#OFFICIALLY ROLL INTO SPOOKY MONTH

[nevermoresart]

you really gonna let this green day emo headass just walk right in???

[savanir]

DP x DC ficlet

is it even a ficlet anymore, this thing has gotten incredibly out of hand...

So a while back I saw this

and I picked the Green Lantern one and then just kinda wrote a full fic so...

It had been a good party, official yes but despite that still festive enough and with just a bittersweet hint. as all good meaningful parties should be like, unless you’re looking to get absolutely shitfaced.

But hey Rowan deserved a proper sendoff for making it to this point and not dying in the process. Hal is going to miss the old pilot though.

"Hal, I got something for you, before I forget"

"Hm, what is it"

The old man puts a small intricate glass model of a f16 fighter in his hand.

"Back when I started I was given this for good luck and protection"

Rowan presses it down firmly and stands there all official like "may it grant you both as it did for me"

They both stand there for a second before laughing.

“Feel free to shelf the whole luck thing, what’s really important is skill and experience. Still, knowing you, you can definitely use the protection ”

Hal grins, "Thanks, I'll keep close"

"You better, the sentimental value is sky high" Rowan slaps his shoulder with another laugh.

Good lord what a dork.

The old retiring pilot wasn't paying attention, too caught up in everything else but Hal saw the faint and brief green hue coming from his hand.

In a panic he slammed his other hand over top. Completely missing the quietly whispered "protect"

Too busy cussing out his ring in his head, he swears that thing is trying to out him on purpose sometimes.

This time it wasn't the ring though, so it's a good thing it's an inanimate object and can't be upset at how wrong Hal is being right now.

"Everything alright?"

"Yeah! Let's get back to the others"

The evening ends uneventfully.

---

It's really only until quite a bit later that things start to happen.

"Green lantern" its batman's business voice.

Both Hal and John look up.

"Jordan" ah shit.

"I'll catch you up later" and he leaves Hal behind, traitor.

"What's up spooky"

"You need to update your file, it is missing critical information, and on that note I wasn’t aware that the lantern suits grant you intangibility now"

"I... what..? It doesn't? What are you talking about spooks"

"Hrn" Batman pulls up a screen and shows him footage of the latest fight, in it you can clearly see something was supposed to hit Hal but went right through him "You're telling me you didn't know or notice this?"

Hal just looks kinda sick. That would have been a bad hit and he just straight up didn't even notice.

Batman just kind of silently looks at him and he must have come to some conclusion because the next thing Hal knows this comes out of his mouth.

"I've already ran your blood through the lab, it's not a sudden emergence of a meta gene so it's either from the lantern corps or you've otherwise externally been affected by something that's causing this"

Hal closes his eyes and internally counts to ten, it doesn't help.

Batman takes his silence to mean he can keep talking. The man is on an unusual roll. Hal would have been ecstatic if he didn't hate the topic quite so much.

"It would have been best if it had something to do with your ring however you seem to be completely unaware and I've also noted that the green of your ring and the green glow that comes with the density shifting are different"

He has examples with corresponding color codes, Hal is so tired.

“let's set a time frame…” Batman pulls up some documents and graph on the screen “seeing as you are unaware of this development I will set the starting point of this potential change as of now to right after the last time you have been known to be hit in a fight and before the first known instance of you being able to density shift, that leaves us with a full month.”

Hal really, really does not want to be here anymore.

“In this month you have not gone off planet so whatever caused this is on Earth” Batman pauses for a moment, “has anything significant happened during that time that springs to mind now?”

“no, nothing significant has happened during that time, frankly it’s been a very pleasant uneventful four weeks in which I finally managed to catch a break and it figures something crazy has apparently happened anyway”

Hal rubs his face with both hands, “but right now I couldn’t tell you what, anyway, does this have to be a bad thing? I for one am very glad that hit didn’t actually land”

“So far only Superman has had the privilege of having sudden emergence of new powers work out for him” Batman huffs, “it would be best to monitor this carefully, if anything springs to mind do not hesitate to inform me, the sooner this is figured out the better”

“awww you do care” Hal is using humor cope, sadly it’s Batman, so it’s not very effective.

“Jordan” now Batman sounds tired, he’s not the one with random surprise density shifting, Hal understand that Spooky’s crippling chronic paranoia must be exhausting but right now he’s the one freaking out considering this is apparently not a meta gene related development, it would have been so much easier if it was, oh and about that, just how and when did Batman get his blood exactly? he would like to know now.

---

sadly he does not get to know now. or anytime soon (or ever). it’s chaos right after, because of course it is.

knocked out of the sky and lying amongst the rubble, if their enemy spots him he’s in bigger shit than he already is, but he can’t fucking move and the next thing he knows he’s invisible.

and there is just nothing enjoyable about it.

Barry doesn’t know that though, “that was something else, just one moment and schwup and you were just gone, some sort of green lantern light bending? he looked right through you, thank god he did too” 

shit shit, “no that was..." it was like he just ceased to exist, movies and books and whatever other media always depicts it as such a cool thing but frankly it was terrifying. And he would prefer things that are terrifying not to happen to him, for obvious reasons, “honestly actually it’s complicated, stealth tech” Grade A bullshit.

“well it’s awesome”

“it was useful just now but not really my style you know” 

Barry slings his arm over Hal’s shoulder and gives him a one armed hug, “everything worked out” Hal can feel some tension flow out of his friend, “well! better get busy cleaning this mess up” and with a blink he’s gone.

Hal does not want to talk about this with Batman, but knowing him, he probably already knows anyway, it would be less of a headache to go to him than have him go to Hal. 

Hal wants to enjoy whatever this is, he really does, but he doesn’t know what caused this, he doesn’t know what triggers the new abilities or whatever they are, he doesn’t know what effects this shit is going to have in the future, he just doesn’t know anything, normally he doesn’t mind not knowing some things, he’s fine leaving the knowing to the people better suited for the more complicated knowing, but he would very much like to know more about this please.

---

Then they face off against an enemy and in the process Hal drains his ring completely and the next hit is going to be bad, so what will happen? Will he somehow go intangible again? Turn invisible and use the confusion to evade and attack?

No

Apparently this time he just gets a glowing green dome shield. Something very normal for him to have and use, if only it came out of his ring that is.

Nobody notices that something is wrong, nobody besides Batman that is.

"That's three new abilities that only appear during life threatening situations"

Hal has actually seriously gone over that month by now, but nothing, no answers. He's physically fine, mentally a little damaged but nothing new there, they all are. Every test he begrudgingly went through answered nothing. He was fine. Whatever was going on actually had nothing to do with him.

And at the same time it had everything to do with him because this is only happening to him.

As usual (by now) he takes out his little glass fighter jet and runs his thumb over the wings. It is soothing strangely enough. Like a stim toy.

"The last thing to try is a thorough examination by someone from the justice league dark"

Hal groans, magic, ok then, "Alright let's get this over with. Who knows maybe I'm just haunted"

It turns out he’s not haunted, this is a good thing... supposedly, Well let’s just say that Hal would have not minded being haunted or something if that meant it could be fixed, or just explained.

It doesn’t really need to be fixed, whatever this is has been very helpful after all, but he would do basically anything for an explanation right about now.

“you are not haunted or otherwise magically compromised, but I do sense faint traces of energy from the infinite realms” Zatanna is a godsent, finally something to work with.

“from the who whats?” Hal is worried, the occult field is definitely not his area of expertise. He's a space cop, not a space demonhunter… oh that would be pretty cool though, with like a hood and twin cyber crossbows, maybe he should incorporate that somehow.

“the infinite realms… have you recently been in touch with any death related realities?”

Well there was that time when he got booted to the death universe and he died and then he was a black lantern but he got better, that’s all very much very behind him.

She better not be about to tell him that stuff still has lingering consequences.

oh god dammit that’s exactly what is going on isn’t it?

"How recently?"

"In the past week?"

"Oh, no" Hal would have known if that was the case, death stuff tends to be hard to ignore.

Zatanna frowns, that's probably not a good sign.

"But you said I'm not compromised right?" Right now what Hal wants to know the most is if this is changing him. Cause it tends to be bad for him when that's the case.

"No this is just lingering traces of something or someone else using their powers near you"

???!!??!?

"What are the infinite realms?" oh hey there Batman, was wondering when you would show up again.

"It's the afterlife, or... more like a collection of all afterlives. The infinite realms is very literal in their naming. It is home to powerful dead entities. As a general rule magic users are discouraged from interacting with it.

"Hrn"

"What did you say happened to you so far Hal?"

"Uhm, density shifting, invisibility and then a green dome-like shield, a lot like my own energy constructs"

"that sounds like pretty standard stuff for a realms being"

"Soooo what, did one leave the afterlife and decide to follow me around or something?"

"I cannot conclusively say, I can only say that you've been close to one using its abilities"

Batman folds his arms over his chest, "We shouldn’t form theories on these findings alone, Zatanna are these realm beings dangerous?"

"Hard to say, they come in all manner of forms, some small and harmless and others on the level of world destroying gods."

Great great great, awesome, well it’s probably safe to say that whatever decided to stick around Hal isn’t small and harmless, cause small and harmless doesn’t sound strong enough to casually turn him intangible or invisible… he could be wrong though.

“I do advise caution, beings from the infinite realms also have the ability to possess someone, they call it overshadowing”

Batman’s lips thin and Hal tenses up, mind control of any kind is always awful.

“I’ll place a ward on you, as a precaution” energy starts to gather in her hands.

Batman moves for the door, “we might need to look into a way to force this being to reveal itself, it would be best if we could convince it to return to their realm”

“Well I mean-” Hal starts, “like I get that, but they have been a great help so far” 

“they are a security risk”

“I’m just saying, I am grateful that they kept me from being confined to the medical wing for who even knows how long, who knows they might just be shy, wouldn’t it be better to convince them to become our ally, like Deadman. instead of telling them to leave. just cause we don’t understand how they work yet doesn’t mean they are bad and should be booted out of our reality”

Batman narrows his eyes at Hal and turns to Zatanna who is finished with placing the ward on Hal, “Zatanna please send me all you have on the infinite realms, I will do my own research” and with that he sweeps out of the room, very dramatic.

“Ass” Hal whispers under his breath.

“He’s worried”

“well he’s being a dick about it, as usual” Hal’s fingers find his little plane once again “... hey do you think they could communicate through one of those oejah boards?”

Zatanna snorts, “it’s Ouija- and please don’t”

---

No information from the JLD has been useful so far in coaxing the realms being to reveal themselves and for the most part things just go on as usual.

“Whoever they are, they followed me when I went off planet and it might just be my imagination but I had a feeling that their stuff was a lot more… potent? out there? I don’t know it was kinda strange, it just felt stronger”

“but they didn’t reveal themselves to you?”

“nope, they must know that I know now too, so they have decided to just… go on as they always have I guess”

“hrn” Batman is leafing through files, because of this whole mess he’s uncovered hidden government organizations targeting occult entities as well as inhumane laws that stand directly opposed to the meta protection acts.

Why is he working with paper regarding this matter? Well it turns out there is a infinite realms being that can possess electronica and it was only because of the protections the JLD had put in place on the Watchtower that the entity didn’t overtake it in its entirety.

Watching Constantine freak out had been mildly entertaining but Zatanna had once again reminded Batman to be very careful, Batman had begrudgingly admitted he had made a slight misstep while digging for answers… in his head, not out loud, god forbid.

“this whole thing is turning out a lot bigger than we thought huh, good thing we are dealing with it now” Hal stretches his arms above his head, “anyway I am going to go grab something to eat”

“the rapport-” Batman doesn’t bother looking at him.

“yeah yeah” Hal doesn’t either while walking out of the room, dismissively flicking his hand, “don’t worry about it spooky”

Hal takes his little plane out on the way to the cafeteria and fiddles with it in his hand, once there he puts it on the table next to Barry before getting himself something to eat.

They catch up, Hal complains (bitches) about Batman, others come and go, Zatanna quickly checks up on the ward she placed which makes Barry raise an eyebrow at Hal, “Ghost protection”

“... no such thing”

Zatanna glares.

Hal can see them both gearing up to start the magic is just science we haven’t fully scienced out yet argument again, “alright! I’m full” he stands up, “if you need me I’ll be writing that rapport, later” and gets the hell out of there.

It’s when he has just reached his preferred spot to work on the boring paperwork stuff when the alarms go off throughout what he can only imagine must probably be the entire Watchtower.

It seems like something triggered all of the JLD’s defenses in one go.

Impressive, but also very worrying.

The rapport is going to have to wait.

People are gathering in the meeting room and Batman is already taking the lead, “status”

“as of a couple minutes ago there was a build up of as of yet unknown energy which then burst in the cafeteria knocking out Flash” Martian Manhunter says, “Zatanna says we are most likely dealing with another being from the infinite realms”

Superman groans, this means he’s out.

It’s a good thing they now have defenses against overshadowing though. Being effectively trapped in a space station (because currently the thing is on lockdown) where literally anyone could suddenly actually be the enemy is the kind of situation a whole slew of horror movies like to be about.

“We will need to be extremely careful while finding and then dealing with this entity”

It has certainly been quite some time since the Watchtower got directly hit like this.

Hal pulls out his little plane.

or, he would, if he still had it.

thoroughly distracted now he suddenly realizes it’s no longer on his person.

Spooky is probably not going to like it if during the infinite realms attacker hunt he takes the opportunity to look around for his missing little fighter jet.

well what he doesn’t know won’t harm him.

His plan of looking for the plane while looking for the ghost is working out well enough.

In fact it is working out so good that he finds both at the same time.

At that point Hal had started wondering if maybe Barry had picked it up for him at the cafeteria before the attack happened and that the little thing was now in the medical wing with him. 

That turned out to clearly not be the case once he found the tiny thing glowing green and floating in the middle of the hallway.

“alright ghosty, that’s really important to me and I would like it back undamaged”

the tiny plane turned to now point directly at him, hmm, yeah that's not creepy at all.

 “... please don’t launch yourself at me” he foolishly says which of course means that’s exactly what it does next.

He uses his ring to construct a net with a pillow inside to catch the tiny jet, completely forgetting that it’s overshadowed and can thus easily just go intangible and right through his creations.

Instead it hits him square in the chest, rather painfully he might add and then just stops glowing and drops, making Hal scramble to not have it fall and shatter in a million tiny pieces on the ground.

immediately all the sensors stop detecting the presence of a realms being and the alarms die down.

Whatever was in the Watchtower has left the building.

or…

Hal looks down at the tiny plane in his hands, his talisman of protection and has a sinking feeling in his gut.

“Hey there little guy, might want to explain yourself?” he says to the tiny jet.

It vibrates in his hands.

“... yeah I figured, shit”

---

“I say just smash the bloody thing and be done with it, preferably that takes care of it once and for all” Constantine glares down at the tiny jet.

Hal is almost halfway over the table to shield the little thing, covering it from Constantine’s sight with his hand, “don’t you dare” he growls.

“it would be best for everyone involved, for all we known you could have gone full liminal what with how long you’ve been carrying the blasted thing around”

Zatanna is going over the little thing with her own magic, “it’s trapped”

“In that case just straight up trying to murder it would be the worst thing to do” Hal glares at Constantine some more. Who clearly doesn’t give a shit, figures, all stressed out about dealing with things from the infinite realms but whenever he feels he has the upper hand he’s more than happy to go full nuclear.

“it would be best if we had a way of figuring out their intentions” Batman looks down at the tiny jet impassively.

“Well, another reason to just carefully release this creature instead” Hal responds.

Zatanna’s magic fades away, “I would say that the fact it’s been protecting Hal for as long as he has it is a positive sign”

“hrn, but now it has gone and knocked Flash out, so what does that say” Batman huffs, “it’s too risky”

“Constantine and I will set up everything we can so it won’t be able to escape or try anything dangerous” Zatanna stops looking at Batman and turns back to the tiny plane, “if it turns out to be malicious we could simply banish it back to the realms, killing it would be rather stupid, we do not know what kind of connections it might have within the realms, we might accidentally anger something far worse with such a rash act”

Constantine groans but accepts Zatanna’s reasoning, Batman nods as well.

It’s only then that Hal moves out of the way.

Any plans of attack or banishment fly right out of the window once the two magic users are done and a young boy manifests from the tiny fighter jet.

Hal pushes Constantine aside to get to the boy’s side.

“Jordan, are you insane! Get back here!” 

“Hey, kid, can you hear me? please open your eyes, slowly, take your time” 

Batman has also moved forward much to Constantine’s frustration. Don't these two morons get that their protections won’t do shit if you just casually stroll into the circle?

Batman is mostly concerned in being able to step in should the boy prove to be a hostile entity anyway, but at the same time… well, that’s a child.

The boy kind of dazedly opens his eyes, looks at Hal and then seems to become aware of his own arms and hands, after opening and closing those a couple times he looks back at Hal and lets out a breath that can only be described as relieved and promptly passes out into him.

Well, Hal figures that settles it then. He doesn’t know shit about looking after a kid, and definitely not one who is probably quite dead, but this one is his, back off Batman.

they all startle rather violently when rings of blinding white light pass over the boy and suddenly the kid in Hal’s arms is a bit warmer and seems to have a sluggish pulse and also his clothes are different and his hair is now black and-

Hal is up and moving towards the medical wing before his mind catches back up with him. He can hear Batman behind him, it seems like Constantine and Zatanna aren’t moving after him as fast.

Well anyway his life is already so goddamn weird, this might as well happen.

[taevbears]

Movie Night

When horror movies don't scare you anymore, your boyfriend wants to figure out what you are afraid of.

⤑ pairing: Jungkook x fem!reader (feat. the Daegu boys) ⤑ genre: horror, mystery, suspense, one-shot ⤑ rating: 18+ ⤑ word count: 6.1k ⤑ warnings: obsessive behavior, stalking, depictions of kidnapping, torture, and multiple murders, hidden camera, non-explicit sex, a bit of angst, open ending. this fic gets pretty dark, so please be cautious of the warnings! ⤑ note: happy halloween! this started as a little spooky shower thought i had a little over a month ago and became this lol. i love reading scary stories, but lmao, i feel like i'm not very good at writing them. thank you @angelicyoongie for assuring me that this isn't as terrible as i think it is. also please note that this is a work of fiction and i don't think IRL jungkook is like the character in this fic at all

“No, please! Don’t hurt me!”

The shadow of a muscular, male figure looms over the female protagonist. His breaths are heavy from chasing her around, barely visible against the chilly, October air. Finally, he has her cornered. He holds up a sharp knife in the air.

The woman trembles on the ground, sobbing and pleading for her life to be spared. Mascara runs down her cheeks, and a look of hopelessness and despair fills her eyes. She holds her hands in front of her in a feeble attempt to defend herself.

The camera pans away as the killer violently stabs the woman. Her terrifying screams of pain and anguish echoes from the TV screen as fake blood splatters on the wall.

Blue and white light bathes over you and your date in the dim living room. You try to suppress a long yawn with the back of your hand.

You’re so bored, you’re practically in tears.

“You didn’t like it?” Jungkook asks you, chuckling at your reaction.

“It didn’t scare me,” you admit sheepishly, hoping he doesn’t get the wrong idea.

You love horror movies. It’s what inspired you to become a film student. You love being on the edge of your seat from the thrill and suspense that the main character acts out. You love being genuinely shocked from unexpected twists and jump-scares. You love a good ghost story that haunts you long after the credits roll, or the paranoia of a similar terrifying incident happening to you.

But perhaps, over time, they’ve lost a bit of their magic.

Although the production of movies has become phenomenal in recent years, movies these days seem to rely too heavily on shock value and nostalgia. Once popular franchises are milking out their legacies to a newer audience. There are so many retellings of the same, old stories that you can already accurately predict what will happen before you reach the ending. Even some of the most climactic scenes of the movie are so over-the-top, they’re almost comical.

Honestly, it has nothing to do with your date or even the so-called horror movie itself. You just don’t scare as easily anymore.

Jungkook peers are you curiously, a boyish grin on his face. “Then, what are you scared of?”

“I don’t know. Probably nothing.”

“Yeah? That’s a bold statement.”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.”

Jungkook laughs. “You have to be scared of something.”

You throw the question back at him. “Then, what are you afraid of?”

He thinks about it, rubbing his chin in thought and pushing his tongue against the lip rings on his mouth. Then, he meets your gaze. There’s a sparkle in his eyes as he smiles at you. “Hmm, I think I’d be scared to lose you.”

You find yourself smiling back at him.

“You’re so sweet, Kook,” you tell him, leaning over to kiss him.

Only recently, you and Jungkook started dating officially, and you really like him a lot. He’s very cute, funny, handsome, and perfect in many ways. Butterflies flutter in your stomach when you’re around him, and there’s still that exciting giddiness and eagerness of new love whenever he messages you or visits you in the evening.

In some ways, Jungkook is almost too good to be true.

Part of you wonders if there’s a catch.

But with his lips on yours, it’s easy to push that thought aside.

Credits roll on the screen as the movie comes to an end. His fingers glide up your thigh as yours tangle into his hair. The cool piercing on his lips presses against your bottom lip as he slips his tongue in your mouth, and a soft moan escapes you.

Suddenly, Jungkook pulls away and faces the TV. He uses the remote to tap out of the movie credits and browse through the list of recommended shows on your streaming service. Casually, trying to hide a teasing smirk, he asks, “How about we watch a different movie, then?”

You stare back at him, a bit stunned and flustered. But your own smile touches your lips.

“Or,” you suggest, grabbing his wrist to lower the remote. He turns away from the screen to look at you, eyes lingering on the sultry smile on your lips. “I know something else we can do instead.”

When you first saw Jungkook, you thought you were being catfished.

His selfie on the dating app included a slight head tilt, a pucker of his pierced lips, and a peace sign. Big, doe-shaped eyes stared back at you from your phone screen, and you noticed the tiny moles below his lip, on the tip of his nose, and on his cheek.

The second picture was of him and his brown doberman, affectionately named Bam. The picture was taken of them outside. One of his hands was holding a tennis ball and the other was gently touching the dog’s long ears. A small, fond smile tugged on your lips when you looked between them and realized that they kind of looked alike.

The third picture was him at the gym. It was a back-shot where he was using the equipment. Broad shoulders, buff arms and back, a tiny waist. You stared way too long at his strong muscles and the ink on his arm before you finally swiped right.

Turned out, much to your surprise, he liked your pictures too. The two of you were a match.

And it wasn’t long until he sent his first message to you. In your inbox, a simple: “hey :)”

On your first date, the two of you agreed to meet at a very public, very crowded bistro. You stood nervously by the building, dressed nice for the occasion. And in case anything went wrong or if this Jungkook guy wasn’t who you expected him to be, you shared your location and had a “send help lol” message on standby for your bestie, Min Yoongi.

As you waited, scrolling through and jumping around different apps on your phone, you found yourself to be surprised yet again.

Someone who looked like the guy you’ve been chatting with called out your name. And soon, he was standing in front of you: big eyes, bigger muscles, tiny beauty marks on his face, colorful ink on his arm, a charming smile, and a simple, “Hey, I’m Jungkook.”

One date turned to a second date. Then, a third. And by the fourth date, as he laid in your bed that night and snuggled close to you, it finally started to sink in that Jungkook wasn’t some figment of your imagination.

He was real, and sweet, and seemed to really like you as well.

Jungkook, like you, had an interest in filming. He especially liked editing videos for his dance challenges, short clips, and a series he called “Golden Closet Film” on his channel. While you imagined yourself to be a big director, working in movie sets, and making scripts come to life with your vision, Jungkook told you he’d like to film a project where you’re the star.

“I don’t think I’m on-screen material,” you replied, amused by the idea. You’re not an actress. You don’t think you have the kind of beauty filmmakers seek out for their lead roles. Hell, if anything, Jungkook would be a better fit for an acting gig.

“You are,” he insisted, brushing his thumb against your knuckles. “To me, you’re perfect.”

You smiled at him then, your heart fluttering by his words. “You are to me, too.”

It was shortly after that conversation when you both decided to date each other exclusively. And it felt like the kind of romance you’d see in the movies. Picture perfect, a little corny at times, and a thrilling whirlwind of laughter, teasing remarks, and intimate touches.

“Am I who you thought I’d be?” Jungkook asks you the next morning after the movie-night bust, propping himself up on the side and peering down on you. His arm flexes, colorful ink decorating it, as the thick comforter wraps around his bare body.

“No,” you confessed, still a bit tired from last night. You keep your eyes closed as you quietly murmur, “You’re even better.”

“Yeah?”

You don’t need to open your eyes to see the pleased look on his face. As you feel him press his lips against your cheek, you ask, “What about me? Am I who you thought I’d be?”

Had you opened your eyes then, perhaps you would’ve seen it. The blank look on his face as he pulls away from you, how the light in his eyes suddenly seems to vanish, as if he isn’t really looking at you anymore.

Jungkook doesn’t answer you right away. When you open your eyes, you see him shaking his head. The same, sweet boyish smile appears on his lips.

“You’re exactly what I’m looking for.”

The topic about exes inevitably came up early on in your relationship with Jungkook. You’ve dated casually before. Even thought you’d be getting somewhere with some of the guys you were talking to.

But none of them quite compared to Kim Taehyung.

You were a film student. He was a photography major. The two of you were bound to end up in some of the same classes together in the art division.

To you, it was love at first sight. You fell for him so hard and so fast.

What started as bumping into each other at the library and helping each other with assignments led to making out at each other’s dorms with the text books left unopened. Coffee dates between classes became anniversary dinners at nice restaurants. He introduced you to his parents, and you proposed going on a romantic getaway together.

The day you didn’t think you’d ever love anyone else was when he snapped a photo of you looking out at the scenery during that weekend trip. It was just you and him, and a natural setting that looked straight out of a movie.

He smiled to himself as he looked at the picture through his camera. That day, he called you his muse.

And in return, you told him that you loved him.

When you fell for Taehyung, you fell hard and fast. Eventually, it occurred to you that Taehyung didn’t do the same.

Sure, he cared about you. Sure, he loved you. But while you heard wedding bells and dreamed about your future with him, Taehyung was just starting to put himself out there in the world. His art was being recognized, and he was getting booked to shoot at weddings, parties, and other big events every week.

Soon, the dates happened less frequently. The romantic gestures of bringing you flowers, surprising you on nice dates or small gifts, or even renting your favorite movies to watch together happened even less. He would promise that he’d make it to a party or an important event to you, just to let you down. And it felt like him giving you a bit of affection or attention was a chore.

Taehyung was the world to you, but the petty arguments and the distance that started growing between you two made it clear to you where his priorities were. And it wasn’t with you.

Breaking up with him was the hardest thing you had to do. Both of you knew it was coming. It was just a matter of who broke up with who first.

Just as Taehyung came into your life, quickly and effortlessly, he was gone. Nothing but bittersweet memories of what once was and what could have been weighed heavily on you for months.

What made it worse was that Taehyung, a man you loved with all your heart, had moved on from you so fast and so easily.

You saw him and his new girlfriend at a mutual friend’s party. You were warned that he’d be there, that he was already seeing someone. But it still hurt like hell to see him happy and in love with another person.

But if Taehyung could move on, so could you.

It felt weird at first, but you started to put yourself out there again. You joined dating apps. You went out with the people that fancied your interest. You met Jungkook.

And from there, everything was history.

With Jungkook, you started to think about Taehyung a lot less. The plaguing “what ifs” have quieted down, and the hurt from heartbreak began to heal. With Jungkook, you started to feel like yourself again: you started to smile more, laugh more loudly, enjoy watching movies again, became passionate about cinematic ideas you’d like to create one day.

With Jungkook, you’re also cautiously optimistic.

Because like Taehyung, you feel yourself falling hard and fast for Jungkook. It’s almost scary how truly perfect he is.

“I think you’re just psyching yourself out,” Yoongi tells you, sliding into the chair opposite of you with two cups of coffee in his hands. He smells like freshly-baked cookies. A spot of flour stains his apron as he uses his fifteen-minute break to hang out with you.

“Maybe,” you sigh, gratefully taking the drink he hands you. “What do you think about him?”

“Does my opinion even matter at this point? You’re in love with him,” he drawls before taking a sip of his Iced Americano.

“Of course it does, best friend. Why else would I keep you around?” you remark, taking a sip of your own drink. “Besides the free coffee and cookies. Thank you, by the way.”

He rolls his eyes. The perks of being friends with the cookie boy at your local bakery is a free cup of coffee and getting dibs on leftover treats that didn’t sell the day.

“He’s fine. Kind of annoying. A little too energetic,” he answers as his eyes flit toward the TV screen that his boss keeps on. A woman dressed in bright, business clothing holds a microphone as she reports on the recent news. There’s a grim look on her face.

You have your back turned to it, but you can hear Yoongi’s boss turning up the volume.

Breaking news. Missing woman found dead near home. The victim has succumbed to multiple stab wounds. It is believed that she has been kidnapped and tortured prior to her violent death. The attacker is currently unknown and still at large. Local authorities advise staying indoors and to please report any suspicious activity.

Your heart sinks as you look over your shoulder, seeing police taping off the crime scene and answering what they can to the news outlets. The location is so close to where you are.

“This is the second victim,” a customer mutters with a frown.

The person they’re with nods their head and asks, “Do you think they’re connected?”

“I don’t know. I hope not. We’ll have a serial killer in our hands.”

“Hey,” Yoongi calls your attention. When you look at him, there’s concern on his face. “If you need a ride anywhere, make sure you call me. Doesn’t matter what time.”

“I’ll be okay, Yoongi. Jungkook usually comes to my place anyway.”

“Still. Just let me know that you’re still alive when I check in, all right?” he says as he stares at the screen. You don’t blame him for being worried. As you follow his gaze, you see a picture of the latest victim of the ongoing case that has the whole town on edge.

This woman, like the others, kind of looks like you.

“If you’re with me, you have nothing to worry about,” Jungkook assures you, throwing a tennis ball as Bam hurriedly chases after it. 

The two of you are at a park with his dobermann. Despite how scary it’s been lately with the news, it’s a nice day. Children are screaming and playing together on the playground as their parents watch them nearby. A group of teenage boys are playing basketball on the outdoor court. Middle-aged and elderly couples are paired up and are getting their daily steps in.

“My hero,” you joke half-heartedly, but you’re still a bit concerned. Yoongi being worried about you makes you feel paranoid.

Jungkook turns to you. He holds out his hand as Bam retrieves the ball and drops it for another throw. “I thought you weren't afraid of anything.”

“Movie-wise, I’m not. But this is different.”

Jungkook throws the slobbery ball again. Further this time as Bam barks happily and takes off. He takes a seat next to you on the park bench. “I can leave Bam with you when I have my evening shifts. He makes a good guard dog.”

He works as an editor and cameraman for a big content creator, which gives him lots of flexible hours to work on his projects when he isn’t busy filming. Since the beginning of autumn, his boss has been giving him evening work to film ghost-hunting videos and other spooky content for Halloween.

“That’ll be nice,” you reply with a small smile. The two of them have been coming to your place so often, it might as well be their second home.

From a short distance, Bam lies on the grass with the tennis ball by his paws. His tongue is out, needing a short break from running around, as he faces you and Jungkook. Even with other dogs and kids around, he’s very well-behaved.

Just as Jungkook tells you that he’ll get Bam, the sound of small, excited barks grab your attention. A familiar black and brown pomeranian approaches you like an old friend, wagging its tail and perking its ears up when it sees you.

Your heart nearly jumps when you recognize the dog.

“Tan!”

You know that voice. How could you not?

That deep, smooth baritone has haunted you for months.

Taehyung, your ex-boyfriend, stops in his tracks when he realizes why his pomeranian took off. The two of you were still together when he adopted Yeontan, and you were there to help raise him when he was still a puppy.

“Who’s this?” Jungkook asks, drawing your attention back to him. He reaches out to pet Yeontan, but the pomeranian growls at him. Almost like he wants to protect you from him.

“Sorry, he’s mine,” Taehyung apologizes, stepping closer to you two and picking his dog up. He looks at you as he tries to soothe the agitated Yeontan in his arms. “It’s been a while. How’ve you been?”

“Good,” you reply politely. Old feelings start to pull on your heart strings that you fervently try to ignore. “I’m good.”

“You look good,” Taehyung starts, but then he purses his lips in regret. It’s obvious that he’s nervous to talk to you. Maybe he feels the same as you.

Softly, you reply, “You do, too.”

“Who’s this?” Jungkook repeats. This time, there’s an annoyed look on his face as he stares at Taehyung. 

It puts you off a bit. Jungkook is usually a friendly guy.

“Oh, this is Taehyung. We used to date,” you tell him honestly. Though, the information seems to just annoy him more. “Taehyung, this is—”

“I’m Jungkook. She’s my girlfriend now.”

His arm snakes around you possessively. He holds a steady gaze, but it’s a look you’ve never seen on him before. Dark, threatening, and angry. It’s almost unnerving.

“I see…” Taehyung trails off as his gaze shifts toward him. Yeontan is still in his arms, growling and barking at Jungkook. You don’t think you’ve ever seen the pup so aggressive toward someone. Even Bam comes over, ditching his ball to guard over you and Jungkook.

“It was nice to see you, Taehyung,” you tell him, sensing the tension in the air and deciding to cut things off. He seems reluctant to leave.

“Yeah…” he continues to trail off, finally pulling his gaze away to look at you. It looks like there’s a million things he wants to say to you. In a lower tone, he tells you, “My number is still the same. If you ever want to talk.”

You frown. After the breakup, you’ve deleted his number and unfollowed him on social media. “Oh, I don’t—”

“Then I’ll call you,” he promises, firm with his decision.

You don’t get it. You and Taehyung have run into each other after the breakup before, and he’s never had an issue with you dating anyone after him. He clearly has moved on, and so have you. 

Why now?

What is it about Jungkook that has him worried for you?

“I don’t like that guy.”

Jungkook is still heated as he drives you home. His grip is tight around the steering wheel, and the tires screech when he makes a sharp turn. Bam stumbles a bit in the back before sticking his head out the window again.

“Slow down, Kook. You have nothing to be worried about.”

The radio blasts in the car, too much in a rush to connect his playlist to the stereo. It’s playing the week’s top music, and a catchy song from a popular artist fills the car.

Curious, you open your phone and check your followers. You’ve unfollowed Taehyung a long time ago on all your social platforms, finding it hard to look at any of his recent pictures – even just his scenic photography – without thinking about how he had once called you his muse.

But Taehyung never unfollowed you. He had always kept his inbox open for you.

“Did you see the way he was looking at me? It’s like he was looking down on me,” he continues to rant, speeding over a yellow light. He glances over at you and sees that you’re distracted with your phone. “I don’t like how you were looking at him either.”

“Are you serious?” you ask, turning your attention to him. “We barely talked. What the hell are you trying to insinuate?”

On the radio, the program is interrupted. One of the hosts makes a grim announcement.

Ladies and gentlemen, we just received unfortunate news that a third body has been found pertaining to a series of brutal deaths. 

“You still love him! You’ll go back and leave me again!” he suddenly snaps, throwing you off guard.

Silence follows the tension.

Then, you inquire, “Again?”

The third victim is a young female. Hair color and eye color match the previous victims as well, indicating that this might be a targeted attack by the killer.

Not once have you been unfaithful to Jungkook. Even when you were starting to message each other, you weren’t talking to anyone else. The two of you haven’t even been dating that long.

“Forget I said anything,” he starts with a frustrated sigh. But he realizes he’s fucked up.

“No, I’m not just going to forget it. What do you mean by that, Jungkook?”

As of now, authorities have no leads on a suspect. All victims have been kidnapped, tied up, and tortured prior to their deaths. We are led to believe that this is the work of a potential serial killer. 

He nearly slams to a stop. The seatbelt around you yanks you back from hitting the dashboard. Bam falls to the floor and you gasp as the back of your head hits your seat.

Jungkook doesn’t answer you, but for the first time, it feels like the rose-tinted glasses you have on him have fallen off. He’s always been perfect to you: sweet, athletic, talented, and kind. But the Jungkook before you is someone completely different.

This Jungkook scares you.

Stay inside. Lock your doors. Call the police if you see anything suspicious. Be safe out there, folks.

“I told you to forget about it, didn’t I?” he asks through gritted teeth and a harsh look in his eye.

You nod your head, hands trembling a bit as you hold onto your vibrating phone. The screen shows an unknown number trying to contact you.

“Is there a reason why your boyfriend called me?” Yoongi asks you from the other line. He has you on face-time, awkwardly propping up the camera to show his elbow as he mixes a batch of cookies.

It’s been about a week since you saw Jungkook.

After he dropped you off at home, he wanted to put it all behind him. He kissed you sweetly and murmured apologies for overreacting as his hands slipped under your shirt. But you sent him home before he could convince you to sleep with him. You were still upset about how hostile he was toward Taehyung, his accusations about you, and what his outburst meant.

That hasn’t stopped him from trying to get back to your good graces, though.

The number of missed calls from him keeps increasing by the hour. Ones that you leave unanswered or send straight to your voicemail. 

You don’t want to talk to him.

At your door, you hear him rapping his knuckles against the wooden frame and insistently ringing at your doorbell. From the other side of the door, he begs for a chance to explain. 

You don’t want to see him.

Clearly, after reaching you directly hasn’t worked, he’s starting to contact your friends.

“He’s probably trying to find me,” you tell Yoongi, poking at a bowl of fresh strawberries. You’re still dressed in your pajamas, sitting on a stool by the kitchen counter.

The sound of a small dog can be heard in the background of your line. It dawns on him that you’re not at your place or Jungkook’s.

Yoongi is silent for a moment. Then, he grabs the phone and asks, “What do you mean? Where are you?”

You don’t feel safe in your own home. And that day, while you were in Jungkook’s car, Taehyung called to check up on you. He was always good at reading people, and he warned you that he had a bad vibe about Jungkook.

And you’re starting to see what he meant.

“I didn’t know where else to go.”

When you turn your phone, you reveal Taehyung busy in the kitchen, cutting off the crusts from his sandwiches. He looks over his shoulder and gives a sheepish smile at the scandalized expression on your best friend’s face. “Hey Yoongi.”

“Can you please explain what’s going on? Why are you at your ex’s?”

So, you do. You tell him that Jungkook wouldn’t leave you alone, that you needed some space to cool off but he wouldn’t let you breathe. It was becoming overbearing and overwhelming.

Against your better judgment, you call Taehyung. He invites you to stay over at his place until you’re ready to talk things out with Jungkook. Because even if you’re not together, he still cares about you. Because a part of him will always love you. And at the time, it seemed like a good idea.

“I didn’t want to be alone, especially with a killer targeting women like me out there,” you explain quietly. It feels like the murders have increased in a shorter period of time. If the town wasn’t on edge before, they certainly are now. “But I was still mad at Jungkook, and he was starting to scare me.”

“So the first person you go to is your ex-boyfriend?”

“There’s nothing going on between us.”

That ship has sailed. You know it has when you walked in and saw his engagement pictures hanging on the wall.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I’m sure he would’ve figured out that I’d be with you,” you tell him with a frown.

“I just wanted to help her, hyung,” Taehyung adds as he stands behind you. “I worry about her too. That guy gives me and Tan a bad feeling.”

Yoongi sighs. “Listen, I don’t think this is a good idea either. You shouldn’t stay with Taehyung. It’ll just make things look a lot worse.”

“I guess you’re right,” you reluctantly agree. Taehyung grimaces, but he can see Yoongi’s point too.

“I’ll pick you up after my shift. You can stay with me until you’re ready to talk to Jungkook,” Yoongi tells you, looking rather serious. “Don’t do anything stupid in the meantime, okay?”

Hey. It’s Jungkook.

You stare at the message on your phone. Three dots that indicate that he’s typing something, but he keeps erasing and re-typing them again. As if he’s trying to properly convey his words.

Are we breaking up?

You stare at that message even longer. It feels childish to break up with him without trying to talk to him. For the first time in a week, you pick up your phone and type back.

You scared me, Kook.

His response is immediate.

I thought you weren’t scared of anything.

You huff when you realize he’s teasing you, even now.

Movie-wise, I’m not. But this. This is different, Kook. You were really scaring me.

Again, you see the dots appear and disappear before a handful of responses appear.

I know, babe. I’m sorry. Can you please come over? I want to show you something I’ve been working on.

You think about it.

I miss you. Bam misses you too.

Yoongi said not to do anything stupid.

Please, baby. We can just watch a movie, if you want.

But, like in every horror movie, the protagonist finds themselves making a plethora of stupid decisions.

Okay, Kook. I’ll come tonight.

Movie nights with Jungkook was one of the things you always looked forward to throughout the week. Nothing appealed to you more than a night-in with your boyfriend, food delivered at your door, and checking out new shows and movies.

You have your list of favorites, but nothing quite holds a place in your heart than a good ol’ horror movie. Tellings of urban legends, supernatural forces, paranormal activities, true crime, and slasher films. 

As you step into Jungkook’s house, it almost feels like you’re in one of those movies.

His place is dark, almost pitched black. You could barely see what’s in front of you.

“Come inside,” Jungkook says, grabbing your hand. He pulls you in and deadbolts the door behind you.

“It’s so dark,” you remark, gingerly stepping forward. You have a bad feeling about this. You almost pull back toward the door, thinking of waiting for Yoongi or going back to Taehyung instead.

But Jungkook has a firm grip on you. “I thought you weren’t afraid of anything.”

“This is different, Kook,” you try to reason. “You’re really freaking me out.”

He pulls you further inside. In the living room, nothing but the TV is on. The screen is paused on a homemade film.

This must be the project that Jungkook is talking about.

Everything is set. The living room is clean, a bowl of popcorn and a couple bottles of alcohol sits on the coffee table, the lights are off, and the show is ready to play. He sits you down in the middle and keeps an arm around you.

“You know, when we met, you were exactly what I was looking for,” he starts as he presses play.

The tape shows you. Bam lying on your lap as you affectionately pet his face and kiss the top of his head. You, holding Jungkook’s hand and leading him down a busy sidewalk. You, in the kitchen, trying to swat his hand away as he steals your ingredients. You and Jungkook, peering into the camera lens, and your bashful face as he kisses your cheek. 

A smile tugs on your lips as you watch yourself on the screen. Jungkook leans over, copying his onscreen self and kisses your face.

One thing you liked about filming is seeing things from a different perspective. In this case, seeing yourself through Jungkook’s eyes. You look so happy, so incredibly in love with him.

Like with Taehyung, you fell for Jungkook hard and fast.

But Jungkook fell for you harder and faster.

Your smile fades as the next scene shows.

The camera points to the bed, and a couple walks in. It’s you and Jungkook, stumbling in together after drinks at a bar. You’re laughing and trying to wrap your arms around him as he leads you onto the bed. The kiss you share is messy, heated. You tug off his clothes to feel more of him.

You remember that night, but…

“Jungkook. When did you record this?”

You had no idea he was filming you then.

You don’t realize it then, but he makes eye contact with the camera, as if to check that it’s on. He maneuvers you to get a good angle of your body as you busy yourself with your own clothes, wanting him to touch you more as well.

“Jungkook, stop. I didn’t—” 

You feel so sick to your stomach.

“Don’t cry, baby. Here, I’ll fast-forward.”

But you don’t want to watch anymore. You want to leave. You shouldn’t have come here.

The screen shows you and Yoongi. The two of you are at the bakery he works at, and you’re wearing an old cardigan that you got rid of . You smile and eagerly reach for one of the coffees in his hands and take the bag of cookies he’s holding between his lips. He rolls his eyes at something you say before he takes his first sip of his Iced Americano. It’s a typical hangout between you and him.

It looks like it was taken across the street. Your heart plummets even further when you realize that the old cardigan you’re wearing was a piece of clothing you got rid of before you met Jungkook.

The scene changes. You’re sitting at the fountain at your university, looking over a script you wrote for an assignment. Taehyung comes to take a seat next to you. He greets you with a boxy smile and a kiss. The two of you were still dating at the time.

How long has Jungkook known about you?

How long has he been targeting you?

It’s you and Taehyung again. This time, it was filmed from the other night. When Taehyung came to pick you up from your house. He helps you carry some of your things into his car and hugs you when he sees the distressed look on your face. 

“Jungkook, what the fuck?”

It dawns on you that you don’t really know your boyfriend at all.

You try to stand up, but Jungkook has a firm hold on you. His grip tightens when you try to resist him, and his hand seizes your neck as he pushes you down. Your heart hammers against your ribs when you quickly realize you can’t escape him. Jungkook is much stronger and faster than you are.

More images flash through the screen. It’s Jungkook this time, taking a mirror-selfie of himself dressed in all black. He has his hood up and a Halloween mask covering his face. 

It cuts to his feet walking across the sidewalk. Carefully, the camera tilts up, showing that there’s a woman just ahead of him. She’s about your height, her hair the same as yours. She doesn’t notice him as she listens to music playing in her earbuds. 

The scene cuts again, and the same woman is bound and gagged on a chair. Fear shines through her eyes as a shadow of a knife reflects from her body. Behind the camera, Jungkook demands, “Say your line.”

He removes the gag from her mouth. Her voice pitches in a high shrill as she quickly says, “I-I love you. I won’t leave you.”

You recognize her as the latest victim of the latest killings.

And the realization hits you like a truck. Jungkook and his night shifts, the increasing deaths, his interest in filming, having you as the star.

“I practiced, you know. I’ll get it right this time,” he tells you, pulling out some rope he had hidden behind the cushion. You’re trembling as he wraps them tightly around your wrist. “I’ll make sure you don’t leave me again.”

“You’re so bad,” the Jungkook on the screen says, showing what looks like an abandoned warehouse. It’s dimly lit, but you can hear someone running from him. But he doesn’t seem worried, his heavy footsteps casually echo across the concrete. In his hand is a sharp and bloody knife. Mockingly, he asks, “Where did you think you’d go?”

The victim has been let go, but she isn’t free. Ahead, she finds herself cornered as Jungkook catches up to her. Terrified, she holds her hands out in front of her, as if that would stop him.

It’s like seeing your own fate on the screen.

The woman begs and screams before her blood splatters across the floor. You find yourself quoting her, staring up at his darkened eyes. “No, please. Don’t hurt me.”

“What’s wrong?” Jungkook asks, staring right at you. His mouth twitches, fighting a smile. “I thought you liked horror movies.”

Thank you for reading ♡ Comments & reviews are greatly appreciated!

[tvwebs]

CRIMSON SMOKE (one-shot)

Warnings: no smut, male reader, goth!reader, might be occ, can be any Deadpool media, smoking

notes;;

• he calls you 'spooky'

• no use of Y/n

• established relationship

• quite short ig

a/n: tried to do a new style

It's been a month since you and Wade became official. You like the guy, you think he's hilarious! And so far, everything is quite nice. Wade is incredibly sweet in his own way- yeah sure the 3AM texts with memes are annoying but you appreciate the thought.

Tonight you were sitting at your usual hang out place, the local cemetery, you know this looks bad but it's calming and to know that these people had hopes, dreams, a life. It's sad but..somehow it's nice to think about (somewhat cause that's just plain creepy) but of course Wade doesn't get it.

He disturbs your philosophy thinking with smoking time with his voice. "Y'know if I knew sooner that you were into these type of places I would've called you on a date for a movie night, the movie would be ghost busters." He teased as he breaks the silence, his tone was laced with affection and somewhat sarcasm. He strolls up to your signature spot and sits beside you under that tree you really like- you roll your eyes the comment he made.

You look at him to continue the sudden conversation he started. "Well, I guess it's just me that's a bit freaky huh?" Wait that came out wrong. Your expression now expressing that cringed confusion. Wade finds it funny though (someone please take internet slang away from him)

"don't worry, bae" we match each other's freak quite nicely." Somebody stop him. You cringe at that while holding your cigarette between your fingers, Wade chuckles. "You're quite weird Wade." And you respect that. Despite Wades childish, dirty minded, idiotic antics you find comfort in just being with him, talking to him. It was calming more than anything

"never thought I would've seen you right back here again Spooky." He said as he jokingly called you 'spooky' he says it's a replacement for 'pookie'

"of course I am, I thought you liked my whole goth style." You teased a bit before taking a huff on your cigarette, Wade might've just gained another bone right there and there.

He responds with "Oh I do babe, I think that it's funny that you're playing into it. Your practically an old 2010s cartoon goth!" He joked without any ill intend. 'huh, guess I am practically one huh?' you think to yourself. You think of a comeback to his comment.

"well- at least I'm not some edgy ninja oc." You said trying to act cool, not working and plus that comeback was WEAK. Wade laughs at you.

"you gotta try harder then that spooky~!" He teased. He pokes your cheek teasingly as you're embarrassed by it. You push him away, making him land on the floor.

"Ow, but how forward of you!" He said happily. "But in all seriousness babe, I find your goth aesthetic really hot. I've gotta hand it to ya, you really are committed to this goth thingy, I mean it's straight out of a tim Burton dream..but sexier." You raise your eye brow at him

"what?"

"you're hot."

You roll your eyes at him, AGAIN. He's ridiculous, an idiot even. He moves closer to you and puts his arm around you romantically. "This is such a cool concept fic.." he commented against the authors will. You look at him confused, he's always on something.

You pull out your cigarette box and get a cig. "You wanna..?" You asked patiently at Wade. He stares at you for a moment, before tugging a smirk in the corner.

"Trying to corrupt me emo prince?" Ugh you hate it when he calls you that. "Oh the shame, you are promoting smoking..don't do what they do guys." You look at him annoyed and confused.

"you could've just said, no." He chuckles at your comment. You ignore that chuckle and just start smoking a new cig, Wade just admires you, your expression, your makeup, your outfit, basically everything. You leaned your head onto his shoulder a little tired.

"tired, spooky?" He asked teasingly you respond with a 'uh-huh' causing him to smile a bit under that mask. He pulls you into his chest and he starts caressing your head "yeah..that's what happens when you're awake at 3am and go to the graveyard." He sarcastically says and you groan in annoyance and tiredness

"so where do you wanna sleep tonight? My place or your place?" He asked curiously, you just shrug as you rub your eyes.

"what's closer, I guess.." you respond.

"So my place then?" He said with a smug smirk under his stupid mask. He pulls away your cigarette, and just kisses your forehead under the mask.

[leafofkudzu]

Happy Halloween, everyone! The first Saturday of November is next week, which means it's time for another art party hosted by my guild, [VS] Verdant Shield! And, since that's also the last Saturday of GW2's Halloween celebrations, let's combine the two into our first official themed party!

The theme for November's [VS] Art Party will be Halloween! Bring your spooky best, be that a costume for a 'normal' character, or an existing character who already fits the theme!

For those who aren't familiar with art parties, they're a concept carried over from Final Fantasy XIV - in-game get-togethers for artists/writers/creatives of all types to hang out, chat, and create together! Grab your character of choice and head to the location, find someone who catches your eye, and create! Afterwards, everyone posts their creations in a shared tag (ours is #VSArtParty) so others can see, interact, and share! Tl;dr: the ‘goal’ of an art party isn’t to be drawn, but to draw others, and share with the community!

I'm putting this above the cut this time for emphasis: please note that due to EU rolling their clocks back a week before NA does, this month's party will NOT have the usual 1hr space in between, and for those in NA who will be attending the EU party, it will be one hour LATER than usual because of this. Otherwise, if you're only attending one party, things should happen at the same time that you're already accustomed to! Thanks for your understanding!

Now, as always, details and /squadjoin info below the cut!

Location Details:

I had to fight myself to not put it in Lion's Arch, but since I do still want to have it in a Halloweeny setting, we'll be using the small Halloween display in Queensdale as our staging area! Simply head to the Village of Shaemoor Waypoint, mosey a smidge southwest, and you're there!

Time & Squad Details:

As we usually do, we'll be having two parties - one on EU servers and one on NA ones. However, as was mentioned before the cut, since EU will be rolling their time back a week before NA, we'll be forgoing the hour-long break in between to ensure that both parties happen at their usual respective times. This may lead to some awkward transitions from one to the other, but even if I'm not at the NA party yet, feel free to start setting up shop without me and I'll join you as soon as I can!

The first party will be on EU servers and begin at 9pm Central European Time (aka 4pm Eastern Daylight Time or 4 hours before in-game reset). I’ll be hosting on my EU alt account, so to join either /squadjoin or whisper Runa Gravemourn for an invite.

The second party will be on NA servers and begin at 7pm Eastern Daylight Time (aka 12am Central European Time or 1 hour before in-game reset). This one I’ll be hosting on my main account, so to join either /squadjoin or whisper Shrouded Horror for an invite.

Closing Words:

Going forward, should an art party overlap with an in-game festival, it'll probably be safe to assume that another themed party will pop up, just to shake things up a bit. This means we might see a Wintersday themed one in the next few months, hmmm....

But anyway! To anyone who has or will come out to these events, thank you so much for making them so special and fun! These events are all about you guys, and even though I don't chatter much during them I'm always glad to be around to help organize the chaos. Here's to another memorable party - I'll see you gets next week! ♥

[yakool-foolio]

I think by the time Oct 1st rolls around Rain Code will get more popular due to having to more ports to play on in the west

The magic 8 ball says 'most likely'! The official English release of the PC n console ports should help give Rain Code the boost it needs. Not everyone has Switches, and certainly not everyone who owns a Switch wants to also buy an expensive capture card to record and/or stream the game on a PC/laptop. The greater the accessibility, the further the word spreads. Here's to another grand spooky month this year.

[kataang-week]

Katara and Aang sprites from Distant Horizon. Graphic created by Mod Belle @itsmoonpeaches.

Happy ✨spooky✨ season!

It's October, so it's officially the month Kataang Halloween will be! From October 31 to November 2, join us in a mini "choose your own adventure" Halloween-themed Kataang event.

Check out the main Kataang Halloween post linked here for all the prompts, guidelines, rules, and even a prompt roll generator!

This month, get your creative ideas ready for this special event, and most of all have a lot of fun!

As always, our ask box is open for any questions you might have about the event.

-The Mods

[letmebehuman16]

Dear Diary.

Amid nightly storms only they can hear, a narrator chronicles a decent into fear and paranoia. Stalked by eerie figures, and strange events that haunt their daily life. What begins as as a personal diary, quickly turns into a disturbing list of events, documentation of the unexplainable.

(this is an ongoing project.)

27/10/2006

Dear Diary,

It happened again. This is the fifth night in a row that I’ve been caught in an unexpected thunderstorm. Every night, right at midnight, the sky comes to life, jolting me awake with insanely loud thunder. 

What’s so strange is that it doesn’t last long—exactly 10 minutes. Just enough time to make me question reality. No one else seems to experience it. I’ve asked around, but no one mentions waking up or even hearing anything unusual. It’s as if the storms are meant only for me.

Despite the oddness, I’ve found comfort in them. Every night, I’ve been making myself fancy hot chocolates, piled high with whipped cream and marshmallows, sitting by the window and watching the flashes of lightning dance across the sky. The rain taps gently against the glass, and the thunder rolls in the distance—it's a strange sort of calm. There’s something almost intimate about it, like a secret ritual between me and the storm.

As for everything else, things are... well, usual, I suppose. Austen and Ruby broke up, which isn’t surprising. My dog died, which has left an emptiness in the house that I haven’t quite processed yet. And my mother—well, she’s still as crazy as ever. A few months ago, I caught her having a full-on conversation with a betta fish. She swore the fish answered her back. Then, just a few days later, she was convinced the TV was talking to her, giving her life advice. I really need to call her therapist.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

31/10/2006

I’ve been absent the last few days, and I’m sorry about that, but I have a lot to report.

Something... strange happened last night. It was during one of those thunderstorms again, but this time, there was no rain. No clouds, either. The thunder cracked through the sky, and the lightning flashed as brightly as ever, but when I looked outside—nothing. Just the clear, starry sky. How can there be thunder without a storm? Lightning without clouds? Maybe there’s a scientific explanation, but it felt wrong. Unnatural, even. The storm still began at midnight, exactly like before, but this time it left me feeling unsettled.

Something else strange happened. On my way home from work, I noticed a man standing just outside my house, lurking in the shadows of the tree line. I acted like I didn’t see him—I mean, what could I do? I live in the middle of nowhere. The nearest neighbour is a ten-minute drive down a desolate road, and I’m certainly not running that far in the dark. I couldn’t make out his face or what he was wearing, and I didn’t want to linger long enough to figure it out. My gut told me to lock the doors and windows, so I did.

I’ve been telling myself that maybe he was just some random guy passing by, or maybe he wasn’t even looking at my house. People stare off into space all the time when they’re bored. Right? But a part of me can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched. Maybe I should buy a rape alarm. Or make some pepper spray. I haven’t looked out the window since. What if he sees me? 

On another note, I called my mum’s therapist today. She assured me she’d arrange to see her soon, but let’s be real—my mother is unpredictable, and her therapist isn’t exactly a beacon of stability either. The irony is almost laughable. A woman who makes a living by giving advice, but can’t seem to follow her own. How does that even work? It’s absurd. Honestly, she’s just as much of a mess as my mum is, which makes me wonder... is there any hope at all? 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4/11/2006

Happy November! Spooky season is officially behind us. November always felt like a filler month to me. Not much happens, and the days seem to drag. At least the air is crisp and the surplus of rain feels like a prelude to winter. It’s all fine, except I think I’m coming down with something. My head feels like it’s being split in half, and I’ve been coughing non-stop. Of course, just as the thunderstorms stop, I get sick. Sleeping’s going to be a nightmare. Again.

The man outside my house hasn’t shown up since, which is a relief. I was probably overreacting—he was likely just waiting for someone or taking a shortcut. Who knows. 

Speaking of weird, Ruby’s birthday is coming up soon. I have no idea what to get her. Maybe I should buy her a self-help guide on relationships. She could definitely use it. Austen’s the fifth guy she’s been with this year alone, and to be honest, her taste is... questionable. The last guy she dated before Austen actually tried to get her to dress like his ex. Who does that? Insane, right? But Ruby didn’t see the red flags at the time. She was happy, and no matter how much I tried to tell her it was unhealthy, it was like talking to a brick wall. She’ll figure it out one day, I hope. 

Maybe I’ll just get her some flowers. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

10/11/2006

Rubys birthday was really fun! We went to this local bar in town and got absolutely hammered. I had to call in sick for work because I was so hungover, but it was worth it. I ended up getting her a bunch of roses and a CD from her favourite band, Muse. She was really happy with it. 

My cold has gotten worse, though, that may be because I was drinking, but that was 4 days ago. Today I've had this strange fever that won't go down. Working with a fever isn't fun-- I don't recommend it. It got easier to deal with as the day went on, and right now it's not so bad, but it still sucks, ibuprofen has been my best friend for the past few days. It should get better soon. 

---------

Mum was hospitalised today, something to do with her mental capacity. I don't really know what's going on with her, but her therapist called me 5 minutes ago to tell me that she had to section her. I’m planning to visit soon, hopefully I can get some answers. My mums always been strange, but she's never been a risk to herself. It's worrying and I can't help but feel guilty, what if she's just lonely? I've been too caught up in my own mess to even see her. 

I need to do better.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

21/11/2006

I went to see mum today and as I am writing this I'm fighting the urge to break down into tears. She was completely unresponsive and muttering to herself, I don't think she even knew I was there and I sat in front of her the entire time. I was shocked at how fragile she looked, skin and bone, bags under her eyes like she hadn't slept for weeks, her hair was thin and straw-like and her eyes were bloodshot. She was staring through me the entire time, completely unaware of her situation. I guess that's a good thing, mental hospitals are a terrifying place to be, but at least she has care now. 

As for the strange and unusual, not much has happened. Though, I had a suspicion I was being followed a few days ago-- even though there was nothing there, I just couldn't shake the weird feeling I got, the type of feeling you get when you're in serious danger, my palms were covered in a cold sweat, my heart was racing, I kept looking over my shoulder. I feel like I’ve just been stressed, work, my mum, it's a lot to deal with and I’ve not been sleeping because this cold still hasn't shifted. I just need a good night's sleep and a day doing nothing. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1/12/2006

I completely forgot this even existed.

 I did not manage to get a day to myself, or a good night sleep. It was definitely wishful thinking on my part, but hey! It's Christmas time. It started to snow around the 27th and now it's been consistent. My door was blocked by snow and I couldn't get my car out of the drive for an hour. It was a struggle. 

Work is going… somewhere, Christmas has made everything busier and honestly it's becoming difficult to even move around the shop floor. Not to mention I have been forced to listen to Mariah Cary every day for the past week. I'm getting sick of her voice. 

Ruby's family invited me over for Christmas. Which was really nice of them, but I also don’t want to feel like a bother.

I'm still sick and haven't had a decent night sleep in a while. I must've had a nose bleed during the night because my pillow was completely stained, and I still feel weird. I asked work to reduce my hours so I'm not working when it gets dark, and I'm driving everywhere. I don't know why I'm feeling so off. I'm certain something is going on, but anytime I manage to think of reasons my mind goes blank. I'm so tired. 

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Vast!Jon AU and Archivist!Sasha snippet

Sasha is about to take a statement about Mister Spider.

Sasha has only been Archivist for a couple of years. She thinks she's just getting an interesting story.

Sasha does not know what's about to happen.

(AKA: And YOU get some trauma and YOU get some trauma!)

---------------

“Statement of Jonathan Sims, regarding the creation of the photograph most commonly called the ‘spider leg illusion,’ taken… when?”

“Oh, uh - July 15th, 1995.”

“Statement taken direct from subject, February 6th, 2016. Now, Jon - I know it’s been a while, but I’d really appreciate it if you’d tell me what happened on that day.”

Jon was going to tell her the official story.

After all, everyone knew it - it was part of his biography. 

It’s why he started taking photographs.

He’d been eight years old. A local bully had been murdered in front of him - some drug deal gone wrong, they said. And needing to make sense of it, needing to find a lens through which he could feel more in control, little Jon had stolen his grandmother’s 35mm camera, went back to the crime scene, and taken forty-six photos. 

Each roll of film could take twenty-four shots. He’d had to replace the roll, somehow figuring out how to do it without exposing or ruining anything.

Why not a full forty-eight? the police had asked him later, because he’d left two shots untaken. 

Because I was done, and didn’t want to be wasteful, he’d told them with grave solemnity, and between that bit of unintentional cuteness and the evidence he accidentally collected, he made the papers.

The photos - which his grandmother had developed out of raw curiosity - led to the arrest of three people, drug dealers, who went down for the murder of Darren Case, the bully.

But that wasn’t actually how it happened.

At all.

Jon opens his mouth to tell the lie.

And what comes out is not.

#

Eight years old.

A book.

A spooky, weird book.

Mister Spider, and some kind of mind control, and bruising (every day, bruising, but that was just life until Martin stepped in), and then his bully being mind-controlled, and those legs coming out of the house to take the bully away, and -

And Jon returning to the house, finding it again because he needed to see, and the door opening, and the legs coming out, the legs coming out, the legs coming out -

Almost as if showing off for him, or just saying hi, or taunting him because it could have eaten him and didn’t, or - 

One picture came out with those legs, just one, even though he’d taken forty-six, and it is the clearest one, absolutely crystal, with a clarity that seemed to go beyond what his grandmother’s camera could do, but that makes sense to Jon because that is what he saw.

Jon has always been able to photograph what he saw.

And nobody took that spider-leg thing seriously because what the fuck, because the important photos were the ones with drug-dealer faces in the windows and going in and out of the house and hiding Darren's body, and it’s not like photo manipulation of some kind hadn’t existed in the 90s, but Jon had no access to it, so it was a fluke, or double-exposure, or something weird.

Jon had insisted the spider photo was real for two months until he gave up trying to make anyone believe him.

His grandmother kept it.

And it had burned in the house fire that took his grandmother away.

He thought.

Somehow, apparently… it hadn’t.

#

And Jon is gasping, and Jon is crying, and Jon has relived this terrible moment as if he were there all over again.

He hadn’t had time to make the connection, but now, he has: You have been marked by the Web, said Elias Bouchard, who’d asked him for the story and did not get it, because Jon did not want to talk about it, but Jon couldn't do that with Sasha, no he could not, and now that it's all over, he cries out and covers his face.

Sasha can’t - 

She hasn’t ever - 

She has no words for what just happened.

She was there.

Lived it as young Jon Sims, feels bruised where the bully pushed her, feel damaged where she saw the spider-legs and has no explanation, feels betrayed as she is not believed even though she knows what she saw and has to deny it and has to hide it and has to force herself to pretend it wasn’t real -

Himself. Not herself. This was Jon’s actual experience, not hers.

Sasha is panting.

“What…” she says, weak.

“I… I don’t…” Jon says, weak. “What did you do?”

Sasha looks terrified. “I don’t know.”

He swallows. “Eye stuff. It’s got to be.”

“What?” she says, completely lost.

Jon is suddenly angry for her.

Elias hasn’t told her anything, and this is Martin’s friend. 

She’s nice. 

She believes him.

Wait. “You believe me?”

“Of course I do,” she says.

He’s very angry for her. 

Jon is leaning in, too close, like he has no sense of personal space. “Sasha. Do you know what Elias is?”

She stares at him.

“What this place is?” he says, and now, he can see.

She is marked, too.

Marked by the Eye.

He can see it as clear as day, beautiful, like a gentle staining of her veins, all the way through and so intricate and so intimate it could never be removed.

“Wow,” he whispers, reaching for his camera.

Sasha grips the table suddenly as though she thinks she’s going to fall. “Why are there stars in your eyes?”

Jon breaks eye-contact.

Sasha sways in her seat. She’s breathing fast, and her eyes are very wide.

"You," she manages, and sways in her seat again like the room is spinning.

He sees it.

Sees another mark, patterning alongside the Eye, not nearly as deeply, but very much there, and he knows he did that.

He just did it right now, completely by accident, sending her soul into the sky or however this works, and before he can melt down in horror, a rush of warm, pleased energy comes flushing through him, unplanned.

He inhales, for just one second utterly blissed out, unable to parse what he’s feeling.

By some great stroke of luck, she didn’t see him react to that. “Could you - I don’t mean to be rude, but could you leave?” says Sasha. “I need a minute. I’ll catch up with you, I promise, I’m not trying to be a bitch, I….”

He’s hurt her.

Shame comes rushing right in after that weird pleasure. “Oh, no,” he whispers. “Sasha, I’m - ”

“Do I really need to ask you again?” she snaps, shaking.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, and then he flees.

[ylove-bandaesthetics]

Reminder you guys that I have decided to extend trick & treat aesthetics to the first week of November because…why tf not?? Lol we all spooky peeps here! So they will officially be closed next Thursday! Then we shall go back to regular aesthetic requests and then when December rolls by we are going to get into the Christmas month spirit which I can’t freakin wait for! 🙌🏼🖤💃🏻

[miss-andromeda]

Whispers to Talking, Talking to Screams (Halloween Special)

Universe: TMNT 2012

Turtle of Choice: (Romantic) Donatello, (Platonic) Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo (special guest appearances by April and Casey)

Prompt: “How many of those did you take?”

Song Inspiration: Wonderland (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift

This is obviously non-canon - as it’s a Halloween special! Happy Halloween, y’all, and hope you enjoy a glimpse into my take on a spooky tale 😌🩷

And side note! I will be referencing characters and plot devices from another oneshot written months ago, called Even In Your Wildest Dreams, so if you want to, go read that first!

~

“C’mon, D, please?” Mikey’s incessant begging reverberated across the lair, making both Leo and Raph roll their eyes in frustration. The youngest had been begging and pleading for the better part of two hours, and of course, it wasn’t working.

“For the 50th time, Mikey, no!” Donnie scolded him as he fixed his steampunk costume. “I’m Andi’s plus-one to her friend’s costume party, so I’m not even able to bring you if I wanted to. And furthermore, you don’t have a watch yet, and I’m not about to explain to her friends why there’s a turtle at the party.”

Mikey huffed as he angrily watched Donnie use his human watch, changing him into the same awkward geek that he changed into months before. “Bro, that’s not fair! How come you get to go to a rockin’ Halloween party? You know I’m the life of the party!”

“You’re also the most annoying.” Donnie muttered to himself, before shaking his head at his brother. “Look, I’m not about to argue with you. I’ve got to go pick up Andi.” He finished, walking quickly past Mikey. “I’ll be back by midnight, guys! And I’ve got my tPhone, call me if an emergency comes up!”

He was met with a flurry of reactions: “Tell Andi we say hi” from Leo, “Try not to get beat up” from Raph, and another groan from Mikey.

He was about to respond to all three of them when he heard his tPhone go off – and when he heard the opening chords of “Close Call,” he grinned as he checked the message Andi sent him. 

Or rather, the picture she sent. 

And he just about lost his breath when he saw her in her matching steampunk costume, with a full face of makeup and a teasing smile on her face.

Her message was simple: ‘Still going with me to Danica’s party?’

With shaky hands and a crimson face, Donnie hastily typed back, ‘Of course! Though you may steal the show with how beautiful you look 😍’

He could practically see the blush on her face when she responded, ‘Aw, Don 🥰  When should I expect you, sweet talker?’

‘Say around 7?’

‘Perfect! I’ll see you soon then. I love you 🩷🩷’

Donnie couldn’t help but smile more at her message. ‘Love you more, hon 💜💜’

----------

Their laughter echoed throughout the tunnels as Andi was being given a piggyback ride and she held her boots in her hands. “I cannot believe that you actually won against Kevin for best costume. Normally he’s got that locked down.” She commented, then left a little kiss on his cheek - then chuckled when she left a lipstick print on the spot she kissed.

“Does that mean I’m officially invited back for next year?” Donnie smiled at her, making her roll her eyes and nod, smiling back. 

“As long as we’re still together next year, of course you are.”

“So you think we won’t be together next year?” At the question, he feigned like he was about to drop her, making her yelp and latch onto her shoulders. 

“No, I just-” She then groaned and rested her head against his shoulder. “That’s not what I meant.”

He only laughed in response as he tightened his grip on her. “You’re cute when you’re exasperated.”

Andi rolled her eyes again, but a smile flickered back onto her face. “And you’re lucky you’re cute, or I would’ve socked you in the shoulder.”

“Sure you would.” He reached into his coat pocket and took out some caramel chews, handing two to Andi before asking if she could unwrap one and feed it to him. 

“How many of those did you take? You’ve had, like, 20 this evening.” She teased him, her voice slightly muffled by the candy.

He was about to respond (likely with something snarky,) when they finally entered the lair…

…only to be met with darkness and no noise whatsoever.

“Huh, that’s weird.” Andi mumbled after swallowing the candy, before hopping off Donnie’s back and looking around for anyone. “Hello? Leo? Mikey? Raphie? Master Splinter?” She called out, and when she was given no response, she frowned and turned to her boyfriend. “Was the power giving you trouble when you left?”

Donnie only shook his head as he searched blindly for the light switch. When his fingers grazed it, though, he smiled to himself and switched it back on. And when the lights were back, everything looked completely normal. The throw pillows on the couch were still in the same position as before, the TV was switched off, Mikey’s video game controllers were strewn across the floor (as usual,) and nothing looked out of the ordinary. 

“Maybe Mikey thought it was a good idea to get us by turning off the lights when we came back.” Andi surmised, rolling her eyes. “Was he giving you trouble when you were getting ready?”

“Yep. I estimated 50 times that he begged me to let him join us.”

“Typical Mikey.” Andi mumbled under her breath, but shook her head. “Maybe next year I can ask Danica for one extra invitation for him, if he really wanted to go that badly.”

“Honestly, that’s your best bet.” Donnie agreed, nodding his head. “Especially considering-” 

He was interrupted by faint whispers, so soft that you had to basically listen to the wind to hear it.

“Do you hear that?” He whispered to Andi, who only stared in confusion at his whispering. 

“Hear-” She spoke in a normal voice before Donnie shushed her, then gestured to his ears to pantomime her listening closer. 

‘Go to the lab. Go to the lab.’

“ Who’s whispering that? And what do they mean, ‘go to the lab’?” Andi whispered to him, her eyes widening. 

“I don’t know, but stay here. I don’t want you getting hurt.” Donnie told her softly, his normally soft and gentle look to her being replaced by a protective, steely one. This always happened when he worried that she would be in danger; the last thing that he ever wanted, under any circumstances was for her to be in the line of fire. 

But he knew Andi, and he knew that by the panicked look in her eye and her frantically shaking her head that he didn’t convince her. “Are you crazy?!” She whispered, her eyes becoming more fearful. “I’m not gonna let you get hurt either! Either we both go or neither of us do.”

Donnie let out a slightly exasperated sigh; when she was this fearful (or just emotional in general,) there was no changing her mind. And he really wanted to figure out where his brothers were…

“Okay. But stay by me.” He softly commanded, and he had to admit, the vice-like grip she had on his arm pained him. Literally and figuratively. 

He tentatively walked the two of them to the lab, Andi’s grip never letting go of him. Normally, he liked being her knight in shining armor…but when she was this scared (and admittedly, he was starting to get worried too,) his white-knight tendencies when it came to her left the building.

He just hoped that whatever was calling for them wasn’t…that awful. 

When they got to the lab, it was the same scene; lights were off, but other than that, nothing looked too out of the ordinary. Except…when the voices realized they had visitors, they changed their commands. 

‘Turn on the lights. Turn on the lights.’

Still fearful, Andi fumbled for the light switch - and when she found it and switched it on, her heart fell into her shoes at the sight as she started to sob. 

“NO! APRIL!”

There she was…her best friend, slumped over Donnie’s keyboard, and blood spilling from her stomach and onto the floor.

Upon noticing what happened, Donnie gasped (and felt tears blur his vision as well) and grabbed Andi, pulling her from the gruesome sight and into his plastron, cradling her head against him and softly urging her not to look. 

“W-Who could do this to her?” She whispered, her tone sounding disheveled and heartbroken. “S-She didn’t do anything…”

Donnie shook his head, furiously wiping away his own tears as he leaned in to weakly kiss her forehead. He then looked back at the scene - but rather focus on April, he noticed the crimson writing that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

What scared him wasn’t just the message, it was the fact that it looked like it was made out of April’s blood.

 ���What the…” Donnie breathed, horrified at the thought, as he tried to read the message through the messy scrawl. “See…what? O-Oh, um…’see what happens when you ignore me’…t-that’s weird. Why would they write something so specific?”

Andi’s eyes widened as she listened to the message; when she turned around to read it for herself, she gasped at the realization. “Wait…how did they know about me having to cancel my plans with April?” She asked aloud. “O-Only me and her know about that-”

She was interrupted when she heard Donnie screaming in fear and, making her whip around and see him being dragged off into…the shadows. “Don! NO!” She screamed in panic, desperately trying to grab his hand and pull him back to her. However, despite her best efforts, the invisible force fighting her won, and she had to watch her boyfriend disappear into the abyss. 

That made her fall to her knees in panic, crying and holding her head in the process. “Why are you doing this?! First my best friend and now my boyfriend - w-what did I do to deserve this?!” She screamed at nothing in particular. “And who are you anyway?!”

She was ignored, though, as the voices started to get louder and louder. But they only repeated one word:

‘Ignored. Ignored. Ignored. Ignored. Ignored.’

“Leave me alone! Please!” Andi screamed again, curling in on herself. “I promise, I’ll never do anything even remotely bad again! Just give me my friends back and leave me alone! I’m begging you!”

‘Next. Next. Next. Next. Next.’

Andi’s eyes widened at that - that could only mean one thing. 

She was grateful that Splinter had been training her to hear footsteps - though it helped that when she was this on edge, she was always hypervigilant.

So when she heard a set of footsteps getting louder and closer to her, she did the only thing that seemed rational to her.

She spun around and punched the would-be assailant in the face, hard enough to knock them out.

But then she noticed who it was once she ripped off the mask.

“Casey?!”

That’s when she was met with three things; raucous laughter, Donnie rushing to her to make sure she was okay, and the lights turning back on. 

“We got you so good!” Mikey cheered, high-fiving a still laughing Raph and a proud Leo. “That might’ve been the best prank ever!”

“P…Prank?” Upon hearing that, Andi’s adrenaline drained as quickly as it emerged, and before she could yell at the boys for such a joke, her eyes crossed and she keeled over, fainting in Donnie’s arms. 

The last thing she could make out was her boyfriend berating them for making her faint before everything faded to black.

----------

She woke up in a familiar place. It was a bit rigid, but nothing she wasn’t used to. It reminded her of the first time she and Donnie met - this was where they had their second conversation. 

She was in the lab, on the little cot in the corner.

“Don?” Andi weakly called out, grunting as she held her head.

As if by magic, he appeared, stroking her hair and looking at her with the most sincere and gentle expression she had seen in a long time. “Hey, you. How’re you feeling?”

Andi managed a weak smile as she tugged him closer. “Okay, I guess. I think I just fainted from how much whiplash I got finding out that was a prank. A really sick one.”

Donnie nodded in understanding, leaning in to kiss her forehead again. “That’s understandable.” He then sighed and shook his head as he sat next to her. “I think I figured out why that even happened. Mikey was mad because he wanted to go with us to that party, so to get revenge, he enlisted everyone’s help to give us a scare. April joined because she figured you wouldn’t get as freaked out as you have, and Casey, the genius he is, thought it would be a good idea to scare you silly.”

Andi rolled her eyes, then closed them as she leaned against him. “That clears that up then…but still, that was a bit far, even for Mikey.” But then her eyes opened again as a mischievous smirk crept onto her face. 

An idea.

“But…it’s not entirely too far for me.” She surmised. “And you do realize this means war, right? I mean, we can’t let them get away with pranking us that badly and letting them feel victorious.” When she saw a little smirk threatening to come out on Donnie’s face, she smirked more as she leaned up to kiss his cheek. “What say you, professor? Shall we get some revenge?”

Finally, Donnie cracked; a smirk appeared on his face as he nodded, giving her a proper kiss on her lips. Once he pulled away, he leaned his forehead against hers. “We shall, enchantress. Let’s scare them so badly that they’ll jump at their own shadows. After all…as you said, darling, this means war.”

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Happy Halloween, my lovely friends 🩷🧡

@post-apocalyptic-daydream @leosgirl82 @thelaundrybitch @tinkabelle19 @kikithedreamerwriter @jasminarts01 @android-cap-007 @happymoonangel @margoteve @raphsmuneca

[velkynkarma]

I’ve been rereading Parallel by Proxy recently (just got an ao3 account and immediately made it the first series I bookmarked), and it occurred to me that we never see the actual moment the team and Ryou find out he’s a clone— we get a description of it when Shiro is waking up from the coma, but it starts in media res after that. Im curious how you imagined the moment of the reveal and the immediate aftermath (If you remember, I know Mirror Image is like seven or eight years old now? man that’s crazy! Which by the way, it’s so weird— in an GREAT way— to reread Mirror Image and see Ryou act like Shiro. It’s almost uncanny compared to how he comes into his own later on; it’s really interesting) Also, is there like an “add to playlist” sorta option for works? I’d like to organize all my old VLD gen favorites now that I finally (after like seven years lol) have an account!

Hey anon! Welcome to AO3 proper! Being able to bookmark things is amazing.

So I never actually wrote that "actual moment of discovery that this is in fact a clone of Shiro" moment because back when I actually was writing Parallel by Proxy, S4 had just come out. That meant 2 seasons already where fans suspected the returned Shiro was a clone, but we didn't have official confirmation yet. Everyone on the Kuron train had already written that scene, and I didn't really want to rehash it when I wanted to get into the actual horror elements of the story (i.e. Shiro being trapped in his own head and then the inverse side from the clone perspective).

At the time I wrote Mirror Image, there had also been no plans to turn it into a whole series with Ryou. Mirror Image was originally written for a Halloween-themed PlatonicVLDWeek event, so at the time I was just having fun writing spooky horror stories. The original crux of Mirror Image was supposed to be a mental horror story of a character thinking they're fine but getting messages to wake up. Ryou wasn't originally even supposed to be in it, but the clone theory worked well with the idea of Shiro constantly seeing himself telling himself to wake up, so Shiro's subconscious warnings to himself were upgraded to an actual other person trying to pull him out of the situation. Because of that, HOW Ryou got there wasn't really as important to the story as WHAT he was doing there, and I never felt the need to get into it.

After that when I decided to write more stories with Ryou and turn it into a series, he'd already been established as part of the team, so I just rolled with it from there.

How would it have actually gone? More or less how it's described as an afterthought, but with a lot of tension. "Shiro" would have realized after they lived through the Naxzela debacle that Haggar had arranged for them to be there somehow. He'd look into their data and their intelligence and eventually realize the changes and the nudges always came from him, but he didn't remember doing it. He'd start putting two and two together with some other facts that never lined up (why did Black teleport him into Galra hands? Why did he wake up on a table with too-long hair and a beard when he'd only been gone for a couple months? Why did he see another him on a table in his escape? What was the deal with that whole control blip with Black? Why did he always have those awful headaches? etc etc). Once he began to suspect, he'd bring it to the team honestly, because even if he's starting to realize he's behind all of this, he still cares for them, and he's horrified at the thought that he's the reason everyone could have died. The team does more in-depth digging once they know where to look, and...well. Shiro's not real.

There's probably a lot of mixed emotions at that point. They definitely would not have trusted "Shiro" at first, but he'd have been pretty compliant with their demands because he'd feel guilty and is in the middle of having an existential crisis about not being "real." They need him and his ability to lead and pilot though, so they eventually deal with any mental conditioning or control left in his head and grudgingly work with him to find Shiro and keep Voltron running. Even in Mirror Image, you can see everyone is kind of awkward with him at first, and he realizes he's more or less filling in for the real thing. He's helping them look for Shiro out of guilt and obligation, because he stole this person's life.

As for your other AO3-related question, I'm not sure what you mean about a playlist. But you can tag bookmarks, add comments or notes for yourself and others, and either leave them public or make them private. That would let you organize them on your end. I recommend against making "collections" as this can take control away from the writer (for this reason I never agree to let my works be put into collections when people ask).

Happy reading anon!

[bellybiologist]

October 2023 Patreon Announcements

October begins! Still feeling good about things, so let's hope that keeps up! I'll try to keep busy to keep bad vibes away and enjoy the spooky month~

I do hope everyone is enjoying the streams and its resulting doodles! I definitely am.

But despite that, I do think I need to up my income a bit more. In the past 2 months a lot of the income has come from commissions, and while I'm still going quite slowly, I think I'll lax my restrictions on it a bit to allow bigger orders! (with limitations, see below)

Commissions are still open! And the Figure Limit will be increased to 2 per order for Basic Lines and Sketches only! I'll make an official post a bit later, so please wait until that goes up! I need to fix the commission form to reflect these changes.

I've gotten comfortably efficient with my current Basic lining speed that I think I'm willing to open up 2 figure orders. People definitely like the Dynamic lines I know, but those are a bit more unwieldy until I have time to mess with brush settings. People on the list are free to hop on again if you're okay with the wait.

October's Poll will be going up shortly, and this month's Theme Haunted/Possessed, with the 1st place winner getting a 3 stage sequence! More will be explained in the poll post.

July 2023's fills will be going into the Access to the Past tiers!

October 2021 and 2022's fills will be free to view! As per usual, I'll bulk upload them onto my drive and pixiv, and spread them out over the course of the week on tumblr and discord (only notification of the uploads to the drive will go up on twitter/X site).

A new Reward Request Post will be going up, too! Patrons are free to leave one in there even if you already have one from last month's! September's requests will expire once November rolls around though! You're able to re-requested them if you still want them in the pool for future streams.

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And as always, thanks to everyone for the support! I'm always open to feedback/suggestions.

[saving-word-crawls]

Halloween in November Word Crawl

By: Erica_Kriner

It’s November 1st, and Halloween is officially over…for the regular folks. But us? We’re still in our costumes, going from door to door looking for candy, and generally reveling in the spooky spirit. Who says Halloween only comes once a year? For us, a real spooky person is spooky all year-round!

The following word crawl was developed to keep up the spooky spirit for NaNoWriMo. It probably works best for those writing horror, but hey, I’m writing a travel memoir so you’re welcome to play no matter what!

Things You Should Know

There are a little over 30 challenges here not counting special events, and you can complete them in whatever time frame you like. You could do a couple a day, but a lot of them are smaller and I recommend spending a couple of days or so on each week.

Feel free to substitute song challenges with your own choices, but I highly recommend keeping the spooky atmosphere alive!

The currency of this word crawl is candy! Here’s a list of them all and what they do:

Snickers: Skip a challenge of your choice; ignore any penalties (but also rewards).

KitKat: Half all the goals of a challenge. (10 minute sprints turn into 5 minute sprints, 500 word sprints turn into 250, and so on.)

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups: Turn a timed challenge into a sprint. (5 minutes: 200 words. 10 minutes: 500 words. 15 minutes: 750 words. 30 minutes: 1000 words. 1 hour: 1500 words.)

M&Ms: SPECIAL! You’ll read more about these later.

Skittles: Subtract 50 words from a goal or give yourself a bonus 50 words to meet a challenge. (But you DO actually have to write these words!)

WEEK 1

The official festivities are over, and you had one wild night of debauchery! Inspect your candy stash and write for 10 minutes as you look over your haul.

How did you do?

Less than 200 words: You knew you should’ve gone to the rich neighborhoods. You barely have any candy, and you have a lot of work to do. (You earned no candy, sorry!)

201-400 words: You have a pretty good amount of candy, but most of it is the cheap stuff. Hard candies with weird names and the like. Oh well. (You earned a candy of your choice!)

More than 400 words: Is that a full-sized KitKat!? You are truly an inspired trick-or-treater. You have enough candy to last you at least until Thanksgiving! (You take the lot! One of each candy!)

Now it’s time to hatch a game plan. Halloween may be over for everyone else, but you have some work to do. Sprint to the nearest 100 words as you plan a month of Halloween-revival!

With your master plan in front of you, it’s time to tackle the first of many goals: revamping your Halloween décor. Pick one of the challenges below, but if you complete them all, you earn one Snickers bar!

Throw out the rotted Jack-o-Lanterns: Sprint 100 words as you quickly try to dispose of these! Yuck!

Take down all the dusty fake cobwebs and put up new ones: Roll a die and multiply by 50 – write that many words and contemplate why you use so much fake cobwebbing.

Steal some of your neighbors leaves to add to your own yard so you can really embrace that fall aesthetic: Word war for five minutes. If you win, you have a very lovely array of leaves in your yard. This may come in handy later. If you lose, write 50 more words as you attempt to make your leaf-less yard look autumn presentable.

With your post-Halloween chores out of the way, it’s time to get to the fun stuff! First task: buying some new pumpkins! Write for 10 minutes as you drive out of your way to one of the few pumpkin patches that hasn’t closed for the year.

Oh no! The pumpkin patch is closed! But you see someone’s vehicle, so maybe the owner is around somewhere? Multiply your typing speed by 10 and sprint that many words as you search for them.

You finally find them as they’re retying a tire swing in the nearby forest. Roll a die to meet this character.

1 or 2: Drats! Old Man Marley is the grumpiest guy in town! He eyes you suspiciously as you approach. “Din’ ye see the sign? We’re closed!” Word war for 10 minutes as you negotiate buying a pumpkin. If you win, move on to the next prompt. If you lose, retry until you win! (If you have to word war more than three times, you’ve earned some Skittles for your trouble.)

3 or 4: Boozy Barbara isn’t tending the gourds after all! She’s drunk! Sprint to the nearest 1000 as you wait for her to sober up. (If she’s super drunk and you write more than 500 words, take a KitKat for being a good citizen.)

5 or 6: Count Bathory! He’s always creeped you out a little bit but he’s happy to sell more pumpkins. Do a Three Digit Challenge to haggle. Count Bathory says he’ll throw in a Reese’s with your purchase for free.

You’ve convinced them to let you get a pumpkin or two, but only if you’re willing to help them out with a small task. Someone’s been stealing pumpkins and they need you to check on their pumpkin patch one night next week. If you agree, they give you some M&Ms as a token of good will.

Finally, with pumpkins in tow, you head home and think about all the fun you’ll have carving them. What design will you choose?

A scary skeleton: A classic choice! Sprint through “Monster Mash” by Bobby Pickett.

A wild werewolf: Truly terrifying! Sprint though “Hungry Like the Wolf” by Duran Duran.

A wonderful witch: Very trendy! Sprint through “Rhiannon” by Fleetwood Mac.

In the middle of carving, you spy an extra candy that you forgot to put with the others! Sweet! Take a candy of your choice for finishing this week.

WEEK 2

You thought you would ease into this second week? Absolutely not, Halloween waits for no demon! Do an Epic Writing Hour as you find the motivation to stay spooky!

Time to check the mail! This isn’t a very creepy task, so do a 5-minute sprint to get it over with quickly. How well did you do?

Less than 100 words : It’s all junk. Maybe one of these coupons will be useful?

101-200 words: Hey, you got a letter from an old friend! Take a 10-minute break to read it.

More than 200 words: What’s this? It’s an invitation to submit a piece of art in an unusual medium to the local art fair! You eye your pumpkins – this could be the perfect way to bring Halloween to the whole town! Follow the special prompts below.

SPECIAL EVENT (Only do these prompts if you wrote more than 200 words in the last challenge.)

Time to touch up your pumpkin of choice! Write 100 beautifully crafted words. Really put some thought into this! (Share your best line from this challenge here 2 to earn a candy of your choice.)

It’s time to enter your pumpkin! Will you qualify? Do a 5-minute word war to find out! If you win, move on to the next prompt. If you fail, exit the special event.

They love your work! It’s between you and two other people! Martha brought her origami miniature of the town and Louis made anatomically correct models of bugs out of various plants…but your pumpkin is fun! Surely you can win! Write like you meant it for 10 minutes!

Less than 300 words: You got third place! There’s no prize, but hey, everyone feels a little spookier after seeing your pumpkin!

301-500 words: Second place is a nice place to be! They give you a Snickers for your artistic contribution.

More than 500 words: As much as the judges loved all the submissions, they loved the “metacommentary” of your pumpkin. They blabbed on about consumerism and then gave you your choice of two candies! Maybe they didn’t get your pumpkin, but you walk away a little richer!

Win or lose, you deserve a break after all that! Take your pumpkin home and take a 15 minute break.

END SPECIAL EVENT

Tonight, you plan to spend a quiet night in, watching a string of scary movies. Let’s go shopping! Sprint to the nearest hundred to find a good deal, because the true horror in this universe is price inflation!

With your favorite scary movie in hand (the director’s cut – score!) you head back to your house, but on the way, you remember that a certain pumpkin patch owner needed you to check on their pumpkins this evening. If you took the M&Ms, move on to the special event. Otherwise, skip it.

SPECIAL EVENT

You make a sharp left and head to the pumpkin patch, wishing you could head home and watch movies but also excited to look at the big pumpkins again. It’s a long drive, so settle in and write 500 words before you reach your destination.

When you get to the pumpkin patch, you are horrified to see all the best pumpkins are gone! With your pumpkin expertise, you can tell that they were ripped violently from the rest of the plant rather than carefully harvested by pumpkin professionals! OH NO! Participate in a 10-minute word war to overcome your own panic! If you lose, you must spend an extra 15 minutes writing to calm yourself down.

With a new sense of clarity, you call up the owner of the pumpkin patch and tell them that their pumpkins have been sufficiently squashed and that it’s an emergency. They tell you to get out of there, and they tell you not to tell anyone what you saw. Sprint to the nearest thousand as you speed out of there!

END SPECIAL EVENT

At home and a little shaken up, you decide to curl up on the couch and watch your movie after all. Look up the running time of your favorite movie and write that many words. (If The Godfather is 2 hours and 58 minutes, you write 258 words.)

It’s time for a mid-movie snack break! What are you getting? Take as many as you want, but at least one!

Popcorn: Sprint for 5 minutes as you wait for the popcorn to pop.

Soft Pretzel: Write 100 words to properly savor the saltiness.

Soda: Write 200 words in 5 minutes to keep yourself from drinking it too fast. If you fail, get a new drink and try one more time.

Ice Cream: Write 10% of your current daily wordcount before your ice cream melts!

If you completed all the snack tasks, reward yourself with a well-earned 15 minute break and a candy of your choice.

You just started playing the movie again when Martha calls you! Martha is so annoying! You pick up the phone and she’s blabbing nonsensically. Word war for 15 minutes as you attempt to get off the phone.

Finally, Martha gets the picture and she hangs up. Now, it’s finally time to finish your movie! On your way to bed after the movie, your doorbell rings. You go to answer it, but no one is there. On the ground, a bag of M&Ms is wrapped up in a note that reads “Halloween is over, but the scares are just getting started. Meet me at the pumpkin patch in a fortnight.” You try to find the source of the mysterious note but there seems to be no one there. Sprint to the nearest hundred as you rush inside to hide under your covers.

WEEK 3

This weekend, you decide to throw a Halloween party. You need to round up some party guests, so do as many or as few of the challenges below to determine your party size!

Send out invitations to all your friends: Type the next 50 words with one hand as you address envelopes with the other. (+10 people)

Create a Facebook event for your party: Choose a specific challenge from the forums to complete (ie. Carrot/Stick, Take/Leave a Song, etc). (+5 people)

Paste flyers over Martha’s flyers for her Thanksgiving party on the same date: Word war for 5 minutes as you remember why you can’t stand Martha. (+5 people)

Film a local commercial advertising your party: Sure, some may call this overkill, but you call if effective! Write 3% of your word count to pay for this ridiculously expensive ad campaign. (+10 people)

Start a pyramid scheme to get more people involved in inviting: Sprint to 300 words and go leave some encouragement in the NaNo forums to get people motivated to do your bidding! (+10 people)

If you complete three or more challenges: With all your hard work, the mayor hears about your party and invites his whole office to accompany him! What luck! (+10 people)

If you completed all five challenges: You’re beat! But on the way home, you find a bag of Skittles!

Before you get home, you decide to see what kind of discount Halloween costumes might still be around so that you can snag a good deal and look great in a new costume. Attempt a 1k1hour. If you succeed, you find a great deal on an amazing Frankenstein’s monster costume AND a cute little scientist outfit for your pet that will make a great Frankenstein with some minor adjustments. Fantastic! Take a Reese’s for your outstanding find. If you fail, you look for a while but decide that the toilet paper mummy will have to do for now.

Time to do some costume crafting! (Even if you succeeded in the last step, this is to fix up your pet’s costume.) Roll a die and multiply it by 100; write that many words. How is the finished product?

1-3: It’s not your best work, but it gets the point across! Take a KitKat for your troubles.

4-6: VIOLA! It’s perfect! Everyone will remember this costume – and this party – forever! Take a KitKat AND a Snicker’s! You earned it!

It’s almost time for the party, and now you must decide what games to set up. Pick as many as you want, but you MUST have an apple-bobbing station.

Apple-Bobbing: Write 300 words in 10 minutes. If you fail, you spill the water everywhere. Write for another 5 minutes to clean it up.

Murder Mystery: Word war for 15 minutes as you grapple with what guest to make the murderer. If you lose, try again for 5 minutes before you finally figure it out.

Mafia: Where did you put that deck of cards? Sprint to the nearest hundred in 60 seconds. If you fail, you put the cards in the most obscure place possible and you’ll spend an afternoon writing to the nearest thousand.

If you completed all three challenges, you rock! Steal some Skittles from your candy bowl.

Quickly run through the house and do all the last-minute things before the guests arrive! Make sure the candy bowl is filled! Spruce up the decorations! Start your spooky playlist! Sprint to the end of your scene as you wait for that first knock at the door!

Within a few minutes, the party is in full swing! How many people showed up? (Return to the first challenge of this week to find your total.)

0-4 people: This is what happens when you don’t tell anyone about your party! At least you can cry if you want to. Do an Epic Writing Hour as you contemplate how cool this night would have been if you’d put in some energy. When you finish, you are horrified to find out that somehow, Martha knew about your party. She brought her bratty kids and their friends. Great.

5-10 people: It’s a small gathering, but it’s your closest friends! Write as fast as you can for 15 minutes as you try to keep the energy high.

11-30 people: The party is swinging! People are chattering and having a good time. Write 300 words as you make the rounds and chat with everyone.

30-49 people: Several people showed up in costume and you host an impromptu costume contest! You declare yourself winner! Do a victory dance and sprint through a playing of “Thriller” by Michael Jackson and don’t forget to grab your prize of a KitKat !

50 people: Did the whole town show up!? The mayor is entertaining the crowd so you get to sneak into your bedroom for a 10 minute break but not before you grab a Snickers.

Finally, everyone gathers for a round of apple bobbing! Now is your chance to outshine everyone! After a few rounds, you are going head to head with Terrence Wiseman, the coolest and most talented guy in town, and Martha’s date! You both take a moment to prepare for battle. Write casually for 5 minutes as you clear your head.

Remember at the beginning of week 1, when you had a word war to see if you could steal your neighbor’s leaves? I told you winning would be helpful! If you won that challenge, then right as Terrence is getting ready to dunk his head in, someone starts loudly proclaiming about the incredible array of leaves in the yard. “It’s like an autumnal wonderland out there!” Terrence loses a precious few seconds and you easily beat him. Skip the next challenge.

This may be the most important moment of your life. Until next week, that is. Word war for 5 minutes.

If you lose, you go to give Terrence some candy but you’re all out, so you have to give him some from your Halloween stash. Give up one candy of your choice. If you have none, just sit there in your shame.

If you win, Terrence is impressed, and he invites you to his comedy show in early December! Plus, Martha looks annoyed with him for the rest of the night. HA. Take that, Martha!

The party winds down and people file out. Once you finally take some time to rest after the festivities, you realize that in all the craziness, you total forgot about Thanksgiving! Your friend brought over some of her leftover turkey yesterday, so you heat some up and even give a little to your pet. It’s a lovely Thanksgiving in your household, but an even lovelier Halloween.

WEEK 4

What’s scarier than a haunted house on Halloween? A trashed house in November! Time for some Fall Cleaning! Here’s a list of chores, unfortunately you won the Homeowner’s Association Award for Cleanest Home last year so you’ll have to do all these chores to maintain your title.

Clear out the trash: Sprint to 200 words to get all the trash, and don’t forget to recycle!

Mop, sweep, and vacuum: Sparkly floors and clean carpets make for happy homeowners. Write for 30 minutes as you finish this up.

Return all the furniture to rightful homes: Manual labor is fun! Do the Never Have I Ever Challenge as you swear you’ll just pay one of Martha’s bratty kids to do this next time. (Link)

Once the chores are done, you can finally get back to what’s most important: Halloween! The town has finally started to see that Halloween is important all year round and some people have taken to the streets to Trick-or-Treat in celebration! You sit outside for an hour of casual writing and end up handing out some candy to a few local kids. (And even a couple of adults, too! Halloween is for everyone, after all!)

Whew! Reviving a holiday is hard work! Take a 20 minute break because you deserve it.

After your break, you return to keep handing out candy, but your bowl has been raided! You search desperately for any spilled pieces but all you find is another note. “If you ever want to see your candy again, you’ll be at the pumpkin patch tonight. Bring your M&Ms.” You look around once more for the culprit, but they are long gone. Complete a Three-Digit Challenge as you gather your supplies.

Later that night…

Before you go on your way to the pumpkin patch, you look at your special candy stash. You grab the M&Ms stockpiled and get in the car. You are nervous the whole way. Word war for 5 minutes as you resist the urge to eat some candy. If you lose, you know what to do.

As you pull up to the pumpkin patch, the air feels electric. You round the corner and

OH MY PUMPKINS, THREE FIFTY-HEADED HYDRAS ARE ATTACKING THE PUMPKIN PATCH!

Count Bathory and some other townsfolk are battling them, with little ground being gained! One of the heads crashes into the ground next to Not-So-Boozy Barbara and she swiftly dodges, but the poor pumpkins are lost in the crossfire!

Count Bathory sees you and TURNS INTO AN ACTUAL BAT to flee the scene, directly towards you! As he approaches, he shoves a package of M&Ms into your hands. “You wanted Halloween? Help us defeat these monsters and save the pumpkin patch or we’ll never be able to celebrate again!”

You can only use M&Ms in these challenges. One M&M will lower your word goal by 10, and each bag contains 10 M&Ms. Use them wisely.

The First Hydra: Bathory comes to your aid as you try to tag-team the Hydra. Unfortunately, it has way more heads than you do and it’s a tough fight.

The Second Hydra: Old Man Marley shows up with a rake and takes a good swing at this one, and one of the heads immediately swallows him whole. That’s okay, he was pretty grumpy. You secretly wish it was Martha, though.

The Third Hydra: Terrence is here! He lands a good blow in one of the Hydra’s eyes! If you beat him in the apple-bobbing contest, it was an eye on the head you’re currently fighting and your word count goal is reduced by 25.

PICK YOUR ENDING BASED ON HOW MANY YOU KILLED!

0: You wake up in the wreckage of the pumpkin patch, with the guts of the most beautiful pumpkins all over you. Boozy Barbara is patching up the wounds of Count Bathory as you approach them. “What happened?” You ask, slightly dazed. “They took the city. The Hydras rule us, now.” Write 1,667 words as you try to cope with this new information.

1: You slay one Hydra, and the other two scramble back into the forest, knocking down trees and slinking into the hellscape void that surrounds your quaint town. You don’t know when they’ll be back, but you know it will be soon. You spend the next few weeks drumming up an army, and since you’ve been the talk of the town recently, it’s pretty easy. Sprint for 500 words to slay the Hydras when they return and save the town.

2: You have waited your whole life to see real monsters, and tonight you got to slay them! (Also, is Count Bathory a vampire!?) You take two Hydra hearts home to display in large fish tanks, and the town puts the other in a jail cell until it agrees to leave them alone forever. Martha tries to tell the local news that you’re her best friend, but your local journalists value integrity and get the facts from you before the story runs. You go to Terrence’s comedy show and leave feeling a little less impressed by him overall. Sprint for 10 minutes to leave before Terrence has a chance to ask you what you thought.

3: You expertly wove in and out of battle like a warrior! Did those moves come from adrenaline? A deep love of pumpkins? Or maybe some crazy backstory I neglected to give you? Who knows! The town regards you as a hero, and after the Mayor resigns for failing to protect everyone from the Hydras, you win by write-in votes! You declare every day as Halloween and the town prospers for all eternity! Sprint to 100 to wrap up a job well done.

[00katrinka00]

Landcaster Legacy Gen 7 Update #26

Dear Diary, It's been a few months and I'm finally ungrounded. To celebrate, Janie and I are going on our first official date tonight and I can't wait. Fall is also upon us, which means it's getting closer to my favorite holiday, Spooky Day. -Violet

Owen had plans to meet up with Lacy that morning and go over her lines for the play together. "You must be Owen," Ethan asked cheerfully after answering the door. "Yeah, nice to meet you," Owen replied awkwardly.

"You two are just practicing lines?" Ethan raised an eyebrow. "Yes, sir," Owen replied slowly. "Alright then," Ethan finally said after a long pause. "Go head upstairs, but no funny business!" "I promise you sir," Owen said. "Absolutely no funny business." "Good," Ethan nodded.

Once upstairs, Lacy quickly got started reciting her lines. "Oh, my watcher," Violet complained. "What is he doing here? I have a date to get ready for." "I forgot you live here," Owen rolled his eyes. "Can you two shut up?" Lacy asked them. "I'm trying to practice."

"Can you not take this downstairs?" Violet asked irritated. "I don't want him, in my room." "It's Lacy's room too," Owen reminded her. "Well, I need to practice my piano, and I can't do that with both of you up here." "I thought you said you had a date to get ready for."

"Guys, just shut up," Lacy snapped. "I have less than a week until opening night. I need to practice." "I need him, to leave," Violet spat. "Just ignore me," Owen rolled his eyes. "Do whatever it is you have to do but pretend I'm not here."

"Just go downstairs if we're bothering you so much," Owen told Violet. "No," Violet was offended. "This is my room." "For watchers' sake!" Lacy yelled. "Both of you, shut up!" Violet and Owen continued to argue.

"I'm going downstairs," Violet proclaimed after another fifteen minutes of arguing with Owen. "That's great," Lacy said. "What was my line again?" "Good, now my headache will finally go away," Owen snapped.

Meanwhile, downstairs, Leo attempted to call Nat, again, for what seemed to be the 500th time in the last month or so. "Hey, Nat," Leo left a message. "It's me again, I'm so, so sorry about missing Sawyer's birth, I really am. Please call me back."

"So, how was that?" Lacy asked once she'd finally managed to get through all of her lines with Violet's absence. "It was great!" Owen told her. "The audience is not going to know what hit them Friday night." "Precisely," Lacy replied confidently.

"Maybe this is a mean question" Owen said. "But how do you live with Violet all the time, she's-" "The biggest brat ever" Lacy interrupted "Exactly" "She isn't so bad, just young," Lacy told her. "Makes stupid decisions, and had a lot of pride, loves being right, but she's family"

"Aren't you two the same age?" Owen asked, confused. "Oh yeah," Lacy muttered. She really didn't want to explain to Owen how Violet had brought her back from the dead and she was actually more like 160. "There's got to be a halfway decent piece of Violet, somewhere." Owen laughed

"I should get going" Owen finally said. "I have to pick my younger brother up from scouts" "Let me walk you out," Lacy told him "Actually, there was something I wanted to ask you." "What" "Well I think you're pretty cool, and I was wondering if you want to go on a date sometime?"

"Oh," Lacy trailed off. "Um…" There was a long silence. Lacy didn't really know what to say. "Is that a, no?" he asked. "Yes," Lacy said, and Owen's eyes lit up. "No, I mean, yes it's a no. I'm not interested in going on a date with you." Owen's face fell.

"I think you're great," Lacy turned away. "It's not you, it's me." "Really that cliche?" "It's true though. I'm so bad at relationships," Lacy explained to him. "You'll get hurt, and I care about you, I do, and that's why I don't want you to get hurt, and I will hurt you."

"Lacy," Owen grabbed her arms. "I can handle it, trust me." Lacy shook her head. "You can't." "But-" "I think you should leave," Lacy told him. "You're going to be late picking up your brother." "Lacy I-" "Leave," she said again, so Owen left.

"This is perfect," Janie was saying as Violet scanned the menu. "Right!" Violet exclaimed. "We can finally have a real date. I'm so happy I'm not grounded anymore." "Me too," Janie smiled.

"So have you found any more gigs for us?" Violet asked as the girls waited for their food to be delivered. "Not yet" Janie told her. "But Noel thinks we should record a demo, that was we can send it in to different recording studios, maybe try to find an agent or something."

"How long until the demo would be finished?" Violet asked excitedly. "We'd have to get it finished soon," Janie said. "Before I go to Mt. Komorebi." "What?" Violet asked stunned. "You're moving?"

"Not necessarily," Janie told her. "My dad came back the other day, says he's finally ready to step up and be the father I always deserved. He wants shared custody of me, so my mom is making me live with him during break in Mt. Komorebi." "So that gives us about two months."

"We'll figure it out," Violet said optimistically. "We have to." "Agreed," Janie added.

"I'm glad we were able to do this," Janie grinned at Violet as they got ready to leave. "And did I tell you how pretty you look?" "I don't believe you have, but I'm always accepting of compliments," Violet grinned back. Both girls leaned in for a kiss.

[nahimjustfeelingit-writes]

Kinktober 2022- Prompt List for Spooky SZN 👻

Let the games begin *deep evil laugh* 😈

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Hey babes! So this is an official prompt list for a fun and sexy write off for those who would like to participate! It will go on for the entire month of October to bring in Halloween! All pairings are welcome. This is a safe space for pro shippers and pro-fiction authors. Harassment and wrong accusations won’t be tolerated. Anti-shippers and trolls will be blocked. Let’s break down the rules:

Can involve any character/pairing you would like!

You can chose one or more prompts to write about but it has to be spooky szn related!

Fluff, smut, & angst! Yes this is a smutty prompt list for the most part but you can always mix it up! (I.e., coffee shop, rolling around in the leaves, watching scary movies cuddled up, spending Halloween alone, reminiscing on a time you had a great Halloween with your ex.)

Adult content! So be sure to post warnings for those who aren’t of age to read.

You may co-write if you like!

There is no limit on how much you write. It can be a mini series or a one-shot.

Make sure to let me know which prompt(s) you would like to use so I can link it.

Be visual! Use pictures, gifs, music etc.

Make sure to share the writers work! Please like, comment, and reblog to get the writers work out to other readers! Engagement is key!

Most of all, HAVE FUN! This is for us to enjoy! HAPPY SPOOKY SZN! 🧡 🖤

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Halloween characters/pairing and writing prompts

31 Kink/Fetish Prompts:

BDSM/24/7- an umbrella term for bondage, discipline/domination, submission/sadism, and masochism. These kinks all hinge on power play—that is, the erotic and voluntary exchange of power. some partners take it to the next level and enter a 24/7 arrangement, meaning that the consensual power exchange occurs full time, often while living together.

Hosiery-This kink is marked by an interest in wearing pantyhose/lingerie/undergarments or having a partner wear hosiery/lingerie/undergarments while engaging in sexual activity. Explore by buying hosiery, especially kinds made for having sex (i.e., crotchless)

Voyeurism-A voyeurism kink centers on being turned on by watching other people having sex.

Exhibitionism-all about getting turned on by being observed.

Roleplay- This kink is defined by taking on different personas during sex and experiencing intensified pleasure from stepping outside of yourself.

Dirty talk- exactly what it sounds like: using suggestive or explicit language during sex in order to heighten sensation and excitement.

Nipple play-People who in general find themselves drawn to breasts might find they have a nipple kink. Tweak, lick, and bite your partner's nipples or invite them to do so to yours.

Humiliation- this kink is about being put in your place by a partner. Someone with a humiliation kink might, for example, get off on being told that they're pathetic or a slut.

Cuckolding- Cuckolding is about being turned on by your partner having sex with someone else, either in front of you or away from you and relaying details at a later date.

Aphrodisiac- "Aphrodite". There are arguably, certain foods, scents, drugs, music, drinks, and behaviors which can increase or promote the desire to be sexual and/or sensual. Some people say that "aphrodisiacs" are merely a placebo, because people THINK they will work. Some find out certain things make their sensuality more heightened, which could also be coined a "fetish".

Financial domination- Financial domination, aka FinDom, is often a fetish but can also be a kink. It involves giving over total control of one's finances to someone else or being kept on a strict budget or being ordered to purchase certain things.

Auralism- just the word for having a sound kink, i.e. being turned on by hearing things. For example, you might be extra aroused by hearing the sound of your partner hit against you as you have sex, or the sound of their moans or how wet they are.

Orgasm control- This kink is common among people who are generally interested in BDSM. It's exactly what it says on the tin: letting your partner control the timing of your orgasm.

Impact play- just the fancy name for any activity like spanking, paddling, or caning, Acarophilia (scratching.)

Helplessness kink-The fear play belongs to the BDSM family, and it means that kinksters enjoy the feeling of terror. The fearful mental state awakens a sexual excitement, treats the players with a rush of endorphins, and releases adrenaline.

Praise kink- Someone with a praise kink is aroused by compliments, praise, and encouragement—for instance, being told "You're doing such a good job, taking my dick." or "You're so beautiful when you..."

Degradation kink- A degradation kink can be considered the opposite of a praise kink. A person with this kink is turned on by being denigrated and degraded by their partner either through words or through actions (i.e., being spit on, slapped, choked, called a bitch, lightly choking on an object to the point of making gagging sounds.) This kink might do something for you if you lean toward being submissive and like your partner to take control and tell you what to do in a sexual situation.

Blood play/knife play kink- Blood play is all about being aroused by blood, either by having your own brought to the surface or drawing your partner's blood.

Breath Play- refers to the BDSM practice of having your breathing restricted during sexual activity—cutting off air supply by choking, or it can be used as a sensation (i.e., blowing air)

Quirofilia/sensation play- A specific fetish for hands is referred to as quirofilia, which may manifest as an attraction to fingers, a great manicure, or simply some smoking hot hands. Hands are sexy. They’re used for myriad sexy things, like the underrated hand job, fingering, and back massages. This kink is a sensual, soft-core subcategory of BDSM. People can stimulate their sensations with silk scarves, feathers, ice, or massage oils, wax, electrostimulation, among others.

Agoraphilia- If you love sex in public places, you have agoraphilia.

Anonymous sex kink- It’s a practise of having sex with someone you know nothing or a very little about, for example, glory holes and mask-on sex.

Amaurophilia-If you get turned on by blindfolded sex, or you prefer having sex in the dark, you have a thing with amaurophilia.

Dick worship/pussy worship- The extensive adoration of the male/female sex organ. Obsession. (I.e., this dick/pussy is mine and only mine, panty sniffer, dick sucking whore, personal seat, Cunnilingus.)

Spectrophilia- a sexual attraction, relationships, or sexual encounters with ghosts who come and have hot sex with them at night. (I.e., succubus, incubus, ghost.)

Size kink- kink or preference for a distinct difference in size, height, musculature or weight between two sexual partners.

Double penetration-People who enjoy this kink get excited about placing two objects or penises to the vagina and the anus at the same time. It can also include oral penetration.

Erotic Wrestling-Sexual arousal due to fighting and taking the other person down to the floor.

Somnophilia-A rare paraphilia where individuals crave sexual interaction with unconscious people. For example, with someone asleep.

Impregnation fetish/breeding-A sexual pleasure derived from the thought of pregnancy. Kinksters of this type enjoy the risk or the possibility of unprotected sex.

katoptronophilia/vanity sex- a fetish for mirrors. Individuals who experience katoptroniophilia may participate more in activities such as masturbating, engaging in intercourse, stripping, or carrying out other sexual actions all in front of mirrors. The desire to carry out katoptronophiliac fantasies might lead to the construction of an environment that enables practitioners to see themselves in a mirror during sex.