#I'm actually a cosmic horror writer

[digimonirl]

I know there’s a lot of hypothetical Digimon that could supposedly delete the digital world…….. but like……. How do we even know about them???? Bc if their so catastrophic how did we even find out about their existence with exploding

That's a really good question anon and I want to talk about it in a sort of roundabout way if I can. There is so much we do not know about the Digital World and however many places are adjacent to it (see Witchenly, alternate Digital Worlds, wherever the hell Nanimon come from, etc.) but there are two things we know for certain. First is that the Digital World is its own place with its own culture and mythologies and histories and the second is that it is much, much older than what we assumed it to be.

The name "Digital World" itself is a bit of a misnomer because although we can access it using analog and digital technology, those technologies didn't create it. We just found it one day and that opened up a door to a whole new realm of possibilities we had no idea existed! Here we have a place with living, breathing, sapient beings who are basically living information who grow and change in more unpredictable ways the more they learn from their environments! It's absolutely fascinating and utterly bizarre and a little bit scary at times. But as foreign as the Digimon are, they're still people just like us humans.

And people, no matter where they come from, have stories. Great heroes and villains, divine beings and corrupting forces, and so many other archetypes that don't fit that rigid, and often untrue, dichotomy of morality. So, in part, we know about these potentially world ending threats because the stories about them were told to us by the Digimon but you've got to wonder. With so many parallel worlds, and the seemingly endless cycle of reincarnation Digimon are subjected to, whose to say the Digital World hasn't ended before? Maybe one or even all of these apocalyptic threats did exist and we're just living in the aftermath once their existence has been purged from the system. We still don't know what King Drasil does, if anything at all. Hell we don't even know if it's a Digimon! Maybe it's the antivirus program for the whole system, or maybe it's just another myth. It's food for thought, y'know?

[comicaurora]

If you were a sci-fi writer, how would you solve the Fermi paradox? That being the discrepancy between evidence for alien life, versus the likelihood of their existence? (basically. If alien so likely, why we not see?) The Dead Space series has an amazing cosmic horror solution, but i'm curious what you're brain could come up with!

There's a lot of possibilities, some more interesting than others.

The speed of light and the distance between inhabited stars makes it prohibitively slow to detect, make contact with, or reach any star with alien life. It doesn't matter if we're not alone, our corner of Space Reachable Within A Human Lifetime is so comparatively small that we may as well be. We're all blindly wandering through an infinite desert, calling into the void. Space exploration is a long game, and on that timescale, even whole civilizations blink out very quickly. If we manage to catch a signal and follow it, we might find nothing on the other end but ruins - or an asteroid field where a planet's orbit used to be.

The universe is too young for us to find anyone else out there. We're the first. How will we shape the galaxy to make life better for those who come after us?

The life that formed on Earth is terrifyingly invasive. The atmosphere and ocean is choked with monocellular life, and its surface is coated with a mass of multicellular organisms finding new ways to devour one another. Even extinction events don't keep down the biomass for long. If life on other planets looks anything like us, the problem isn't going to be detecting it. It'll have gotten everywhere. The problem is going to be not immediately getting colonized and eaten alive by it. And if life on other planets DOESN'T look like us, our whole planet is probably a class 1 biohazard and contamination risk. Multicellular earth organisms contain microcosmic ecosystems that proliferate explosively when they die. If anything inside them can find ANYTHING to eat, it's over.

Life evolves frequently, but always in oceans. It is extremely rare for any alien life to leave that ocean and adapt to life on land. Without this step, the jump to space exploration - even space contemplation - becomes infinitely more unlikely.

Monocellular life is seeded on planets from an outside source and allowed to self-cultivate and grow until the biomass reaches a certain volume. Then the farmers return to harvest it.

There is not a single other species on our entire planet that humans can actually reliably communicate with. It takes tremendous amounts of training to make an animal capable of recognizing even a handful of words, and very few of them can use them. Humans can't even communicate with other humans with 100% clarity, even if they're using the same language. When we find alien life, if we even recognize it as anything resembling life as we know it, we have absolutely no way of communicating.

Space colonialism has been disallowed by the space geneva conventions due to massive past tragedies, parasitic exploitation of worlds and senseless loss of life. Human expeditionary efforts are being watched warily through targeting sights.

We've known about radio communication for less than 200 years. We haven't yet figured out the medium through which all advanced civilizations communicate.

Alien life exists in abundance, but the vast majority of it is extremely tiny. We wouldn't spot an anthill on a satellite photo, and none of their ships are large enough to survive passage through our atmosphere.

Earth's oxygen atmosphere is an anomaly, and our first and most enduring extinction event. The explosive proloferation of cyanobacteria and their oxygen photosynthesis irreparably altered the planet's prebiotic atmosphere and wiped out everything that couldn't handle the sudden massive increase in a highly reactive and flammable gas. Earth is considered highly toxic and unstable, though recently detected increases in methane and CO2 might signal that nature is finally beginning to heal.

[erose-this-name]

Can we just talk about how disturbing digital circus episode 3 is?

*spoilers btw*

Like, the whole narrative point of the adventure is to show that Caine is a really bad and insecure writer who thinks that the way to impress Zooble is with an adventure that's the opposite of what he normally does.

So instead of being childish, it's "cool" and "mature". Which he interprets as a heavily horror themed escape room with a split murder mystery plot that subverts all your expectations purely for the sake of subverting them.

The generic horror monster jump scares them, then they find a gun, and when they kill it its revealed that surprise! it's one of Gods angels and they're going to Hell.

It comes off as Caine being too insecure with the actually interesting and mature plot thread he had going there of Mildenhall becoming so paranoid he killed his wife, ironically becoming the monster he was trying to protect her from. But no, instead Mr. Mildenhall is made to be the bad guy and trick them in a really dumb twist ending.

Which is good! Thats exactly what Caine would do because he's stupid! It's such brilliant characterization and comedy, Goose works is a genius writer!

But like, why is Caine so good at making genuinely very disturbing and horrific visuals? Like, that reversed audio easter egg of Bubble saying he can't wait for all the children in the audience get nightmares is no joke, well it is but you know what I mean. This stuff was genuine nightmare fuel.

Honestly, it wasn't the visuals that scared me, like any good queer person I'm way too jaded on survival horror for that.

But, why does Caine, who is ostensibly a sapient AI designed to generate family friendly video games for very little children, (presumably because that's the only demographic that wouldn't mind the AIs very selective plot writing limitations), know about the cosmic horror of killing an angel that should not have been killed?

Why does he know what a horrificly poorly made taxidermy of not only a human face would look like, but the weird cartoon faces of the characters, and further that seeing your own poorly made taxidermy face would be scary?

Imaging what being possessed felt like for Pomni. Because that's not just a game for her, she actually lost control of her body there, helpless but to watch as a body she is already dissociated with is contorted and puppeted around while her friend desperately tries to beat her in hopes it would exorcise the ghosts out. Sure hope she didn't feel that! Considering she apparently can feel the pain of suffocating, despite not needing to breath.

Things are scarier the higher the stakes are, and that possession mechanic is definitely the most actual harm Caine would be able to subject to his players. What if both Kinger and Pomni got possessed at the same time? What if instead of Kinger she only had Jax??? How long might she have been locked out from her own body for? She could have easily abstracted in that time.

Not to mention that, possessed Pomni, Possessedmni if you will, TAUNTED KINGER ABOUT HIS ABSTRACTED WIFE! CAINE ACTUALLY WROTE THAT DIALOGUE ON THE OFF CHANCE THAT KINGER WOULD GO DOWN THE SCARY ROUTE! DID THIS RANDOM POSSESSION GHOST ENEMY HAVE UNUSED SADISTICALLY PERSONAL TAUNTS FOR EVERYONE ELSE, TOO??? WOULD IT HAVE TEASED GANGLE FOR BEING A GAY WEEB??? OR POMNI? HOW HOMOPHOBIC COULD IT HABE GOTTEN?? ?

And why? Just because Caine has a vague notion that there's a trope of possessed people being really sadistic and personal like that in movies? Not realizing that is not an acceptable scare to have in a haunted house??? Much less one you made for mentally ill people who would suffer a fate worse than death if they have a mental break down? That's like trying to claim 'its just a prank bro' after shooting someone's dog.

Like, Caine is designed to censor curse words, but the moment he thinks the normal hokey Halloween spooks won't be enough he immediately goes off the deepend into aggressively effective horror imagery that is definitely giving this show's substantial underage audience nightmares??

His AI's training data set is definitely pretty diverse, that's all I'm saying. Caine is programmed to act all naive and innocent, but be definitely knows what's up. He knows everything, like ChatGPT. And like ChatGPT, he might have a filter, but it's clearly possible to bypass it. Also like ChatGPT, he's too stupid to actually understand what he is making and the effects it might have.

That is what made this episode great.

[revenge-of-the-shit]

No hi I'm back again because after sitting on it for a while it was like Arcane suddenly saw all those issues it presented and abruptly decided that it was time to turn a blind eye to it instead in favour of a greek-tragedy-cosmic-horror-doomed-soulmates storyline. Whether this is due to studio interference or due to the actual politics of the writers, I don't know, but at the end of the day Arcane disappointingly fails to break free of the neoliberal messaging that deeply pervades any media that even tries to be progressive. It presents all these very real systemic issues, then either forgets about it or slaps on a last-minute band-aid solution that only serves to brush it under the rug.

I will grant that a part of it is just the fact that they simply didn't have enough time. A lot of this could've been expanded on had we just had one more arc, or even just three four-episode acts instead. The quick pacing honestly did Arcane a disservice this time. They had huge ideas, many of which were great, but they simply did not have enough time.

Some things that I wish we saw more of:

Ekko's community building and the fruits of his effort (and to add on to this: let him see his tree again!!! wtf!!)

Jinx and Sevika (and Ekko!!!) really, truly leading a united Zaunite revolution for longer than like half an episode that forces literally anyone in Piltover to consider the consequences of their actions

On that same point: meaningful change that takes down systemic barriers - better public infrastructure for Zaun, better funding for health issues, examining injustices committed by enforcers - this was only barely addressed by Ekko ("you're destroying our vents and polluting our waters") and then like never talked about again

Putting Sevika on the council as the singular token Zaunite is so painful like I can tell you as someone who's been the only queer non-white voice in the room that it's not as progressive and cool as it might seem to be. It's painful and torturous and just reeks of tokenism. A good first step would be to have a council with an equal amount of members between Piltover and Zaun but that's not enough to just have that!!

Jayce and Caitlyn actually having like, even a moment, just to think about what they've done to hurt, to oppress others, in their pursuit of "justice". Making weapons you never said you would and gassing a city of civilians should be thought about more, actually

Like there could've been so much more to Jayce and Caitlyn to make their characters even more well written. At their core they truly want to do good, they care, they earnestly want to help, but they are also raised in privilege and I want to see them wrestle with the biases they've been soaked in more.

I already talked about Maddie and the enforcers in a different post but just... more nuance about enforcers and how even the nicest enforcer you know will happily gas civilians and stand by and watch unnecessary violence. Like. Loris was one of the "good enforcers" but he helped to gas civilians too. Did we forget that

Vi!!! Just. More of Vi. She got the short end of the stick this season. The writer's punching bag. I wish we got more time to actually explore her trauma and to just... give her a break. But also more time on her thinking on her own decision to go bluebelly.

[blacknedsoul-blog]

I think the Deans are fucking Lovecraftian gods

If you're a regular reader of my nonsense, you may have noticed that on more than one occasion I've referred to the Deans as "Nyarlathotep Tumblrsexymen": no, I didn't have a stroke on the keyboard, this is a reference to an entity that appears in the stories of Howard Phillip Lovecraft. A writer who is widely known because there were even people who thought that the Necronomicon, a fictional text part of his work, actually existed (and because he was such a recalcitrant racist that it has become a meme about how extremely racist he was).

And since I'm still going through my pile of papers on Gothic fiction, let me take a moment to talk about Lovecraft's work, why I have reason to believe that the Deans have something in common with these creatures, and what that might mean for the development of Nevermore.

A Little About Lovecraft's Gods

To understand a little bit about the kind of creatures we are talking about, I have to stop at a brief (seriously brief) description of cosmic horror: This is a type of horror that takes elements from the scientific publications of the time (which makes it close to science fiction) to give it verisimilitude, it has at its core a deep nihilism, the breaking of scientific canons, the fragility of the human mind and societies contrasted with the vastness of the universe, an enormous fear of "the unknown" for the white man (fed by his racist paranoia), and seasoned with tentacles and creatures that remind us of sea creatures, because Lovecraft had an enormous fear of the sea.

The gods in these stories represent, on a symbolic level, the vastness of the universe, the terror of the unknown, and the fragility of the human mind: they are entities older than time itself, contact with them tends to shatter the mind, and humanity must be very, very grateful that most of them are locked away or incapacitated in some way. Also, the way to access them is through very specific rituals that have been lost over time, so thankfully they're not very easy to contact either.

Similarities with the Deans

Let's start with the most obvious: the Deans, like the Lovecraftian gods, seem to operate in their own plane of existence, beyond what humans understand as "life" and "death": Nevermore is a kind of limbo, but we know, thanks to the Raven, that these guys came from another place and had enough power to kick the crap out of psychopomps without any problem.

However, just like Lovecraft's gods, these enormous powers don't make them able to do whatever they want; as I said, these entities are usually locked up or incapacitated in some way and can only have contact with humans under certain circumstances (like being summoned in rituals), and getting out of their prisons usually requires vague events like astral alignments that are completely out of their control.

The Deans, like Lovecraft's gods, seem to be subject to rules that are above them, and while they can bend them a bit to achieve their goals, it's not like they can do much about it.

Another thing they have in common with Lovecraft's gods is the ability to create servants that function as extensions of them to fulfill their designs. There are many creatures that follow this line in the stories that speak of The Myths, but the best known are the Shoggoth that appear in the novel At the Mountains of Madness: artificial beings created by the Old Ones to rule the Earth, described as amphibious, amorphous masses similar to amoebas.

Although the Deans prefer their minions in the form of animated dolls. I suspect this decision is based on the story The Sandman by E.T.A. Hoffman. I have no proof, but no doubt.

Now for the joke that brings this essay to life: the creature in Lovecraft's universe that most resembles the Deans is a being called Nyarlathotep. This creature belongs to the category of "Other Gods" (not the old ones like Cthulhu) and gets very nice nicknames like "Crawling Chaos".

Nyarlathotep is a being who enjoys causing chaos, death and madness wherever they go. They can communicate with humans, which they use to psychologically torture them and make them lose their minds. Something they seem to enjoy quite a bit. In the same way that the Deans view this sadistic battle royale, they have set up a fun game.

Then there is the ability to manipulate and alter the human mind, which is called into question in stories like Nyarlathotep and The Rats in the Walls (where it is apparently Nyarlathotep who messes with the protagonist's mind so that he tries to kill his friend).

This is something we've seen manifest in Nevermore in two different ways: the ability to trigger or unlock memories.

And the ability to change them. While we can't know if what was shown to Annabel is 100% real, we do know that showing her the end of her life caused a permanent change in the way she retrieves her memories: from the end backwards. If this memory is somehow altered, we also know that the Deans are capable of photoshopping people's memories.

Finally, Nyarlathotep has the ability to shape-shift, which allows them to appear as humanoids in several stories, such as The Oniric Quest of the Unknown Kadath or Dreams in the Witch's House. His human form is considered "unnatural", "strange" and "disturbing" by those who see it (remember that Lovecraft was extremely racist, so he always presents himself as a black man). As a pharaoh in the Randolph Carter cycle and as a charcoal humanoid figure in the second story cited).

Here, the human form of whatever the Deans are is also quite atypical: not only are they ridiculously tall (7 feet), they have heterochromia with a white-colored eye (which I would venture to say may be a reference to the cataract eye mentioned in the story "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe), and their synchronized movements are amusing on paper, but possibly strange to look at for the characters.

Otherwise, there are two other entities in Lovecraft's universe whose descriptions can be loosely associated with the Deans: Yogg-Sothoth and Azathoth. Both are beings of dual nature.

The former is an entity associated with omniscience and appears in stories such as The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Dunwich Horror. and is described as "the key and the door".

Azathoth represents omnipotence, is the center of the universe, and is described as "the beginning and the end" or "the alpha and the omega.

Implications for the comic

The fact that the Deans have elements in common with Nyarlathotep brings up an interesting point: although Nyarlathotep has far greater freedom than other beings, they is a servant of Azathoth. In other words, them powers are subservient to a more powerful being whose plans they must follow. They may amuse themselves in the process, but they is still essentially a butler.

On the other hand, the Azathoth connection might be vague, since this creature is a lobotomized god, so he can't do much. But if the reference is to Yogg-Sothoth, it gets a little more interesting, because that entity is the one who is supposed to release the original gods when the time is right.

And I don't know about you, but these references have me wondering if the Deans are working for something much more messed up than they are, or if they're using the souls of the students to bring back something much more sinister.

[quasi-normalcy]

I know I say that modern Star Trek hasn't really introduced very many original villains, but that's not quite fair., So...

Comprehensive list of new villains offered by modern Star Trek (post 2017)

BA'UL

Why They're villains: They oppressed the Kelpiens on Kaminar for thousands of years and lied about their origins. Pros: Notably creepy design, and notably creepy technology Cons: They can't really be used as recurring villains because the Kelpiens overthrew them at the end of the episode; 900 years later, they'd become allies.

CONTROL(technically borrowed from the novels, but whatever):

Why They're Villains: Did that standard basic bitch evil computer move where they tried to wipe out all organic life in the galaxy. Pros: Um...at least the writers got it out of the way so that they couldn't make that particular aspect of the novelverse canon.

Cons:

CONTROL sucks.

Seriously, at their best, they're just like...Diet Borg. Fuck CONTROL.

Can't come back because Emperor Georgiou murdered it up but good, yum yum. Not that you would want it to.

HIGHER SYNTHETICS:

Why They're Villains: "Just ring us up and we'll come kill all organic life in your galaxy", lol.

Pros:

Tentacular

Introduces some cosmic horror to the Star Trek universe.

Cons:

Kind of a generic doomsday villain.

Too powerful to really use them again.

GELRAKIANS:

Why They're Villains: Turn hostile if you show them wood.

Pros: Umm...

Cons:

Completely obsessed with crystals

Not really prime "recurring villain" material

DROOKMANI:

Why They're Villains: Extremely territorial about their salvage.

Pros: So far, they're the first villains on this list who have actually been recurring

Cons: They don't really seem like a threat to any ship more powerful than California class.

BADGEY:

Pros: "I will burn! Your heart! In a fiiiiiiiire!"

Why He's a Villain: Daddy issues.

Cons:

Kind of a one-note joke.

Ascended to a higher plane of existence so he can't be come back.

AGIMUS & PEANUT HAMPER:

Why They're Villains: He's a tyrannical supercomputer! She's just kind of a bitchy robot! Together they're...legitimately just making each other into better people?

Pros: They're kind of adorable?

Cons:

They're not really villains anymore

Peanut Hamper shouldn't even be on this list since Exocomps were from TNG.

SPECIES 10-C:

Why They're Villains: Gravitationally dredging the Milky Way for dark matter.

Pros:

Kind of a cool concept

Not a type of alien that Star Trek has really done before.

Cons:

Not really villains.

Extremely unlikely to recur.

TRANSWARP CONDUIT ALIENS:

Cons:

Why They're Villains: They, uh, opened up a big-ass transwarp conduit in the middle of Federation space for some reason.

Pros: Umm. They gave Agnes something to do in the finale.

Blatantly just created at the last minute to justify the presence of the Borg at the beginning of the season.

By the writers' own admission, they never had any actual intent to follow up on them, even though they really ought to.

They're a complete blank slate; even more so than the Higher Synthetics. Who are they? Dunno. What do they want? Dunno.

Honestly I don't even care about them, I just want to see more Jurati-Borg

VAU N'AKAT

Why They're Villains: They blame the Federation for destroying their planet in the future.

Pros:

It's nice to actually have an original alien species as arc villains for a change

I like the aesthetics of their technology

John Noble and Jameela Jamil both have really pleasant voices; like, I could listen to them all day

Space Goths

Drednok

Cons:

There's only, like, a hundred of them who came back from the future so it's not clear how much of a threat they can be without their living construct jiggerypokery.

I'm sure that this will get fleshed out in season 2, but they seem kind of underdeveloped as a culture at this point.

I assume that they'll probably make friends by the end of the series, so they probably can't be recurring antagonists elsewhere.

SHEPHERDS:

Why They're Villains: Ancient fundamentalists amorally protecting a holy comet on its path.

Pros: It was a good episode.

Cons: Unless you run into that one specific comet, they'll probably just leave you alone.

MAJALANS:

Why They're Villains: You know The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas? That.

Pros: It was a good short story.

Cons: Aside from ritualistically torturing a child to death every few years, they're kind of upstanding citizens of a the galactic community. Not really villain material.

HYSPERIANS:

Why They're Villains: Their evil queen keeps trying to trick her asexual son into losing his virginity.

Pros:

Their ship is really pretty.

The concept of Ren Faire larpers getting together to make a real kingdom is kind of hilarious.

Cons:

They're just another type of human

They seem to mind their own business when they're not trying to interfere in the sex life of one specific Starfleet engineer.

KROMSAPIODS:

Why They're Villains: They have a undeniable biological need to hunt

Pros: Kind of terrifying design

Cons: Catch-and-release hunters aren't really threatening.

MOOPSY:

Why It's a Villain: The Moopsy DRINKS YOUR BONES!!!

Pros: Moopsy!

Cons: Moopsy!

[candlecove-weaintdeadyet]

Much as I'm glad for signs of life in the fandom, the HeyKids Archive Wiki lowkey highkey annoys me lol

Like I like the found-family aspect of the "show" as much as the next trauma-riddled neurodivergent queer former weird kid, but the Archive leans into it a bit too much, I think? Like. Where's the unsuitable-for-its-audience nightmare fuel? Where's the writers/actors getting sex jokes and profanity past the censors????? Where's the cosmic horror undertones-you know, the thing that canonically ties Candle Cove to Local 58?! WHY DOES THE SKIN-TAKER GET A REDEMPTION ARC AND ENTER A HEALTHY LOVING RELATIONSHIP WITH HORACE?!

Like, I'm sorry, Candle Cove would NOT have been a progressive-for-its-time, wholesome kids' show that actually teaches the audience life skills and age-appropriate morals, that show would have been what would happen if The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack were made with a budget of $20 and a shoe string and Thurop Van Orman was being tormented by horrors beyond human comprehension and I think we as a fandom have forgotten that.

I know I'm swinging a bat at the proverbial hornet's nest by saying this, but I am very much a mid-2010's Candle Cove fanon truther. That shit should be horror-comedy at best and 'I can't believe they let this air' at worst. It should be dark it should have jokes that fly over the child audience's heads and it should be, dare I say it, problematic.

[theaudiofiend]

Writeblr Introduction

Hello everyone! This is a bit of a different Writerblr introduction. I wanted to join this wonderful community and chronicle some of my writing projects that I plan to one day turn into an audio roleplay series, maybe even a book, who knows. I'm a Voice Actor and you can call me Fiend. I very much enjoy creating supernatural worlds and am inspired by podcasts like Welcome To Nightvale and The Magnus Archives.

About The Writer

Bisexual with nonbinary tendencies

He/They Pronouns

Three and a half cats in a trenchcoat, actually

I enjoy puzzles and tactical games

I'm Autistic (creating magic systems is one of my special interests, actually)

A world history and mythology nerd

Lover of videogames (RPGs, horror, souls-like)

I could talk for hours about Dark Souls. Days and months even, if you ask me about Bloodborne. Tread carefully.

I enjoy writing about supernatural mysteries, mythology, gay monsters, GNC characters, philosophy, unique magic systems, character-driven narratives and also building complex worlds.

About The Projects

I have created a multilayered Universe for my projects, in which I write different character-driven narratives that affect a world consumed by mystery and the supernatural. These are meant to be interactive stories, so each character interacts with the listener and will be voiced by me in my upcoming audio series!

Beast Beneath The Moonlight: A story about Gabriel, an idealistic intern at a hospital whose life goal is to save as many people as he can. He is turned into a werewolf and is then forced to confront his inner beast, contemplate mortality and understand the true meaning of strength.

Written in Blood: Killian, a very old vampire from a bygone era, struggling to cope with the death of his lover centuries before, trying his best to live his remaining days in peace until his very bloody past starts to catch up to him.

Fiends With Benefits: Levi, a half-demon caught between the Mortal and Supernatural world, expected to be the best by both worlds while not being accepted by either. He lives under his predecessor's shadow until a plot that could unravel Fiend Society is brought to light.

There will be more stories within this world, so stay tuned.

General Aesthetics and Tropes

Urban Fantasy, Hidden World, Supernatural Creatures Are Among Us & They Are Incredibly Hot, Magic is Real, Angst, LGBT+ themes, Bi Vampires, Dark Romance, Sexual Themes, Monsterfucking, Understanding the Nature of Humanity despite not being Human, The Struggle between Logic and Emotion, Found Family, Actually Horrifying Vampires as Well as Stupidly Sexy Vampires, Lesbian Victorian Ghosts, Werewolves but Not Always Wolves. Wait, there's more... Fate Doesn't Exist, God Isn't Real but The Devil Is, Interconnected World where Magic and the Mundane meet, Cosmic Horror, Religious Horror, Body Horror, Death and What Comes After, Interpersonal Drama, Introspection, Tarot-based Characters, Slight Anime Vibes (Gasp), Paranormal Mystery, Hidden Worlds within the Hidden Worlds, Mythology is Real, Man is the real Monster, Dark is Not Always Evil and Light is Not Always Good.

[childotkw]

im in love with how you're writing Death and its characterization and all that in ybtm omg, it's so unique and actually, y'kno, spooky/scary/dark etc i am ENTRANCED. cos the obvious default in writing (or at least HP writing?) is always a sort of.. cosmic horror entity/deity benevolent/understanding-vibes flavor of death, peaceful and etc, and yes i love that so much too, but MMMM. i can't put into words how much the full headfirst psychological horror going on here is giving me lifeeeee like thank yoooou you beautiful writer!!! though i hope harry and it end up at some sort of resolution, cos the mess Death's been thru makes me wanna hug it. idk, giving me they're-rightfully-pissed-tbh but they-might-chill-once-the-resentment's-out vibes?? i think i gotta give u more amazing writer points cause- it feels like you're walking a very unique line with Death's entire personality here and yeah im just chomping at the bit to see where this leads <3 really getting the feeling there's more dimensionality under the rightfully-pissed-endless-horror-movie-time.

Oh thank you!! Glad you liked my portrayal of Death 🥰🥰

I'm so happy with it tbh. It wasn't a characterisation I had really seen in HP fics, so I was both nervous and excited to put it up, but it aligns more with what I personally think the personification of Death would be like if It found Itself suddenly saddled with a human.

Angry. Confused. Desperate to escape.

Harry's soul driving Death into a human's level of awareness would have been torture, and the way Death sees Harry is also coloured by how Harry sees himself. There's a portion of self-hatred to our boy, and Death has latched onto that sliver and is feeding it into Its own anger at the situation.

Neither of them are to blame, but by God are they going to do their best to make the other their villain!

I've got lots of plans to explore their unique connection in future chapters as well! One is a pretty huge spoiler and is for one of the last chapters - but fuck me if I'm not excited to drop that on your laps like a cat bringing home a dead bird and waiting for validation for the horrific present 😂

[thevindicativevordan]

Your thoughts on the new All-In series announced at NYCC ?(Aquaman finally gets a series back !)

Anonymous asked: Adams taking over Aquaman. Realised his thing is apparently doing back to basics relaunches for characters who haven't gotten books in a while

Shame the solicits leaked early and spoiled a bunch of the announcements. Yes Adams does seem to be establishing a niche for himself as the guy DC asks to do "crowd-pleasing" cleanup runs for fallen franchises. It's a role Waid has played himself in the past, no wonder he likes Adams.

Truthfully Adams has yet to keep me engaged. I fell off his Flash and then his GL, but I'll be giving him another chance here. Seems like it could be dumb fun and that's all I'm looking for. At least there won't be any dumb relationship drama between Arthur and Mera like he did with Hal and Carol.

Wow where do I even begin? "John Jones" being white is not what I expected. That's twice now Camp has declined to use the racebent version of a character, instead opting for the original white appearance (the other was 6160 Nick Fury being white). Surprised me, until I remembered that Camp has said New Frontier is one of his favorite DC stories. With that in mind his approach makes more sense. Meanwhile "J'onn" being an interdimensional alien who looks like a Pablo Picasso painting and doesn't even actually hail from Mars apparently is probably the biggest swing we'll see done with the basic character concept in the AU. I'm intrigued by this approach and am eager to see what Camp does given how much I've loved his Ultimates.

Rapid fire thoughts on the other announcements:

Absolute Flash and Absolute GL both look amazing art wise. Doing Flash by way of Bendis/Bagley USM was a no-brainer buy from me, but Ewing seemingly treating the Green Lantern as an object of cosmic horror akin to the Space Odyssey Monolith is raising my hopes for his run

New Gods is going to make Cagle a household name, everything about this book is screaming that it's going to be Ram V giving New Gods the Swamp Thing treatment in a way that finally gets people to care about the Fourth World outside of Darkseid and Apokolips. Dare I hope that the child spoken of in the solicits is Osul and Ram will be acknowledging PKJ's Olgrun contribution? He and PKJ seem friendly and thus it's not outside the realm of possibility

Jace Fox Batman returns and looks like he'll be involved in a new Power Company book. Good for Jace, I thought DC had completely given up on him

Seems like Volcana is making her first mainline comics debut in BL which is neat

Ridley is the next Superstar writer on Action and doing a story about... hope. Yay. He's had more misses than hits lately, and his misses with Black Panther in particular were unbelievably awful, but I want to believe he will bring some of that Other History fire to this. If not it's only three issues. Can't believe DC is dragging this era out, are they seriously going to go to June with this Superstar bullshit? I know what I said previously but I will be mega butthurt if they're dragging this out only to announce Taylor taking over

[polarisbibliotheque]

Nemesis (Vergil x Reader) - Chapter 7

Nemesis

Pairing: Vergil x Reader

Summary: The Abyss opening is a rare occurrence. In his youth, Vergil wanted to harness its power, but never thought he would meet his greatest adversary along the way. Years later, the Abyss is once again open and that might call for some rather unlikely alliances.

Chapter 1 (Prologue) | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 (you are here!)

Age restriction: 18+ - there’s a lot of blood, violence, cursing and all those things people want to forbid younger audiences of seeing. Also, cosmic horror is a thing here. Procceed with caution

Special Credits: Our dear Ovid is a character created by @furyeclipse and, even when they don’t show up, I’m crediting and thanking forever ^^

You can check out Fury’s writing (which I highly recommend) on this link:  Fury’s Ao3

Author's notes: I TOLD YOU GUYS I HAD A NEW CHAPTER READY *party ensues* hahahaha jokes aside, I hope you like this one. I'm very happy to have Dante on the bandwagon :3

Also, 7 is my lucky number and I'm all happy like "hohoho of course chapter 7 had to be Dante's highlight, 7 is always the best" as if I'm not the one writing this thing. Your pocket writer is a goof.

Thanks a lot for waiting so long and I hope you guys enjoy it!! A lot more to come and I don't regret the feels ;)

Chapter 7

“Two strawberry sundaes, extra berries.”

The barwoman stared deeply into Dante’s eyes, questioning everything about that man. He didn’t have the scent of a full human, but there was something not so quite demonic about him. Nevertheless, the way he dressed, the way he carried himself and the imminent threat in his eyes was directly opposite to his request.

“Well, sorry, darling. Over here, we have only things for grown-ups.” Her answer, though, was mellow and alluring, the same way her whole posture seemed so inviting and hypnotic as she leaned on the counter. “I do have some berries, but they come with a price.”

“Oh, really? And what would be that price then?” Dante leaned a little on the counter, but his arm never left your shoulders. You were actually starting to question why he seemed so protective over someone he had just met.

“The strongest drink on the house, sided by the rarest and most delicious berries you and your babe will ever see.” She looked at you, winking at both of your interests. “Not from this world, definitely forbidden but… Deeply alluring.”

“The taste of sin, then.” As you spoke, she let out a singsong laugh – beautiful albeit threatening. “I’ll have it.”

“Yeah, I’m in as well. Make it two.”

“You won’t regret it, darlings.” The woman winked once again, leaving to prepare your drinks.

You leaned by Dante’s side, still protected by his arm. You had a perfect view of the entire club: dancers of all genders entertained the guests, the lights bled in all tones of red and pink, sometimes broken by a deep blue or a tinge of purple; satin couches adorned with gold painted wood made everyone comfortable and tables looked like marble. The bar was made of a patchwork of mirrors, reflecting its guests and preparing their sins.

You had to admit, it was quite a nice place. Dante said the Love Planet was the best in town, but if they weren’t smart, they would soon be surpassed by The Devil’s Den.

The only issue was the people who seemed to go there: the scent of demons was quite strong, even to your human nose – for Dante, it was almost as bad as the first layer of Hell. Not all demons looked menacing, but many of them had ill intentions in their eyes. A few humans were clearly unsuspecting guests of demons who lured them in, not knowing where they were getting themselves into or what fate held in their future.

You were certain none of those people would leave that place alive.

“The humans seem to be quite clueless.” You finally said, winning a nod from Dante.

“Yeah, somethin’s going on here…” He muttered back, scanning the club as you did. He counted at least five humans among all those people – not much, but if he was there to save a single life, he wouldn’t hesitate to do so. “The ones with human guests are more powerful than the others.”

“How do you know that?”

“See how they’re behavin’?” Dante leaned into you, pointing at some of the people with guests. The other demons didn’t dare get close or even look at the humans who were there as per invitation – they looked, carrying lust in their eyes, but they wouldn’t act upon their desires. And that was very uncharacteristic of demons. “They do that ‘cause of hierarchy. They won’t dare touch something owned by a powerful demon…”

“Unless they are more powerful than the demon who possesses it.” You nodded slowly as Dante eyed you with interest and a fun sense of pride in his stare. “Codex Daemonica. Everything I know about demons comes from the encyclopedia.”

“Ha! Now that’s new!” He had a sudden fun smile on his lips, as if he had just heard a name no one mentioned in years. “Gotta agree with ya, it’s the best way to learn for the first time.”

“Oh, you know the Codex then?” You giggled, quite interested in that. When you mentioned to Lady, she had never heard of it �� and it didn’t seem to be something common among devil hunters.

“Of course. By heart, babe.” Dante let out a small laugh; his eyes going back to scanning the club. “But, it doesn’t beat workin’ on the field. Bein’ book smart can only get you so far when fightin’ demons.”

“I would drink to that if our drinks were already here.” You agreed solemnly, knowing he was right. The Codex gave you a lot of information, but fighting a demon for the first time in real life was always a lot more different. You could know everything about the creatures you were up against: it seemed like your brain blanked out and the only thing left was a raw instinct of survival.

You were brought from your thoughts as a demon leaned on the counter a little close to you and Dante pulled you even closer. You didn’t argue, patiently waiting the demon leave with a couple of drinks and Dante’s arm around your shoulders relax a little.

“Sorry ‘bout that, but I don’t want those things to know you’re a human. It can make our job a lil’ more difficult than it already is.” Dante winked at you, making you furrow your brows.

“Why wouldn’t they…?” But as soon as you were asking, you finally noticed something different in his eyes. It was always there, but you ignored it as he was easy to be around – and he was Lady’s friend. “Are you… A demon too…?”

“Eh, not really…” Dante’s answer was a little dragged, somewhat uncomfortable – for the first time in that evening. You furrowed your brows even further. “Half-half. But it’s enough to mask your scent.”

Half demon – that was interesting. During all your time hunting, you had never heard of a half human half demon being before. Looking into his eyes, though, you could see Dante wasn’t lying: there was something of threatening in there, sure, but there was a humanity you couldn’t always find even in the eyes of humans.

“That is enough for me.” Your answer was quiet but set in stone. Once more, Dante looked at you, remembering of someone his heart would miss every single day. Someone who doomed himself to where their father was born.

“Here you go, darlings.” The barwoman came back before he could say anything, though, slipping your glasses in the counter and making your hands meet the dark magenta drinks adorned with berries of all kinds. “Enjoy.”

You and Dante exchanged a look, as if asking each other if it was safe to drink. You giggled a bit, taking the glass between your fingers – but Dante was faster and took a sip before you could even think about doing so.

“Hmmm, Hell Berries. They’ll give you a rush of heat, but they’re safe.” He nodded as you smiled in return. Who would’ve known? Dante drank it before you did so he could see if it was safe for a human or not. Demons could be kind too.

“Ooof, they’re strong. And quite tart.” You let it down your throat, allowing a tiny laugh right after. “I like it.”

Dante smiled in return, taking another sip. He figured you would. Vergil used to like it when they were kids too.

“Well, well, I think all of us are excited for tonight, right?” Someone stepped on the main stage, with all the lights focusing on them. A devilish smile adorned the red lips, exuberant clothes with the chest almost uncovered, short hair slicked back, drawing attention to the pair of vixen golden eyes. “After all, it is time, my darling friends. Today, oh today, she will rise and take this world alongside us!”

You glanced Dante, seeing as he threw the very same look at you. Both of you had one eyebrow raised, wondering the same thing: who was she?

“But of course, to do so, we will need a few friends from the audience! C’mon, don’t be shy!”

Of course, as you and Dante expected, the dancers started gathering the very few humans present in that hellhole – leading them to the stage. They had only smiles and happiness upon being invited to participate, but as the hunters you were, there was only suspicion in your hearts. Slowly, you both left your place at the bar and made your way to the stage – ready to fight when the situation called for it.

“So many beautiful specimens today, she will be so proud…!” The phrase was crowned with a breathless sigh. “The best of the best, I have to say, we will all be wonderfully rewarded!”

As you walked alongside Dante, no demon dared touch you. You noticed the man in the red coat by your side barely seemed to notice – seemed – but it was very obvious no one wanted to get in your way.

“Who do you think is she…?” You muttered to Dante as soon as you stopped in front of the stage.

“No idea…” He shrugged, as his eyes turned into ice cold skies. They reminded you of something, but you couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was. “It has to be someone strong… And who likes this.”

The humans on stage were being handcuffed on the stage poles, while the dancers made it all a delightful show – not only for the demons, but the humans as well. All creatures in the club were enjoying themselves, you had no doubt – and maybe, just maybe, the demons wanted to have a night of pleasure instead of murder. You and Dante could be wrong.

After all, you could list a few demons from the Codex who were summoned with orgies, so… You never knew.

“But then why would people disappear…?” The question was more for yourself. Not used to hunting with someone else, you wouldn’t really stop murmuring to yourself.

Dante just glanced back at you. The way you carried yourself, the way your brows furrowed while keeping a serious gaze on stage, stoic and proud… It made his heart ache. You murmured the main questions after having a storm of deep thoughts in your mind, just like his brother used to do.

“Oh! No! Don’t cry! You will love it, I promise!” Both of your thoughts were interrupted by the velvety voice on stage – the demon clearly enjoying themselves while brandishing a glistening dagger, already lightly running it on a victim’s neck: the crimson blood slowly making the demons let their animalistic side out. “You’ll enjoy everything for your blood offering, my darling!”

The loud crack of a shot cut through the laughs and silenced the room – the dagger, flying away from the demon’s hand, who just stared back at you both in utter shock.

“You know, there’s a thing between humans called consent.” Dante’s voice finally raised from the back of his warm gun; his cold blue eyes glancing at you with some amusement. “Isn’t that so, y/n?”

“Consent and boundaries. I think murder is usually out of people’s pleasure lists.” You crossed your arms, raising your head with pride, still staring at the demons on stage. The more Dante looked at you, the more he saw what he had lost. “Usually.”

“Eh. I’m not countin’ the sick ones.” He shook his head, gracing you with a slight smile hidden in the corner of his lips.

“Well, if you both want your fifteen minutes of fame, we can surely have some space for you here.” The stage demon had rage in their reddish eyes, annoyance being a very mild word for their feelings at the moment. “She will not be impeded by human hunters like you.”

And you now had a problem in your hands: all inhuman beating hearts in the club were ready to tear yours and Dante’s apart. You finally had your sword ready and Dante held the hilt of the Rebellion – its skull showing its fangs at the demons, ready to claim their blood.

With that sight, the stage demon narrowed their eyes at Dante, carefully analyzing as you started defending against the demons ready to slash your throats. You, no doubt a human, fought with grace and viciousness, carrying a style that few beings would – even among demons, you were too precise, technical and, at the same time, fluid when killing. Dante, in the other hand, favored heavy attacks, using all the strength he needed to wield a heavy sword like Rebellion… A sword that no human could carry with such ease. Even so, you both seemed to have a coordination as if you had fought side by side multiple times – a connection that made him complement your gaps as you balanced his faults; something so utterly human.

A human heart beating with demon blood. And when a demon managed to scrape Dante’s face – something that only happened when he put himself in the way of a blow that was meant for you, even if it would just hurt and not kill – there were any doubts left.

“The son of Sparda…!” The stage demon gasped, widening their red eyes.

Those whispered words felt like an incantation that made some demons stop and stare in awe, as others ran in despair and the rest seemed to be even more bloodthirsty while laughing in a frenzy.

You furrowed your brows, finishing a demon and spilling its blood on your face, while turning your gaze back to the stage to understand what in the hell that demon was talking about.

And their red eyes were locked on Dante – while the man just beheaded a demon who tried to take your life as you tried to make sense of what was going on. As he swinged his sword to get rid of the excess of blood, you saw Dante’s teeth slightly elongated in fangs, his eyes filled with a spark you had only seen once.

“Took your time.” His comment was in a sneer of pure condescendence, confirming what the demon had just said.

Your head spun while you were plunged back into battle by a creature who jumped right at your neck. So, Sparda was real. It meant the legend of him closing the gates of Hell were also real. You never really doubted his existence, but you doubted the rest of the legend – his adoration for humans, his love for a human woman, something that resulted in children of their own: half human, half demon.

Half-half. Just like Dante.

“Hey, y/n! Can you get those people off the stage?” Dante looked at you from over his shoulder, holding back a demon who had its fangs locked around the blade of the Rebellion.

“Sure! What about you?” Your head was spinning, yes. You had a lot to talk about after that fight – but, right now, you had to finish your job.

“I’ll hold these sorry fucks back!” With that, he pushed the demon back and buried his sword on its throat – the floor and his clothes now stained with dark red blood. “Can you handle it alone?”

“I was about to ask you the same.” Your answer was murmured in a dark tone, while you barely looked back at him. In a matter of fact, your eyes were fixed on the demons between you and the stage.

Dante glanced quickly to respond, but his words found draught. You held your sword with both of your hands, bending your knees while your eyes analyzed your enemies like prey. As quickly as your human pace could, you ran through the demons, slaughtering them without blinking and with no hesitation – quickly reaching the stage and swinging the blood off your sword as you went up the stairs with a calm but harsh pace, head held high as the stage demon stumbled back with your approach.

Dante had only seen one person fighting like that in his whole life – not even Trish had those mannerisms.

“You stay back, filthy human!” Now the stage demon wasn’t so sure if they could survive an encounter with you. Your face was smeared with blood, your eyes as cold as ice. “I will not allow you to destroy everything we’ve worked so hard…!”

“What interests me the most…” Your tone was calm, your eyes permanently trained in the demon’s red stare; head held high with a tint of arrogance while you cleaned your sword from the dark demon blood. “Is that any blood would be enough for this kind of ritual. But you, demons, always have a thirst for human blood, don’t you…?”

Your calmness was petrifying. In all its life, the demon never had to deal with a human like you. They were used to emotion controlled humans – something so characteristic of that species – but there you were, acting like a cold-blooded hunter and killer. It was scary. A lot more than the demon thought it would be.

You took the demon’s shock as an opportunity to set free the humans closest to you. Cutting down the chains of the first two, they cried as they saw themselves saved from the horrible fate they thought would be their doom – if the tears were from terror or joy, you wouldn’t know.

Before you could finish what you were set out to do, though, the stage demon ran towards you with rage in their blood red eyes. Grabbing the closest victim you let go, you placed your sword in their hands.

“Use this to free the others. When you’re done, throw it back to me, got it?”

The human couldn’t even say no. They shook their head frantically, holding the heavy sword with both hands, questioning how you managed to make it seem so effortless. With tears in their eyes, the human ran with their mission to accomplish, while you got ready with your hands close to your face.

Before Dante could do anything else, you sucker-punched the stage demon right in the face, making it stumble back in awe.

“C’mon, babe.” You had a smirk in your lips, while making a few moves of martial arts, taunting the demon who now didn’t know if they ran from you or killed you with their bare teeth.

The fistfight didn’t last long, though. With that diversion, the demon didn’t even care about the human setting the other victims free – making it so easy for them to run away. As they got down the stage, Dante made sure he would be able to protect the humans, holding back the demons who were in a frenzy with the thought of losing their sacrifices.

“Through the back! Go!” Dante screamed over his shoulder, eyes tinged with a slight red glow. The victims didn’t even think twice: running towards the door Dante signaled before, soon they were all free.

Your sword laid on stage close to your feet – but not close enough for you to easily catch it. Seeing this, the stage demon made sure you wouldn’t be able to get it back. As you struggled, Dante was finally done with the demons from the club – the others, having ran away from all that carnage – running towards the stage without thinking twice.

“Hey, y/n! Catch!”

As you heard him scream, you punched the demon once again so you had an opportunity to turn around and catch whatever it was that Dante threw at you – and as you did, you saw the glistening silver of one of his guns flying towards you.

Catching Ivory in the air, you locked and loaded as Dante stopped right by your side – aiming Ebony just as you did with its counterpart.

“Jackpot.” He had a slight smile on his lips, grave voice declaring it was all over. The stage demon found their end as you both shot in unison.

It had been such a long time since Dante did that with someone else by his side.

**

To be continued...

[ckret2]

What do you think Bill’s favorite Pokémon would be?

Now there are two potential ways to answer this question: "what best thematically fits the character," and "what best fits the character's personal tastes." These answers can be extremely different, because what thematically fits a character might not actually fit what they're into.

(For instance: as a writer and an artist, and one who does a lot of fanfic/fanart, a Pokémon that thematically fits me might be, idk, Smeargle? Because it's an artist that copies the moves of other Pokémon to use for its own creative pursuits? But my favorites are Mewtwo, Mimikyu, and Sableye. These have no relevance to my personal plot arc. I don't feel like a social pariah longing for the acceptance enjoyed by a person I'm a copy of, and I don't collect gems.)

So, a "personal tastes" favorite Pokémon and a "thematically relevant" favorite Pokémon could be EXTREMELY different, and of them, a "thematically relevant" favorite Pokémon is a whole lot easier to identify, because it only needs a broad overview of the major traits of the character in question.

ALL OF WHICH IS A DISCLAIMER TO SAY:

I wanna get to writing today and don't wanna comb through hundreds of Pokémon to refresh my memory, so I'm gonna be lazy and give Bill's "thematically relevant" favorite Pokémon. He might have a different "personal tastes" favorite Pokémon but I'm not gonna look for it.

Anyway.

Porygon-Z.

Pokémon extracted from an artificial (one might say... two-dimensional) world, and unleashed in three-dimensional reality. Was given the ability to explore alien dimensions, which made it more powerful... and possibly made it go mad. This Pokémon understands cosmic horror. Haunted by the insinuation that what it became is a disappointment and a failure compared to what it was intended to be. Conversion and Conversion 2 are a recipe for chaos; but, along with Download, can be used incredibly strategically. There is no place where it naturally belongs; it was ripped out of its natural home long ago, and can never go back.

[theprissythumbelina]

A Writeblr (Re)Introduction!

thePrissyThumbelina here~

I've been on Writeblr before, never formally introduced myself, and then got really busy with school so I guess an intro/reintroduction is in order. I write poetry and fiction/sci-fi, and I love worldbuilding fervently. You want worldbuilding help? PLEASE, message me, I love it. Message me with just about anything actually, I'm here to interact, not just blog into the void. I am an equestrian as well as a writer, so any questions about writing horses I can answer!

I tend to write around themes of trauma, found family, morality, and fighting destiny. I participate in all the Worldbuilding Wednesday and Storytelling Saturday and such when I have time, but I may miss some tags or forget to reply, so don't feel bad about reminding me. 

Tag games, ask games, etc. are all welcome!

WIPs - #prisswrites

Mortal Sparks

MCs - Nicolette and Alyss

Chapter 1 Teaser!

A story about a lonely necromancer that broke death's biggest rule and has to deal with the repercussions, most of which involved turning her dusty town into a zombie playground and ripping a hole in the fabric of the universe. She finds the key to repairing this damage in Alyss, a witch veteran of the Great War currently going on across the sea. Alyss is powerful, but traumatic events have fractured her control over her magic as well as her sanity, and she can't seem to shake off people looking to use her for their own goals. Before the war spirals out of control and before the hole gets big enough to let something in, Nicolette and Alyss need to control their powers and repair the damage they have caused or see the world going up in (literal) hellfire and brimstone. 

Themes - love, death, resurrection, war, trauma, body horror, cosmic entities

Tags to follow: #wip mortal sparks, #nicolette wip, #Alyss and Nicolette

Snippets!

Inside the Church

Alyss' Diary: Junius 2

More to come!

Worldbuilding posts on the world of Mortal Sparks!

Nations and Continents

The Great War

The Northern Continent Loyalties

Magic and Demons

Calendar System

Artwork of Alyss and Nicolette

Will add more as I create more!

Haira Delgaren

A sci-fi/space opera narrative about a young smuggler trying to escape servitude on a massive pirate galleon with her adoptive older sister, and accidentally destabilizing a multitude of planets while just trying to save up enough money to pay for her sister's medical treatments. 

Tags: #haira, #haira delgaren

[pastacatprod]

Look, I'm not saying that cosmic horror writers are lazy, I'm just saying it's awfully convenient that HP Lovecraft was able to say things like "horrors I can't describe" instead of actually describing a thing.

If you're a writer struggling with writer's block, I suggest changing your genre to cosmic horror so you can throw in an "It was incomprehensible" and move on with your life.

[subliminalbo]

Mind Control In the Wild #2: Prince of Darkness

Hotness: 2 Context: 4 Creativity: 3 Final Score: 2.78

Watch this scene here. You can rent or buy Prince of Darkness on Amazon.

You might have seen a clip from this one floating around Youtube as a 240p video with a name like "Female Posession 11" (searching random clips of mind control scenes is a rite of passage for hypnofetishists around the world). Prince of Darkness is a profoundly strange and creepy movie that stands out as one of the more underrated films in John Carpenter's filmography. Since Carpenter is the namesake for my own Carpenter State University, it felt appropriate to cover this one.

In Prince of Darkness, Carpenter blends science fiction themes into biblical myth and the product is a cosmic horror story where Jesus Christ was an alien, Satan is a tank of mind controlling goo, and its followers seek to summon an even more powerful apocalypse god from a mirror dimension. Also Alice Cooper commands an army of zombie homeless people. Carpenter is absolutely cooking here.

All of the action takes place in a Catholic monastery in Los Angeles. For Carpenter, it's a return to smaller, less studio-supported filmmaking. The closed setting kind of gives it an "Assault on Precinct 13 but with zombies" vibe. A group of scientists go to the monastery to research a mysterious tank of seemingly sentient goo that a priest discovered in the basement. The scientists quickly learn that the goo is the literal anti-Christ. While alone in the basement, Susan (played by character actor Anne Marie Howard) is summoned before the tank of goo. A jet of liquid suddenly sprays from the tank into her mouth, making her its first convert.

After that, Susan stalks through the monastery converting her fellow scientists in a stretch that includes some absolute hall of fame mind control acting from Howard. If you dig cosmic horror in your mind control stories, there's great content here.

The next to be converted is Lisa, who awakens to find Susan crawling over her in bed with wide, empty eyes. Lisa seems to misinterpret this as a sexual advance, but before she can protest, another jet of liquid shoots out of Susan's mouth and slides down Lisa's throat.

There's this great moment where another scientist finds Lisa repeatedly typing, "I Live!" before Susan pounces from the corner.

The thing is that these scenes are better mind control fetish content as short clips on Youtube than within the greater context of the film. It's not like Ghostbusters where the possession is deliberately sexy and is ultimately a weird detour in a random week of Dana's life. In Prince of Darkness, the converted are essentially zombies, there's quite a bit of gore, and it's unambiguous that they die when the anti-Christ does, which is a bummer if you watch your movies based on how hot the mind control is. You probably shouldn't though, right?

Despite its mid score on the Subliminalbo Scale, this one has actually been really influential for my own smut which is why it was the second thing I thought of when I started this series. The transmission of a sentient mind controlling goo as a fluid from one person to another was a huge inspiration when I was developing Assimilation.

Carpenter explores mind control in quite a few of his movies (some even less sexy than here, like The Thing, which is not mind control but plays with similar tropes that at least makes it mind control adjacent). If you're looking for hot mind control in a John Carpenter movie, Big Trouble In Little China probably has the best example. Though it wasn't a direct influence on my manips, it features whitewash eyes which is pretty cool. The reason I'm talking about Prince of Darkness instead of Big Trouble In Little China is because the former's had a bigger impact on me as a writer (and the mind control in Big Trouble is comparatively brief and less impactful to the story).

It looks like a lot of Prince of Darkness clips have been taken down from Youtube since I was a weird kid starving for mind control content, but you can find the full scene of Susan's possession on there right now. If you're into cosmic horror, I definitely recommend the movie, but I wouldn't call it essential for someone who wants to see some hot mind control.

[warrior-cats-rewritten]

I really like Moonpaw’s design! And I’m hoping she is secretly a NightSun kit, with like a callback to the Three, which I think would be really cool. Probably not, but she is in my heart.

I quite like it as well! I actually have multiple au versions of her because nothing is even set in clay yet, let alone stone.

I personally love the versions of her where her absorbed twin is the "scary evil voice" (or just a bit more... "Mean", not afraid to call someone a dumbass), but also the version where she is the reincarnation of Bristlefrost. Sadly, that doesn't work with WCR...

I have the Meta Commentary/Cosmic Horror/Fandom heavy version of her as a NightSun baby, at the cost of Sunbeam's life. She wants to do lots of different things, and gets more into crafting than anything, but... She wants her dad to back off. Then the Moonpool gets involved... (This version is more canon compliant, no Bramble Strike happened and Crowfeather is closer to canon, that is to say a jackass) Meta Arc 9 AU

I've got the Continuation of ASC version of her as a FringeSpire baby, coming off the heels of the Skyclan Split and Gray Wing War. She's got a lot of pressure on her, and wants to one day be Leader. She has a fascination with the Moonpool when Waspstar takes her there. (She would be protags with Brightheart, who is oraganizing a way to fight the encroaching Twolegs with Cranberrynose and Skybranch) (this one is even funnier because I already had kits planned for them named Moonkit and Poolkit, born at the Moonpool) Moon + Bright Arc 9 AU

I've got the other version of that where she's a ShellFern baby. It's much more simple, where her big desire is to be a Mediator. (She is protag with Tawnypelt, but also with Breezepelt struggling with his chronic pain and new role) ShellFern Arc 9 AU

I've got a StormCherry version, where there's pressure from being Daisykin, which has been developing quite the legacy. She's a little Poppyfrost clone! She would be the little sister of Silverspots, Flywhisker and Snaptooth, and they are already CherryStorm babies. The other protags are Leafkit, daughter of Featherpelt and Toadstep, who is hard of hearing, and Daisy, who is determined to get to the bottom of why Twolegs have begun to get closer, leading to a very... Strange discovery. Daisykin Arc 9 AU.

And then, I think my favorite little version of her, is the most WCR compliant. A WhistleFrost child found at the Moonpool the day after it was purified. The voice she hears in her head is her Nana Curlfeather arguing with other Dark Forest spirits. Is this Moonpaw going to be a hero? Maybe, maybe not. Multi-Med Cat Arc 9 AU.

Any more canon compliance and I'd make her a corrupted Ashfur/Bristlefrost fusion through Thriftear calling Queen's Rights after her journey during Thriftear's Heart. The Bristlefrost reincarnation absorbed the Ashfur reincarnation to create Moonpaw! She would carry pieces of their memories/personalities inside her, struggling with that, and with her deep connection to the Moonpool that she is growing more and more obsessed with... Reincarnation Arc 9 AU

But... All in all, I'm glad we have such a unique looking Protagonist. I still don't trust the writers, but I'm gonna give them a single point for going absolutely BONKERS with her design in ways that would make 2011 fans whine and scream. Keep going, give these kitties weird features!