#I caved here's a whole page of these fuckers

[solarstices]

Oh hell naw gay rodents

[gonnalosemydougdimmadomedamnmind]

It's literally impossible to read bat fanfiction because it's all based off those ridiculous fanon tropes that spread like crazy and people take as fucking biblical!!!!! Dick was never a jerk to Jason when he was Robin- they got along because Dick is mature as hell and in one retelling- Jason was a jerk to him!! And when he came back as Red Hood he had literally not a single damn reason to treat Dick like shit! Not a damn one! But he did, didn't he? Cause he's the fucking asshole! How dare you make Dick grovel towards that bastard! Dick has only ever tried to help him! Reached out during his Batman run, over and over! Also- Dick never put Jason in Arkham with Joker just a few cells down???? What the fuck! The Joker and all those other fuckers had been broken out of Arkham by Black Mask already for like the whole run??? Jason went to Arkham after losing to Dick, and Gordon put him in there because One he fucking deserved it, Two the literal circumstances?? And at that point!! Arkham was fucking rehabilitated itself!! By Dick!!! Because Bruce had him go undercover there for real, and Dick was actually tortured there before he got out!! So Dick put in the work to get that shit in order to actually help people!!

Dick never chose Damian over Tim- Tim refused to engage with him over his grief, shut him out, and left of his own devices! He never told Dick his suspicions on why Bruce was alive, never! And Tim is not the one to bring Bruce back either, there's a whole team at that point! Dick learns Bruce is alive through tossing his 'dead' body into a pit and the body comes to life as a zombie. Tim didn't tell him shit! Tim is also not a little crybaby- Damian cutting his line was a fucking blip on the page, he was momentarily shocked, that was it! He put Damian on his Hit List, which is why Damian cut his line. And his first attempt at "murder" is just pushing Tim off the dinosaur statue in the cave, he didn't go all assassin on him! Also Dick wasn't even there the first incident and wasn't told about the second incident. Alfred is the one who gave Damian Robin and Dick accepted him because he saw that Damian needed help! He needed guidance! He didn't fucking fire Tim the way Bruce fired him, and fuck all of you for thinking that Tim or Jason or fucking anyone has more right over Robin than Dick Fucking Grayson! He tried to promote Tim and Tim walked off. How dare yall make Dick fucking grovel towards that bastard!!!

Jason did try to kill all three of them!! Why does everyone just gloss over that like what the fuck??? Why does he get a pass for every shitty thing he's done??? "Bad writing" stfu this is the same dude that without hesitation kills random criminals, people who deal drugs, do you know how many random ass people deal drugs??? Jason doesn't give a single shit about being his own type of hero or saving Gotham his own way, nor do the people think of him as their savior!! Are you people fucking delusional?? I saw a post that said citizens would trust Jason over CASS and I cannot Believe the hallucinations yall are seeing???

It is literally downright impossible to find fics about Dick or Damian or Cass or fucking any of them that doesn't include these literal bullshit fanon takes!!! It's impossible!!! This fandom sucks!!!! You don't even need to go buy the comics, all these popular takes have been debunked right here on tumblr!!!! Also Dick can do literally everything!! He's hypercompetent as hell, die mad about it!! Jason doesn't like Wonder Woman???? Where the fuck did that come from??? Wayne Family Adventures is not real!!! Those people could not BE more out of character!!! Look at Bruce for crying out loud!!! Yall know that man ain't act like that!

Edit: leaving this here in case anyone wonders what my hot take is towards this question I was asked: "have you considered tho, that fanon is more fun..."

Well of course fanon is more fun if you're a fan of Jason or Tim. Fanon actively caters towards those two pasty white boys. Fanon actively shits on Dick and Damian though. And for Dick? He literally never did that shit! It is all made up! It's literal character assassination?? But by the fans?? And for Damian? He was 10!!! He grew up as an assassin! He was actively trying to grow with Dick's help! How can yall see him as the bad guy?? And not the literal bad guy, (Jason), and the 17 teen year old who literally fought him back btw, (Tim), like old boy did not act victimized the way you people portray. And Jesus for Cass? Cass is just a prop in fanon. So what exactly about this should be fun to me? Like seriously.

[creation-help]

Okok !!! So recently I've been really into biology and dragons and I thought, hey, wouldn't it be sick to have some stuff about dragons in my world, I think I'll do that. And I did. Here it is <3

I've recently been rethinking about biology in Solar Years for some reason and animals and whatnot, and I figured "Hey, since dragons are real in this world, I should figure out their role in the pyramid of power", so I've decided to take a page outta the megaladon phenomenon and make them essentially predator hunters. Cuz, I don't know if you guys know this, but Megalodons were the biggest shark alive in the ocean, and there's a recent theory suggesting that to survive in an enviroment like that, they didn't target bigger prey animals, as that would drive the overall oceanic population down and inevitably end them, but rather predatory animals. So I'm using the same system for dragons in this world !

Deagons are instead classified as "huntorar", hunter of predators, they're massive organisms with both magical and biological control over their respective eco systems, ranging from the biggest winged rare fellas (Comandea Huntorar Draconis) to the smallest wingless common fellas (Commonis Huntorar Draconis), but since they have so many biological advantages and are unlike most other creatures, they're also severely nerfed in some other aspects- For example, there's not many dragons at all in one place. The chance of finding any major winged dragons in a continent is incredibly slim, their numbers cannot multiply without severe immigration to a common place and since most of the world is already occupied, there's no real set date or even place for them to go to. Breeding is also complicated as most dragons are female and deep within cave systems, with the male ones being smaller and just kinda hanging out in bodies of water. They spend 2/4s of the year asleep, and without all the specific nitty gritty in their diets its easy for some to get angry and go ravaging nearby towns.

There really is no solving that issue honestly, dragons are way too important for the ecosystem to be just hunted, and since most of the ones who end up breaking into villages are males anyway, its also punishable by law to harm them. So what have people taken to doing ?

Tame those fuckers, of course :)

For now its usually preferred that the only dragons to be tamed are small wingless ones, but there are many studies looking to move on to their winged counterparts for individual travel. They are most often utilized as big farm animals to carry stuff around, some smaller breeds are used for herding (and fun fact, they're usually accompanied by dogs and are immediately accepted as just another herding dog), and some are just there to scare off any other males that may try to get in the village.

And thats all i got <3

First of all I'm so glad to hear you doing something for your storyverse "Because it'd be so sick". Kisses your forehead /p (Also the way you referred to the dragons as "fellas" in the same breath as calling them latin(esque?) scientific names)

Ermagherd I've never heard of the megalodon theory that rocks (!!) frankly perfect for some sensible dragon lore!

All of this is so !!!!! *waves my hands around* yeah!! I'm really digging how you thought out the whole thing with living spaces and how societies would adapt and react to beasts like these, it's brilliant! I imagine dragon taming is a veeery high expertise task! Also them being used to scare off other invading male dragons is so clever, great touch! I'm wondering if the female dragons living deep underground would be a bother to miners? And minework in general. Do those ones ever get tamed? Or attempted to? They'd be magnificent mining companions, if it'd be reasonable to assume female dragons are well adapted to cave life and all of it's quirks and dangers. Also additionally since the males hang out in waters, would they be good swimmers and if so, tamed for seafaring or fishing tasks as well? How does their natural lifestyle of sleeping 2/4s of the year work in tamed dragons? Do the people just get em a nice spot and wait out the sleeby season?

Also very realistic that mega beasts like these would be few in numbers, since a large animal takes way more resources to just keep itself alive and well, and it'd be bad for all of them if they all hunted as prolifically as their dragonic hearts desire. ~Ecosystem stuff~

[deadrayg2mf]

The Dalwick Demon by Ashley Bennett

Um, I guess that's just how the image is going to show up then... sorry it kind of kills the normal format... anyways... I read this; it was another recommendation. This is one of those books where the review is no fun to read cause it's just "eh" and that's all there is to it.

This follows Iris who right off the bat is getting thrown into a deep cave accused of prostitution, thievery, and witchcraft - only two of which, she declares, are true. There she meets Selvyn, the Demon of Dalwick Cave. He is (what I'm sure is supposed to be impressive but leans more towards terribly ordinary) 6', with red skin, horns, and - for the first time in my monster fucker career, a beard. As Iris puts it, he's a perfect rendition of the devil, in looks that is.

Selvyn is very kind... I'm going to stop before I try and scrape the bottom of the barrel to try and enlighten these characters to you. This book is so fast paced that there really isn't a thing that sticks out from the plot, the characters, or anything other than how it's constantly moving forward and forward, and soon enough you're tripping over yourself trying to keep up with how fast this book is moving through this whole entire emotional escapade in 110 pages.

I like the premise and where it could go, I think the characters could be really good - the issue is that neither them nor you are given enough time with any of the elements to actually feel like something worthwhile was made of the very brief time you spend in each instance. To quote my trusted colleague, a best friend who got the short end of the stick and has to hear me ramble about every book I read, MIZZ TANKZ: "You're trying to build a story with great emotional prose, but you're not allowing any time to do it so it's like okay ?" Which is the best way to put it. Iris and Selvyn have issues, amazing, glorious, eat your heart out issues that I would love to see delved into and unpacked... instead they get a quick little blurb and there's no real payoff to it actually getting mentioned. It quite literally feels like "I deserve to be here as punishment for my mother's death.... (insert like one thing that someone says) ah yes, easy peasy I am healed and can move on" WHAT????

Anyways, it's a quick read if you need to kill some time but it's nothing that I would suggest putting in front of other books. It does have smut and that was pry the best part. 4/10

Would I read again? Maybe if it ever got reworked and fleshed out... otherwise no.

Would I recommend? If you need something to read quick and aren't too worried about being wowed, sure.

[thelordstears]

I think it’s time to show some lines and how much I’ve improved eh?

“ You see, we're all living our lives confined in this little, locked room, we store our thoughts here, our dreams, our doubts, our darkest confessions. But the right people come along with a key and find the real us quivering in a corner of ourselves we fear with all our fuckin' might. All of humanity fears. And so in the span of a blink life created death to separate what is bad, and what is good. “ - Shawn Werdelstein

“ I look deep into my eyes and I swear I can see her darkness flickering in my damn eyes, she took my heart in her murderous stride, flaying me of all my salvation, tellin' me I was nothin' more then livestock on her farm of delicacies and delights. “ - Lupin Rinderez

“In the end I was never really human in the eyes of those who hate me, was I? I was always a toy to those more wicked then I, and so I have rotted in a chest of forgotten dolls and stitched together souls lost to time." - Ingretta Shazowlla

“ Some men are born for prison. They're raised in a cell, and told this is all you can ever be, and when they finally scratch their way out of that prison, they start to get homesick, so they find themselves a new cell, a new Hell, a new home away from home. Chaos is peace ta the broken man. “ - Francis Killvawhile

“ Karma doesn't care about how small the sin was, she just reaps. “ - Scarla Scottaine

“ There's something foreign about an empty bed, something unfamiliar about holding my own hand, it's like love is a language we speak, and when it leaves us we can no longer speak the language of the loveless, because we're already native in the country of love. “ - Finn Desandra

“ The darkness of my past caught up to me and killed the kind pure hearted man I thought I'd forever be, I was always doomed to become a reflection of my father. But with these bloodied and cracked pieces of me I'll bleed him with broken pieces of his reflection. “ - Alviro Conritz

“Isn't it funny? How men and women alike will pull a trigger on another when faced with a gun at their own heart, held steady in the hand of a man who never misses?” - Remington Burlwitz

“ I am Eve luring Adam to his fate.” - Belle Nalroma

“ I am a grave of fireflies and ravens whom head out to war, a wolf of death and anguish that drove me to madness. Don't you call me a freak, I'm just a little bit different, my mind is an eternal state of flickering emotion and madness that has never left me be. In truth the firing of this rifle is the only thing that keeps me alive, it is the beating of my heart and the howl in my soul, so dare you fire back with pieces of your heart shattered in the bullets? “ - Luther Woolhaun

“ I feel like a blank slate that's always re-written. “ - Wendell Ace

"I look at who I am with judgmental eyes.” - Earl Mumford

“ Believe the tales of dead men, they have a perspective like no other. “ - Earl Mumford

“ Stepping up to me ain't a fucking war, it's an execution disguised as such. “ - Saul Northutt

“ Decaying and gentle I shall be lain to rest as the Devil the world mourned. “ - Jonkiv Kramteil

“ Look, the truth is a hard pill to swallow, but swallow it you will. “ - Simon Rossburg

“ I'm a killer and a cheat, if my dagger is unstained remember, there's etches of lives lost on the handle, do you really wanna become another scar on the wood of my blade? “ - Killgrove Butcher

“ Mercy is a surefire way to meet God, so I sling an old club wrapped in barbed wire over my shoulder and watch the river spill crimson. “ - Olivia Juarez

"They call kindness weakness, so I must be the strongest bitch in town.” - Olivia Juarez

“ My wrath comes down like a cold rain of daggers when faced with the wicked, if they ain't ready to die then they best fucking prepare for it, cause those who use the powerless as a simple stepping stone to Heaven don't deserve the breath in their damn lungs. “ - Lucille Ramaswami

“ That man, that wicked fuckin' man, 'e's an old vulture sittin' atop the Church waitin' for the holy ta fall down the steeple, 'e swoops down and picks their bones 'a love, 'a holiness, 'a morality. And den, the holy become the damned. “ - Maxwell Soderstrom

“ The Devils and snakes in the grass should fear the gardener with his shovel ready to bury the pests." - Guarva Plucker

“ Don't call me your hero, cause heroes don't kill good men." - Al Hunderson

  "Brother, there's somethin' sinister brewin' in the bones of humanity, has been since the Neanderthals huddled in caves, lighting fires underneath the murky walls of a place they could call home. I'm afraid you're gonna have to be a little more specific." - Roman Hemlock "Ya can always spot the little, tinges of darkness in the bad man's eye, the little seams of pain that follows 'em." - Sandro Colorfeid

"I slither and slide into the darkness, a basilisk hiding in shadow and sin, biting into the forbidden fruit of Eden with glee and cruelty flickering in my snake likes eyes." - Vexine Hatchet

"I stood with blood on my hands and a snarl on my lip. It was from that moment on, Nico no longer were." - Nico Litchenfels

“ I'm a cutthroat fucker with his heart bared open and cruel on his trench jacket's sleeve. “ - Nico Litchenfels

"I stood like a question never asked, and then before I had the chance to give myself an answer in the echoes of my insanity, she smiled and asked who I was." - Zachariah Rinderez

"I have died a thousand times, Minerva. But you make me want to live again." - Simon Drogace

"I'm not lucky enough to be me." - Simon Drogace

“Do you ever feel like, your mind is a hammer?” - Simon Drogace

"He stood there, like a wicked omen of what never should've been, a testament to all humanity tried to kill." - Neal Marrows

"Losing yourself is a game no one can win." - Neal Marrows

"You know me, just a grave of who I was, grasping the soil wondering why it always slips between my fingers." - Sam Dellwotfire

"Someone once asked me what life before war was like, and truthfully, I've never known." - Hunter Creasey

"You spend your whole life under the shadow of death it starts to become you, and as you let the light it in, as you let your heart burst in seams of color and little figments of love and joy, that's when the shadow casts itself over you the longest. As soon as you start to live, death comes on by to greet you as if she were an old friend, and as I live through the essence of love and peace, I can see a smile filled with the lost lives of all whom ever walked greeting me on a road all too familiar." - Hunter Creasey

"I'm the mad man's greatest friend, but in the eyes of the sane, in the eyes of all whom stand against cruelty, I'm a weapon, an atomic bomb that'll level the city of peace to dust." - Moores Thomas

"It is in madness and grief we find who we really are. So who's to say humanity was supposed to live in peace? After all, even our mind tells us things we could never dream of with intrusive thoughts, and in the end some of us succumb to the darkness every single mind brews." - Moores Thomas

"You see, madness starts with a small seed the human race calls trouble, it comes in many different variants, some get in very small dosages all their lives. But mad men get a taste of trouble long before they know what the word means." - Moores Thomas

"The way I see love, it's an interesting sort of medicine. One moment it stitches together the loose threads of your heart, and in the very next it unravels you like a spool of thread." - Cornelius Combs

"I walked into the Church only to be spat out, falling down the sinner's steeple coughing up bloodied pieces of my faith." - Takizen Fruivein

"Challenging what I've become is a fools game, and my friend, I am no fool." - Allinza Harzvi

"Humanity is not inherently kind, everything we've seen, and everything we are, is proof of that testament." - Allinza Harzvi

"We are never in the same boat, we are in the same storm, facing life's darkness with different privilege's." - Caldvain Lucelo

"You know, someone once told me you have control over your own mind, but as it drifts away from me as smoke in the dying embers of a midnight wildfire, does that statement still hold true?" - Harvin Scoviney

"God does not help. He observes." - Victor Da Ville

“ You can't explain what evil means without mentioning the feared name of Cassidy Vanderberg. “ - Cassidy Vanderberg

“ I'm a hero, and I know, it's a heroes curse to go down in history, shooting her glory through the chamber of a revolver, leaving the world with the gunfire smoke of her gun, but so be it man, so fucking be it. “ - Miella Fang

“ Tragedy runs through my veins like the blood I bleed.” - Harkman Burtrow

“ You can run your hands through these cracked and yellowed pages, wondering when I lost my mind, but you won't find any answers in my chapters. “ - Mortelo Vonenwoft

“ ”You ever feel there’s jus’ this empty box where your heart’s supposed ta be? I've shoved all my monsters in this box, my addictions, my anxiety, the thoughts that don't go away. But sometimes, the box starts ta open, and I can't even push the door back, cause I'm too busy with this ghost followin' me like a yappin' chihuahua. “ - Isadore Rast

“ Everyone is always sayin' you're strong, for fightin' past that hurt, but am I? I didn't fight, I fuckin' stumbled, I fell, it wasn't just a battle, it was a god damn war I still wage. The gunfire echoes and cocaine ghosts will never leave me be, cause I made the mistake of losin' myself ta the bad side of life, and I just can't forgive myself for that kinda shit. “ - Isadore Rast

“ I'm not a recoverin' addict, I'm just a fuckin' ghost. “ - Carrigan Hopva

“ I met myself on a dead end street, she looked distraught, with chunks of hair missing, cigarette on her lip, trying to light a match in the rain, eyes troubled with memories of what would be. She told me to keep my enemies close, cause god damn, they were everywhere, but she never told me I'd be standin' in a house of mirrors. “ - Rain Morvosina

“ I tell myself, I could've done better, I could've saved the circus, but truthfully, not a single man can stop fate in its tracks, he would become another splatter on her railroad within a series of seconds and terrible events. “ - Bortosley Velltwo

“ I'm guilty ‘a first degree, of lil ol' me." - Howard Wraith

“ Oh mum if ya could see me now, sinnin' on the other side 'a paradise lookin' for reasons ta stain me teeth the color of me jacket. “ - Davy Blight 

“ I ain't the poor lil' boy who shot at 'is brother with orange capped revolvers and plastic swords, mate, I'm the real fuckin' deal. This venom 'a trouble and sin flows like blood in me veins, corruptin' the essence 'a who I fuckin' was. “ - Davy Blight

“ I'm the darkness your mother says ta stray away from, the boogeyman ya're mum tells ya snatches away naughty boys and girls in the dead 'a night, and worst of all mate, I'm Lind fuckin' Blight, bastard son of the seas. “ - Lind Blight

“ I'm just old honey whiskey sitting on the shelf gathering dust and mildew, locked in this little cabin of darkness and decay, wondering why no one cares to pop open my cork and let this darkness and mold spill to the soil of a freshly dug grave. “ - Roxane Vanderberg

“ I met her in a garden 'a roses, and there she stood as the only thorn. “ - Kayella Wisp

“ I've gunned bad men down on the streets, cackling and sinful they died, cruel and wicked they lived. “ - Hoshino Akinori

“ I once went into an old confession booth, sins sat heavy at my shoulder, salvation far off as it always seemed to be, and as that preacher listened to my darkest secrets I was sure he would damn me. But he told me salvation is for all, and that God loves whosoever follows the path of the righteous. “ - Erika Vans

“ I used ta live with one foot in the grave, wondering when the hell I'd become my last name, but then I met a wise man in the woods and found myself once again. Sometimes, we're lost, and we don't even know it. So I think destiny sends us a Messiah to lead the way ta who we are, and as Pennington took my hand in the darkness, I knew I'd found who I am past all this trouble. “ - Alonzo Graves

“ I traverse this labyrinth of my heart and soul, trying to find myself in the midst of all this trouble, but these mirrors are starting to look like enemies, and this maze is starting to become a prison cell. “ - Andre Jollows

“ Deep in my soul is the sound of war calling me home, and death whispers in my bones that she wishes to hold me close as I fade gently into the stars, but I sigh strapping my boots on in the morning, putting this old gas mask on my face and facing another venomous day. For I am a curse, wondering where my blessings went." - Max Caldiph

“ If my heart were a painting, it would be a starless night sky, the trees wilted, stripped of their leaves standing as threadbare omens of the bones etched in darkness that hold me up and the roses would be black, decaying with some dead scent of mercy burning whosoever walks into this garden of death's nose. “ - Apollos Quinn

“ Who I am ain't even me, he's just someone I've been for too long.” - Drew Dreadful

“ I died halfway to Heaven and too close ta Hell. “ - Dylan Huffers

“ I was living a life of trouble and cigarette smoke, chasing lies as if I were just a harmless little kitten, batting my hands at another yarn ball, always wondering why it ran away from me, but as my mother held me in a gentle embrace and showed me the way to paradise, I found out that it's better to be you then somebody else. “ - Scottie Bloodvallo

“ My mama once told me sometimes you gotta fall and stumble to learn who you are, because it's as trouble and peace wage war that we discover who's side we're on, and as those old foes grabbed their rifles and loaded their cannons, I came to realize I never wanted trouble to become who I am. So I picked up my guns and fired a couple rounds of peace into my head. “ - Marty Thievekit

“ You wanna run with the wolves, but brother you're sparrin' with chihuahuas, ya wanna play with the big boys, but you're frolicking in a garden full of gnomes and fairies, you wanna go knuckle to knuckle with your demons, but brother you surround yourself in angels. Do you really expect to kill a man while you're swingin' plastic blades and firin' bullets from a cap gun? “ - Walton Burke

"The truth will always sound like a lie to he who doesn't want to admit he's wrong. “ - Stewart Astoria

“ I'm tied up and tangled in the webs of madness, cackling at the midnight sky as these bastards try to fire bullets of sanity my way. But god damn baby, I'm bullet proof. I take what I want when I want it, so as I slam these bullets of madness into the echoed chamber of my revolver and put a few holes in my mind do you think it'll be me seepin' through the corners of this old mental ward, or will the ground pool crimson with my sanity? Guess there's no way of knowin' til I pull this trigger, sanity and purity spilling like crimson ink in my mind. “ - Ares Malstone

“ Forevermore I shall stand as a threadbare omen of the unholiest parts of mankind, drifting away from myself like the wildfire smoke of a dying confession.” - Alastair Sambridge

“ My mother once stared me dead in the eye and said I was not so holy, one day I would sputter up all the pieces of me and succumb to the Devil inside, and I must say, the old wicked witch was right. My father told me I was just a sin, drifting forevermore into the midnight sky, and as I pulled the trigger upon a battlefield I came to realize fate vows for promises made by wicked people. So by God, I vow to die, I vow to choke on these holy pieces of me and sputter up my dying breath. “ - Alastair Sambridge

“ Who I am is such a far cry from who I was, if you looked at a photograph of me at ten years old you wouldn't recognize the eyes that smile, for as you look into the cracked lenses and into my eyes, it is not me you find. But rather, it is the insanity that swam in Calzell's eyes when I met him." - Ackilzo Thyme

“ My mother once told me that rage whispers into the ears of the broken that they deserve nothing more then this unsteady heart beat of broken bottles and cracked knuckles, but it's the ever smiling lip of peace that brings the sorrowed man back to himself. So I oughta wonder why peace keeps on scowlin' at me. “ - Varvaina Escobar

“ It seems it is the nature of humanity to point blame at those who are howling with regret, love beating empty in an open chest. “ - Sarkelus Johnson

“ Sometimes, life just fades before your eyes and ya don't have enough time to catch it, so you slowly drift away from it yearning for the gentle touch of death. But you know what? We all need a hero every once and awhile, and as Barbara lays her head against my chest, dancing her fingers across my shoulders and cheek, I think I damn well found my hero. “ -Rob Percstand

“ I don't wanna die with dreams, I wanna die with memories, man. “ - Revie Scollinew

"In the outback of Montana my tale began in crimson stained history. I look to my aunts and uncles and see murder deep inside of their hearts, but they should've thought twice before taking my heart in their rough hands, for there is something dark that's brewing inside of me, and if I were them, I would start looking underneath the bed for monsters." - Enoch Avoxin

"There's a certain truth, to madness." - Zachariah Rinderez

"Hold honor close to your heart and you'll end its beat." - McKormick McReavey

"You know, everybody says, this won't happen to me, I'm just your average everyday person, collecting my paycheck, paying my bills, living my day to day life just like everybody else. But what we seem to forget is that we're all normal people, we're all just a little bit average enough to stand out. And when these tragic things do happen to us, we stand in a stunned silence our whole world falling apart, and all we can utter is, "This can't be happening to me." - Ray Burzfoll

"If I could strip the emotion from my mind I fear I would do so in a heart beat." - Wyatt Demouchett

"Love comes and goes but power drifts on by and stays." - Dastallio Sanchez

"Darkness has intertwined itself within my heart sputtering the light from out my throat." - Cornelius Shmackelstein

“I am not myself, so what the fuck am I?" - Coraiza Scotchfuel

"Living in reality is the most cruel form of torture for a mad man." - Draven Scotchfuel

"It is as if she makes my black and white heart burst with some form of color it's never seen." - Armello Vanrick

"Perhaps it was always a mirror hiding inside of my closet." - Julie Forkroad

"The world went dark before it fell, we were just playing a waiting game." - Brooke Bergmeir

"I've got more fighting days left than you have years." - Maximo Guanch

"If everything exists, nothing does, really." - Arthur Wellburn

[babybunnyboy1]

Lil bit of da back story for my character Bunny. lmao black market shenanigans

Bunny let out a whimper, the small glass cage he was held in was too tight. His tentacles had a hard time fitting in the small space. He felt cramped, his back and tentacles ached with the constant squeeze he had to push on himself. The aquarium he was pushed into was much too small, and he felt awful.

He couldn’t get out.

Bunny sighed, his glow illuminating the room for his sensitive eyes to see. He saw weird metal trinkets, weird objects. The weirdest thing was a leather-bound fragile coral thingy. At least, Bunny thinks it’s coral.

As the witch flipped the pale-colored pages he stared. What is that weird object?

The witch sighed, opening the leather materials on the table another witch wheeled the aquarium. “I don’t have enough straps. Hey, these pages are wet- Dude did you drop some coffee on this book?”

"Y-yeah... Sorry. Oh, there are more straps on the table."

"Oh good, then we have enough. Just shove that thing on the table I wanna get started."

The second witch frowned. “W-we can’t harvest the ink without making it unable to move… this particular species is very delicate and very sensitive to pain.”

The first witch groans. “Ugh... I know. Royal jellies and all that.”

“Jellies?”

“Royals aren’t born, they’re raised specifically for their purpose. To be pretty. It’s what makes them valuable. This royal is what- less than 22? A royal this size is young… Have you even paid attention to your Dad’s class?” the first witch seemed annoyed.

The second one spoke softly. “I fell asleep during illegal black market marine class…” He mutters.

“Well pay attention now. We can’t kill this fucker, otherwise, this thing is useless. Royal Squid ink is super expensive, a whole stack of emeralds a bottle.”

The male witch stared, eyes wide. “A whole stack..” he fixed his gloves.

“Just be lucky that guy didn’t know anything at the market. A live specimen is worth millions.” She pulled out a tentacle, inspecting. “Good shape… Suckers work… A very well-kept specimen at that.”

The younger witch let out a sigh, staring into the small tank. “Isn’t he uncomfortable?”

“Miguel..”

“I mean it! If he’s such a fine specimen, one that is worth millions, but you got for half a stack, shouldn’t we try to take care of him?” Miguel said, standing straight. “R-right..? Juliet?”

Juliet sighed. “I mean… yeah… But we have to make sure it’s healthy first. Gender check, health check, make sure it wasn’t a fake, and milk it.”

Miguel stared. “M-milk-“

“The ink, Miguel. Think outside of your pants for twenty minutes… Just help me get it restrained onto the table.” Bunny whined and curled up tighter.

“Outside of the water?”

No… “Yes outside of the water. I can’t inspect his skin in that small tank…” Juliet sighed and turned around.

Miguel sighs and reaches into the tank, his leather gloves protecting his hands from Bunny’s teeth roughly digging into his hands. he held him down, face down onto the bed as Juliet started strapping down his body.

“Hold him down, Miguel.”

“I am Juliet! He keeps fucking.. Wriggling…” He lifts his head, letting out a noise of protest.

Juliet felt her heart squeeze for a heartbeat before yanking the belt tighter. He went to his tentacles, Miguel followed and used his body weight. Belt after belt, Bunny was held down.

Bunny laid, wriggling face down. Manuel adjusted his head for him, his body still yanking around.

“The skin looks fine… This glow pattern is very unique. Unsymmetrical… Right hip to the left shoulder in a nice pattern…” Bunny could feel Juliet’s gloved hands on his skin. “Very nice texture... Healthy there… I am worried about these scars though…” He wanted her to stop.

“Scars?”

“Look. Looks like something bit the shoulder here and," she paused to point to a different location, "here.”

“I see now," He paused, frowning as he took a moment to think. "Do glow squids bite each other?”

Juliet shrugs, fixing his gloves and taking a few tools. “Unsure… The bites are not from its kind of species I think." she used her quill to point to his hands. "Look, your glove marks from it trying to bite.”

Bunny could hear shuffling. “Ah… they don’t match…”

”Whatever bit it had a lot more sharp teeth and a different mouth shape than this species…Needle teeth maybe.” Bunny didn’t like this theory but went still as the female witch began to inspect his body. “You think we can try to breed it?” Bunny could feel his blood go cold. “No… so small… Probably not mature enough.”

“Small? That thing is quite literally 5 feet tall if we had it stand up.” Bunny shifted to see Manuel crossed his arms.

Juliet sighed and got out a measuring tape. “Actually, it is… 5’5 or less?.. and I think it is a he..." She paused, reading the tape with a hum. "Max 5’5. even so, I’m only measuring until mid tentacles because he can’t be on his tippy tentacles. It’d be unstable.”

“How are you sure it’s a he?”

Juliet stared at her cohort, eyes squinting and nose scrunching in a sort of disgusted matter. "Not answering that...” She mumbles, hands grabbing and feeling his tentacles. Bunny wanted to escape at this moment… “But I can tell he must be a juvenile.”

“N…not…”

Both witches went quiet, staring at the creature before them in shock.

“N-no… no grow… anymore… me…” His voice was hoarse from misuse. He didn’t want to sing any longer than before. He hated to speak now. It hurt.

“That thing just… spoke… didn’t it…?” Miguel could only nod to Juliet, his eyes trained on the creature strapped to the table.

“Dry…”

Miguel slowly and gently splashed the glow squid, eyes wide. “We-we… If Simpleton finds this guy we’re so fucked…”

Juliet glares. “Dude… that guy? That guy who ratted me out to my mom about me drinking at that party?!”

There was a knock. Three knocks, slow. Before a gentle rattle.

“Manuel.” She sighs, holding her head. “I’ll get your brother. Maybe he and his ocelot got to get fish for the squid…”

Bunny went still, looking up at Miguel as his constantly drying skin gets wetted by the buckets of water.

Miguel frowns then uses a rag to cover his face. “Stop pouting at me… I’m trying to keep you alive long enough to make enough emeralds to drive Simpleton to the dirt..” He mutters.

Bunny lets out a whine, looking down and pouting. He whines again, The door creaks open. He can hear footsteps.

“Wow- that thing’s bigger than I thought it’d be.” He hears an unfamiliar voice speak. He sighs and closes his eyes. The water feels good on his back, but the edges of his tentacles were starting to hurt.

“Lower…” he whispers, his voice quiet. Manuel gently pours over his tentacles, Bunny sighs in relief. “Thank you.”

“Holy fuck…”

Juliet speaks again, annoyed. “We know. Manuel I’m done checking on him. Stick him in the well.”

“You want to throw something we got out of the ocean into a freshwater well?” Manuel stops, staring at Juliet. The rag drops into the ground.

Juliet scoffs. “I had Daddy renovate it. It’s got fish and coral and shit. It’d be like the cave they found him in!”

“That doesn’t make it ethical…”

She paused for a moment as if wondering if the man was just being stupid for a moment. "Miguel, we bought him from a stupid poacher. Just throw him in. And Miguel, throw codfish in too. That thing might be hungry.”

Miguel sighs and dumps a few buckets down a hole. Bunny struggles, moving away from Manuel as he and Juliet slowly unstrap him. Once freed, he tries to get up, wobbling and shifting before Miguel grabs him by his chest, pulling him. “N-no-no-“

“Sorry.” Manuel mumbles, Miguel shared a look with his twin brother. Both of them hated this but felt obligated to help Juliet.

Juliet sighed. “Just throw him in. And don’t let him waste his ink. We need it.”

Miguel and Manuel watch as Bunny is dropped into the well. It’s pretty deep, but not so deep that they couldn’t get their new property out without tools.

Juliet sighed as she watched the squid swim in his new habitat, taking the already killed codfish with him to eat lower in the pool of water.

[kariachi]

This is it y’all, a day literal months in the coming- here and now I shall liveblog Dragon’s Kin, by Anne and Todd McCaffrey. By which I mean I will read Dragon’s Kin and take note of anything interesting, valuable, or just that comes to my mind. I have never read this book, it’s still in the plastic packaging it came in, I have never read a Todd book.

We’ll see if I survive.

Before I even open the damn thing, I am looking at the image of the McCaffreys on the back and let me say they look like they should be villains in a comedy western.

A Pass brings with it increased earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic activity, due to the whole ‘other celestial body coming in hot’ thing. Which actually makes a lot of sense, certainly more than anything else relating to Threadfall. (“charred bone” is this a fungus or a wildfire)

“Under the leadership of the Lord Holders and Weyrleaders-” *screams into aether*

It took until 16 years prior to the 3rd Pass for the Northern Continent to run out of surface coal and have to start actually digging for the shit

Everybody: Whers? Bah, not much to them, not good for much. Journeyman Miner Natalon: But consider, they might be awesome MasterMiner Britell: Hmmm, I’m keeping an eye on this one...

Chapter 1: “In early morning light I see: A distant dragon come to me”

We meet our main character, Kindan. His sister is getting married, good for her. Shame about the plot that’s going to happen later.

Having a watchwher gets you private housing. Also aw, the wher took their name from Kindan’s father that’s so sweet.

This just in, two boys can’t hang with dragons, settle instead for the simple pleasure of watchwher washing

Zenor: Dragons look like they’re soft, not like watchwhers Kindan: Bitch-

So our biggest asshole so far is a Tarik and honestly I’d be sending him back to the Hall with a nice long report of exactly how much of a fuckwit he is. And I’ve only known him a few pages.

And we meet the other major character- Nuella- who is apparently Somebody though who we have no idea

Oh gods Kindan’s mother is dead, his sister is marrying and leaving, and his father and Dask’s fates are in the fucking summary. Boy is about to have a time.

He has brothers! Well thank fuck.

Whers have external ears

Also I have only known Dask for two paragraphs but I love him

“Then Dask gave a little happy chirp, flapped his wings once, and vanished.” Whers can between, alone and from the ground. Apparently Dask does it all the time go he can avoid the lights from the camp.

Dask is brown, I was figuring but nice to know

Kindan, assuming dragons are harder to wash because they’re fucking massive and need oiling and shit (whers, the dragonkin for the common working fucker)

Chapter 2: “It’s skin is bronze, it’s eyes are green; It’s the loveliest dragon I’ve ever seen”

Damn Kindan’s family is a mess, his brothers are all dicks, his sisters are supposeldy dicks but we haven’t seen them, and the only decent fuckers are leaving or dying

Kindan’s Sister: Kaylek, my brother who loves to sing but couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, you shall sing at my wedding Master Harper: Over my dead body he will!

Kindan’s siblings may be shit, but he’ll be damned if he allows them to talked bad about by some non-relative and he’s stubborn as a wher himself about it

Am I reading a fucking fairytale film? The new Harper is a dick until he realises ‘oh wait, this kid isn’t complete shit, I shouldn’t have said the seriously horrible things I did’

(Seriously “to think your mother died giving birth to you”, I want Dask to eat him too)

Well it’s nice to see that the ‘whers fly at night because the air is thicker’ thing is only speculation by people with no fucking teachings with regard to that shit. At least so far.

Kindan really just went on a paragraph long internal monologue about the value of miners to the function and survival of Pern and for all he doesn’t in his heart want to be one I kinda want to see him grow into it now. Stories of stepping away from what’s expected of you and forging your own path are great (I’ve been writing some) but stories of falling in love with what before looked like something to be avoided can also be nice.

And now we get a two paragraph internal monologue about how awesome whers are. Best miners ever.

“Traditionally, the marriage ceremony was performed in the morning, timed so that as the couple completed their marriage vows, the sun would rise, signifying the warmth of the new relationship and how it would lighten not only the bride and groom but also all those associated with them.” Awwww!!!!

“However, such a ceremony would mean Dask could not attend. So Jofri had come up with the idea of performing the ceremony with the setting sun, instead, and lighting a bonfire as the final vows were made.” Awwwwwww!!!!!!!

For all the shit you hear and see relating to whers in earlier and later periods (that they’re ugly, and disliked, and kept chained up)  it’s so nice to see Dask truly be part of the family, so much so that they changed the fucking wedding to accommodate him. I want this to be the tradition of handler families now. And then we have to remember that one of the other handlers for the camp straight up fucking left because Tarik was being a dick to his wher and he wasn’t having it. Yes, give me wher love.

Oh my gods Dask flying about with a glow in his claws to act as a spotlight as his handler’s daughter walks down the aisle this is so sweet!

And he’s singing along to the music!

He’s doing the groom too! Dask is a gift!

“For now that these two are one, we are all more,“ Master Zist intoned. He placed Silstra’s hand in Terregar’s and kissed each lightly on the cheek. “To Terregar and Silstra!”

The crowd stood up and roared back: “To Terregar and Silstra!”

“Long life and happiness!” Master Zist intoned.

“Long life and happiness!” the crowd roared back.

Kindan and Nuella officially meet.

Nuella, taking advantage of Kindan not wanting to get given chores on this the night of his sister’s wedding and her own presumed misbehavior to get him to keep her well away from any authority.

Nuella is sheltered as fuck, she hasn’t even seen a mashed potato before

Ah, she’s the twin of the big boss’s son. Don’t know why she’s being so fucking hidden I mean good fuck, but, at least we know who she is.

Aw, Zenor is her bestfriend. Not that she has many options but still

Seven fucking brothers! And an unknown number of sisters! No wonder their mother died having the last one, she birthed at least nine surviving children! Do you know how many she’d have had to have to get those numbers? Was she born pregnant, wtf?

Chapter 3: “Watch-wher, whatch-wher in the night; Guard our Hold, keep it right; When the morning sun does come; Watch-wher, then you job is done”

Aw, Kindan’s relationship with the his brothers is healing

Also Zist is a fucking taskmaster. He gets results but damn, man, chill.

The big boss’s son is apparently a sickly child

Dask has been in A Mood which is a never a good sign when you’re talking about your security critter

Miners’ children all just ‘it’s too quiet, something is wrong’ like they’re fucking birds. Not that they’re wrong, mind, but still

Welp, bad air was released and sparked before Dask could warn the miners (I assume a pocket got opened as somebody else struck some stone) and now we’ve got a cave-in. Dask got out and is now killing himself trying to rescue the miners.

Damn his father and his brothers in one day. And Dask fucking dying in his arms after managing to save the survivors despite bleeding out with his handler dead (which, even if whers can outlive their handlers he had to have felt, he’s dragonkin he’d have noticed the bond breaking, he was doing this despite knowing that he wouldn’t find Danil alive on the other side. Was he this dedicated to his work, was he hoping to save Danil’s boys, we’ll never know).

Pour one out for Danil, who did his damnedest to take care of his children, and for Dask, who was too damn good for us.

Zenor survived, but his father is also dead. He and Kaylek saved the poor boy’s life in exchange for their own. Gods the last thoughts that must’ve been going through that man’s head, as he realized that the mine was collapsing and he had brought his son in with him despite him not being near old enough...

Seriously y’all I’m crying

Chapter 4: “I am too big to cry; And my voice is too shy; To sing my sad, sad song; Or say the words I long; To say to you- good-bye, good-bye.”

The book says Kindan is the youngest of nine. It also says he has seven brothers and plural sisters. And the sisters at least lasted long enough to give him shit growing up. The book lies to me.

Okay so, Kindan’s got two siblings remaining- Jakris and Tofir- one of whom has been fostered to I think a sister of theirs? Kindan doesn’t note who ‘Terra and her husband’ are otherwise so I assume it’s another older sister and another of which has been fostered to Crom Hold where he’ll be learning art and maybe someday mapmaking. Kindan is still in the camp.

Zenor wants to take over his dad’s role of miner like boy you are ten stop

Ah, Kindan wants to stay.

If somebody would light Tarik on fire please? Especially given that he’s sitting here claiming the mining will be better without them when it’s already been stated that the shift with a wher gets more ore out of the ground per shift than the the others because the wher itself is a fantastic digger.

Zist: We need someone to raise Kindan Natalon: So good of you to volunteer Zist: o.o

Nobody likes Tarik, good, send the man back to Crom, let them deal with his ass.

And more confirmation that Kindan has sisters, I really need this book to make up it’s mind

Nuella is upset she’ll have to avoid the Harper’s cottage with Kindan living in it

Zist: If I’m going to raise this child then damnit I’m making him a harper

We’re getting much character stuff but not much actually interesting

Chimney got clogged at the big boss’s house, Kindan managed to save the lot by coming by and noticing, the existence of Nuella is now known to him.

Kindan can keep a secret, he is taking  to harpering well

Mine’s having a lot of minor accidents

And now big boss’s wife’s baby is coming early, these fuckers just cannot catch a break

Nuella and her brother switching places back and forth so she can be involved in shit. Also she has some mind for healing

Zist had a daughter at one point- Carissa. Nice name

Also the baby is fine, a month early but fine. She doesn’t have a name yet, I will keep y’all updated

Chapter 5: “A baby’s cry, a mother’s sigh; Sweet things make a day go by”

Zist, having Kindan run around the camp telling adults what they need to do: It’ll be an interesting challenge for you Kindan, Telling the big boss that Zist offered to do his administrative work: He said it would be an interesting challenge for him

Oh shit Nuella is blind! Honestly, fucking slow clap for not making a big deal of it so far

The Traders have women of rank. I know this is a second Interval story but still, worth noting. Shit hasn’t gone completely to shit for the women yet

Nuella is having a crisis because she has no information including on things like ‘women don’t have to bake or be mothers, there are in fact options’. All of this is not helped by her mother stressing out about whether little Larissa is going to go blind like her sister did. Apparently shit went downhill when she was three and now her life is stress and isolation.

Okay, so Natalon’s mother was blind, and now his daughter is blind, and he’s trying to hide it from everybody for fear people are going to think there’s something wrong with him and will stop working with them and that nobody will want to marry his son. He’s given up on Nuella marrying. I want to smack him and adopt his children out to good homes.

Kindan, age 11, starting to realize girls can in fact be cute

Also they’re disguising her so she can play at the ‘yay there’s finally some new company for a few days’ Gather

Even Tarik’s fucking cronies don’t like him!

Nuella’s parents and brother are aware she’s there. No scene will be made.

Nuella getting to dance while Zist chides Kindan about not setting up his also 11-yo friends. “They’re too young to match, and you’re too young to be a matchmaker.”

Ooo, the mysterious missing 8th apprentice was a wherhandler and decided fuck that noise. Can’t blame him, I wouldn’t want ot deal with Tarik either

The assumption is he’d rather face his master’s wrath than work there, which peeps nothign that they’d all rather die than face their own masters’ wraths, and the noting that he may well have been worried about losing his wher to all this shit. Which makes sense with how hostile Tarik has made the place for them

Chapter 6: “Cromcoal, Cromcoal, burning bright; Warm the cold of winter’s night; Cromcoal Cromcoal, underground; Where the best of all coal’s found”

They are calling a dragon to take them to someone called Aleesa for, presumably, a wher egg. We are nearly halfway through this book, by the way, which is a little fucking late to finally be bringing in the wher egg but sure, fine.

Aleesa is the handle or a gold wher. Apparently the title for that is Master. So you get Weyrwomen and Whermasters. That’s pretty cool.

Kindan sees a dragon take note of the ‘we need a dragon’ flag and “Zist listened appreciatively and guided him to crafting a better tale, so that by the end of a sevenday, Kindan’s story took a full fifteen minutes to tell and left all eyes peering up to the sky, hoping for a glimpse of their own.”

Zist has Timed It before. Apparently he accidentally spooked a dragon hatchling when he was younger and they Impressed his friend and at some point he timed it to go back and help himself fix the damage the panicked bronze did. A bronze whose rider is now a Weyrleader, by the by. He’s figuring if it seems like they’ll miss their meeting to get the egg then hopefully they can Time It to get there on time.

Telgar Weyrleader D’gan shows up a week late, bitches about it not being an emergency, talks shit about everybody and everything, is lucky to leave with his life (I’d have killed him). Zist is, I assume, about to call Benden to actually get shit done.

“So, Kindan, what did you think of your first look at a dragon?” “Oh, they’re pretty enough, but you’d never fit one in a mine.”

Benden Weyrleader M’tal, being a proper fucking dragonrider who understands what his fucking duties are, is going to get shit done

People out here respecting whers and their importance, you love to see it.

Chapter 7: “Watch-wher, watch-wher in the mine; Help save life, yours and mine; Guide us in the darkest night; With your keen unfailing sight”

Gaminth reassuring Kindan as they travel Between.

“-to keep the hatchling warm until it’s second, tougher coat came in” Do, do whers shed their skin like birds molt baby fluff? Start with soft wherlet skin and then shed that for tough wher skin? I am amazed and also that’s adorable.

So, you’ve gotta convince the gold to let you pick one of her eggs to take with you. I presume if she says no and you press the matter she eats you.

Oh gods wherhandlers blood their children to their whers! Oh my gods that’s adorable! Make the babies pack! Gods how strong is that did Dask now how many of them were dead dear gods now I’m sad again-

Talking to the queen wher, being polite, sending her mental images, Kindan is a Good Boy

Wher eggs glow! Dimly but they glow! Also good boy Kindan, compliment those eggs!

Also they are half the size of dragon eggs and have wrinkles. (I assume wher eggs are more like snake eggs at first...)

“Eeny, meeny, tipsy, teeny, ah vu bumberosha, nineteen hundred and two, I pick you.” And he gets one with a ring around it in wrinkle.

Aleesa is a fucking Queen, sending Kindan, Zist, a Weyrleader, and the big boss away with a simple “You bore me.” She does make sure to compliment Kindan on a job well done and to reinforce that she expects her payment (which she’d have gotten either way, by the way, wher eggs are pricey and you’re paying for a shot at being allowed to have one)

On the topic of feeding wherlets:

“We’ve been experimenting, actually, on the best post-hatching meal. Watch-whers are not as insatiable as dragons, but they will gulp down meat and sometimes choke, as you know.” She pinned Kindan with a fiery glare, and he nodded as if he knew exactly what she meant. “D’you have oats?”

Kindan nodded, glancing over at Natalon to be sure he was also listening to Aleesa.

“Then arrange to get fresh blood from whoever butchers at the camp. Make porridge of the oats, using water, and add the blood as the oats thicken in the pot. I’d say a half-pail a day should be sufficient. If you keep the blood cool, a pailful should last over a day or two, no trouble. Most camps or Holds slaughter every other day. Feed it was often as it wants, and some of the liver and lungs that might go to waste otherwise. Don’t start meat hunks until three months, when it has enough back teeth to chew with. You can continue with porridge feeds in the morning until the hatchling starts to coats out.”

So the fuckers don’t start with all their teeth on top of everything.

Chapter 8: “Watch-wher, watch-wher in the egg; Grant to me the boon I beg”

This delight of a child is making porridge constantly so that it’ll be ready when the bab hatches. And then when it starts hatching he immediately darts for the porridge.

Bab eats like a fucking garbage disposal

She is also currently assumed to be green and apparently whers have notable enough bits to tell sex even if you can’t be sure of color

Kindan do not call the bab ugly, she is doing her best

“Did it give you a name?” “I didn’t ask.” “It is enough like a dragon to know it’s own name?” “I don’t know.”

“She’s not as big as I thought she would be.“

“Big enough to have the appetite of nine dragons,“ Kindan, almost proudly.

This girl is adorable

The Harper followed him out to the shed and greeted Zenor, who hadn’t moved from the spot in which Kindan had left him. The hatchling had been trying to crawl up his legs, her hungry bleek more insistent.

She has been blooded but not named. Kindan is moving in with her.

Nuella you’re a doll but if you can not assume that a baby can eat whatever an adult can eat, especially when Kindan is working off the knowledge of someone who actually, ya know, has experience with this shit? It’d be great.

The bab is now named Kisk and it’s pretty apparent she named her own damn self, for all that she didn’t use words.

Kindan, in a very 11-yo moment, wonders whether the WherMaster actually knows anything about raising whers since weaning his early worked out fine

Wherlet playing, I repeat, wherlet playing, far too adorable

Kisk is going to be a good little guard, already rooting out people who are where they shouldn’t be

Tarik’s wife likes whers! And is teaching her children to like whers! As all good people should!

Cristov, son of Tarik the Dick, is trying to make up his own mind about whers and-

Kisk darted her tongue out and licked Cristov’s outstretched hand before he could pull it bac,k. She made a sad, don’t-you-like-me noise at Cristov

Tarik: *talks shit like he’s got anything going for him* His Wife: *is gonna fucking smack him if he doesn’t start with some basic decency*

Kisk keeping Kindan up all damn night

Chapter 9: “Walk, baby, walk, come to me; Soon, baby, soon, you’ll walk away from me”

And now they’re trying to say Zenor and Nuella were born and raised in the camp despite saying earlier in the book that they’d been there less than a year two years ago.

Also at 3 months Kisk is 12 hands high at the shoulder and 40 from nose to tail. Which is about 4 ft by 13 ft, and still growing.

Kindan, hit with the sudden realization that oh, yeah, being a wherhandler is going to mean not being a harper

Nuella if anything the fact Kindan can’t see in the dark and doesn’t know where he’s going is all the more reason it’d be better training for Kisk to lead him than you, who knows this tunnel like the back of her hand, blind or no

Ooo, Tarik the Dick had a camp the failed, so now he’s all sour because his nephew’s doing better than him.

M’tal is here, Telgar is still bitches (what is it with Telgar being assholes?) and whers apparently don’t have the same problems with oiling and shit dragons do despite growing far faster which makes no damn sense but sure

Whers and dragons can chat amongst themselves, to the surprise of noone, or at least not me.

Nuella’s sweet on Zenor and honestly, go for it kiddo

Kisk is starting to learn.

Chapter 10: Hot air rises, cold air falls; These are thermodynamic laws

(Fuckers expect me to believe the Pernese couldn’t keep the word ‘year’ but ‘thermodynamic’ survived)

Nuella theorizing that whers see heat because she can feel it. I want to say it’s because she’s twelve and, as kids do, thinks she knows everything, but the more I read the more I’m fairly sure it’s just that the McCaffrey’s want her to be Amazing and The Best (which, ugh) and so are just, doing this. It doesn’t work.

Dragonriders here looking for a potential goldrider (very clearly Nuella from the conversation) and lamenting that based on the dragon’s description she might be blind and therefor ‘unable to Impress’ and just- Shit that makes you wanna throw things

Ya know they did so good before they revealed Nuella is blind. She was just another kid then, it was nice, but now... I love her but my hackles are raising

Also can I just say that whers seeing heat is the stupidest thing I’ve heard yet, given everything we know about their anatomy leads to them seeing in the darkness like everything else with massive fucking eyes and a nocturnal disposition.

Operation: Teach Whers to Bespeak Dragons During Emergencies is a go

Nuella claiming that whers can’t be taught to Between because nobody can see heat like they (apparently) can and we’re to take this as gospel despite the like, second thing Dask ever did on-page being to Between on his lonesome. Did these people not have editors? It didn’t seem so bad at first but as time goes on and we get more shit that contradicts other shit (we got contradicting information within pages of each other for fuck’s sake) I am slowly losing my mind

Tarik continues to be a dick and refuses to shore up his tunnels correctly. And he wonders why he lost his fucking camp.

Kindan saw through Kisk’s eyes during hide-and-seek

Chapter 11: “Watch-wher, watch-wher, guard us all; With your dragon-summoning call”

Turns out wherhandlers don’t take well to some dragonrider coming by and trying to teach them about their whers.

Nuella is being offered the chance to go teach whers to chat with dragons.

Everyone is supportive even while she has a quick little existential breakdown that’s probably been building for a while

We skip forward to Nuella going via dragon to Lemos to start her work. Dragons like her and she takes well to Between

Wherhandlers really can’t do well learning from dragonriders because their critters are so different

Nuella is good at what she does.

There’s far too much of old men going ‘*gasp* this child suddenly reminds me of [blank] they are amazing’ though

Whers and their handlers are learning

Turns out, surprise surprise, whers are awesome

Chapter 12: “Harper, harper, sing me a song; Give me a tune that lasts all day long”

Feels like it’s trying too hard...

Tarik the Dick has caused a cave-in and now is refusing to do anything about it because he is, well, see above

There is a now a team of rescuers, mostly kids, out to save the day via secret passage and wher

Nuella: Lolanth, I need your rider to send word to the MasterMiner and also get the pumps pulling air out the mines Lolanth: I have told my rider, and called Gaminth, he and his are coming, and I’ve called Ista, they’re coming, and I’ve told the miners-

Lolanth is a Good Dragon who apparently does not go halfsies

Lolanth got everyone and their grandmother to this camp within thirty seconds

On the one hand, blind characters getting to be awesome, one the other, this is really leaning towards Magically Disabled. Nobody can hear things like Nuella can, nobody can work with whers like Nuella can, nobody is as smart as Nuella is, she’s 12 and better than the majority of the adults around her, just, if they could fucking chill for five minutes.

Also people are alive on the other side of the cave-in

Finally Kindan remembers that Dask could Between, and I promise you it’s going to turn out that he was a miracle and only Nuella (who has no idea what’s on the other side of the cave-in) can show Kisk where she needs to go

Wow, it’s like I’m magic

Chapter 13: “Watch-wher, watch-wher, do you know; All the places you can go?”

I’m glad everybody who survived the cave-in is saved but we just got a fucking paragraph “But it is I who have been blind” speech from Nuella’s father and just. Kill me, please.

And Kisk has decided to swap handlers and be Nuelsk now.

And Kindan is going off to become a Harper.

~~

Okay, not the worst book I’ve read. There were places that needed editing, there was a lot of shit that contradicted each other (Kindan’s everchanging number of siblings just being one example), it had plenty of the McCaffrey’s trademark Totally Accurate Science, and the longer I spent reading it the more it felt like one of those ‘see, disabled people can also do things and be capable’ stories complete with a fucking “But it is I who have been blind” (literal quote, kill me now). And this shit is from 2003. On the plus side though, there’s plenty of quality wher content and the kids are fun when the writers aren’t on their little Not A Soapbox.

Overall, a 6/10, if someone wrote an anosmiac character this way I’d want their head on a stick no matter how badass they were.

[mousehole5000]

okay another tgcf lb i powered through and finished book 1 this is kinda long its chapters 43-57

first off i love a lil spy mission. these things never go smooth

naughty unlucky trespassers get banished to the giant leech chamber

dont know that i care for the inclusion of “scary savage redskinned cannibal tribe” i mean i guess i dont know maybe its got a different cultural context but i just have a hard time with that one hmmmm at least its over quickly

this really seems to be a book of everyone already knows everyone but that makes sense considering how fucking old everyone is

dope. this whole little armory stand off was fun but also oh no!!! fire in ghost city!!!

awww i love him. king of not wanting anyone to die :’( also hey he did something cool!!! very competent!!! although it looks like he did get hurt from it god his bad luck never ends

yeah exactly!!!!! sword in one hand flower in the other!!! thats what its all about!!!!

mmmmmmm. MMMMMMMMMM. rich fuckers. but also feng xin was the first to show up either way.... im still care him. followed by mu qing who is talking trash but still here as well

also i might back what i said about lang qianqiu im not sure if he knows anything i think he is just like that. although theres still room for him to be involved something. im switching most of my suspicions to wind master qingxuan now because he is popular and rich

okay if im reading this right this seems pretty in character for lang qianqiu. “i dont like that your family is in power.” “haha what a silly guy :) i have no concerns about you”

but xie lian is admitting to this??? :O curious to find out more about if he did indeed do some slaughter or if he’s protecting someone else. if he is protecting someone i think it could be lang qianqiu himself in some way. genuinely unsure tho he may very well have just done this idk who am i to deny him complexity

theres that interesting little note that most officials have also committed similar crimes but never have to face it bc mortals just die

pei ming you’re half right but shut the fuck up no one asked you. i feel strong dislike towards him sorry to any potential pei ming stans reading this. maybe im sorry maybe not im not sure yet i feel strongly about this

i see this happen on cdramas all the time i love it. i point at you in lieu of words

i do think all the politics and gossip and the way that officials will change sides to gain favor/not lose it depending on which way the wind is blowing is pretty interesting i like that its in here

i love that xie lian is making sure that someone takes care of the people hes taken in and also i love everything about this sentence although i feel like we’re not going to see much of banyue which is a shame bc i liked her

oh is it flashback time? this is fun

hmm!!! interesting!!! i like this response!! i have nothing funny or smart to say about it i just like it

this is an understanding that only comes after living through great pain and/or loss. hmm.

hmmm!!!!!!!! questions!!! presumably thematic ones!!!

please let us dig into whatever is going on in this little trio. actions speak louder than words mu qing

okay here we go feng xin is here and im not going to screencap the whole thiing but wow these two see each other and half a page later start swinging okay

oh my god hua cheng giving us a jailbreak arc? instant chaos. amazing

scream everything about this is funny. maximum cunt behavior. everyones reaction fadsjflksdjlk;afsl

mxtx: all characters other than hualian are straight mxtx: the thing feng xin is most afraid of is a women’s bath also women in general he is afraid of them fajkdjskfslda i mean there could be other reasons for this but its very funny in that context

stop theyre too much faslfkjasdf im so glad we’re getting this

im not 100% sure how i feel about these swords that. moan? hmm.

xie lian king of speaking out against stan culture. for real tho i feel like this makes sense with how young he was when he ascended and how much favor he gained only to be banished, as well as with how gods have to be what the people say that they are. this is made interesting bc xie lian is quite literally a god but this is still an issue!!

this is more less what im currently envisioning on our little side trek except qi rong's vibes are so rancid im retching from behind the screen and im not getting to watch any little creatures dance so its objectively a worse time but at least xie lian is there

reading this book full of immortals beat the shit out of each other is like watching looney toons

hua cheng is relentless. also THE DRAMA. lang qianqiu youre back on the list!!! although i doubt any of this will be straightforward also i feel like im playing among us rn im dizzy

hes awful and probably irredeemably so but hes also funny. imagine being qi rong youre just vibing rancidly in your cave and some fucker shows up using the name of a prince from 800 years ago and turns out its hua cheng and he slams your head into the floor over and dribbles it like a basketball until you lay the blame for said princes death and turns out that fucker youre blaming is also here and just as youre getting into it with him this other fucker says that youre lying and turns out its your cousin. wyd

YES. CHOMPING AND VIOLENCE

bruh they melted qi rong

oh its a clone. okay. aww kind of sad that he once looked up to xie lian. maybe some sympathy for going mad. oh wait actually he was a spoiled and pampered prince? sympathy depleted again. tis a waste but. alas

wind master just told xie lian that he was lucky to have befriended hua cheng... and xie lian agreed.... interesting interesting

noting that those two are notorious for clashing and yet jun wun is making them work together

i actually got teary at xie lian talking to his parents coffins and wondering for a second if he heard his mom. god. 800 years... :(

QI RONG IM GOING TO FIND YOUR ASHES MYSELF WTF this whole situation with the child sucks :/

oh my god thats where it ends??? wowie. okay damn i was going to take a break after i finished book one but god thats tempting

[serpentlopez]

[TEXT] Hot Mess

Who: Eliana, Charlie @serpentchar

What: E+C text for the first time since E was arrested for assault.

When: Tuesday Afternoon, 11am.

Where: Text Messages

Notes: Mentions of Sheriff Hummel, Pastor Wilde, @northsideking and heads up, there is spoiler talk in regards to Game of Thrones!

Eliana

Thank you. For getting me out. I didn’t say it yesterday.

Charlie

Of course, love. Thank you not necessary, but you’re very welcome. I couldn’t just let you rot in there.

Eliana

Technically you could have.Would have kept me from doing what you don’t want me to do.

Charlie

I know, and believe me the thought occurred to me but I couldn’t do that.I love you too much to let you rot in the NS

Eliana

I appreciate that. Deputy Dewey wouldn’t have been able to handle my sexiness.

Charlie

Right? You would turn that place into Pamela Anderson’s jail house. It’d be fun. Then I might just join you

Unless the fucker deputy tried to use his position to force you to do shit.

Then I’d have to kill him

Eliana

I like the way you think.

Nah. I’m sure he couldn’t handle all this.Though Kurt might end up with a new mother before I’m done

Charlie

He’d probably fuck himself into a heart attack. Or a coma.Lmao how’s that? You gonna charm your way into the Sheriffs pants?Least the old man could die happy with a good fuck right?

Eliana

Charm? Baby girl, you’ve seen my tits in nothing but a bra and my leather boots.I’d be Mrs. Sheriff and then actually get some shit done around here

Charlie

Exactly. I support this plan. I mean you’d have to get past Deputy Fuckface to get to him but you could do it. Suggest a threesome. I’m sure they would agree?Who in their right mind would?

Eliana

Look. If I can get him, Pastor Wilde and whoever else the fuck it was for Aidens game; I’d be infamous

Charlie

I really need to see you fuck Pastor Wilde. That would be the greatest thing ever.I’d film it.Blast it everywhere

Eliana

I bet I could.

Charlie

You should

Eliana

He helped me get to the SS when I first moved here before I met you

Charlie

You could do things for him his wife would never even think of

Eliana

Him and his kids

Charlie

See. Opening already.

Eliana

I’d just walk in and tell him I need to confess.. get on my knees..He’d probably blow his load before I could touch him.Don’t tempt me. I’ll do it.Though with King back, it’s still killing me that kid didn’t want to fuck me.

Charlie

Fuck em both at the same time

Eliana

You’re indulging the hell out of me and I approve.

Charlie

Tell the good old pastor that you need to confess. Talk about how we had a hot threesome in the church. That you couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like if he were there.I am wholeheartedly loving this. We need good leverage sometimes.

Eliana

You’re not wrong about that. It would definitely have to be filmed then otherwise it’s my sexy but slutty word against his

Charlie

I would 100% be down to film this. Sex with Kingston would be hot. Probably get me all hot and bothered.

Not so much the good ol boy pastor, but im sure you’d be the ride of his life

And evidence is definitely needed

Eliana

Oh I’m sure I could send them both straight to heaven while I’m riding them to hell.

Charlie

Hot

More the son than the father

Eliana

Definitely the son.I mean come on

How do you not fuck someone named King?!He needs a concubine.

Charlie

Exactly. Not a concubine. He needs a Queen.

Eliana

Are you trying to gently remind me all the sex I’m goin to be missing out on??

Charlie

I mean even as a concubine you’d be missing out on sex. Concubines weren’t allowed to fuck anyone else either.

Eliana

Oh.Well fuck that noise.

He can be the concubine.

Charlie

Concubines were usually women who were considered past the marrying age, which was like mid-20sish, and they were only allowed to fuck the person they were serving. Maybe the other concubines if they were lucky, but they’d better not fall in love.

Yesss

You need concubines

Eliana

You’re such a nerd. How do you know that??

Charlie

I might be a badass but I’m also a nerd. Most people don’t know this. You’re not allowed to share this. You could always work in a brothel. Sleep with as many men as you wanted. But I don’t know if they got paid. I don’t think Littlefinger paid his girls or guys

Eliana

Game of Thrones. Now you’re talking.

Charlie

I love you. No one loves Game of Thrones like I do except you.

Eliana

I miss GOT nights with take out, alcohol, and lusting

Charlie

We could bring them back. Restart the series.I am all down for that

Eliana

Yes please. That ending was a travesty.

Charlie

OOOOH GET THE PASTOR TO WATCH GOT WHILE YOU BLOW HIM.

It really did. That whole last season was justNoI can’tIt didn’t happen

Eliana

When he cums, he better be shouting MHYSA or what’s the point?

Charlie

Exactly

Eliana

No. It didn’t happen. None of it happened. I’m totally good up until the long night but after that? No.

Charlie

Exactly. I’m good until Arya killed the Night King, but the rest of that shit? Fuck that. They fucked up Dany so badly it makes me shake with rage. I understand power going to someone’s head but damn man.

Eliana

But it was literally a cop outAnd the way she was killed?She deserved better.AND DONT GET ME STARTED ON FUCKING BRAN BEING THE NEW RULER

Charlie

Bran the fucking Broken. Man fuck off.I’m still waiting on this final book dammit

Eliana

And the way my lover Jamie went out after all his growth?I refuse to believe it’s real

Charlie

No. Not at all. I was so mad that they had Jamie just abandon all this bullshit.

Eliana

I’m pissed that Arya didn’t get to kill Cersei

Charlie

I’m just happy that Drogon survived.

Eliana

But they killed his brother is such a. Shitty way!

Charlie

Omg me too. I have to admit I didn’t think she was actually dead when the roof caved in.I thought the bitch would have survived somehow.

Eliana

But no. Just buried. Such shit

Charlie

THEY KILLED BOTH HIS BROTHERS IN SUCH A RUDE AND UNNECESSARY WAY AND IM STILL BITTER

Eliana

Fuck that show. Seriously.

Charlie

Seriously.We could have written it so much better.But I stgIf Martin doesn’t finish the last book soon I’m gonna kill him

Eliana

We could have. I doubt the dude is ever gonna finish that book. He’s old af and only writes like a page a day.

Charlie

He told the writers how he was gonna end the series in case HE DIED BEFORE HE FINISHED WRITINGLike what the fuck man

Eliana

Wait. So he’s writing it the way it ended on the show?

Charlie

But then when the series ended he said that’s not how he was gonna do it but he supported them or some bullshit thing

He said something along the lines of ‘maybe that’s how it ends maybe it’s not’

Eliana

They got to have their stupid ending.After everything dany went through

Charlie

He better write a better one

Eliana

Ugh. Fuck them all.

Charlie

Seriously.

Eliana

I’d still fuck the shit out of 90% of that cast

Charlie

I’d fuck Jon though...

Same

Eliana

Jon. Dany. DROGO.

Charlie

Ugh so MUCH DROGO

Fuck me to death

Damn

Eliana

Jamie. Tyrion. Robb. Sansa.Hell, the fucking dragons

Yes please!

Charlie

I mean I don’t want to fuck the dragons. They’re my babies.

Eliana

That’s why you were mother of dragons

And we fixed up that shirt to say “lover” or dragons for me

Charlie

Yes. 100%.

[deniigi]

Hello! Just about to sit down and read your newest fic, so excited about it! I had a question for you (you very well may have answered this already, so sorry in advance!), but do you have advice for writing? Advice in terms of getting start, plotting out stories, helping get the creative juices flowing? I have all these ideas but seem to lack the drive to get things written out. I know the best advice is to just write, but I'm having a horrible time starting. What do you do in those moments?

Hello my dear!

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. The lord has blessed me with a head cold and ruined all my plans of productivity for the day, so I can finally answer this ask! I’ll talk a little bit about both how to get started with a story and then some little things that help me motivate myself.

I have started a tag for writing advice here: http://deniigi.tumblr.com/tagged/writing-advice

This is going to be a long post, sorry mobile users.

I am going to preface all of this with the understanding that I am technically a professional writer in terms of like, a handful of ways, but I have absolutely zero training in creative writing, so take everything I say with a grain of salt!

So, I personally find that, on the whole, that psychological hurdle of getting started comes a lot from the anticipation of the kind of response a story will get (how many hits, how many comments, how many kudos) in addition to a bit of anxiety or fear over  theloss of sustained interest in that story (by yourself and/or by your audience). I find that this can be alleviated by really, truly internalizing the understanding that you are allowed to write your work however you damn please, for whoever you damn please.

There will be work you write for others, and there will be work you write for yourself. Not all work needs to be published; sometimes, it is really nice to just write shit for yourself; it is a plus for humanity if you decide to share it with others, but you do not have to do that.

Furthermore, I would like to present you with this:

This is what my current folder for under fire looks like. And you might notice that there are almost always multiple drafts per chapter. Yes, I did in fact rewrite chapter four 5 fucking times, you bet your ass I did. And I’m not ashamed of it. I think the story is better for it. And that’s the important thing here: you do not need to produce a perfect draft the first time around. You will not produce that perfect draft. Accept this. Embrace this. Embrace it and your cat at the same time to really ingrain it as a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Liberate yourself from the pressure of needing to produce the perfect, most right draft and you may find starting the piece overall to be a much easier, more pleasant experience.

And along with this beautiful, uplifting spiritual advice, I also bring a practical thought: when it comes to getting started, a lot of times, people feel like they need to set the stage, yadda yadda yadda. Ha. No. Fuck that.

That’s a surefire way to bore the shit out of yourself. Start right in the middle of a scene that captivates you if that’s what you want to write. It’s a free platform. No one’s gonna arrest you if you stick Spiderman upside down in trash first thing. They might even applaud you actually, because you didn’t make them slog through some of that ‘It was the evening of the 25th and it was cold out in the streets” bullshit we all learned from Dickens.

Alright. Now let’s talk about actually getting started making words appear on paper.

So, from my knowledge there are generally two ways that folks write creatively. You have what I’m going to call the planners and then you what I’m going to call the monsters (I call them this entirely affectionately, I’m sure there’s a better word for these folks, but I don’t have it atm, all I have is a headcold). Planners are folks who sit down and work out their major plot points, who write outlines, and who create the scaffolding of their work before they set out on their magical journey. I think of these folks as architects.

And then you have the monsters and these are those fuckers who just sit down and write stream of consciously like the heathens all our high school teachers tried to teach us not to be.

I am both a planner and a monster. And a lot of that depends on the length of work I’m going for. I have never in my life planned a one-shot, for example. I just attack that as it is. I follow my heart, if you will. But when it comes to longer chaptered fics, I really do think that some outlining is super helpful.

You might find it useful for one-shots, though, I dunno. Maybe give it a try and see what happens?

The two main fics I’ve done proper outlines for are Inimitable and under fire and I actually find outlining to be immensely helpful in psyching me up to write the story (I go through and re-read my outlines when I start to lose interest or diverge too much from the plot outlined there in the actual writing. 9 times out of 10, re-reading gets me stupid excited to write all over again) and it also helps me keep momentum going throughout the plot.

Here’s a pic of some pages of under fire’s outline.

Physically writing the work is really important for me because it forces me to only put down key points/feelings/ideas I want to include, whereas typing gives me far too much room to get lost/distracted by extraneous detail. And since my handwriting is a teacher’s worst nightmare and I cross out shit and write huge with emotion, I’ll give you a little bit of what the middle page here says:

Miles-

there’s something thrumming

vibrating in his ears wherever he goes

-closes his eyes and somehow enters blackness- emptyness (Stranger Things style)

beat

beat

beat

“help.”

–BACK - everything is gone

closing his eyes doesn’t bring the space back

–it makes him panic. He doesn’t know why. His heart is pounding. He’s sweating He has a horrible feeling of doom.

beat

beat

beat

its gone.

he goes home anxiously. Pretends everything is normal.

his neck crawls

So basically it’s less of a formal outline and more of a collection of stream of consciousness feelings and screenplay directions which I’ll flesh out in the actual story.

Personally, I love writing these kinds of things because they get me pumped for the story I’m about to tell. I get to write out the key scenes and work through all the hard parts first, and then, while I’m writing, I work through the little fun details and banter and I have to write to figure out how we get from one scene to the next and I love the challenge of having to fit those pieces together. I very rarely stick strictly to my outline, (as anyone who is currently reading under fire can tell you right now), but I do try to stick to the main plot points in it and my writing is certainly better for it.

So yes. Outlining is very good, but it is even better when you do it to some kind of music. I listened to What’s Up Danger from the Into the Spiderverse soundtrack on repeat while I wrote this outline to kind of transfer some of the relentless pace conveyed in that song to the piece’s plot.

I highly recommend using music to set the mood of your piece while/before you write a piece of any length. It helps get you in the right headspace (excited or somber or angry) to write. You need emotion to write creatively. You can’t just make that happen sometimes; you need a little help.

A couple other things which might help:

1. Leave your house or the space you’re normally in. Go to a cafe and find a nice corner and have a think and a try in there. Sometimes moving to a different space helps you escape cyclical thinking patterns.

2. Write what you want to read. Don’t bother writing for other peoples’ interests; that’ll just bore the shit out of you all over again.

3. Find an atmospheric mood sound to listen to on Youtube or smth (I personally like Rain on a Car Windshield for slightly somber fics, but you might be into ocean storms or dripping caves or whatever).

4. Heat your feet. I don’t know why but I am entirely unproductive when my feet are cold. Maybe this one is me-specific, but whatevs. Heat the feets!

5. If you’re still having trouble just sitting down and pounding the story out, that’s okay! Maybe it’s not ready to be written yet. Maybe you’re not in the right headspace yet. Sometimes that’s just how it is. One story makes its way out in like, a hour, and the next one takes like, months to finally be written. We all work at different paces. We all write for different reasons.

It might help to figure out why you want to write a story before you write it. Like, if its for attention, it’s gonna be hard as hell. But if there’s an idea that you feel like is important or if there’s a mood you’re trying to work yourself into or out of, then that might be a little easier. For example, I wrote a piece called make it work which is about Fogs finding his motivation to be a lawyer and fight for justice when Kavanaugh was confirmed and I felt super helpless in the face of our present justice system. That story kind of wrote itself and it needed to be written, I feel, not just for me, but for others who were feeling just as helpless.

Writing is catharsis in that way. Maybe you just need to find out what you need to wring out of your soul.

Sorry that got very metaphysical. But I do want to stress that getting started and ending a story are the hardest parts of writing them, so you are definitely not alone if you feel like you’re ramming your head into a wall here.

I hope something here helps you, my dear!

[ayearofpike]

Spooksville #22: The Creepy Creature

Pocket Books, 1998 112 pages, 12 chapters ISBN 0-671-00270-8 LOC: CPB Box no. 1474 vol. 13 OCLC: 39525120 Released August 1, 1998 (per B&N)

A slime monster has eaten and absorbed Bryce Poole. Cindy Makey is the only one to have seen it happen, and when they find Bryce in the woods it’s naturally hard to believe her. But Bryce is acting different. Strange. And when he slimes out of his bed and tries to attack his other friends, they realize Cindy was telling the truth, and they have to go back into the woods to stop these creatures from invading and multiplying. But the trail leads back to a land that they’ve heard of before, and the slime monsters are only a small part of it.

This fuckin’ book gave me whiplash. We’ll get there. But I’m not convinced that Pike was totally happy with the beginning. A lot of the searching and talking is somewhat haphazardly written (like this blog), like he just didn’t care about that part and wanted to get on to the good stuff (like this blog). With two more Spooksvilles coming down the lane, he must have seen the light at the end of the tunnel and been ready to be done. Hmm, where have we seen that before.

It’s fortuitous that I closed my last post talking about Bryce and Cindy and their feels, because this one opens with them walking in the woods alone together. Cindy is trying to drop hints that maybe she’s interested in Bryce, but Bryce is too busy being a twelve-year-old boy with a savior complex to really understand what’s being said. It doesn’t really matter, because this ... THING oozes up behind him and starts reaching tentacles. They try to run, and for a minute they think they’re safe, but then it lunges out from behind a bush and totally absorbs Bryce. Cindy has no choice but to run.

She finds her friends — where else — eating donuts, and tells them what happened to Bryce. After a quick pit stop at the army surplus for flamethrowers (like, this fuckin’ town, man), they hike up to the caves where the creature first appeared. And they run into Bryce, who says that he walked into a monster spider web and the spider in it must have scared Cindy away. Which ... bullshit, because these guys know Cindy and she’s seen a lot worse than a goddamn spider. But he insists that now he’s tired and wants to go home, so they just follow him.

They split up back in town. Adam and Watch have to return the flamethrowers, but then they part ways too, and Adam is almost home for dinner when Cindy leaps out of a bush and insists they go confront Bryce now, because Bryce is not Bryce. She knows what she saw, and even throws in a tidy little The Thing reference to try to make Adam understand. He still doesn’t totally believe her, but agrees to go along and stake out the house. Bryce isn’t there yet, but when he does get home he takes off all his clothes and oozes across the bed. So now Adam is convinced.

What to do? Maybe they can burn it. Bryce happens to have several gas cans in his garage, and the house goes up without an argument. Only — oh shit! — he got out, and is now going to grab and turn both Adam and Cindy. This doesn’t last too long, because Watch has been tailing them with his flamethrower that he checked back out I guess, like the army surplus in Spooksville is a lending library, and he torches The Blob Formerly Known as Bryce into so much melted Jell-o.

So just like Harry Potter, these kids gotta go fighting battles that nobody else is willing to back. They wake Sally and get more flamethrowers, then make their way up to the caves. Watch decides they need to follow the one with the most slime around the opening, because duh, and they take it down. And down. And down. And eventually it starts opening up and spreading out and being lit by a strange green light, almost like there’s a sky with a nebulous light source over the top of this massive cavern, which is so big that even Pike seems to forget they’re fucking underground.

They bump into another slime creature, which grabs Sally’s ankle but otherwise seems to have no interest in ingestion. Watch decides to get a better angle on burning it away, so he climbs a tree and shoots straight down. Of course, this pisses the creature off, and before Watch can do much damage it lashes out and grabs him and takes off. So the other kids gotta follow, right? 

They smell smoke and see hints of activity in the distance, but before they can get really close a rock comes chasing after them. Literally — it’s a big ass rock monster, running straight at Sally. Why does she keep getting targeted down here? Before she can even scream, this purple laser shoots out of nowhere and blows it up. The wielder is a beautiful young woman with purple hair, dressed for combat in that way male artists do female superheroes: breast plate, bare arms, bare legs, high boots. Come to think of it, the warrior princess in The Dangerous Quest was dressed much the same. Frickin’ Pike.

The woman says that they need to go with her to the control center of her city, because the rock monsters are taking over and they’re not safe out here. She doesn’t seem to know anything about the slime monsters, which is weird if this is where they came from. You see the hard turn this storyline just took? Whiplash.

Watch pops out of a bush, or at least he thinks he’s Watch. The others keep a careful eye on him, but they’re not ready to just kill, because he’s saying all the right things and in that analytical way Watch has. But he’s naked, because the slime creature stole his clothes, so Adam has to give up his shirt for Watch’s modesty (which he takes as another sign that it’s really Watch; would a slime monster care if you could see its ding-dong?). They make it to the control center, and the warrior takes them straight to the top, where there’s an old man — and Bryce.

And yes, it’s really Bryce, the old man confirms. He’s been brought here by the slime creature, which the man created, to fight for the sake of Lemuria. Yeah, did you figure it out? Somehow the cave took them to this underwater continent, which might explain the green light if it’s all sealed off overhead. But the slime creatures were meant to only duplicate fighters, not to hurt their targets or try to do stuff on their own, so it should be all OK. Still, sometimes our creations go awry and do things we don’t expect. The old man acknowledges as much, with a knowing glance at the warrior (who of course is his child).

The old guy says that the rock monsters are aliens coming up from the deep, where they’ve lived more or less peacefully, because Lemuria is shifting and crowding their domain. So now the rock monsters want to take over not just the undersea continent, but all of them. The only way to stop them is to overload the security shield on the control center when the rocks have gotten close enough, which will blow both the locals and the invaders sky-high. Nobody seems upset about this, but obviously our human friends don’t want to die in someone else’s war. It so happens that there’s a hidden high-speed train that can take them back to the mouth of the tunnel that brought them down here. But Adam insists that the girl come with them and escape, and live out the rest of her life even though she doesn’t seem to know what that means.

As they hit the tunnel, the whole cavern is rocked by an explosion, meaning the Lemurians are dead. Not so for the rock monsters, at least not the two who hung back here just in case. The warrior is rattled into dropping her weapon as she fights them, and Sally picks it up. And levels it at her friends.

That’s right, fuckers! Sally’s been a slime creature this whole time! Slime-Bryce turned her before he went home, and she tied the real Sally up in the garage. Only now they all know too much and she better just kill the Spook Squad before moving on to her master plan of taking over the world by making more slime creatures. She aims the gun at Adam and pulls the trigger — but the warrior leaps in front of the laser, taking the blast and still having enough strength (which is amazing; remember this is a laser that VAPORIZED A ROCK) to turn the pistol back on Slime-Sally, who immediately evaporates.

How did she do it? Well, when she finally does fall, Adam turns her over — and sees wires and circuitry inside her chest. Somehow from here he makes the leap that all of the people in Lemuria must have been robots, which is why they didn’t cry over sacrificing themselves. And it’s too late to repair this robot, but at least she dies having known friends, which is so sappy I don’t actually believe it. Like, has Adam actually fallen for some robot babe in a couple of hours, so hard that he’s going to mourn her robot chassis unto eternity? Feh, says I.

Two more to go! Can I make it? Not right now, because I have to sleep!

[words-writ-in-starlight]

so i'm assuming that all the reincarnated ham crew look like their musical actors, which, awesome. but i was thinking about jefferson, who was a racist fucker being reincarnated as a black man. like. how would that even go down?

*emerges from cave, shamefaced* Right, so, does anyone remember that this AU exists?  Because I swear to God I didn’t forget, I just only now have had the time.  I actually have a bunch of prompts for it, not all of them are going to get written based on...like...my inspiration level, but also this series is alive again, so like.  Yep.  Here is some Jefferson.  Full disclosure, I dislike Jefferson and think his economic plan was some racist bullshit, so...that is evident.

To all you newcomers, I do recommend reading the other stuff, even if you could probably figure it out.  

All In One Spot AU

So, the academic affairs office holds out longer than theirpredecessor.  Not by much, but by alittle.  It takes two full weeks for Alexto hammer through his petition to be allowed to take more than max credits—and it’squite a petition.  Angelica takes one look at the twenty-page,double-sided, single-spaced letter to the dean of academics and disavows anyinvolvement, and John grins fondly, remarking that the dean has no idea what he’sgotten into.

The dean, incidentally, has lived his life with pleasantly dim memoriesof Philedelphia with cobblestone streets and a vague impression that he knowsthe unfortunate teacher annually strong-armed into teaching History of theAmerican Revolution.  He recalls verylittle else of his time in the Continental Congress—indeed, at gunpoint hecouldn’t have identified what exactly he was doing, back then.

He has a blindingly vividflashback upon looking at the first page of the letter—the pamphlet, really—and immediately feeds the entire thing through hisshredder.

“Jake,” he says, sticking his head out of his office to look at hissecretary.

“Yes, sir?”

“Approve whatever Hamilton’s request was before he sends anymoreletters.  I’ve seen enough for severallifetimes.”

“You got it, boss,” says Jake, whose past life was a blissfullyunremarkable farmer in the Italian countryside and who therefore has no ideathat his boss is sparing them all a lot of trouble.

Now, the reason this matters is because Alex walks into his Econ 101class for the first time two weeks into the semester, takes one look at thelesson outline the grad student wrote on the board, and makes a sound ofabsolute incoherent horror.

“Oh my god,” Alex says faintly, frozen in place two steps inside thedoor.  He was never an especiallyreligious person, but he’s wondering if maybe the universe is punishing him forpast crimes.  He’s not saying one way orthe other if he deserves it, but this seems excessive.  “Jefferson is haunting me from beyond thegrave.”

“Listen, kid,” sighs the grad student. She wears her hair buzzed short on one side and is clutching her coffeealmost as fiercely as Alex is, and he thinks this is maybe not her first classtoday from the also, I don’t carelook on her face.  “We’re doing a reviewof some basic socioeconomic structures, and the Jeffersonian/Hamiltonian debateis, like, critical.  So could you--”

“But it’s bullshit,” Alexbursts out before he can even try to hold his tongue.  “It was bullshit when Jefferson first came upwith it, and it’s bullshit now.”

“Jesus Christ,” a voice fromsomewhere in the front third of the lecture hall mutters.  A tall figure unfolds itself from a chair andsays, “Have you ever taken an economics class in your life?”

Alex can actually taste the way his blood pressure skyrockets.  It occurs to him, briefly, that someone—possiblyEliza, also possibly the General—might kill him if he starts a fight right now,but.  On the other hand.  He’s going to start a fight.  He’s got no choice, basically.

“Have you?” he demands rudely,turning to stare up the lecture hall at the young man—maybe a sophomore, he’stoo angry to be sure, but he’s wearing a very questionable magenta hoodie andhis hair is even fluffier than Lafayette’s and honestly he has a very punchableface, in Alex’s humble opinion—and narrowing his eyes.  “I mean, do you have a single legitimateargument for why Jefferson’s bullshit plan would work?  Because let me just say, plenty of Southernersloved to sit around and talk about how the country was being railroaded by thebig cities in the North but--”

“If the North can’t balance their own needs with the supply they cangenerate, why should the South--”

Fine, if that’s how he wants to play it. Alex raises his voice to try to drown the other guy out.  “If the South wants to call itself a part ofa country, it needs to support--”

“State-by-state trade--”

“—what, you expect landowners to share their profits freely enough tokeep a country alive, God you’re naïve--”

“—freedom from the chokeholdof a national bank--”

“—so the country can be held hostage by the South?”

“Farms and farm owners should be able to dictate where their finances--”

“—can’t punish the North for the sin of not having huge arable fields--”

“—your vaunted manufacturing facilities cover it?”

By now they’re bellowing at each other over the heads of the rest of theclass, real anger kicking up an intellectual debate into something familiar,and so Alex isn’t really surprised by the next slip of his tongue.  Old habits, new dogs—old dogs?  Something like that.

Anyway.

Point is, Alex slams his textbook down onto the grad student’s table andhollers, “Goddamnit, Jefferson, I wasright and history proves it, get off your fucking high horse!”

There’s a long couple seconds where Alex remembers, in the dead silencethat’s settled on the lecture hall, that he was kind of planning to keep a lidon that?   Oh well, any hope of secrecywas blown to shit by Washington’s class anyway and fuck it, he’s right, he was right then and he’s right now, andfurthermore—

“Go fuck yourself, Hamilton,” the tall guy says, and Alex has a smallheart attack.

“Jesus God, fucking Christ, what the fuck,” the grad student blurts allat once in a rush, but Alex doesn’t answer her, too busy taking a deep breathto launch his next volley.

Admittedly, it’s not a gracious one, but listen, just listen: Alex is not a gracious personand no one ever said he was, certainly never more than once, and definitely notafter having an argument with him.  

“Hey, look, I’m sure it’s rough to realize that all your best effortsonly ended in Andrew Jackson’s racist ass closing down the federal bank andlanding us all neck deep in shit a hundred and fifty years later--”

“Excuse me, I wrote--”

Alex drives over the tall guy’s protests—Jefferson’s protests, and wow, he’s going to hear about this fromWashington later.  “—but you really haveto get over your bullshit economic plan and just admit that it depends on slavery.”

“It does not!”

“Oh my god it does, it totallydoes, the only way your plan works is if there’s basically no economic overheadfor labor, and like, listen, buddy, I’m not sure if anyone ever told you this,but we had a whole war about the slavery thing, it was a very big deal, itkilled like a million people and then we agreed that slavery was bad.”  Alex pauses and very slowly arches an eyebrowat Jefferson, enjoying this…probably more than he should.  “Do youagree that slavery was bad, Thomas?” he asks with a wide smile.

If Jefferson purses his lips any harder, Alex thinks they might actuallyfuse.  “Still an asshole and animmigrant, I see.”

“Well, not all of us had such an easy karmic target on our backs as,say, just for example, a slave owner with a realbad track record getting brought back as a black guy,” Alex points outgenerously.  “If Maria shows up, I’m morethan happy to let her follow Peggy’s example and punch me, I’m doing mypenance.”

“I don’t deserve this,” Jefferson tells the ceiling.

“I dunno, man,” the girl sitting next to him says.  “Sounds like you might.  Like, I did the reading and your plan was kind of bullshit.”

Honestly this is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to him—well,no, it’s not even the greatest thing to happen to him this month, but it’s upthere, okay, it’s way up there.  “I feel so, so validated,” Alex tells thegrad student, who looks like she might be in shock?  Her eyes are wide and her jaw is slack, so hecocks his head and asks, “Are you okay?”

She shuts her mouth with a click, closes her eyes, swallows.  Pinches the bridge of her nose between herthumb and finger.  It’s shockinglysimilar to Washington’s patented Headache Pose that always appeared during thelatest cabinet battle royal.  

“Can you two be trusted to not kill each other if you sit on oppositesides of the hall?”

“Come on, now, we worked together for like—most of a couple decades,”Alex says after a second of mental math.

“Yeah,” she says, opening her eyes and visibly trying not to be star struck, which Alex…appreciates, to becompletely honest.  “And then you, youknow, mutually annihilated each other and he spent a couple more decades tryingto blackball your name out of the history books.”

“It’s so rare that I feel like the bigger person,” Alex says, bouncingon his toes.

“That’s because you’re unnaturally small,” Jefferson mutters, sullenlyresuming his seat.

“I am not listening to baseless insults about my height right now, thankyou, Jefferson, I have the eternal trump card and there’s nothing you can doabout it.”

The grad student puts her head back into her hand, and squeezes her eyesshut.

[sanctimoniousscrawlings]

Prompt#1: Lull of the Forest (part 2)

 The overwhelming pressure I typically feel inside the house appears to be gone and I’m not ready to leave this sanctuary so I roll onto my side to start scratching my fox friend behind the ears. The movement sends a couple flower petals floating down from my head. I reach up to find I circlet of entwined flowers perched on my crown.  “Strange.” I intone sleepily. But then what it this forest isn’t? “I should probably give you a name instead of referring to you as ‘the fox’ all the time, huh? What do you think of... Fen?”  The fox begins licking my hand in response and I take that as acquiescence. At this point, I notice a note on the nightstand, held there by my phone. I pick up the phone to see a message from Demeter saying that she would be staying the night in town and that she’d be back in the afternoon. I text a quick response back and grab the note.  In a tall, narrow, curving script it reads, “Keep the cloak for protection. Darkness dwells deep within your abode- it would be wise to make this space your own. May the light of the goddess help you find your way.”  Curiouser and curiouser. I feel as though whoever wrote the note is judging me for not erasing Dylan’s presence from the house.  “I’m not sure how to make it mine,” I murmur. I haven’t felt like myself in years. There are times where I don’t even feel like a person anymore. I get up and leave the room to wander the house in consideration, leaving the door open for Fen.

 What would I even do to make this place mine? I have my desk. I have my studio. Buying new furniture would be a waste- I actually like a lot of what was left behind. I could fill the place with books the way Demeter has with plants. Maybe I could take on some form of crafting.   I could knit a couch cozy or something. On second thought I’ve always thought they were hideous. Ships in bottles? Challenging, requiring more focus than I’m capable of, plus what will my aesthetic be then? A pirate? I’m going to dress like a pirate now. A ship’s wheel on the wall. My bed needs a mast.  Wait, how would that even work. “This is so stupid,” I mutter, clutching the sides of my head. While I would not mind the whole pirate chic look, that’s not me. I’ve never even seen the ocean.  I make my way to the studio at the back of the house. The sliding door leading into my space is stuck shut and icy to the touch. What the hell? I decide to try heading outside in order to go around but the front door won’t open either. I can’t breathe.  Panic digs its talons deep into my chest. The pressure in the air is back and stronger than ever.  “That’s it. I’m burning this fucking house to the ground.”  The aura of the house is so palpable and I feel as though it’s laughing at me. “You wanna play chicken with me, fucker?” I rush to the kitchen and start flinging paper towels everywhere. I know I need something more substantial but I’m at a loss. I make to light an entire roll with the stove but it won’t light.  “You think this will stop me?” I cackle, completely mad, and pull a lighter out of my pocket. “I’m a stoner. You think I didn’t come prepared to fucking party?” I’m screaming at the house, only mildly aware of how insane I’m acting.  I hear the sliding door slam open and am shaken from my state of mind. I head back to my studio to find the door open. I freeze when I see the canvas in the middle of the room.  In the same sloppy handwriting as Dylan’s letter, I see in bold crimson paint: Man. You go zero to a hundred real quick.  “Dylan?” No. Why me?  The brush floats up from the pallette and begins to scrawl. The one and only. I’m glad you came, Riley.  To say I immensely regret not burning the house down is a massive understatement of the grossest proportions. The lighter is still in my hand. It’s not too late. “Absolutely not. No. This is not something I can allow.” I did not sign up for this bullshit.  The brush makes it’s way over to the paint and I back hand it out of the air before kicking the easel to the ground and stomping on the canvas.  “Leave. Leave, now. I’m still ready to light this whole sucker up.”  A pencil starts scribbling furiously on top of the sheathe of papers I keep on my desk. I don’t bother looking. I go back to my room, grab my phone, my wallet, the cloak, the fox, and my backpack before heading back to the studio. The pencil starts writing again but I continue to ignore it. Fen is making some seriously unhappy noises and baring it’s teeth in the direction of my desk. I throw open the back doors and leave, straight for the forest.  I stop at the treeline to send Demeter a text.  Me: Dylan has not left the building .  D: what  Me: He’s. Fucking. HauNtiNG. OUR. HOUSE.  Me: I’m heading out. Let me know when you’re coming home and I’ll return.  D: Where are you going?  Me: The woods. Which, and I never thought I would say this, are safer. I’ve got Fen with me.  D: Who is Fen  D: And don’t go into the woods.  Me: This chill little fox that’s been hanging with me when I’m working on stuff outside. I think They sent her to watch over us. She’s curled up in my hood rn. So. Cute.  D: You’re already in the forest, aren’t you  Me: Of course! =D  D: Of course.

 I can practically feel her roll her eyes through the text.

 D: Just... Don’t do anything stupid  Me: That reminds me. There are papel towels all over the kitchen floor. I’ll take care of it when I get home.  D: I know I’m gonna regret asking how that happened but here I am. Please tell me it was a mischeivous vulpine.  Me: That asshole tried to trap me in the house so I was gonna burn it to the ground. Dylan caved as soon as I pulled out my lighter.  D: I wanna say that’s unreasonable and you know better but honestly  D: I don’t think I can  D: Don’t burn the forest down if you see something scary  Me: The only thing I’m lighting up is my holy green  Me: Anything scary is getting offered a joint. Maybe the things out here will have mercy on me if they’re high.

 Demeter sent me another text but I don’t read it- I’ve found my way into a meadow and in its center is the basket I’ve been bringing gifts out with. I move the cloth out of the way to find the basket full of all sorts of strange thing. At the top is a note with the same elegant handwriting as what was on my desk.  Wear me.  O...kay.... I move the note aside to find a large orange crystal in a filligreed silver holster attached to a large leather loop. Beneath that is... A witch’s hat?  It’s forest green velvet, matching the silk of the cloak I’m wearing. It’s quite a bit more squat than the costume hats I’ve seen and there’s a rust coloured feather sticking out of a matching band around the base of the hat.  “Why not.” I put the crystal necklace on followed by the hat. “I have never felt so bad ass and so ridiculous at the same time.”  Fen yawns in my hood.  I pick up the basket and pull the rest out. More crytals that look like they could be exchanged with the one on my necklace. Two packages wrapped in brown paper containing a mysterious book with blank pages and... a deck of tarot cards? What, are They new age hippies? A green velvet satchel I hadn’t noticed before was still at the bottom. I pulled it open to see rune stones held within and then pull the drawstrings to seal it again. “Yep. The forest folk terrorizing the town are really just new age hippies. Now this is the gay agenda I always wanted.”  I check the text Demi sent me.

 D: Who knows? You do seem to have a penchant for getting what you want when you focus. I mean, you just played chicken with a haunted house and it blinked first. Then again, maybe he didn’t think a suicide pact was a romantic enough first date.  Me: If I had died I would have turned the tables. Haunt him and kick his scrawny etherial ass. But listen, you’ll never guess what I found in the forest  D: Oh god  Me: I’ve been bringing food out in a basket and leaving it near the treeline. After a while it started returning with goodies in it. I just found it out in the forest and- hold on.

 I take a selfie and then a picture of the rest of the trinkets before putting them away in my bag and attactching the basket to it. I send the pictures and then keep moving while I wait for her response.

 D: You aren’t the new age witch they deserve but the one they need right now  Me: Crazy right? Who would have thought They would be a bunch of hippies, killing off the conservative small town in a ploy to improve society as a whole-the gay liberal agenda I do deserve and definitely need right now.  Me: Maybe they’re recruiting freedom fighters. I’ll go bitch slap some gun nuts in the face for fun, let alone a revolution. I wonder how they feel about guillotines.  D: I’m always down for nazi punching and lopping off the heads of the bourgeoisie  Me: Is it bad that I’m digging this look? It just feels so right.  D: I wonder if they provide essential oils with the enlistment package; I don’t care for infusers but I’ve kinda always wanted to try making bath bombs since discovering the wonders of Lush

 We continue our conversation as I wander further north. I feel more and more sets of curious eyes on me as I trek but sense no animosity. Eventually I reach a grassy knoll and sprawl out on it, staring up at the clouds as they drift by. Fen wanders off and I, for the third day in a row, fall asleep in a place that should terrify me. All manner of strange creature fills my dreams, but they are pleasant. In my final dream, the earth swallows me. I sink down into it, throwing down roots to grow into something more. Voices surround me but I am not concerned for I am safe in the earth’s embrace.

 “He’s waking up.” Is the last thing I want to hear when I awaken, and anxiety crawls up my spine like a particularly large centipede, digging it’s many feet into my flesh.  The first thing I see is a man leaning in way too close with bright green eyes, a cheerful expression, and a fiery halo of messy hair.  “You know, for someone from the village, you sure feel comfortable falling asleep in the forest. This makes the third time I’ve had to carry you off to safety, Riley.” He was jovial and it was a little unnerving. “Not all of us are nice.”  “I believe you have nice and kind mistaken, young man.” A woman with raven black hair and crimson eyes placed a slender hand on the man’s shoulder, pulling him out of the space he was encroaching on.  I breathed a little easier now that my space wasn’t being invaded.  “Who are you guys? Where am I? Wait. Are those... Fox ears?”  “In order: we are fae of the Seelie court. I am Queen Sylairia and this is-” The man cut her off before she could finish.  “You already know my name. These are definitely fox ears.”  “Fen?” I ask, bewildered.  “It’s Fenrir, but you were close enough.”  “Wait, Fenrir, like the wolf in norse mythology?” I called him Fen because it was short for Fennec.  “That’s the one.”  “But you’re a faerie that shapeshifts into a fox.”  “I fail to see the problem.”  Sylairia rolls her eyes and continues, “You are in the royal quarters of our domain, more specifically Fenrir’s room- and yes. Those are indeed fox ears as Fenrir just said. I am glad to see you are so very observant.” She says drily. “So, you are the changeling that caught my son’s eye.” She looks me over disapprovingly. “Spending so long away from left you with something to be desired. Several things, you are lacking in, in fact. Tell me, boy. Who is your mother?”  My face must have looked like a giant question mark because Fenrir spoke up. “I don’t think he knows, mother.”  “You at least knew you were not human, correct?”  “Uhh....”  The queen lets out an exasperated sigh, turns, and walks out muttering under her breath. “That boy... there’s no accounting for taste.”  “So, uhh. Question.” I say tentatively.  “Shoot.”  “Did you bring me this stuff?” I sit up, lifting my arms to gesture at myself.  “Yeah. The cloak is spelled with protections. The crystals grant various boons as well.”  “And the hat?”  “+ 5 to charisma?”  “What.”  “I just thought it was a good lynch pin for the whole ensemble- aaand I was right. Consider me spellbound.” He grins at me and there’s a wicked glint in his eye.  I throw the hat at his face, too flustered to respond, and he laughs as he’s putting it back on my head.  “The sexy warlock look suits you- though I would switch out the clothes under it for something more...” he pauses, trying to think. “I retract that. I’d switch it out for something less.” He says with a wink.  “Do I need to throw something heavier at you?”  The look on his face says he’s about to dig his grave deeper but he reconsiders and changes the subject, avoiding peril. “You know, I sense strong magic in you.”  “This better not be another pick up line.”  “Ooh, I just came up with a good one- but no. Come with me, and bring your bag.”  I eye him suspiciously.  “I already have you in my bed; this isn’t another flirtation.”  “Fair point.” I do as he asked and follow him out. “Where are we going?”  “I’m taking you to High Witch Magdelena. She’s the best teacher one could hope for.”  I’m about to ask more questions when my phone pings.

 D: You better still be in one piece.  Me: I’m alright. Boy do I have a story for you  D: I’m about to head back to the house. Meet there?  Me: Not yet. I might be in faerie hq rn  D: Riley, get out of there.  Me: Too late, getting magic lessons from a seelie high witch brb  D: Wait, Seelie? Are you sure?  Me: Faeries can’t lie, right?  D: ...  D: True. Do you think they’re gonna help you exorcise our douchebag of a ghost?  Me: I hope so. They seem to think I’m a changeling. Either way, I think you should stay away from the house for now. I guess I’ll let you know when I’m on my way back?  D: Be careful.  Me: Nah, I think I’ll just bumrush this whole situation. Maybe light the place on fire.  D: I know you think you’re joking but I’m betting you end up lighting it on fire  Me: I didn’t light the house on fire.  D: That’s the first time I’ve ever heard of you failing to set something ablaze  Me: first of all how dare

 I put my phone away just in time for us to stop at a large, ornate doorway.  “Wait out here, I’m going in to talk to her first.” Riley says, cracking the door open and disappearing through it.

The Prompt Part One Next

[crimsonadri-fanfiction]

Make a Move (Chapter 9)

Fandom: Until Dawn

Genre: Romance, Humor, Tragedy, Hurt/Comfort

Pairing: Josh x OC

Rated: M

Warnings: Language,

(First) (Previous)

A/N; This chapter will end the game events. After this chapter it’s all original scenes from my brain.

Sam, Ashley, Maxine, Emily and Chris were walking through the basement. Sam had a flashlight attached to a headband, Ashley had a normal flashlight and Chris had a larger flashlight. Maxine had put on Josh’s jacket and she continued to hold herself as she followed the others.

“Come on guys! Hurry up! We gotta find Mike.” Sam said. “Come on.”

“Hey…” Chris said leaning against the wall. “ahhh… I’m kinda gimping out here, guys…” Ashley walked up to him as Emily walked past her. “I think maybe you should go on without me.”

“Oh god, Chris. Are you gunna be okay?” Ashley asked.

“Yeah, yeah! Just go on…” he said waving an arm. “I… I can’t keep up with you macho ladies…”

“Oh god Chris just stop it, okay?”

“Listen, just… just go on ahead, okay? You gotta warn Mike. I’ll be right behind you…” Chris sat down against the wall. “I’m just gunna take a breather.”

“…alright…” Ashley said. She started to follow the others but stopped and went back to Chris. “No. Chris. We are not leaving you. We’re sticking together. Mike will just have to wait.” Chris got up with a sigh.

…

The two were slower than the rest of the group but eventually caught back up. Sam tried to open the door to the sanatorium.

“Oh shit. Mike must have locked it behind him. Crap! There’s gotta be another way in.” Sam said.

“Wait.” Ashley said. “Hey. What about this?” she gestured down to a sewer grate.

“Oh…huh.” Sam ran back over to the others.

“I mean, should… should we try it?”

“Well it’s not like we got a whole lot of choices here…” Sam said. Ashley grabbed a nearby pipe and lifted the grate cover. “Okay… ugh!” She and Sam moved it over. “Okay this is maybe the last place I’d wanna be right now.”

“This was your idea.” Maxine pointed out.

“So who’s going first?” Sam asked. Ashley chuckled.

“After you.” Emily said.

“Might as well get it over with.” Maxine said. She sat down at the edge and reached across for the ladder as she slid off the edge. Sam followed after her.

“Not so bad.” Sam said. “You think this is the tunnel to the sanatorium?”

“Of course it is. Where else would it go?” Ashley asked. Emily followed after Sam. “Chris. I know you’re hurt but you gotta move it, alright?”

“I’m tryin’, Ash…” Chris said as he got down.

“Hey… um…” Ashley stopped at the top of the ladder. “hey we should close this, right?”

“Huh?” Sam looked up at her.

“I mean what if something’s following us?”

“Yes, fine. Close it.” Sam said. “But we gotta keep moving. Can you just catch up? Please?” Sam said as the group continued on.

“Yeah.” Ashley called back.

…

The group ran into Ashley.

“How’d you get in front of us?” Maxine asked.

“Oh my god I am so glad to see you.” Ashley said.

“Glad you’re safe.” Sam said.

“Look… look there!” Ashley said as she pointed to a broken ladder.

“Wow great.” Sam said.

“The ladder’s toast we’re never going to make it up there!”

“No no no, I think I can… I think I can do it. It’s like… a rock wall.” Sam said. “I’m gunna keep going… you should head back to the lodge I’ve gotta get Mike.”

“I’m coming with you.” Maxine said as she followed Sam.

“Have you ever climbed a rock wall before?” Sam asked.

“Yeah… during gym.”

“Good luck!” Ashley called as she and the others left.

“I’ll just watch what you do.” Maxine said.

“… alright, be careful. If you feel like you can’t do it, climb back down and catch up with the others.” Sam said.

“I’ll be fine.” Maxine said. Sam nodded and started to climb. She climb about seven feet before she jumped to an outcrop. “Right because I can do that.” Maxine muttered to herself. She quickly examined the wall and picked out her own path before she started climbing.  Sam reached the top with a grunt.

“I beat you.” Sam said. “I fuckin’ beat you.”

“You talking to me or the wall?” Maxine grunted as her foot slipped and she got a scrape on her leg that tore her leggings.  

“The wall.” Sam said. “You’re almost there.” She said. “…almost there.” She reached down to pull Maxine up. “There. You did it.”

“That’s my workout for the year.” Maxine panted. She looked down at the new rips and tears in her leggings. “I’m never wearing these again.” She sighed.

“Come on, let’s go.” They walked forward a bit and turned left before dropping down.

“Man I wish I had a flashlight.” Maxine whispered.

“Just stay close to me.” Sam said as they walked. “Hello?” she called.

“Is it really the best idea to shout in here?” Maxine whispered.

“You’re right, my bad.” Sam said. “Help me with this door.” she said as the two walked up the fence gate. They tried to pull it open but it wouldn’t budge.

“We can use this.” Maxine said handing Sam a shovel she picked up.

“Come on, come on you can do it.” Sam said as she put the shovel between the gate and the fence. “Push it.” Both girls pushed until the door flew open. They walked only a few feet towards another door when Mike burst in.

“Goddamnit!! Say out there!!!” he shouted as he tried to close the door on a semi-burning wendigo.

“Mike!” Sam screamed.

“Oh god!” Maxine yelled.

“Holy shit!” The Wendigo jumped on Mike who was on the ground. “Hey!! Fatty! Over here!!” Sam shouted before she hit it with the shovel twice with the second hit knocking off the Wendigo’s head. Mike quickly got up and closed the door and locked it by putting a sawed off shotgun in the way.

“Whoa. You alright?” Mike asked looking between the two girls.

“Uhh, define ‘alright’.” Sam said.

“Alive, for a start.” Mike said.

“Yeah. Yeah, alive’s good!”

“The hell are you two doing here, anyway?” Mike asked.

“We were gunna warn you about the Wendigos.” Sam said.

“I think I got it.” Mike said.

“Yeah…”

“Let’s find a way down to where this fucker lives.”

“I was not prepared for how ugly that thing would be up close.” Sam said as she and Maxine followed Mike.

“Yeah… so I noticed something kind of weird about it…” Mike said.

“Uh…what?”

“The Wendigo- it had a scar.”

“So?”

“I’ve seen it before.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I saw these old pictures of some guy with that same scar- and he was transforming into a Wendigo.”

“You’re kidding.”

“It was one of the miners who’d been trapped, back in the 50s… the cave in.” Mike said. “Which means that thing is 80 years old. At least.”

“Spunky for an old timer.” Sam said.

“They cleaned the place out…” Mike said. “Killed a lot of people.”

“They? You mean there’re more of them?”

“Oh yeah.”

“How many?”

“Too many.”

“I don’t know if that’s more comforting than an actual number.” Maxine muttered.

“I think we’re close.” Sam said. “To the lair.”

“How can you tell?” Mike asked.

“I don’t know… I just… feel really terrible all of a sudden.”

“Ditto.” Mike said. The three entered a large cavern with a lake.

“I really don’t wanna go in there…”

“There’s no other way through.” Mike said.

“Well, why don’t we take a look around first? I’d rather not get hypothermia.” Maxine said. The three walked around the water to the left.

“Mike… is that what I think it is?” Sam asked.

“Shit… looks like a grave.” Mike said. Sam walked over and picked something up.

“Oh god… Mike.” Sam said as she turned to show the two. “This is Beth’s. This is her watch.”

“What? Let me see.”

“Look, there was a cross here.” Sam pointed.

“So this is where she was buried.”

“Meaning… Hannah was still alive like Emily thought.” Maxine said. “She buried her sister.”

“But… who dug her up?” Sam asked.

“Let’s keep moving.” Mike said. Sam put the watch in her pocket. The three headed back to the water.

“Fine. I’m going in.” Sam said as the three sat on the edge. Mike jumped in and let out a breath.

“Come on, it’s okay.” He said.

“You sure…?”

“I’m not dead yet.”

“Famous last words.” Sam said before dropping in. “Brrrrrr. It is freezing. I can’t feel my fingers.”

“Holy shit.” Mike said. Maxine grimaced but slid off into the water, she lifted Josh’s jacket so it didn’t get wet.

“Ack-! My legs are already numb.” She gasped. Sam noticed Mike sinking in a bit.

“Wait a minute. I thought you’d reached the deepest part?” she asked.

“Well I didn’t say that I said… it was okay, meaning like there weren’t any sharks or anything in here.”

“Sharks? Great! Thank you.”

“I’d love to meet a shark that would live in this water.” Maxine breathed.

“Pretty sure you wouldn’t.” Sam said.

“Yeah I-I know I meant… ya know behind the glass of a tank or something.” Maxine said. “Hey there’s another area over here.” Maxine said as she made her way over. She climbed out of the water and shivered as the other two got out. They walked over to an open journal.

“Oh shit. This looks like Hannah’s writing.” Mike said. Sam turned a few pages.

“’I’m sorry, Beth… I have no choice.’” Sam read. “’it’s the only way I can survive any more. If someone finds this, I’m sorry. I had to… I had no other choice.’”

“What does it mean…Jesus…” Mike said. Sam turned the page and the writing became bigger. On the next page the writing devolved into scrawls but the word hunger would be read. Sam stood shaking her head.

“Oh god… it makes sense… I think Hannah dug up Beth. It was Hannah!”

“No that’s-“ Mike shook his head. “That’s ridiculous-“

“Michael… Michael, it has to be.” Sam said. “It’s the only thing that makes sense- Beth died in the fall-”

“So what… what does that mean-“

“So Hannah must have buried her.”

“Goddamnit… god-damn it.”

“Hannah was down here… for…”

“I don’t believe any of this-!”

“She would have been starving… she would have been desperate-“

“Fuck!”

“We need to find Josh.” Sam said. “Right now.” The three headed back into the water and waded to the other side.

“It’s getting deeper.” Mike said as they neared the edge.

“Yeah, uhm…”

“Okay okay… Hey, it’s sloping up again. We’re gunna make it.”

“Oh my god, don’t jinx it!” Sam hissed. They three climbed out of the water.

“Come on, come on, we made it.” Mike said. Sam walked up to a door and pulled the handle down. The door burst open and water flooded out knocking the three down. Maxine opened her eyes and gasped as she was face to face with the head of the stranger. She screamed and scrambled to get up and away from it. Mike pulled her up and held her by her arms. “Oh whoa whoa… Jesus… jee…” The three were breathing heavily as they went through the door.

“You see that…?” Sam asked as she looked up at the body of the stranger on a hook as well as a few others.

“Yeah…” Mike said.

“…bodies…”

“Yeah. Yeah, a lot of them.”

“Oh…”

“Oh my god…”

“Nooo…!”

“I’m gunna be sick.” Mike moaned. They turned away from the bodies. Mike turned towards a wall that was a bunch of boards. “Wait wait wait! Hold on…hold on… I think I saw something…” The three looked through the boards. Maxine gasped.

“No… no no… no no no… I don’t… I don’t take orders from you…”

“Josh!” Maxine gasped. Mike pushed open the door to the area Josh was in and they ran in.

“I don’t take orders from you; you can’t tell me what to do…” Josh moaned.

“Hey…” Mike said. “Hey Josh!”

“You can’t tell me what to do anymore!!” he cried.

“Josh? Buddy?”

“You can’t tell me what to do!!!” He cried as he held his head. “Okay…okay… I trust you… I trust you…” he said. “I trust you…”

“What’s the matter with him Mike?” Sam asked.

“He’s tripping or something.” Mike said before he slapped Josh. “Josh!”

“M-Mike?” Josh asked. Mike grabbed Josh’s shoulders.

“Josh… hey man-“

“Don’t- Don’t h-hit me, p-please-”

“Well you were deep in it, man. Full mental jacket.” Mike said.

“We didn’t think we’d get you back.” Sam said.

“Josh!” Maxine gasped and threw her arms around his neck.

“M-M-Max?” his eyes widened as he wrapped his arms around her tightly. “Max!...Max…oh…”

“I thought you were dead!” she sobbed into his shoulder.

“Josh…” Sam said. “Hannah was down here for… weeks… a month?! She dug Beth up!”

“Sam…” Mike said.

“Mike…”

“Let’s just get the fuck out of here.” Mike said.

“Okay, Josh do you have the key for the cable car?” Sam asked.

“Uh…Y-yeah… here.” Josh reached into his pocket and handed it to her.

“Oh good.” Sam said. Maxine took her arms from around him and took a step back but still kept her hands on his arms.

“M-Max, you…” Josh put a hand on her cheek and ended up smudging the dirt and blood. “you’re soaked.” Josh said as he finally seemed to noticed. “I-It’s freezing down here.” He fumbled to zip her jacket before he quickly pulled her back into his arms in an attempt to warm her. Sam walked towards one side of the room where light was shining.

“See that over there?” Sam asked as she pointed. “That means there’s a direct way out. C’mon.”

“There’s no way Josh is gunna make it up there.” Mike said.

“Okay. If you help me up I can go back to tell the others we’re okay.” Sam said.

“Yeah… Yeah good.” Mike said.

“You bring Josh back the way we came and we’ll all meet at the lodge.” Sam said. “Max, you coming with me?” Josh tightened his hold on Maxine as she shook her head.

“I’m not leaving him.” she said. Sam nodded.

“Be careful.” Mike said as he helped Sam up.

“You too.” Sam said before she started to climb.

“Alright let’s go you fucked up son of a bitch.” Mike said. Josh kept an arm around Maxine, and she him, as they followed Mike.

“You didn’t… you didn’t have to hit me so much, man.” Josh said.

“Ah, yeah… I’m sorry about before, man. I-I thought you killed Jess…” Mike said. “I was wrong.” The three re-entered the room with the hanging bodies.

“No… no!” Josh said. Maxine looked up at him.

“How’s your shoulder?” she asked as she tried to distract him.

“F-Fine… fine… it’s fine…” he said as he nodded. He started to mumble to himself. “I know… I know I know I know… okay.” He breathed. “H-How are you doing?” Josh asked as he looked down at her.

“I’m fine.” Maxine whispered with a smile.

“Y-You’re bleeding…” he touched her forehead.

“Huh?” Maxine reached up and touched the left side of her forehead and pulled back to find blood. “I must have hit my hand when I fell…”

“You- are you okay?” Josh stopped and turned to face her. “I didn’t want – I didn’t want you to get hurt.” he moaned. “I didn’t want anyone to get hurt…” Maxine reached up and held his face gently.

“I’m fine, Josh, if finding you alive means getting hurt, I would do it all again.” She whispered. Josh closed his eyes as put his hands over hers. Mike dropped back into the water and started heading back. Josh frowned deeply at the water but as Maxine sat down on the edge he followed. They dropped into the water and Josh put his arm back around Maxine as he shivered. As Mike got to the center he suddenly freaked out.

“Oh fu-!” he shouted as he fell into the water. Josh immediately pushed Maxine behind him and held out his arm as the Wendigo swam towards them. It popped out and screamed.

“NO you’re not real!” Josh screamed. “No, you’re not…” Josh noticed the tattoo on the Wendigo’s shoulder as it grabbed his shirt. “Hannah!”

“Josh, I love you!” Maxine screamed. The Wendigo’s head snapped to look in her direction, still keeping a hold on Josh’s shirt.

“W-What?” he gasped.

“I can’t die without having told you!” she sobbed. “I’m in love with you.” She whimpered.

“M-Max…” The Wendigo’s head snapped back to look at Josh. “Max I-…” The Wendigo screamed in Josh’s face. “I love you too!” he screamed as he turned his head away from the Wendigo with his eyes shut tight. “I love you too…” he sobbed. “I should’ve asked you out before but I was afraid- I was afraid you didn’t like me like that…” The Wendigo screamed in Josh’s face as it lifted him up. “O-Oh god! Max, run!”

“I’m not leaving you!” Max screamed. The Wendigo looked at her then back to Josh before it dropped Josh in the water. Max rushed to help him up as he coughed out water. The Wendigo screamed long and hard in both their faces as they held each other before it ran off.

“Oh g- oh god…” Josh pulled Max to him and held her tightly. “Oh Max, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry all of this happened…” he sobbed as he put his forehead to hers.

“Josh…” Maxine cried. He kissed the top of her head.

“Hey.” Mike whisper-yelled. “You can be happy to be alive after we get out of here. Let’s go.”

“Where were you?” Maxine asked.

“Can we just get out of here?” he asked. Maxine nodded. The three continued through the water and climbed out.

“You’re gunna get sick…” Josh said as he looked Maxine up and down.

“Getting sick is the least of our problems.” she said.

“We gotta move.” Mike said.

“Okay.” Maxine said.

“You’re not leaving my side.” Josh said as he put his arm around her.

“Promise?” Maxine asked as she looked up at him.

“It’s a fucking oath.” Josh said as he looked in her eyes.

“Come on.” Mike said.

“There’s Sam!” Maxine said as she pointed at the girl who was calling for someone to let her into the lodge. The three ran up to her.

“Sam-“ Mike said. She turned around and jumped.

“Ah! Shit, Mike!” Sam said. “Oh gosh you guys look terrible-“

“Gonna look worse if we stay out here.” He said. “Come on!” Sam picked up a rock and smashed the glass of the door. She reached in and opened it.

“Okay…” Sam said. Mike closed the door behind them. Sam walked over to the light switch and turned on the lights. Mike immediately turned them off.

“Not good.”

“What do you think we should do?” Sam asked.

“We should check the basement…” Mike said. “Might be someone left down there…” The group headed downstairs and into the cinema room.

“How do you rate our chances of survival?” Sam asked.

“I’m trying not to think about it.” Mike said. As the three approached the door they hurt running and saw the other trio.

“Go! Run!” Ashley shouted. Chris ran out first.

“Go! Go! Go!” He shouted.

“Go! We gotta go!” Emily screamed as she ran out next, pushing Ashley against the door. Ashley easily recovered and ran out as well.

“Run!” Mike shouted before he, Josh and Maxine ran after them while Sam locked the door. Maxine and Josh were holding hand as they ran up the stairs; he saw the Wendigo first. Josh quickly pulled Maxine against his chest and put a hand on hers to stop her. He put his lips against her ear.

“D-don’t… move…” he whispered. With his hand on her chest he could feel her heart racing as she saw the Wendigo on the hanging sculpture. Maxine closed her eyes as Josh gave her hand a squeeze. Sam ran up the stairs but before she saw everyone wasn’t moving she ran out and stopped closest to Mike.  

“Don’t… move…” Mike whispered to her. “Don’t fucking move a muscle…” Two more Wendigo climbed up out of the basement. The one on the sculpture, Hannah, climbed down and faced one of them. It lunged at her but she threw it against the stairs, breaking them, then at the fireplace. The Wendigo’s body hit the fireplace and knocked into the gas pipe. Gas started leaking into the air. Mike saw it then noticed a light on the other side of the room. He looked back at the pipe then slowly turned his head around to look at the light switch next to the door. Mike silently looked at Sam to convey his plan. She nodded ever so slightly.  Mike slowly moved towards the light. Two of the Wendigo’s attacked each other. The larger, Hannah, slammed the other’s head on the ground before she picked it up and pulled its head right off. Sam took a step back and the floor behind her creaked. The Wendigo screamed and turned towards her. It took a few steps towards her. Mike reached the light and broke the light bulb. Chris managed to run out the door. The Wendigo, having heard the light bulb break, turned to Mike.

“Hey!” Sam shouted. The Wendigo screamed and moved towards her. Maxine could hear Emily move behind her and Josh as she managed to escape. In front of them Ashley was backing up slowly.

“Come on Max.” Josh whispered before he started to back up. “We’re g-gunna be okay… almost there…” he gave her hand a squeeze as he slowly looked behind them. Josh took his hand from Max’s chest and he turned to run, pulling her with him. They ran outside where Chris and Emily were waiting.

“Josh…” Maxine wrapped her arms around his neck and held him.

“You’re alive… you’re safe… you’re okay…” he whispered as he wrapped his arms around her tightly. Maxine pulled back slightly and kissed him.

“I-I thought I would never get the chance to do tha-” she was cut off as he put a hand on the back of her head and kissed her deeply. Ashley ran out of the lodge and immediately ran to Chris who followed Josh’s example by scooping her into his arms and kissing her. A few moments later Mike ran out.

“Where’s Sam?” Emily whispered. Everyone looked back at the lodge in time to see Sam running out.

“Get down!” Mike shouted. Everyone hit the ground as Sam hit he light switch on her way out and the whole lodge exploded sending Sam flying.

“Is everyone okay?!” Mike called as he got up. He looked up as he saw a helicopter.

“Oh thank god!” Emily shouted.

“Everyone move so it can land!” Mike called out. Josh got up from beside Max.

“Max- Max?” he looked down at her. She was staring at the lodge, her hands on her head. “M-Max? Max!” He crouched in front of her. Her eyes were wide as she stared right through him. Her chest was moving up and down rapidly. “H-Help! Guys help me! She-she-she’s not-… Max!”

“What’s wrong?!” Mike shouted as he ran over.

“I-I-I don’t- I don’t know! I don’t know!”

“She’s hyperventilating!” Ashley shouted. Emily looked from Maxine to the lodge as it burned. Her eyes widened and she ran over to the girl.

“She’s going into shock!” Sam shouted.

“The fire must have triggered her PTSD.” Emily said. Everyone looked at her. “She told me she almost died in a fire that killed her parents!” Josh’s eyes widened.

“Max!” he shouted. “M-Max snap out of it!” he was starting to cry as Max’s breathing became more erratic.

“Slow breaths, Max, slow breaths.” Sam said as she tried to calm her. The helicopter soon landed.

“Is anyone hurt?” someone called as they jumped out and ran over. The man’s eyes widened at the state of the group.

“Please help her!” Josh shouted.

“Everyone get in the chopper.” The man said. Everyone ran over to the helicopter. Josh didn’t move. “Sir-“

“I’m not leaving her.” Josh said. The man nodded and turned to Max.

“Ma’am.” The man kneeled next to Max. “I need you to slow your breathing. Breath through your nose.” Max grabbed at her throat as she struggled to breathe.

“We- we need to get her away from the fire.” Josh said. “She… she has PTSD.” The man nodded and lifted Max up. Her head fell back as she finally passed out.

“Your parents own the lodge?”

“Where’s… where’s Max?”

“Your friends say you invited everyone back. They’re saying some pretty… bad things.”

“Is she okay? Can- Can I see her?”

“Your friend is fine. Why did you subject your friends to all of this?”

“I want- I-I want to see her.”

“You can see her after. I need you to answer my questions.”

“P-Please let me see her…”

Story continues after the game like I said BUT chapters are gunna be shorter again since it’s all original scenes (I’ll try to make them as long as I can). I really like writing this and I don’t want to stop. I enjoy writing the characters. I’m gunna try to think of as much content that I can for post-game events.

I do have an alternate ending that was originally going to be the ending to the story but I changed it to this one so I could keep the story going.

Alternate Ending Here

Next Chapter

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