Farting out silly headcanons, theories, and shitposts whenever my brain needs booting up before I can continue writing my fics.
ReturnOfTheNightmare on AO3
Female | English
My age identifies as Tomb Raider 1
This blog is purely for fandom/fanfic stuff. No activism, minimal politics. Let's just have fun with the things share a love for.✨
Lifetime adorer of Classic Era Lara Croft 🩵🤎
Sleeps on a thick mattress of old fic drafts
A classic case of a chatterbox catching a severe and all-inclusive form of selective mutism, “getting over it” wrong, and becoming stuck between two worlds as a consequence. (What do you mean, that’s not a classic?)
Translation: communication fun, but hard — even dropping likes. And wow, does that sound pathetic now that I type it out.
✨🌸🌼 First world problems~! 🌼🌸✨
(Credit to Radley @jacebeleren for accidentally helping me realise wtf was wrong with a completely unrelated comment. Thanks, dude🫡)
TAGS
Generic
Silly
ROTN gets negative (for the rare bitching)
The Band Ghost related
Cardi | Sister Imperator | Papa Nihil | Papa V Perpetua
Marika Psaltarian | Mr Psaltarian
Primo | Secondo | Terzo
Special Ghoul
The Clergy of Ghost do XYZ
Weird Ghost Imagery
Random Ghost Observations
Shroomy Nihil Thoughts
AUs
Theories
Headcanons
Analyses
Fic Status
All fics can be found on my AO3 profile.
OS = One-Shot
MC = Multi-Chapter
LF = Long-Fic
Tomb Raider:
We've Found Her!: [OS 4k] COMPLETE [blog tag]
Familiar Faces: [MC 8k+] WIP? – worked on whenever inspiration strikes with no real completion goal [blog tag]
Birthday Mishap: [OS 2k] COMPLETE [blog tag]
Ghost:
Epicinium: [OS 3k] COMPLETE
He'll See Your Face in Hell: [MC 5k] COMPLETE (sequel available)
Cardi Goes to Hell: [LF 57k+] WIP – current project; updates on Tuesdays until it needs to go on hiatus again [blog tag] [series tag]
Isolatrine: [OS 3k] COMPLETE
Smash Relay: [OS 2k] COMPLETE [blog tag]
Detroit: Become Human:
Continuance: [LF 79k] ON INDEFINITE HIATUS – burned out, bitter feelings to be had
As some of you know, the chapter titles of Cardi Goes to Hell are ripped directly from the lyrics of Alice Cooper Goes to Hell.
I very recently realised that pretty much every single lyrics website on the internet has the lyrics to Guilty wrong, and that Chapter 1's title is based on misinformation. The lyrics are "screaming in delight", not "screaming in the night". 🤦♀️
To jog your memory: that chapter is Cardi's fever-induced nightmare. The one with the strange formatting. He relives a conversation with Marika while the nightmares in the real world slowly creep in.
So... I'm looking for feedback from readers:
What should chapter 1's title be changed to?
Chills Me to the Core (from Didn't We Meet?)
Acute Degeneration (from Guilty)
Makes Me Shiver (from You Gotta Dance & I Never Cry)
Shiver to the Bones (from I Never Cry)
A Hell of a Time (from Wish You Were Here)
Things Get Hotter (from I'm the Coolest)
[Other – please comment]
I am not a reader but I do like pressing buttons
Remaining time: 9 hours 53 minutes
Thanks for any input! 💜
(I've also fixed Chapter 2's title, which I think I must have mistyped at some point and not noticed because "in" is an actual word and even makes sense in context. 🫣)
Sister Imperator, making the final decision on Cardi's Era 5 papal paint design: Ah! There, that's it! That's the design we're looking for: the chubby lovechild of a sad little puppy and a mime look!
I saw an image of one of those 4.5kg Toblerones earlier, and my Ghost-infected mind immediately conjured up the image of Primo stuffing one under his robes and pretending it’s his 🍆
Everyone knows. He looks like TR1 Lara Croft if the devs were all horny gay twelve year old goth boys. But they don’t say anything because he’s one senile old fuck and they really don’t fancy getting exsanguinated, or kidnapped, or - god forbid - pissed on.
As some of you know, the chapter titles of Cardi Goes to Hell are ripped directly from the lyrics of Alice Cooper Goes to Hell.
I very recently realised that pretty much every single lyrics website on the internet has the lyrics to Guilty wrong, and that Chapter 1's title is based on misinformation. The lyrics are "screaming in delight", not "screaming in the night". 🤦♀️
To jog your memory: that chapter is Cardi's fever-induced nightmare. The one with the strange formatting. He relives a conversation with Marika while the nightmares in the real world slowly creep in.
So... I'm looking for feedback from readers:
What should chapter 1's title be changed to?
Chills Me to the Core (from Didn't We Meet?)
Acute Degeneration (from Guilty)
Makes Me Shiver (from You Gotta Dance & I Never Cry)
Shiver to the Bones (from I Never Cry)
A Hell of a Time (from Wish You Were Here)
Things Get Hotter (from I'm the Coolest)
[Other – please comment]
I am not a reader but I do like pressing buttons
Remaining time: 9 hours 53 minutes
Thanks for any input! 💜
(I've also fixed Chapter 2's title, which I think I must have mistyped at some point and not noticed because "in" is an actual word and even makes sense in context. 🫣)
I have this headcanon that Sister only calls Cardi "C" because she almost called him "Son" one time and had to hastily backtrack. She then played it off as a fun new nickname for her Favourite Boy.
So basically, she would call Cardi "C" where she'd have liked to call him "Son".
Nothing can beat the feeling of finally finding some good fucking music. I’ve been so miserable with music cravings lately, and now my brain is working again. I can think.
Feels good, man 😌
Anyway, I am here to let you know that Mr Psaltarian absolutely plays with little boats in the bath. Cardi’s bathtime doubled in length after Psalty entered the picture, because the boy had a blast playing boats with his super cool Tati.
Sometimes, Marika plays the siren for him. Psaltarian, I mean. Cardi is forbidden to know about this at all costs.
Sometimes, I stop to imagine a world where Impera didn’t release in the Era of Socially Distanced Music Videos.
…And then I stop very quickly, because Impera did release in that era and no amount of imagining will ever tell me the truth. The Alluring Cardi of Temptation* in the CMLS video of my mind probably never would have happened anyway.
(Also, in the highly improbable event that I get sucked up into a parallel universe like a fanfiction self-insert, I’d like to not find that reality falls completely short. Because frankly, if that universe’s version of CMLS still doesn’t have Papa in it and Twenties is still just a lyric video, I may spontaneously transform into the most sour of lemons. I mean, I slipped between worlds for this shit — leaving behind everything I know — and this is what you give me??)
* I’m literally just picturing Cardi taking the place of Mr Mephistopheles, except he’s doing the Spooky Hand Gestures of Spectre!Terzo from Square Hammer instead of twirling his pike or whatever. Complete with Spooky Zoom-Out While Staring Intensely At The Camera. And also maybe the Sky-High ‘Ta-Da!’ upon his reveal for good measure.
I feel like this thought has been hovering at the back of my brain for months, but it didn’t truly register until I started rinsing mushrooms (which apparently reminds me of Nihil for some reason).
The only time we see young!Nihil in papal robes is when old!Nihil and Sister are getting a little too nostalgic and they see each other young but in their elder selves’ clothing. And I don’t feel like that counts. Which would leave Terzo’s final show as the earliest known appearance of the iconic Papa Nihil Robes. Long, long after Nihil lost his place as frontman.
While contemplating this, I decided that I don’t think Nihil had those particular robes for a long time before that show. They’re ornate. They cost money — more money than any single Era I costume. They must have been made after Ghost began to take off.
Which made me wonder if maybe he was given them not long before Terzo’s final show:
A) As a gift from Sister to make Nihil feel like he was a part of the band again, perhaps in the hopes of smoothing Cardi’s way into the role of frontman
B) To ensure Nihil didn’t look like a hobo on stage in the old, cheap, and bedraggled robes he already had
C) Both of the above
(As a side, I believe it’s not just the robes that were a part of Sister’s buttering up of Nihil. His appearance in Terzo’s final show itself was secretly a bribe, and so was his sax solo in Miasma. Even the smiles she gives him in Chapter 1 are fake af, but he doesn’t see any of it. Nihil looks blind, but really, it’s only Sister he’s blind to — even though she’s also who he sees the clearest.)
(…Fuck, now I’m wondering if maybe Sister purposefully gave Nihil the cold shoulder for a few years/decades before 2017 just so she could love bomb him into approving Cardi. Sister. I love you, but what the fuck.)
Been rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer for… a while now, and S6 (spoiler ahead) has made me realise something.
There is absolutely no way Sister Imperator has much in the way of magical powers beyond creating ghouls. No way. If she did, then she’d be Willow Rosenberg-ing it up. If you’ve seen the S6 finale, then you know what I mean.
Peeled potatoes.
Possibly-V would never have spoken to his not-dad on his deathbed, because he was a dinky little fella and hopefully not allowed to look at peeled potatoes yet. But then, who knows exactly which aspects of Manifest “Daddy” took him to see.
(Too humid. Cannot sleep. Chose to ramble about Cardi instead.)
There’s a notable difference between Cardinal Copia and Papa the Fourth. And maybe I’m biased, but personally, I see it as a guard being let down.
Cardinal Copia is quiet. Controlled. His quirkiness is neatly folded away, visible but not flaunted. A quiet resentment — a fire — burns in his eyes, but he does not lash out at the faces of those who infuriate him so. Instead, he keeps it hidden, channelling it into something bigger.
He’s determined. Full of ambition. He will earn his rightful place, and he will show those who gained the title without earning it what a real showman looks like. And to do that, he needs to focus.
But Papa the Fourth? He’s not quiet. He’s not controlled, either, though he’s certainly not uncontrolled either. He’s openly weird and rude (but is polite when it matters). He brags right to Nihil, Sister, and Psaltarian’s faces (but is humble when praised). He speaks his new title with pride, and seems genuinely upset that Sister won’t call him “Papa” (but eventually lets it go because although he doesn’t like it, he understands — half of the issue, anyway).
The guards have been discarded. Every risk to his ambition has been neutralised, and now, it’s finally safe for him to be the Cardi that feels most natural to him.
What changed: his promotion and the death of Papa Nihil.
Cardi is Papa now. He is Papa Emeritus the Fourth — the only papa left alive. And he’s better than his predecessors, because unlike them, he earned his title. And the only person left who could strip him of said title is Sister Imperator, and looking at their relationship… I don’t think he ever considered she might do such a thing to him. Not until he saw the coffin, at least.
Because quite frankly, the only sincere, sane, and non-manipulative looking smile we ever saw from the original Sister Imperator was when Cardi was brought into the band. She sucked at hiding her fondness for him.
And unlike us, Cardi would have seen that regularly. He knew Sister liked him. He knew she was safe. He knew he could be himself with her. And once Nihil died and it all sunk in, it was safe for Cardi to be himself around him too, because there was sod all the old fart could do to hold him back now. And Psalty? What the fuck was he gonna do? Cardi was Papa!
…And then he saw that coffin. Paranoia took hold of him, and suddenly, Cardi had to be on guard again — without letting on that he was.
Then Sister died, reality hit, and Cardi’s guard shattered. He was left naked and stumbling in a world he no longer recognised, in a role he did not understand — had never thought to understand, because somehow, he’d made himself believe that Sister would be there forever. He needs his guards, but he can’t remember how to bring them up. Isn’t sure he’d be able to maintain them even if he did. Everything is just… confusing, all of a sudden. Even things he once understood perfectly well make no sense in this bizarre mirror world where everything feels wrong.
So he’s left fumbling around, watching Star Wars instead of working because he doesn’t understand what he’s doing, and a part of him knows that he could learn, but he doesn’t want to. He isn’t ready. He’s still picking up the pieces, trying to make sense of the strange (and honestly kind of terrifying) new world around him. A world with none of the things he’d felt would be there with him forever.
No papacy. No Sister. Not even the Ministry building he’d come to know so well.
Just… Cardi.
(And also Marika, but my god, Cardi’s relationship with the Psaltarians does not feel like they’re still family to me. 😢)
Then Mum comes back, and he starts to feel like maybe he can do it. Maybe he can be Frater after all. He just needs a little help getting there, that’s all.
But newfound determination and support system or not, he’s still struggling to get himself out of this hole he’s found himself in. And so, Cardi either takes his holiday as a means to distance himself and hopefully return refreshed and finally ready (but is waylaid)… or he decides he’d rather just… not.
And I would rather not be dealing with this weather, but alas, here I am. 😤😤😤
(Hey… if the current Ministry is in Britain, and Britain is having a heatwave, then does that mean a Cardi who’s in a hospital might be suffering with me right now?)
The Clergy of Ghost and their opinions on Mushy Peas
(Because I was mentally assaulted by the image of Nihil eating them and now I keep going back to it)
Note: Post contains references to drug usage and the consumption of human blood.
(This was supposed to be a "How would the Clergy eat their mushy peas?" post, but it kind of devolved into a description of how most members of the Clergy hate the fucking things. Whoops?)
Papa Nihil: Empties a tin directly onto his plate and then eats it, without seasoning or anything else, and with a spoon. Sees nothing wrong with this behaviour. Would absolutely order mushy peas with his fish 'n' chips.
Young!Nihil: "Mistakes" it for baby poo and flings it across the room with his spoon, where it lands directly in Psaltarian's eyeball.
Sister Imperator: Will eat it if you serve it to her, but will pull faces the entire time.
Young!Sister: Has been homeless. She has some tolerance for nasty food. That being said, she is not homeless now, and she absolutely will contemplate murdering you with her bare hands if you suggest she eats mushy peas. This is extra true while she's pregnant, because how dare you try to poison her babies.
Teen!Sister: Stuffs some inside a whoopie-cushion and puts it on the reverend's chair.
Child!Sister: It ends up in the bin. Sister takes mushy peas as confirmation that the rumours about British food are true, and continues to avoid all "British food" like the plague until she ends up there on her travels later on in life. (When she makes it there, she develops a weakness for warm, hearty meals that fill the void inside of her for a few minutes.)
Marika Psaltarian: Doesn't mind it, but silently questions why mushy peas is even a thing in the first place. She's seen weirder shit, though. They're not something she would choose to eat for herself, but she would eat them without complaint if served them... though she will absolutely douse them in whatever condiments are readily available the second you look away, to mixed results. Will feign innocence if you ask why her mushy peas look oddly red and ketchup-y all of a sudden.
Exception: If one of Marika's brothers served the peas, she will absolutely roast the ever-loving fuck out of them and her brothers' abysmal taste in food.
Mr Psaltarian: Picks at it. Sniffs it. Winces. Pushes the plate away. Refuses to eat it. "Bland white people shit," he calls it. Pulls out a tub of tofu and eats that instead, oblivious to his own hypocrisy.
Judith: Says she only eats mushy peas in pubs, because they're the only ones who do them right. She never goes to pubs.
'Announce' Guy: Eats them in pubs, eats them at home, eats them at the chippie. Genuinely likes mushy peas. Wonders why he's never seen Judith at any of the local pubs.
Frater Imperator: Pretends he likes them to be polite to the locals. But the revoltingness is too much, and quickly, he finds himself in the middle of an angry tirade about how disgusting they taste, and how the peas must surely have been procured from V's nappy, and how dare Marika try to feed him his brother's shit.
Papa Emeritus IV: Does not like them. Flat-out says he does not like them. Feels bad about saying he does not like it, so he tries pouring sugar on them to try and fix the taste (it makes things worse). Apologises for the fact that he cannot eat them (but also questions the sanity of whoever invented mushy peas).
Cardinal Copia: He's like a child forcing down flaming hot doritos to impress an older sibling. Pretends to like the mushy peas just a little bit because Nihil clearly has no problems with them, even if Sister is turning her nose up at them. He needs the old fart's respect if he wants to steal Nihil's position get promoted someday. Fights down his gag reflex and eats. Nihil sees right through it and keeps making comments about the peas turning Cardi's face green, which only serves to make Cardi double-down on his act.
"I love mushy peas," Cardi insists through what tastes like a mouthful of vomit.
Nihil grins and orders him a full plate of them, taking sick pleasure in the way Cardi's face pales. Sister cancels the order. Cardi tells her no, he can eat it. She sits there in utter disgruntlement as Nihil and Cardi turn dinner into a metaphorical dick measuring contest. Later, she rubs Cardi's back as he pukes the plateful of peas back up, and thinks to herself: "FFS, Cardi."
Child!Cardi: Has one mouthful and spits it out. He hates vegetables, but now, he demands to know where the real vegetables are; he would very much like them back. Marika and Psalty begin to use mushy peas as a threat whenever Cardi fusses over his dinners.
Papa V Perpetua: Is confused. The flavour is confusing. He pokes and stirs the strange goop on his plate with his cutlery, eyeing the lumps in it with empty fascination. "Interesting," he says out loud. 'No thank you,' he thinks within.
If Cardi is present, V will absolutely shelve his confusion in favour of calmly eating his mushy peas, just so that he can watch Cardi get visibly flustered over how much more mature V is than him.
Papa Emeritus III: Does not eat around other people, so nobody knows that he sometimes smears mushy peas on top of his 'spicy' brownies. Says it gives them texture (to the eyes protruding from his bed frame, that is, not to people; there are no people in Terzo's bedroom).
Somebody probably found empty tins of mushy peas and baked beans lying on Terzo's floor after he died. His toaster had to be quarantined. His microwave was mailed to a local church, which spontaneously combusted a few days later.
Papa Emeritus II: Thinks they're disgusting, but just knows that fanny juices would fix that problem. Does not care enough to try. There are tastier things to put up there.
Eats his peas with a scowl.
Papa Emeritus I: Has not consumed a vegetable since 1984. Could potentially be tricked into eating mushy peas if they were mixed in with a virgin's blood and he were blindfolded, but you'd be risking your own neck for it.
If you were to serve undisguised mushy peas to this man, he would simply not eat them. He may also tell the ghouls to hold you down while he force-feeds them to you instead. He may also just leave the room and order a KFC. Who knows! Do you really want to test it?
Some possible reasons why Marika only had one twin in the comics
The Reverend descended from Heaven (a helicopter) on angel wings (bungee rope and a costume) and took baby V away to be reformed (brainwashed and corrupted). He tried to get Cardi too, but he was too wriggly and covered with soap from his bath, and the Reverend dropped him
Cardi and V kept trying to eat each other, and Marika didn't like the thought of one of them growing up looking like a cyclops
The mysterious (and possibly-nonexistent) power of the Bloodline contained within twins born of Sister's uterus was simply too much to contain. The twins farted in unison once and the whole circus blew up
V learned how to crawl and was never seen again (figuratively). He was raised by a loving family of hermits and has no idea what the word "homicide" even means, but he'll sing about Satan, alright! (Who is that, again?)
Cardi learned how to crawl and was never seen again (also figuratively). Grew up in the evilest of devil churches eating babies. He prefers the jelly ones
(^^ This Cardi is pretty chuffed to be transferred over to the Ministry, where cannibalism is not so mandatory and he can eat jelly babies whenever he likes)
V turned into a snake (not so figuratively)
V was a terrible influence on Cardi, but Cardi was the louder one so everyone assumed Cardi was a bad influence on V and sent him to be raised by the scariest guy known to man: Mr Psaltarian
V kept levitating toys to scare Cardi. The screaming hurt Marika's ears, and also the trauma was probably bad for Cardi
Marika accidentally flushed V down the toilet. He emerged from the sewers in a kitchen sink in Sweden during a plumbing issue, and was raised under a name that sounds a bit like Toenail Fucker
Marika literally just couldn't handle all that poop
Cardi accidentally swallowed a fairy (don't ask) and got warped away to a magical land for 10+ years. He feels very confused on his return because it all kind of feels like a dream, and everyone looks at him funny when he mentions the chocolate men
Farkus used V as a blood sacrifice in one of his aimless rituals. Marika's eyes very nearly fell out of their sockets when the urn containing V's ashes suddenly exploded into a healthy baby 20 years later
Secondo ate V whole like a snake, and V gained a permanent debuff to his aging ability upon being forcibly shat out at the prompting of panicked adults
(^^ DeviantArt would have a field day with that one)
Terzo took them for a walk illegally and accidentally forgot to hold their hands. V managed to wander back home safely. Cardi ended up being raised by a weirdly friendly and sociable wolf in granny clothes. He was eventually found by Sister when the wolf tried to take up residence in her bedroom
Marika was staring down at V one day when his face abruptly went through a Buffy Vampire Transformation and V started snarling and spitting at everything. She handed him over to Psaltarian, who then raised V alone in a dark and gloomy castle in the middle of a swamp somewhere deep in Transylvania.
(^^ Cardi got to visit sometimes once he was older, but he didn't like those visits very much because Psalty is grouchy and makes really vicious jokes at his expense. Also, V keeps staring at Cardi without blinking while he's trying to sleep.)
V was busy having explosive diarrhoea on the toilet.
(^^ The white barrier around the comic panels is actually the fumes of V's poop; they were so stinky that they transcended time and space to infest his mother's entire backstory)
(^^ He's called Papa Poopoo for more than one reason)
Sister's sisters kidnapped V and are secretly raising him in secret to be Extra Creepy, just in case Sister decides to exorcise them. They need their VENGEANCE, DAMMIT, AND THIS CHILD SHALL CONTINUE THEIR WORK SHOULD THEY FALL
(^^ They dump him on Nihil once he's no longer of use to them, and Nihil grudgingly raises this creepy ugly child until it runs away from home to be a flight attendant)
Cardi and V acquired the disturbing ability to morph into one child in early childhood, and were in fact both pictured in the same panels. This ability was lost the same moment Sister regained her actual eye colour
Congrats if you made it to the end! 🎉 V was Psalty all along
