#this is also for myself because i keep forgetting their backstories and mechanisms lol

[c0tards--s0luti0n]

mini guide to the mechanisms for my non mechs followers who have zero clue what im saying when i talk about them

jonny d'ville;

role: captain first mate mechanism: heart last death: stabbed straight through the heart during a bar fight backstory: born and raised on a planet called new texas, took hitman jobs from one eyed jack to pay off his father's debt . in one of the jobs, he killed his dad . after he got mechanized, he went back to new texas and burnt down the casino one eyed jack ran.

gunpowder tim;

role: master at arms mechanism: eyes last death: crashed into a space station with a gunship backstory: him and his best friend bertie joined the starborne infantry to fight in the war against the moon kaiser . bertie died during the war, sending tim into a crazy rage, absolutely destroying kaiser's forces, eventually getting caught and taken away for execution, he managed to distract the guards and set off a canon, blowing up the moon. he survived by hiding in an escape pod, but couldnt get the visor closed in time, therefore losing his eyes.

drumbot brian;

role: pilot mechanism: everything except his heart last death: threw himself back into space backstory: landed one day on a random planet with no memory, the townsfolk were convinced he was a witch and threw him into space , everything except his heart completely froze .

ashes o'reilly;

role: quartermaster mechanism: lungs last death: dropped a match into gasoline on an un-named planet , setting it on fire as the final light in the universe . backstory: recruited into a gang at the age of 11, 12 years later, was framed as a double agent and trapped in a burning building. got mechanized, went back to the planet and burnt the whole thing down.

raphaella la cognizi;

role: science officer mechanism: wings last death: took a piece of the broken aurora, and flew into a black hole with it, as one last experiment. backstory: N/A

ivy alexandria;

role: archivist mechanism: brain last death: got trapped inside a library planet that caught on fire in a war . backstory: she was born and raised around books, she died (unexplained why) and had her brain mechanized. she cant remember her past , it comes back to her in dreams that she doesnt remember when she wakes .

marius von raum;

role: ship's doctor mechanism: right arm last death: eaten by octokittens after checking on them . backstory: he's from a planet with what used to be very powerful weapons, that slowly degraded from years of war . him and an un-named person tried to stop the war, but failed .

nastya rasputina;

role: ship's engineer mechanism: (quicksilver) blood last death(?): she ejected herself out into space before the bifrost incident, because the aurora 'wasnt the same ship anymore, being replaced piece by piece until she was a different person.' backstory: she was raised on a technologically advanced planet, and killed during a revolution, then being mechanized.

the toy soldier;

role: N/A, does almost anything it's told to as long as the directions are clear (autism) mechanism: everything but its voice last death: after all the other mechanisms died, it simply stopped pretending. backstory: The Toy Soldier originally lived with a widow who collected clockwork figures. She treated the Toy Soldier like it was her husband and tried to teach it to act like him. she died, and the Toy Soldier was donated to a museum. one day, it just decided to leave, wandering out into the street and ending up joining the Salvation Army.it met person who it ended up falling in love with. but they were in love with someone else, and the Toy Soldier killed them and took their voice. It was then found by an antiques dealer, and ended up being bought by the Mechanisms to replace Jonny for a show while he was in prison . then it just stuck around .

erm . sorry that probably made everything more confusing !

[ubcs-dump]

Hell yes, tell us abt Mikhail. I bet you have a lot to say!

Short answer:

Long answer:

Okay so I will get real with all you guys on this one. I’ll start with a bit of a backstory with this because there is a reason why I love Mikhail so much.

!!!TRIGGER WARNING!!! MENTAL ILLNESSES AND SU*C*DAL THOUGHTS MENTIONED!!!

It was about 10 years ago. Imagine a 14 year old me, sitting alone in my dark room. My depression and various other mental illnesses are geting worse every day, they have been dragging me down for years now. I am living with abusive people who love to push me down even further, mocking me and bullying me even though they are considered my family. I was broken. I was in pain. The word ‘s//ui//ci//de’ has been clouding my mind for years now.I just picked up on Resident Evil through parodies of it on youtube. I watched someone play Resident Evil 3 Nemesis online because I remember that we owned that game but I was terrified of Nemesis on the box so I didn’t play it myself.Then I saw Mikhail, how he lay on the seats of the cable car. I could tell he was in pain and I felt deeply sorry for him. But it wasn’t a special feeling because I felt sorry for all the characters in the game. The person who played the game even mocked Mikhail for his looks. At first I laughed along but then there came a specific cutscene.And then Mikhail said something.Just one sentence.One line of dialoge.

It may just be a line of dialoge for most people. Some tiny bit of character developement sprinkled in for good meassure.But boy.I felt that.Suddenly I felt a deeper connection. It felt like I could see myself in Mikhail. He’s been through hell. He watched his men die in front of him. He is bleeding like crazy. He is in pain. Both mentally and physically. He’s expressing survivors guilt and it’s eating him up on the inside. When he said that line I literally teared up.I felt understood.And when he sacrificed himself to save Carlos and Jill, I cried. Hard. I cried because I was touched by his bravery. I cried because he deserved to live. I cried. Because I looked up to him. Without even realizing it, he became my role model. Mikhail is a kind soul, he is brave, determined, always trying his best, righteous, proud, a real team player and a wonderful leader. He is the kind of person I’ve always wanted to be.He quickly became my favorite character. I still watch all of the cutscenes with him every now and again when I need to hear his voice. I also sometimes browse his REwiki page just because I feel like it. When playing the Mercenaries minigame I always pick him.After meeting him I decided to keep going too. I can’t stop, no matter how broken and in pain I am. These wounds can’t stop me from fighting. I’ll keep fighting because I believe that I can get better if I just keep going. Fighting those demons off. Ignoring everyone who tells me otherwise. After all, I can’t stop just because I’m wounded.Also he is probably my biggest fictional crush ever lol. It’s been almost 10 years and I still can’t forget him and I still love him as much as I did on day 1.

Ever since then Mikhail has been a sort of voice of reason. When I’m feeling lost I ask myself what he would do in my situation. When I notice I haven’t eaten all day again, I’d imagine him trying to give me a pep talk. He became a coping mechanism and comfort character. I’ve been looking up to him for almost 10 years now, which is pretty rare when you know that I have tons of favorite characters that come and go, but he has always been my favorite Resident Evil character ever since that day.

I love everything about him. His backstory is tragic and herioc. He used to be an excellent soldier in the Russian SFSR before the Soviet Union collapsed. His wife was part of a minority who he fought for, causing him to be concidered a terrorist in the Russian Federation. After getting arrested he was approached by Umbrella. He agreed to join them but only if Umbrella does everything they can to ensure amnesty for his men.This just shows how much he cares for his comerades and loved ones. Mikhail joined a guerrilla organization to fight for the independence of the minority group his wife was a part of. He joined Umbrella, not because he himself wanted to be free, but because his men would be free.

I also really really like his relationship with Jill in the game. I could perfectly imagine them as very good friends. The way they talk with each other and how Jill tries to calm Mikhail down and helps and encourages him while also perfectly understanding the state he is in and the feelings and worries that are clouding his mind. I just love it and I demand fanart and fanfiction of a cute platonic relationship between these two. They are cute and precious.I sadly can’t say a lot about his relationships between him and the other members of the Operation-Jackal-Trio.Mikhail and Nikolai don’t interact at all. Which is bullsh*t because Capcom actually wanted them to be brothers and interact. That would have been an amazing addition. I want it back. My fav AU, hands down.Carlos mentions Mikhails name a few times (and by a few I mean two times). Once when explaining what happened and once when Mikhail got attacked in the cable car. I’m a bit sad we didn’t see more of them together. Carlos is certainly worried about Mikhails safety but I really wish they had expanded on that a little. I just wanted to see more interaction in general.

Mikhail also influenced my art. My nickname/pen name is Uby Victor. The ‘Uby’ part comes from the way you say the first two letters of the UBCS. And Victor isn’t hard to guess haha. Some people call me Victor too and I love it!! :3I also own an olive green beret in addition to my UBCS uniform. It’s just a prop and I guess just something I’ve always wanted to own haha. Now I just need to find a way to get the patch.I tried drawing him a few times but I’m an idiot and get flustered when I do so I usually stop before it’s even finished. I will probably never be able to draw him well haha. At least not with that attitude.

He’s also the reason I realized I have a soft spot for Russian accents. Even though Ben Campbell isn’t Russian, his accent is okay and I like his performance.

!!HORRIBLY HIGH LEVEL OF HONESTY AHEAD!!

I could probably rant even more about how much I love Mikhails personality. And his looks.

Have you seen those eyes??? That is one awesome dark shade of blue. Unrealistic I know but damn. I love them. And his golden hair. I wanna run my hand through it. And those arms. Mmmh. He could throw me across a football field with those and I’d say “Thanks, daddy, please do it again!”. He looks like he gives great hugs too. He’s like a big teddy bear, hence why I call him Mischka all the time haha. Also he is top notch soft daddy material. I’m not the only one with this opinion. Also his crotch. The bulge is big. Just take my word for it. Or take a look for yourself. His full body picture is at the top of this post. You have been warned.

!!HORRIBLY HIGH LEVEL OF HONESTY OVER!!

All of this is also why I do not like his R3MAKE version at all. The original RE3: Nemesis Mikhail means so so so much to me. I associate him with recovery. I look up to him and I basically owe him my life. So seeing him be changed that drastically in the R3MAKE just broke my heart. I will stick with the original because that’s the one I like the most.

I could tell more but this is already very long lmao

EDITED tl;dr: Thank you, Mikhail. You’ve helped me more than any living human being ever did. I owe you so much. You’re an angel and I love you.

~ Mod Uby

[fallingin-like]

november 17

above the clouds by @gluupor​ [requested by @fuzzballsheltiepants]

see which other fics i’m reviewing this month! / my review request post! 

this is an absolutely amazing fic that features airships, android!neil, and fantastic world-building. it’s a really fun and adventurous read, but still contains enough angst to break your heart. if you haven’t read this yet, drop everything and read it now. if you have read it, read it again.

okay i enjoyed this fic so much that i cannot put it in words. i remember when i first read it, i always get so excited when i see that you’ve posted and i read it in an hour, the time passing by so quickly. i couldn’t pull myself away and was reluctant to go back to real life after i finished reading. all your characters are so entertaining and as always, are integrated so nicely into this au.

things that stood out to me:

”over the khazak grass plains, year 1424 new era (ne), january” i just think that this adds a lot to the story so efficiently. we have a location and time and i just feel like this sort of title/header establishes a tone (makes me feel a steampunk/sci-fi kind of vibe). i’d be interested in how you came up with which locations and years to use?

”andrew shut off the engines and revelled in the silence. he could still hear the mechanical noises that resulted from keeping the gasbag at the appropriate pressure to maintain their altitude, but it was as quiet as it got aboard an airship.” i love this, mostly because i can relate to it? i’m really used to driving with music on, but lately i’ve been turning off the radio and driving in silence which is a really interesting experience, especially since i drive an electric car for work which is really quiet most of the time. also it introduces us to the airship!

”neil would eventually man the flight deck for night watch as he didn’t require any sleep” i am immediately invested in this version of neil and want to know EVERYTHING that he is capable of doing

andrew is wearing a scarf that nicky knitted for him!!! that is adorable! both nicky doing this for andrew, but also andrew wearing it!

your description of the monster is amazing. i would love to explore it. on the ground though (i am afraid of heights and not as brave as andrew lol) i saw that you were inspired by the mortal engine series and i can definitely see aspects of this both here and in later portions of the fic although i only watched the movie which was… interesting haha. were there any other sources of inspiration? i found that this reminds me a little of the films ‘alita, battle angel’, and a little bit of ‘castle in the sky’ as well

having little glowing things in their lamps instead of fire? woah that’s so cool

”neil was futzing around inside it with a tiny screwdriver” LOVE the word futzing. i’ve not heard it before, but it feels right. also it’s kind of cute that they are all helping each other out on the ship

algae bricks and beetle bricks? do they just,,, bite into it? because that feels so chaotic to me. lol mix into water and make it into mush? i am currently very grateful for the food i have

”jealous, aaron? don’t worry; i’ll come service you once i’ve got andrew settled tonight.” NEIL, YOU’RE GOING TO BE THE DEATH OF ME

”’better do it in the reclaimer,’ said kevin, taking him literally. ‘we need to preserve water if we’re headed to palmetto before our next resupply.’” one of the many things that i love about your writing is your amazing characterization of mr kevin day. what a legend 

”he wasn’t entirely sure why he wasn’t telling the others about wymack’s summons; there was something about it that put him on edge and he wanted to keep it to himself for now.” oh nO this is bad news!! you did a great job of introducing this undercurrent of worry into a scene that had just been so light and funny

“‘yes, i did,’ said andrew, keeping his voice steady. ‘last week before we headed into the plains.’” my stomach dropped at this point, memory problems are always so scary because it’s so hard to tell what the source of the problem is. andrew’s calmness is directly contrasting this, but it feels like it takes effort which is even scarier!

”andrew had spent his childhood shutting down any emotions. they’d been a liability in the type of life he’d led” and ”he had been destined for a short life with a brutal end. sometimes that seemed preferable to how much caring about other people could hurt. he often cursed those responsible for how his life had changed” ahhh this is so sad, but also really soft? because he’s come so far? and he’s opened himself up and let himself be vulnerable by caring

hearing the backstory of the twins is so interesting to me, you do a great job at both establishing this world that these characters are living in and how they fit in with it

”andrew was left with little choice but to do something nice to shut him up” i think this is one of the most andrew-like sentences to be ever written haha

”by all rights he should have died in the slums, but instead-and andrew was never sure exactly how he’d done it-he’d attached himself to andrew and aaron, like a barnacle that they couldn’t remove and grudgingly came to care about” cute!!! the tone is really andrew-like too

woah all these languages are pretty cool! i like the idea of having a common trading language, and the idea of having mandonese and spanglish is interesting.

”that seedy is mine” I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND THIS AT FIRST BUT THIS IS SO FUNNY. lowkey reminds me of the lego movie haha. also seems fitting of kevin to collect ancient artifacts, even if he doesn’t really know what they do

ANDREW AND AARON AS GANG LEADERS YES PLEASE. i absolutely love it when people have such a great reputation. very exciting to hear that drake is not going to be an issue in this fic!!! wait a second… andrew and aaron were 16? so small!

hmmm i am interested how kevin got stuck in shanghai?

bad news that wymack is asking neil to stay on the ship. all this mystery and hiding is making me feel like things are not looking so good

”he’d forgotten again that it was bee whom andrew wanted him to see” NOOOOO

ohmygoodness the usbee. do they pronounce it uzz-bee? because that’s definitely how i picture them saying it and it is so funny to me. 

”i informed you that people are after you because i actually care about what happens to you, you miserable little gremlin” i really can never say it enough, but i love the way you use affectionate insults like this so so much.

”’oh, you know,’ said andrew idly, ‘those that slay together slay together.’” NO BIG DEAL. 

”a nobody who got the drop on you. better luck next time” NEIL I KNOW THAT YOU REALLY CAN’T HELP IT BUT PLEASE CONTROL YOURSELF AROUND SOMEONE WHO YOU KNOW IS SO DANGEROUS

”’this time, it was eavesdropping,’ said neil brightly” he’s so enthusiastic!! cute!!

”how do you travel now?” i am also interested in this!! for all i know, he just slides through shadows and pops up wherever andrew is haha

”neil flicked his fingers dismissively. andrew’s eyes narrowed at the performance. he wasn’t this dramatic, was he?” i am very sorry to break it to you, but andrew minyard you are one of the most dramatic people ever

ooooh dang neil is good. does his android body not process poison? also where did he get the knowledge that andrew was going to be set up anyway?

”within a few hours neil had forgotten the whole conversation, but he retained the knowledge that andrew had forced him to see bee and wasn’t happy about it” noooo why is this happening, it’s so heartbreaking to see neil forgetting things (also feels extra-bad because alzheimer’s runs in my family and this could definitely be me in the future which is Scary) and i Hate when andrew and neil are fighting because andrew is just trying to take care of neil!!! ;-;

”mickey, the mouse-shaped god of old america” OHMYGOODNESS

as startling it must have been to andrew, hearing about the moriyamas previously owning neil, i’m curious what was going through neil’s mind during this conversation. it must be so disorienting, not remembering your past. all of a sudden, you just started existing

”’shoot them. escape on the monster,’ said andrew. that was their usual plan for hostility they didn’t want to deal with.” i mean, i guess that’s a pretty solid plan. LOL

ohmygoodness katelyn also having red hair and blue eyes? “andrew always pretended not to notice that he and aaron had suspiciously similar taste in people, gender notwithstanding” LOLOL

”neil’s tension was ratcheting higher the longer they stayed in the region, something which he wouldn’t explain to andrew’s satisfaction.” ahhhh we! need! better! communication! what is neil hiding?

I HATE THAT NATHAN IS GOOD AT ACTING. YOU MAKE ME WANT TO BELIEVE HIM SO BAD EVEN THOUGH I KNOW HE’S LIKE SUPER SUPER EVIL AND IS GOING TO HURT EVERYONE NEIL AND ANDREW KNOW. 

thank you andrew for knowing better and for always thinking ahead. i feel like i can really trust you to take care of neil (and you, gluupor to take care of these characters even if sometimes you break my heart while doing so)

andrew: mawp mawp mawp mawp mawp mawp (LOVE THIS)

”wymack had always said it was because andrew had a death wish but it was really just because he liked going fast” this is really cute! both in this fic and in the series, andrew is like this and he had so little enjoyment as a child, was forced to grow up so quickly, and i’m grateful that he gets to have these little things

”’’M not,’ muttered andrew, too hot to put any effort into lying” so cute!!!

”stop and take a look? sure, why not? i don’t think we’ve got anything else pressing taking up our time right now” I CANNOT GET OVER HOW FUNNY THIS FIC IS

”’old news,’ said aaron. ‘we’ve moved on. now we’ve decided to crash into the sea’” it turns out that sometimes i actually really like aaron! now is one of those times.

oh my goodness, neil speaking only spanglish and BITING. “neil spat several curses at him before literally spitting as well” the scary thing is, this is still in character for neil haha

that’s so sweet of wymack to give andrew his ship!! ahh he’s such a soft character and i’m glad that all the foxes have someone who is taking care of them

what a beautiful way to wrap up this fic! also i feel strangely glad that nathan wasn’t actually the one to invent the tech needed to create neil. he’s too gross and evil to create such an intricate and wonderful person like neil.

BURIED IN ASH FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS WHAT

WAIT VALLEY OF SILICA LOL

oh dang yellowstone supervolcano. i’ve learned a tiny tiny bit about that and it’s actually pretty scary thinking about the consequences of it erupting and also knowing there is basically nothing we can do to stop that from happening and also very little we can do to predict it

andrew and neil are so so cute ahhh

also quick shoutout to the amazing art featured in this fic! so beautiful.

i love the flashbacks that you include. they provide valuable information and understanding of how the characters have developed, but it also gives a bit of a break from the intensity of the main plot. we get a little time to breathe and recover.

as the story travelled to different areas of the world, it was really interesting to see how you included history into it. i think my favourite story was the volcano and the ash-winter that followed. kind of scary to think of the possibility of that actually happening, because even though we have pretty cool tech, i don’t think things would go well. you do such a great job with your world-building, i never found myself confused about what was happening, the geography of it, the new tech, and the politics. i loved how you were able to smoothly include canon events/characters/things and have it work so well within this au.your descriptions are so so good and make this fic really immersive, i feel like i’m experiencing them with the characters.

definitely one of my favourite things about your writing is how you consistently do such an amazing job of incorporating humour and little character quirks into the fic. it really shows how much skill and talent you have because it’s always effortless and reads so easily. it fits well with the characterization and tone of your fics. i will forever be a fan of your dialogue and all the interactions between everyone seemed so realistic.

i’m continually impressed by your consistently marvelous storytelling. you manage to captivate me no matter what subject you choose. thank you so much for writing this!!

[billpardy]

Moss Update!

Hey y’all! Sorry I haven’t posted an update to Moss’s story yet! We are two sessions in to our playthrough of The Curse of Strahd, and it’s pretty awesome so far! Moss’s animal companion, the beehive, has so far been the heaviest hitter in all of our combat so far, which is hilarious! She got very drunk in our second session, hence the doodle. She forgot she was three feet tall and chugged a bunch of wine and failed her constitution roll. It was SUPER funny. 

To see the post where I explain her concept and introduce her, click this link

I’ve also finalized her backstory (if people are interested, I can post it as well? Slash I also have summaries of the story thus far if people are interested? Let me know?) and also the system by which her bee swarm loses bees/regains bees with health! So if you want to know how you can use a swarm of bees as a companion or familiar in DnD 5e, keep reading! 

Bee mechanics under the cut cuz it’s kinda long!

Bee Mechanics: Moss’s animal companion is technically just the queen, Titania, but Titania commands the rest of the hive, and so they obey Moss (and communicate by dancing! Moss dances back lol)

Honeybees, which is what Moss keeps, have drones that stay in the hive and build and maintain, feed babies, serve the queen, etc, and then they have guard bees/gatherer drones that leave the hive (this is sort of an oversimplification, but roll with it). 

The swarm of bees uses the standard Swarm of Insects stat block to start with (though the swarm CAN be healed), and is improved as Moss levels (using the Ranger Beastmaster Conclave from the Unearthed Arcana revision).

The guard bees are what acts as Moss’s swarm for combat, and there is one bee per hp that the swarm has, with Titania, the queen, being the final hit point of the swarm. So the loss of one hit point equals the loss of one bee. At the end of a combat encounter, if the swarm can be healed at all, either by Moss or others, I do not count those bees as lost. They get healed and are alive again (I would have to come up with far too many bee names if I didn’t do this). However, any hit points not recovered counts as lost bees. If the swarm ever loses ALL hit points and dies, then the queen dies, and I would either have to resurrect, or spend time finding a new queen, as dictated by the mechanics in the UA guide for Beastmasters. 

As the ranger levels, the swarm’s hp increases, and this counts as new bees being added to the swarm from the hive.

For roleplay purposes, I decided it was important for all the bees to have names, and for the losses to be recorded. The bees are like family to Moss, and she would remember their sacrifice and honor that. Naming them makes each loss matter deeply, and I quickly found myself getting attached even as I was still naming them. Moss tends to name the bees based on her surroundings or things that have happened recently in her life. After our first session, when I gained some new bees, I actually let our party help name some of them too, which was really fun! Lots of bee puns lol

To make the loss system fair and random (so I can’t try to save my favorites) I have all the current bees on a numbered list. When losses occur, I use a random number generator to determine which bees have died, unless say, it was specified through rp which ones were killed (that’s happened once already, but it was outside of combat). The queen cannot be the one killed unless the rest of the swarm is downed first. She is always the final hit point (because otherwise you could randomly just lose your whole familiar, which would be stupid).

I think I covered everything, but if I missed something or if you have questions, feel free to send me an ask. If you wind up using this, please let me know! I’d love to hear how it works for you!

My starting lineup of bees is listed in my first post about Moss (link above the readmore), but here is my current bee squad (as of level 5):

Titania (Queen), Fyreen, Hawk, Bumble, Mothsilk, Marievous, Stabitha, Fang, Eline, Daisy, Cowslip, Grumpy, Lovenip, Belle, Bitey, Spark, Fizz, Wolf, Vengeance (named after a jackass npc killed Clover and Thistle), Lily, Bee Arthur, Lester Bee Pearson, Larva, Diamond, Glitter, Beeyonce, Beeelzebub, Rob Zombee, Fluffy, Knees, Lucky, Gidget, Torch, Grave, Vine, Scruffy

The Fallen:

Winter (felled in first wolf encounter)

Vania (felled in first wolf encounter)

Maple (felled in first wolf encounter)

Clover (killed when scouting after the messenger)

Thistle (killed when scouting after the first messenger)

Puck (killed by zombies in the graveyard during the ritual)

Fuzzbin (killed by zombies in the graveyard during the ritual)

Spite (killed by zombies in the graveyard during the ritual)

The rest of the Party: 

Moss (Goblin Ranger)

Troibant (Human Cleric who Moss likes very much because he’s very kind and healed her bees after she lost nearly the whole swarm in the first combat)

Ulsh the One-Eyed (Elderly Half-Orc Druid who Moss thinks is a very large goblin and absolutely idolizes because she can turn into a bear)

Zarvroth Gorthid (Blue Dragonborn Fighter with one arm. Very serious and intimidating, but also seems very honest)

A female human monk whose name I forget but her player sadly quit so she died after our first combat

Shadow (Gnome uhhhh... I have no idea what class he is, but he joined us in the second session and he’s either an Arcane Trickster Rogue or a Warlock? idk Moss almost hated him because he set a bunch of her bees on fire by accident with a turret, but he healed them later, so she’s forgiven him)

Let me know if you want to know more about this campaign! I really wanna write about what’s going on and it’s a super fun story! Curse of Strahd is a really cool module, and I’m loving it so far. I’ve been driving everyone up the wall with bee puns which I know they secretly love ;P

Moss has made friends with a lot of the npcs, and tends to be the party member who rushes in to things first. Unless it’s combat lol Then she’s way at the back, providing support with her longbow and trying to not get hit

[sagittariusboyfriend]

What have been some creepy encounters you've experienced? Story please?

ive waited quite some time to respond to this message, like literally a long ass time lol, probably more than a year, sorry. i feel like i have several encounters to tell you about, but what im going to relay to whomever might be reading this right now is a thing that went on over the course of an entire year.

quick backstory: during the better part of 2017 i lived with my then boyfriend (who now is just my best friend since we broke up in october this year) in the old parts of the city center. all buildings in that area are from around 1870, and the building where we lived is one of the first ones to have been erected. his aparment was on ground level and it has all the features of turn of the century housing with the fireplace, original floors, weird nooks and crannies etc, and looks as if it was meant to be lived in by service people/kitchen personnel. it also had its original door (i suppose) with the kind of springy locking mechanism where you have to turn the key and pull down the handle real hard simultaneously to open from the outside, the knob is very tough to turn from the inside, and it locks itself instantly once you close it (so if you forget your keys youre basically screwed). it makes a loud brassy springy clicking noise when the lock shuts or opens. takes a lot of effort to open this old door and its loud, is what im saying. the entire apartment is all original details, the flooring in the corridor has its original wood planks, original ventilation, weird but beautiful glass panels on the door etc.

the key and the door unlocking from inside

first off, when he moved in, the landlord was missing a key in the set of four. my then boyfriend, lets call him C, didnt really think about it. he moved in, gave his dad one of the extra keys. the first weird thing that happened was when C got back from work in the afternoon maybe two weeks after moving in. in the middle of the corridor, on the floor, he sees the missing key. like smack dab in the middle of the narrow corridor leading from hallway to the bathroom, next to his boots. its too far in to have been thrown in by someone through the letter slot in the door, and could not have been dropped there by neither him nor his father since they had all of their keys. so he’s like, weird, but doesnt really think about it. he also told me that around that time he heard coughing from the corridor when inside his bedroom (it opens up to the right from the corridor once you step inside the apartment), but also waved it off since it might as well have been neighbours just outside in the hall.

next weird thing that happens is after we had started dating and i pretty much lived there with him, and this time i experienced it. i started work around noon whereas C left around 6 in the morning. so im in bed and its maybe 10 o’clock, and i wake up to that loud, springy clicking noise of the locking mechanism in the door. and im like, what is he doing home at this time? so i get up, but no one is there. the door is also juuust a little bit askew, as if someone was going outside but then decided not to, like its just shoved open enough for the lock to click open, but the door isnt opened, its still within the width of the doorframe if you get what i mean. so i look outside and the hall is empty. i should have been able to hear steps in the very echo-y stairwell (which is also old and the acoustics are fantastic because we hear everytime a neighbour passes by, and subsequently opens the building entrance door which is also a loud, heavy door), but heard neither steps, up or down the stairs in the hall, nor anyone opening the heavy entrance door, or any evidence of human activity. all is quiet. i get a bit freaked out, because that means that unless someone else had a key, our door was unlocked from inside.

i tell C when he gets back, and after this is where shit starts to ACTUALLY go down.

im going to try to remember all of this in the correct order, but i know it started in january 2017, and went on until he moved out in december.

the song in the hallway

C talks a lot in his sleep. sometimes he even sings, he speaks in english (we’re swedish) and  he has been known to get up and take a shower at one in the morning while still asleep thinking hes late for work. for those who are on heavy sleeping medication, u get it. its not weird, mostly its funny, and its just because of the medication. these things go on literally every night and it was a bit hard to fall asleep to loud talking and incoherent words sometimes because he used to go to bed three-four hours earlier than me, but i managed just fine. one night we were in bed, it wasnt that late but C was asleep, i was on my phone next to him. i hear this weird melody being hummed, thinking its coming from C i take out my earplugs and check, but its coming from the fucking hallway. again, no one outside in the stairs, just someone or something humming a melody in the hallway. i remember my hair standing up all over my body and i was glad i slept closest to the wall, C shielding me from being viewed directly from the hallway. somehow i manage to fall asleep. and this part is going to sound weird and like its made up, im very aware, but having been through this crap i dont really care because i know it happened: the morning after C was off from work, and i for once woke up before he did. if i wake him up and his medication hasnt ‘wore off’ yet i guess (dont really know how that works) he’ll be disoriented and it takes a few minutes for his brain to register that hes awake and he can speak coherently. i did not poke him, i did not try to wake him up, but all of a sudden i hear him humming that same melody, very much deep asleep. that freaked me out.

the mimicking begins

another night around that time, i was up at around 2-3 am to go to the bathroom. i wiggle out of bed, out into the corridor, at the end of the corridor is the bathroom. when im done, i scurry back into the bedroom, information of value here i guess is i always sleep with my socks on so im wearing socks, aka i dont make a lot of noise when i get up. when im back in bed, looking at my phone, i hear footsteps - from the corridor. the freakiest thing is its like they are imitating the way i walked back from the bathroom, i can so CLEARLY hear sockless, BARE feet on the creaky floor of the hallway, literally stepping at the same pace i did. that was my first thought; someone is imitating my footsteps. i can hear them from behind the wall in the hallway, coming to a stop at the opening into the bedroom. like someone is standing there, watching. i get so scared i hide under the covers and press myself close to C and cant stop feeling icy shivers down my spine. i also cant stop thinking that someone or something waited for me in the kitchen, then walked behind me, mimicking me, and is now standing at the beedroom threshold, watching me. somehow i fall asleep, or i dont, i cant remember.at this point, im thinking somethings up with that hallway.

the poorly covered hole

this part isnt anything scary/supernatural really, just uncomfortable and kinda sets the tone for living in this apartment at the time: in the bedroom, C had placed a clothing rack next to the old 1900s floor-to-ceiling ventilation pipe that is plastered into the wall in the corner. literally just a wide ass pipe in the corner of the room that isnt in use anymore. behind the rack, leaning against the pipe, he had put a rarely used pink neon tube light and i decided it would look cool to try it out, but it was dusty in that little nook thing where it was so i had to clean it up a bit. while moving the clothing rack to vacuum, i realize there is a hole at least as big as my hand in the side of the pipe. i was like ??the frick is this? and i poke into it and there is just this thin paper membrane covering it. you could almost fit an entire head through there, and i can literally feel wafts of cold wind moving through it. there probably used to be an attached pipe of some sort to allow smoke from the kitchen to go up into the ventilation like a hundred years ago, but the thought that this at least 1 meter wide pipe, wide enough to fit a person, goes up through probably all apartments above us, up through the attic, ending as an open chimney in the roof, has this big hole in it is just… unsettling to me. obviously the pipe is not in use anymore, but that kind of only made it scarier. ive seen enough scary movies for that to make me feel a bit paranoid lol. i was almost expecting a hand to push through that paper when i touched it. but i covered it back up with the clothing rack and nothing really happened with that.

the mirror incident

one night, me and C were getting ready to go out. im getting ready in the hallway, because thats where the big wall-sized full figure mirrors are (of course). C comes out of the bathroom, runs past me infront of me, veering off to the left into the bedroom, wearing only underwear. i look after him in the mirror, i can see him in the bedroom, in front of his clothing rack. im fixing my hair at the time, both hands on my head. to my direct left is the front door and the space with our shoes and jackets. right in front of the door, for a split moment while im turning back to keep looking at myself in the mirror, i see what looks exactly like C but paler, wearing only underwear, standing in the same position as me, turned away from me as if the thing is also looking in a mirror. heads on its head like its fixing its hair, just like me. imitating me. i get shivers just typing this down. i tell C what i just saw, i literally went: ”uh C? i just saw a man infront of the door”, dumbfounded, and we both got a bit freaked out, and got out of there pretty quickly.

learning about demons

a few weeks later, C invites his friend to comes to visit. im not there at that time so i never met her, but she apparently had a knack for sensing ghosts and picking up on energies etc. he told me that when he got up to get them more wine from the kitchen and left her alone in the couch in the bedroom, she said she really felt very uncomfortable sitting with her back to the hallway corridor. she also told him that ghosts and spirits are usually not malevolent and you can get by fine living in a ‘haunted’ house. but when he told her what we had experienced so far, she told him that ghosts usually dont behave that way, and that a rule is that if something is imitating or mimicking you, its probably not a ghost, but might be signs of fucking DEMONIC ACTIVITY. apparently demons like to mock and impersonate people. friendly caspers dont do that. fun.

realizing the triangle/cursed ground

so, yeah. weird things kept happening. but we had jobs, sometimes you just gotta ignore that shit and try not to live your life terrified of demons. which we still were for the record; i dont think we ever left each other alone in that apartment for any longer than necessary after that, i remember C actually staying at his dads during the time i went away to see my family.

anyway, when we had started dating C had introduced this podcast to me. its a swedish one where a guy called jack reads creepypastas, analyzes spooky stuff, old folklore, all that stuff, and also reads original content and real stories written by listeners. its really good and really creepy. so that podcast had been going for maybe two years by then so i had a LOT to catch up with, wich wasnt a bad thing at all. i remember by this time is was summer and i was out on the street smoking a cigarette after doing dishes, and the episode i was listening to was about the last of the execution spots/gallow hills (?? i guess is the correct term? not sure) in sweden. remember, we lived in the old part of the city center, in the northern part of the city. very old buildings, very old everything. so jack commences to talk about the famous last gallow hill in [our city] and where it was located, when the final execution took place and for what, how many people had been killed there and its entire bloody history. i almost drop my cigarette, because he says it was located on zenithgatan (”zenith street”), and where the gallows used to be there is now a kindergarten. so im on our street, just outside our kitchen windows, looking right at that specific kindergarten. just across the main road. i will provide a screenshot of a map and a street view of what i was looking at to let you know i am not making this up:

so the street we lived on is called döbelnsgatan (”döbeln street”, döbeln is apparently a city in germany, i just googled that), at the very end of the street, our citys main old cemetary is juuust beyond our line of sight to the right from the kitchen windows and where i was standing. however, across from us: zenithgatan, with all of its bloody history. i couldnt help but to wonder how far the blood could had flown from there and where the bodies had been thrown, if this entire part of town is built on bloody ground etc. it really gave me massive creeps.

a few years later (which would be a few months ago, when i moved in to the room where i live presently) i happened to land a conversation about ghosts with my new flatmate. turns out she also used to live in those neighbourhoods, in an apartment on the third floor literally overlooking the cemetary, but on celciusgatan, which would be the next street over from döbelnsgatan (see map). and she told me, without me having said anything at all about all of this, that that part of town including her apartment has always been haunted. she used to see a shadow of a man through frosted glass doors, moving around in rooms that were closed when both she and her son and her sister were in the kitchen. she didnt experience any malice however, and also had someone come check it out for her, but apparently she just had nice ghosts. but we agreed that yeah, these buildings are literallty inbetween a cemetary and the gallows; there are probably bound to be a lot of lost souls wandering around.

this could also be over-analyzing it, but if you draw lines from the cemetary to the site of the executions to döbelnsgatan/celciusgatan, it makes a perfect triangle. while googling the translation of ‘döbeln’ just now it says right in the wikipedia description that it is located ‘somewhat in the middle of a triangle, made up by three cities’. coincidence, perhaps. probably. but still. by now im pretty conviced of anything that could hold any significance about all of this.

the painting

later on, maybe by a few months, and C tells me when i get home from work that he had woken up that day, after i went to work, from the painting atop of his big secretaire/chiffonier/bookcase (its really a big piece of heavy furtinure, but lets call it bookcase just to be simple) coming crashing down behind it. that painting had stood there since january, at least 9-10 months, and had not fallen down ONCE. it was leaning against the wall, perched safely and steady on the bookcase, with at least a centimeter bookcase until the gap between wall and furniture. i remember thinking last time i looked it was covered in dust because no one even as much as dusted that thing off, and there had been no weird vibrations in the walls that would have shook it either. by this point we’re both very, very uncomfortable in this apartment.

the painting and the hollow in the wall

and here comes the final thing that happened before he moved out, the part that we have on film. ill have to ask my ex for the footage if anyones interested in it, which is fine.

C was doing a collaboration with some people on instagram, an educational account about depression, self-harm, anxiety and such. they gave him the assignment to film himself talking about personal experiences, i think they wanted maybe 13 videos or something like that, the theme being ‘death’ (those videos are still up, im unsure if they posted this one as it kind of strayed from the mental health stuff a bit, but i know C has it still). so at this time - maybe september or october? i really dont know exactly when this was, i could probably scroll on their instagram account but im too lazy - he was filming himself a lot. so, he brought up the painting crashing, and filmed us both while demonstrating how it physically could not have moved and crashed down behind the bookcase because of the way it stood on top of it. it would have been one thing if it fell forward, but then it would have landed on its front and fallen in front of the bookcase, probably shattered the glass. but it fell BEHIND it. on camera, you can see my hands pushing on it to demonstrate the way it went down into that snug space inbetween. you would have had to physically push on it, at least a centimeter back, from the front. so for some reason, i get the very random idea to knock on the wall behind it. which means, i stand in the corridor and knock on the corridor wall that divides the bedroom from the hallway. and i swear to god, this is ON FILM. i knock all over the wall and its all concrete - except for THE SPOT EXACTLY BEHIND THE FUCKING PAINTING. the wall is hollow. right behind the painting. where it stood leaned against on the other side. i cant explain why i all of a sudden tried knocking all over the wall, or why the actual fuck there is a hollow square in the middle of the corridor wall, but that really fucked us up. there were just too many weird coincidences, you know.

like, all of this happened, or seemed to be centered around, the corridor. as if our hallway was some nexus for supernatural activity. and with that hollow thing, it was like it was starting to make its way into the bedroom, you know? unsettling.

thankfully, C moved out of there in december and we didnt have to stay there anymore, but i sometimes pass by and think about asking the current tenant or the neighbours if they experienced anything strange. its just so eerie. the mimicking parts were the scariest to me, and i get chills thinking about them and reading it even now.

so, thats my long, long overdue creepy encounter. i am VERY aware i sound insane but, hey. what can i do. i am not one for lying and i know that so thats all that matters tbh. i have other encounters as well, but living in that apartment takes the fucking cake.