"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
#extradirty
h
PR's Tumblrdome
d e v o n
sheepfilms
todays bird
No title available
Game of Thrones Daily
NASA
Not today Justin
No title available
祝日 / Permanent Vacation
Love Begins
will byers stan first human second
Janaina Medeiros
Stranger Things
dirt enthusiast
Kaledo Art
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
seen from Malaysia
seen from Greenland
seen from Germany
seen from Australia
seen from Germany
seen from Brazil
seen from South Korea
seen from United States
seen from Poland
seen from Israel
seen from Romania
seen from United States
seen from France
seen from United States
seen from Indonesia
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
@cursdslayer
"very snazzy." lucy comments on the state of the buzzing scene around them, people running in and out of her line of sight - the lights cozy & ferris wheel slowly stuttering in a circle. "what do you think?"
"—are you asking me?" it was fine if she were, but no one had talked to vanessa in hours. she'd been mostly left to her own devices while on patrol.
Tina used to love the carnival. Any event was her time to shine. However that year it had kind of lost its appeal. It made her so angry. As usual, she resented her parents for pulling her into the dark side of Mystic Falls. She would have gladly kept leading her attention seeking, competitive and carefree life. Instead she was stuck with terrible knowledge and so few people to share that burden with.
Like a stable and totally not emotionally unstable person, she was taking her anger, frustration and agression on target attractions. It felt so good knocking down cans. Again and again. Tina eventually forgot about her troubles. " YES ! I win. Again !" She flipped her hair and was that close to do a celebratory dance. " This is how this is done people !"
"wow. that's a lot of confidence you got there. congratulations." vanessa felt decently confident that she could do better, but she had been trained in hitting targets since she old enough to hold a projectile. "hey, wait. are you a fell?" her father had mentioned there may be a new fell face to get used to when they handled council work.
it's still daunting for allison to be a newcomer in such a tight knit town, but the opportunity that the carnival presented was one she simply could not ignore. besides, it would be fun to have a look around! she's got a box of popcorn in her hands as she leisurely walks around - fading into the background feeling a lot easier than social interaction. allison sits down at a bench and looks around with a sigh, quite content to continue observing.
it was time to call it a night. there was no egregiously obvious vampiric activity, and vanessa was tired. it would be easier to sleep some before the next transfusion instead of having to pretend like the thirst wasn't wearing away at her patience. dropping onto the bench next to the stranger, vanessa pulled out her phone to text her siblings. her free hand dropped to the bench. instantly, she recoiled. "is this sticky? gross." blood she could do. a sticky public bench? that was pushing it.
The dead were always loud, but it was worse in a public setting. so many people gathered with spirits attached to them like puppets on a string. Ghosts were exhausting because no one ever left this plane with their life tied up in a neat little bow. That's the thing about dying--no one's ever ready. They always have something dire left to be said or done, and as soon as they knew she could see them, they chained themselves to her like anchors to an unfit life raft. It felt like drowning, except it wasn't water she was choking on, it was a tsunami of everyone else's grief. It had been stupid to come, but she was trying not to be a hermit. So much for that, since she was already off at the edge of the lot where it was more quiet. She could hear the games and rides playing over the distant crowd as she dug through her purse, looking for a lighter to smoke her joint. Someone struck the bell on the strength game really hard with the hammer and all the lights went off, blasting celebratory music. Isa angled her purse into the momentary brightness to confirm what she already knew.
"shit." she muttered. Isa looked around, scanning the few people nearest to see if any of them looked like they might actually smoke. It was a long shot since most people vaped now. Isa hesitated as she spotted someone but ultimately took a step forward. "Hey--you wouldn't happen to have a lighter I could borrow, would you?" If not, maybe there was one she could buy around here. Hell, maybe this was her cue to leave and go home.
the plan had been to divide and conquer. the carnival had a decent amount of space to cover, and the shadows had only grown longer as the night went on. beatriz had yet to be fully initiated, so cristian had taken her in one direction and vanessa was left to her own devices in the other. the thought of being the odd man out didn't bother her. cristian and beatriz had always been close, and being alone was better than dealing with cristian and his guilt. she had already told him that he didn't need to apologize any longer for something that had happened when they were children, but for as long as fernando held him at arms length, he would. there wasn't really anything wrong with patrolling with beatriz, but vanessa was rarely allowed to. she wasn't valentina, but she was still a flight risk in her father's eyes. an abnormality. an abomination.
not super eager at the thought of having to engage— or, god forbid, bust out a stake— vanessa continued her route around the carnival's perimeter. there was a slight pang in her chest as she watched the happy faces lost in their own joy. they had no idea how quickly the night could change or the lives could end. it sounded both freeing and terrifying. vanessa was nearly ready to text cristian that she was done and heading home when she first heard the voice. it only took a second to trace the sound to the face of a woman standing there with a joint. vanessa didn't smoke, of course. outside of having no appeal, it was detrimental to the lungs. there couldn't be any disadvantages physically if she were to live up to her father's standards. that didn't mean she didn't carry a lighter, however. you never knew when you needed a flame.
"yeah, sure." she nodded easily, fishing it out of her pocket. extending the lighter, vanessa took a quick second to assess the interaction. no obvious signs of a vampire, but they were incredibly good at hiding. it was best to start casual and try to be normal. talk, loan a lighter. have a conversation like a normal person. it was all she wanted but nothing she'd ever had. "looks like it's your lucky night."
grace wasn't quite sure what to make of the carnival. sure, it came to the town every year or so but this time things were different. animal attacks, strange people wandering around - there was always something new and creepy going on. she has her arms folded across her chest as she stares up at the ferris wheel in an almost grumpy manner.
"are you in line?" most of the people milling around the ferris wheel were in pairs eager to catch a few moments of romantic peace. vanessa, however, was alone. the thought of solitude and above the noise of the carnival for even a brief period had seemed incredibly enticing.
Leigheas was at once a prison and a comfort. It was where Maeve spent most of her time growing up, under the watchful eye of her mother or, more commonly, an assortment of sisters. In the back room she had watched them brew potions a thousand times; had stood at the table and cut and ground and measured ingredients; there, in the corner she had tucked herself into a chair and leafed through the family grimoire in any spare moment that arose. Back then she had wanted to be anywhere but the shop, anywhere but underfoot. Now? Well… as long as she was left to her own devices, it could almost be heaven.
She'd taken the late shift for that brief respite from her family, and the time had slipped by without her even really noticing. The bell above the door rang and she looked up in surprise, eyes hitting the clock before the customer. "Oh— we close soon." Five minutes ago, really. "Can I help you find what you're looking for?"
vanessa knew more of maeve mccullough than she actually knew her. maeve had graduated with beatriz. vanessa knew that. she was pretty sure her younger sister and maeve had been friendly, but she didn't know much about the mcculloughs outside of that. witches, likely. that was fine. the santos family tended to leave them alone. they could be a decent ally against vampires, so they were tolerated.
"my car actually won't start," vanessa gestured towards the window as if it was possible to see the car instead of darkness. "and it's raining. but i won't melt. i can wait outside. just thought i'd peek my head in. you're meave, right?"
like a fun new party trick, she knows there's something off in the room before they even reveal themselves. it's a tickle in her senses, a disembodied whisper in the back of her mind that she isn't truly alone. "—are you going to lurk all day, or do you want to talk?"
"i'm sorry, i'm normally a really good lurker. what gave me away here?"
"No, no--I mean I'm sure it's totally normal to have a bunch of bodies mysteriously turning up drained of blood. Happens all the time in other towns, you know, animals just...do that, they bite people and....suck the blood out..." he hardly get the words out with a straight face. "I'm just saying, it's weird. I don't know any mountain lions personally, but I've never heard of one leaving the body afterwords. The point is kind of to eat it."
"they actually don't leave it, but they don't eat them whole. they often bury them so they can come back later." it seemed like an irrelevant fact, but it had been part of the thorough training that was required to be a santos. it was important to differentiate different ways that different animals left bodies to try to determine if they had been killed by a supernatural predator or a natural one. "i'm not saying it's normal what's happening here," vanessa backtracked. "but there's a fun fact for you."
" Hey ! Could you give me a ride back to my farm ? " April was supposed to cycle back to her home but it was getting late. It was dark and she was past curfiew. She needed to find a creative solution to get home quickly." If my dad catches me outside when the sun has set, I'm in big trouble !" They had already fought the previous day and she did not fancy being grounded. " You're not going to kidnap me right ?" She joked. In such a small town, everyone knew each others and there was no such things as kidnappings.
"did i forget to take the uber sticker off my window?" vanessa joked, stretching slightly to check her back window. in all seriousness, she wasn't a ride share service. she did need to get home. she also understood, however, the paralyzing fear that came with the idea of letting down your father. her lips pursed for a second as she thought it over before a sigh erupted from her chest. "fine, fine. hop in. you're going to have to direct me." if the girl was, for some reason, blood thirsty, she had picked the wrong driver to attack. vanessa's bag and stakes were within reach.
open! late at night
She enjoyed teasing the hunters that obviously trailed after her, one of their dead bodies lurking just behind her in the alleyway. "You'd think people would learn a little something after all these years but it feels like people are growing dumber by the year. Kind of disappointed in a way"
it had been a half-hearted pursuit. vanessa hadn't actually wanted to go out on patrol, but no one had ever asked her. they rarely did. it was expected, and she had to perform. it was better than risking fernando's biting disappointment. then again, being in the dark with a vampire wasn't much fun either. vanessa wasn't exactly concerned; she was not only trained but also... well, she wasn't sure what she was. what she was was tired. she knew that much. "what if," she proposed. "we don't do this tonight. we skip the song and dance and just... don't. how does that sound?"
open - at a local coffee shop
"For a small town it definitely has big things going on with it - like one of those stupid Russian dolls that never seem to end," she sighed, taking a sip from her coffee. "Plus the coffee here sucks, I thought small towns were supposed to have decent coffee or something like that"
"i've heard you get desensitized to the coffee at a certain point. soon, you won't remember what good coffee tastes like." born and raised in mystic falls, it wasn't like vanessa knew anything else. she'd heard her mother complain before, but gabriela drank it all the same. "as for the big things, well," she rolled her head from one side to the other. "i suppose you get used to those as well."
"high schoolers." liz sighed. she didn't hate them for being young and reckless, everyone was young and reckless once, she was just annoyed because all she wanted was to keep them safe and they notoriously made her job harder. "these kids hear town wide curfew and animal attacks, and decide its the perfect time to throw a bonfire party in the woods." liz started her day bright and early with a call about several burned bodies in the cemetery. she was just wrapping her head around the resurgence of vampires and now they might have a regular human serial killer on their hands. in mystic falls of all places. what's next-- werewolves? at the snap of a branch liz wipped her head around, eyes landing on a familiar face that didn't belong.
"hey-- you cant be out here, this is an active crime scene."
reporting to a crime scene in the early hours of the morning was never not a drudge. there was never a happy ending, and there wasn't usually an active threat to dispatch. vanessa— was by birth and training— a hunter, not a detective. the police could solve the crime. that was their job. it was vanessa's duty to not upset her father. if fernando wanted a santos on the scene to check for supernatural activity, one would be there. unfortunately, he never asked valentina, beatriz was barely out of training and cristian was busy. it was vanessa who was stuck with leaves stuck on the soles of her boots as she trudged to the site. the plan was to wait quietly until the other law enforcement agents cleared the space, and once they were gone, she allowed a snapping of a twig to signal her presence.
"good morning, sheriff." vanessa replied politely, her voice cutting through the bird song and the wind in the trees. "my father sends his apologies that he couldn't be here himself. do you mind if i take a look around?" there was a stake hidden in the inner pocket of her coat, the wood stiff and solid. it was a reminder that this was not a normal morning.
He stumbled back a few steps with raised hands, not realizing how close he had gotten to her. "I'm sorry, really," he said, face a bright shade of red, "I swear I was just walking and zoned out and kind of like drifted if that makes sense? I didn't realize I was that close"
"no, it's fine. i'm being an asshole." vanessa shook her head. "it's crazy crowded here. everyone is running into everyone." she was the problem. she needed to stop, recalibrate and take a breath. the day had been long, but her response to a mild inconvenience was on her own shoulders. vanessa was not valentina. she had to hold it together and represent the family. "so much for first impressions, right?"
Derek would have never been caught dead attending a stupid carnival but busy events were a prime hunting ground. Whoever was responsible for the chaos in Mystic Falls could lurk around, selecting its new victim. So there he was in the middle of the crowd. As he was making his round, an annoying brunette interrupted him, making him lose his focus.
He stared her down. Unimpressed. " And you don't need to be a bitch." Who did she think she was ?
"you just had to get misogynistic with it, didn't you? not asshole, not dick. you went straight for bitch." it was hard to not be anything but on edge. the carnival was too loud and bright. there was a dull ache building into a headache pounding between vanessa's temples. she'd had a transfusion that morning, but they were limiting supplies. it was better that it was her and not valentina in this situation. she could already imagine her sister's unbridled rage. even her retorts felt like too much. she could basically hear her father chastising her in her ear. they're santos', they don't stoop to other's petty levels. "we done calling names now? can we be civilized again?"
"—you don't need to breathe down my neck. you know that, right?" the carnival was crowded, but there was still a little thing called personal space that could be adhered to. being around this many people already felt like pushing it. it was the carnival or home, though, and the santos house was stifling. vanessa needed to breathe, and it was impossible with her father around.
CAMILA MENDES as DREA TORRES DO REVENGE (2022) dir. Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
CAMILA MENDES as VERONICA LODGE RIVERDALE “Chapter Twenty-Five: The Wicked and The Divine” (2017-2023)
