’s WEIRD.
I’ve got weird curly brown hair that goes kind of Bride-Of-Frankenstein when it gets long, have a weird hound mix from AZ, and am art major with a science background. I grew up in the bay area and moved to CO in middle school. I’m a night owl with a bad habit of signing up for morning classes. I’ve got a super-common first and middle name, and a less-common irish surname. I’m in 105D
SHE has got the same hair and face, her dog is a weird hound mix that’s like a paletteswap of charlie also from AZ, possibly the same ranch, She’s a biology major with an art minor, grew up in CO and moved to the bay area in middle school, is a morning person with afternoon classes. We have the same first and middle names, in reverse order, and she has the other spelling of my last name. She’s in 105A.
Statistically, some of this is not surprising- both combinations of names are common, and there was a lot of cross-traffic between CO and CA in 2004, all Rez dogs are shaped the same, and Art/science isn’t that odd a major/minor combo.
She did throw that party back in novemeber, and I was much relived, and she was glad to find out I exist- We’ve somehow gotten into the same circle of art/science/queer friends without meeting up, and Guliya was bugging her telling stories of My Shenanigans, and attributing them to her.
We’ve arranged a coffee-date with Gulia and are gonna show up in the same outfit just to fuck with her.
I am now following you just because I don’t want to miss finding out what happened with the coffee date.
Oh my Zod. ::also follows::
How old is this post? Did the coffee date happen? Has Guliya’s head asploded? I must know!
Yes, I too must know.
Also I live near Bedford and really want to find this house that has a driveway with an SEP field generator.
IIIIIIITS MOTHAFUKKEN UPDATE TIME!!
So the date got put off for a bit because of school issues, but Doppelganger and I managed to coordinate outfits and met up at the local coffee place half an hour before Guliya arrives, and plan our strategy.
This coffeehouse has bathrooms located at the end of a U-shaped hallway, so I was going to wait in the hall and Doppelganger in the main part of the cafe. After a bit of chatting, D would get up to use the restroom and we’d swap places. The idea was to see how many times we could swap before Guliya noticed something was amiss. I hear Guliya arrive, and wait.
After about 15 minutes, D comes down the hall, gives me a quick update on the convo so far- the self-inflicted-illness of a professor and the astonishing number of bears about- and I go out.
Guliya notices NOTHING.
We talk more about bears and the terrifying lack of life skills some freshmen have and I go back, complaining of bladder issues. D and I swap places 3 more times like this, before Guliya notices that we seem to be ill and she can recommend a specialist, so we decide to end the game. We both walk out while Guliiya is texting someone and sit down across from her.
Knowledge is often described as “dawning’ on people, the soft illumination of understanding. This was like watching someone get caught by the totality of an unscheduled eclipse. She looked up from her phone, delighted to continue the conversation and watching her face collapse into wall-eyed horror is something that I will treasure for ages.
“There are two of you!”
“Yes!” We said, in unintentional creepy unison.
She stared at us for a few moments, surprise giving way to puzzlement, then, relief.
“Thank Fuck.” She sighed. “I was beginning to wonder when the hell you slept.”
Apparently she had conflated out two identities into some sort of double-major two-jobs constantly-awake superbeing and had been worried about keeping up with Us.
“I mean I don’t anyway. I have terrible insomnia.” I said, unhelpfully.
“Which one of you has the rant about Carvaggio?” She asked.
“That’s both of us.”
“And the one who nearly got eaten by bears?”
“Still both of us.”
“Well how am I supposed to tell you apart?” She grumbled.
“I’m the one passed out on the chemistry building couch, they’re the one on the figure-drawing couch.” D offered.
“We can only sleep when surrounded by dangerous chemicals and poor judgement.” I explained.
“It reminds us of our home dimension of Madness.” D continued.
“Fuck both of you, and any other of you out there.” said Gulia, downing more macchiato for strength.
“Don’t be mean to 27.” I said.
“He had nothing to do with this.” D continued.
Guliya snorted macchiato out of her nose at that one. We apologized, she thought it was hilarious and now D is #9 and I’m #426.
i think we’ve found The Most Interesting Person In The World.
Hold on, is anyone going to question the BOTH NEARLY EATEN BY FRIGGIN BEARS???
Since I had someone send me an ask about this chain of events: Yes, I’m the blog (or at least one of them) with a chronic doppelganger problem. Some Updates/explanations:
D graduated with her degree in Zoology and is planning to take a year off to travel through the National Park System before going to Grad school in New York.
She finds her anonymous internet fame amusing and is amazed more people haven’t got similar stories, as I’m her second doppelganger so far.
D has also grown her hair out to her shoulders and I’ve kept mine at something approaching a buzzcut so at least Guliya can tell us apart now.
She’s Very Disappointed by this.
Guliya is pronounced “Julia” but her parents liked the unusual spelling.
The gargoyle prof/botany prof trip to Moscow has been postponed due to the state of International Politics right now, but they have managed to verify that the rare mushroom plates are, in fact, safe.
They’re going to Greece instead.
Domestic Troll and his girlfriend have invited us to Polish Butter Christmas again this year.
Girlfriend heard a rumor that Bitch!Doppelganger is now living in Nebraska, possibly after getting in trouble with the law in CO.
There are a frankly insane number of Black Bears in Durango, CO and many of them are far too human-acclimated. Neither of us were in danger of being eaten (Guliya is prone to dramatics) but I nearly walked right up to the local sow walking the dog last summer, and D had to stay late in the Bio building one night becuase one was climbing all over her car like it was a jungle gym.
even if you get along great with your family you will get along even better with them after moving out
generic is almost always just as good as name brand. But there are some things you never buy generic, including: peanut butter, ketchup, liquid NyQuil, Chips-Ahoy chewy chocolate chip cookies
just imagine the person on the other end of the phone hates talking on the phone as much as you do. Even a receptionist. I worked as one and I hate talking on the phone
at least once in your life you will go to Wal-mart to buy something under $20 like an ironing board or something and your debit card will get rejected. No one will judge. Everyone at some point in their lives has had $2.98 in their bank account.
thrift stores
everyone else is too busy panicking about everyone else noticing every tiny thing that could possibly be wrong about them to notice any tiny thing that could possibly be wrong about you
you will screw up. a lot. you live and you learn. and when you start to think too hard about that embarrassing thing that happened and how you wish you could change it, just tell yourself that what’s done is done. There’s no changing it, so just forget it and move on. It’s the only way to stay sane.
do the dishes before the sink grows its own ecosystem
you can’t put Dawn dishsoap in the dishwasher.
if you are the only one in the aisle at the grocery store, and you need to get from one end to the other without even looking at anything in that aisle, then you should totally cart-surf down the aisle. Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional. Hold on to the little things. They make all the difference.
never try to make cake from scratch at 3am. You end up with a topographical map of Middle Earth.
15% tip.
the best way to get money for food is to tell your grandparents about how you basically live on microwaved mac and cheese. Their horror may result in twenty bucks and orders to go out and get yourself “a real dinner”.
sometimes life sucks, and knowing that it might get better doesn’t always make it suck any less, but you’ll never get to the non-sucky days without enduring the suckiness.
no seriously, NEVER put Dawn in your dishwasher
Do not buy generic brand spaghetti sauce either.
Always check the type of light bulb that goes in lamps. A 60w is not interchangeable with a 40w.
Dollar store batteries work just as well as store brand.
Reward yourself from time to time when you do things that you needed to get done. It’s a good way to remind yourself to do them. Going out to pay a bill? Get Starbucks or something you don’t get often. Rewards don’t have to be huge, they can be small things like that.
Rice, pasta, flour, sugar, cheese, eggs, milk, a pack of chicken, a pack of frozen veggies and a well stocked spice cabinet go a long way food-wise. Splurge and get the biggest container of rice you can. You don’t have to go back and buy it again anytime soon and it makes a TON of meals in the meantime.
Rice can be cooked on the stove. You don’t need a fancy rice cooker. Two parts water to every one part rice (two cups water for one cup of rice for example). Get your water boiling, add rice, put a plate or lid on it, put it on low for 20 minutes. It should be done.
Keep a calendar on your pc of bill due dates. If your bills are set up at inconvenient times, like all of the services started on the first or something, then call up the company and find out if you can get your billing date switched to something more manageable. A lot of places do try to work with you.
There is no shame in calling a company and asking for an extension on a bill. Let them know what you can pay, pay that amount, and they arrange when the rest of the payment is required. This can stop you from having services shut off man. It shows responsibility on your part.
Take time to eat, even when you don’t feel like eating. Your body needs energy to live.
Wash or rinse your dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. It prevents gross caked on junk.
“The Works” is an excellent cheap toilet cleaner.
MAGIC. FUCKING. ERASERS. THEY WORK ON EVERYTHING JUST DON’T SCRUB HARD. I took the ring out of our bathtub with one. Also generic ones work just as well.
Keep some bleach around but if you use it for cleaning? Dillute it. There’s rarely ever a case where you need to pout straight bleach on anything. A cap full or two in a bucket of water works just fine.
DO NOT MIX CLEANERS. Chemical reactions are can be very dangerous. Here’s a good list. (Note that vinegar and baking soda can actually be a good combo for removing smells from things but it’s not very good at actually -cleaning-.)
If you drink? Don’t take meds at the same time it’s just not good.
Make sure you check the dosages on your pill bottles. No one wants to accidentally overdose on cough syrup or ibuprofen.
If you have a uterus make sure you have a heating pad and ibuprofen on hand for the pain. Hot baths also generally help and Ginger Tea is excellent for any nausea.
Buy a first aid kit. It’s worth it in the long run.
You can often do your taxes online at places like TurboTax.
Petroleum jelly (aka Vaseline) is good for chapped lips and you can get a decent sized tube or tub of it (generic brand version) for cheaper/same price as Chapstick.
KEEP TRIPLE ANTIBIOTIC OINTMENT IN YOUR HOUSE FOR CUTS AND SCRAPES AND SORES.
~~Medications~~
Over the counter medications (stuff you can buy right off the shelf no prescription needed) have a name brand and a generic name. ALWAYS buy generic if it’s available it is literally the same thing and way cheaper usually.
Some names to remember when you’re looking for meds!
Acetaminophen = Tylenol
Used to treat pain and reduce fever. Do not take with Ibuprofen.
Ibuprofen = Advil, Midol, Motrin
Used for pain and fever, is an anti-inflammtory. Is good for period cramps because it is an NSAID (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug).
Naproxen = Aleve, Naprosyn
Treats fever, pain, arthritis pain, gout, period cramps, tendinitis, headache, backache, and toothache. Is also an NSAID.
Acetaminophen + Asprin + Caffeine = Excedrin
Usually marketed as “Migraine Relief” as a generic.
Asprin = Bayer
Use for pain, fever, arthritis, and inflammation. Makes you bleed easily so should not be used for periods. Might reduce risk of heart attacks.
Triple Antibiotic Ointment = Neosporin
Used on cuts, sores, and scrapes to reduce risk of infection and promote healing.
Also a general mutli-vitamin isn’t a bad idea and if you don’t get a lot of fruits or milk/sunshine in your diet you might want to get vitamins C and D specifically for daily use.
if you do accidentally lapse and put dawn in your dishwasher, run it empty and put hair conditioner where the detergent goes. that’ll clean it out (tip given to me by dorm custodian when roommate did the thing).
if you live off ramen, add stuff to it! add veggies you like, don’t use the whole flavor packet to cut down on sodium and msg or don’t use it at all and add your own spices.
if you’re making something with potatoes in it (beans, stew) potatoes are done when you can easily stab a fork through them.
you can microwave a hotdog as long as you put it in a microwave safe container of water. microwaves work by making water molecules vibrate. also, when reheating rice leftovers, add a small amount of water, like maybe a spoonfull, so it doesn’t get hard and crunchy.
the rice cooking advice above is for long grain rice. if you’re making short or medium grain rice, a 1:1 ratio (one cup water for one cup rice) is better, so the rice doesn’t come out too mushy.
buy a few cans of chicken. wholesale club stores like sam’s, costco, or bj’s tend to carry multipacks for a good price. they’re incredibly useful for when you forget to defrost meat.
buy meat on sale and put it in the freezer. buy vegetables on sale, and put them in the freezer. frozen veggies are often as flavorful and good as fresh ones, keep longer, and often come in microwaveable bags or with microwave directions.
soak ink stains in milk to help get them out or at least lighten them.
soak blood stains in water as soon as possible, with a bit of detergent or stain remover. scrub at them. use cold water, heat binds proteins to fabric. tbh, there’s no real need to change the washer from cold-cold setting unless the thing you’re washing says to wash in warm water.
acetone, found in most nail polish removers, dissolves super glue.
YOU’RE ALL DOING GOD’S WORK BLESS YOU
Takes pictures, have prints made and put them in photo albums. Be IN the pictures, have someone take pictures of you and your friends. Get over not looking perfect in thw picture. Someday that friend might be gone and those pictures might be all you’ll have, you will want to be in them. I made that mistake with my best friend, i always felt weird asking for a picture together… he died of cancer January of 2014 and now i have no pictures of us together. Its my only regret in life.
This is really helpful, thank you all!
I’m the newest of new adults but I’m gonna throw these little tips in there. IF YOU HAVE AN OLD CAR:
-coolant or water if your car overheats (coolant is preferable cause it won’t hurt the engine in the long run but hey i know money is tight)
-flashlight in case you break down at night and need to check under the hood and your phone is dead
-SPARE TIRE.
-jumper cables.you will at some point leave your lights on. you just will.
AAA or any other road side service is never a bad investment i swear. (try to mooch it off your parents as long as you can though)
Know how to change a tire. You’re going to need to do it at some point in time and you can’t always rely on someone else to do it for you.
Don’t be afraid to go to your local food bank. They are there for a reason.
Don’t be ashamed to ask for help period. Life is hard, everyone needs help occasionally.
You can put a LOWER wattage bulb in a lamp that says it’s for a higher one, but don’t put a HIGHER wattage bulb in. Also, watts refer to the amount of electricity used. LUMENS refers to the amount of light put out, and can vary quite a bit between brands, even though the wattage is the same. Look for the one with the highest lumens unless you actually want a slightly dimmer bulb in a certain location.
Those dollar store batteries? Fine if they’re alkaline. “Heavy-duty” batteries, however, won’t last nearly as long.
You can microwave a hot dog and bun simply by wrapping them in a toweling for a minute, less if you don’t want them scalding hot.
Reblogging to save lives.
Two adulting (kitchen-related) tips from me!
1. Buy a roll of parchment paper from the cooking shit aisle. A big roll will last you for-fucking-ever. Pretty much any time you’re using a baking pan you can line it with that stuff and save yourself A: food sticking to the pan and B: it’s a quick rinse and it’s clean.
2. Bread can get fucking expensive, so make your own. A bigass bag of flour and a bag of active dry yeast (store it in the friiiiidge!!!) works out a FUCK of a lot cheaper than buying bread at the store, and you can do so much more with it. Bread, pizza, rolls, cinnibuns, homemade pizza pockets. It seems intimidating but it’s stupid easy.
Seriously. It’s stupid simple to make, and most of the “3 hours” to make it is sitting around surfing the internet or doing whatever the fuck you want while the dough rises. If you have an afternoon free once a week to sit and play video games or surf the net, you have the time to make your own bread on the cheap. Here’s my simple-as-fuck recipe:
2 ¼ teaspoons active dry yeast (You can buy a bag of this stuff CHEAP in bulk stores, the little packets are hella stupid priced) 1 cup warm water (think a hot bath) 1 ½ teaspoons sugar 2 tablespoons oil (any kind works for the most part) 2 ¼ cups flour 1 teaspoon salt
1. Stir the yeast, water, sugar, and oil up in a bowl. Let it sit for about 10 minutes. It will foam up VERY high, this is the yeast getting happy! If it doesn’t get all foamy, the water may have been too hot or not hot enough. Remember, Yeast is alive! Treat it like a nice girlfriend!
2. Mix your flour, salt, and the yeast concoction up in a bowl.
3. Knead that shit for about 5 minutes. It will start sticky as heck, but will come together into a nice dough. If it’s still super sticky, toss in a bit more flour. Here’s how to knead it:
4. Put your dough in a covered, lightly oiled bowl and leave it someplace warmish for an hour. At that point it will have roughly doubled in size, give it a gentle punch to release the gasses that have built up inside. Cover it again and let it sit for a bit longer.
Boom. You have bread dough. Here are some baking times and uses for ya:
Optional egg-wash: Just crack an egg into a bowl, add a pinch of salt, and mix the bejeebus out of it with a fork. Brush (or if you’re like me, goop it on with said fork) that shit thinly on bread before baking for a nice crust.
Pizza: Stretch it on a pan, stab the fucker all over with a fork, add toppings, bake 425*F 15-20 minutes.
Bread Sticks: Make snake-shapes, let rest on pan 10-ish minutes, bake 400*F 10-20 minutes.
Dinner rolls: Make ball-sized (yes those balls) balls. Place on greased pan, let rest 10-20 minutes to rise. Egg-wash and bake 375*F 25 minutes.
Bread: Lightly score (cut) the top, let sit for 20-ish minutes on/in whatever you’re using to bake it, egg-wash, bake at 375*F for 20-ish minutes. It’s done when it sounds hollow if you knock on the bottom.
You bet your ass you can deep-fry this shit for cheapie yeast doughnuts. Roll that shit in sugar or dip it in whatever, it’s fucking tasty.
Bagels: YES. YOU. CAN. Form bagel-shapes out of the dough and boil them in salty water for about 2 minutes. Egg-wash them and bake them at 400*F for 10 minutes.
Cinnamon Rolls: Roll that shit out into a rectangle. Brush it with a mix of butter, cinnamon, sugar, and a pinch of salt (no exact amounts here, do it to your taste). Roll it up into a log, and cut it into discs. Let them sit 20 minutes in a pan and then bake at 375*F 15-17 minutes.
You can add whatever you want to the dough for some variety, just if it’s dried spices remember you really only need 1-ish tablespoons. I personally like making bread with about 1 tablespoon of dill in the dough. Roll it out flat, sprinkle it with cheddar, roll it into a log, squeeze the ends shut, and bake it like a regular loaf of bread. Cheesy dill bread OMNOMNOM.
*ahem* That got a bit long. But yeah. Bread’s expensive, yo. Save your wallet.
(Also it’s ridiculous amounts of therapeutic to bake, for me anyway)
Being able to bake your own bread is pretty awesome, if you got the time for it.
“HELLO NEIGHBOR STEVE, I WOULD LIKE TO INVITE YOU TO BARBEQUE ON THE EVE OF THE BLOOD MOON. I FEEL WE GOT OFF TO A BAD START.”
“NEIGHBOR STEVE, DO YOU NOT WISH TO PARTAKE OF THE UNCLEAN FLESH-MEATS OF PIGS AND THE POLLUTED ESSENCES OF TOMATO? PERHAPS YOU ARE A CAROLINA STYLE MAN, NEIGHBOR STEVE?”
“PUT THE GUN AWAY NEIGHBOR STEVE, YOU KNOW I SHALL ONLY RISE AGAIN WITH THE DAWNING OF THE MOON. WE HAVE BEEN THROUGH THIS MANY TIMES.”
“LOOK AT THIS PICTURE MY SON DREW OF YOU AND CHILD TIMMY, YOUR SON. ARE THEY NOT THE PICTURE OF PACT-MATES? THIS COULD BE YOU AND ME, NEIGHBOR STEVE.”
“YOU MISSED THE UNHOLY NEXUS OF POWER THAT IS THE KEY TO MY CORPOREAL FORM, NEIGHBOR STEVE. YOU WILL NEED TO RELOAD NOW, SO I WILL GO INSIDE TO MY HELL-WIFE AND PUT YOU DOWN AS A SOLID ‘MAYBE’.“
I have the feeling that the families get along great except for Steve. Like, the wives are baking (questionable) brownies together, the kids are playing together, Antler Guy occasionally takes Son and Timmy to school (no car, just carries them in huge swinging strides through a nexus of ungoldly sights in a swirling netherworld shortcut. Sometimes they stop for McDonalds). Hell-wife gave them a potted Audrey Jr., Steve’s wife (who I now christen Sharon) gave them a begonia.
One time Steve tries throwing holy water but all Antler Guy does is thank him, saying that no, Antler Guy isn’t Catholic but it’s the thought that counts, he is so kind to water his creeping deathshade vines regardless.
For Christmas Antler Guy gives Steve a case of ammunition. To be funny/sarcastically mean Steve gets Antler Guy the world’s most hideous Christmas sweater, singing light-up reindeer included. He immediately regrets it because not only does Antler Guy love it and wears it for several months, it will never need batteries because Antler Guy powers it with his own eldritch aura.
When they come back from a holiday to Hawaii, Steve is horrified to find out Sharon bought them matching Hawaiian shirts. He is even more horrified that his wife means it that if he doesn’t wear it he will forever sleep on the couch.
I want to expand on this, since I see it’s still passing around and the ideas have grown in my brainmeats.
What drives Steve up the wall and down the other side is how… normal… everyone treats the Abominations. (Yes, that is their last name. No, it is not a joke. Son was asked his last name for the standardized testing at school, had a quick conference with Timmy, and decided that Son Abomination sounded good, “Since my dad calls your dad the Abomination anyway and we can paint it on your mailbox just like the Henderson’s did theirs!”. Antler Guy agreed and did a lovely rendition of it for the mailbox, with only a few glyphs of soul-rending terror added to keep up to snuff.)
The Great Plant Exchange went beautifully, though the Audrey Jr. (named Aubergine for the lovely shade of purple poison that drips from her fangs) is on a diet at the moment. She was in cahoots with the cat and the dog to get into the good people food and ate two frozen turkeys all herself. Now she’s restricted to the hallway table to answer the phone and the door. (Steve actually likes her, and keeps slipping her hotdogs when Sharon isn’t looking. Their door-to-door salesman rates have dropped dramatically since she changed abodes.) Hell-wife has almost gotten the begonia to bloom and say it’s first words.
The homeowner’s association just loves the Abominations. All paperwork stamped and dotted, in on time and in triplicate. Antler Guy likes filing, says it reminds him of his old job. There is a resident who spent 20 years as a lawyer and they have long, animated conversations about all sorts of things that make Steve swear to never need legal counsel.
Hell-wife joined the PTA and spearheaded a committee to fundraise in the fall with a haunted house. It was a county-wide hit, though the claims that a particularly rowdy group had been deliberately lost in a timeslip to the Outer Doors Of Chaos was firmly rebuffed. Most young people nowadays, it was agreed, just couldn’t appreciate flute music.
Antler Guy really does try to connect with Steve. The surprise birthday party was perhaps a bit much, given that most participants do not have the ability to suddenly materialize in front of the guest of honor to give them a hug. Sharon assured them that Steve normally screams on his birthday, and the remains of the cake were heartily enjoyed by all. (A plate was saved for Steve once he came down from the treehouse.)
After the Hawaii trip (which was a present for his birthday) and the Matching Shirt Ultimatum (which was Sharon’s attempt at patching things up with Antler Guy, he really was sad about the birthday screaming), Steve finally grabs his courage in both hands (plus the shotgun, which let’s face it is about as useful as a teddybear at the moment but it does comfort him) and confronts Antler Guy, about why such a group of……Abominations could possibly come to his quiet slice of suburban bliss.
“……BUT NEIGHBOR STEVE, WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE.”
“No no no, I read it in a book! Don’t you have to be invited or something?!”
“WELL YES, TO THE HUMAN WORLD. BUT THIS IS NOT THE HUMAN WORLD AS YOUR THREE-DIMENSIONAL BRAIN PERCEIVES IT.”
“What the hell does that mean?!!”
“DID YOU NOT KNOW, NEIGHBOR STEVE? LEGALLY SPEAKING, ALL OF THE VASTNESS OF HUMAN SUBURBIA IS, IN FACT, A PART OF HELL.”
“……..”
“THE FLAMINGOES ARE THE BOUNDARY MARKERS. IT WAS DECIDED THAT THE FLAMING SKULLS WERE TOO KITSCHY FOR MODERN TIMES.”
Reblogging cause I kind of want more of this….
Since you asked nicely ^_^
Antler Guy, as one may have noticed, is a calm sort of fellow. In the face of human atrocities he displays a curious Zen sort of state of mind. Timmy asks Son if he’d ever seen his dad angry, and Son hasn’t. (When asked, Timmy says that yeah his dad gets mad, but it’s like the Fitz-Simmon’s chihuahua down the street- mostly high-pitched noise and occasionally TV remote chewing. Sharon replaces the poor thing every 3 months or so.) When pressed (gently, at the monthly book club, and with many cups of tea and at least one daiquiri), Hellwife admits that this comes from serving many years at his old job.
After the revelation of the nature of his neighborhood, Steve has not been overtly mean to Antler Guy. Not yet in the realm of friends, but vastly better than before. No more holy water, no more shotgun blasts. (Still the occasional jumpscare, but Antler Guy really can’t help that part.) They even occasionally share news over the fence as Antler Guy trains the creeping deathshade vines in proper oral hygiene, and Steve waters his lawn (and occasionally slips a goldfish cracker to a deathshade vine that looks particularly adorable. Aubergine has trained him well.)
Which is how Antler Guy learns about the peeping tom that’s been plaguing the adjacent streets. Apparently the pervert has been getting bolder, and rattling doors. He almost broke into one apartment, whose occupants were a single mother and her daughter, Mildred. Millie, a shy girl who is a great horror fan and firm friends with Timmy and Son, had missed school because of it.
Steve knew because Sharon had told him, on her way to deliver a tuna casserole and a double batch of brownies to the pair. (Sharon has been dubbed the unoffical mob boss of the Mother’s Mafia. She is quite pleased with this title.) He tells her to wait, confers briefly with Aubergine, and sends her along with, “Only as a loan, you know, but Auby wants to stretch her roots and she’d probably like getting all ribboned and curled anyway. Little girls still do that, right?” She has strict orders to bite anyone that makes Millie or her mother cry. (Steve is dubbed the official neighborhood marshmallow for this. The bookclub buys him a jar of marshmallow fluff in commemoration.)
He turns to look at Antler Guy, and freezes, much as a chihuahua will when faced with a hungry hellhound.
Steven makes a very ungraceful exit when space starts bending around Antler Guy’s still, unmoving form.
When Steve sees a shadowy form in his back yard when he gets up to pee that night, there’s no hesitation. He grabs the shotgun from the cabinet and peeks out the back door window.
Just in time to see a nebulous form of soul-wrenching terror engulf the man reaching for the door handle. A sliver of moonlight reveals a very familiar eyesocket. After a moment (and a sincere prayer of thanks that he had already peed, cause otherwise he’d have done it then and there) Steve opens the door. The nebulous form freezes, reality bending around the edges.
“Good. G’night then. Oh, and if Hellwife has an extra Audrey Jr. that needs a home, let me know. Millie likes Aubergine a lot but Augy’s just too big for the apartment. Dunno if they come in miniatures though.”
There are no more peeping reports. Millie brings back Aubergine and spends an entire afternoon teaching Steve the particulars of Augy’s new “hairstyle” (a gravity-defying mass of teased tendrils, ribbons, and barrettes) in between games of tag and hide-and-seek with Timmy and Son.
When Antler Guy and Hellwife present her and her mother Beatrice with a tiny Audrey Jr. (”pOOr ThinG Is a ruNT And wOn’T geT MorE Than A FooT taLL, BEa, aNd NeeDS a New FRiEnD”, assures Hellwife), both mother and child burst out crying. Millie names it Bella, after Bella Lugosi, and shows it to the excited group of boys (Steve and Augy included).
IT GOT SO MUCH BETTER!!!!
Life in a subdivision partly populated with eldritch and possibly magical (officially classified as “extra-dimensional”, for even when faced with the physics-defying nature of their new co-habitating citizens the government cannot bring itself to acknowledge them as “magic wielding hell-beasts”, as some high-ranking staff members initially suggested) goes on fairly normally.
Sure, there are a few hiccoughs. The creeping deathshade vines get a stern talking to about appropriate afternoon snacks (”NOT the Fitz-Simmon’s chihuahua, I don’t care how much he has it coming or what he excreted where, now spit it out!”), Aubergine sheds all her leaves at once and snowballs the house (but does helps sweep up afterwards), and moonrise is a good time to watch the night-gaunts fly by (but on moondark it’s best to stay inside, no matter how prettily they glow. They’re somewhat similar to fireflies, and don’t always check to see if their partner glows as well. It wouldn’t be as much of a problem if they didn’t dive mid-coitus and drop just above the ground.)
While the neighborhood in general is accepting of the Abominations, when things get to be a bit much they tend to come to Steve. Since meeting Beatrice and Millie (and the formation of the Terrifying Triad known as Millie, Son, and Timmy) Steve is the adult human male most comfortable dealing with Antler Guy on the whole street. (Sharon as U.M.B. is widely held to have, well, steel-whatever-the-hell-she-wants, and Timmy is known to run over to Antler Guy and ask for rides through “that wobbly grey place, you know, the one with the REALLY BIG alligators?”. Still, the courtesies must be observed.)
So when a writhing sparking ball of snarling terror and teeth takes up residence in the Manzo’s tool-shed, and when Animal Control refuses to come (the street is banned due to a run-in with the deathshade vines), Steve is called. Having heard the description, Steve brings Antler Guy.
When they get there, Mr. Manzo is forcibly holding the door shut. Unholy yowling is coming from inside. At a gesture from Antler Guy, Mr. Manzo leaps away, and the doors blast open.
A 150 pound ball of whimpering, flaming something hits Steve and knocks him on his ass. The whimpering, flaming something proceeds to slobber all over Steve, his shirt, his pants, and a decent portion of grass in between distressed yelps.
“GACK!”
“NEIGHBOR STEVE, ARE YOU IN DISTRESS?”
“GAAACKLEARGHSPLUH- DOWN boy, HEEL, that’s a good- Antler Guy, what is this?!”
“I BELIEVE IT IS A HELLHOUND, NEIGHBOR STEVE.”
“Good grief, I didn’t know they came this big and…..and….. Guy?”
“YES NEIGHBOR STEVE?”
“Is he supposed to be…..skinless?”
“YES NEIGHBOR STEVE. THIS VARIETY WAS BRED TO BE LAP DOGS. THEIR FLAME IS MOSTLY WITHOUT HEAT, AND THEY HAVE NO SKIN FOR THOSE WHO ARE ALLERGIC.”
“…….laPDOG?!”
“YES NEIGHBOR STEVE.” Antler Guy lays a hand on the hellhound, who tries to burrow further into Steve with little success. “HE APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN RECENTLY WEANED. IT WILL TAKE TIME FOR HIM TO GROW TO HIS FULL SIZE.”
“……”
“THE SMALL BREEDS GROW MORE SLOWLY.”
A vile hissing emanates from the shed. (Mr. Manzo has long since fled for the safety of his kitchen.) As Steve attempts to calm the frantic hell-puppy, Antler Guy investigates. He reaches one long hand in behind the riding lawnmower and….. winces.
“NEIGHBOR STEVE?”
“Yeah- I’m right here, uh, doggie, not going anywhere- Guy?”
“I APPEAR TO HAVE AN…. ATTACHMENT.”
Steve is awed at the tiny ball of white fluff attached to one long, thin finger. He didn’t know that Antler Guy’s fingers COULD be bitten, much less by a tiny kitten.
Which is how Steve and Sharon got Clifford (”Aww c’mon Sharon, how could I pass that one up?”), and Antler Guy and Hellwife get Fluffy (”NEIGHBOR STEVE ASSURES ME IT IS A TRADITIONAL TITLE.”)
This might be the most amazing thing that ever crossed my tumblr dash
OMIGOSH I’m in love.
I LOVE EVERY BIT OF THIS
This is like the stoplight post. It is Tumblr legend, and I feel I must reblog it for those fortunate few who get to experience it for the first time.
We need more of Antler Guy and Neighbour Steve
So one day Son comes home from school and goes straight to his room without speaking. Hell Wife and Sharon confer over tea and scones, and it’s revealed that Timmy is also shut away in his room.
Neither mother can get a word out of the boys, and after a quick word with Steve (who is busy trying to train Clifford to stop slobbering on his shoes), the mothers go to Antler Guy for advise, since he has a good relationship with both boys.
Antler Guy listens attentively to the women. “I WILL TAKE CARE OF THIS. THE TWO OF YOU SHOULD ATTEND YOUR BOOK CLUB.”
Sharon is dubious, but Hell Wife assures her that Antler will fix things.
When the women are gone, Antler Guy waves his long, spindly fingers, and the two boys appear before him. Both look sullen and teary eyed. Antler Guy observes them silently. “They pushed Timmy,” Son explains in a small voice. “I told them to leave him alone but… They called me…” Antler waits silently. “Freak,” Timmy supplies in a whisper. Antler Guy looks between the two boys, then lifts one in each vine-writhed arm.
He takes the two boys to the ether, showing them various hellish sights including a homunculous type creature that has a cold and sprays acid every time it sneezes, a cat that’s twice the height of Antler and picks Timmy up by the neck like a kitten.
Both boys have a great time and return home in high spirits. Steve goes out into the garden to find out what happened. (He’s been defeated by Clifford and decides he’ll just get new shows and hide them).
“I MUST LEAVE FOR AN HOUR OR TWO,” Antler Guy tell Steve after a brief explanation.
Steve looks puzzled. “It’s getting pretty late, Guy,” he points out.
Antler Guy merely inclines his head and stalks into the night in long, surprisingly graceful strides.
The next day, Steve listens to Timmy babbling about how the boys who had been mean to him and Son the previous day had left them alone. Timmy stops and looks baffled. “Actually, any time we looked at them they ran away.”
Steve has suspicions of where Antler Guy had gone on his late night stroll.
(Ohmigosh, someone added, I’m so excited! :D)
Time passes, as time does (which for Earth is generally somewhat faster than The Dimension That Smells Of Shrimp, and slower That One Wibbley Place With Murderous Flying Potato Crisps- Timmy was allowed to select human-dialect names, and Antler Guy refuses to change them. He says they are far more pleasant than the terms he used to use.)
Fluffy remains on the small side. This in no way impedes her rule of the neighborhood. In order of preference, her resting places include the top of Antler Guy’s head, Hellwife’s ample lap, and wherever else she damn well pleases. (The deathshade vines have a healthy respect for her, all of Clifford’s six-foot-plus frame is terrified of her, and she actively conspires with Aubergine. The prior pets of Steve and Sharon, Mr. Paws- a mild mannered netutered tom of advanced years- and Puggles- his nearly as elderly pug cohort- are ignored with royal disdain. Which suits them fine, they’d much rather be made much of by Aubergine, and relax in the gentle, soothing warmth of Clifford’s flames.)
Within short order, her routine is established. The neighborhood, and neighbors, know better than to mess with the White Puffball of Doom (one of Timmy’s better efforts) on her daily patrols. In return, her rule is moderately benevolent.
So when she goes missing, literally no one has any idea where she has gone.
It starts with Antler Guy striding through the neighborhood, making a peculiar call somewhat akin to a humpback whale with a headcold. When that produces no results, he starts asking. Very earnestly. Very. Earnestly. He even folds himself up enough to take tea with Mrs. Giotto, the resident cat lady. He emerges with a delightful recipe for snickerdoodles, but no information.
Steve knows something is wrong when he starts getting texts at work. By the end of shift, he’s inundated with calls, texts, voicemails, and a singing telegram sent by one particularly frazzled neighbor, whose message was only “HELP.” His boss is not pleased.
He almost expects it when Antler Guy materializes as soon as he shuts his car door. He still almost craps himself.
“Hi Guy, what’s up-”
“FLUFFY. FLUFFY IS MISSING.”
“Really? Have you tried looking in Mr. Manz-”
“YES. TWICE.”
“Oh, ok, well, let’s try-”
“NeIGhbor SteVE!”
“Hellwife?”
“FLuffY Is MissINg!”
“Well yes, Guy just told me-”
“STEVE!”
“Sharon?!”
They decide to move the confabulation into Sharon’s kitchen. (A quick phone call to Beatrice assures that a) the sleepover of the Triad is going smoothly, b) the news of Fluffy’s disappearance hasn’t made it there yet, and c) it won’t until further news is secured.) Sharon has called on her information network to no avail, Hellwife has questioned every plant in a five block radius, and Antler Guy is distraught. Apparently he cannot feel Fluffy, which means she is either dead or out of his range. (”AND SHE WOULD NOT BE SO UNCARING AS TO NOT RETURN HOME IF DEAD, SHE IS A VERY LOVING MAMMAL.”)
Steve is quiet. Steve is thinking. Steve….has an idea.
“Guy?”
“YES?”
“Exactly what constitutes your range?”
“ALL OF THE ENVIRONS OF HELL, NEIGHBOR STEVE.”
“So……when we run out of flamingos, right?”
Clifford is supplied with a squeaky sorta-looks-like-a-mouse-don’t-ask-so-many-questions toy belonging to Fluffy. The direction he doesn’t want to go is the way they head. They decide that cramming Antler Guy into Steve’s Prius would be unhelpful, sunroof or not, so up on Antler Guy’s shoulders Steve goes. (Steve has always wanted to try it, in his heart of hearts. Its everything Timmy described and more.)
They set out, following the cringing hellhound. Even cringing and following the scent of the Feared Fluffy Thing, Clifford has some speed. (It helps that both Steve and Sharon explained the situation, via Aubergine.) In the space of perhaps an hour and a half, they hit the end of Antler Guy’s range.
Literally. If Steve hadn’t had a deathgrip on Antler Guy’s horn’s he’d have gone flying.
“NEIGHBOR STEVE, I CAN GO NO FARTHER.”
“Ugh, kinda got that Guy….”
Steve slithers off and looks at Antler Guy. He’s pushing at the air like there’s a forcefield. (There isn’t. Steve checks, just to be safe.) So, after a short conversation with Clifford, Antler Guy waits next to the last flamingo as Steve rides his big, red, skinless flaming dog onwards. (Steve had wanted to try this since he first read the Clifford books.) (Well, something close to it anyway.)
It is a measure of the surrealness of his day to day life that he isn’t surprised by the gate guarded by gun-toting gentlemen. Nor by the flurry of activity he and his dog raise by jumping it. A short, balding fellow in a Very Important Labcoat comes out of the concrete building and gives shrill orders to “apprehend that vile extra-planar sympathizer and his hideous creature”. As Clifford starts drooling green flames as he snarls, no one seems particularly interested in following his orders.
Luckily, a man riding a walking nightmare and then a hellhound garners attention. Specifically, a shitton to social media attention (and no few memes). And the government, unsurprisingly, monitors the areas inhabited by its extra-planar citizens very closely. So before the standoff gets beyond the tense stage and into the itchy trigger finger stage, a swarm of black SUV’s hit the scene.
Steve sits serene upon his noble steed as the wave of black suits descend. In record time the labcoat is escorted away, the guards are pacified, and an ominously growling cat carrier is presented to Steve. Clifford lets out a tremulous “BOOF?”, to which the carrier “Mrowls?”. Steve opens the carrier (the guards, as one, flinch- some of their compatriots are still in medical from trying to get the damn thing IN the carrier), and Fluffy walks out, dignified as the queen she is. She kneads Clifford’s head (without claws, for once), and settles in.
They make a strange parade returning, the dog and the biggest, shiniest, and most ominous of the SUV’s. (Strangely, all pictures taken of the cavalcade go mysteriously missing.) Antler Guy doesn’t care- as soon as he’s in range, Fluffy jumps to his head and purrs ferociously.
When the suits try to talk to him, he brushes them off, preferring to murmur in hair-raising tongues to his cat, who is still purring fit to split and is trying to groom his antlers. Steve sighs.
“What do you guys need? They’ll be busy for a while.”
“Well Mr. Anderson, we would like to offer our condolences at this unfortunate occurrence, and tender our assurances that it will never happen again.”
“Uh-huh.”
“We would also like to ascertain Mr……?”
“Antler Guy Abomination.”
“……Beg pardon?”
“Antler Guy Abomination. That’s what my son named him.”
“……”
“Technically he named him Antler Guy when he first saw him.”
“…………..”
“Abomination came later, when Son needed a name for that standardized testing stuff.”
“…..your son attends school with his offspring?”
“Yep. They’re at a sleepover right now. Sharon’s probably baking brownies with Hellwife. They’re both stress bakers.”
The suits have a whispered conference. Two short phone calls later, the suit with the shiniest pair of sunglasses has an offer for Steve.
Steve’s official title is Extra-Planar Liaison. Sharon calls it Neighbor Herding. Steve doesn’t care about the title. He gets twice his previous salary plus full benefits to ensure the smoothness of Antler Guy’s “integration in the fabric of human society”, which means all the things he was doing, plus field trips into other planes of reality. (Fluffy is fond of the gigantic mother cat; Clifford tries to eat the homunculi’s acid snot and regrets it immediately).
(Written for http://lkludwig.tumblr.com/, who won a contest and a choice- an original short story or to be written into Antler Guy. This was the choice!)
It started, innocently enough, with Timmy’s birthday party.
Steve, armed with the wealth garnered by his new job, not
only rented a bouncy house beloved by the Terrifying Triad, Auberguine, and
Steve himself, he finally upgraded the family phones. (His and Sharon’s anyway.
Timmy’s phone was lost to a scintillating puddle of mud and bones. Steve
shrugged, taught the acidic glop how to play Bejeweled, and cut the service
when they got home. The glop got better reception on it’s own.)
Upon gentle (i.e. at the monthly review meeting there were
pointed questions and a very well put together powerpoint given by a pair of
sunglasses that owned a luxurious handlebar mustache) prompting from his new
employers, Steve’s next task was to “show our new extraplanar neighbors in
a positive light to the greater population.”
Steve decided this was an excellent time to make an
Instagram account.
His first post, of Antler Guy delicately cutting his slice
of cake with his fingertips, nearly broke the notifications on Steve’s phone.
His second one, a short video of the Triad sneaking up on Antler Guy to smear
bright purple frosting on his face, did break the notifications. (Steve
restarted and adjusted his settings. Thank god he’d put the thing on silent.)
Antler Guy took the new development in stride, indulging
Steve in his posing and carrying the “selfie stick” Steve insisted
they bring on their excursions. His favorite part was scrolling through the
notifications (well, watching Steve scroll since his fingertips a) couldn’t
control the touchscreen and b) made the screen itself shimmer with rainbow
colors), seeing those who “followed” him.
“NEIGHBOR STEVE, I HAVE NOT HAD SO MANY FOLLOW MY LEAD
SINCE I CAME TO THE UPPER WORLD. THIS INSTANT-GRAM IS QUITE AMUSING.”
“Yeah, it is fun. Even the trolls are kinda
funny.”
“TROLLS? I DID NOT KNOW THE TROLLS HAD MIGRATED TO THE
INTERNET AS WELL.”
“…..as well as….? You know what, nevermind, I don’t
wanna know.”
Antler Guy even made friends over the social platform,
including one particularly nice lady in Pennsylvania,
an artist by the name of LK. He told Steve that some of her work reminded him
of home, especially the photo album and her husband’s sculptures. He purchased
one through Steve, “TO SEND TO COUSIN %&*@^^@, ZIR BOY LOOKS JUST LIKE
IT.”
“Just like that? But that looks human. Well, minus the
horns and the snarling.”
“YES. AMADEUS HAS MUCH OF HIS PREVIOUS LIFE.”
“……you lost me there, buddy. Previous life?”
“BEFORE HE WAS….. ADOPTED.”
“Wait, adopted? You guys adopt, what, human kids?”
“…….IN A SENSE.”
“Still lost here, buddy.”
“….I BELIEVE I HEAR MY HELLWIFE CALLING.”
“What, I don’t hear-”
“GOODNIGHT, NEIGHBOR STEVE.”
Never before had Steve seen Antler Guy run from him.
(Usually it was the other way around.) Sharon
didn’t believe him, until hours turned into days without a sign of Antler Guy.
Hellwife wouldn’t say anything no matter the daiquiris, she just looked at
Steve and sighed sadly. Son didn’t know anything either. He played quietly with
Timmy and Augy, sniffling occasionally. Even Millie practicing her zombie
makeup on Steve didn’t help. Finally, he murmured the reason to the Triad, who
took it to Steve with wide-eyed solemnity.
His father wouldn’t look at him.
“Guy, open the door.”
“Guy, I’m sorry I asked, please open the door.”
“……”
“Dammit, you can be mad at me but please, don’t let my
mistake mess it up with Son. He’s a great kid and he doesn’t understand that
it’s my fault not his, he needs his dad-”
“I AM NOT HIS FATHER.”
“You are in every way that cou-”
“I DO NOT DESERVE TO BE HIS FATHER.”
“Wha-?”
“HIS PATERNAL BEING MURDERED HIM AS AN INFANT AND WAS
IN TURN MURDERED.”
“…..holy….fu-”
“THEY CAME TO MY JURISDICTION. THE…..FATHER…..STILL
HELD ONTO THE SOUL OF THE CHILD HE HAD KILLED. I REMOVED HIS TOUCH FROM
HIM.”
“Good. Bastard deserved the worst you could throw at
him-”
“I KEPT HIM.”
“What?”
“I KEPT THE CHILD.”
“….So? He’s a cute kid, you guys are great
parents-”
“I SHOULD NOT HAVE KEPT HIM.”
“What the hell Guy?! That’s your Son!”
“HE WAS PURE.”
“…..and you lost me again….”
“HE WAS PURE. A PURE SOUL. HE DID NOT BELONG THERE.
NOT…. THERE. BUT I WAS WEAK, AND I WANTED……”
“….come on Guy, you can do it, I’ve got you.”
“…I…I WANTED…..A…..CHILD. A-AND WE
CANNOT….B-BREED ONE SO I….I CHANGED H-HIM AND K-KEPT H-H-HIM
FROM…..”
“Come on Guy, I’m here for you.”
“…..I KEPT HIM F-FROM HEAVEN.”
Nightmare eldritch abominations can cry. Its rare, so they
don’t keep Kleenex. (Steve never cared much for that shirt anyway.)
“Now you listen here. You are a damn fine father.
Hellwife is a damn fine mother. And Son is a damn fine kid. I doubt Heaven
would be as good for him as you two are.”
“…BUT-”
“No buts, buddy. I listen to Sharon, and she listens to everything. You
didn’t come here just for the green lawns and the flocking plastic flamingos,
did you?”
“…….NO.”
“Why’d you come here?”
“…….NEIGHBOR STEVE-”
“Why. Did. You. Come. Here.”
“….BECAUSE HE DESERVES BETTER.”
“Better than?”
“BETTER THAN….THERE. HE…. DESERVES THE CHANCES
HE….. SHOULD HAVE HAD. TO BE….HUMAN.”
“And you’re giving that to him. He goes to school, he
has friends, he takes spelling tests for pity’s sake! Yeah, he’s a little
different, but he has that chance. You’re giving him that chance. And you
shouldn’t beat yourself up for giving it to him.”
“…….”
“He loves you, Antler Guy. And he needs to know why his
father won’t look at him.”
“…….PLEASE, WOULD YOU….SEND THEM OVER?”
“Sure thing buddy.”
Sharon
bakes no less than 5 separate types of custard and Steve spends an extra hour
reading to Timmy that night. The next morning, Hellwife hugs Steve so hard he
squeaks. Twice. Son calls an emergency meeting of the Triad, and absconds with
two of the custards. They emerge later (Hellwife, Bea, and Sharon having drunk
several cups of coffee and polished off two more of the custards and a tray of
Hellwife’s cheesecake brownies) and immediately begin a game of tag.
Antler Guy also hugs Steve. They both sniffle a little.
(Also, thanks to this lovely user who’s post and resulting willingness to answer questions helped make this update what it is. Told you guys I read what you write ^_^)
~~~~~
For on who quite literally oversaw Hell, and lived there, Antler Guy has a hard time lying. (There is little point in it, really, the truth hurts far more.) When asked why he closets himself with the Terrifying Triad, Fluffy, and Steve’s home computer, he almost gains enough facial expression to be shifty.
Almost.
Steve doesn’t press too hard. The origins of Son are still new and a tender area, one that he’s unwilling to accidentally tromp on, and he figures that Guy will spill when the time is right. Patience. Patience is key. And trust. And patience.
He lasts almost a week before he caves and checks the browsing history on Timmy’s account.
His eyebrows start climbing at “HOW TO ASSIST SMALL HUMANS”, and don’t stop until they hit hairline with “animals to help at hospitals”. Its not something he’s ever considered before, but the more he thinks about it, the more he likes it. And it would be good PR for Antler Guy.
(The suits would like more progress than an Instagram account.)
(……the suits will not like this.)
(……….)
(Steve starts making calls that same day. Sharon gets an excited text from him, and makes much more effective calls.)
~
“NEIGHBOR STEVE, I AM UNSURE.”
“C’mon Guy, we talked about this. We got Fluffy and Clifford registered and Hellwife made them matching vests and everything!”
“I DO NOT FEAR FOR FLUFFY. SHE IS A FINE MAMMALIAN AMBASSADOR. I HAVE NOTICED THAT HUMAN YOUNG OFTEN FIND ME ………INTIMIDATING.”
“I think you’ll be surprised, Guy.” is all Steve will say on the subject.
And he is. Due to height concerns, the first part of the visit to the Shriner’s hospital near their area of suburbia is held outside. Clifford is a big hit- he lays down still as can be as the kids (and nurses, because they can) climb all over him. Those steady enough enjoy a ride get their fill as he lopes along the strip of grass, his passengers held perfectly steady and whooping all the way. Sharon stays with Clifford and shows a rapt audience how a gigantic dog (past 8 feet tall and creeping on 9) will beg for treats. Drool is involved. A lot of drool.
Steve and Antler Guy push on. The first stop is the children’s cancer ward. Antler Guy is hesitant, but the greeting stops him in his tracks. Every child there is smiling at him- and every Monster Under The Bed is smiling too. (Those of them that have faces, anyway. The mass of tetrahedrons glitters in a friendly fashion.)
The hospital’s Director of Extra-planar Concerns smiles too. She adjusts her clipboard, and scritches Fluffy’s head when she wraps around her ankles.
“At this hospital, we believe in helping our patients to the best of our ability. And our Monster Helper program allows beings who no longer fit in their old jobs to have gainful employment. All of our monsters here are certified Eaters of Bad Dreams, and have been known to form close bonds with their assigned child. Some even leave with the patient once their illness has been cured.” She patted Antler Guy’s arm and pointed towards a large chair suitable for his frame. “Why not get acquainted?”
Antler Guy immediately descends into chittering conversation with the assembled monsters, gravely introducing himself to each and every child, listening to their stories and boasts about how their Monster is a lot more scary than him, but with time he can learn to be scarier. A tiny girl with a terrifying amount of IV lines and no hair pats his long hands gently, under the careful eye of her ever-watchful Monster (being mostly a mass of eyes with a long, long, long purple tongue).
Fluffy is the center of her own social whirl, purring magnificently despite the occasional hair-pulling so children who hadn’t seen their own pets in far too long could hold something soft, and warm, and good. (Fluffy Monsters are something of a rarity, and sometimes are too busy for communal pettings.)
Steve, having no special power going for him and only the standard human kit, plays round after round of Go Fish with a shy young boy missing an arm. His Monster, a tentacled starfish thing, assists him while playing it’s own hand and holding cards for the tetrahedron, who’s human child is too tired to participate, but looks on none-the-less and calls out the tetrahedron’s choices in a whispy voice.
It becomes a regular stop. They set up a family day, where each family gets to meet the Abominations and see what their children were so excited about. Antler Guy and Hellwife are the epitome of grace and kindness. Timmy and Millie lead a massive game of tag with Auberguine as It, and Son gets to cut the cake.
(The donations that come from the Instagram posts made that day are staggering– three months operating costs in the first hour. The Director of Extra-planar Concerns can be seen weeping in the embrace of a dew-clawed lizard, also weeping.)
Two months (and many moments spent at the hospital, both bitter and sweet) later, the smoking letter arrives on Antler Guy’s doorstep.
It really was too good to last.
The whole street knows something is wrong the day It arrives.
A glowing ball of impossible light floats down the street. To look directly at It is impossible; a glance out of the corner of the eye is almost managable, but still useless. A melody just beyond the edge of hearing follows It, but no one tries to get closer. Some residual memory hiding deep in the hindbrain warns that to approach is to burn, lit up within by the purity of one’s soul trying to rejoin the source before it’s time.
The eldritch of the street do not sense It until It is there, an implacable, unstoppable force. Most hide. Miss Cravandish- the gorgon that teaches Physical Education at the middle school, currently on maternal leave until her eggs hatch- drops a pot full of her prized daffodil bulbs. Peabody scoops up his Pomeranian in all sixteen arms and runs, flat out, for home. He ignores the pain when his shoes slide off his tentacles and the asphalt burns his squishy skin.
No one dares warn the Abominations, or Steve and Sharon. It is only due to great good luck that both families were out that day- the kids at school, Sharon coordinating a bake sale to fundraise for more inclusive programming at the After School program, Hellwife shopping, and Steve and Antler Guy checking on a recent addition to the Shriner’s Ward- a tiny baby girl riddled with tumors. Her Monster was a living floofy rug that hummed gently. It had good news for them- her vitals were improving, the tumors seemed to be shrinking. The ride home was joyful; Antler Guy grinned the whole way, waving at passing cars from the sunroof of the Prius, Fluffy in the back seat. (Clifford had stayed home. He was currently cowering behind Mr. Manzo’s shed with Mr. Manzo as It passed.)
His joy ended the moment they turned onto the street and saw the unearthly light in front of his home.
“NEIGHBOR STEVE. STOP THE CAR.”
“What the fuck is tha-”
“STOP. THE. CAR.”
What happened next was hard to see, and hear. Steve, when trying to explain to Sharon later that night, mostly remembers a liquid feeling in his ears and a tightness in his eyes. He was pretty sure Antler Guy approached It, but he couldn’t be certain. Neighbors said Steve screamed and Antler Guy shouted something, and It left. But It left behind Steve, passed out in the concerned embrace of the deathshade vines, and Antler Guy, holding a gently smoking envelope, laid out flat on his own doorstep.
Sharon comes home to this moments after It leaves. Later, most folk agree that it was best this way. Her concern is surpassed only by her rage when she learns what happened. Almost immediately she grasps the situation from neighbors coming to check. 911 is deemed useless, as are the Suits. Sharon makes only two calls- one to Beatrice, to warn her and ask that she pick up the children and bring the boys home (Beatrice agrees, and wishes her good hunting), and one to Hellwife.
Moments after the second call is made, reality warps and Hellwife appears, kicking aside a pile of Wal-mart bags that appeared with her. Where Sharon is fiery rage tightly held, Hellwife is icy calculation spilled everywhere- the whole street shivers when she delicately picks the envelope out of her unconscious husband’s long fingers. On a balmy summer day, the decorative thermometer on Mrs. Giotto’s porch drops 30 degrees as she reads it carefully. Twice. And folds it neatly.
“ThEY. HavE. NO. RIGHT.”
Clifford, who was nosing his master and gently licking him to rouse him, immediately starts howling. Fluffy pauses her grooming of Antler Guy’s brow ridges to yowl with him.
~~~
The menfolk eventually rouse. No lasting harm is done, but a family meeting is called. Beatrice and Millie are included at Hellwife’s insistence (“You aRE Kin Of My Son, AnD sO
mY kIN.
yOu ArE famILy.
PlEase, StAY.” They do.)
To put it simply, and without the complicated and unutterable by human tongue language involved, the letter delivered by It is two things- a cease-and-desist order for Antler Guy to stop interfering with the business of Heaven, and a summons for one human soul, male, to be returned to Heaven.
Antler Guy had been doing a bit more than just visiting at the hospital. He had been strengthening the children and the ill, a breath at a time, and some had lived who should have died and gone to the Heavens. He had also deliberately misfiled the paperwork of Son’s mortal life, and it had taken this long to solve the mix-up.
The Heavens wanted Son, and they wanted punishment for Antler Guy’s crimes.
There is a hierarchy to Hell, and to Heaven. Hell is, very simply, Not Heaven. There are some very pleasant places that would not swear to Heaven, and so are regarded as Hell. Earth was left as a neutral area, one where both sides could leverage influence to see who, finally, Wins. No direct action can be taken by either side.
Officially, that’s all there is. Heaven, Earth, and Hell.
Unofficially…
~~~
“Do yOu KnOW yOur LinEs, neIghBor SteVe?”
“Yes ma’am!”
“NEIGHBOR STEVE, BEATRICE, SHARON, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO-”
“HUSH husBand. They are Sure, As aRE we All.”
“BUT I DO NOT DESERVE-”
“Enough.” Everyone- Triad, associated parents, Antler Guy, even the plants and the pets- shivered in the parking lot. Hellwife normally was… nondescript. Not nearly as terrifying at first glance as Antler Guy could be. But the last week, she had started to gather an invisible force to herself (not a literal force, Steve had quietly asked one day.) An air of regal power surrounded her now. A very large and insistent air of regal power. “I Am Your WiFe, HusBanD, And I WiLL deCIdE WhAt yoU DeServe.”
She tenderly scritched around the base of his horns as he sat in the middle of the circle of friends and family (and some vines carefully grown and shed under Hellwife’s specific instruction. Aubergine and Bella refused to be left behind.) Antler Guy quieted under his wife’s gentle claws. The moon shone pale on his polished skull as the hour inched closer to 2 AM.
“ArE You reADy, mY Son? TimmY? MilliE?”
“yes mama.”
“Yes Miss Hellwife.”
“Yes Missus Hellwife.”
The bright parking lot lights grew strangely dim.
“ThEn Let Us Begin.”
~~~
Unofficially, there’s Denny’s.
~~~
Hellwife held out the envelope outside of their circle, and began to Speak. (For the sake of human brains, she had carefully applied her own sort of runes on all participating non-eldritch creatures, including Fluffy. Even cats have their limits.) It glowed, burning itself up into strangely-scented smoke that drifted out into a pool, one that glowed in the same way that It had glowed.
It did not appear, for that was not It’s function. But two other Things drew themselves out of the mist, Things that triggered pain, and fear, and the agonizing knowledge that you deserved this, you deserved whatever They did to you because you are impure, imperfect, not worthy of such Light–
“Enough.”
They…flinched.
“I did not Call for such lackeys. Either send a proper representative, or I will consider the matter closed.”
They roiled uncertainly.
“Do not try my patience.”
They converged on the pool. Steve could feel that liquid sensation in his ears again, only the squiggles Hellwife had carefully drawn kept it from being painful. He had a mighty desire for a Q-tip, though.
Something Else flowed out of the pool. It was not an It, nor a They. This one radiated something else. This one had Power, the kind that would squish a lesser being with no regard, Power that pressed at the mind to be obeyed.
This… was a Boss.
Again, the liquid feeling, only mixed with…derision? If water could hold a snort, that’s what the Boss would radiate. Steve decided a baseball bat would be a better choice.
“Better. A proper Witness.”
Quizzical waterslosh?
“Steve, if you’ll get started?”
“Oh, I, uh, I do so swear…”
Sharon grabbed his right hand, Beatrice his left. In the small circle they made were Antler Guy, the Triad in his lap. Fluffy rode Clifford’s head as he lit the vine circle that surrounded them all, Aubergine and Bella forming a living one within it.
“-of my own free will-”
Hellwife stood between them and the Boss at the edge of the circle, staring at the Boss and it’s increasing distressed They.
“-pledge my son-”
The Boss quivered.
“-as I pledge my son-”
“-as I pledge my daughter-”
The Boss billowed menacingly. Hellwife narrowed her eyes.
“-AS I PLEDGE MY SON-”
The Boss screamed. Hellwife smiled. And stage-whispered.
“-aS I PleDGe My Son-”
The Boss screamed again, and They threw themselves at the barrier of hellfire, fed on wood freely given, reinforced by living flesh. Hellwife smiled.
“““-as we pledge to eachother-”””
And spoke.
“As witnessed by Heaven, Hell, and Earth, our children are pledged Betrothed. Their souls belong to each other, and none other.”
They were looking worse for the wear, Their light dulled and curls of smoke flickering over Them. The Boss was pissed, and the tickle of water in the ears became a torrent, one so angry that words were almost visible.
HE WHO FELL IS MINE.
The force behind the words was direct, and nigh unavoidable for one who had touched Heaven, much less one who fell from it. Antler Guy shook, and tried to stand. The kids, the adults, the plants- even Clifford held him down. Fluffy stood on his head, hissing softly.
Hellwife bared her teeth in a grin that had nothing at all of goodwill in it. She delicately stepped outside of the circle and spread her arms. The aura of regal power bloomed.
The Boss yelped.
“I Invoke my right as Wife to Fight for my Husband. The winner may keep Him.”
The Boss tried it’s best to rally the troops, even call for help- a wave of her delicate claws and the misty gate dimmed in brightness. No help would come from there.
“And since I never Fell…” She stepped forward. The forces of Heaven cringed.
“…you will fight me Fair.”
The mortals kept their heads down, as she had warned them to. A shield of leaves from Aubergine hid the sight and some of the sound as Bella sang her best rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody. Sharon joined for some of the duets.
“Who’s First?”
~~~
The victory feast in the diner was somewhat confusing for the servers, but justly deserved for the family. (A side door was opened for Clifford and Auberguine, who just couldn’t fit in the restaurant.)
(Hellwife occasionally hiccups slightly glowing mist. Beatrice folds her a birthday crown, and Bella waves the indigestible bits of holiness out the side door. Sharon hugs her, Steve orders her favorite birthday cake-flavored shake. The kids are smiling, and her husband’s claws entwine with her own.)
im scrEAMING IT KEEPS GETTING BETTER
There are consequences to all things.
Happily, most of them are benign. Sure, the Spirit of Dennys asks for a barrel of maple syrup- the really real squeezed-from-actual-woodflesh kind. (Hellwife has a cousin in Vermont.) (Well, a cousin who IS Vermont, but still.)
The hiccups last a few days, but any lingering odor is neatly covered by the thoughtful gift of a Febreeze spritzer, courtesy of Beatrice. It turned them a lovely shade of puce.
The Trio are, if anything, even more inseparable. Antler Guy assures all parties that any true telepathy would not develop until consummation of the Betrothal. (A consummation that would never necessarily have to happen- the Betrothal could not be broken, true, but Son would be perfectly happy living in sin, and modern human conventions were much different from what they used to be.) (This was carefully explained to the two pre-teens and the equivalent-in-eldritch-years-no-really-he’s-in-his 30′s???. Timmy made a face, Millie nodded solemnly, and Son blushed all the way down to his feeder roots.)
However, emotional bleed-over was to be expected. When Timmy lost his homework, the others were anxious. When Son broke a major branch during P.E., Timmy and Millie both felt phantom pain. When Bella finally learned how to use Timmy’s old skateboard to move freely about the apartment, using tendrils to pull herself along and singing the Spiderman theme song, the boys couldn’t stop smiling (especially when they saw Millie’s recording of it).
The Suits have an honest to goodness conniption fit when the next scheduled meeting rolls around. Sunglasses were snapped, mustaches ruffled, and pants pleats uncaringly wrinkled in the uproar. When asked why he had not reported it earlier, Steve tells them “it was a family thing, no need to involve anyone, it was handled.” When asked how, he tells them nothing more than “lady stood by her rights, trust me, if I knew more I probably wouldn’t be here. She’s scary when she’s pissed.” Hellwife’s file gets several new pages from this, mostly filled with question marks.
There are no reprisals from Heaven. (”Of coURse nOt, NeighBOr sTeVE, iT Was HandLEd iN A leGal MannER. I fOllOwEd tHeIr Rules To tHe LettEr, anD Not An inCh mOre.”) The street breathes easier, and the Mother’s Mafia authorizes a Congratulations themed series of covert food deliveries. (They aren’t sure what they’re congratulating, but it certainly requires baked goods and casseroles at We-Won-Homecoming-levels.) The eldritch neighbors show their solidarity as well. Miss Cravandish offers Sharon to be brood-Godmother. She accepts, much to Steve’s eternal delight (”make them an offer they can’t refuse do you get it honey-”). The lovely gargoyle couple make a tiny statue of Antler Guy, complete with a teensy Fluffy for his head. Peabody dedicates his next cycle to Hellwife, and excretes a stunning pearl necklace one globule at a time. (She knits him a silk sweater for himself and a matching one for his Pomeranian, Brutus.)
Hellwife’s role is downplayed, at her insistence. “i hAvE lIvEd in The pUbLic Eye, anD I preFEr mY maRRIed Life. I Am Happy. TrulY.” Some of it can’t be hidden, but she hides in plain sight again, in the shadow of her husband’s open manner. The rhythm of their lives calm somewhat, and the outside world forgets.
Mostly.
My god, can I have more?
Antler Guy refuses to stop his hospital visits, and the trend of tiny miracles continues. Not enough to be noticeable to the world at large (for he is not the only eldritch being in a new life, and others with fewer….restraints have been making huge strides in human medicine), but enough that he feels…. good. The neighborhood settles into itself- a little odd around the edges, but not unwelcoming.
And then, into the vacant house behind Steve and Sharon, comes a middle-management systems analyst named Ri’Lethiel.
Ri’Lethiel is not his legal name. His parents named him Robert, but several teenage rebellions later he alighted upon the occult scene, and took the name Ri’Lethiel. He never really left the occult scene; when the eldritch came into mainstream life he watched, waited, and traded information.
Antler Guy and his family are very high profile- even the Suits can only creatively edit their presence so far. And the Suits cannot edit what they cannot find. The Dark Web is darker than one may expect and some corners are under strange patronage indeed. The particular website that Ri’Lethiel frequents, updates, and is a long-standing moderator of is dedicated to the tracking and research of powerful eldritch. Some members treat it as an odd form of bird-watching or celebrity tracking. Others have different reasons to follow them.
There is nothing out of the ordinary about him. Antler Guy senses no ill-will, Hellwife does not feel unease. Sharon’s network trips no alarms and Steve… is Steve. While Ri’Lethiel is not incredibly outgoing he is not the surliest neighbor in the area by any means. He blends in to neighborhood life for several months, almost a half a year.
He is…..average. Forgettable.
He does not wish to be so for much longer.
~~~
The day the children go missing is the day that Beatrice graduates.
(Steve, in a moment of inspiration all his own, cites the expanded family ties created by the Betrothal as an excellent reason to bring Beatrice in on the government payroll. The look on her face when he told her her new salary and the sort of benefits it entailed should she accept is forever one of the best moments of Steve’s life. She chose to quit her previous job and finish the degrees she had paused when Millie was born, via online courses at a local junior college.)
She does not walk, nor attends the ceremony. Sharon, in an uncharacteristic moment of weakness, has a horrible case of the stomach flu. Hellwife, being immune to human diseases, is tending her at the Abomination’s house so as not to infect the rest of the family. Steve, fretting over his wife, is forced to attend the monthly Suit meeting with a glorious set of nerves and no little anger. (The Suits did not feel as though a mere sick wife was good reason to postpone. Sharon is already planning her rebuttal once food stays mostly in place.) Antler Guy, who presented Beatrice with a truly glorious bouquet of mostly-native-to-this-plane-of-existence flowers as a mass apology and congratulations, has his own meetings to go to.
This leaves Beatrice in care of the Triad. It is also their last day of school, and a grand party was planned for. The Mother’s Mafia catered the event and a sea of casseroles and other homemade goodies covered the tables. (All known allergies are accounted for, and tables are clearly marked by contagion.) (There will be no repeat of little Spg’lck’s unfortunate inflation-via-cumin-powder. The janitors have politely requested greater vigilance, for his slime is very difficult to remove from the ceiling.)
The party (planned long in advance by the sub-commanders of the MM) is a grand success. Three tired, happy children climb into the middle seat of Sharon’s minivan (on loan from said worthy, while Beatrice’s sedan is in the shop), while Beatrice helps a pregnant Mafia member load her car with food and toddlers.
The squeal of tires and the terrified screams of her children turn heads. Her own wordless cry incites panic.
Her purse is found two blocks down the road, with her phone and wallet inside, tossed from the car at speed. The police are called; Hellwife and Sharon are called immediately, but cannot leave the sick room. Antler Guy is unreachable and a bored voice (later a jobless voice, once his superiors get a hold of his sunglasses) tells the frantic Beatrice that Steve “will be notified of her call once his meeting is over.”
Hours later her car is found. Locked inside is Millie, badly bruised and chloroformed in a hot, airless car. Timmy and Son are nowhere to be found, but a pale patch of sap is splattered against a window, and Timmy’s sneaker is left on the floor.
Steve joins her in the hospital, pale and shaking, and they wait for Millie to wake up.
Hospitals are their own sort of crossroads. Loaded with the struggle
for one more breath, the despair of those too late, and the calm
acceptance of people who have good reason to court the Reaper, the
potential for exploitation by those of ill intent is high in the Days
After reunification. There are guardians in place and wards kept running
smooth- not all divine, and certainly not all of Heaven. A peace is
kept by sheer force of will of those who work there.
This peace
was preserved in the face of Suits (repelled by gimlet-eyed nurses and a
few of the upper ward gargoyles recruited as muscle), media frenzy (a
cordon of security guards, including Siegfried the auroch minotaur), and
the vanguard of the Mother’s Mafia (a quick conference call to Sharon
and they scatter, some to organize who was a possible witness, some to
canvas the neighborhood, some to coordinate logistics and supplies.)
(Though the general is weakened she is not without strength, and this is
what she can do well. This is what she tells herself as she crumbles in
private call to Steve, wrapped in Hellwife’s arms as she fights not to
vomit again. She isn’t sure who is shaking worse, herself, Hellwife, or
Steve’s hands as he holds the phone.)
In the face of Beatrice’s
grief, the peace is uneasy. It lightens a little when Steve arrives,
because he is a past master of acting as ambassador to those beyond,
whether beyond human understanding or beyond the depths of grief. His
hope, too, lies in Millie’s tiny limp hands, and this is something that
he can do, for her, for Beatrice, for Timmy, for Son. He can sort
through pleasantries and accept a dinner tray. He can gently encourage
Beatrice to eat a little, and listen to the doctors while watching the
nurses. And he can hold back the terrible gnawing fear because this,
this is something that he can do. He can do this. He can.
Beatrice
is not lost. This is not her first time, watching the rise and fall of
her daughter’s chest, willing it to continue. Millie’s father nearly
killed her, beating Beatrice into early labor. The first month of
Millie’s life was spent in an incubator with her mother watching,
watching. They were all alone, her and Millie, until an awkward, goofy
man brought a huge house-trained cabbage just to keep her daughter safe,
until the leader of the neighborhood stay-at-home spouses absorbed her
into their web, until a family of Halloween decoration rejects that her
mother would have run screaming from were the kindest beings she ever
met. (Steve told her what Antler Guy had done to the peeping tom. She
admits to herself that she considered asking him to visit Millie’s
father in a similar way.)
Even now she watched how these people-
her new family- drew together, holding each other up through their own
overwhelming pain to help hold her too. She spared a moment to be
grateful that at least Millie was here, not lost and possibly hurt,
before returning to her thoughts. She had given a thorough report to the
police, of course, and combed through every bit that she could remember
with obsessive detail. She simply could not remember. This is
suspicious, in itself. Beatrice does not forget small detail. Her life
has taught her that the tiniest change can be incredibly significant:
Millie’s untimely birth started with a dangerous silence she reacted to
too late. So she knows when the children have a secret, often before
Sharon. She knew the day before Miss Cravandish’s eggs hatched, just
from the way the peeping changed tone. She watches, and she hides in
plain sight. An unwed black mother is not always seen and she uses this
to her advantage, another weapon in an unkind world.
As Steve
sleeps under a thin blanket with exhaustion etched in deep under his
eyes, Beatrice thinks. She thinks about all the snippets she has picked
up from Hellwife, the frantic research into eldritch protections that
she did when Millie first became friends with Son, the feeling in the
air when she walks through a ward-line. She thinks about her daughter,
the way she smiles, how happy the boys make her, how their lives have
changed so much.
She thinks about how she has never seen a birthmark on her daughter’s bicep before.
~~~
Steve
makes a call to the Suits when Millie wakes up. Not to ask for help but
merely to inform them that yes, she is awake and no, she will not
answer any questions from Suits or police. The hospital administration
tries half-heartedly to keep Millie for observation, but other than a
reluctance to talk she is in perfect health. Her mother insists on going
home, for recuperation in a friendly environment. No one sees the fist
in her pocket, or the wad of Kleenex wrapped with precision around a
dark-brown smear.
The car ride is uneventful- Steve drives while
mother and daughter cuddle in the back, and whisper. They turn onto a
ghost-street- no one is out, not even at midmorning. There are signs of
life, though, and care- the pets have been fed and watered, Auberguine’s
leaves are neatly bundled for the composting pickup. Bella’s skateboard
is propped against the Abomination’s porch, next to a fresh delivery of
soup and casserole. (Bella herself is currently curled up deep in the
depths of Auberguine, having cried herself to sleep. Mr. Paws and
Puggles keep her company.) Fluffy and Clifford are asleep in the front
yard, having spent most of the night searching for scents with the help
of Mr. Manzo, Peabody, and Brutus.
Hellwife welcomes them home
with open arms and ushers them into her home. An oilslick bubble keeps
Sharon’s sickness from spreading to the human contingent. In a nest of
blankets and a sad-looking bucket rests Sharon, looking worse than the
projectile vomiting episode that triggered her quarantine. Hellwife
settles in next to her, taking comfort as much as she gives it. Steve
starts for his wife, and is stopped by Beatrice.
“Wait Steve. We need to talk.”
The
smear on the tissue, carefully tasted by Hellwife, is some sort of
suppressant. At her request, Hellwife checks both mother and child for
magical interference. Hellwife’s brow-twigs furrow.
“tHEre Is SomeThIng, BuT iT hiDEs. SliThery WretChed thinG-”
“But there is something, right? Something that is designed to make you not look?” Beatrice’s eyes gleam.
“YeS….bUT
I CannoT caTch it. mY HusbaND is BeTTer at SucH TWisTy casTiNG.”
Hellwife sighs, and she droops. “i worRy thAT i CannOt rEacH Him, noR
fEEl Son. ThIs tasTes Of ConSPiRaCy.”
No one looks surprised.
Steve looks almost as sickly as his wife, who has regained some color
from sheer rage. Beatrice holds Millie in her lap, eyes faraway and
thinking. Millie tugs on her mother’s shirt, and whispers in her ear.
Beatrice nods.
“Millie can find them.”
~~~
The neighborhood is quiet, but eyes are watching.
The
bond between the children allows Millie to zero in on the boys’
position with relative ease. (It does not help the feeling of conspiracy
to find them so close to home.) Information flies through phones warded
against wire-tapping and via Hellwife’s Interhouse Begonia Mail system-
who lives there, what do we know about him, recent movements- reports
are sparse. No one in the neighborhood offers to call the police, not
even the retired cop Mr. B. Clive on the corner. Police couldn’t help.
But
these, these are the people in the neighborhood. These are the Manzos,
the Hendersons, the Fitz-Simmons, Mrs. Giotto, Mr. Clive, and all the
other humans that have accepted and welcomed the Abominations (even if
somewhat reluctantly, at first), that paved the way for other eldritch
to come and have a home, a community. And that community, made of grumpy
ex-cops and the gorgon hatchlings that he baby-sits, of timid gardeners
and tentacle-kin, will not tolerate what was done to three innocent
children, what may still be happening to two of them.
As the sun
sets, they gather. A solid line of beings surrounds the house. Fences
are bridged with hands and arms, but no one touches the fence or grounds
of Robert’s lot. Dead center in the front, in an arc that goes into the
street, is Hellwife, and Beatrice, and Steve. (Millie is in the
Anderson home, behind layers of Auberguine and the very protective pets.
Sharon is still in her bubble, but her subcommanders keep her supplied
with information and warm soup.) An old man steps up, and unfolds a very
long letter. This is Mr. Krupnik, the elderly lawyer friend of Antler
Guy, and the current elected representative of the Home Owners
Association of the area.
Midway through the reading of grievances,
the house begins to creak. A few paragraphs more and it sways
alarmingly. With the words “lein for non-payment of fines” it shrieks
like a dying thing, and spits out three beings in a flood of house
furnishings and occult paraphernalia. The two small shapes are plucked
from the flood by their parents.
The third watches in
pants-shitting terror as the father of one of the boys, no longer held
in check by the possible murder of his child and in no mood for the
blackmail “Ri’Lethiel” had attempted, materializes in front of him. Mr.
Krupnik clears his throat, hands Antler Guy the letter gravely, and lets
his fellow member of the HOA finish the eviction in his own special
way.
~~~
By unanimous consent the empty house is sold to
Beatrice, who pays in full (for the Suits kept their word, and her
savings account is plump) and remodels extensively. The fences
separating the three properties are removed- it is less three families
in three houses, and more one family with extensive yardage. The grounds
are, by neighborhood agreement, an unofficial playground supervised by
Auberguine and deathshade vines. (Auberguine at her adult size cannot be
contained in a house, but monitoring a playground of screaming children
keeps her occupied and happy. The deathshade vines like eating the shed
goldfish crackers, and stealing the occasional pacifier.) The
Abomination’s home is invite-only for safety concerns, as it obeys
mortal physics only loosely. The Anderson’s home is wide-open, a
community hub of interaction and information. Beatrice’s home is the
quiet place, the still pool in an often-turbulent extended family. But
it is their family, one that they have made. And whether quiet or
raucous, together or far-flung, it remains their family, their
neighborhood, their community.
And they embrace it, and defend it, and hold it open for others seeking home.
Look, I don’t believe in God, but I will not disrespect the Good Gentlemen of the Hills. That’s just common sense.
Between this and the Icelanders with their elves I do not understand what is going on above the 50th parallel.
My general rule of thumb: you don’t have to believe in everything, but don’t fuck with it, just in case.
^^^ that part
This is truer than true. Especially the Irish part.
Let me tell you what I know about this after living here for nearly thirty years.
This is a modern European country, the home of hot net startups, of Internet giants and (in some places, some very few places) the fastest broadband on Earth. People here live in this century, HARD.
Yet they get nervous about walking up that one hill close to their home after dark, because, you know… stuff happens there.
I know this because Peter and I live next to One Of Those Hills. There are people in our locality who wouldn’t go up our tiny country road on a dark night for love or money. What they make of us being so close to it for so long without harm coming to us, I have no idea. For all I know, it’s ascribed to us being writers (i.e. sort of bards) or mad folk (also in some kind of positive relationship with the Dangerous Side: don’t forget that the root word of “silly”, which used to be English for “crazy”, is the Old English _saelig_, “holy”…) or otherwise somehow weirdly exempt.
And you know what? I’m never going to ask. Because one does not discuss such things. Lest people from outside get the wrong idea about us, about normal modern Irish people living in normal modern Ireland.
You hear about this in whispers, though, in the pub, late at night, when all the tourists have gone to bed or gone away and no one but the locals are around. That hill. That curve in the road. That cold feeling you get in that one place. There is a deep understanding that there is something here older than us, that doesn’t care about us particularly, that (when we obtrude on it) is as willing to kick us in the slats as to let us pass by unmolested.
So you greet the magpies, singly or otherwise. You let stones in the middle of fields be. You apologize to the hawthorn bush when you’re pruning it. If you see something peculiar that cannot be otherwise explained, you are polite to it and pass onward about your business without further comment. And you don’t go on about it afterwards. Because it’s… unwise. Not that you personally know any examples of people who’ve screwed it up, of course. But you don’t meddle, and you learn when to look the other way, not to see, not to hear. Some things have just been here (for various values of “here” and various values of “been”) a lot longer than you have, and will be here still after you’re gone. That’s the way of it. When you hear the story about the idiots who for a prank chainsawed the centuries-old fairy tree a couple of counties over, you say – if asked by a neighbor – exactly what they’re probably thinking: “Poor fuckers. They’re doomed.” And if asked by anybody else you shake your head and say something anodyne about Kids These Days. (While thinking DOOMED all over again, because there are some particularly self-destructive ways to increase entropy.)
Meanwhile, in Iceland: the county council that carelessly knocked a known elf rock off a hillside when repairing a road has had to go dig the rock up from where it got buried during construction, because that road has had the most impossible damn stuff happen to it since that you ever heard of. Doubtless some nice person (maybe they’ll send out for the Priest of Thor or some such) will come along and do a little propitiatory sacrifice of some kind to the alfar, belatedly begging their pardon for the inconvenience.
They’re building the alfar a new temple, too.
Atlantic islands. Faerie: we haz it.
The Southwest is like this in some ways. You don’t go traveling along the highways at night with an empty car seat. Because an empty car seat is an invitation. You stick your luggage, your laptop bag, whatever you got in that seat. Else something best left undiscussed and unnamed (because to discuss it by name is to go ‘AY WE’RE TALKING BOUT YA WE’RE HERE AND ALSO IGNORANT OF WHAT YOU’RE CAPABLE OF’ at the top of your damn lungs at them) will jump in to the car, after which you’re gonna have a bad time.
If you’re out in the woods, you keep constant, consistent count of your party and make sure you know everyone well enough that you can ID them by face alone, lest something imitating a person get at you. They like to insert themselves in the party and just observe before they strike. It’s a game to them. In general you don’t fuck with the weird, you ignore the lights in the sky (no, this isn’t a god damn night vale reference, yes I’m serious) and the woods, you lock up at night and you don’t answer the door for love or money. Whatever or whoever’s knocking ain’t your buddy.
^ So much good advice in this post right here
I live in the south and… you just… don’t go into the woods or fields at night.
Don’t go near big trees in the night
If you live on a farm, don’t look outside the windows at night
I have broken all these rules.
I’ve seen some shit.
If it sounds like your mom, but you didn’t realize your mom is home…. it’s not your mom. Promise.
One walked onto the porch once. Wasn’t fun. But they’re not super keen on guns. Typically bolt when they see one.
You think it’s the neighbor kids.
It’s not the neighbor kids.
Might sound like coyotes but you never really /see/ the coyotes but then wow that one cow was reaaaaaally fucked up this morning. The next night when you hear another one screaming you just turn the tv up a little more. Maybe fire a gun in the air but you don’t go after it. If it is coyotes then it’s probably a pack and you seriously don’t want to fuck with that and if it’s the other thing you seriously REALLY don’t want to fuck with that.
So in the south, especially near the mountains, you just go straight from your car to inside your house, draw your curtains and watch tv.
If you see lights in the fields just fucking leave it alone.
Eyes forward. Don’t be fucking stupid. Mind your own business. Call your neighbors and tell them to bring the cats in. There’s coyotes out. Some of them know. Most of them don’t.
Other than that everything’s a ghost and they died in the civil war. Literally all of everything else is just the civil war. We used to smell old perfume and pipe tobacco in the weeks leading up to the battle anniversaries.
Shit’s wild and I sound fucking crazy but I swear to god it’s true.
Every time this post comes around, it’s my favorite to open up the notes and read the stories. Probably shouldn’t have since I’m sleeping alone tonight, but you know, it’s fine. 😂
Austrian girl here who has lived in Ireland for 5+ years. This shit is LEGIT. I’ve seen it with my own two Catholic eyes.
Sure, visit during the day. That’s alright as long as you’re respectful. But you couldn’t PAY ME ENOUGH to go there at night. These are also the last places where you wanna start littering.
I grew up in southwest Pennsylvania which is a weird mixture of American cultures and environments. I was in the heavily forested mountains (northern Appalachia) but had lots and lots of corn fields and cow pastures. Like the Smoky Mountains and fields of Kansas combined. And being so cut off from a lot of the world, we had our fair share of ghost stories.
We had ‘witches’ in the mountains (more like ghost-women who will snatch you up by making you wander in a daze around the forest like the Blair Witch before killing you or letting you back out into society but you’re… different). Or devils in springs or abandoned wells (don’t look too long into one or something will follow you).
But we also had the cornfield demons. I’ve witnessed this many times. You’ll be in the passenger seat looking out the window and see red glowing eyes in the cornfield. No light shining in that direction. Just two red dots a few inches apart faintly glowing in a pitch black cornfield. They’re not the glow of deer eyes in the headlights. More like the embers of a dying fire. Sometimes, as you drive away, you’ll look out the back window or side mirror and you can see the eyes have moved to the edge of the corn field, still watching you. If you bring it up with the driver, they’ll call you paranoid, but grip the wheel a bit tighter and driver a little faster.
I was walking to a friend’s house one night. It was about 20 minutes down a dirt road with forest on one side and a cornfield on the other. I’ve walked past it many times and wasn’t really concerned. My main worry was coming across a skunk or porcupine. I didn’t have a flashlight because the moonlight was bright enough and I knew the walk really well. Then I saw the eyes. I immediately averted mine (because for some reason that’s how to not annoy it) but they kept wandering back. They were still there, watching. I heard rustling and saw the eyes come closer and I took off running. I got to my friends without a scratch, but I was terrified. I mentioned it to my friend and that’s when I found out it was A Thing. Her parents agreed and shared their stories. I brought it up more and almost everyone knew what I was talking about. It was a phenomenon a lot of folks around town experienced but never mentioned. To this day, I don’t linger around poorly light cornfields at night.
@thedevilinthealchemy and I are very old friends. I used to live in the same town as her, in Southern California. One night, a few years ago, we were celebrating the end of finals and the start of winter break, and we just hanging out in her car, killing ourselves with late night Taco Bell. Well, we decide we don’t want to go home just yet, so we start driving. We drive up a canyon, near her place. Now, we both had made this trip many, many times, in daylight and dark. A local tourist trap is in that canyon, and there’s a shortcut to a college campus that goes through that canyon. It was a normal winter night in SoCal.
Well, about halfway through I start to get scared. For no reason. Within the span of two heartbeats I grew so terrified that my palms were shaking and my mouth was dry and for some reason I couldn’t take my eyes off the wood to the driver’s side.
“Turn around.” I say, quickly.
“Dude, already on it.” Kama said, doing a quick three point turn. I look in the mirror as she’s pealing away and see the creature. It was vaguely humanoid, and hairless, with elongated limbs and pitch black eyes, on all four limbs, loping after us. Now, if you’re in the know, you might be thinking “hey that’s like the creatures from Until Dawn, I call bullshit on this.” Well, Until Dawn was four years away, and it wasn’t even in development yet, so shush.
I rip my eyes away from it and hold on tight as she drives. Then, at the same time, both of us get this instinct and we speak.
“Don’t look in the backseat.” Needless to say, neither of us did. She drove damn near 90 on a dark canyon until we saw the lights of her complex at the mouth of it.
I haven’t gone back in there since, and that canyon got shut down about a year ago due to a landslide and it hasn’t opened back up. I’m a history major, and research always has been my first love, so I go digging. I visit the local history society, talk about my tale. Turns out the whole valley used to belong to a people called the Tativam. One day, after the Spanish arrived, they vanished. Without a trace. We have a graveyard of theirs that we know of. One of my professors was trying to stop the houses that were being built on it. Spoiler alert: he didn’t, and the houses are hella haunted, and nobody wants to live there.
Personally I do think the creature is a wendigo. That chain of mountains is park of unbroken chain that leads right up the Serra Nevadas and Donner Pass.
I’m from Northern California myself, state capitol, and while we don’t have much by way of critters (sure, we’ve got Bigfoot up in the redwoods, but those guys are mostly harmless).
Most of what we’ve got is due to the Gold Rush, and not just the hauntings (though there are plenty of those, a great many of them are theatre ghosts, most of whom are harmless, though some are very particular). What we’ve got by way of Things were brought along on the trail from the Old Country to the East Coast and then along thousands of miles of wagon trail.
We’ve got our fair share of phantom hitchhikers and women in white, but mostly what we’ve got are the Things That Survived The Flood. There was a flood in the early 1860s, one that caused the state capitol to actually be relocated for a while, and when it was over and the floodwaters receded, there was enough sediment left behind that what had been the second floor of buildings was now the ground floor.
There are a handful of places in Old Town that you Do Not Go after dark (despite being safe during the day). When I worked in Old Town, giving comedic history tours, we started from and returned to a restaurant that had a club downstairs (in what had been the ground floor before The Flood) and there was a storeroom down there that got locked at sunset and no one questioned it, but the door to that storeroom was pretty much right next to the portable shed we changed clothes in, and I know, more than once, I heard knocking and scratching and one of my very last tours I got a facefull of wet-plant rot smell (not quite mildew, but not stinky like rotting meat gets) so bad I couldn’t breathe. It’s one of the reasons I stopped doing the tours, really, because I was starting to get the feeling I was being singled out, and I didn’t want to find out what by.
When I was like 17, I lived in the woods on the northwest coast of canada.
One day, I decided to go for a walk in a part of the woods I had never been to before.
Because sometimes I see weird things out there, I made sure to bring my grandma’s dog with me, just running free and off-leash.
These are wild woods, too, not parkland, so the only clear areas are deer trails. I stuck along to those because, you know, I don’t want to get lost, and about an hour in I hear this strange whistling.
Just a short call- One long, sharp whistle followed quickly by a short, piping one.
Now, I’m in a good mood and I figure it must be some new kind of bird, so I whistle back: long call, short call.
It whistles again.
I’m amused, so I whistle again. Long call, short call, and then just to be fun, I throw in a little trill at the end.
It whistles back.
It whistles back the exact same pattern.
Now, normally that would freak me out, but I was in a REALLY good mood. A really weirdly good mood. So, I whistled again.
And when it whistled back to me, I giggled.
I… Don’t giggle. Not alone in the woods over basically nothing.
The whistle came again, and there was a rustle in the distance. Seeing a shady outcrop, I ran to hide, feeling like I was playing hide-and-seek with someone. It whistled, I whistled back.
Another rustle. Closer.
I suddenly realized I hadn’t seen the dog in a while. I looked around, and saw him a few feet away, staring point-blank and totally still into the forest.
The whistle came again, closer this time, and suddenly my weirdly bubbly feeling was gone. Instant fear. I got the dog’s attention and we absolutely booked it out of there, all the way back to the eight-foot-high gate that marked the start of the wild land.
I locked it behind me, and we never went back.
I never really had any idea what was whistling with me in the forest. Maybe some kind of mimic bird that had escaped home, or a squatter hiding out there sewhere messing with this kid and their dog.
I only just remembered that when I was a kid, we learned about the Tsonoqua woman.
The Tsonoqua woman is supposed to be an old woman who lives in the woods. She carries a basket on her back and has long, tangled hair. When children wander away from camp, it is said that she snatches them up in her basket and steals them away forever.
But because she has bad sight, she uses her keen ears to hunt, and calls out with a birdlike whistle.
I have lived in southern California for a lifetime. There are things here that even I don’t understand. Things I can’t describe. If you ever take any advice from my blog, please, please, remember this.
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