#in the middle of starting 2 fics but???

[writeouswriter]

The curse has lifted (finally wrote more than like 10 words on something)

[hwatermelons-reacts]

every single one of my favorite male characters is someone i have to take a serious look at and ask "is he okay" every once in a while just to make sure he hasn't accidentally disintegrated under the crushing karma of his actions, succumbed to the pain of an irrevocable curse, gone insane through the curse of immortality, or otherwise fallen into one of the angst traps underneath the very thin ice of comfort from the other characters that he's walking on while i was busy reading fanfics about him slipping through the cracks into those very angst traps

[jade-of-mourning]

some wips and doodles from summer

[zephyr-draws]

musings on insects, isolation, and how much can change when you're not looking

[barefootcosplayer]

I have had the nicest people commenting on all my old bioshock fics recently and it is just so heartwarming and affirming like thank you and ily ily ily, I’m just feeling the love 😭💛🥰

[lotus-duckies]

something i keep thinking about is

in boboiboy vs fang, boboiboy had initially refused to balance the egg and do the race because he believed it to be for kids and only did it when given motivation ie competing with fang, and in other instances in the og series he expressed similar feelings of caring these kinds of things. Being too old for something, pink is for girls etc etc

cause yknow he's like 11 of course he would care about stuff like that

and in the savage trial, they have to sing the patty cake song with a gorilla, and later in the revenge of a.b.a.m they sing the song in ddr.

In the test, it's a subversion of expectations. starting with something percieved as very childish and easy, then you can see how the song has been made harder with the addition of fight mechanics and. doing it with a gorilla that wants to kill you. Thus intended for older kids.

But what purpose does doing it in ddr have, other than improving the cadets' technique and hiding the lack of songs they use in the show. And boboiboy and gopal have no qualms with performing a song intended for toddlers, even showing excitement at seeing it on the list

[zombiekillerbiceps]

Unsung - Chapter 1: Party in Raccoon City

Notes: Oh boy I'm really in the long haul now lol

Content: 3.5kish, Leon X OC, slow burn, gore, angst, violence, spooky/eerie scenes, spoilers for RER2, I mix original and remake lore so it's not fully accurate to either game and also events are a little squishy for Plot Reasons.

A rookie cop and a video store clerk make for an unlikely pair as Vanessa and Leon rely on each other to make their way through an over-run Raccoon City, enduring horrors and heartbreak that would forge an unbreakable bond. Covers roughly the first half of the second game.

-----

Gutshot wounds always look so goofy in the movies. But the stomach acid leaking into her surrounding organs didn't feel very fucking goofy.

-

September 26th, 1998. The day the Raccoon City Incident stopped feeling like a bad dream. Things got bad so quickly. The water was the first to go. The power followed shortly behind. Vanessa's mom got bit trying to get them clean water. Their fridge smelled like rotting food and without any way to wash their can opener, their only way of eating safe food was starting to grow mold. The air smelled like smoke from some near by building burning into nothing. They couldn't stay there.

When it was clear her time with her mom was up, she took her sister and tried to get help from a neighbor.

And then it was just her.

She remembered hearing the police station was managing to hold down some order on the radio and she didn't feel like she had a lot of options. It took her days to work up the courage to go. She would pace the abandoned living room, hands shaking uncontrollably every time she reached for the door knob. But she knew she couldn't stay. It was in an alley just outside the police station where she was pinned down by one of the undead. It's body was stiff but inexplicably strong. The side of his face was rotting off the bone. The white of the ocular bone stood out against the grey flesh falling off it. It let out a choking groan as it tried to bring it's grotesque, stinking face to tear her throat out. There was a splatter of blood and it dropped.

Vanessa looked in the direction of the gunshot. His blonde hair was falling into his face, his cheeks already splattered with blood. He was wearing an RPD police jacket, his blue eyes scared, but unhesitant.

"Good thing I came along, huh?" his voice wavered a little when he tried to make a joke, lowering the gun as he did. A poor attempt at coping with humour.

He approached her, looking behind him once as he did, and put his hand on her elbow. His touch was gentle and warm, his expression serious and concerned. Beneath that there was a trace of relief, likely just as glad as she was to see someone alive. "Are you alright?"

Vanessa swallowed, then shrugged. What could she say? She looked down at the zombie at their feet and wanted to say something helpful or reassuring, but it felt like her words were stuck in her throat.

"Picked a stupid outfit to die in," she managed. His eyes widened at the morbidity of her humour, but glancing down at the hideous, orange bubble vest, he couldn't help but laugh a little.

"Come on," he said, "more will come."

"Are you going to the police station?" she asked, following him. He nodded, a strand of hair falling into his face. "Is it safe there?"

He turned to look at her. She could tell he wanted to say something comforting, but he settled on honesty.

"You'll be safe with me."

-

That was true, for the most part. He kept her tucked behind him when they were confronting zombies, except when he couldn't. He kept her in front of him when Mr. X found them. He taught her how to shoot, how to bandage a wound, how to block and how to find good cover. When she got enough practice, she tried to look out for him too. Though she was armed with nothing but a steel pipe for a good portion of their time in the RPD, she did her best to pry zombies off him when they got a hold on him. The cop's name was Leon Kennedy. He was good man, she thought. For a cop.

-

They were taking stock in the STARS office, waiting out the heavy clomping of Mr. X's boots around the area. The heavy, ever-present stomping of his massive frame made the entire station feel oppressive. He was always right where they didn't want him to be, and when he laid eyes on them, there was so little they could do to shake him. He never tired, never got injured. A constant, looming threat that was always, always just behind them. Terminator type shit.

She wondered who these people once were while they looted their desks. A stuffed fish above one with an NRA magazine, one with a beret and a picture of a handsome looking man, one at the very back with a medical bag... they were all so lived in. Then they were just... up and abandoned. Vanessa wondered if they'd killed any of them. If these people who were trained in special tactics turned, what chance did she and Leon have?

"I found a letter over here," she said, picking up a letter with a European stamp. "It's from some guy named Chris...?"

"Redfield?"

"Doesn't say. Small office though, probably not too many Chris's that work for STARS." Her eyes scanned the letter while Leon searched the medical bag for first aid spray. "I think it's in code. He's talking about... Umbrella, I think."

"So, he thought Umbrella was behind this?" Leon wondered out loud.

"It's addressed to a Jill. Maybe she did too."

Leon's eyebrows stitched together as he thought about it, searching his memory, before finally saying;

"Oh, shit. Those were some of the survivors of the Arklay Mansion Murders."

"Oh, shit," she remembered when the news about those murders broke. "Umbrella must have been behind that, too."

The clomping of heavy boots sounded again nearby. The sound made her want to scream - an action that would be certain death. She and Leon shared a look; a nod, as a silent agreement to be quiet. She sat down in front of the desk with the beret on it and Leon sat next to her. His elbows rested on his knees. His head rested against the desk. He looked exhausted. She mirrored him, pulling her knees up to her chest, hugging them instead. Her chin rested on the knee that wasn't swollen and bruised.

"How did you survive this long?" Leon asked quietly. Wearily. The distant look in his eyes was equal parts concerning and recognizable.

"Hiding, mostly," she admitted. "My uh... my little sister has these really sensitive taste buds. We have to- had to- buy the kid's bubble gum toothpaste for her cause the mint one is too 'spicy'. She hates the taste of tap water, so the three of us just got used to drinking bottled water."

"Are they..."

"No. I mean, yeah, technically. But they're still like, around. Probably still roaming the apartment complex. I couldn't..."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that," Leon said. She bit back tears; talking about them reopened the wound, but the compassion in his voice made her want to cry. "I uh. I lost my family too. Before all this."

"I'm sorry," she said. She reached out and squeezed one of his hands.

The door opened and Vanessa snapped her hand away. She fumbled for the pipe discarded at her side, but Leon was already kneeling on one knee, gun drawn and aimed. Claire raised her hands to her chest. Both Vanessa and Leon relaxed.

"Oh, we found this." Leon got up and handed Claire the letter. Their hands brushed when Claire took it. She read it once, then again.

"Thank you," she said, so sincere. A stab of jealousy threatened to fracture Vanessa's ribs, followed by guilt - must be nice to know your sibling's alive. Leon nodded, staring into Claire's eyes like it would save him from this shitty night.

Vanessa found the carpet suddenly very interesting. Their chemistry always made it feel like she was watching something she shouldn't be.

-

She spent most of her time in the RPD with Marvin. Vanessa learned it was supposed to be Leon's first day on the force - they got cake and everything - before things went to shit.

She knew he was bit. So did Leon, even if he didn't want to accept what that meant. She knew he was going to die. And then he was going to turn. So, she kept him company while he was still human. He told her about how Chief Irons ran off with some poor girl, and his Chief Deputy died. Marvin also told her about their efforts with Raccoon SWAT to try and establish the area around the station as a safe zone. He told her how that failed. When they tried to draw back, they were simply overwhelmed. He tried to cut off the better parts of the station from the parts completely overrun, but all it did was cut survivors off from safe passage and communication. He was the one that closed the shutters and diverted power to conserve it. He watched the cameras and tried to help survivors too.

He just tried so hard to protect people, and it seemed everything they did only exhausted and divided them. He managed to save a single truck full of people when he was attacked - Vanessa suspected that was the person he couldn't put down.

She told him about how she survived. How she heard the station was safe, and if it wasn't for him keeping the main hall secure, she and Leon and Claire would probably be dead too.

He showed her pictures of his wife and kid. So proud. She tried to commit them to memory. It felt important that at least someone remembered them.

He was practical. He thought of solutions, always looking for the next path to survival. Vanessa liked that about him. He didn't give up even when it was clear he'd been beat. He was the one that told them about the passage underground that might help them escape.

Vanessa was closest to him when he turned. He attacked her, and Leon had to put him down. He didn't hesitate, just like Marvin told them. It broke both their hearts.

She took his gun off his corpse to protect herself going forward. She wasn't a good shot, but it was better than nothing. In reality, though, she didn't take the gun just to fend for herself. She took it because she admired Marvin and she didn't want to forget him.

-

"So, what did you do before all this?" Leon asked, making conversation as they made their cautious way through the secret tunnel.

"Uh, let's see. Dropped out of high school to help my mom pay bills. I worked at the Redstone Video right beside the subway station, got to be assistant manager just a week after my 18th birthday. Really on my way to accomplishing great things."

"Sounds like it," he said sarcastically. "What about for fun?"

"Watch movies, mostly," she said. She thumbed the rough grip on Marvin's gun as they talked. This place was fucking eerie, but conversation helped keep her mind off it. "I had a crush on this guy who worked at the CD store across the street, sometimes we'd go to see local bands and stuff. I go on this message board for urban legends, too."

"I can't stand those," Leon said.

"Message boards?"

"No, urban legends. Ghost stories. They freak me out."

"Probably won't be freaked out by much when we get out of this," she said. "Hey, think you can push that cabinet back a bit so I can squeeze through? I can help push it on the other side."

Leon complied, pushing the heavy cabinet enough that she could squeeze through. She hadn't even stood to her full height when a freight train slammed into her.

The wind was knocked out of her so hard she thought her lungs had collapsed. She struggled to get air in her lungs while something hard and fleshy lifted her into the air. She distantly heard Leon screaming her name, and then she was being tossed over a railing. Her body slammed against something hard enough to crack something in her shoulder. At least it broke her fall a bit.

She wound up flat on her back, chest convulsing for need of air and panic. Her vision blurred but she could see her attacker's feet moving towards her. She thought the rotting corpses were bad, but this thing was on a whole other fucking level. Once a man in a lab coat but a grotesque growth overtook one of his arms and the side of his face. He screamed, running at her.

She wanted to get up and run, but her muscles wouldn't move.

Breathe.

Fucking BREATHE.

Finally her lungs took in air. Sweet, sweet oxygen flooded her lungs and, like a switch, her body came back to life. She managed to scramble to her knees and crawl behind a massive steel drum as a pipe slammed into the tile where she was just seconds ago.

"Vanessa!" Leon screamed again, putting his hands on the railing.

"Wait, no!" She yelled back, but her voice came out weak, and then he was leaping over the railing to the ground below.

Vanessa rolled under another attack. She was on her feet now. Adrenaline overtook her system, fight or flight kicking in as her sneakers pounded against the tile.

"What the fuck is this thing?!" she screamed, sliding beneath a mess of piping while it's arm slammed down on it, barely missing her. She snapped her head up.

"It's not going to stop!" Leon called out to her, firing a few shots at the thing. Vanessa watched the bullets land in it's skull, but it didn't seem phased.

Oh. Fuck.

"Watch it!" she yelled as the thing turned away from her to engage him instead.

It walked through Leon's fury of headshots like he was merely throwing rocks at it. Leon backed away, and then they were out of her line of sight.

She sprinted down the hallway, catching only glimpses of them between piping and steel drums. It's arm was freaking out like an independent animal. Pumping, pulsing, stretching. An eye opened in it's bicep?! Then it wrapped a clawed hand around Leon's waist and lifted him up in the air like he weighed nothing.

She turned the corner and dropped to one knee, just like Leon taught her to do to steady her shot. She held her breath while she aimed, then squeezed the trigger. A stream of blood and ocular fluid erupted from it's misplaced eye. It dropped Leon and roared.

It started swinging the pipe viciously, screaming in pain and rage.

Vanessa was in the flurry of it before she had time to think about what a bad idea that was. She hooked her arm under Leon's and half-dragged him out of there. He was on his feet by the time they turned a corner, both of them panting with effort.

"I don't think words are gonna work on this thing," Leon joked.

"Really? Thought all rational debates started with swinging a pipe," Vanessa retorted through her heavy breathing. They looked at each other, hands shaking, listening to this thing slam metal and piping with harsh, metallic reverb.

"Those pipes are putting off a lot of heat," she observed. "I have an idea. Are you with me?"

Leon nodded. She took a deep breath and peered around the corner, trying to locate the thing in the lab coat. She tracked it's movements, guessed which way it would go, and took aim. Deep breath, hold, slow exhale. A bullet grazed the bottom of a pipe. It burst, erupting in hot steam directly in the thing's face. It screamed again, the area around it obscured in steam. She gestured with her chin for Leon to go one way before she hooked around the other.

They pincer attacked the thing, one hitting from one side while the other came up the back. When it got a little too close, she'd pop another pipe, and their positions would be obscured again.

It went on like that for what felt like forever, a slog of bullets, blood, steam, and nearly getting brained by a fucked up hulking mass of eyes and pulsating veins.

They finally got it down. Vanessa approached to land what she prayed would be a final blow but hesitated. The eyes that looked up at her were... pleading. Its human hand came up and gripped the bottom of her shirt, its mouth open to say something but only able to gargle. There was something still human inside it, and it felt like he was begging her to kill him. Leon was the one that shot him, and that humanity drained out of it instantly. It fled, leaping over a railing to whatever lay below.

A shudder rocked Vanessa's body as the adrenaline crashed. She backed up against a wall and slid down it, Leon following her. They sat shoulder to shoulder, Leon resting his head against the wall, while Vanessa held hers in her hands. She couldn't stop seeing it... human eyes begging her to end it.

She looked at Leon out of the corner of her eye. Head tilted back, mouth parted to get more air, sweat shimmering on his skin... his eyes fluttered open and he looked back at her.

"Thanks for having my back back there," she said. He just smiled.

"We should get going before that thing comes back."

She nodded breathlessly. She wasn't ready to get back up, but he was right. He stood first, reaching out his hand to help her up. She accepted. He pulled her to her feet with relative ease.

Just then, a ladder dropped down in the corner of the room. A flash of red, and then it's gone. She and Leon looked at each other, then shrugged.

When his back was turned, she rolled her shoulder and tried not to wince. The pain kept her focused at least. Kept her mind off rotting flesh and pulsing veins and human eyes.

-

[homosubtext]

i am falling down the osaaka rabbit hole sooooo bad rn

[appreciatingtokrev]

warrior cats hyperfixation era me was so close to figuring out she’s trans and aroace. so close.

warrior cats hyperfixation era me: ‘‘yeah i usually rp as male cats :) idk i just prefer writing them and it’s easier for me to think as them than as female cats? idk i just prefer them. but irl i’m a girl xD’’

GIRL YOU ARE TRANS.

THAT’S WHY YOU PREFER PLAYING AS TOMS. BC IT REPRESENTS YOUR GENDER MORE ACCURATELY

warrior cats hyperfixation era me: ‘‘my fav clan rank? definitely healer! they don’t have to fight, they just collect herbs and treat the wounded cats. sometimes they also hunt. also they aren’t allowed a mate or kits which is a stupid rule but most of them don’t want that anyway. and yes i love rping healers who just have close friends no mate no kits no forbidden romance no nothing! but i’m omniromantic :)’’

GIRL NO. YOU ARE LITERALLY AROACE

warrior cats hyperfixation era me was so so fucking close. she was so fucking close and she still didn’t realise shit

[vvatchword]

Dr. Lamb sat back in her office. All around her she could hear the nighttime heart of the Drop coming to life. Bawdy music, glass smashing, arguments keening up above the tenements, high-pitched laughter.

In her own mind, there was a deafening silence. Something was battering itself against the upper parts of her brain and she didn’t want to let it out.

She gazed down upon her notes. At first, they were only marks on a page; the slashes of some other person from some other time. She remembered how the group had exited: slowly, some still sniffling. The way arms came out; hands grasped each other. The group had walked into the room one by one, and it had left in a mass.

For individuals to unify: she had not asked for that. She had shown them ways to identify emotional and social problems; she had shown them ways to disentangle emotional reasoning from the logical; how to use lists and writing. She had not said, “Go, leave as a single unit, altogether.”

And they had not been fools. No, they were educated human beings; they repeated the philosophy back to her without trouble. But each person—without more than four or five sentences to one another mere minutes before—had gravitated to the others. The physicist had taken the arm of the actress and the editor, started talking in a low voice to them both; the track star had bumped up into them, tipping his hat; the housewife pulled on the track star’s sleeve and began to chatter breathlessly. Like a pack of dogs, they’d jostled as a unit out into the street.

A memory unfolded: the Sinclair lying battered before her broken window. The mass of humanity that opened before her where they had closed on him—like the jaws of a beast.

She alone stood singular.

She alone.

A horrible shock: did Ryan stand alone? Did Fontaine? Did any industrialist? When had she ever seen them without individuals whirling beneath them like bees below their queen?

She leaned back in her chair, took off her glasses, began cleaning them with a cloth. Her office loomed around her in indistinct shapes and colors.

Bees.

Like bees.

Like termites. Like ants. Like fish. Like birds. Like wolves. Like great apes.

Oh. This was not a good thought. This was not a good thought at all.

If God were objective reality, she felt as though he had turned. She no longer gazed upon his back, but upon his burning face: light years away, and still it burned.

“You fool,” she said to herself, first. Then: “You fool.” For she thought of Ryan.

Of course the truth was all around him. It was all around her, too. It had always been, hadn’t it? As a child, she had been unsettled about all she could not know; how could one make the most satisfactory choice without knowing everything? And here she was, at least one foot on shifting sand.

Oh, God. Oh, what if both her feet…

No helping that. Here was the problem: if man was an animal, he was a social one. Was he not? Did he not instinctively seek out the city rather than the hermitage? And where in the philosophy was there allowance for man’s sociability? Sociability with true intimacy, flesh upon flesh, hand upon hand, without fear of destruction. When animals interacted with their groupmates, there was mutual grooming; safety in numbers; alerts for both danger and opportunity; singing; play for both practice and relaxation; protection; aid without expectation. Whereas in the philosophy, individuals walked side by side, but between them were gulfs; they feared each other, they hated each other, they resented one another. A man who reached out to another with the intent to help or soothe would be feared, not welcomed.

The philosophy’s weakness opened up to her like a terrible secret. For by forcing gulfs between individuals, it created a physical need in those animal bodies—to be touched, to be needed, to be held—until they could not resist any such call at all. Any vulnerability, any show of possible allyship, and suddenly they fell utterly helpless to the siren calls of their own bodies.

Did the physicist really have anything in common with the editor or the track star or the chemist? Perhaps in the actress, for she was conventionally pretty, and he was probably heterosexual. But the way he had instantly leaned into the older women, the way he had happily shaken hands with the track star… the joy on all their faces, as though meeting old friends.

It was far easier to imagine relationships in terms of sex. It was easier for her to think: of course the physicist would like the housewife and the actress; they are young and pretty, and he spoke of no romantic attachments. But that was too easy. That was how children looked at relationships: Mr. X likes Ms. Y, therefore they shall get married, and have a little X and a little Y. All this when relationships could fractal out beneath a human being in a thousand flavors, feelings, meanings, needs, of which sex was only one possibility—as equally complex and compelling as a friendship, but also only a possibility among possibilities.

She had begun writing. When had she begun writing? She wrote madly, pen shivering under the light. The face of God burned down upon her. The face of God burned down and she, too, burned. She burned alive.

UPRISING: BLACK SCRAPBOOK HUB

[babygirlgiles]

just finished a 30k draft of a fic about haymitch fucking abernathy. can someone please euthanize me?

[trbotunnel]

ehmm so that charthur angst fic is done. i kinda hate it. who wants to beta read it!!! i need help with charcterisation!!!!!!

[deeism]

deetress ....

[godsfavoritescientist]

Just realized how to merge my two favorite bill-comes-back fic ideas into one fic this is gonna be so great.

[biologicalfandomhippo]

We need a genre of fics about speed running canon! Say canon is a video game, The protagonist is the same except they have full knowledge of what happens in the story. What is the theoretical fastest in-universe way to complete the entire story? What is the fastest way to complete the entire story with the additional requirement that everybody who got character development has to get the same character development? How about the "everybody lives%"? Let's get weird and theoretical!

[pizzabookbuying]

I always start my fic like .okay. This time I will pick whether or not this is told from multiple perspectives and I will STICK to that decision. And then I never do that obviously