The Phantom's Lair

I'm Eternal Phantom. This is where I do fanfics, occasional fanart, and reblogs cool stuff from other people. (Also I am working on the next chapter of Mirror's Gaze, but asking me about it tends to make me feel guilty and depressed about taking so long so please don't. You can ask about the series itself, just not the next chapter.

[phantoms-lair]

Question to anyone who's been on chemo:

It there anything you wish your partner/friends/family would do for you?

Today is my fiance's first day on chemo and I want to do the best by him I can. But he'll also not tell me things because he doesn't want to trouble me. (Something I'm equally guilty of tbf). Just...any ideas of what I can do for him besides just being there and making sure he eats?

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

“It's not fair.” The little ghost kicks impotently at the chalk lines around her feet. “I ain't done nothing.”

I nod, setting down my chalk and spellbook. “It does sound like there might have been a bit of a misunderstanding.”

“She took against me, that's what happened,” the dead girl says with a scowl. She looks about fourteen, round faced and spotty, with whisps of brown hair peaking out from under her mob-cap. Her face and her crossed arms have a tell-tale bluish tinge to them. A cholera death.

“I been here for don't know how long and never gave any trouble. Nobody ever complained about me 'till her.”

…well, that's not strictly true.

Number 12, Barclay Street has been attracting rumours of haunting since the mid nineteenth century.

Sounds of faint singing and crying in the corridors at night. Cold spots. Doors that open and close by themselves. Animals acting strangely. Harmless, mid to low-level stuff, typical for a bored teenage poltergeist.

Still, pointing that out isn't likely to achieve much, and certainly the most recent complaints of blood running down the walls, screams in the dark and paralysing night terrors seem distinctly out of character.

The ghost toes the chalk again, more tentatively this time. It stays resolutely unbroken.

She could get out if she wanted to. I'm not one of those assholes who brings out their full arsenal of wards and sigils for a first meeting with a level 2 spectre. The summoning circle will keep her in one place for as long as I need her to talk, but it wouldn't hold for a moment if she really fought against it.

I take it as a good sign that she's still here. Pouting or not, she's clearly willing to work with me.

“None of the others could do this,” she says. “None of 'em even saw me.” She looks up. “Are you here to exise me?”

“Exorcise,” I say instinctively, and curse myself when she flinches. “Sorry, no, no! I don't exorcise people from their homes without good reason, not if they're happy where they are.”

“I was happy. Till she started calling in all them ghost hunters.”

Mrs Delaney had been quite persistent in her attempts to 'fix' her haunted house. Most of the people she found were charlatans, of course, but I'd still arranged an appointment as fast as I could once word reached me. It wouldn't have been long before she happened upon somebody with Talent, and unfortunately not everybody in this field knows how to behave like a professional.

“I think we might be able to help each other,” I say, careful to keep my voice calm and level.

“Don't see how. Not unless you can exorcise Her.”

“Not quite what I had in mind.” I pull out my phone and scroll through my photos. “You say that you're not the cause of the most recent incidents of paranormal activity?”

A pause. The ghost gnaws on her lip. I wait, patiently, keeping my body language open and nonthreatening. “I… I knocked her coffee cup over,” she admits at last. “She was being mean and talking on her telephone, saying I done all these things when I never did! So I decided to show her what I could do if I wanted.”

“Hmm.” The ghost eyes me nervously, as if expecting me to pull out a book, bell and candle and banish her on the spot.

“I only tipped it,” she adds. “I didn't break it or nothing!”

“You shouldn't have touched it at all,” I say sternly. “But… I can appreciate that you were frustrated, so let's say no more about it.”

The ghost looks relieved.

“My point is,” I continue, “if you weren't the one making blood rain from the ceiling or tormenting people in their sleep, then what was? There's no other ghosts on the property.” I find the picture I was looking for. “You can get anywhere around the house, right? Including behind the furniture and in the backs of cupboards?”

“Yes'm.”

I hold the phone up so that she can see the picture on the screen. “I'm going to let you go free in a moment, and I need you to see if you can find anything that looks like this.”

The ghost wrinkles her forehead. “What's that when it's at home?”

“Black mould,” I say, reaching out a foot to break the binding circle. “And I'm pretty sure it's the cause of this haunting.”

[sincerelysamedt]

Some people might wonder why Purple saying White didn't sound right worked with "Green", until you realize that Green is just like Orange. The parasite that attached itself to Green's body can't help mimicking its host any more than the parasite that inhabited Orange's body could.

Orange was a rule-abiding corporate shill who treats MIRA HQ's protocols as law.

And Green was an eager-to-please intern who'd go above and beyond to do things without any mistakes.

[brasswired-art]

has this joke been made yet? probably

[madcatdaderpydrawer-blog]

Just occurred to me. For the “look a goblin in the eye” scene to work, that would imply that Blue regularly loudly narrates their actions and talks to themselves. Because if they didn’t, why would Lime come to medbay to stop them without questioning the weird behavior. Of all people to question weird behavior it would be lime. Which implies that this isn’t weird behavior for blue, and blue just. Talks to themselves constantly lmao

[dcvina-claires]

i love when a character is a ghost but in a tragic way instead of a scary way. i love when a character has been dead from the beginning but is still holding on to stay in the narrative. i love when a character could choose to resent the living but ends up loving them instead. i love when a character drives the story but isn’t quite there enough to be at the center of it. i love when the ghosts are the protectors instead of the ones causing the harm. i love when a character is at the heart of the story because depending on where you began it, no matter how you told it, the story is about the ghost who struggled to keep their humanity

[pokemon-npcs]

[fishing-princess]

Fun fact! This npc is standing there because that tile is on the same tile as the entrance to wayward cave underneath the cycling road. Because of how the bridge tiles and the tiles below them are programmed, if there wasn’t an npc there biking over that tile would count as going into the cave entrance and would warp the player to the cave. Rather than creating a way for bridge tiles over entrance warps to work with it that happening, they did the simpler thing of just putting a stationary npc on the bridge above

[emo-disaster]

The dichotomy between Janus being the primary driver of the urge to fit in whilst also being one of the ones that stands out on purpose is quite interesting to me, especially due to his impulse to protect his ego as much as possible. One would think he would try to conform and make his personality appear like the others', but he very intentionally sets himself apart. He does, however, disguise himself as the others when he thinks his own persona won't be enough to successfully either get his point across or appear trustworthy enough to believe. When in the form of himself, though, he actually explicitly attempts to make himself seem worse than he actually may desire to be at heart, not better.

He hides his real self consistently, but never in the way that he pushes Thomas to. He wants Thomas to have a support system, but doesn't outwardly care if he has one himself. He wants Thomas to succeed, no matter the cost to his own quality of life. It's reminiscent of Virgil's "putting on a dark persona is the best way to get anyone's guard up," as Janus puts up a wall of darkness and misdirection as a way to shield himself and expose the others, but while also using the faces of the others to get Thomas' guard down when he feels it's necessary. He feigns innocence just as he does evil, but hardly ever gives being himself a try.

Why should he? If he's vulnerable in any manner, he just gets torn down. When he's on the verge of tears, when he's trying to be honest, and even when he's giving a glimpse into a version of himself not shrouded in self-protection. It always ends in some sort of insult or a different reason to keep hiding. He wants to be trusted, but he's scared to act in the way that may earn him that the fastest because it's been proven to not be safe for him to do so. That way, of course, would be being genuine.

Make no mistake, Janus is still very morally gray at his core. He's supposed to be. He's supposed to do what benefits him, as well as what benefits Thomas, regardless of what the actual morals attached to the decision may be. He has proven this in various different ways. But he actively places himself in the role of the aggressor, even when he would seemingly prefer that the conversation be handled in a calmer manner.

Now that he's accepted and the others are starting to get to know him more, his facade is starting to fall. They're starting to see more of his truth, and why he hides so much of it from him. The question remains of how Janus will react to being discovered, and just what will it take to bring his genuine personality out for everyone else to see?

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[fruitcakebro]

Holy moly they're GOOD. The music is fucking FIRE, and the outfits??? They're all so PRETTY???

[snoodly-boop]

Does anybody know who these are??? Do they have albums!! 🤩🤩🤩

[raspberryslut]

I was so curious that I had to go find this band. They're called Fortress Dwellers and they have a website with all of their socials!

They released an album too! I don't think this song is on it but the rest of their stuff is SO GOOD !!

MUSIC | Fortress Dwellers

Step into the fantasy world of Fortress Dwellers. A fantasy Renaissance musical collective blending epic original music, immersive performan

[blumineck]

Archery x flower arranging

This was actually really fun!

Anyway, don’t forget I’m still raising money to test a bunch of things in a suit of armour:

The Bluminarmour Project

Blumineck is trying to fun a video series doing fun and serious historical and fantasy testing in fitted plate armour.

[sanders-sides-angst-headcanons]

kid!logan who was the only side to witness the Creativity Split

kid!logan who learn at that very moment that if he couldn’t do his job properly, if he’s seen as unhelpful or god forbid harmful, he could face the same fate

present!logan being so intent on being listened to and proving his worth as logic

present!logan not knowing why he’s the only side who knew the twins split from each other

present!logan not knowing why he feels so strongly about being a good logic

idk it’s 1am does this make sense?

-Hove (@pattons-time-capsule)

Time capsule you never fail to make me happy

[homunculus-argument]

I think it would be funny to write a murder mystery where not only did every single character involved have an obvious motive to kill this mf, they were actually all attempting to murder him first, but the murder attempts all cancelled each other out all except for one. Two people tried to poison him but the poisons just happen to work as antidotes for each other, and instead of killing him only gave him the shits, and due to having the shits he couldn't go hunting that day like he had planned, foiling the plans of the one who had conditioned his favourite hunting horse to panic and bolt at the cue of a whistle, and the other murder attempt of tampering with his gun so that it would have exploded his whole face off.

The whole mystery isn't about who could have done it or how, but who was the one who got lucky and actually succeeded.

[terriwriting]

Sherlock Holmes and The Case of Perhaps We'd Best Leave This One Alone, Watson. There Appears To Be An Excess Of Armed Maniacs In The Vicinity.

[copperbadge]

When I was in high school a friend of mine would host murder mystery dinners once or twice a year. They were the kind you could buy as a kit -- I don't even know if they exist anymore -- and everyone was assigned (or chose) a character, then received a booklet of clues to share. The idea was to spend an evening in a one-shot LARP designed like an Agatha Christie novel.

I was a year above most of them at school so they threw a "goodbye" murder mystery for me just before graduation, and about 2/3 of the way through the game we all realized that everyone had at least attempted to kill the victim. The game then shifted from "whodunnit" to "who succeeded in dunninit" which we all felt was not only super fun but above the usual level of narrative complexity for those games.

After we solved it, we discovered that the game wasn't from a kit -- the host had written it herself and meticulously printed out the booklets in replica style of the kits. It was the best going-away party I think I could possibly have had.

[corrya]

I think about this like once a day

[vaspider]

I have heard a variant on it that I really like: "You cannot hate yourself into someone you can love."

[allonsybadwolf]

my disservice dog is trying to lick the salt off my mall pretzel

[allonsybadwolf]

so my favorite boba tea kiosk in the mall was completely gone just a patch of empty floor which is very sad BUT I got this adorable pokemon stationary at a store that just opened up in the old joanns so I think we can call this a successful outing

[bigbluelemon]

OP sorry to crash your post but was your favourite boba kiosk the boba yaga thing???

[bigbluelemon]

As in, from this post that's been going around?

Reblog by @basuralindo · 9 images

💬 273  🔁 26558  ❤️ 29393 · SMALL UPDATE · Still haven't heard back from the unemployment office, but a few days ago I ended up telling this

[allonsybadwolf]

yeah so fun fact when I saw that post last week(?) I went ha ha what if that's my local mall. what if that's my favorite boba place at my local mall. sure looks like mall floor. but that's silly because all mall floor looks like mall floor! there's so many malls! there's no way it's my mall!

turns out

it was definitely my favorite boba place at my favorite mall. I sent op an ask with this photo when I was leaving the mall earlier (I don't think they've seen it yet but I was astounded)

you guys would all have loved my (not on tumblr) spouses reaction when he went "oh no the kiosk is gone" and I immediately said LOST JOB FROM TUMBLR?!?

we went to a different tea place by the new store in the old joanns building and I read him the whole saga aloud while we sat and had our drinks

[spin-the-wheel-polls]

You have became this medieval role, how do you feel about it

you are in the medieval era and you have this role!

How do you feel?

great!! I love this

good!

It's okay

So bad. I hate this

This is similar to my real job!

Results/other

Remaining time: 2 days 19 hours

[pattons-time-capsule]

Logicality Week: Glass Bottles

i had to do this prompt bc Glass Bottles is literally my duo name for them.

this might be the only one i’m doing this week tbh