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1moreff-creator · 9 months ago

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Select Two, Choose One: How will the Culprit get Found?

Since the latest DRDT chapter seems to have narrowed down the suspect list to just two people, many have speculated on how exactly the cast is going to pin down the correct suspect, and whether or not the audience has the tools to do so. I thought I’d throw my hat in the ring too! And while I’m still really 50/50 split, there is one piece of evidence that could change the murder method… in a way that points us to the culprit. Very inconclusive evidence, but it’s there. Let’s get into it.

Spoilers up to CH2 EP14. CW: Hanging, murder, blood, Eden and Ace!Culprit discussion

As a starting point, I’ll assume that the deduction that the culprit must be one of Eden or Ace is accurate, to simplify things if nothing else.

I will start with what I’ll call “meta only” arguments. In other words, things that characters can’t reliably use to narrow down the suspect, but that we the audience can take into consideration for theory-crafting.

-Mindset post-Nico murder attempt: Immediately after Nico runs out of the gym, the killer needs to be in the correct mindset to grab the tape, and they also need to be able to more or less figure out what Nico did to replicate it with Arei. Although, importantly, the killer doesn’t need to come up with the full plan on the spot, and they don’t need to fully understand what Nico was doing. At the end of the day, the only real similarities are the general idea of a pulley and a hanging.

Here’s more or less the train of thought Eden might have had if she’s the killer.

Eden: Hmm… The fan is broken and there was wire on it, Ace’s neck looks cut… Maybe Nico used some kind of pulley to hang him and it broke? Maybe I could do that… This tape looks useful for that.

Meanwhile, since Ace woke up in the middle of the murder attempt, he has to do a little less deducing.

Ace: Did I just get knocked- HOLY SHIT NICO IS HANGING ME WITH SOME SORT OF FUCKING SPINNING DEVICE AAAA-! Ooh, tape! :D

The actual planning of a murder would come later in the morning for Ace, once he sits down and has A Thought about it. Grabbing the tape in that context seems insane, but there may be precedent for Ace being prone to stealing the weirdest shit (we’ll get to it), so…

I think both of these are plausible. I wouldn’t say either can be disqualified like this, so we keep looking.

-Ripping/reconstructing the note: The note to Arei was ripped up and thrown into the trash, then Eden, Rose and Whit put it together.

Ace has no real reason to destroy the note, he could have just left it as it was. Maybe throw it in the trash since “it’s what Eden would have done”, but destroying it runs the risk of people not being able to put it together to point at Eden/Arturo. Although, you could argue Ace was trying to frame Nico specifically, so the note wasn’t useful and he threw it away because it made sense in his mind.

Here’s where we get introduced to a pretty big problem of having Ace as a suspect; that thing Teruko said, that sometimes assuming people will always act logically is a bad idea. Ace is the prime example; a lot of shit in this case makes a lot more sense if you assume Ace did it because he’s not smart enough to notice the problems with it. Such as using the method to frame Nico when only a few people in the class know what the method is; he maybe wouldn’t have noticed that that could point towards him as well. Ace is erratic, it’s very difficult to pin down why he does half the shit he does.

Eden, at least, makes sense. By destroying the note, then rebuilding it herself, she throws off suspicion with the exact argument she used in the trial; if she’s the killer, why do that? Just leaving the note as it is runs the risk of someone finding it and presenting it, which removes that argument, meaning tearing it is imperative.

And she would want the class to find it, not just because it makes her look more innocent if she talks about a building friendship with Arei, but because the note is where we get the “7:30” time, which combined with the fish making people think the murder was at nighttime, appears to give Eden an alibi.

In conclusion, the note being ripped makes more sense with Eden as the culprit… but it doesn’t disqualify Ace because he’s an idiot. And speaking of that…

-Fish Paradox: As outlined in my Ep13 murder theory revision, the problem with the fish is that everyone who benefits from the fish being at the crime scene only benefits if they have an alibi for nighttime, but that coincides with the time the fish disappeared, as Nico fed them and counted all of them after having dinner, so they couldn’t have taken it. Meanwhile, people like Ace who could have taken the fish, wouldn’t have a reason to as they don’t benefit from the nighttime alibi.

Except, it’s fucking Ace. It’s genuinely possible he thought people would see fish and instantly jump on Nico for some reason. See the problems that arise when you can no longer assume the killer is acting rationally?

Anyways, inconclusive (we’ll talk Eden later).

-No blood on tape: This heavily depends on exactly how Ace could grabbed the tape. His hands sorta get covered in blood instantly, so it’s hard to imagine he’d be able to do that without staining the entire roll of tape with blood. He couldn’t have easily washed it, either, since he passes out shortly after, and the blood would have likely dried by the time he woke up. This is definitely a point towards Eden, but can the cast use this? I don’t think so, because it relies on what we saw during the episode, which is not easy to prove in a trial setting.

-Dialogue and trial behavior: This one’s difficult, and as you might expect, inconclusive.

I would argue Eden has a higher amount of outright suspicious lines (“Teruko, wait—“ haunts me), but she also has a higher amount of seemingly anti-suspicious lines that make her look very innocent (see: the entire speech at the end of Ep 14).

She also has a moment where she steers the trial in the right direction by denying that Arei could have committed assisted suicide, but it’s worth remembering that if the class thinks that’s what happened and they learn of Eden’s relationship with her, they might assume Arei and Eden worked together to get Eden out. In other words, by denying the notion of assisted suicide, Eden!Culprit avoids the class reaching the right conclusion through the wrong method. Of course, if she’s innocent, it’s just genuine.

Comparatively, Ace operates at a much more stable level of suspiciousness I can only call “Ace level.” He’s constantly throwing suspicion on Nico, who the killer seemingly tried to frame with the method; he kept David and Arei’s conversation hidden; and was one of the first to jump on the “David’s the culprit” bandwagon. In a vacuum, this is super suspicious; hell, Levi was the fandom’s prime suspect for less.

But… it’s Ace. His behavior isn’t too different from the first trial. So while it’s possible he’s doing all this because he’s the culprit, it’s also possible he’s just being Ace.

Impossible to tell, I fear.

-Eden’s Night 2 paranoia: You might recall Eden being very worried someone was following her in night 2, which could suggest she was doing something suspicious (eg setting up the ball of clothes, more on this later) and was scared she’d get found out.

The problem is that there’s a perfectly fine explanation for Spotless!Eden. This is the night after her confrontation with Arturo, and Teruko did enter the same room as her; she could have just been paranoid because of the former, and felt someone was following her because of the latter. Moot point.

(I don’t think anyone else was following Eden because Teruko would have presumably seen them. Then again, I have overestimated our protag’s perceptiveness in the past)

-Eden’s strength: Eden is the weakest of the cast, so it’s very possible that half the Arei murder method is just impossible for her. But… we can’t know for absolutely sure what “weakest of the cast” means, and it’s not evidence that can be used in a trial. Ignorable.

-Motive, character writing and themes: I’m lumping these in together because I’ll give the same answer to all of them: the dev can just add an explanation in the inevitable post-trial trauma dump. We don’t know absolutely everything there is to know about these characters, or the way the narrative is going, so it’s impossible to confidently argue based on this. Physical evidence will always take precedence over these things in my books.

And that kinda settles it for that. There’s minor arguments like “Eden won’t die before we explore the Fork CG” (well, Xander did, so) or “if the Scrum Debate is Ace vs Eden then Ace is probably safe” (we don’t know what the Scrum Debate will be), but I’ll skip them to get to the more pressing matters.

That being trial-worthy evidence. What can the most dysfunctional cast of any fangan ever (/affectionate) use to fully commit to a culprit?

-Fish Alibi: If Ace has the problem of “no reason to bring fish,” Eden has the problem that her alibi literally starts directly after dinner. If Nico ate dinner with her and Hu, she couldn’t have taken the fish.

Except, of course, Nico could have had dinner earlier, and this point is completely moot. We can’t know yet.

-BDA: This is very obviously not what the cast will use to come to the conclusion given the discussions we’ve had, but I’ll bring it up anyways. This was explained in the episode though, so…

-Playground floor: sorastar6’s idea; since the floor of the playground is made of the same stuff as the relax room, it’d become sticky after getting wet from the water in the jugs, and thus, the culprit could have some stuck to their shoe. Unfortunately for some of you, we can’t easily look at the cast’s feet all the time, so this would only work for the characters, not us. However, Hu does mention heels as an example of something that can scuff the floor, and Ace wears heels, so small point to him.

-Missing glove: I still have no idea where this thing went. My only guess would be that the killer removed it to more easily put tape on Arei’s wrists, but by the time they’d strung her up, they decided putting the glove back on would take too much time (? I have no concept of how hard it’s be to properly put a glove on a dead person’s hand), and they wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. If true, that would mean they still have the glove on them, as it wasn’t in the trash. Again, if I’m right about this, the cast can use this, we can’t.

-Random garbage:

Something here. Rose would remember everything about it, so it’s usable. Maybe Ace’s gloves were damaged and he had to use the needle and thread to fix them? Maybe one of those napkins is the cloth with turpentine Nico used and only Ace would have identified and used it (assuming it wouldn’t have dried and MonoTV wouldn’t have thrown it out for some reason)? What even is that pink paper thing? Who knows.

-Ball of clothes: Held together by something Teruko identified as starch, there’s been around three hundred theories involving this thing. The only one that’s actually incriminating (for the two possibilities being discussed) is thebadjoe’s idea of the starch being from the enriched formula of the relax room, which could implicate Eden as she was acting suspiciously around the dress-up room on night 2.

I’ve seen it argued that the clothes would be dirty in that case, but that can be solved with an extra layer of clothes under the clothes that actually get starched up, which would later be either discarded, washed, or simply put inside the ball itself.

(This might be the last murder diagram I make for this case. Holy shit I can’t believe that)

Which is all well and good, but this is still ultimately assuming both that the cast has some way of making sure Ace couldn’t have done this, which I’m not sure exists, and that the starch comes from the relax room in the first place.

Because something I learnt, like, last week, is that people put starch on clothes. Like that’s a thing they do. So it’s entirely possible there’s starch for clothes in the dress-up room and anyone could have done this. If that’s the case, this cannot be used to argue at all. I don’t love the idea, since we don’t know if there really is starch there or not, but it’s there.

-Grammar: The letter to Arei pretty famously misspells “responsibel” (responsible), has horrible punctuation, etc. It’s possible someone in the trial will realize, ask Ace and Eden to spell the word, and whoever gets it right is cleared. We can’t know, but it’s a possibility. This also has the benefit of being obscenely funny.

-Custom weapon: If the killer used their custom weapon, it may point to them as guilty, as only they have access to it. However, I fail to see how a riding crop (Ace) or a wrench (Eden) would help in the slightest.

There is, however, one more item that only one of these characters has access to. And while I am very unsure of this assumption, if you ask me right now what is the decisive piece of evidence that will close the case once and for all, I will tell you:

-The shoulder band thingy:

Ace: Too fucking bad. Mine now. I’m keeping it.

Yep. This one.

For starters, remember that thing I said about the tape? That Ace has precedent of stealing completely random shit for no reason, and so it’s plausible he grabbed the tape just because? This is the precedent.

More importantly though, it’s something only Ace has access to, so if it can be determined it was used in the crime scene, it’s curtains.

And there is actually one place I could see it being used. Followers of my method theories know that, through the fire and the flames, there’s been one deduction that’s remain constant: the rope was tied to the ball of clothes, which was thrown over the railings to get the rope as high as needed. The ball also hit the lights, displacing the bulb and causing it to flicker.

(He he I snuck the image into a fourth post >:D)

I’ve always sorta assumed DRDT takes place in a physics exercise where air drag is ignored, but it’s true that this might be harder than I’ve been presenting it as.

So, we get the use for the shoulder band; a slingshot. I’m unsure on how it would be constructed (swingset maybe? seesaw?), but the idea is that. Create a slingshot, throw the clothes, badabim badabum, Ace is the culprit.

I’m not the only one to think of this btw. Reddit user (yes we’re cross-platforming for this) Makatrull seems to have arrived at the same conclusion. Great minds think alike ig.

Of course, this comes with its own issues. Mainly, how do you connect the shoulder band to the crime scene? The only way I see that happening is if the cast determines this is literally the only way the lights get broken, which… yeah, I’m gonna have to let them do the math on that one.

It’s impossible to judge without existing in the DRDT world. Is the ceiling higher than I’d previously assumed? Then it’s possible to come to this conclusion. Is it lower, and possible that even Eden would have managed to just throw the ball over the railing? Certainly. So, for now, inconclusive. When I say it’s the most likely to be the decisive evidence, I mean by like, 0.1%, I really have no clue.

———

There’s probably more, but that’s all I can think of for now.

Seeing as we’re reaching the end, I’m gonna say that regardless of the outcome, this might be one of my favorite trials in all of both canon and fan-made Danganronpa. So much shit happened. I’ll save my full thoughts for a more dedicated post, but goddamn, I can’t wait to see the conclusion!

Hope you enjoyed! If you made it this far, you deserve a shoulder band thing. Do with it as you please. See you!

#drdt #danganronpa despair time #drdt spoilers #drdt theory #ace markey #eden tobisa

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gem-femmes · 5 months ago

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How to Master the Dinner Party Power Dynamic

Dinner parties are where alliances are made, impressions are cemented and hierarchies are quietly negotiated -- all while you’re trying to keep spinach out of your teeth.

Here’s how to navigate the room, charm the crowd and leave as the person everyone wants to sit next to next time.

🥂✨1. Timing Your Arrival: Goldilocks Style

Too early, and you’re rearranging the napkins with the host. Too late, and you look like you think you’re that important.

Sweet spot: Arrive 10-15 minutes after the official start time. This gives the host time to settle, but you’re still early enough to scope out the room.

Pro move: If you’re close with the host, text ahead to see if they need anything - instant brownie points.

🥂✨2. The Perfect Seat Selection

Where you sit can make or break your night.

Power position: Aim for the middle of the table. Sitting at the ends makes you look like you’re holding court (not great unless you are the host).

Tactic: If it’s informal, hang back slightly and let others choose first—then slip into the best available seat. It’s low-key strategic.

If assigned seating is in play? Work your charm wherever you land. (Yes, even next to “that” guy.)

🥂✨3. Start Small, Think Big

Your opening gambit sets the tone.

Icebreakers: Ask about something low-pressure, like how they know the host or what they’re most excited to eat.

Big moves later: Once the vibe is friendly, segue into meaningful conversations. “What’s your dream project?” lands better after appetizers than before.

Remember: your goal is to connect, not interrogate.

🥂✨4. Be the Table’s MVP

The best guests keep the conversation flowing without hogging the spotlight.

Loop people in: Notice someone getting left out? Ask, “What do you think, [Name]?” It’s subtle but powerful.

Deflect drama: If the conversation veers into awkward territory (politics, anyone?), steer it elsewhere. “Okay, I have to know -- what’s everyone’s go-to comfort food?”

Great guests make everyone feel included and comfortable. Be that person.

🥂✨5. Compliment, but Make It Genuine

Compliments are like seasoning—too little, and it’s bland; too much, and it’s overwhelming.

On the host: “This setup is amazing. Where did you get these table settings?” (Pro tip: Hosts love hearing their effort was noticed.)

On others: Highlight something personal, like a unique accessory or an interesting anecdote they shared.

A well-placed compliment can turn a casual acquaintance into a potential ally.

🥂✨6. Handle Awkward Moments Like a Pro

Spilled your drink? Knocked over the breadbasket? No one’s immune to a faux pas.

Own it with humor: “Guess I’m trying to give this table some character!”

Stay calm: Most people will forget it happened five minutes later, unless you make it a big deal.

Confidence is your best recovery tool.

🥂✨7. The Exit That Leaves Them Wanting More

Knowing when (and how) to leave is an underrated skill.

Leave on a high note: If the energy’s dipping or you’ve hit peak charm for the evening, it’s time to go.

Thank the host twice: Once before you leave and again the next day (a thoughtful text or even a small thank-you gift goes a long way).

The best exits are smooth, gracious and perfectly timed. Think mystery and allure, not lingering until the chairs get stacked.

🥂✨The Dinner Table Is Your Stage

A dinner party is less about the food and more about the connections you make. Whether you’re networking, socializing or just there for the dessert, mastering the dynamics means balancing confidence with care.

Nail this, and you’ll always be on the guest list -- and maybe the one throwing the next party!

#social climbing #networking #luxury #high society #hypergamy #business

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wolven91 · 2 years ago

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Über-Wolves

Vincent knocked the ice from his beard with his elbow as he tried to stop his legs from seizing as he remained crouched in the snow.

Images of something being deadly still filtered through his mind's eye. The words 'Stay' and 'Still' were selected to bubble forth. It wasn't telepathy in the sense of words, more concepts. Vincent was starting to get used to being communicated to in this manner. It was odd, and pervasive, like his mind, which had been private and safe for so long; wasn't any more.

The 'speaker' sounded like it was right behind him, but the human had learnt to ignore this over the course of the last week. He hadn't heard the snow creak nor was there any telltale signs of their giant lungs that belted out wispy clouds of hot breath. Using his eyes, rather than his whole head, the man glanced around the tree line. He couldn't see them, but he could see small clouds rising from bushes. It was very much a 'blink and you'll miss it' detail, one he had learnt to keep an eye out for.

But the several creatures that surrounded the clearing was not his interest. It was what was in front of him, in the clearing. In front of him was a dear on steroids.

Ignoring the six legs and the single bulbous compound eye in the middle of its forehead. This deer was massive, it had antlers as tall as Vincent was and enough meat to feed the human for weeks to come.

Too bad it wasn't all for him.

The Über-Deer never saw the jaws that clamped around its neck, nor did it have chance to react as the weight of a giant six-legged Über-wolf turned its head dramatically to the side. Over the bestial roar of the wolf-like creature, Vincent was sure he heard a dull crunch and snap as the Über-Deer's neck broke.

The Über-wolf stood taller than a horse, Vincent knew those six legs meant the creature could gallop through the waist high snow with ease and a dense fur that protected it from the winds of tundra world that Vincent was trapped on.

Glancing up, the human looked at the mountain as the Über-wolf crunched and ensured the creature was dead while it's compatriots appeared from the tree line. Vincent's ship was still visible from his dramatic entrance to the world, along the mountainside, was a black streak and a brand new valley carved int othe side of it. The human's had fallen to pieces the moment he crash landed leaving him without shelter to hide within.

This all accumulated into his current situation as the Über-Wolf now was staring at him with the prey creature hanging limply from its jaws.

Again, concepts and ideas swam to the surface, unbidden by Vincent's conscious thought. A foreign mind was informing him of information.

He thought of a question first. Not a specific one, more the idea of posing a question. Then he got images of the kill, of the importance of stealth, of immediate action of not hesitating as his own teeth chomped down into the mighty neck muscles of the Über-Deer. Vincent understood how to kill an Über-Deer using the methods of the Über-wolves, he just lacked the tools. He was fairly certain he lacked the weight for half the work and his teeth would be torn from his skull if he did it their way.

The man turned over the single, high-powered pistol in his hands. This thing could kill the alien fauna, he glanced up as an Über-Wolf prowled towards him, head low. If he pulled the gun up and pointed it, he could keep the beast at bay, but it's friends would get him in a rush. Thankfully, he didn't need to do that.

The Über-Wolf dropped a mouthful slab of meat from its drooling jaws at Vincent's feet. The man stayed perfectly still. It was incredibly intimidating as it stopped, two front paws resting on the log he was crouched behind while looking down at him. Red globules of drool, dripped onto the snow-covered wood.

"I know how to kill already." He said firmly, trying to regain lost pride and maybe some respect from the feral alien wolf.

It's telepathic connection to Vincent was once again coloured in mirth. An image of a loud barking pup. It fell about whilst barking it's loudest. It tried to bite something but its jaw wasn't big enough to get its teeth around it. Vincent had the fight, but not the ability to put much of one up. At least, that was what the alien creature was thinking.

It's strange concepts and interpretations for situations confused Vincent at first, but over the course of seven days surviving out here with its help, Vincent had got used to interpreting them now.

Vincent hoisted the gun and slotted it back, safely into it's holster. He stood, so he was eye to eye was the massive, apex predator.

"Next time let me show you how I hunt." He suggested, unsure if the creature understood him properly, but whether it understood his words or the concepts his mind gave, the creature seemed to nod.

Again with the concepts. Approval, mildly condescending. That all was followed by an instruction. The creature padded back to the kill and started dragging it back towards the den. As the human approached, the creature stopped and crouched for the man. Vincent stepped onto the crooked leg of the Über-Wolf and climbed up and over its wide shoulders.

It was large as a horse, he rode it like a horse, but it was nothing like a horse. It was a dangerous alpha predator and it had decided that he was worth protecting, for now at least...

As Vincent was carried the several miles back to the den, his thoughts drifted to his situation. He had been sent in this direction as part of 'The Scattering Initiative'. Of course, he'd taken the crash survival courses as one must, but when everything had gone to shit, he was now stuck for the foreseeable future on his feral Tundra world. The whole system had been peppered with gravity wells, far beyond what was normal or sane.

It had all accumulated into his crash landing on the unclaimed planet. Vincent was tempted to claim it and call it 'VincentLand' but decided that more thought would be needed if he was to name it properly. He was just glad the creatures recognised structured thought and that was what had taken him off the potential menu.

#conservationverse #cuddleverse #human #haso #hfy #humans are space orcs #feral furry #wolf

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infinitebrians · 1 year ago

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Favorite Games of 2023 Part Final: Pokemon Crystal Clear Clown Edition

Pokemon Crystal Clear is a romhack for the Gameboy Color game that mainly advertises itself as Pokemon Crystal modified so now it is entirely playable as a free roaming open world. Clown Edition is just what I called the rom of the game after creating and injecting a pokemon trainer sprite sheet into the game so I can play as my own character, Clown. I played the whole game on my New 3ds XL, it took a quite a bit of effort to get this exact version of the game working on my 3ds. It was incredibly worth it, this is not just my favorite game, but favorite 'game experience', and even easily my new pick for all time favorite pokemon game in the series.

The game itself was fun and a refreshing new way to experience a pokemon game but the overall experience of getting the game working on a hacked 3ds and playing with my own created sprites was in itself a very fun bit of hobby work. It has revived my love for playing older games on real hardware, something that I have found myself continuing to do this year. Also, seeing my own art in the game and said art feel cohesive with the world ruled and I want to experience that more in some other way. This game made me more into pokemon than I have felt with official releases in a pretty long while, and I even liked my time playing Scarlet. I loved playing on a handheld, I loved seeing the really well made art from gen 2, and I loved being able to put a bit of myself into the game as well.

Apologies for how rambley this gets, I really liked the game but still somehow found it hard to really organize my thoughts on why exactly.

I wanted to revisit this hack after briefly trying it in 2018 because of this excellent Hazel video (https://youtu.be/96YimpRHQHs). The video details various life stories while talking about favorite locations in the games getting me to think about my own favorite spots in the games and where I was personally at the time. The video also got me to start realizing that Porygon might be one of my favorite pokemon in the series and caused me to make drawings of them that I'm still quite fond of. This then made me recall Crystal Clear which contains a feature of surprisingly deep character customization including a wide selection of possible starter picks one of which being Porygon. So, compelled by the allure of having a fun adventure with a cyber duck, I picked up my hacked 3ds and started the game again.

Crystal Clear is a game that allowed for me to be even more creative about how to approach building my team and creating my own adventure out of playing pokemon. It's not for everyone, it wasn't even for me the first time I tried this game back in 2018. Crystal Clear definitely lends itself much more to the idea of creating your own fun than typical linear pokemon games where if you're not interested in that more free form exploration, the game would feel aimless. I even felt this when starting this playthrough, but the goal of pokedex completion was what encouraged to explore and discover Crystal Clear's world. The game was always surprising me in both the number of quality of life features it provided as well as fun new areas to explore or to better make the world more connected. Over time, the game felt more at home to me from getting more familiar with locations and developing a new sense of fondness for several towns in Johto I frequented. The change from a linear progression to that open ended one gave me a better sense of the world and towns had a bit more life to them as places felt more inviting to hang around in.

I love this game's implementation of the pokedex. It has been designed so it will display just about every piece of information about a pokemon, where to find them, when they evolve, what moves they learn, and so on. While the presentation is definitely clunky due to having to have all of that information on a GBC screen, I found this such an invaluable tool to have in game that for the first time in the entire pokemon series I was heavily making use of the in game pokedex for its intended purpose. Being able to look up relevant information for pokemon all entirely in game without having to have a phone/computer nearby with bulbapedia open all the time is just greatly appreciated. While the desire to keep some mystery around pokemon and how they evolve or what moves they'll learn can be part of the fun with the series, I think I just prefer being able to tell quickly if this is a stone evolution pokemon or not.

This was the first time I ever completed a pokedex in any pokemon game, something I've always wanted to do but never fully committed to the whole process. This is because of my own laziness toward how challenging that always was in proper releases due to so many pokemon being obscured behind multiple games and others being locked behind real world timed events. That or the fact that later games in the series just outright make the the act of getting a truly complete pokedex feel almost impossible. Instead, I finally accomplished a completed pokedex in a romhack that was made to make that sort of challenge feel reasonable with modified drop pools and changed events so everything within that one game is catchable. While now possible, I still found myself challenged with a game world spanning adventure of looking behind every rock, tree, and patch of grass to find every funny little guy I could. One particular memory was me spending maybe a week insisting on finding a dragonite in an encounter to catch which has a 1% chance of happening rather than spending the time leveling and evolving one instead. A very, very long process of hitting a tree over and over but made hilarious when later repeating the process for a tyranitar, another 1% chance encounter rate, was done in minutes. It was really fun having a plan ahead with how I was going to get every pokemon, constantly using expshare and other things to level guys to get them to evolve while try catching other guys. The ultimate reward of that certificate is still a pretty hilariously small, though I still kind of want to figure out a way to print mine out.

What made this game so special to me was simply just adding Clown to it. A simple change that was a surprisingly complicated process of getting a crash course on how GBC color palettes and size limitations worked and getting my hacked 3ds up to date on its software. Creating the various Clown sprite drawings was fun, I always liked working in those sorts of strict limitations. Then finally getting the injection to work and seeing my own art in game on real hardware felt surreal, something in this handheld game console I've had forever, on a game I loved for years has something I made in it. Even the process of getting all of this working, as tedious as it was moving game saves and getting color values just right, made this whole experience more special to me.

Something I figured while playing this as well as also from now having also played Dragon Warrior 1+2 and also currently Final Fantasy 5, I really love playing things on a handheld. Playing games on a handheld device has been so much more compelling of a thing to me than ever than playing on a proper TV/computer. The aspect of being able to just let the console sit on my desk and simply open and close it when interested made the feeling of investing myself into a game so much easier to approach. I want to just keep playing more old games on a handheld now, I'm already planning on other games to play and how I should definitely hack my Vita. My friends keep tempting me with one of those emulator handhelds and I don't even need one but they look really cool though.

I have so much respect for people who make fan works, hacks, and other unofficial projects it has been just amazing to see passion projects happen all the time in the gaming community. Playing this romhack that's been a years long, ongoing project in two different eras (2018 and then again in 2023) of it's existence has only further cemented my admiration. People wanting to be creative and open about their love for this form of art is such a wonderful thing to behold. These moments of creative passion being shared to everyone feels so important, reminding that the projects with the biggest budgets and names are not the end all be all of the medium, despite their desperation to be so. Thank you so much for wanting to share such lovely things with the world.

#drawdogs #art #pixel art #favorite games of 2023 #writing #pokemon #pokemon crystal clear #clown #fonewearl #porygon2 #umbreon #typhlosion #ampharos #scizor #cloyster

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disruptivevoib · 1 year ago

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hi !! really hoping we haven’t asked this before and forgotten. but how do you sketch bodies / poses :O? your composition is always really nice and in general the way you draw bodies is great fhdjd

Not been asked yet to my recollection!

Bodies are a bit of a... takes time thing! But usually I try to have a pose or idea in mind that I'll thumbnail down somewhere on the canvas. Same with composition. There are a lot of little doodles or pose ideas that I mix and match before kicking a piece into gear.

Though, that being said, sometimes I know exactly what I want to do from the get-go go and it just takes a couple of tries and re-sketching to get it right! Warm-ups are also a big recommendation.

If you can- find pose references online too! I don't do this as often as I should but pose references always help keep anatomy a little bit more in place or "natural" looking (as natural as it can be in my style! Stuff is still exaggerated and more cartoonish after all)

The best way I can describe my sketching phases is kind of like chiseling away at something. I start more with basic form and loose shapes then erase and re-draw over top of it (and select tool edit lol) until I find its the way I want it!

And I do the same thing with color and lineart too! I draw over my lineart and color layers after everything is done in order to reshade or reshape an area I dislike.

Not particularly a tutorial but just a general look on how I draw certain things!

Unfortunately, I don't think I have any thumbnails hanging around. Most of them have been on the Song Pieces and those files have had all their layers deleted and remade for the next song piece over and over and over lmao. But generally, those are small drawings in little boxes that help convey a composition you might want for a piece.

#voidthoughts #voidart #!!! the legs I think are too long on that sketch but fuckem they can have long legs #was surprised I even drew that decently tbh!! its the first thing I've drawn today!#asks #hope this helps

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blondeaxolotl · 1 year ago

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So, what method do you use when drawing to keep going?

I personally always seem to struggle to finish an art piece and can never get myself to fully focus on learning the entirety of anatomy, etc.

I crave to finish an art piece again, I miss the feeling, but I haven't been able to do it in a long long while, I'm just hoping for a little advice, not sure who else to go to cause I don't have any friends but I look up to you a crazy amount so I figured I'd give this a shot, this isn't forced to answer by the way!

I don't want you to feel like you have to answer this.

If you do or you don't, you're still really cool, your art is awesome and inspiring and your aus are as well.

Heck, you're a pretty damn cool person too, art really does reflect artist sometimes huh?

Anyway, I'll get out of your hair, keep up the amazing work <3/p

When it comes to finishing an art piece that you know you want to finish but suddenly lose the motivation to

What I usually do (this might not work for everyone but it somewhat helps me so it helps you as well then that's awesome) is when I'm in the middle of drawing a piece and I suddenly lose interest or motivation, or something isn't going well which is making me lose patience. I just put the pencil down, and go do something else for a while until I get the urge to continue or try again. Example I go play video games for a while or maybe watch a movie or youtube for a bit, just giving yourself a small break from drawing until that motivation to draw comes back and then you go back to that piece and try again. And basically how ever often that happens (aka losing motivation, patience, etc), you just repeat the cycle until you're slowly getting closer and closer to finishing that piece (You can also doodle on the side as a refresher but I don't recommend starting a whole new piece when you want to finish your first one, usually for me I just end up forgetting the last drawing completely because I accidentally started a new project 😭 but that might be a me problem if it doesn't happen to you then it's a-okay) This is mostly what was helping me finish projects since I have a short attention span and often lose motivation and what not so I constantly do this FDSFDSDSF.

Now for anatomy, I'm not the best at anatomy myself but my first advice is don't immediately give up if your anatomy isn't perfect on the first try, it won't always look good on the first attempt which is why it's okay to go through a few trial and errors before you get it to a point you like it enough to continue. Also I'm not a professional and I suck at explaining things and honestly I know jackshit about anatomy I just wing it most of the time. But I can give you small tips that come in handy when drawing poses!!

We're gonna use a reference for this, when you have a reference for a pose you want to use. A good way to get a hang of the pose is by tracing over it with simple shapes (such as cylinders, circles, triangles, etc) and then redrawing it with those same shapes to again get the hang of the pose, you don't have to really do it but it's a good practice so I recommend it. Then, after you have your pose, you can take the lasso tool (or selection tool) and then just resize body parts to your liking so they fit your style more!!! And ofc now you can draw over it and use it as a base for the character you want to use it for.

Now that's the first method, but I have a second one which is fun, I call it "frankesteining", which is where you grab 2 or more images and then take body parts and paste them onto the main reference picture you want to use.

Like here, you like the pose of the first reference, but wish both of the models arms were on the hips? Fear not! Just grab another image of a model who's arm IS on their hip

Then carefully erase the arm/body part on your main reference that you want to replace with another. Select the arm/body part of the second reference with lasso tool, and slowly trace over it so you can copy/cut it out and then paste it onto your main ref

Like this! Now remember, the reference doesn't need to look aesthetically pleasing, after all you're just using it as a reference, so it's okay if it doesn't look perfect!! You can do this with many body parts as you want btw, just keep cutting and pasting until you get the pose you wanted!!

And finally just draw over it! Using the same methods as the first one, shapes, redraw and all! No one will ever know you were playing pretend dr frankenstein with the reference pictures before this!

Now these are the methods I use when posing characters, they might not always come out right the first time but if you keep trying you'll eventually get something you like a lil more than your last ones!! You can also just use a 3d model posing website/app and then screenshot the pose and redraw it from there. But this is if you're one of those people who for some reason just can't get the hang of those damn 3d model posers (aka me)

GUHH THIS POST IS SO LONG IM SORRY, I hope my rambles helped you out at least a lil bit and I hope you continue your journey in making art, believe in yourself and eventually everything will turn out alright in the end stay strong fellow artist 💜

#Also I'm sorry if there are misspells and such it's 2am #I'll edit the post later for misspells (I wont)#mono ask #Also if anyone else has any advice or tips as well please feel free to leave them in the replies tyvm

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linuxlife · 3 months ago

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Linux Life Episode 87

Hello everyone and welcome to my ongoing piddling about in my corner of the world of Linux. Well this month I have been playing around with Wayland and trying to work out whether I am ready to switch to it.

I admit that I recently switched back to X11 when using KDE Plasma 6.2 as several tools don’t work well in it under Wayland.

When in X11 I use Cairo Dock as a program launcher which does have a version that allegedly works with Wayland but the team of Cairo Dock admit its alpha and is buggy. Indeed it worked for a while then it started messing up shortcuts. Also in X11 I can move the bar up above the main KDE panel so I can still see the icons and switch tasks etc.

In X11 it works fine. In Wayland it is just too basic and the coders of it are in no hurry to create a full version until Wayland setup some standards regarding key bindings etc.

Which I guess is fair enough but annoying.

When it comes to collecting screenshots I normally use Shutter. I have tried others such as Flameshot and others but they seem to have issues when grabbing certain screenshots such as Steam games and Shutter just works.

However under Wayland. Shutter has been hacked to work but will only allow you to grab the desktop only and none of the other options are available.

So I have been using X11 to allow Shutter to continue to work.

Maybe I’m a bit old fashioned but I like to have things that work. Also OBS Studio works with Wayland but apparently has issues when selecting input sources and areas.

In time they may fix this but at this time it doesn’t quite work as it should.

So I admit if I am using KDE Plasma I won’t be using the Wayland version.

Taking a slight side step ...

I have recently decide as I was noodling about in the Wayland compositing wibble I decided to try Hyprland.

Well I must admit at first I really didn’t get on very well with it and to be honest while I could open a few windows and I managed to use ghostty as my terminal.

However after a bit of a play I didn’t know how to close all the open windows and had to faff around just to get the slightest thing open.

So I was about to give up. However I decided to look up the wiki and it gave a few preconfigured options. I admit I downloaded and installed the JaKooLit dot files.

I must admit that it has actual made Hyprland useful and with a bit of playing I finally managed to get most things working and yes it can be fun and it’s pretty fast but I really don’t see me using it regularly.

It has allowed me to capture screenshots using certain keys so Hyprland has solved my requirements and Shutter is not needed using it but until OBS Studio issues in Wayland are sorted I will have to go back to KDE Plasma 6 X11 if I want to capture video.

I really didn’t understand Hyprland when i first started but I admit that the preconfig has made it useable once you get used to the quirkiness. I am even willing to live without a dock.

Hopefully OBS Studio will manage to get around its issues and who knows I might even switch to Hyprland and stop using KDE Plasma.

I’m sure someone will advise me better Hyprland tricks but for now I have it working and it is not bad. In time I could get used to working with Hyprland. Once you get the hang of it, it is quite fast and useable.

Wayland is good but not quite 100% there. Not far its about 95% workable, it just needs the last few things to get working.

Well that’s enough waffle for now ... Until next time ... Take care.

#linux life #waffle #linux arch #hyprland #kde plasma #obs studio issues #wayland

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newcomer-karp · 2 months ago

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Pokerating Day 33, Emolga...

Charm:

While I'm personally biased against emolga I'll try to be fair to it. Like most rodent pokemon it's fairly small with a charming face. Its most notable trait is its gliding ability. In nature it glides from tree to tree looking for food. In your house it will scamper up the wall and fly onto your face just to cause problems. Emolga is Very mischievous. It Will use its gliding to steal your food and it Will shock you to get to it.

8/10, I cannot stress enough how nasty the personality of most emolgas I've met has been. And they're native here so I see more than I wish I could. Also being mostly nocturnal doesn't help.

Care:

Reasonable enough to keep as pets. Easily and readily able to bond with people. Even if they like you they'll still act bastardous though. Just part of how they are.

Preferred housing is a log with a hollow in it. They like conifers a Lot more than broad-leaved trees. Honestly I can't blame em, coniferous trees tend to have that good smell to em. I think they mostly just like the needles as bedding though. If you want one to be comfortable, carve a hole into a log (or hire your local pikipek or trumbeak to do so for you), hang it up in a climbable and high up location, and put lots of soft materials nearby for your emolga to construct its own nest. They aren't exactly made to climb smooth walls so some bark or rope or something that they can climb around on is needed.

They're mostly herbivorous, eating things like fruit, seeds, bark, leaves, etc. so make sure to provide a variety for them. They also eat bug-type pokemon, albeit less often. Small bug-types that can't poison or otherwise substantially harm your emolga and aren't immune to electricity are gonna be best.

They also tend to antagonize other pokemon. Keep this in mind. ESPECIALLY do not let them near small pokemon (especially bugs) that you care about.

6/10, not too bad but requires some light house modification and specialized gear. Also a wide diet diversity is needed for health, and part of it is feeding other bug-types. Plus housing them with other pet pokemon can be difficult.

Safety:

They usually won't accidentally shock you, but they will do it intentionally! The cheeks and patagium (wing membrane) are the parts that hold electricity so be careful with those parts. They also have a notable bite like the rest of the rodent pokemon.

7/10, electric pokemon always pose a threat to, at minimum, people with medical assistance devices, and while not overtly mean or anything sometimes you'll catch a stray zap or bite. Usually intentionally.

Pet Score: 21/30 - Rank B

Utility:

Learns cut, flash, and defog. Also learns thunder wave and taunt, which can be useful for catching wild pokemon.

Nothing else to really say, I can't think of anything else.

2/10. Unremarkable.

Battle:

Don't use emolga for battling. It's outclassed directly by rotom in its fan form. Keep in mind that fan rotom doesn't even have an ability (it technically has the ability levitate but it's a flying type so it's moot).

It has some decent qualities. Static isn't a bad ability, and it gets a good selection of useful moves, like thunder wave/nuzzle, taunt, u-turn, defog, knock off, encore, roost, and pursuit. But it's so pitifully weak it can't use any of these tools. The only data I could find uses it at the lowest tier as a pokemon that sets up tailwind and dies. Even then the writer notes specifically not to use emolga.

1/10. Pity point. Can technically do one thing before dying. Sometimes. Idk, I'm really tempted to put a fat 'ol 0 but I can see emolga being useable in the nichest of niches.

I can't think of a worse fully-evolved pokemon though.

Trainer Score: 3/20 - Rank F

Scores:

Charm: 8/10

Care: 6/10

Safety: 7/10

Pet Score: 21/20 - Rank B

Utility: 2/10

Battle: 1/10

Trainer Score: 3/20 - Rank F

Total Score: 24/50 - Rank C

Notes:

I tried my damndest to keep personal bias outta this one but I really don't like emolga. It's one of the few pokemon I do dislike. Props if you can stand it but I can't.

I can think of one worse fully evolved pokemon now though at least, take a wild guess if you wish. I'll give a hint: it's monotype.

#rotomblr #unreality #pkmn irl #pokemon irl #pokerating

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spotofmummery · 3 months ago

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(Lil MetAnon returns!)

The little robotic entity wiggled a bit in confusion when picked up, almost in panic! But when no damage came, but rather a gentle hold, the little guy relaxed. Tucking the small shoes in and letting it's panicked SOS signal be put to rest. It was found!

Awareness blipped in and out to save on internal power, leaving it confused when now finding it's self in the lab of some sort. Unrecognizable machinery abound, but power readings all steady. And this lovely soft pad it was sat upon. Making it's one good eye blink a couple times in confused curiosity. Muttering out a 'Met met?' as if asking a question. Head turning upwards while the odd helmet slid further back. Staring up towards that lap.

It was familiar with being repaired! Similar movements. Although still mildly nervous. One of it's eye optics was badly cracked and flickering, the LED's inside practically useless. One of the shoes had a damaged connection joint, while at the proper under section, a whole fracture through the steel was present, exposing sparking wires.

"Met! Mettool!" Another little wiggle, as if trying to say thank you?

[See MetBot Part 1 Here]

Node's scans weren’t picking up anything adjectively malicious from the small bot (so far), and in fact, diagnostics reported the possibility of responsive intelligence similar to that of Allagan tech. However, the design was anything but. Though the build was foreign, it showcased a maker’s keen mechanical knowledge of function and form, somewhat akin to the clockwork that Amon was used to working with.

In fact, Met appeared to place itself in some sort of recovery mode as Amon put it on his workbench. The Allagan pulled his menagerie of tools from the case and gently began to survey the damage. From time to time, the bot offered almost quizzical sounds that were both endearing and pleasing to the ear.

It took a little rummaging for hookups, but the Elezen found something that sufficed to connect Node to the bot as means of acting as a temporary power control. He could see the sparking exposed wires – wires were familiar enough to tackle first.

“Node, divert energy from the damaged sector,” Amon requested, selecting the proper tools for the job.

This was an exciting bit of mechanical puzzle-piecing for him – his mind was already working through plans for a crystal plate replacement for the shattered eye, and what he might hear should he investigate what appeared to be a damaged voice box.

One thing at a time, Amon schooled himself. He forced a focus on reconnecting the wires with as much care and dedication as he would use working on his own Nodes.

Seeing that the bot was responsive to his work, he ventured to offer calming words, uncertain if they would be understood, “Hang in there, little friend. ‘Tisn’t as bad as it looks, mayhaps? I’m going to get you back up and running!”

((MetBot Anon - the Metbot is adorable! Thank you for writing again!))

#Amon of Syrcus #Answer #Light RP #MetBot Anon

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emeraldcatears · 1 year ago

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Whether you're making your own tiles or using an existing set, there is a little bit more to using them than just placing them on the map. Here's where we get into the database.

As a refresher, you can get to the database under Tools, by pressing F9, or by selecting the gear icon at the top of the screen.

You can tell that a lot of the magic happens here because there are a lot of ways to get to it.

There's a lot in the database, but we're still focused on tiles for now so I'll pop down to the tilesets button. It'll bring up your tilesets.

As shown above, all parts of a tileset can be adjusted here, from the separate parts of the A tab through the B-E tabs (though the sample set shown here only goes through C).

Outside here is made of a few different subgroups so a set can mix and match from your available assets for flexibility. For example, the Outside and SF Outside sets that comes with RMMZ both use the same A1 and A2 tiles but have different A3-C tiles.

Once you've got the tiles you want to work with put together, the important stuff is that column of buttons on the right. That's where you tell RPG Maker how to make the tiles behave in the game.

The first one is Passage and it actually has three possible settings.

An X, as shown on the barrel and gravestones, means that the player cannot walk on the tile. Whether it's a solid object like a building or a hole the character cannot just jump down, an X is used to prevent the player from walking where you don't want them. An O means the tile is passable and the player can walk on it, as with the clumps of grass and stepping stones.

Finally the star, as shown on the upper tile of the tree, means that the player can pass the tile and whatever is shown on the tile will appear above the player. This allows the player to walk behind tall trees or under hanging signs.

Passage (4 dir) is that but more nuanced. It's for tiles you want the player to be able to walk on in some directions but be blocked in others. Think like a bench the player can "sit" on or a bridge over a gap of land.

If I kept the passage as it was in the default settings for this set, the player would be able to walk north or south off the bridge directly onto the grass "below". Likewise they could just walk onto a bridge high "above" them from the ground and destroy the illusion of elevation in a 2D environment.

So to fix this all I have to do is go into the B tab...

... and make the bridges 4-direction passability match how I want the tile to work in-game. Now I can build bridges over land as well as over already impassable tiles like water.

Next is Ladder.

Basically, this setting being on indicates that the player will always face up when standing on this tile regardless of the direction they're moving up or down it (so you don't climb down a rope and just look like you're walking).

In XP if you wanted this effect you'd have to make direction fix events. MZ allows you to build it into the tile and call it a day.

Whether it's to indicate sinking into shallow water or trudging through deep snow (or, you know, walking through tall grass where wild Pokemon are ready to jump out), this setting makes it so the lower part of the player becomes semi-transparent when standing on the tile.

Counter is for if you want a tile to be a solid object but still allow you to interact with an event on the other side.

You can "talk" over a counter if there is a one-tile width counter between you and the event you're trying to talk to (like a businessman seated behind a desk or a shopkeeper behind their counter).

A counter will also extend the A2 autotiles a little to extend the legs down a bit to look more natural.

Damage Floor

This one's pretty neat to have built in. Damage floor is for stuff that drains HP from walking on it, such as swamps of poisonous goop.

I honestly don't remember whether this existed in XP or not.

Elsewhere in the database you can also control whether the player can reach 0HP from floor damage or if it instead only drops to 1HP. That's for later, though. We're still here for tiles. When I say I'm doing a learnalong I'm going into painful detail here.

Finally there's Terrain Tag.

Basically you get a default of 0 and up to seven other tags you can assign to tiles. Terrain tags were a big thing in determining encounters back when I played around in Pokemon Essentials (think Tall Grass) but I never played much with them otherwise. They allow custom versions of the aforementioned ways to assign special rules to a tile that automatically works when put on a map.

That last bit about priority basically refers to the layer the tile is placed on.

In other words, a table (counter) placed on layer 2 would be read by the game over whatever the floor or ground below it is. However, if a tile on a higher layer has a default 0 chosen and the ground below it has a numerical tag added, the 0 tile will be ignored in favor of the one with a terrain tag assigned.

Even if you're not building all your own resources these are pretty useful to know for if you want to change something up, like I did with the 4-directional passage on the bridges.

#emeraldcatears's rmmz learnalong blog #rpg maker #rpg maker mz #tiles in the database

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saragargan · 2 years ago

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I’ll Be Frankenstein, You Be the Monster - 2

masterlist

You have to help him back to your embalming room. It feels wrong, letting someone not part of the craft back here. It was a pretty strict rule that the embalming room was a sacred place. You guide Michael to one of the embalming tables, and have to help him up and to get straightened out. Then you go to the sink, and wash your hands, before pulling on a new pair of gloves and the smock back over your head. You give it a quick wipe down with some disinfectant spray, and then turn back to Michael.

He watches as you approach, but you can’t read his expression. You flick on a bright light -similar to the ones used in dentist offices- and adjust it to the angle you need. Leaning over the table, you inspect the wound more closely. It looks to you like something had blunt forced its way inside him, and pulled out his organs as it exited. And were those….wires? Imbedded inside of him? You suppress the urge to shudder, and your eyes trace his torn flesh.

The wound is jagged. Grotesque tears in his skin that make you squirm, trying not to think about what it must feel like. You’d seen much worse of course, but those bodies were dead.

Michael was alive.

Or at least, he was kind of alive.

You really weren’t sure.

You cross the room and retrieve a sanitized set of tools, then carefully lay them out on the paper-covered bedside table.

“Alright. I’m going to clean these up a little before I start sewing you up. But…”

You trail off, unsure what to say exactly. You could see that his remaining organs were functioning normally, but if you were to stitch him up like this he would still look empty. You chew your lip thoughtfully.

“Mike, what’s your blood type?”

He tells you, and you check the file of the body you’d been working on.

They’re compatible.

A little puff of air comes out of your mouth, and you laugh a little. Turning back to Michael, you know you must have the air of someone about to say something utterly insane.

“This man, Nathan Russell, he has, or had, the same blood type as you. Theoretically, I could transfer his organs to you, so you won’t look like a deflated balloon when I stitch you back up.”

Michael has a look of shock for a moment, before a bubble of laughter escapes him. Then he winces, groaning as he holds his side, carefully avoiding the wound.

“I’m serious, if you aren’t opposed. They’ve been on ice this whole time, they should work fine. In theory.”

“This sounds illegal.”

“It’s…highly illegal…yes.” Michael simply gazes at you, and you give him a look of defiance. “But I’ve never been one to care much about the law. And considering the situation, I’m not about to start now.”

“Then I guess….go for it.”

You prepare your suture needle and thread, then select an organ. Placing it in the general vicinity of where it would be, you ready your needle, but before you can do anything, wispy white fluid seeps out of his flesh.

You shriek, jerking back your head from where you’d leaned in close for a better view. You watch in disbelief as the fluid connects with the organ, pulling it to the inner wall of his abdomen and regrowing the connecting tissue right before your eyes.

Your mouth hangs open, in horror or amazement you hadn’t quite decided.

“What? What happened?” Michel asks, concerned.

“I….it just. This stuff just came out of you and. It reattached the organ. It healed you.”

“That’s probably because of the Remnant.” He puts emphasis on the last two words, as if they meant something other than their dictionary definition.

“...What?”

“I told you I’d tell you everything, keep going. I’ll talk.”

So you do. You carefully place organs inside of Michael’s body and watch as they magically adhere right back where they belong. As you work, Michael tells you about his past.

He tells you about how he caused the death of his little brother, how his sister also passed a few years later. He tells you about the years after, his father's absence, his obsession with the restaurant he'd founded, and the disappearances you’d heard about in passing, but never paid much attention to. And finally his move here, following his father's instruction to investigate Circus Baby’s Pizza World, and ultimately, the fate that brought him here, laying on an embalming table and split open like a high school dissection project.

He tells you about his father’s theory, about what was left behind after death. Being a mortician, you tended not to feed into any ‘life after death’ nonsense or ghost stories. But the way Michael explained it made it sound plausible, bordering on scientific. And after all, hadn’t you just watched his body put itself back together with little to no help from you? it ‘s all completely insane, and yet…it makes sense.

By now, you’ve finished with the organs, and have since moved on to the wound itself. Unfortunately, the external wounds did not offer up the same cooperation as the internal ones, so you start with the smaller, more jagged tears before moving on the largest, down the middle. It takes you a while to find your voice, carefully suturing Michael’s skin back together. Eventually, you’ve collected your thoughts enough to speak.

“So...you’re like… a ghost…possessing your own corpse?” You don’t fully comprehend what he’s saying, and the idea disturbs you.

Michael looks at you, but sees past you. He seems to be deep in thought.

“No.”

He reaches for you, frantically taking your hand in his and pressing it to his chest. You could feel the heart beating steadily under your palm.

“I’m still me. I’m still…alive.” He whispers. “I’m still alive.” He says more firmly, seeming to reassure himself more than you.

His eyes -once blue, now a dull gray- flick up to yours, pleading with you to believe him.

You were overcome with the sudden urge to kiss him.

Instead you turn your attention back to the gaping wound in his abdomen, and continue to stitch him back together. Michael sighs - you try not to stare at the sight of his lungs inflating - and closes his eyes. His skin is cold against your hands, not unlike the bodies you normally stitched up. You wonder if he can feel them.

It doesn’t take very long for you to finish, you were good at your job after all. You snip the thread, taking in your work. It’s not your best, but you felt you’d done the best you could with what you had to work with. What stands out to you though, is the dried blood that's caked around his abdomen and chest. You leave the table, a minute later coming back with a bowl of hot water and a cloth, and begin to clean off the dried blood. It takes a bit of scrubbing, and when you finish, your hands are stained, the water a dark orange color.

Your gaze finds its way back to Michael’s face. His eyes are still closed, and he’s so still that for a moment you think he may have died for real.

“Mike…?” His eyes flash open, and relief washes over you. You didn’t want to think about how you were going to explain this situation if he were to die right here, body full of stolen organs.

“I’m done.”

He tries to sit up, but groans and falls back against the table.

You offer him your hand, which he holds like a lifeline, and help him into a sitting position. There’s a visible sheen of sweat across his face, as if the simple act of sitting up seems to have exhausted him. You manage to get him to his feet, where he sways unsteadily. You pull his arm around your shoulder, supporting him with your body, and guide him out of the home to your car. You let him fall into the passenger seat.

“I need to clean up inside, are you okay to stay here?”

He nods sleepily, relaxing into the plush seat.

Returning to the morgue, the first thing you do is push the cadaver back into the freezer. You’d have to figure out something to dispose of tomorrow night when you embalmed it, now that you’d transferred a good deal of Nathan Russell’s organs to Michael. Perhaps a trip to the next town over’s butcher shop? You weren’t sure. The entire night had taken a turn you never would’ve imagined possible.

Once your tools have been properly sanitized and put away, you also clean off the metal embalming table. The last thing you did before locking up for the night was “accidentally” corrupt the video footage from the security cameras.

Stepping out into the chilly night air, it was nearing 5am. Inside the car, Michael was asleep in the passenger seat. He didn’t look comfortable in the slightest, but was snoring softly.

You turn over the engine, and drive home.

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realmackross · 2 years ago

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PARTIES: @thenavysealkie @realmackross TIMING: July 12th at Hollow Point Armory SUMMARY: Two strangers come together to help a crotchety old store owner with the promise of free weapons as payment. WARNINGS: unsanitary tw and just know there's a big ass spider involved.

“After his previous encounter with that zombie from the ocean, Marcus couldn’t help but feel much more vulnerable. He had let his guard down and allowed himself to feel too safe and secure in Wicked’s Rest. A stupid thing to do, he figured, in a town full of supernatural creatures. If the hunters don’t get you, the water ghouls will. If he was going to stick around here permanently, and he planned to, then he was going to need better protection.

He entered in through the doors of Hollow Point Armory and was amazed at the selection of firearms available. While Marcus always preferred to fight with a knife, a little strength from a distance couldn’t hurt. From his time in the navy, he had enough training to be confident and accurate with a pistol and rifle. Still, he was mostly in need of a new blade. He examined the one his father had given him on his 18th birthday, the handle in the design of a sea serpent, coming up to a brass hilt. The blade itself was rather short at about 4 ½ inches long, and made of iron, in case any disgruntled fae came after him for sapping their magic. However, the handle had lost its grip and the blade had started to lose its edge. It was becoming more of a liability to try and use than it was a source of protection. Besides, he would want a longer blade to put more distance and who/whatever it was that was trying to kill him.

One knife grabbed his attention, easily double the length of his current one, with a practical black wooden handle. The surface of the handle was gritty, ensuring Marcus that he could maintain a good grip. The blade itself looked razor sharp, and granted him enough distance to command much more room in a combat scenario. His heart sank a bit when he saw the price of the weapon. He figured, if it saved his life, then it would be priceless. But “priceless” sure was a lot of money.

Call it boredom or call it Llama just needing something to relieve her mind, but somehow she had found her way into Hollow Point Armory. It was the last place she had expected to find herself, but considering she felt completely alone in the world and without protection, it was probably the best place. For years she had the comfort of knowing her bodyguard had been on speed dial if she had ever needed anything, despite the fact that she was pretty well versed in martial arts. But Wicked’s Rest was turning out to be a completely different ball game with challenges that California just didn’t seem to have.

Perusing the aisles slowly, she let her eyes scan the shelves and cases for anything that struck her fancy. She knew the ease guns could bring by aiming, pointing, and shooting, but she had a true and passionate hate for the weapons. So when she had come to the gun section of the store, she easily passed it up. However, to her surprise, two aisles over, Llama had found exactly what she was looking for…katanas, nunchucks, and other various tools she had been familiar with.

Slowly rubbing her cold fingers across the hilt of a really nice katana hanging up, Llama’s mind went back to the time she had first held one. It was intimidating, and she had hesitated, but once she had gotten the hang of swinging the sword, she instantly fell in love. Of course, the realization of where she was standing hit pretty hard. Did she really want to leave the store with a sword in hand? Normally, she would have been all for it, but considering some of the most recent rumors that had been spreading in the media about her, she didn’t want to add fuel to the fire. Maybe a bo staff would be the better choice?

Marcus’s concentration was broken when he sensed movement on the other side of the store. He had assumed it was just him and the store owner in the building, and curiosity got the better of him. He looked over to find a pale woman staring longingly at the katana selection. She definitely seemed to have good taste, he gave her that. While Marcus always thought katanas were a badass choice of weapon, he figured they were a touch impractical as opposed to a knife, which was more portable and versatile.

He watched the woman’s gaze shift from the katanas over to the bo staffs. To be honest, Marcus knew nothing about fighting with a staff. He figured if there was no bladed end, it probably wasn’t going to do much damage without a lot of effort. Still, he had to admit the additional range the weapon provided had to have its own uses.

The woman seemed…well not like the type of person you would see casually perusing through lethal weapons. She didn’t appear like the rough and tumble type of woman that he came to see quite often around town. Instead, she looked as though an influencer had been airdropped into a combat site. And yet, she certainly did seem to have at least some idea of what she was looking for. Knowing that this was a dangerous town, and having weapons experience himself, he chanced approaching the woman, being sure to grab her attention from a distance so he didn’t startle her with a weapon in her hand.

“Excuse me, did you need any help finding anything in particular?”

Llama’s eyes continued to stray to the katanas and without second thought, she decided to pick one up. Easing it off the rack, she pulled it into her hands. The weight was familiar. It had been a little while, but it felt good. She so desperately wanted to swing it, but knew better than to in a public place with the risk of someone approaching her. And about the time the thought entered her head, she heard a voice.

Looking up and letting her eyes meet his, she spoke, “Uh, no. I think I found my section. Not really a gun person. But it’s really the question of do I want to buy this, a bo staff, or nunchucks.” She hadn’t quite been a fan of throwing stars. If someone knew how to use them and could use them efficiently then Llama had respect for them, but they just didn’t give her the relief she so desired. “What would you recommend?” She wasn’t sure if the man she was talking to worked here or was just another wandering customer like herself, but she did value hearing his opinion, especially knowing that he had no idea who she was.

Llama gently held the sword out to him, “I mean I like the weight of this, but I’m really looking for something for a meditative purpose, I think. But, like, also something that’s going to keep me safe.” She was starting to get somewhat nervous, afraid that he was going to judge her for being in a weapons store, even though she had every right to be. She may not have looked the type, but Llama could drop a man to his knees in a heartbeat, if she felt threatened.

Katana, bo staff, and nunchucks? All she was missing was a pair of sai and she could do a one woman recreation of the ninja turtles. Marcus had to admire her proficiency in different weapons, even if they were a bit obsolete by today’s standards. Given her Hollywood looks, something about her holding the katana reminded him of that scene in Kill Bill. The one where Uma Thurman rampaged through 88 people without taking a scratch. Yup, definitely badass, he decided.

She was asking him for a recommendation and asked for something “meditative?” What exactly did that mean? He conjured in his mind the image of monks meditating. They used staffs, right? That’s at least what the movies would have him believe.

“If you’re looking for something more meditative and less stabby, the bo staff seems like a good option. But if you want strong protection, I’d have to recommend something with a little more stopping power.” He walked over to a pair of nunchucks, a little surprised that the store even carried them, and picked them up, feeling their weight. “These are quick, less awkward to maneuver, and if you smack somebody at just the right spot in their temple, they’ll go down fast. Only problem is you can hit yourself too, so I’d recommend getting some good training in with these if you’re gonna use them”.

In actuality, Marcus hadn’t been trained in any of these weapons. But he did watch a lot of action movies, especially the old karate theater films from the 70s and 80s, so he figured that mixed with his actual combat experience pretty much made him an expert.

She hung on his every word. He seemed to know what he was doing and talking about, and she could appreciate that. She had seen all the ways you could get lost in twirling a bo staff, and the idea had relaxed her, but the point he made about the nunchucks was legit too. Llama didn’t know how much trouble she could possibly get into, but if it was anything like the crystalized creatures she had seen lurking around town, she certainly didn’t want to be without protection. Plus, with the nunchucks it would be a little more discrete. They could be tucked into the back of her pants, in one of her huge hoodies, or her Chanel tote (but that one was only for special occasions).

Llama followed him, but made sure to keep her distance in case he started swinging. There was nothing like getting hit with a pair of nunchucks. She remembered having three stitches to the forehead, and after that, she made it a priority to never hit herself again. Listening carefully as he explained things, the young actress kept a content look on her face and nodded in agreement, “You do have a point. I mean no copious amounts of blood. Easier to carry around then a bo staff or Katana. Do you mind if I see a pair?”

Stepping forward, she picked up a pair from the shelf. She didn’t want to offend him and the advice he was giving her, so Llama made it a point to look them over carefully, “Nice bit of weight to them. Good grip. Seems like they’re pretty easy to handle.” Moving back away from the man she had just met, and making sure nothing was around her, Llama let one of the nunchucks drop, so they were ready to use, “So you just kinda…swing ‘em around?” Okay, at this point she was totally messing with him. She had been training in martial arts since she was thirteen. Though it had been a hot minute since she had picked up a pair of nunchucks. This was either going to go really well or really poorly, but either way, at least it would be entertaining.

Starting off slow, she let the windmill motion start to build momentum. She had enjoyed her brain smoothie not too long before coming into the store, so her mind was sharper than normal. As the nunchucks started to swing faster, Llama began flipping them and rotating them in different directions, even catching the free side behind her back in her opposite hand. It was all coming back to her naturally, and it was a rush she had missed. When she finally finished, she let the free end swing up under her arm, “Yeah, that felt good. I think I’ll take the nunchucks…”

Marcus observed the woman pick up a pair of nunchucks and get a feel for them. He got nervous when she asked if she’s just supposed to swing them around and became even more anxious when she started doing just that. His eyes darted over to the nearby shelves, hoping she wouldn’t break anything. He would try and grab her arms to stop her, but the risk of getting hit was much too high.

His anxiety gave way to astonishment as he watched the woman artfully handle the nunchucks, even throwing in cool flairs and tricks. She handled the weapon like an absolute seasoned pro and he could do nothing but stare slack jawed at the performance. When she finally finished her routine, she very casually said that they seemed like a good fit. He couldn’t tell if this was an extreme case of “being a natural” or if he was being played, but either way this woman continued to impress him. Still, he didn’t particularly appreciate being shown up by a woman whose skills he had discounted again. Was everybody in this town a secret super soldier?

Marcus cleared his throat. “Right, definitely seems like you can handle them pretty well. I hope whatever you need protection from will-”, he was suddenly cut off by a voice towards the back of the store yelling out. “DAMMIT! NOT ANOTHER ONE!”, the voice shouted. The store owner stumbled out from the back, seeming surprised to find customers in the store.

“Sorry folks, didn’t realize anybody was in here. You’ll have to excuse the noise there’s a…a bit of a situation in the back. Don’t worry, I have a hunter who's been coming in to deal with these pests.” Then under his breath, Marcus could hear the man say “he’s just so expensive”. Finally the man perked up again and said “Anyway, if you want to bring those purchases up here, I can-” before being cut off by a loud crashing sound in the back again. The man sighed and said “If this keeps up much longer it’s gonna trash my store!”

Llama was fighting back the urge to laugh, but there was an apparent grin on her face. She had almost forgotten how much enjoyment she had from flipping nunchucks around. She would definitely be purchasing those, and thanking the man, whether he was an employee or not, for helping her. But before she could explain herself and the experience she had, the loud crash and booming voice coming from the back.

Narrowing her eyes, Llama glanced over to the man next to her, before seeing the store owner walk out. She listened to him apologize, but also the use of the word hunter had seemed strange. Was that the name of a Pest Control service offered in Wicked’s Rest? Normally they were just called exterminators, where she was from. And she had known of a great one, but that was back in California.

Again, Llama was going to speak as she began walking forward, until she heard another crash. Turning her attention back to the weapon’s expert, she finally spoke, “Should we do something or call somebody? I know an exterminator back home, but he lives in California. Maybe animal control or…I’ve just never heard of somebody calling for a hunter to take care of a pest problem” She wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but she could hear the desperation in his voice. “I mean, how hard is it to catch a loose squirrel or something?” She shrugged, the nunchucks still in her hands.

Marcus watched the girl in front of him, looking more and more lethal with those nunchucks in her hand. She did have a point, how hard could it be to take care of a small pest problem? If he was really desperate and short on cash, he’d be more than willing to try and help him out. If the woman in the store with him wanted to help out, then that would be even better. Who knows what kind of damage she could do with those nunchucks? While he didn’t fancy the idea of killing anything, preferring to relocate, he also understood the damage that some critters could cause.

He glanced sideways at the woman next to him, who also looked eager to help in any way she could.

“Maybe I could help with your little pest problem? After all, I’d hate for you to have to pay the rates a hunter charges just to deal with something small,” Marcus offered to the store owner.

“Oh it’s nothing small,” the man said, shaking his head from side to side. “It’s…well probably better if I showed you first. If you still want to try and kill the damned thing, be my guest. I’ll give you that knife free of charge if you can take it out. I’ll just have you sign a waiver beforehand stating that I take no responsibility for any injury, dismemberment, or death that may occur as a result of you taking on this job. Just legal formalities, I’m sure you’ll be just fine.”

That certainly didn’t put Marcus at ease, but he was also never one to turn down a challenge. He nodded his head at the man, conveying his willingness to accept even though his nerves now made it difficult to speak. What on earth could be holed up in this shop that’s so dangerous?

“And how about you, girly?” The man said, now turning to face the woman with the nunchucks. “Wanna join in? I’ll, of course, have to get you to sign the same waiver. Same deal, you get to walk out of here with those nunchucks, free of charge. Whaddya say?”

Llama listened to the conversation going on between both men. It was still odd to hear them both refer to exterminators as hunters, but maybe it was an east coast thing. She wasn’t here to judge. And the term hunter became the least of her worries when the owner hinted at the creature not being small. What in the world was he dealing with? Big Foot? And on top of that a waiver would have to be signed? If her agent and lawyer had been present they would have told her no. Turned down the offer in a heartbeat for her and pulled her out of the store. But they weren’t here, and she wasn’t exactly acting at the moment. But did she still want to possibly get dismembered over a set of nunchucks she could easily just purchase? No. But maybe over the idea that her life didn’t have to be so closed off here in Wicked’s Rest. She could still do stuff. She just had to be careful.

“What the hell? Count me in. Where’s this waiver I’ve gotta sign?” She eagerly moved towards the older man ready for an adventure. I mean she had discovered with Mateo and the fireworks that body parts did grow back. Slowly if it was bad enough, but with the right amount of food, she would be good. Llama just wanted something, anything that would keep her from being curled up alone in a huge house away from everyone.

Looking back over to the man behind her, Llama let a sly grin slip over her face. This was either going to go really well or really poorly, but at least neither one of them would be alone, “Let’s do this.” Spinning the nunchucks again, before pulling them back up under her arm, the actress was ready to take on something new and exciting. It was as if she had been offered a part in a new horror/action movie, and she was going to take the role as seriously as she possibly could.

Marcus was pleased to hear he wouldn’t be going into this alone, especially if it was with somebody who at least seemed to know what they were doing. Still, the waiver definitely concerned him. It was bad enough he was in danger, but now somebody else was too? He remembered Nora and the rush of excitement they got upon slaying the monster on the beach. How bad could this creature be in comparison to that?

He glanced over at the woman, and nodded his head. Before following the shopkeep back, he shook the woman’s hand and introduced himself. “Marcus, by the way. Figure if we’re gonna go into the belly of the beast together we may as well know each other’s names' '.

“You two gonna keep lollygaggin’, or are you gonna follow me? I ain’t got all day”.

Marcus took a little offense to the man he figured he was doing a huge favor for suddenly rushing them. Still, his feet carried him forward through a narrow corridor. At last they got to a back room which he presumed was used for storage. It was a tall wooden double door with two brass ring handles. It looked like something out of the 16th century that would lead to a monarch’s bedchambers, yet the wood and metal were both in stunningly good condition. He could hear a skittering sound inside, followed by the sound of more boxes crashing to the floor.

“The beast is just through here. Good luck! If yer not back in 20 minutes, I’ll assume it went ahead and ate ya. Now get in there and give it hell!”

Llama stuck her hand out and gave him a firm handshake in return, “It’s nice to meet you, Marcus. I’m Llama. Long story for another day. Right now we’ve got a beast to slay.” It was as if she had gone into character mode. She was focused, and she didn’t want to break that focus by explaining how she came to have the name Llama in the first place, which was still hard to wrap her mind around.

Hearing the request of the man caused the actress to narrow her eyes. This guy had definitely sounded like one of the many pushy directors she had worked with in the past. It usually made for an awkward day on set, but she had learned to push past stuff like this. Besides, it wasn’t like this guy was going to be calling the shots much longer. He was just going to send them into the dark to face something that could probably eat their face and call it a day. Despite her instincts telling her to turn around though, Llama let her curiosity and need for something exciting and dangerous to pull her forward.

As they approached the back, Llama found herself confused by the sudden change in scenery. Leaning in towards Marcus, she couldn’t help but make a comment, “Did we just step back in time or something?” But before she could say anything else, she found herself facing their fate with an encouraging warning to give the beast hell!

Llama looked back over at Marcus as they stood in front of the door, “You know, I’m rich, and I can just buy this shit and anything else you want in the store, and we can call it a day…” All sense of adventure was quickly leaving her body with the threat less than 10 feet away behind a door that looked like it was meant for something other than slaying dragons.

Llama. Now that was a very… unique name. Marcus was going to question how somebody could have come to be named Llama, but growing up on the west coast he wasn’t all too surprised. The hippie flower children naming their kids after trees, rivers, and animals. It was only a matter of time until they ran out of good ones and had to start settling for “Llama” to still make their kids seem unique. He just hoped she wasn’t bullied too badly during her school years.

“You come from a lot of money, eh? So do I, actually. Although a lot of that money is sort of tied up at the moment”. While the navy brass was off his trail for now, withdrawing from his accounts would certainly draw suspicion. While he felt comfortable letting his loved ones know he was okay now, he would have to get access to his money some other way once more time passed.

“Explains the looks. I, uh, mean that in a good way.”

He had to admit that he also felt very nervous as well, not that he would allow himself to show it. He looked over at Llama and simply offered “How about this? We peek our heads inside just to get a look at it. If it looks too scary, we run. After all, we signed a waiver, not a contract. But if you’re looking for that rush, that sense of adventure, and it looks weak enough, then I say let’s go for it. Plus, we’ll have the peace of mind knowing we’ve done a good deed.” Granted, that good deed was being done for a very rude person in risk of their own safety, but Marcus’s sense of duty was a strong one. In his mind, he couldn’t turn back now. It would go against his very nature to do so.

Marcus carefully pulled on one of the handles and, slowly, the doors began to creep open. Marcus peered through the small opening and saw only a dark room. He could see in the dark well enough, but only saw knocked over shelves with items strewn across the floor of the room. There were definitive scratch marks on the walls. And yet, he didn’t see any sort of creature. It was as if the beast they had been warned about had simply…vanished. In typical bad horror movie fashion, Marcus slowly walked inside. As he moved towards the center of the room, taking care to step over the knocked over merchandise, he found his arm caught in some sort of invisible force. As he struggled, he soon found his entire body unable to move.

“I’ve made a lot of money in my career so far.” It was true. Llama had a net worth of around $25 million, but that was nothing anybody in Wicked’s Rest needed to know. Of course, it’s not like it couldn’t be googled, but still. It was his comment about her looks that left her giving him a narrowed glare, “Uh huh. Well if we’re going off of looks and weapons knowledge, I’m gonna go military for you. And I, uh, mean that in a good way.” She may have looked like the epitome of young Hollywood in a small town, but Llama was pretty smart and observant when it came to people. However, online was a different story, considering her name was now Llama.

Though she was slightly offended, Llama let it go because they had bigger fish to fry, like whatever was lurking behind door number one. And with his proposal on the table of taking on a good deed for the day, she felt like she couldn’t turn back now, “You’re right. We didn’t fully commit to this or sign our lives away.” Her mind was starting to jump back to the term the two men had been using earlier, hunters. She definitely was no hunter, but she did have combat training from multiple credible sources. She could do this.

Llama made her way in slowly behind Marcus after he had opened the door. What little light there was had given way to all kinds of damage and scattered boxes, and she couldn’t help but grip her nunchucks a little tighter. However, as he moved deeper into the room, Llama found herself stopped and staring wide-eyed at what appeared to be a giant spider hanging from the ceiling with its 3845345934 eyes staring back at her, “Uh, Marcus…I think…I think we should…” She had started to slowly back up, readying herself to flee, “I think we should maybe cut our losses and just go somewhere else…”

Marcus couldn’t help but roll his eyes as his newly found partner’s warning came far too late. Sure, he thought to himself, NOW we’ll cut our losses and run. When I physically can’t. He struggled further against the webbing, but it pulled him back no matter how hard he tried. Frustrated, he looked up towards the ceiling, trying to see if there was anything hanging down that he could use to grab on and pull himself away. And that was when he saw it.

A mountain of eyes, disturbingly large fangs, and eight long spindly legs covered in fine hairs. This wasn’t just any spider. This was Aragog on steroids, and Marcus soon began to realize he had become the creature’s prey. He struggled further, much more panicked now, but it was no use. Slowly, the creature moved its head towards him, all of its many eyes focused directly on him. He reached toward his waist to try and grab his newly acquired knife, but he couldn’t maneuver it out of its holder.

Now Marcus had a good education, so he knew how spiders devoured their prey. First they sunk their fangs in and injected a paralytic venom into their victim. Then they inject an acid that dissolved their prey from the inside out. Seemed a bit counterintuitive towards actually eating their catch, but it was one way to make sure they were dead, and probably made their meal a lot easier to get down. That was about the extent of what he knew about them.

He didn’t exactly fancy being turned into soup, especially when he’d be alive for the souping part of it. Just great, he survived one brush with danger, only to meet an even worse fate. In an act of defiance, Marcus spat in the creature’s face. Human signals of disrespect and contempt apparently didn’t translate well to the arachnid world, as it simply reared its head back a little bit and wiped the spit off with one of its legs. It held the saliva up to its face and…sniffed it? Do spiders smell? He didn’t think they had noses. Whatever it was doing, it only afforded him a few moments of reprieve, and Marcus braced for the impact of its fangs.

When Llama realized Marcus wasn’t responding or coming, she paused. She could just leave. Run. Cut her losses. Be done with it. But what kind of person would that make her? A horrible one? An even worse one than she already was? But was she really even a person anymore? She ate brains. Her fiance’s brains. Other people’s brains. She was literally standing there having an existential crisis while Marcus was about to be made into spider food. “Dammit! I am not that kind of person! Fuck!”

Closing her eyes and taking in a deep, unneeded breath, Llama gathered her courage, and then the idea hit her. Her phone! The LED flashlights on those things were ridiculous, and she knew shining it at the bug would probably startle it! Hopefully! Pulling out her phone and turning it onto the brightest setting, she held the device up all while tightening her grip on the nunchucks still in her hand, “Marcus. Are you still alive?”

Llama moved closer and shined the light around, until she saw the creature once again, and this time her plan worked…almost. Once it laid eyes on her - about a thousand of them - it awkwardly lost its grip from where it was dangling and plopped down onto… “Marcus?!” Seeing its lumpy and weird shape springing back and forth in the tight, nearly invisible web it had weaved with her new spider combat buddy bouncing around with it, Llama didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or take a running swing at it! The latter it would be.

Letting out a war cry, the living dead actress held up the phone to guide her and started swinging her nunchucks ready to knock it off of her friend, but before she could, Llama came to a screeching halt as it and Marcus springed back in her direction much like a slingshot except the contents staying stuck, sending her to the ground and her phone and nunchucks flying off in another direction, “Oh sweet Nick Jonas don’t let it eat me! I’m too young to die again!”

Marcus watched his would-be savior fall to the ground, her weapons crashing helplessly across the other side of the room. Great, not only was he going to die, but he got somebody else killed too. What was that she said about dying again? People only died once, didn’t they? Unless…no. This woman was far too attractive (conventionally speaking) to be undead. Usually they had some evidence of decomposition, not unlike the creature on the beach. Then again, Marcus didn’t have much experience with undead beyond the occasional vampire hunting him down for his seal blood.

Marcus still had his hand around the handle of his knife, the tips of his fingers barely able to reach. Carefully, Marcus rolled his fingers up along the handle, slowly bringing it up towards his hand so he could grip it more firmly. Awkwardly, he bent his wrist in a way that was just barely able to reach the webbing holding him in. He first cut the web holding his shoulder so he had more range of motion. This allowed him to make short work of the rest of the webbing while the giant spider was focused on Llama.

Marcus attempted to sneak up and stab at the spider right at the top of its abdomen while it was still distracted. In spite of looking like a fairly new and well sharpened knife, attempting to stab the beast was like stabbing stone. His blade clanked uselessly against the armored exoskeleton and the opposing force knocked Marcus to the ground. Once again, the eight legged monster turned its many eyes to Marcus, creeping forward as it had before. This was it, Marcus had his second chance and he blew it.

Shaking his head, he decided this wouldn’t be the end. In a last ditch effort, he made a leaping strike towards the creature’s many eyes. If he could blind it, it would give him and Llama a chance to regroup and take down the monster. The only downside is the eyes were dangerously close to its monstrous fangs. Meaning, if Marcus wanted to fling his blade towards its eyes, he would have to move its body close to its fangs. The whole paralysis and liquefaction process played over again in his mind, and fear started to overtake him.

He had decided he would rather go down fighting, protecting a newly found friend, than standing stock still and pissing himself in fear. With a great leap, Marcus lunged at the spider, being very careful to keep his lower body tucked upwards as much as he could, like an olympic high jumper. He saw the blade enter into one of the beast’s many eyes, as green liquid squirted out from the wound. The beast let out a mighty yell as Marcus grabbed on and attempted to stab at its other eyes. Unfortunately, with one forceful shake, the beast knocked the knife out of Marcus’s hand, causing it to clatter uselessly across the floor. However, Marcus did keep his grip and remained more or less on top of the creature, almost making the scene look like some giant spider rodeo.

Scrambling on all fours to the other side of the room to retrieve her phone and nunchucks, Llama paid no attention to what was going on behind her, until she heard the loud cry of the beast! Whatever Marcus had done to it had wounded it and just as she was about to retrieve her own weapon, she saw his knife come down from the sky as if a higher power was giving her an opportunity to strike.

Bending down, Llama scooped up the knife in her hands and quickly spun on her heels to see quite the sight. Marcus was being flung around like a cowboy trying to prove his worth in a horse arena. But maybe if he could keep a tight grip on it, the distraction would give her enough time to stab what appeared to be its meaty underbelly, “Keep it distracted, Marcus! I’m going for the gut!”

Llama narrowed her eyes in determination and waited for the right moment, before running to gain momentum and throwing her body down onto her hip to slide under the massive spider. Just as she had planned it, she ended up where she needed to be to shove the knife in it’s soft belly sending the pointy end through it’s skin, but she hadn’t anticipated just where her position would put her. As the creature let out another ear piercing screech, Llama felt its fangs sink into her own stomach injecting copious amounts of venom, before she lay motionless on the ground; the knife slipping from her grip and hitting the floor once more. It was up to Marcus now to take the huge-ass spider out.

He heard Llama call out for him to keep it distracted while she went for the gut. A brilliant idea, shouting out your strategy and giving your enemy a warning that you’re about to stab them. Marcus held on to the giant spider for dear life as it kicked around like a bucking bronco. He was starting to lose his grip, and was flung off. His body slid into a corner of the room, and he bonked his head on one of the shelves that was knocked to the ground.

He sat back up just in time to see Llama stab the beast right before it sunk its giant fangs into her. He heard a cry from her and then watched her body go stiff and motionless. He couldn’t believe it. His sense of adventure had gotten an innocent albeit adventurous soul killed. He made a mad dash to the other side of the room, towards Llama’s body. The spider’s movements were clumsy and Marcus took advantage by slipping away from various lunges that it took at him. By the time he got to Llama’s body, he saw she was still alive, but unable to move.

He picked his knife up from off the ground and stared the giant spider down. It was definitely weakened from the stab it had already taken, and this meant that its underbelly was its weak point. Marcus planted one foot on the ground, and pounded on his chest, as if daring the monster to charge. It was as if he were a matador trying to outmaneuver a particularly scary eight legged bull.

The spider took the bait, and Marcus sidestepped its ungraceful attempt at a charge. It crashed, bashing its own head into the wall. It backed up, very clearly dazed, and Marcus took that opportunity to strike. Marcus slid in underneath the creature and took several more deep stabs at the beast. More screams, and more green liquid poured out of the creature. He could feel the beast’s incredible weight coming down on him, so he quickly got out from underneath it. He fled to the other side of the room as he watched the beast roll onto its back and curl its legs up towards the center of its abdomen, still bleeding, but no longer moving. He was satisfied it was finally defeated.

He then looked back towards the center of the room, at the unmoving body of his partner in crime. He was hoping for any signs of life from her.

“Llama! Llama are you okay? Talk to me!”

Llama could feel herself fading. Her body was rigid as the venom absorbed itself into her stagnant blood stream, but ironically, she could feel an overly alarming rate of heartache. It was like losing Brody all over again, and while it wasn’t quite as bad, it was close. But it was taking longer for the deep puncture wounds to heal and there was an odd warmth around her midsection. The venom was trying to work, but it wasn’t having any success as her blood wasn’t spreading the poison like it should have. However, she could still hear the commotion going on around her. Muffled at times as she faded in and out, until she heard her name being called.

She softly groaned as the warmth was beginning to fade and the fang wounds were slowly starting to close up, but she could feel her appetite growing. It wasn’t to the extent of the firework incident and she wasn’t losing her mind quite like she was afraid of, but Llama knew if she didn’t feed soon Marcus and the owner of the store would both be in trouble.

“Marcus…” Her eyes barely opened as if there was weight resting on them as she scanned the dark room for any sign of the spider. Seeing a large folded up lump, Llama started to recognize what it was, “Did you kill it? Is it over?” She could feel her muscles loosening up and relaxing meaning she would have range of motion back soon. Already in the short amount of time she had been in Wicked’s Rest, she had started to feel like Kenny from South Park. Was this what it meant to be a zombie? Was she the universe’s own personal Barbie doll to throw around and abuse? If she was, she didn’t like it.

Marcus was very relieved to see his new friend had miraculously survived. In fact, it seemed as though she was recovering remarkably fast.

“Yeah, we got it. It’s all over, thanks to you. Just stay where you are, I’ll call for help. That bum ass shop owner isn’t going to be much use so I’ll get an ambulance for you.”

“Hey now, I’m no bum!” Marcus heard the shop owner behind him, turning to face the man who sent them both to their deaths. “We made an agreement, and here we are. One dead spider, and you all get to walk out with your weapons.”

Marcus was incensed by this attitude. He grabbed the shopkeep by the collar and dragged him over to Llama’s body. “Does it look like she’s going to be doing much walking? She needs to get to a hospital man, STAT”.

“Well then you’d better call an ambulance instead of yelling at me! Take your wares and kindly leave whatever way you see fit. But I think I’ll stick with a hunter service from now on, they’re much neater about it”.

He wanted to punch him. Slam his fist right into his face. But right now, his friend needed him. He couldn’t risk getting kicked out and losing sight of her. In a huff, he turned around and began to dial 911.

Llama let out a soft sigh knowing it was over. They had killed the first, and hopefully last, giant spider. This town was really starting to get under her skin and not in a good way. First the discovery of mares, then being shot with fireworks, and her name being stolen, and now this?! And she couldn’t forget Nora. That child was like the walking epitome of a nightmare. But somehow throughout all of it, she was starting to make friends, especially right here and right now.

Letting her eyes drift over to the confrontation that was happening, she watched as her new friend stuck up for her well being. She definitely wouldn’t be shopping here again. That was for sure, but it soon hit her like a ton of bricks. She couldn’t go to the hospital. She’d be found out. Instead, Llama slowly forced herself up onto her elbows. It was like the weight of the world was hanging over her and trying to push her back down, but she had to keep her secret safe, “Marcus, stop.”

She looked towards him with sad pleading eyes. If her heart could race, it would. Llama was about to reveal one of the biggest secrets of her life to a complete stranger, but somehow she felt safe around him. They did just fight and survive a giant arachnid after all, “There’s something I have to tell you…”

Marcus’s thumb paused before it hit the last “1” on his phone screen. Stop? Why did she want him to stop? He stole a glance over at the shopkeep and gave him a look that told him to give them some space. Thankfully, the shopkeep put up his hands in surrender and left to give the two a private space to talk.

“What do you have to tell me? I mean whatever it is I’m sure it can wait. You’re really not looking well and need some kind of medical attention. Just stay down and try not to exert yourself too much.”

He had seen people like her before in the field. People hit with artillery shells, incendiary flares, bullets. Pale, weak, shaking, looking completely on the verge of death. He’d call them walking corpses, but usually they crawled. Just Llama, still on the ground, on death’s door. What could be so important that she’d tell him to wait to call an ambulance?

This was either going to go really good or really bad. She had never told anyone before. Well aside from her assistant, Taylor. And it wasn’t like she really had a choice then either. As for Mateo, he just sort of found out on his own. But if Marcus had dialed the last ‘1’ and the paramedics came and started to work on her… “They’re not going to find a heartbeat. If you call 911 and they come, they’re not going to find a heartbeat.” Llama paused for a moment, “I’m already dead, Marcus. I died about two years ago doing a stunt for a TV show I was working on at the time.”

It felt so strange saying it outloud to someone she really didn’t know. At least Taylor had truly known Mackenzie. Not Llama, but Mackenzie. There was a chance this guy could blab it to the world, but it was too late now. He already knew, “I guess, the technical term is zombie? I still don’t really understand all of this, and don’t really know if I want to believe it’s real, even though I guess it is…” An evening of laughter, excitement, and even fun, had turned into something nerve-wracking, but in a weird way, cathartic. At least in the moment. She would probably regret it later, when she was back home alone sitting with her thoughts all night while some stupid show was the only source of light flashing off the walls in her huge empty and lonely house.

Groaning as she struggled to sit all the way up, Llama kept her eyes on Marcus, “Look I understand if you don’t want to be my friend after this. I’ve done stuff I’m not proud of since this happened and the only thing I could think to do was run from my problems. I’m not a good person, I know that. But tonight was, for lack of a better word, fun, and the first time I haven’t really felt so alone since being here.” There had been other times, sure, but this just felt different, especially considering she wanted him to know what she was, “But this took a lot out of me, and if I don’t eat something soon, I’m afraid of what might happen, so if you want to leave, then it’s not going to hurt my feelings. I just want you to be safe. Even that asshole shop owner who almost got us killed.”

Marcus had thought there was more than what meets the eye to this woman. After all, her fighting skills and remarkable durability seemed a bit out of place to him. He thought it was odd that a famous actress could die during a stunt without it being a huge media story, but then again he didn’t follow pop culture news very closely. For all he knew, her face was all over every major media outlet and he was none the wiser.

Still, a zombie? He couldn’t say he’d ever met a zombie, or even knew them to actually exist. It came as a major shock to Marcus, but one thing he didn’t feel was fear. They had just taken down a horrific beast together and managed to walk away. She had her chance to either let him die or take him out at multiple different points, but she didn’t. Instead, she saved his life. There’s no way he’d run away from her now.

“This is a lot to take in, Llama. I’ve also never heard of any actresses named Llama so I must have missed the memo about you being dead. But look at you, you saved my life. You helped me take down that…thing in the corner over there.” he said, pointing at the giant carcass. “You could probably eat that, right? Either way, I don’t want to walk out on you here. I really appreciate you telling me all of this actually. And if you do want to munch on some people, I’m hoping you’ll take care of the shop owner before me. But uh…start with the spider first and see how you feel”.

“Oh, and by the way. You’re not the only one with a secret.” With that, Marcus held up his pelt, currently on loan from William. “I’m a selkie. Or…a seal person if you’re unfamiliar. I’d transform and show you, but there isn’t any water here so I’d just kind of flop around like an idiot. There are a lot of folks around here who are more than they say they are.”

She sat quietly waiting for his reaction. It had taken a lot for her to come clean. Her entire undead life was at stake, including her career, friends back home, and even her family. And while she couldn’t help but let her mind go to the negative side of things, Marcus had really surprised her, “You’re not mad or afraid?” Llama’s expression softened, and she let out a sigh of relief, “Thank you, Marcus. You don’t know how much this means. And my name…it’s not really Llama according to the entire internet and half the world apparently. Some weird guy supposedly took it? I don’t know. I’m trying to figure out how to get it back, but if you want to go by everyone else, my name, according to them, is Mackenzie.”

Llama laughed softly at the comment about the owner, “As much as I want to right now…it’s probably best that I do…eat the spider instead.” Regardless of whether or not she had a gag reflex, the young actress shuddered at the thought of consuming the eight legged corpse lying just over in the corner. Luckily, she got a few more minutes of not having to consume Mr. Harry Legs when Marcus had surprisingly admitted a secret of his own.

Just like him, she was shocked. She had never heard of seal people before. Llama had always loved looking at the seals down near the water back home in California, but the fact that humans could actually change into seals was amazing. She let her eyes shift from him to the pelt he was holding, “So do those come in like designer brands or is it a sort of one style fits all?” She had to lighten the mood a little, especially after the last thing he said. “Wow, so this town really is haunted.” She looked away from him, before returning her eyes to him along with a solemn expression, “I promise to keep your secret, but in return can you please keep mine? If this gets out, I’m done. My entire life, or whatever it is now, will seriously be over.” She just wanted to know that he would stay quiet, at least before attempting to down the giant spider.

Marcus was, if nothing else, a man of his word. After all, it wasn’t like he stood to gain anything from revealing her secret. He was actually quite relieved that she met his confession with the same level of acceptance with which he met hers. She seemed more curious than anything.

“You have my word, Mackenzie, or whatever your name may be. You’ve got a lot left to learn still about this town, it would seem.”

It would make sense that someone new to all things paranormal wouldn’t know about fae and their tendency to steal names. He’d have to give her some pointers on how not to get tricked by them. They were a crafty bunch, and even he found himself fooled every now and then. Of course, they fooled him for survival purposes, trying to keep their magic secured. They fool poor unsuspecting folks like Mackenzie for the sake of…you know now that he thought of it he wasn’t really sure.

“These are kind of a ‘one pelt for one selkie’ kind of deal. Each one is tailored specifically for its owner, although that’s not to say other selkies can’t use pelts that belong to different people. It’s just heavily frowned upon.”

He smiled down at her, sensing her relief.

“Again, I will never share your secret. And all I ask is you do the same for mine. I have a lot of potential enemies out here if they knew what I really was.”

So they were in agreement. These two misfits who just happened upon a strange town and met out of pure fate. Maybe it was something higher pulling them together or maybe it was just coincidence. Whatever it was, Llama wasn’t complaining, “Thank you. So fucking much.” She snorted softly, “Yeah, just a little bit.”

His explanation about the pelts made sense. It had to have been like slipping on the perfect leather jacket that felt made just for you, and as he had previously mentioned, she did have a lot to learn, including the different rules and ways of life about other creatures who weren’t zombies. Hell, Llama still had a lot to learn about herself, but she was about to discover one thing…could she handle eating a spider carcass?

“I promise. If it’s one thing you have to be good at, working in Hollywood, it’s keeping a secret. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a spider to choke down.”

Still weak and body feeling heavier than normal, Llama scooted across the floor over to the oozing, dead spider. It was another instance where she was grateful her senses were mostly dulled, especially because she was pretty sure the green ooze leaking from the creature probably smelled like ass. But with each passing moment of hesitation came the longing to feed and the possibility of becoming a threat to Marcus.

“Fuck. Okay.”

Grabbing one of the legs, Llama lifted it up to her mouth and took a huge bite. It was a little tough at first gnawing through the exoskeleton and its leg hairs kind of tickled in an odd way, but her zombie instincts soon took over and before long she was elbow deep in spider belly surprisingly enjoying herself and even the green goo that had once left her lying motionless on the floor.

From what started out as a night of obsessing over a katana turned out to be one of the most valuable days spent in Wicked’s Rest and knowing Marcus was now by her side, despite watching her consume one of the grossest things she’d ever encounter, Llama had an odd feeling that everything was going to be okay. But it totally could have just been the leg whiskers tickling her throat as they went down.

#thenavysealkie #wickedswriting #para: arachNOphobia #para: marcus #unsanitary tw #{that's not my name; plot}

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bloodcandied · 2 years ago

Text

Death Addiction 亡瘾 Chapter 2

My neck was strangled hard by the thin rope, and unlike my carefully selected tools for when I did it myself, the sharp pain when the thin rope was tightened instantly aroused and excited me even more.

To be honest, if there was ever an Olympic competition for hanging oneself, I could have most likely represented the Chinese team to secured the top three spots in the global group.

Being strangled by rope however was a common occurrence, and I skillfully touched the place where the rope was knotted, and stuck my fingers in to hold it in place, preventing it from continuing to tighten.

Noticing the anomaly, Xu Tuo covered my mouth and lowered me to the ground, "You enjoy playing with the rope?"

It still took a few seconds to recover from the slight suffocation, and my mind was still a little foggy, "Can ...... you ...... change the rope ...... "

"Hmm?"

"Slowly ...... change to thick rope ...... No, wait, why are you trying to kill me?"

As he got closer, I could smell a certain odor coming from him. In addition to the faint scent of cologne, there was some sort of odor that was familiar to me.

Ah ...... it seemed to be the odor I smelled in my nose whenever I tried to kill myself. When a person was near death, the brain secreted a strange odor, a bit like baby powder if I had to describe it.

I was so addicted to this smell that I was lost in my thoughts at such a time. In Xu Tuo's eyes though, my expression at the moment looked amazing.

"It feels a little gross to be looked at like that." He said.

"...... That strain on your collar, it's real blood isn't it?" I weakly raised my hand and pointed to his collar, "Could it be that you ...... were responsible for both of the murder cases?"

"Uh-huh." He admitted dryly. Then, a certain physical reaction between my legs was noticed by Xu Tuo, and he was stunned for a few seconds before laughing out loud, "What the hell ...... why does this kind of thing excite you? You, kid, are very dangerous."

-- It was true. When I was strangled just now, the matter of "dying without my control" did make me excited.

I was very overwhelmed by him discovering my secret and indulging me.

It was as if a luxury car enthusiast, who usually could only afford to ride a bike in his own neighborhood, was suddenly gifted a Rolls Royce by Xu Tuo ......

"Can you control your emotions? According to normal people's thinking, finding out a serial murderer is your house tenant should be slightly shocking," He patted my face.

I snapped back to reality slightly.

It was hard to associate serial killers with the image of Xu Tuo, who was textbook "likable". In contrast, I was probably more likely to be a high school student driven crazy by the pressure of schooling who turned to killing people as a source of relief.

I asked, "Will you kill me?"

"Will you tell?"

In that instant, a tacit understanding suddenly formed between us.

I wavered between telling on him and not telling on him for a few seconds - mostly, if I snitched, my dad would catch him, and maybe I could get a bonus from my unit, and my money to go on a school trip for the summer would be taken care of.

However, Xu Tuo had already followed my odd train of thought, "You're not calculating how much of a bonus you can get after Uncle Dai catches me, are you?"

"Do you know how much?"

"No idea, but I'd hate for that to happen, Xueming." Xu Tuo, who was half a head taller than me, pulled me up and crouched down to look me levelly in the eyes, "Look, if I kill you to silence you, I'll have to change my house, and your house has the best rental in the area. And then there's the fact that I love my uncle's cooking."

I liked my dad's cooking too, and could sort of understand his pain.

"I won't say anything about it. But you're not allowed to do anything to my parents either."

"It's not like I'm a homicidal maniac."

"...... That's very unconvincing of you."

"To get you to change your mind about me a little, how about buying you another Coke and fried chicken?"

I rubbed my neck where the strangulation msrks burned, "No. Where do you get your money from? It's not really from an IT company, is it?"

"That's an adult thing."

---

We headed back to the house. He still bought another fried chicken halfway there, and the two of us ate it as we walked. We bumped into my mom in front of the house and Xu Tuo was scolded by her for a long time, "Xiao Xu, don't buy him junk food."

My dad worked seven days a week, and slept in the office four days if he was busy. On Fridays, he was able to come home for dinner, and my mom helped him heat up the leftovee dishes, which he devoured in the living room.

I went over to him, "Dad, let me ask you something."

"What is it?"

"You said there was a murder in Old Town two years ago, so was that murderer caught?"

"Nope. There was a suspicion that the recent murders were also done by the murderer from two years ago, but there's always something that doesn't add up ...... Forget it, I'm not talking to you about it. Have you finished your homework?"

"No."

I went back to my room. The door to the room had just been pushed open when a hand reached out from inside and yanked me in.

The -- window was open, and Xu Tuo came down from upstairs through the window into my room.

"What's all this nonsense you were asking?" He whispered, "Dead kid."

"I didn't say anything!" I pried his hand off of me, "Just asking my dad. I was thinking you weren't in the city two years ago."

"Don't push every case onto my head, okay? I'm very meticulous."

"Fine." I mumbled and sat at my desk. The desk was next to the window, and when he came in through the window, he'd crumpled the papers on the desk into a ball.

Xu Tuo had to accompany me to clean up the trampled homework during which found the rope I kept hidden behind the desk and picked it up to measure it, "This is also too thick ......"

"It's not like I'm trying to strangle myself to death."

"Is it comfortable?" He slipped the noose around his own neck, "I'd like to try it."

I walked behind him, sized up the rope and hung the other end on the doorknob, "There you go, just sit down."

He looked at the rope on the doorknob, unhooked it and took it to the window. Outside the window was the outer case of the air conditioner, Xu Tuo hung the other end of the rope on the case shelf, and stood by the window.

I suddenly realized what he wanted to do, jumped over and grabbed him: "Are you crazy? You really will die!"

"I won't, with such a thick rope, I'll fall within two meters and still have almost five minutes to struggle." He laughed and adjusted the rope around his neck tighter, "You're afraid I'll die?"

"Don't die in my bedroom! How will I explain this to the others?"

"I won't."

He crouched at the edge of the window and patted the top of my head. I heard a sigh that seemed relaxed, as if he could finally sleep peacefully after long bout of labor.

-- Xu Tuo leapt off my window ledge, the thick rope straining for a split second, the air conditioner's outside case rack making a metallic sound.

I grabbed the rope as hard as I could and yanked upward. As far as males my age went, I wasn't the strong type, and it was too much of a stretch to yank another adult male back up out of the air - yell for Dad to help? No, it would be better to let him hang like this!

Regardless of all the strength I could muster, I couldn't drag him back. He was still breathing, but the force from the fall caused the rope to tighten so much that it became a giant noose around his neck.

This was the first time I had witnessed someone else's death process.

Xu Tuo's complexion had changed, his face turning blood red from the congestion. I poked half of my body out of the window and tugged at the rope around his neck, but my fingers were unable to snap into it no matter what.

At that moment, his hand lifted and raked upward against the window sill.

"Xu Tuo!" Following the force of his own upward climb, I endeavored to tug him back as well. Half a minute later, Xu Tuo finally returned to my room, his legs swinging out the window, his body lying on my desk.

I used scissors to cut the rope that had sunk into his flesh, and the tip of the knife poked him in the neck a couple times because the rope was so strong. He moved his head, took the scissors from me, and cut the ropes away sharply himself.

"Not a bad score for a first time, huh?" After coughing for a while, he smiled and asked me, "What are you panicking about? Shouldn't you be more relieved that I was going to die?"

My head was covered in a cold sweat. A serial killer about to hang from my window.. was it a good thing or a bad thing? I could have still found a way to tell my dad about his identity, so that my dad could close the case and not have to continue to hustle ...... but the thought of Xu Tuo dying pressed a wave of despair down on the top of my head for some reason.

--If he died, my life would go back to the way it was.

Going to school, coming home, homework, eating, cramming, and occasionally spicing it up with suicide ......

The only fun that was out of my grasp was Xu Tuo.

He rubbed my neck and sat up, tossing the broken rope into the trash. My mom came in at that moment to deliver the snacks and stared in surprise when she saw that he was actually in my room, "When did you get here, Xiao Xu?"

"Just now. Xueming opened the door for me. I helped him with his math."

"Oh ...... I probably didn't hear you in the kitchen." She didn't get suspicious at all and put the sliced fruit on my table, "What's wrong? Why are both your faces red?"

"He just can't learn the problems I've been taught." He said.

"Xueming you take it seriously too. Xiao Xu even came over after work to help with your homework." My mom rubbed my neck and collected the garbage bags from my room, "You guys go on. What do you want to eat for a late night snack? There's yellow fish wontons, Xueming's dad wrapped them himself."

In the end, Xu Tuo broke one of my favorite hanging ropes, downed a bowl of my dad's fish wontons, and walked away satisfied.

A week later, my dad's job loosened up a bit, and he was able to come home on time from time to time.

One day at dinner, Xu Tuo was at the table. My dad mentioned something about work while reading the newspaper, "Xueming, didn't you ask me about the old downtown massacre earlier?"

My mom put down her chopsticks, "Don't talk about this during dinner!"

"What does it matter, to exercise the child's tolerance." He said, putting down the newspaper, "I'm telling you, the murderer of the old downtown serial murders has been found."

"Huh?" My first reaction was to look at Xu Tuo. That guy was mentally tough though, surprisingly he just looked at my dad with a curious face, like an ordinary person waiting to hear gossip.

"Don't say it out haha, it hasn't been officially announced yet. The victims of the two recent murder cases ......"

"Stop it!" My mom was so angry that she banged the table.

"- are suspected to be the two serial killers of the old downtown murders. They were working in pairs over two years ago." Excitement bubbled in my dad's eyes as he said, "Two suspects in an unsolved case became victims one after another, and there's a new breakthrough in this case, we're investigating it along the lines of a vendetta. A part of the investigation was given to the provinces, to check the family of the victim of the old city murders, the family had a son who is now working in the provinces."

"Xueming, pretend you didn't hear him." My mom glared at my dad, "Alright, you can go watch TV when you're done eating, no more chatter."

Xu Tuo followed me as i walked through the house, pretending to take a math tutorial and flip through two pages. I squatted on the chair, staring at him with a gloomy face.

"Why the long face?" He had an innocent look on his face, "I told you that what happened two years ago had nothing to do with me."

"You didn't tell me you were a serial killer hunting serial killers."

"Isn't that good? You should be more at ease, right?"

-- But the original excitement was gone in an instant. He was only targeting criminals on the loose, and I wasn't a criminal!

Once again, Xu Tuo had become a controlled danger, and controlled meant no more fun.

"-And what are my dad and the others going to do when you're finished killing criminals?"

"He'll be able to come back on time to wrap wontons, isn't that good? I'm technically volunteering for them for free."

"So there's no big case bonus!"

"Big cities don't have so many big cases. And am I not giving you rent every month? You little brat...... you're not going to encourage your mom to raise the rent, right?"

I was actually already calculating whether to raise it by two thousand or three thousand.

"Then again, why do you think I don't like killing ordinary people?" He grumbled to himself as he graded the words for my English dictation, "It's neither fun nor challenging, and if ordinary people have a vigilance value of 10, those criminals on the loose have a vigilance value of at least 50 - have you ever seen a cat like to pounce on dull things that don't move? Definitely the more alert and lively something is, the more the cat likes to pounce ah."

-----

I sulked for two days.

In the words of the female class president, she thought she had read a suspense and deduction book, but it turned out to be a running sweet favorite. I wasn't very interested in those novels she was reading, but she was always inquiring about brother Xu who came to pick me up from school.

"Dai Xueming, it's a pity that you're planning to go out for your high school entrance exam." She wailed, "Doomed to split from him ......"

"Not necessarily ah, in the case that the tuition fee exceeds my budget, my father may not send me out."

Excluding Xu Tuo, I knew my life was just that of an ordinary aspiring international student.

My family would struggle to come up with the money to send me abroad to study, I would come back to China, get a job that's not good enough to live up to expectations, work, go on a blind date, get married, have a baby, and remember to kick that tenant out before I have the baby.

"You're taking life too boringly, too." The class president laughed at me, "The thing about life is that there are variables all the time, and no one can tell what's going to happen tomorrow."

--Life is a straight line. It's just a straight line with all the trimmings on it, and it's just a boring line going forward. The only variable is whether my dad can save enough money to send me to study abroad or not.

As for Xu Tuo, knowing that the guy's hunt was limited to murderers on the loose, he too became an ordinary part of my life line's trajectory. Nothing more than a slightly brighter color than the others.

I went home.

My dad didn't come home that day, which was not an uncommon occurrence, and everyone did what they had to do. My mom and her little sister were discussing where to go for a weekend get-together, I was listening to English listening, and Xu Tuo was sitting on the bed behind my desk, looking up information on his laptop.

"Hey, if, I mean if," I whispered to him as I leaned over my desk after finishing a paper, "if my family of three were to be burglarized and murdered one day, would you step in?"

"I would." He smiled and nodded, "Uncle Dai's wontons are delicious."

At that moment, the doorbell rang outside. I thought it was my dad coming back - mom went to open the door, her tone was surprised, "Why is Commander Zhou here ......"

He asked, "Who's Commander Zhou?"

"My dad's boss."

Xu Tuo became alert, closed the computer, and got close to the window to listen to the conversation below.

I brainstormed the craziest situation - if what this guy did was found out, the police force was extremely important. What if the captain led the people to rush into my house, kicked open the door of my room, and started a war with him ......

Then I'm sure I'll help Uncle Zhou, because he gives me year-end money every year.

"Dead child, you little fortune hunter!" Xu Tuo suddenly lowered his voice and scolded me through gritted teeth, thinking I had sold him out.

However no one rushed in.

We waited for a long time, wondering what kind of conversation was actually going on in the living room. And just five minutes later, I heard my mom's heartbreaking cries.

--My dad had been lost in the line of duty.

To be continued

#death addiction #death addiction mtl #扶他柠檬茶 #亡瘾

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