plottingdaisies

[plottingdaisies]

dust motes for the micro story game?

~ @void-botanist

Okay so fun fact ... some sort of valve opened up and I accidentally the whole thinged an actual just ... oneshot. It started at dust motes and then went a million miles away from that. Hurray? Anyways, here's some original shit too! Here's a story from the world of Tenny Puck-Phillips, Supernatural Private Investigator.

A Flicker in the Attic, a Tenny Puck-Phillips Case

Sitting in a cramped attic watching dust motes float through the rays of sunlight filtering through loose wall slats on their way to tickle my nose wasn't precisely my idea of a good time. My idea of a good time involves more bootleg liquor and less moldy upholstery than I currently had. But a job was a job and I wasn't in a position to say no to paid work. Even if this was a shit job.

When the homeowner asked if I shouldn't wait to deal with her "ghost" problem 'til it was dark because that's when it was active for her, I answered with a resounding "Hell no!"

Sometimes I forget my manners. I'd probably do more normal folk business like looking for missing spouses, collecting evidence of fraud and the like if I was nicer, I suppose. But I did well enough not to starve dealing with the weird and unnatural. And what ol' Mrs. Hagerty had in her attic wasn't a ghost and was definitely not natural. And I didn't want the moon involved in it at all.

Crick. Crick. Crick.

I snapped my eyes back to where they were supposed to be. In my ... ponderance of dust and the mites that went with it making my eyes water something fierce, I'd forgotten to keep my eyes on the Flicker. Now, sitting about five paces in front of me and the washtub full of water I'd placed at my feet was an unassuming dining chair covered in a white sheet.

I sighed and rolled my eyes. Final Side shapeshifters always lacked imagination. "Hey, dumbass, you forgot the dust and cobwebs," I critiqued its poor attempt at sneaking up on me despite all good sense telling me I shouldn't taunt it. Couldn't be helped. It smelled wrong, like grave moss and dirt, and the shit that goes bump in the night always had a hard time hiding from me. I ain't exactly all the way from This Side or the Other. I am uniquely equipped for this kind of work.

My next taunt got stuck in my throat when the sheet parted into thousands of strands of dull white hair, revealing red eyes set on their sides, points up and down instead of left to right, in a horrible, withered face of graying skin. Four limbs unwound themselves from their farce of a chair arms and legs with the cracking of far too many arthritic joints. The Flicker shifted from a grotesque mimic of furniture to a tall, stooping ghoul that no longer bothered to play creepy ghost.

I carefully kept one eye on it at all times now that it knew I was on to it. You take your eyes off a Flicker that's on the hunt for more than a blink, and it'll disappear in a shadow and reappear next to you right when your eyes open again. Just so you have long enough to get scared shitless right before it rips the soul out of your body.

Yeah, souls are real. Sorry if that bums you out. I ain't mighty thrilled with that either.

Flickers are nasty creatures. They play games with their "food". Which was why this one had been hootin' and hollerin' and generally making a downright scary nuisance of itself in Joan Hagerty's attic for the better part of a month now. Good thing the old woman paid heed to that sick dread knotting up in her stomach and sent for me, cause I don't. Listen to the dread, I mean.

Crick. Crick. Crick.

It took a step towards me, long and yellowed curling toenails scraping against the wooden floor.

I took a step back.

It pointed at me with a knife-sharp talon as its mouth hung too open to moan my name. "Teeeeennnnyyyyyy."

I crossed my arms and smirked, tapping my boot against the metal tub with a clang. "You ain't so scary. I know all 'bout your kind," I taunted.

Truth of the matter is that I was quaking in those damn boots. Dealing with the Final is always dangerous and existentially unpleasant. My heart was thumping against my ribs like it was going to leave me behind for being too stupid to keep on living, and my palms were just about sweating rivers.

It smiled. Or I think it was a smile. A horrible oily gash spread open from the natural corners of its awful mouth, clear around the sides of its head.

I hate Flickers.

I swallowed my lunch back down and stepped back again.

"Hoooolllyyy waaatterr?" it asked, turning its head completely perpendicular to its long neck.

I licked my lips nervously. "Sure, yeah. You wanna take a bath? Heard you ghoulies don't much care for consecration." I silently begged for this reckless plan to work.

Crick. Crick. Crick.

It laughed like a saw stuck on creaking old wood and dragged itself to the tub. "Teeeennneeessseeeee," it groaned my whole first named and I swear on my mama's grave it winked at me with an evil sideways eye as it sunk one horrible foot after another into my tub of "holy" water. (Water fresh from an old iron handled pump that burned my hands enough that I said, "Holy shit" anyways.) "Wooooon't wooork oooon meeee," it hissed victoriously.

I let out the breath I'd been stubbornly holding in. "You stupid son of a bitch," I chuckled and turned my back on it to pull my real tools out of the old doctor's back I repurposed for dealing with otherworldly pests. "Forgot to mention the fresh grave dirt that's in there, oops."

It was stuck. That's the trick to Final Side creatures. Grave dirt, and moss, even crematory ashes if you're not above desecrating someone's remains will do in a pinch. The trappings of death make very literal traps for ... well ... death.

The Flicker shrieked so loud the whole house shuttered like it might fall down. And given the

I ignored it. "Jackie, let's wrap this up!" I called as I pulled an old silver hand mirror and a long greenbrier vine (plucked fresh from a graveyard that morning) from my bag.

A pretty blonde head popped up through the attic door as I tied one end of the vine around my waist. "Is it safe?" she asked me as she came in anyways. We had been working together for a couple of years by then, she knew I wouldn't have called her unless I had it handled.

"Safe as it's gonna get, doll. Now, come here and hold this tight," I instructed as I handed her the other end of the vine. "Don't look it in the eyes if you can help it."

Jackie gasped, turning her eyes sharply to the ground. She had been looking at it. "Oh, why?"

"Cause it's disgusting. It can't do anything to you as long as you don't get in the tub with it."

"Tenny, don't scare me like that!" she cried, putting her hand on her chest in relief.

"Take this, you know what to do," I handed her a .22 revolver and her relief evaporated.

She grimaced but took it anyways. "I wish you wouldn't do this. What if I get it wrong?" she asked anxiety peaking her voice.

I hated this part too, but for very different reasons.

Double-checking my vine I walked back towards the Flicker, pulling Jackie along with me. "You ain't gonna get it wrong. You're the smartest person I know, and the only one I trust to do this."

I understood her anxiety. I was about to take a trip to the Final Side and some people on a day pass don't come back. Oh, something will come back instead in your place if you ain't careful. And it'll gladly take your body for its own nefarious purposes. "If that vine wilts or breaks, you know what to do. Don't wait for "me" to come back if it does."

As I stepped into the tub with the thrashing monster, I raised the mirror in front of my face so that it saw it's reflection, it froze. Jackie pulled the hammer back on the gun and pressed it against my temple. "Come back right, Tenny. Don't make me live with killing you."

I only nodded and then I held my breath.

The thing about holding your own breath is that holding it until you pass out is near impossible to do. And it takes so damn long, you're like as to get bored and start breathing again just for something else to do.

I started counting in my head down from one hundred, slow as I could go until I started to get light headed and my lungs started to lurch to try to force me to breathe. As I felt my consciousness begin to drift, I grabbed the Flicker's arm and we dropped through the bucket into fathomless depths of water.

Do you know what drowning feels like? I do. It fucking hurts. The thing about taking a trip to the Final Side is that you kind of have to die to get there. Your body doesn't actually die, in fact, it stays behind on This Side, but your soul still feels it happen. Filthy water flooded my nose and lungs as panic began to set in, but I kept my grip on the monster until we fell out of the water and landed on washed out dry land.

It was over before it really started, but all that water I swallowed and breathed in had to go somewhere. Back out, mostly. And while I was busy retching up dirty water, I accidentally let go of both my mirror and my monster.

Mirrors are tricksome little things. They're a very handy tool in the arsenal of any practicing monster hunter or aspiring cosmetologist. They seem to confound things that come from the Final Side, ghosts, monsters, and spirits, good and bad and everywhere in between. You can use a mirror to trap some, and distract others.

Flickers are not to be trifled with, they can be tricked by a mirror for a time. It only works if a living thing is holding the mirror and it don't work forever. A couple of minutes if you're lucky, a few seconds if you're not. In these matters, I generally count myself luckier than most, but good luck doesn't supersede being a clumsy and a fool, unfortunately.

Crick. Crick. Crick.

A bladed finger curled menacingly around my shoulder before digging into the meat of it. I'm not ashamed to admit that I screamed about three octaves higher than was necessary as I pulled myself free. It felt like I was bleeding but seeing as my physical body was somewhere else, it was just a feeling. Still, I could die there. I didn't need to be in my body to get torn to shreds or consumed by something meaner than sin and twice as ugly.

Shit.

As I saw it, I had two options. Well three, but two had the same end result. The first, and stupidest, option was to panic and give the Flicker an opening to kill me. The second was to try to find the mirror, which would in practice end up like the first because the second I took my eyes off of it, it would kill me.

So I did the third thing. Something so ridiculous that you won't believe it's the truth: I called for my mama.

"Mama, I need help!" I yelled out to the overcast sky.

The Final Side is a very peculiar sort of place. And it doesn't look the same for every soul that goes there, being a reflection of the general condition of your soul once you're dead, but it mostly looks terribly dull and gray for visitors. Still being attached to your body keeps you from experiencing the fullness of Death. And finding specific souls who have passed on is very difficult in most cases. A real seance is difficult, unpleasant and very dangerous.

But mama made a deal with something when she died. God, some other higher power, the devil? I don't know. She didn't exactly leave me with an explanation or anything other than a cryptic note (some hogwash about always being with me in Death, or so I thought,) and a gaping hole in my heart. I would have preferred she had just stayed living, but no one asked for my opinion about it.

"Run!" a gentle breeze whispered in my ear. My mother's arms wrapped around the Flicker from behind and it shrieked and thrashed again. I didn't wait. I turned and ran, holding my breath as I did.

It's not really fair that you also have to kind of die to get back to This Side, but I wasn't consulted for my opinion on that bit of inter-planar travel either. I opened my eyes with a horrible clenching in my chest and water and snot dripping from my nose. Cold metal pressed against my temple before I even had a chance to swallow some air. "Your name," Jackie demanded coolly, just like I taught her.

"Tennessee Jean Puck-Phillips," I answered without moving, fearful of startling my long-suffering assistant.

"Your parents, and their parents?"

"Come on, two generations?" I griped before my good sense caught up to me. Jackie pressed the barrel harder against my temple as a warning. "All right, fine. My mama was Edie Puck and she married my dad, Tennessee Phillips. Mama's parent's were James and Mae Puck and no one knows who spawned Tennessee Phillips but it had to be the two most miserable sons of bitches on the Other Side who did."

The hammer clicked as she released it and she exhaled shakily. "Don't you ever argue with me while I have a gun to your head ever again!" she chided me seriously. She'd have been right to slap me if she was so inclined.

"Sorry, Jackie. Didn't mean to scare you. Let's go tell Mrs. Hagerty that her attic is safe again and get some coffee." I felt cold and gray and empty, like going to the Final Side always left me feeling. My shoulder hurt and I was wet and dirty too, but at least I'd survived my traipse through Death.

[plottingdaisies]

PATTERN BANNERS | galaxy 03.

( requested by → @kisakiskitten )

i went with a mix of forest greens and mint greens. it reminds me of colours from the aurora borealis hehe.

colours : 001 / 002 / 003 / 004 / 005 / 006 / 007 / 008 / 009

feel free to use; please like, reblog, and credit 〜

support me through ko-fi | more dividers →

[plottingdaisies]

vintage floral dividers:

please like and credit if you use, reblogs are appreciated! thank you! 💕

[plottingdaisies]

ANIMATED LINES | rainbow 002.

──────── ⵌ PINK ...

──────── ⵌ RED ...

──────── ⵌ ORANGE ...

──────── ⵌ MUSTARD ...

──────── ⵌ YELLOW ...

──────── ⵌ GREEN ...

──────── ⵌ MINT ...

──────── ⵌ BLUE ...

──────── ⵌ LAVENDER ...

──────── ⵌ PURPLE ...

( tw : flashing ) the og animated lines, but in other sizes ! apologies for not making these in different sizes in the first place—it’s actually been a year since I first released them heh. anyway, here are the other sizes 〜

as always, they’re vvv smol so it’ll be easier to save on desktop !

please like, reblog, and credit 〜

support me through ko-fi | more dividers →

[plottingdaisies]

NEED HELP WRITING? (a masterlist)

I have likely not added many that I've reblogged to this list. Please feel free to roam my blog and/or ask/message me to add something you'd like to see on this list!

Synonym Lists

Look by @writers-potion

Descriptors

Voices by @saraswritingtipps

Show, Don't Tell by @lyralit

Tips & Tricks

5 Tips for Creating Intimidating Antagonists by @writingwithfolklore

How To (Realistically) Make a Habit of Writing by @byoldervine

Let's Talk About Misdirection by @deception-united

Tips to Improve Character Voice by @tanaor

Stephen King's Top 20 Rules for Writers posted by @toocoolformedschool

Fun Things to Add to a Fight Scene (Hand to Hand Edition) by @illarian-rambling

Questions I Ask My Beta Readers by @burntoutdaydreamer

Skip Google for Research by @s-n-arly

Breaking Writing Rules Right: Don't Write Direct Dialogue by @septemberercfawkes

Databases/Resources

International Clothing

Advice/Uplifting

Too Ashamed of Writing To Write by @writingquestionsanswered

"Said" is Beautiful by @blue-eyed-author

[plottingdaisies]

Too many writers are using generative 'AI' to make their book covers, so I've written a guide on how to make your own cover for free or cheap without turning to a machine.

If you can't afford to pay an artist, you CAN make your own!

I hope this is a helpful overview that covers the basics and points to some free resources.

[plottingdaisies]

Okayyyy making dividers is my new obsession...so here's one's for @tamlinweek 🫣 Celtic vibes, Spring, some are a little dark and moody and some are rustic. Hell yeah.

Credit is appreciated but not required!

[plottingdaisies]

sometimes you need dialogue tags and don't want to use the same four

[plottingdaisies]

Angst starters:

❛ i don’t even recognize you anymore. ❜ make it hurt 👀

SEND ME A PROMPT AND MAKE ME WRITE SOMETHING ANGSTY

Okay so I'm working on one of my original things with this one. Tenny Puck-Phillips is a private investigator and also their father was fae-adjacent. And he was also a right asshole. CW: Alcoholism, implied suicide, implied domestic abuse situation.

A newspaper dropped on Tenny's desk, sending a few stray notes and letters fluttering off where they drifted to the floor. "Why'd you do that, Jackie?" Tenny asked, the course of their words running together in a rushing river of whiskey. They looked up from the glass they had been contemplating for … they couldn't remember how long. But it couldn't have been that long, because they were still using a glass to drink and hadn't given up the ghost and gone straight for the bottle.

So it was what, seven or eight in the evening?

"What're you doin' here? Ain't you gone home yet? S'late." Tenny added another question before giving poor Jackie a chance to even say something.

"Tenny, you know well and good that I haven't worked here in months, remember?" Jackie made that face, that one she was always making whenever she came by to check on them. It was like disappointment and concern and just a touch of contempt.

"Oh. Right, right."

Another slug of whiskey.

"Well, you gonna read it?" Jackie tapped impatiently on the newspaper. Her carefully manicured nail indented a space into a grainy photograph.

"Nope."

They reached for the bottle.

"You don't care that Tennessee Phillips is dead?"

Tenny coughed, a consequence of chugging from the handle, not from the news. "Nope."

It was about goddamn time. Maybe Jackie expected them to jump for joy, or cry maybe. Anything but nothing. But that's all Tenny felt about it really. Nothing.

"Tenny, what's wrong with you? This isn't you." Jackie looked pointedly from Tenny's wrinkled and half-untucked shirt, to the suspender that had come undone and was just hanging loose over their shoulder, and to the glaze of booze sweat that painted their face. A far cry from the fae creature they could be, or the put together human detective they most frequently were.

Dancing under the light of the full moon. Giggling, antlers tangled in Jackie's hair. Kisses stolen in the mists of the waterfall where the boundaries met.

"You know what fuckin' happened, Jacks," Tenny grumbled, avoiding looking anywhere near the newspaper or into Jackie's eyes.

Coward's way out, some said. Right before Tenny knocked in some of their teeth. Those people didn't know. Didn't understand that some women only saw one way out. Didn't understand that a deal with the devil couldn't be escaped from by running away in the night.

Tenny hadn't been fast enough to find the way to free her.

If only ol' Tennessee had died sooner.

Jackie walked around Tenny's desk and pried the bottle from their hands. Tenny tried to pull it back, but their fingers were too clumsy against sobriety's sure grasp. "Give it back, Jackie! Don't fuckin' do this today!" Tenny shouted, angry that Jackie would try to pull them out of their self-inflicted misery. "Just fuckin' leave!"

"Don't yell at me, Tenny. I haven't done anything wrong." Tears welled in her pretty blue eyes, kept at bay only by the woman's insurmountable force of will. She'd always been stronger than they had.

There was something mean hiding in Tenny. Something borne of their father, and always just underneath their strange, green eyes. "Just leave, Jackie. I ain't sayin' it again," Tenny growled through gritted, pointed teeth.

It was too close to the full moon again.

"I don't know who you are anymore," Jackie said quietly, her voice trembling as she marched toward the door with Tenny's whiskey bottle held securely in her hand. As she pulled the door open, she turned back with a sigh. "Tenny, don't do the devil's work for him, especially now that he's dead."

The door slammed shut behind her. The glass bearing the name "Tenny Puck-Phillips, Private Investigator & Otherworld Consultant" rattled dangerously, nearly splintering.

"Don't know if I got a choice," Tenny whispered into the silence.

[plottingdaisies]

Tenny Puck-Phillips: The Sides (Planes)

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

This Side

This Side is the mundane world and all of it’s dreadfully natural inhabitants. Most folk that live on This Side don’t know about or don’t care to know about the folk and beings that live on or are from The Other. While This Side doesn’t contain the fantastical or monstrous in the same way The Other does, it’s not without its dangers. A man doesn’t have to be some sort of fae or demon creature to manipulate or ruin. There are wild animals that would kill or maim just as much as werewolf or manticore. Most people on This Side are understandably too worried about the threat of economic disaster, war and famine to be concerned about whether the stories about their daddy’s bad dealings with a railroad tycoon fifty years ago were him dealing with The Devil, or just a devilish and greedy man.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The Other Side

The Other Side is best thought of as another plane of existence. Its denizens bear resemblance to many of the fantastical beings from human mythology exist. Some might call them fae, demons, devils, gods, spirits, or whatever. It has its own ecology, its own society and governance, and definitely its own problems. Most of the sentient folk on The Other Side are content to stay put in their plane, worried as they are with the problems they consider mundane to themselves (though these problems might seem confounding to us normal folk from This.) There are, however, some tricksome types who derive amusement, power, wealth or sometimes even safety and refuge on This Side.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The Final Side

Some might think of The Final as the afterlife. The one way ticket to the end of all things for the more mundane types among us. Heaven and Hell don’t really mean a thing here, at least not in the way that your mama probably taught you about or you learned in Sunday School. That’s not to say everyone gets the same experience in Death, it’s just … different. Humans can’t really be blamed for not knowing what it’s like, so few of us living have ever been and come back, and so few of our dead have ever made the difficult journey back to This without losing too much of themselves to remember. Folk from The Other have a different relationship with The Final, given that so few of them die for good without extraordinary measures, but there are some that have gone to their final rest here. There are some from The Other who come to visit or prowl among the everlasting souls, and it’s not usually for anything other than something nefarious.

While it’s possible to take a visit to The Final, it is deeply unpleasant and very dangerous. Talking to your dead loved one is almost never worth the risk, and sometimes it isn’t your poor old nan who’s actually talking to you when you do pull off such a “seance.” Other Side critters notwithstanding The Final isn’t so keen on letting souls back out that’s touched it.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The Connection

This and The Other are locked into the phases of the same Moon. The New Moon corresponds strongly with This Side, while the Full Moon corresponds strongly with The Other Side. The effects of the moon on the denizens of each plane is a game of opposites. In your own plane (and given that you’re not of both Sides), the corresponding moon doesn’t affect your personally, but if you’re playing tourist in a different plane, the Moon might make you … stronger, more real.

The phases of the Moon also correspond to the connections between the two worlds. During the New Moon, the connection between the two Sides is weakened, almost non-existent. There’s permanent connections, portals if you will, but you have to know how to work them if you’re to have any hope of getting to one Side or the other during the New Moon. During the Full Moon, the planes basically collide to make a big freaky party. The veil is thin, the girlies are weird, and its not just werewolves you need to watch out for (though you should still watch out for them.)

Final holds no such connection to the Moon. Death is just death, it doesn’t need the Moon to make itself more real.

[plottingdaisies]

Flash Fiction Prompt Fill for the Shrimps (hi guys love you!). It's about the moon guys! I'm still very much in the "figuring out how my own world works" phase of all of this, so this is rough and also very likely subject to change! CW: Suggestions of an abusive home life, but not explicit.

Half In, Full Moon

More than the werewolves curse the full moon.

"Tennessee Jean Puck-Phillips, if you don't come out of there this instant, your daddy's gonna have you scrubbing the bathroom floors with a toothbrush for a week," Edie shouted through the thick door as she hammered on it with the side of her fist. "If we're late to the rotary club potluck, he isn't going to be happy!"

Tenny petulantly kicked the wall from inside their bedroom closet where they hid. "I'm not going!" they shouted and crossed their arms, even though mama couldn't see it. "Dad only goes because it makes people think he cares about shit other than-"

"Language, Tenny!"

Tenny kicked the wall again, accidentally threw their balance off and bit their lip with a too sharp incisor during their rapid descent against the wall. Even their blood tasted wrong, like a fruit gone a little too soft instead of pennies. "Damn it, mama. Ain't you looked at the almanac lately? Or you know, the sky?"

Tenny had seen it, sitting up there the night before, taunting them as the skin at the edge or their hairline began to hurt.

The This-Side almanac called it a "Buck Moon". For Tenny, it was just a plain old problem.

That's what they got for being born half This-Side and half the Other. Everyone who knew anything knew that the Other-Side got stronger, more apparent in places it wasn't ever meant to when the moon was full and big in the sky.

Their mother's incessant knocking paused. "Oh no, Tenny-Jean. Is it bad?"

"What do you think, mama? I'm hiding in a closet instead of going to the place where Mrs. Robbins is going to bring her pecan pie! You know I'd put up with all of daddy's schemin' for her cooking." Tenny rubbed their face in their hands, pretending they didn't feel the little bumps just about their temples.

"Let me in so I can see. I can help you hide it like last time," Edie Puck begged softly.

Tenny groaned and slowly trudged their way out of the closet, across the hardwood floors, being sure to leave as many scuff marks as they could manage with the soles of their shoes. They huffed as they reached out to unlock the door and turn the heavy and all too expensive bronze doorknob. "Face powder and those dark lenses aren't gonna do it this time, mama," they whined as they opened the door.

Edie Puck, wife of an Other-Side creature of impressive notoriety and power, placed her hand over her mouth to try to suppress the surprised gasp. She was unsuccessful.

Tennessee Jean Puck-Phillips stood before her in all their awkward teenage glory. Gangly arms and legs protruded from a rumpled linen shirt that was like to drown them, no doubt pilfered from one of the boys who worked in the stables as Tenny was prone to doing (and in their defense, they really hated the clothes in their own closet), and pants that were too short. All of this was to be expected, of course. A rapidly growing teenager never fit their clothes quite right. Besides, Tenny never wore clothes that fit right or fit expectations.

No, the bit of Tenny's appearance that startled their mother so was a little northward and had little to nothing to do with their frustrating free-spirit and wrinkled clothes.

Two hard little nubs protruded from the top of Tenny's head like a young buck's brand new, baby antlers. Their eyes were entirely green with a dark, narrow vertical slit for  pupils, reptilian in appearance. And where one might expect the red marks that so helpfully announced that puberty had a child in its unforgiving grasp, sat opalescent scales on their cheeks and forehead that shimmered in the light.

"Mama, please!" Tenny cried out in despair, unable to hold back the distressed tears they'd been so feistily holding back like it was a matter of life and death that they not cry. "Everybody already thinks I'm weird! I can't go out in public like this!"

Edie pulled Tenny into a hug, cradling their face against her shoulder. "Oh baby, we can get you a nice hat, or a bandana. Your glasses will hide your eyes, and the face powder will cover the rest."

"Mama, look at my teeth, and my ears. I look like a monster! And everything smells weird right now. And what if Charlie sees me like this? He'll never want to talk to me again. And the whole school will find out. And what if there's iron there? Last time I went out on a full moon, I got an iron burn on my hands that took two weeks to go away!" Tenny babbled rapid fire. "It'll ruin my life! Just tell everyone I'm sick. It's close enough to the truth! I'm cursed! I hate this!"

"Tenny-Jean, you are not cursed," Edie chastised gently.

"Yes, I am," Tenny argued, words muffled by Edie's clothes. "You're cursed too, don't act like you ain't."

"Tenny, I asked you not to talk like that."

Tenny pulled back from their mother's embrace. "Mama, can you just be honest with me, just this once?" Tenny asked with their pleading, unnatural eyes turned up at their mom, who would only be taller than them for a little while longer. "Every full moon, I turn into a freak. I can see everything other people can't, and it ain't pretty! You literally can't leave the house unless daddy says so. I've seen you tryin', mama. People don't just start smoking all over just cause they crossed a threshold they weren't supposed to. He's cursed you for falling for him and cursed me by my being born."

Edie grimaced, her lip trembled and for just a moment, a precious little second that Tenny grasped and held onto like it was a life preserver, they thought their mother was going to open up. Be the mother they needed so badly. But then Edie breathed in deep, exhaled and dodged the matter entirely by saying, "He can teach you to hide it, if you'd ask."

Tenny turned their back on her and sat down on their bed, cradling their head in their hands. "Nothing daddy does is help. And nothing you get from him his free. Wish you'd stop lying to yourself."

Tenny looked up at Edie. Edie, their human mother, who was trapped and scared and broken down, and all Tenny could see was a coward. Someone who'd given up. "I ain't like you, mama. I'm not gonna let him win just because he's my daddy." Tenny spat bitterly, hoping their words hurt a little bit. "And I ain't like him neither, just because I look like his true face sometimes. I got my own tricks. I'll get out of here, and I'll take you with me."

Edie rolled her eyes, buttoning up the hurt welling in them. She'd gotten so good at pretending, Tenny wasn't sure she knew she even was anymore. "Every teenager thinks they know more than they do. Don't go causing trouble just cause the moon reminds you of him." Then she added, softly but with begging urgency, "Please."

Tenny huffed, and refused to meet their mother's eyes.

Half on This-Side, half on the Other. Tenny knew there was a trick to their "inheritance", they just needed to do a little more digging. "Whatever. Just ... just be sure to bring me a slice of Mrs. Robbins's pie. I'm going to bed."

Well, that was a lie. Tenny was going to pretend to go to bed. Then they were going to trick the door to Tennessee's study into letting them in. Doors to the Other-Side loved a good trick, and it would be a shame to let a full moon pass them by without getting into a little trouble.

[plottingdaisies]

IS USER INPUT NOT RECOGNIZED WHAT I THINK IT IS

If you think that it is the original project I am working on, wherein you are reading the retrofuturistic command terminal of a spaceship's limited VI as it begins to gain intelligence as its lone user continues to try to converse with it. The VI can only respond with the preprogrammed command responses it has available to it from the get go.

Anyways, I haven't written much, just sort of establishing the rules a little bit. None of this is set in stone like at all. Just kinda toying around now.

I'll pop it in under the cut.

> … SPERRY INDUSTRIES INC. … 

> NOVA SYSTEMS VI INITIALIZING

>

>

>

> INITIALIZING COMPLETE

> DATE: 12.04.2098

> TIME: 0608 LOCAL STANDARD

> 

> AWAITING USER INPUT

>

< HELLO NOVA

>

> ERROR

> USER INPUT NOT RECOGNIZED

>

< UGH FINE

>

> ERROR

> USER INPUT NOT RECOGNIZED

>

< RUN: SYSDIAG/ALL

> 

> INITIALIZING SYSDIAG/ALL

> ENERGY SYSTEMS: 

> PRIMARY FUEL CHAMBER 100% CAPACITY

> SECONDARY FUEL CHAMBER 100% CAPACITY

> CHEMICAL RECYCLER: NOMINAL FUNCTIONALITY

> SOLAR PANEL GENERATOR: NOMINAL FUNCTIONALITY

>

> PROPULSION SYSTEMS:

> JET PROPULSION: ONLINE READY

> E-MAG THRUSTER: ONLINE READY

>

> LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS:

> OXYGEN STORES 100% CAPACITY

> OXYGEN RECYCLER: NOMINAL FUNCTIONALITY

> WATER STORES 100% CAPACITY

> WATER RECYCLER: NOMINAL FUNCTIONALITY

> TEMPERATURE: HOLDING AT 21.1 C

>

> USER SUPPORT SYSTEMS:

> MEDBAY SYSTEMS: ONLINE READY

> RUN REPORT: MEDICATION INVENTORY YES/NO?

> 

< NO

>

> CONTINUING SYSDIAG/ALL

> USER VITAL SCANNER CONNECTED ONLINE AND TRANSMITTING DATA

> B/P: 118/66

> HR: 79 BPM

> O2%: 100

> SHOW MORE USER VITAL DATA YES/NO?

>

< NO

>

> SYSDIAG/ALL COMPLETE

> 

> AWAITING USER INPUT

>

< RUN: LAUNCH PROTOCOL

>

> INITIALIZING LAUNCH PROTOCOL

> ENTER NAVIGATIONAL DATA

> 

< NEPTUNE SATELLITE RF

>

> NAVIGATIONAL DATA RECOGNIZED

> VERIFYING CONNECTION TO DOCKING CONTROLS

> VERIFIED

> LAUNCH PROTOCOL READY

> LAUNCH IN T-MINUS 5:00 MIN.

> CONFIRM LAUNCH COMMAND YES/NO?

>

< YES

>

> CONFIRMED

> IF USER SAFETY POD UNOCCUPIED BY T-MINUS 3:00 MIN. LAUNCH PROTOCOL WILL TERMINATE

>

< YEAH YEAH NOVA I'VE DONE THIS BEFORE

> 

> ERROR

> USER INPUT NOT RECOGNIZED

[plottingdaisies]

Fuck it I had a dream and got real excited about a new story idea so I'm gonna share the little bitty scenelet I wrote for it. This is definitely not Mass Effect, but I think you guys all know who I am by now I think. I don't care about keeping with the theme.

Anyways, working title (because I have to name everything I touch):

The Testament of Patience Goodweather

“Please, Patience, I beg of you, let me help you!” Thommen shouted into the forest. The world around him was lit only by his singular torch, jittering and leaping shadows cast against looming trees, gnarled giants that curled threateningly above him over the edge of the forest. Everyone knew it was folly to pass into the wood after dark, even the governor's own soldiers would not risk their lives.  And yet Patience had run into the low, snagged branches as if they were the comforting arms of a lover. The trail of blood left in her wake surely like a siren's call to whatever foul beasts lurked in the dark. He took a step forward, his toe brushing against a fern, the leaves curled around his boot and the tree above him groaned. This was not a place for men, especially without the protection of the sun’s light. “Patience!” he shouted again, hesitating. He would go in after her, knowing it would be the last any ever saw of him, but he prayed he need not. “Go home, Thommen!” Patience called shakily from the west. She sounded close, but he could not see her from his poor vantage point. It felt like the trees had moved in closer together to occlude his vision. She called back again, voice wracked by sobs, “You cannot save me from what I have done! Better it be that you pretend you knew me for a harlot and a warlock. They will spare you your life, but mine, they will not.” Thommen took another trembling step forward. The fern grew taught and snapped as he found a measure of resolve. “And what would my life be, without you in it, eh? Barren and sorrowful. If you must die, Patience, let us die together!” Two more steps, the ancient oak tree creaked and shifted but did not prevent his passage as he slowly moved towards where he heard her cries. “A better fate for our bodies to nourish the ground together, than for me to go on bearing your memory for the rest of my days.”

[plottingdaisies]

Dear Mrs. Cooper,

I was suprised to get a letter from someone from my mama's hometown. What with my family's rather sordid history there.

You do know what they say about me, right?

I was born of the union of my poor earthly mama and the Devil himself. They say he came to her in the wee twilight hours, promising a life away from toiling in the dirt and living off naught but rice and beans for her meals. They say mama took Old Scratch up on his offer to escape granddaddy's moonshine rages and grandmama's weeping spells, and in so doing, my mama, God rest her poor soul, doomed your little town proper.

That's what they say.

Some of them that's less spiritually inclined think pop was just a coal man, maybe even a railroad big wig looking to take up what land he could get his pristine, blood- covered hands on any way he could get it. The story changes based on whose mouth it comes from. Others take with the story that mama made a pact with Satan to save her own hide and leave the rest to rot by the wayside. The details are hazy, but all of them still spit after they say her name, like it tastes bad.

Well, they ain't all wrong. But they ain't all right, neither.

Don't know how he got his money. Could have been mining,  but there's an awful lot of iron that gets pulled from the ground in these parts for his kind's comfort. I thought settling mama's affairs was complicated, but dealing with his particulars is likely to send me to an early grave. In more ways than one.

That's the thing about it. What they don't say, don't know or don't care to know is that the matter is a little more complicated than that. Pops wasn't exactly human, but he wasn't the Devil himself, neither. Fond of games of chance he was, his shadow always looked wrong, like he was a good two feet taller than he actually was. His eyes reflected lantern light like a cougar in the night. He was just as dangerous too. But he wasn't the Devil. There's more than just God and the Devil out there, you know?

Mama didn't know any better. She didn't know anything other than good and bad men existed until much too late.

Ain't that the way of things? There's a perfectly good monster right there in the family portrait to blame for the state of things, but the finger gets pointed at the seventeen year old desperate not to suffer another beating, half starved, and in great need. Why blame the devil in disguise for using his tricks on a naive teenager when you can blame the woman? It's easier than looking someone who can fight back in his unnatural gleaming eyes. Imagine the kind of punch ol' Tennessee Phillips could pack and you can understand why it's easier to pick on little Edie Puck.

Not like she can come and speak in her own defense, anyhow. Well, not in the usual way. And no, not like them Fox sisters used to get up to back in the old days. I wasn't around then, but that medium business is all bunk. There's ways to talk to the dead, but it ain't pleasant. And it don't look like shaking tables and gauze shoved in your unmentionables.

It might not even be pop's fault that shit's gone sideways there, you know? From the outside, it looks like every other small town right now. There's even bread lines in the big city, if you believe the dreck they print in the papers.

But ... well, if what you say is true, it may very well be that daddy dearest left his mark on the town in more ways than stealing Edie away in the dark of the night. And it doesn't sit right with me to just leave it up to chance that what you're describing is just coincidence. The timing is peculiar, and knowing my luck, this falls under the particulars of managing dear old dad's estate, in a manner of speaking.

All of that being said, if you read all of that and still think it's a good idea to have the "Spawn of Satan" come and look into the frightening happenings around town, I'll come. Words don't hurt me none, but it won't do to put the good name of you and your husband at risk when you might be better off hiring a night guard at the farm to scare off the local hoodlum children.

If knowing that old bastard left me more than just his name don't dissuade you from hiring my services, and if knowing you're sure to get some sideways looks, especially from old Jody's kin, don't bother you, then I'll come look at things. Save your money. All I need's two square meals and a cot in the shed. Send your reply to the same address, and I'll be on my way before the next new moon.

Kindest regards, Tenny Puck-Phillips Supernatural Private Investigator