Make it modern era. The Party and Party-adjacent runs a Paranormal Investigation service à la Ghostbusters.
Mike and Dustin built all the equipment.
Mike writes up their case notes, like Dana Scully in her little wireframe glasses, and manages the Big Board, where he tracks cases because he’s convinced there’s a larger, connected phenomenon at play, but where he thinks he’s Mindhunter everyone else thinks he’s Charlie from Always Sunny.
Dustin is the resident skeptic and has an encyclopedic knowledge of paranormal entities, hauntings, and cryptids, and what he doesn’t know off the top of his head he consults their library for, which he keeps in an order that only he knows so no one else can find anything without asking him first. He’s the only one to never have actually experienced anything paranormal first hand, which e says he likes because then he can retain his skepticism, but really he’s bummed because he wants to see cool demon shit too!
Lucas is the cartographer, helping Mike map out phenomena, but more importantly he is their Diviner, and uses his diving rods to chart the ley lines that he theorizes is the reason so much happens around Hawkins. He’s read about ley lines that becomes rushing black rivers of energy when they’re overfull, and he thinks the nexus is somewhere in their town, a dam that broke and is directing paranormal energy into Hawkins.
Steve, Robin, and Erica run the business side. Robin’s the office manager, Steve meets with clients to screen them before exposing them to the full unadulterated chaos energy of the Party, and Erica keeps the books. They keep a chore wheel, and a schedule for who’s on reception, because everyone who works there takes a turn. Except for Mike, whose phone skills are so terrible that they went three days with no clients before realizing what was happening. He takes extra dish duty instead, so he can listen to his podcasts instead of talking to people (and no one cleans the forks as well as he does anyway).
Will, El, and Max are what Robin has dubbed The Weird Sisters
(Will: “Hey!” Mike: “well you ARE pretty. I mean like your eyes. And your hair. And just like. Objectively. Anyway.” Will: *blushing* Erica: *gagging sounds*)
El can summon spirits, can feel when they’re close and can make the ones who are sort of thin more firm so they can get help. Sometimes she just sits and stares into the corner, holding her hands out. Sometimes she’s laughing. Sometimes she’s crying. She doesn’t always remember. Dustin is building her a device to try to record those sessions so she can go back through them.
Max can speak them, as in, she can hear or interpret them and help them communicate. Every now and then they can speak directly through her, which Lucas thinks is equal parts cool, scary, and hot.
(“Freak,” she says, sitting his lap watching tv in the lounge, after a spirit passed through accidentally and told Lucas he was handsome and Lucas got all flustered and sweaty. “Want me to call them back?” “No!” Lucas says, and Max laughs into his mouth. Meanwhile Erica, trying to do the books in the back corner: *gagging sounds*)
Will can see them, can sketch or paint them to make them manifest, so the Party knows what they’re working with. Sometimes he gets confused as to where he ends and where they start, and Mike catalogues every single one, dates, times, feelings, dreams Will has afterwards.
The three of them can go into their own little world together, that they call the Void.
(Dustin hates that word because it’s so vague and makes him feel weird and untethered when he thinks about it — “what do you mean nothing but darkness forever it has to have an end” — so he tries to describe it as a quantum wormhole. “That’s not any better,” Steve says, not looking up from where he’s poring over the schedule for the week. Robin laughs from behind reception. “He read A Wrinkle in Time last week and it’s freaking him out. The Charles Wallace stuff really scared him.” Steve takes off his glasses and points them at Robin. “I just don’t think that a children’s book should call anything The Happiest Sadist!” Dustin smirks. “Oh so it’s for the children.” “I hate both of you.”)
Nancy and Jonathan are their field agents, traveling along the ley lines that Lucas finds to take photos and interview townspeople who have experienced unexplained activity. They break up and get back together every other week, an Steve keeps telling Jonathan he should just pop the question and let the chips fall where they may, but honestly they both like how dire things feel when they break up, and the make up sex is always really great.
Hopper is still a cop and is always having to get into arguments with them on how to do things, and how they can’t interfere with police business (“NOHenderson, not even when it’s a ~confirmed paranormal entity, I don’t care what fuckin class it is”)
Joyce and Murray run supplies they need through two Russian guys who run a smuggling operation out of Alaska, and were the ones who helped them get the dead body of a failed US creature experiment out of the country when the government found out they were involved
(“nice one Steve.” “How was I supposed to know that guy was CIA???” “Uh I don’t know he looked like a fucking brick wall in a suit he bought from JCPenney and I could see his FUCKING GUN IN HIS HOLSTER??” “Shut up, Wheeler, you run the office then” *Mike haughtily puts his AirPods back in*)
I want Billy to be here but I haven’t figured that part out yet. Hm.
Our story starts when Dustin comes into the office one day, he’s on opening, to find a guy sitting in reception. He freezes, looks at the keys in his hand, the ones he just used to unlock the front door. “Uh,” he says and the guy looks up.
He’s wearing ripped black jeans and a clearly Home Screen printed t shirt that says HELLFIRE CLUB. Masses of dark curly hair. Chains. Rings. Looks like he stepped right out of the 80s.
“Oh hey,” the guy waggles his fingers in a little wave. But then his face does something weird, a little flicker, like the signal cutting on an old tv. His jaw pulls grotesquely to the side, his eyes are dark holes in his skull, blood smeared on his cheekbones.
Dustin startles, drops his triple iced venti caramel macchiato on the tiled floor. Steve is gonna be pissed.
“Oh shit,” the guy says, his face back to normal. “Did it do that thing? Sorry, I can’t help it when I get nervous.”
Dustin blinks. “Are you…dead?”
The guy laughs. “No, I’m Eddie.” Then his smile turns a little sheepish. “But yeah, I’m also dead.”
Thus begins a story that will solve a bunch of decades-old murders, absolve an innocent man, reveal that Mike’s Big Board has been right, and Dustin finally gets to see a ghost, though for some reason he’s the only one who can.
And he’s right about one thing: Steve is gonna be PISSED.
Nancy Drew on the CW is truly wild. Like in the first few episodes, the police chief is a total asshole but now he’s holding a séance with two teenage girls and Nancy’s dad in their living room in an attempt to get their friend’s soul to connect back to his body (because he’s in a coma from getting in an accident with his girlfriend who might also be a murderer) Like. You know what that is? Character development. Why isn’t everybody watching this show
[The ten-year old girl asked him, looking about the empty school corridor. It was nighttime, and they had been sent to get some more masking tape to make a prop for the school play. Everybody involved in the production was staying up late, since the play was literally two days from now and they still didn’t have all the props needed. So it’s not like they could wait to get the masking tape tomorrow. But even so– walking through these corridors at night was unsettling. But! She was the older student! Brenda took a deep breath.]
I caught up with the lovely guys from pop-rock band ‘With Ghosts’ before their home show in Swindon on their latest tour. I first found these guys when their video for ‘Just A Ghost’ appeared on my Facebook and I’ve been keeping up to date ever since. We talked about their inspirations, how they named the band and where they think they’ll be in 5 years. (more…)
