who: Alex Reagan and Open what: May normal stuff, plus mingle stuff and possibly sickness plotting stuff. when: Month of May! where: All over Riverview. warnings: Possible illness stuff, shippy stuff.
[Alex can see the affection that he has for this girl, and it makes her grin. Ah, to be that young and in love. Not exactly a simpler time, but almost. At least in some ways. She takes a sip of her coffee to cover the expression, and feels a bit old, before she puts the thought away.]
Right. Now I feel I should warn you that even to people who know me well and know I don't lie about things like this I sound pretty insane. Even my friend Richard who's involved in this with me thinks I am half the time.
[the words come with an easy smile because it doesn't bother alex all that much anymore. Strand is an irrational skeptic and irrational skeptics gotta irrationally skeptic.]
I can understand that. [ Gansey smiles at her, charming and not surprised. His story isn't particularly all that normal so he's sure they'll maybe be able to meet at the middle with believability. ]
[Alex just smiles and shrugs because honestly, the only people who would get it who weren't living it would be here. Everyone seemed to have a screwed up story like she did.]
Okay so, to start with, back home I'm a reporter. I work for Pacific Northwest Stories in Seattle which is a bit like NPR. I started off doing a show of my own that was supposed to be on interesting people doing interesting jobs. The first job we were looking at was that of a paranormal researcher. I interviewed a few different ones, and one name kept coming up: Dr. Richard Strand of the Strand Institute. He was different because he was trying to disprove every instance of the supernatural that he'd come across.
So, I called him eleven times until he agreed to let me interview him, and then I discovered that he had these collections of what I called "Black Tapes." They were the cases that he couldn't actually disprove... Well, disprove yet. And he housed them in old black VHS cases which is where the name comes from.
We decided to shift focus onto Strand and his Institute and those black tapes of his. But it ended up being so much more than that.
[ It sounds very much like some paranormal ghost story beginning to Gansey but being that he had had a ghost for the best friend he can't be one to dismiss such things out of hand. He's seen too much in the last year or two. ]
VHS cases? He sounds old fashioned. [ Gansey smiles -- it's something he can appreciate actually. ]
He's very old fashioned. I needed to explain uber when he got to Seattle.
[Despite her words, it's clear that she's quite fond of him anyway.]
Well, the thing is that a lot of The Black Tapes ended up being connected around things being demonic. And around him, honestly. Because while we were investigating, or reinvestigating his cases, I guess, I was also investigating him. And it turns out that he was keeping a lot of secrets that he didn't expect that I would ever find.
[Which clearly turned out to be a mistake. Never wave a secret in front of Alex, it's like a bull with a red flag or a dog with a bone. She never lets go.]
You see, in the course of my investigation, I discovered that Richard had been married, and that his wife went missing almost twenty years ago after the two of them had a fight while they were driving. Then Strand went missing for five days in order to try and find her. But that's not the important part. The important part is how he went about finding her.
When he was a teenager, Strand found the body of a missing boy after he'd dreamed about it, and he tried to rekindle that ability in order to find Coralee. But when he couldn't he came back and started his institute, because if he wasn't psychic then there wasn't any such thing.
But there was way more to her disappearance than that. All these cases with these demons and the reason that they have so much to do with Strand? It's because there's a demonic cult that's obsessed with him and the idea that he's the key to starting the apocalypse. Well, him and my show, I guess. I'm involved too.
The reason that Coralee went missing was because she was a Watcher from that Organization, and she had become involved with Richard on their orders. She's been on the run from them ever since and there had only been sporadic sightings of her until she showed up and kidnapped us so we wouldn't be taken by someone else.
Uber is a strange concept, so I can empathize with him on that point.
[ Gansey grins. There's quite a bit of things he's behind on because he keeps his head buried in ancient texts and the past in general. He's started to live in the present more as of late.
He listens to her and idly eats one of the cookies as he does. ]
I don't know. I hadn't really thought about it. But then I guess I use it a fair amount.
[Sometimes not sleeping and driving isn't a risk even Alex is willing to take.]
His family, and his DNA. According to Coralee anyway. Which makes sense because the first time I met Thomas Warren, who's well... I guess you'd say he's one of the villains in our story, he took Richard's coffee. He's also called "The Advocate" because every villain needs a title, I guess.
[Alex isn't going to mention how she called him 'Sexy James Bond' up until a few days before she got here, when he finally out-creeped even her.]
But this cult is based on the teachings of Pythagoras. Well, sort of, it's an offshoot of one of his students. And Richard's father Howard was involved somehow. We're still trying to work out how. But he was working with Warren, we know that. And Richard also saw demons like on the tapes when he was a kid too.
There's a lot of demonic activity around kids, honestly. It was on the first black tape Richard showed me, and it's been in a lot ever since. Kids who see demons and use sacred geometry to biolocate. There's... [A bit, and Alex's voice gets softer.] A lot of death around it.
[ Gansey frowns a bit, something about the story disturbs him and yet he can't exactly pinpoint why. Sure, they had fought a demon, a being that unmade things, that was killing his friend. Gansey had sacrificed himself to save his friends and well, strangely enough, had been resurrected but still. Something didn't sit well with him. ]
I suppose there is always a reason there's kids in horror movies. It sounds like you are wrapped up in something very dangerous if not interesting.
Yeah, it's interesting. But it also can be really terrifying. I mean, if Simon's right, my show definitely is helping bring about the end of the world unless we can stop Warren. Things were really building to something back at home, but I just don't know what yet. But things were definitely starting to come together.
[Alex frowns for a minute, and then uses it to take a sip of her coffee.]
Simon was a kid who in his words "had the door opened" to demons by his parents. He killed them in retaliation, and then killed the monks who had taken Sebastian, another kid who saw demons and had sacred geometry in his house as well. He used bilocation to escape from the state institution he was in.
[And to break into Alex's house and leave crappy knocking messages in her sleep notes, but she's not going to mention that because... she did go to Turkey alone to meet with him and get the Horn of Tiamat.]
IF your show was helping then why didn't you stop?
[ Gansey couldn't help asking, even though it seemed like perhaps Alex is just that kind of person, the kind that can't let go of things. He can understand that. ]
That is all very... [ Gansey shakes his head. There is plenty of violence where he comes from but this does have a tinge of something else to it that he can't pinpoint. ]
To be fair, we didn't find out we were the axis mundae until the end of our second season. We had been sent these sound files, what we had thought were a demonic symphony that had to be played at Mount Erat in Turkey. The summit, according to what we thought were GPS coordinates. But it turns out that it was our IP address when we uploaded the show.
But now we can't stop because we have to try and stop the Order of The Ceonophus, Thomas Warren and whoever else we need to. We're the only ones who can, honestly. No matter how bad things get, we can't just give up on things.
Well, I do know that they're using me and my show, both sides are actually. So, I'm going to keep on fighting in order to make sure that they can't do what they want and open the door to bring in demons from Tiamat and replace humanity with creepy ass shadow people.
Some people do, yeah. I mean, I actually do see one! For sleeping anyway. But this kind of thing sounds completely insane and I sound insane for believing it, but I do. I've seen too much and know too much to just bury my head in the sand or try to go back to doing some podcast about interesting people with interesting jobs.
[Alex just laughs softly.]
Ironically, I can never go back to what this stupid thing was supposed to be.
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no subject
[Alex just grins at that for a moment before she takes another bite of her cookie after dunking it into her coffee. When it's finished she asks:]
Is she here?
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[ He's totally in love with her and bias so who knows what's really accurate when it comes to that. ]
Yes, she is.
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So, stories, yeah?
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[ Gansey smiled at her briefly. ]
Yours first, correct?
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[the words come with an easy smile because it doesn't bother alex all that much anymore. Strand is an irrational skeptic and irrational skeptics gotta irrationally skeptic.]
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Okay so, to start with, back home I'm a reporter. I work for Pacific Northwest Stories in Seattle which is a bit like NPR. I started off doing a show of my own that was supposed to be on interesting people doing interesting jobs. The first job we were looking at was that of a paranormal researcher. I interviewed a few different ones, and one name kept coming up: Dr. Richard Strand of the Strand Institute. He was different because he was trying to disprove every instance of the supernatural that he'd come across.
So, I called him eleven times until he agreed to let me interview him, and then I discovered that he had these collections of what I called "Black Tapes." They were the cases that he couldn't actually disprove... Well, disprove yet. And he housed them in old black VHS cases which is where the name comes from.
We decided to shift focus onto Strand and his Institute and those black tapes of his. But it ended up being so much more than that.
no subject
VHS cases? He sounds old fashioned. [ Gansey smiles -- it's something he can appreciate actually. ]
How so?
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[Despite her words, it's clear that she's quite fond of him anyway.]
Well, the thing is that a lot of The Black Tapes ended up being connected around things being demonic. And around him, honestly. Because while we were investigating, or reinvestigating his cases, I guess, I was also investigating him. And it turns out that he was keeping a lot of secrets that he didn't expect that I would ever find.
[Which clearly turned out to be a mistake. Never wave a secret in front of Alex, it's like a bull with a red flag or a dog with a bone. She never lets go.]
You see, in the course of my investigation, I discovered that Richard had been married, and that his wife went missing almost twenty years ago after the two of them had a fight while they were driving. Then Strand went missing for five days in order to try and find her. But that's not the important part. The important part is how he went about finding her.
When he was a teenager, Strand found the body of a missing boy after he'd dreamed about it, and he tried to rekindle that ability in order to find Coralee. But when he couldn't he came back and started his institute, because if he wasn't psychic then there wasn't any such thing.
But there was way more to her disappearance than that. All these cases with these demons and the reason that they have so much to do with Strand? It's because there's a demonic cult that's obsessed with him and the idea that he's the key to starting the apocalypse. Well, him and my show, I guess. I'm involved too.
The reason that Coralee went missing was because she was a Watcher from that Organization, and she had become involved with Richard on their orders. She's been on the run from them ever since and there had only been sporadic sightings of her until she showed up and kidnapped us so we wouldn't be taken by someone else.
no subject
[ Gansey grins. There's quite a bit of things he's behind on because he keeps his head buried in ancient texts and the past in general. He's started to live in the present more as of late.
He listens to her and idly eats one of the cookies as he does. ]
Why are they so convinced he is the key?
no subject
[Sometimes not sleeping and driving isn't a risk even Alex is willing to take.]
His family, and his DNA. According to Coralee anyway. Which makes sense because the first time I met Thomas Warren, who's well... I guess you'd say he's one of the villains in our story, he took Richard's coffee. He's also called "The Advocate" because every villain needs a title, I guess.
[Alex isn't going to mention how she called him 'Sexy James Bond' up until a few days before she got here, when he finally out-creeped even her.]
But this cult is based on the teachings of Pythagoras. Well, sort of, it's an offshoot of one of his students. And Richard's father Howard was involved somehow. We're still trying to work out how. But he was working with Warren, we know that. And Richard also saw demons like on the tapes when he was a kid too.
There's a lot of demonic activity around kids, honestly. It was on the first black tape Richard showed me, and it's been in a lot ever since. Kids who see demons and use sacred geometry to biolocate. There's... [A bit, and Alex's voice gets softer.] A lot of death around it.
no subject
I suppose there is always a reason there's kids in horror movies. It sounds like you are wrapped up in something very dangerous if not interesting.
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[Alex frowns for a minute, and then uses it to take a sip of her coffee.]
Simon was a kid who in his words "had the door opened" to demons by his parents. He killed them in retaliation, and then killed the monks who had taken Sebastian, another kid who saw demons and had sacred geometry in his house as well. He used bilocation to escape from the state institution he was in.
[And to break into Alex's house and leave crappy knocking messages in her sleep notes, but she's not going to mention that because... she did go to Turkey alone to meet with him and get the Horn of Tiamat.]
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[ Gansey couldn't help asking, even though it seemed like perhaps Alex is just that kind of person, the kind that can't let go of things. He can understand that. ]
That is all very... [ Gansey shakes his head. There is plenty of violence where he comes from but this does have a tinge of something else to it that he can't pinpoint. ]
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But now we can't stop because we have to try and stop the Order of The Ceonophus, Thomas Warren and whoever else we need to. We're the only ones who can, honestly. No matter how bad things get, we can't just give up on things.
[Oh. Honey. If only you knew.]
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What if you're not meant to stop them?
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Of course I'm meant to stop them. I wouldn't be involved if I wasn't.
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Sometimes, things aren't always what they seem and you chase something and miss the point. It's hard to know until you reach the end, though.
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[And then Alex just chuckled.]
Yes, I know how it sounds.
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Most people probably suggest that you see a therapist don't they?
no subject
[Alex just laughs softly.]
Ironically, I can never go back to what this stupid thing was supposed to be.