Story [Ghosts (US)] Ghost Stories - Kessel Run Challenge

Title: Ghost Stories
Author: Thumper09
Fandom: "Ghosts" sitcom, American version
Notes: This is my NSWFF thread for the 12-week Kessel Run Challenge for 2023.

I'm hoping to write each entry about a different ghost or character from the US-version of the TV sitcom "Ghosts," but we'll see how things develop. Basic familiarity with the show will be beneficial, since with word limits in play I probably won't be including too much general background information. I'm expecting most of these to take place during Season 1, but if an entry ventures into Season 2 territory then it will be appropriately marked in its header. In this thread, assume SPOILERS are present for Season 1 episodes.

Constructive criticism is welcome. Or if you just want to chat about this fun show, that's welcome too. "Ghosts" is not owned by me.

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Index:
Week 1 Entry: Thorfinn
Week 2 Entry: Flower
Week 3 Entry: Sam, Jay, and OC
Week 4 Entry: Pete, Alberta, Sasappis, Jay, Sam
Week 5 Entry: Pete, Trevor, Thorfinn, Isaac, Nigel

 

Prompt #1: Write a story between 100 and 1,000 words that
* starts with this sentence: “He had not been courageous.”
* uses this picture as inspiration:

Spoiler

* Word limit = 100-1,000 words
Word count: 788

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He had not been courageous.

Oh, sure, most of the time he was, and had been, especially against the Danes. But then again, anyone who feared Danes was the worst kind of coward and not fit to live, either in life or the afterlife. No, Thorfinn feared nothing, especially Danes. But being fearless was not the same as being courageous, and it was days like this that always reminded him of that.

The large Viking ghost walked across the snow that had fallen the night before around Woodstone Mansion. He had spent the thousand years since his death on this property and hoped it wouldn’t be a thousand more. The wooded grounds were silent as they lie blanketed in snow, and he didn’t even have the soft crunch of his boots on the snow to break the stillness. His body interacting with and causing sounds in the physical world was something that had ended when his life had.

Winters in the Hudson Valley were nothing like those of his home in Nordveg, but even this pale imitation was better than nothing. The morning sun was bright as it reflected off the snow. At first glance he could almost make himself believe he was home, except for the inescapable missing piece: he wasn’t cold. He missed feeling the cold. Well, he missed feeling everything but especially the cold. The way it would bite through him, invigorate him, and make him feel so alive. Now that he was no longer living, the snow around him might as well have been a painting or a dream. He paused beside a large bush with dark red leaves and tried to brush the snow off of them, but like with everything else, his insubstantial hand passed right through the foliage.

From the tree branches above came the chittering of a squirrel, and Thorfinn froze, but not from the cold. That sound haunted him. This was the one time when not feeling the cold was a blessing... when he was reminded of the time he had not been courageous.

Oskar. His friend. He was still ashamed of how he had treated Oskar, and the snow always tended to bring those memories back.

He had still been alive. His final winter. That cold had been brutal, worse than many he had experienced back home. Plus he hadn’t had a house or fellow villagers for protection and aid, since his shipmates had left him behind. He’d been on the verge of starvation and not thinking clearly.

And that was when he’d killed his good friend Oskar the squirrel. Thorfinn had been such a coward to succumb to his fear of starving-- that was not how a true Viking should act. He should have had the courage to confront his challenge head-on in a different way that did not betray Oskar. Only people like Danes were so weak and spineless. For over a thousand years he wished he’d had more courage the one time it truly mattered, but he hadn’t.

The squirrel’s chittering increased, and Thorfinn looked up. The squirrel was sitting in its nest and scolding a bird who had obliviously gotten too close. The squirrel’s nest looked too thin for this weather. He wondered if the squirrel had enough food stored away.

Thorfinn wished he could help. For a thousand years he’d been wishing he could help the generations upon generations of squirrels on the property, but all he could do was watch them. He couldn’t chase away predators. He couldn’t gather food for them. He knew it was a foolish thought since he’d been far from this area when he’d killed Oskar, but Thorfinn clung to the hope that maybe, just maybe, one of these squirrels was a descendant of Oskar. He hadn’t helped Oskar when Oskar needed him, but if he could help his friend’s kin survive, then maybe Oskar could rest easier and it would help Thorfinn sleep better at night.

The idea came to him like a bolt of lightning. Sam and Small Man could do those things. He could tell Sam to bring food and nesting materials out here for the squirrels. By the name of the Allfather, it was so good to be able to communicate with a Living for once.

Thorfinn smiled at the chatty squirrel. “Wait there, little friend,” he said. “Thor will make sure you have plenty of food to survive the snowy winter. It not be cod, because Sam never buy cod or mead, but your belly will be full.”

He turned and headed back across the snow to the large house. Even if he’d been able to feel the cold air, Thorfinn figured he’d instead be feeling a cozy warmth inside at that moment.

*****

 

I gathered enough of the backstory to enjoy this! The show must appeal to all those who like squirrels and supernatural trimmings, such as me, even though I own Danish heritage.

 

I love the show! And this is an amazing addition to it!! You really captured Thor and I love the idea that he wants to help Oskar's descendants!!

Looking forward to more!!

 

I don't know this show at all but a squirrel! I'm a sucker for animal stories in any form and this was a great read. Loved it!

 

I am not familiar with Ghosts. I enjoyed your character and his musings with the squirrel

 

Thanks to everyone for reading! For those unfamiliar with Ghosts, the overall premise is that a married couple, Samantha and Jay, inherit a manor and decide to turn it into a B&B. Sam has an accident which then allows her to see and hear the ghosts of various people who have died on the property over the centuries and have, for unknown reasons, been stuck there as ghosts instead of passing into the afterlife. Jay cannot see or hear them. So it's a very varied group of characters. There's also a UK version of the show (the original) with the same basic premise but with differences in the characters. Tons of fun, highly recommend.

Thank you! I'm glad it was follow-able for someone without prior knowledge. Oskar was only featured in one episode so far, so there's not a lot of squirrel talk, but there are fun supernatural trimmings sprinkled throughout. Sorry, one of Thor's big things is his opinion on Danes-- nothing personal! Thanks for reading and commenting!

Yay, glad to see another fan! I'm very happy to hear Thor came across correctly here - this is a challenge for me. I really wanted to get a landship reference in there but couldn't do it without wrecking the story's flow. Hopefully helping Oskar's descendants will help him heal. Thanks for reading and commenting!

Thank you! Unfortunately the show's not very heavy on squirrels or animals so they'll probably be lacking in most of the future entries, but I'm glad you enjoyed reading it. Thanks for reading and commenting!

Thanks! Thor's musings can be quite sensitive or quite brash, depending on the subject, though I think squirrels is a subject he's very fond of. In the show he even mentioned that he and Oskar made friendship bracelets for each other. Thank you for reading and commenting!

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Week Two will be up momentarily. I... ah... might have stretched the definition of "lost" a bit for it, but I stand by my usage of that particular definition.

 

Prompt #2: Write a story between 400 and 800 words using second-person POV in which a character is lost.
* Word limit = 400-800 words
Word count: 552

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You’re standing in the living room with the others. At least there’s an interesting conversation going on: you’re all talking to Sam about what good-smelling foods you want Jay to cook for breakfast the next few days. Sass is stuck on his pepperoni pizza thing again, even though everyone knows that if you have pizza for breakfast it’s supposed to be cold leftovers, not freshly cooked. Duh.

You can’t even imagine smelling pizza for breakfast, though it’s better than the cod that Thor wants. Again. What would it even be like if he finally got some cod? Like, if he wasn’t a ghost and could actually eat it? He would probably get fish breath. You wonder if fish breath would mask the smell of the wolf urine on his clothes. You love nature, but even that’s a little too much nature for you.

Would you get fish breath if you had anchovies on pizza? Or would you get pizza breath instead?

Pizza is, like, so weird, man. It’s circles and triangles all at once. How can it be so many different shapes? What shape is pizza, anyway? Is it like a cloud that looks different depending on where you look at it from? Is pizza a cloud?

Do pizza clouds rain pepperoni? Would the wind have pizza breath? Would the wind be pizza breath? How do pizza clouds float, anyway? Or what if they don’t float? Fog is a cloud, right? Can pizza be fog?

“It would be hard to see through pizza fog,” you murmur to yourself in wonder.

You blink and notice that the room is quiet and everyone is staring at you. “Well, it would,” you say a bit defensively. Don’t they realize something as basic as that? “Though maybe that could be useful. It would have been really handy to have pizza fog outside during the robbery. Hey, did I ever tell you guys about the time I robbed a bank?” you ask excitedly.

“Flower, we wanted to know if you had a preference on the flavor of omelet we want Jay to make,” Pete tells you helpfully. “I’m not sure ‘pizza fog’ is an omelet flavor.”

“Someone in the commune used to make ‘special’ omelets,” you say in response. “Easter was the best. We’d dye the eggs and then make the ‘special’ omelets, and there’d be colors everywhere. All around. Like that one,” you say, pointing out a unique wave of visual vibrancy. “Is that one new? It’s like blue mixed with music. Come to think of it, I might have seen it at Woodstock, but that one had more purple and less cello...”

“Aaannnnddd we lost her again,” Isaac says as he and the others turn back to whatever they were talking about.

The groovy streak of blusic wafts up like a butterfly, and you follow it out into the hall, giggling and trying unsuccessfully to catch it. It leads you down to that one bathroom with the totally rockin’ wallpaper.

The wallpaper helps you contemplate the various colors of music, and you’re finally able to visualize all the Grateful Dead songs you know. You have no idea where you’ve been when at last you come to with a bit of lucidity in that bathroom six hours later.

But wherever it was, it was totally groovy.

*****

 

Hilarious discussion about fish and pizza and omelets

 

Thanks! Since the ghosts can smell food but not eat anything, there are a lot of discussions about food on the show. Writing stream-of-consciousness for a character like Flower can be fun. Thanks for reading and commenting!

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The next entry will be up shortly.

 

Prompt #3: Write a story between 500 and 1,000 words in which you make up a new OC (original character). Your OC must interact with at least one EC (established character), and your story must include the following line of dialogue: “Something was bound to go right sometime today.”
* Word limit = 500-1,00 words
Word count: 995

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The tools in Kerri Mackenzie’s truck rattled as she drove slowly up the unpaved driveway to her next assigned service appointment. Her morning so far had been going unexpectedly smoothly, and she hoped that streak continued so she could break for lunch on time.

She passed through a fence with an unhinged gate, and Kerri hoped that wasn’t an omen. Though according to the gate’s sign, she was at least at the right place: Woodstone. She’d been concerned she would get lost out here, and her GPS wasn’t getting a good signal.

Kerri parked the truck near the front door and took a moment to evaluate the situation. The property was sprawling, and the house was huge but not in the best repair. A place like this was probably owned by older people who had investment money to spend and not as much physical ability to keep up with the maintenance. That also meant she’d probably be dealing with people who had issues with a plumber who was a woman. Kerri popped an extra piece of Passion Fruit Bubble Trubble chewing gum in her mouth. Though she chewed gum nearly constantly anyway, it was always better to have extra in cases like this where she might need to fall back on her semi-threat of telling obnoxious clients that she’d be patching their leaks with bubble gum.

She grabbed her paperwork and clipboard, got out of the truck, and walked up to the door, blowing a bubble on the way. For good measure, right before she rang the doorbell she slid her sleeves up a bit so the edges of the tattoo on her left forearm were visible.

She could hear the doorbell echo inside the house, and then a voice called, “Coming!”

Several heartbeats later the large door opened, and in front of her stood two people close to her own young-ish age.

“Hi,” Kerri said as soon as she mentally recalibrated herself from what she’d expected to see. “I’m Kerri with Down the Drain Plumbing.”

“Wow, you’re early! Thank God. See, I told you, babe,” the bearded, dark-haired man said as he turned to the small blond woman next to him. “Something was bound to go right sometime today.”

“All that smoke in the kitchen was from your gummy bear muffin experiment, need I remind you,” the woman told him. Then she turned to Kerri with a cheerful smile and offered a hand. “Hi, I’m Sam, and this is my husband, Jay. Please come in. We’ll show you the bathroom that’s flooding.”

“Water everywhere,” Jay added emphatically. “Not that the floor didn’t need a good scrub, but this is a little much.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Kerri said as she shook hands, stepped inside, and followed them down the hallway. Maybe this call wouldn’t be so bad after all. She absentmindedly blew a quick bubble, popped it, and looked around at the roomy interior. It held the same general state of lack of maintenance, but ladders and power tools within spoke of work being done in various rooms. “Interesting place you got here. Looks like it’s been around a while.”

“Yes, it’s been in my family for several generations,” Sam said. “We’re fixing it up to turn it into a B&B.”

That explained a few things. Kerri nodded and blew another bubble. “You know how old the pipes here are?”

“No, sorry. I--” Sam broke off abruptly and cocked her head a bit as she walked, then several seconds later she resumed. “Though I can probably find out what the pipes look like and their general condition if that helps.”

“No, don’t worry about that yet. I’ll see what I’m dealing with first,” Kerri said. “Do you have any idea if the flooding is caused by a clogged drain or a cracked pipe?”

Jay was the one who spoke up this time. “I’m guessing it’s a cracked pipe, though that’s more based on the hunch that this house is throwing another major expense at us and it couldn’t possibly be something as simple as a clogged drain.”

They reached their destination. Buckets, waterlogged towels, and mops lined the hallway next to the closed door. Jay carefully opened the door, and water sloshed on the floor.

Kerri slowly stepped inside and did her standard preliminary fact-finding. Yeah, this call and these clients were going to be just fine. She blew another bubble before turning back to them and saying, “I’ll grab my tools and take a closer look, but it actually looks like it might just be a clog in a line somewhere. Do you want an itemized quote first?”

“Nah, just go for it,” Jay said, waving a hand vaguely at the bathroom.

“All right. I’ll be right back in.” Kerri stepped out, shook the lingering water off her shoes as best she could, and then headed down the hall with Jay.

Behind her, from where Sam still stood just outside the bathroom, Kerri thought she heard Sam whisper under her breath, “It’s bubble gum.” Or that was what it sounded like, anyway.

Kerri paused, confused, and turned around. “Sorry, did you say something?”

“What?” Sam quickly faced Kerri like a deer caught in headlights and then said, “No, no, I... um... was just wondering what kind of bubble gum you had. It smells... fruity.”

“Passion Fruit Bubble Trubble. Want a piece?” Kerri asked.

“Oh, no, thank you, I’m good.” Sam smiled.

Kerri nodded and rejoined Jay farther down the hallway where he was waiting for her.

Kerri couldn’t be sure, but as she walked she thought she heard Sam say, just as quietly, “How can you not know what bubble gum is? It’s been around for-- forever. And Trevor, not another word. I’m not going to ask her about the rest of her tattoo.”

Kerri shrugged to herself as she headed to her truck for her tools. Very few clients were perfect, and in her book quirky was better than obnoxious any day.

*****

 

*happily declares a Fandom Day today!* Reads on ...

Yeah, duh, everybody knows that, duh.

And she's just the one to get lost in the spaces between continuums, discovering new insights along the way! I love her.

This gal has a mind for strategy and good PR.

How annoying is it when ghosts eavesdrop??? Can't we all relate??

 

A nice new OC with her work as a plumber and chewing gum. Will she use that to patch the leaks?

 

Thanks! Flower is a fun character. She's a good-hearted '60s hippie, and she's a bit tricky to write within TFN's TOS since... certain chemicals were present when she died, so as a ghost she can be totally lucid one minute and not lucid the next.

Heh, I'm not sure if Kerri's boss knows about her bubble gum threats. And yeah, eavesdropping ghosts can be annoying. Jay (Sam's husband in the show) gets irritated when the ghosts tattle on him for something. Thanks for reading and commenting!

Thanks! Hopefully she won't have to resort to patching the leaks with her gum this time, but you never know what a particular repair will require. Thanks for reading and commenting!


Week 4 is on its way.

 

Prompt #4: Write a story between 100 and 1,000 words that is predominantly action. You can have as many characters interacting as you want, and you can include introspection as long as it doesn't outweigh the action.
* Word limit = 100-1,000 words
Word count: 499

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The owlbear’s distinctive roar tore through the night, letting Gelvin Monksbeard II know exactly how much it did not appreciate that slash from his sword.

Before the owlbear could regroup and charge again, Gelvin struck once more. His sword sliced through the air, but the large owlbear’s claws swatted it away before it could pierce the monster’s flesh.

“This is quite a dangerous opponent!” Gelvin called to his party without taking his eyes off the creature with the body of a bear and the head and neck of an owl. “Some help here would be appreciated!”

“I’m comin’, I’m comin’!” Joyce the bard responded. “Gimme a sec to aim so I don’t hit you with an arrow.”

“Firing into melee is generally not the best idea,” Gelvin reminded her. The owlbear swung a massive paw at him, which Gelvin quickly blocked. A split second later he barely managed to twist aside and dodge the owlbear’s razor-sharp beak as it tried to bite him.

“Oh, relax, I ain’t gonna hit ya,” Joyce said. “Least as long as you don’t pop into my line of fire.”

The twang of a bow string preceded an arrow lodging in the owlbear’s flank. Gelvin tried not to instinctively flinch at the sound of the bow string’s release. Oblivious to Gelvin’s mental discomfort, the wounded owlbear roared in rage and redoubled its attacks on Gelvin.

“Explain to me again why I can only use a mace when I’m perfectly capable of picking up a sword?” Serrest the cleric asked.

“Can we go over that again later when I’m not fighting for my life against a vicious owlbear?” Gelvin said, his voice a little high-pitched from desperation. His wounds from the creature were starting to slow him down.

“Fine, fine, I’m just saying it doesn’t make sense.” The final member of Gelvin’s party crept around out of immediate range of the owlbear’s claws and beak, and he swung his mace at the owlbear’s injured flank. The owlbear danced aside at the last minute, and Serrest only landed a glancing blow.

This wasn’t going well. The fight had to end quickly before his party was hurt. Gelvin steeled his resolve, let out a battle cry, and swung his sword as hard as he could toward the beast’s neck.

Nothing happened.

More nothing happened.

“Sam?”

“Wait, sorry, what?”

“It’s Pete’s turn. What’s he doing?”

“Sam, were you listening? Tell Jay I’m making an attack. Called shot to the neck. You need to roll the twenty-sider.”

“Oh, sorry, Jay. Sorry, Pete.”

Gelvin swung his sword as hard as he could at the beast’s neck. Unfortunately, his aim was slightly off as the owlbear moved, and he hit a shoulder bone instead. The wound the sword left was deep but not lethal.

Gelvin Monksbeard II pulled his sword back and took a deep breath to dispel the discouragement from his miss. If the owlbear wanted a fight, then by golly, he and his party were going to give it one.

*****

(Note: D&D is also not owned by me.)

 

Tee hee, a *you should pardon the expression* lively scene! I especially enjoyed the element of sound with the twang.

 

Thank you! I'm glad it came across as lively. Thank you for reading and commenting!

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Week 5 will be posted shortly. Honestly I'm not super happy with how it turned out, and there are probably historical inaccuracies, but here it is anyway.

 

Prompt #5: Write a set of 3 double drabbles with the following prompts: juggernaut, shepherd, undertaker
What is a double drabble anyway? Well, since a drabble is a short work of fiction that is precisely 100 words long, no more and no less, then doubling our drabbles brings us to 200 words each.
* Each double drabble must be exactly 200 words, for a total of 600 words
Word count: 200 each, 600 total

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Undertaker

The TV was illuminated with the latest episode of Crime & Law: Sioux Falls. The ghosts watched as the coroner examined the body of this week’s unfortunate victim while pointing out several oddities to the main character detectives. Between the toothpaste, rotten eggs, and green glitter, it was shaping up to be a puzzling case for them to solve.

“Do you ever wonder what the undertakers did with your body?” Pete asked suddenly. “I mean, when I was living, I always assumed I’d be able to watch my own funeral from the afterlife, see who showed up, who said what about me, how Carol had me dressed, what they buried with me... but nope! Stuck here! Never got a chance to see my body again after the ambulance took it away.”

“Hey, at least you got a mortician,” Trevor said. “Not like some of us who never had a proper burial.”

“Too bad for you!” Thorfinn said with a guffaw and a shoulder slap. “Thor had no burial for a thousand years, but then had Viking funeral. Thor will say that having a funeral is much, much better. Thor pities those without one.”

“Yeah, thanks, big guy,” Trevor muttered, rubbing his shoulder.


Juggernaut

Isaac walked in with Nigel following. “Ah, I see you’re all watching TV,” Isaac said. “Any chance you’ll be finished soon? I was telling Nigel about the wonders of the television, and he wants to see if there are any shows about England he can watch.”

“Yes,” Nigel added, smoothing out his red colonial British uniform. “I thought, perchance, that I might be able to see what the state of our empire is today. We had so much going on when I left and so many different holdings. We were quite the juggernaut in my time,” he added with a small chuckle. “I’d rather like to see what everyone is up to nowadays on this... screen Isaac has told me about.”

“Um, Nigel,” Pete started hesitantly, “lots of things have changed. The... British Empire isn’t quite as big as it was back then.”

“Yeah, like when we kicked your butts back to England!” Trevor exclaimed.

Nigel’s face fell. “Really? Oh. And yes, I’m well aware of the colonial uprising’s outcome, as you remind me of it frequently, but I was... somewhat hoping our troubles were just limited to this country.”

“The UK has good TV shows, though,” Pete supplied helpfully.


Shepherd

“Oh, who cares about TV shows?” Trevor scoffed. “Movies are where it’s at, and the best movies are American, baby! Good ol’ Hollywood blockbusters. I bet you can’t name one blockbuster British movie.”

“Um... well...” Pete thought for a moment. “There’s... British stuff in movies! Like Old English Sheepdogs. The Shaggy Dog was really popular!”

Nigel turned to Isaac. “What are these ‘movies’?”

“Like a play on the TV screen,” Isaac replied.

“And they got a dog to go inside the screen? Fascinating!” Nigel said. “Those dogs are quite clever, you know. My cousin had one to help him raise and herd sheep. Teeswater sheep, to be precise. Made quite a name for himself doing it too, last I heard.”

“Oh,” Isaac chuckled. “Last you herd.”

Nigel looked surprised for a moment, then he too let out a small laugh. “What a clever spin!”

“Vikings have lots of sheep too,” Thorfinn interrupted. “Need them for woolen blankets. And, of course, for delicacies like ram’s--”

“Dude. Enough already!” Trevor cut him off. “We don’t need another story about what you did to those poor rams’ manhood.”

“Or ramhood,” Pete leaned in with a grin and nudged Trevor.

Trevor rolled his eyes.

*****

 

Hilarious discussions about death rites, TV shows, movies and Brits and Vikings

 

More ghostly laughs from me, beginning with

the title of this show alone started me chuckling and then came

because yes, some of the best TV around comes from the UK and then

the characters do come up with jolly good puns!

 

Thanks! It was admittedly a bit of a rambling discussion, but weird conversations are fun, LOL. Thanks for reading and commenting!

Thanks! I imagine that spin-off show exists in some parallel universe somewhere, heh.

Pete especially likes to do plays on words and similar types of jokes, like the "Floor-eo" which was an Oreo dropped on the floor. His jokes have varying degrees of success, LOL. Thanks for reading and commenting!

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Due to an increasingly busy schedule, I'm no longer going to be regularly updating this thread for the Kessel Run. I'll try to add entries for weeks as the mood and time permit, but like I said, they won't be regular (for instance, there's nothing for Week 6). There's one vignette in particular I really want to write, which I'll either add here as a prompt response if an appropriate prompt comes along or as an update independent of the Kessel Run since it wouldn't merit its own thread. Thanks to everyone for following along with my NSWFF experiment!

 

I know you're focusing on your SW thread for the Kessel Run (which I've been meaning to catch up on, along with about fifty million other things ), but I wanted to pop in here and say that I loved all of these entries!

You really bring the characters to life (even if they are ghosts ) and do a fantastic job of writing each of them with a really distinctive voice. If you ever decide to add to this thread, I'd love to read it! Awesome work.

 

#2 Love it! Great use of second person. Pizza fog and blusic - perfect!!!

 

(Please forgive the double post. I didn't want to edit the above and risk Thumper missing the additions,)

#3 - I like the OC! Great job subtly working in the ghosts! Of course Trevor wants to see the rest of the tattoo!

#4 Love the D&D! And of course Sam gets bored and drifts off. (One thing I love about the US v. the UK version is how much Jay wants to interact with the ghosts, unlike Mike.)

#5 Great musings in Undertaker. Definitely something I can see ghosts thinking about. And the rest - you write everyone so well! Love the little puns. Just great characterization all the way around!

 

I apologize, I realized I never responded to this. Thank you very much! I'm very glad to hear the characters are distinctive, especially when there are so many of them. I'm happy you enjoyed it. There's at least one more story idea I want to add in here with Hetty, but I'm having trouble fleshing it out enough to write. Hopefully some random prompt down the road will help it coalesce into something. Thank you for reading and commenting! Sorry again for my delay.

Thank you! Flower was lots of fun to do some stream-of-consciousness with, LOL.

I admire Sam's ability to have two separate interactions at once between the ghosts and the livings. I do not have such a skillset-- I'd be way too distracted. She's definitely gotten better at it as time has gone on, but when it doesn't work out perfectly for her, it's got to be weird for a living to hear only Sam's side of a conversation.

Yeah, I like how eager Jay is to interact with the ghosts and how hard he tries. Mike brings a different dynamic with his more stand-offish approach, but I prefer Jay's. The D&D episode is one of my favorites.

Thanks, I'm glad everyone comes across well and recognizable. I'm still hoping to write something with Hetty that I've had rattling around in my brain for a year or so, just not quite sure how yet.

I'm looking forward to Season 3, and in the meantime I've enjoyed watching the broadcast of the UK series. I'm not sure how long CBS is going to air the UK ones.

Thanks for reading and commenting!