#i think i'll get started on that rewrite right now while i'm excited to get back to it and then it'll be easier to continue tomorrow

[beneathsilverstars]

finished writing the nille fic it goes so fucking hard now to find a beta and think up up a title- wait just thought of the title right now, it's a very obvious one, i love when a story has themes. ok nille fic soooon

[crescencestudio]

๋࣭⭑ Devlog 37 | 1.29.24 ๋࣭⭑

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Hope the holiday season and the new year have been treating you all well <3 I've been hard at work this past month to get the revamped demo out to you all soon, so let's jump right into things ^^

This past month, most of my writing has been focused on the revamped demo, finishing Etza's first draft, and Druk's developmental edits.

The revamped demo is FINISHED w writing edits!!!! That honestly took way more time than I thought, but because I wrote the demo basically two years ago at this point, a lot of my writing style has changed. So while some people might think it is an unnecessary time sink, it was important for me to rewrite the scenes I could so that it felt like it accurately portrayed how the routes are looking. And, because my writing skills are better than basically 0, which is where I was starting when I first wrote the demo, I can better write a script that's closer to my vision of the game.

....So THAT ended up taking a while!!! BUT I finished that this month, which was a huge accomplishment to me and I feel much happier with the Alaris script than before, where I kinda... well, hated it. LOL

In-Game Sneak Peek: New Choices HEHEHE

Etza's draft is making good progress. I'm JUST ABOUT done with their first draft YAY!!! As I mentioned before, writing for the full game routes will be a bit slower for now since I'm now balancing more game stages than before (like coding, sprites, etc.). But I was pretty happy with Etza's progress this month since it does feel like the finish line is pretty close for their first draft ^^

And then Druk's edits are just about wrapping up!! Wudgey and I have been having lots of fun with Druk's route, and it's shaped up to be a personal favorite just because of how enjoyable the editing process has been, so I hope you all are excited for it!

For art, I've gotten some more backgrounds commissioned from Vui for the full game. I also decided to update the prologue art for the demo and commissioned dear friend @saffein-e for some prologue art and..... WELL..... SHE'S STUNNING. I'll let the prologue preview speak for itself HEH

In-Game Preview: New Prologue feat. New Art and Fade-in Text Effect

I'm so happy with it, and in general seeing the demo come together with all the new assets has been RRRRGGGHHH!!!!! I've coded most of the screens by now, but I don't want to show them all quite yet. I'll show one preview of the new communicator screens.

Communicator Feature: Texting (left) and Phone Calls (right)

First is the texting screen, and then I also updated the phone call screen! The sprites now not only emote (kinda like video call vibes), but they also auto-highlight based on who is talking!

Most of my miscellaneous stuff has to do with coding the demo. I've been doing a LOT of backend coding to make the game more polished. First is the example above with the communicator phone call feature. Without getting too into coding jargon, it basically is like a new version of the normal sprites so that it feels more interactive, with seeing the characters emote while talking to you, and has the auto-highlight function so that it is clear who is talking during a phone call!

I'm adding more camera work to the demo, more vfx/sfx to make things more immersive, and overall just adding a lot of polish to the game. It's been a lot of work, since it's involved adding alternative textboxes, cleaning up old code, revamping things (like sprites and other images), etc. But it's been worth it to see everything come together!

In-Game Preview: Pop-up Codex now instead of separate screen!

I'm hoping the beta demo can be done by the end of this week or next, so if you all would like access to it, please feel free to subscribe to my Patreon for this upcoming month! Highest tier gets access to beta builds for $10 <3

Finally, In other news, I DID release Intertwine: Another Life this month LMFAOOO

If you haven't gotten a chance to play it, please do! There's almost double the amount of script content. I've been doing an awful job of promoting it since I've been in the coding trenches. But I do appreciate the reception so far!! It was honestly bigger than I thought it would be, and I'm always so grateful for everyone's support ^^ Very happy you all liked the extra bit of content with Van <33333

For market research, I didn't do anything this past month. I DID play Date with Death in December and had massive brainrot from it. In fact, I made two fanarts of little Grimmy LMFAOOOO.

I'm sure most of you have played it, but if you haven't this is your sign to go play it. It's a free game and the amount of polish and features in it are crazy, so please show the dev team some love!!!

Hoping to have the revamped demo out soon, and the beta demo out even sooner. Hope you all have a great rest of your month, and I'll talk to you soon! <3

[johnslittlespoon]

Hello, gorgeous!

First of all, thank you for the joy of reading the first chapter of Tough And Sweet (Like You And Me).

I just have one question: Will future chapters show us Gale’s POV as well? Personally, I’d love to see young, shy Bucky through the eyes of an older Gale.

HIII sweetest human!! <3 no thank YOU for reading omg and for the kind words plsss :')) and for giving me an excuse to talk ab this LOL. tldr: future chapters no, future parts/drabbles yes!!

i was actually so indecisive about this when i started plotting the fic because while i enjoy reading fics with alternating povs just as much as fics without them, i've never written one with them and i wasn't sure if i'd enjoy/be good at switching mindsets like that!

i ultimately decided to stick to john's pov for that reason, but also because i thought as the reader, having to see things through his eyes and only being able to guess about gale the way john does would be more intriguing, especially with john's view of the world/interactions warped and/or rose–tinted by youth, inexperience, emotional dysregulation, etc.

BUT sooo much of what i have written in my drafting doc is from gale's pov because i love picturing this bucky through his eyes too, it's just such a fresh and new dynamic for me to explore as someone who primarily writes mota–verse buckbucky, and what we see from john's pov is so different from how gale sees things of course lol.

like it drives me insane thinking about how this poor man was literally just living his peaceful life, fine with being solo, going through the routine every day of work and then bike club and then home, and suddenly he's got this golden retriever of a boy attached to him like a magnet, and he's being kept on his toes dealing with the bundle of energy, and each day is now unpredictable and as exciting as it is stressful and he has no one to blame but himself lol. and the way we don't get to see the self–restraint he has to have and the struggle to be responsible and do what's 'right' while also dealing with his own feelings, because john isn't aware that's going on inside gale's head!

i could go on and on about his side of things aughghgh so i think eventually i'll end up doing a pretty lengthy oneshot sorta thing of certain events in the actual fic through gale's eyes (kinda what i plan on doing with yadiym for john's pov) bc goddd i have so many thoughts about how all of this would be playing out from his perspective!!! if not a oneshot, then drabbles like this one i hope.

if i had the time and if it wouldn't be boring to read i would honestly just rewrite the whole fic from gale's pov once it's done because with every scene i write, i'm like ooo i wanna dive into his pov and talk about what he's thinking and seeing so BAD but i can't bc we're in john's head </3 i just love analyzing john through his eyes and ik i've yapped ab this so much in past posts but gale does see so much of his younger self in him, that's why he has a lot of patience and takes a liking to him so fast, even if he doesn't realize that right away. :')

at the very least i definitely want to write pwp oneshots/drabbles set in the TAS universe from gale's pov so i can gush over describing how pretty and sweet and mouthy john is LOL i'm sure i'll add the fic itself to a series like with my dog–coded fic so that i can build on the au with oneshots once it's done >:-)

this is such a longwinded response (what else is new!) but you poked the bubble in my brain that's been agonizing over wanting to delve into gale's pov so <3 this is much more rambling than your question warranted but thx JSDKG

[walkingstackofbooks]

Fanfic Writer Interview

Tagged by: @a-most-beloved-fool - thank you!! <3 <3 <3

What fandoms do you write in? At the moment, pretty much just DS9, though I've written one TOS ficlet this year.

How many words have you published in 2024? 139, 411 😅😅 Absolutely bananas, I cannot even comprehend how I did that!

It's been an absolaute delight to properly fall in love with writing this year though ❤️Before 2024, I'd written very little fanfic ever, and this has been JUST so much fun! (ftr, 3.5k in 2021, ~3k in 2015, and - huh! Almost 30k in 2011/12 🧐 Well, that's a surprise - apparently my "baby's first fanfic" back in 2012 was a whole 20k, which is far longer than I remember!)

What is your greatest achievement this year? I mean, Vision Awry for sure! Seeing it grow and grow and slowly realising just how long it was becoming (although even right up to the end, I was never able to guess accurately!) My crazy summer marathon to get it all written before I resumed posting (which I did mostly manage!) and then the last few weeks in December pouring my heart and soul into actually finishing it before the end of the year. It's completely mad that I did that!

(Although weirdly, now it's finished it's just kind of like 'yeah I suppose I did that, feels ages ago now though' and I feel like I have to really push myself to feel the pride and excitement I think I should be feeling? Idk, it's weird 😅)

What are your top three fics you've written this year? Oh gosh, I have to choose? Okay...

Vision Awry - obviously :P

Sleep Paralysis - that mad, 3-day blitz of inspiration was so worth hiding away in my room for 😅

Um, unpublished, but the Miles&Julian-talk-about-suicide ficlet I posted on Tumblr? It was far better than I expected when I read it back, and was a higlight amongst the rest of the December writing-is-hard feels.

What was your biggest pit of despair moment? There were definitely many times during Vision Awry... the biggest were probably either:

Re-starting Day 5 in August, after writing nothing during June and July, and reailsing I had no idea what was going to happen in Day 5 apart from the deaths at the end;

Writing Epilogue 3 in the last few weeks, only eking out 1-300 words at a time unless I overdosed on meds (😅 it worked tho...), getting increasingly convinced that I was not going to be finishing by the end of the year, which sucked; or

Any time I realised the scene wasn't working because of X thing which meant I would need to totally rewrite it. I don't do drafts, really, so that was always devastating 😭 (but DID work out for the best, at least)

What have you learned? SO, so much. I'll limit myself to three things. (I'm sorry, I'm no good at choices or being concise!)

That if I have an idea, ideally I need to write all of it, straight away, and finish it while it’s fresh. I honestly don’t know how many WIPs I’m actually going to finish, because even while I love many of the ideas, I’m not in love with them the same way I was when I started.

That I love writing Garak and Julian interactions, even though I keep forgetting that I do, because Garak is an absolute pain to write sometimes (affectionate), and I've never been the biggest fan of stories that are solely Garashir.

That I need to be super careful about opening up prompts, because while they’re great for short-term motivation, if I don't complete them in a timely manner they end up hanging over me in a less-than-fun way.

What three fics have you read this year that you love? I do not know where to start with this one, omg, there are too many <3 <3 <3 Trying to think of ones I haven't mentioned before... (and while I'm trying to be better, I'm so bad at bookmarks 😅)

After The Siege by @youngpettyqueen - I didn't know I needed Worf&Julian but this has stayed in my mind since April and I love it to pieces. This dynamic is soooo gooddd 💕💕

The Recitation of Names by @jennelikejennay - Incredible, haunting, pre-TOS Spirk fic about the events mentioned in Obsession.

By Design by @akingnotaprincess - I haven't finished it yet (I am SO hype though, I just haven't had time over Christmas!) but it's SUCH a lovely Data/Julian fic, it's so sweet and sincere and wonderful.

What ideas are percolating for next year? Ughhhh, oh man. Idek. I've got about a dozen WIPs but the way my brian is rn, I'm just hoping that I'll be able to edit and publish some of the things I've written on Tumblr to finally put on AO3.

Hopefully I'll get going a bit more at some point - and whatever it is, you can bet on a traumatised Juian, I'm pretty sure ;)

Who do you want to thank? Again, where do I even start, there are so many people who have made this year wonderful 💕 I've never really felt like I've been *in* a Tumblr community before, and this year has really changed that, so a huge thank you to everyone who's made me feel so welcome! 🥰

@ectogeo-rebubbles, @the-last-dillpickle, @hellostuffedtiger for welcoming me into the Sloanshir side of DS9 with aplomb. Waking up to your reviews and recs of Imprisoned was actually unforgettable, it made my day many, many times over, and definitely gave me confidence to continue putting Julian into fucked-up situations!

@jackleg-penwright for messaging me and becoming my first Tumblr friend ❤️❤️❤️

@flippetyfloppity, @dreamerdrop, @phoenixfeathersinfall - your comments are life and love itself, your support for my writing this year has been incredible and made me feel so warm, thank you just so much! 🫂🫂🫂

I'm kind of High Key Anxious about missing anyone out if I tried to tag everyone else who has been supportive and wonderful and lovely, which sucks because I really want to, but if you've ever left a comment on anything I've done, PLEASE know that you are held in my heart most fondly with great love and affection 💖💖💖

tagging: @jackleg-penwright, @dreamerdrop, @ectogeo-rebubbles and anyone else who would like to!

[pale-opal]

So

What writing projects do you have in the works?

👀

!!!

I am so glad that you asked this question! I honestly have a lot of ideas, and I have been wanting an excuse to talk about them for a while. So if you don't mind me rambling for a little bit:

So the first thing that I've been working on is a sequel to the first fic that I uploaded for this MMX rewrite that I've been working on (an AU called Collision Course). I'm trying to get a backlog of 30 chapters together before I release the second part, and I'm on Chapter 20 right now. I wanted to have it released well before this time, but I kept hitting walls with some of the chapters that came before the current one. However, I think I should be good once I reach Chapter 21 (the story will start to reach a point that I've been really excited to work on). I'm hoping to have it out before the end of the month.

@crystalclear365 and I have started planning for this one fic that we decided to write together - I won't go too far into it because we both want it to be a surprise, so all I will say is that I hope you like cooking shows. >:)

I also like to write essays sometimes, and there's been one that's been sitting in my drafts for way too long. I want to have that out by the end of the month, too (it's been a blast working on it, but I want it gone). I have other ideas for essays past that, but I think it would be best if I finally finished this one first.

I also have a bunch of AUs that I've been mentally workshopping for good while. Here are a few that I want to talk about:

There's a slice of life human + modern AU that involves Shadow Man being neighbors with the Wily family, along with shenanigans such as Bass skipping school on a near regular basis, Piano and Waltz (cut characters from the Megamix manga and the Dreamwave comics respectively) being in girl scouts, Snake Man trying to set Shadow up with Berkana, Star Man being a community theater teacher, Wily being a deadbeat (if there's anything most of my AUs have in common, it's that Wily is a terrible father and Shadow Man will adopt nearly all of Wily's kids if you let him), Zero and X being lab partners, Blues being a runaway... there's a lot going on. I'm definitely going to have to make a proper post explaining this one at some point (and not just because I feel like I'll implode if I don't write something for it soon).

I also have a human + zombie AU that has a bunch of lore, so I can't talk about it too much without giving it its own post - so to sum it up, a bunch of the characters from the Mega Man series got turned into zombies during the apocalypse, got found by some scientists that are being led by Gate, got experimented on, got some of their sentience back while losing some of their zombie-tendencies, and escaped. Now it's everyone else's problem. It features events such as Red learning how to love and be less selfish after half-zombie Axl looks at him one day and goes "Yup. that's my dad now.", Shadow Man adopting half-zombie Zero (because of course he does), Snake Man slowly succumbing to the infection because he took too long to amputate his bite (oof), and Lunime trying to convince all the other former infected to rise up against the humans. And the half-zombies can speak to those that are fully infected, while all the humans get to stand around watching like this:🧍‍♂️

I have a vampire AU I haven't put much thought into. I do have a few details though: Red is Axl's biological father in this one, and Axl is half-vampire (Red is human, though. And an ex-vampire hunter. So he's going through it). Blues is a vampire hunter who is really good at his job, but hates doing it. Shadow Man's family act like rejects from the Addams family. Dr. Light is a retired hunter. I want to write a oneshot for Mouthwashing at some point (I saw a playthrough of it not too long ago and I may never be the same (/pos)), but I'm still working out the main plot beats. There's also a bunch of lore I have for my OCs, but to talk about that would take hours (seriously). I have some other oneshot ideas for the Mega Man franchise as well, but I'm saving those for special occasions (one of them I am saving for April Fool's Day. It is November. Bear with me). But uh... yeah! That's about it. Thank you again for asking! I hope I didn't talk too much. 😅

[catboyklug]

Characters: Sonic [ he / it ] ; Tails [ they / them ] ; Dr. Eggman [ he / him ] ; Infinite the Jackal [ ??? ]

Warnings: Vaguely described blood/injury ; Sonic Loses Lol

Notes: dividers by @rookthornesartistry !! ; this is the first in a series i'm making where i just. rewrite forces from the ground up. very excited about it

Word Count: 1.9k

As always, Sonic did what he did best - race through the track he was given.

Eggman had been leading frequent attacks against the more urban areas dotting the planet Earth, and now he had finally decided to reveal his master plan - a plan for war.

Apparently, he had built a new Death Egg, and was launching it near one of the most densely-populated cities on the planet. Though nobody was sure about the finer details of this new model, one thing was for certain...

Things were about to get messy.

So Sonic ran, past every second-rate badnik and "deadly" lazer, closer to the Death Egg Mark...

"Hey, Tails," Sonic called through his communicator - a handy-dandy wristwatch that Tails was still thinking of a more sci-fi name for, "Which version of the Death Egg are we on, now?"

"I think we should be on--well, technically we're on Mark III..." Tails's voice crackled due to nearby interference - weird, but not unheard of.

"Technically?" Sonic hummed.

"There was that first one you destroyed with Knuckles, then the second that we raced on," he started explaining, "Then the one we all fought to blow up, the... one with Emerl... and then the one he sent at us on the anniversary of you and Amy meeting!"

"But, two of those were considered the Death Egg Mk.II, and the other three just the Death Egg, so I have no idea what Eggman thinks of this one."

"Looks like Eggman's as good at naming things as he is planning ahead," Sonic remarked, audibly grinning.

Even though it was absolutely nothing as quick quips go, Tails bursted out laughing, which prompted a smile from their brother.

"I'll talk to you later, little bro, think I'm almost there," Sonic says, "You keep up the good work over there!"

"Oh, thanks, Sonic-" Tails flushes, "I mean! Good luck to you, too, big bro!"

With an encouraging smile, Sonic ends the call, picking up the pace as he nears the Death Egg launch site.

Now at the city's edge, Sonic noticed the sheer amount of Badniks in the area, and how weirdly placid they were.

Sure, they took a swipe at him if he got too close, but otherwise none of them even bothered turning his way.

Not to mention, they're at the edge of the city. Eggman's only been attacking the most populated areas for a while...

Just as he tries to figure out a reason for these oddities, though, he notices a massive blockade in front of him.

With his depth perception, he can't tell how big they are, but he figures he can just jump over them if there's a ramp nearby.

He notices, almost too late, that there isn't.

Skidding to a halt right before he crashes into them, he prepares to run the opposite direction to look for a building to run up instead, but...

He's surrounded.

It was a trap.

He tries to spindash underneath them, but their legs are too tight together. He can't burrow, since the ground under him is concrete...

Even bashing them seems to be out of the question - they're harder than bricks, and he can't even make the slightest of dents or scratches on them.

At least they aren't trying to attack him back...?

If he had more room, he could build up some speed and make shrapnel of this new plating. But this weird arena's barely big enough for him to jog in, and every time he starts gaining speed he ends up just smacking against one of the drones.

Just as he tries formulating a plan, he hears a familiar, annoying laugh behind him.

He turns, crossing his arms and tapping his foot at the new arrival.

"Sonic, you're just in time to meet my newest pet project," Eggman grins, "Meet Infinite Mechanism - the greatest weapon I've had the pleasure of working with."

This "Infinite" is tall, towering above Eggman. Long and lanky, and Sonic thinks he can see bones through the thin fur and skin.

Or... maybe not bones. They look sharp. He notices a metallic sheen coming from a particularly papery part of skin.

Creepy...

Oh well.

"Infinite Mechanism, huh?" Sonic grins, keeping his confidence close and arrogance closer, "Guess it's better than Monkey Dude..."

Despite how weak the 'insult' was, his enemy seems to immediately deflate upon hearing it. For a moment, his stance changes, and his height makes him look less terrifying and more like a stretched-out piece of plastic about to collapse in on itself.

"Come on, Infinite! You're one of my greatest creations yet!" the doctor roars, apparently offended, "Defeat this blue brat! Put him in his place as punishment for insulting you!"

And there he goes, right back up to pompousness.

No big deal! Sonic's faced off with tons of uppity jerks before, and each time it's been their self-assured swinehood that was their biggest weakness.

There's no doubt that this Infinite guy was briefed for hours about each of Sonic's offensive moves, so he decides to make fun of 'em by keeping it simple.

A light kick there, a weak punch here... He doesn't even spindash, keeping his moves entirely to running around and occassionally taking potshots at his new rival.

When Infinite gets more aggressive, Sonic responds by zipping around the arena as well as he can - not a tactic that could help him get out, sadly, but more than good enough to tease.

He dodges a punch by speed-walking to the other side of the arena and avoids a spinning kick by just... leaning out of the way.

Absolutely enraged at this point, Infinite picks up the speed, trying to reach Sonic, and Sonic takes the opportunity to bait him, tripping him up in mid-air and sending him crashing into one of the badniks making up the arena.

"You're supposed to be Eggman's greatest weapon? Seriously?" he huffs, "This fight's so boring it's making me miss Metal."

"INFINITE!"

Both the combatants turn to Eggman, one absolutely less amused than the other.

"IGNORE THE RAT, FOCUS ON ME!"

"You're more powerful than he could ever dream of being!" the doctor barks, "You have him in the palm of your hand, now - CRUSH HIM!!"

"Talk about ignoring the truth, huh!" Sonic chuckles, crossing his arms.

Before he can finish the quip, though, Infinite barrels him over, grabbing his arms and forcing him to the ground.

He draws a massive, red sword from his belt, raising it above Sonic's neck -

"WHOA!"

Panicking, Sonic kicks him in the stomach and runs to the other side of the arena - wait, is it getting smaller?

No time for that - to take this bigshot down, Sonic needs an opening...

"So you've got a fancy weapon, big deal!" Sonic yells, "I don't need weapons to take anyone down, especially not a loser like you!"

It seems Eggman's 'speech' really got through to him, and Infinite is now completely ignoring Sonic. Drat.

"Keep going, Infinite!" Eggman cheers, "Put that rat in his place!"

With each word Eggman says, Infinite seems to only grow stronger. He fights quicker, harder, and smarter - still no match for Sonic, but... he's getting there.

To prove this point, he makes a sniper rifle appear out of thin air, and aims it at Sonic, pulling the trigger the second its sight meets his head.

Only having dodged because he was dashing when Infinite fired, Sonic's definitely getting a little shaken up now.

For his own sake, and to not power Infinite up even further, he keeps a cool head - and sticks his tongue out when Infinite turns to see if their shot hit.

Outraged, they throw away the now useless rifle and supplant a sword for it.

Infinite can't hear him, but he sure can see him...

Sonic looks, extremely disappointedly, at the sword. Shaking his head to truly convey how upset he feels at Infinite trying to use the same trick twice in one battle. He knows Infinite can do better!

This tomfoolery, albeit nonverbal, seems to get Infinite back to that deflated state. In fact, he seems positively depressed as he halfheartedly swings at Sonic, rendering the sword practically useless.

Well, it would be useless, if it wasn't still incredibly sharp!

Too worried about what'd happen if he tried jumping over a sword in such a tiny arena, Sonic gets backed into a corner, and the realization of this seems to reinvigorate his enemy.

He raises the sword, not too dissimilar from earlier,

Swings it down,

And Sonic kicks it away.

High on adrenaline, he rushes behind Infinite, kicking him down.

"One..." he breathes, "Two... three..."

"Four, five...!"

But before he can call it a knock-out, Infinite shakily pushes himself off the ground.

For a moment, he simply stands facing away from Sonic, and the air stills.

He starts shaking, but with his mouth hidden in a mask, Sonic can't tell if he's laughing or crying.

Thankfully, the awkwardness of the moment is shattered when Infinite swings a new weapon his way - a ridiculously oversized flail, with huge spikes to match.

Starting to get bored of how often he has to quickly dodge out of the way instead of just pummeling the dude, Sonic sighs as he runs away again, keeping his distance.

Deciding not to try his luck against something twice as big and three times as pointy as he is, Sonic uses his new 'running away' position to see if there are any other weaknesses he could make use of. Then notices-

Every time Infinite attempts to draw a new weapon, he has to take several seconds to fish something out of a satchel on his belt.

Great! Now if Sonic could just catch him unawares when he-

Throws the flail, and grabs several daggers.

Sonic might be tired of dodging, but he's absolutely not tired of speed. Or showing off.

A dropdash into a kick off the ground into a frontflip and he sticks the landing!

He gives a joking bow to several of the eggpawns surrounding the arena, making sure to sprint to each one individually and in random order, throwing off Infinite's aim.

Or maybe not.

He realizes, a little too late, the flow of wind as another dagger is thrown at him - and it hits his waving arm.

Shocked by the pain, and the blood, Sonic staggers.

That's... bad.

He grips his arm, trying to slow the flow of blood, but it's hopeless - the blade hit at an odd angle, and the wound is too wide.

It hurts too much to do anything but grip it, however, and the sight of the blood pooling at his feet makes him feel dizzy.

While he's preoccupied with his injury, Eggman lets his egg carrier float into the arena, taking in the sight with glee.

"Each picture is worth a thousand words," he grins, "But I believe this scene only requires three..."

"Good boy, Infinite."

With the praise, Infinite practically glows.

He advances on Sonic, a dark gleam coming from his mask.

Gently, he puts his hands on the sides of Sonic's arms,

Sonic hears a sickening crunch,

And everything goes black.

"Sonic! You there?"

"I managed to drive off all the badniks! Something really strange happened, though... seems like they all turned heel and ran off."

"I guess Robotnik must have called them back..."

"Wait, that means they're headed for the Death Egg!"

"If I'm right, do you need any help over there? None of my 'drones are any worse for wear, so we're all here if you need us!"

"I bet you could handle anything Eggman threw at you, though, big bro!"

"..."

"...Sonic?"

[drghostwrite]

dana scully x fem!reader

prompt 'you remembered'?

ehehe

ty xoxo

I'm so happy you asked, kudos for being the first to ask, you're the best! I was so excited to write this and I so hope you enjoy it, though I will be honest it started as fluff and then turned into its own thing so if you want a rewrite just let me know. ;)

Dana Scully x fem!reader

Prompt: "you remembered?"

TW: fluff turns to smut [Minors DNI]

Summary: It's their two year anniversary and Dana was upset that she has to work and can't be with you but little does she know you have bigger things planned. The reader is a doctor, head of the Emergency department at a level 1 trauma center so she doesn't always have time and can be forgetful.

********************************************************

Dana sat at her desk, leaning her forehead into her hand and letting out a frustrated sigh, and scribbled something into the case file laid out in front of her. Today was your two year anniversary and though you loved her and she knew that, and vice versa she just wished she could be with you right now, instead of sitting at this desk doing paperwork.

Her phone lit up revealing the cute selfie of the two of you from when you traveled to your cabin last winter, you had gone hiking and skiing giving you both the chance to escape your hectic lives and one morning you found yourselves sitting on the couch, watching the snowfall curled up next to one another under a mound of fluffy and soft blankets, Dana was leaning on your chest laid between your legs while you were drinking coffee and just talking when you saw her raise her phone in front of you and snap a picture, you leaned forward smiling into her strawberry blonde hair and that's the picture she snapped and then another as she turned halfway so you could place a kiss to her temple keeping eye contact with the camera.

She grabbed the phone quickly hoping it was you but instead, it was a message from Fox reading, Need you to come upstairs to the office, ASAP.

"Damn you Mulder, I'm never getting out of here," she grumbled getting up from her desk to make her way from the morgue office to the little setup in the local police department. She really wanted nothing more than to order takeout that she knew would get cold because she had other activities planned, and put it on the island as soon as it got there to be warmed up later but instead, she was stuck at the local police department in Virginia on a wild goose chase while she knew you were running your emergency department saving lives, and she knew that you would be so tired and a part of her worried that you might even forget that it's your anniversary.

She looked at the clock, 5:24pm, and quickly shot you a text saying, Hey Love I'm going to probably be home late but I'll order takeout and have it sent to the house, so don't worry I got you covered.

Read 5:27

She let out a small depressed sigh, slipping her phone back into her blazer pocket as she made her way upstairs gathering the files she had laid out and putting them under her arm. She heard the elevator doors ding and felt the cart jolt into place as the doors opened, she stepped out onto the first level and didn't spot Mulder just yet. She scanned her surroundings, peaking her head into the small office on the side only to find him looking at a bulletin on the wall covered in red thread and pictures scattered about, Monica Reyes was leaning back in a chair feet up on the table with headphones in and John Dogett was passed out on the couch.

"Scully look at this I think I figured out where its been hiding."

"Please tell me you didn't pull me from something important to tell me you think there's another mythical creature out there."

"No look I think it's the sewers."

"Mulder you think the Chupacabra is underground hiding in the sewers, there's nothing to prove that, we caught the kids, it was just a hoax a bunch of frats boys thinking they were being ritualistic but in reality, they were brainwashed by their charismatic leader into a killing spree." Monica sat up watching you two but still had her headphones in only slightly listening enough that she knew what was going on.

"Mulder she's right we're wasting resources at this point, if there were more attacks after the arrest maybe, but I think the boys were using that system to get around without being caught and to stash costumes and weapons." Monica finally spoke up taking Danas side.

"Come on Mulder," Dana rubbed her forehead, "I think were all tired and just ready to get in the car a drive home." He looked around seeing John stirring from his sleep and seeing the frustration on Dana's features, he gave the go-ahead command to pack up and go home but informed them that he was going to have everything faxed over just in case. Dana grabbed her things and basically ran out of the building, but as she got outside the door she dropped her keys and heard a voice.

"Hey Beautiful need a hand?" she quickly shot up and turned around hand on her gun, but she took in the sight before quickly realizing it was you. she jumped wrapping her arms around your neck as you held her waist, she pulled you into a chaste kiss not caring who was around you or who witnessed this moment.

"Hey you two!" yelled John as he and Monica laughed to each other, Mulder was still inside oblivious, Dana turned bright red and pulled away from you, she saw her coworkers a lot and they've been in pretty dire situations but they've never seen her like this before so dependent on one person. You tuned giving all of them a wave, you picked up the keys to the Tahoe that they all drove there in a tossed them to John as he gave you a nod of approval.

"I think I'm gonna take my wife home now, have a great night guys." You smiled pulling her closer to your side and walking her towards your SUV, you opened her door and helped her in, walking back around and jumping in the driver seat. You had gone picked up coffee and put her favorite playlist on, she kicked her shoes off reclined her seat, and grabbed your hand as you pulled out to make your way home, she talked about the case and her day but never mentioned what day it was because she felt bad and she didn't want to make you feel worse, she was just amazed that you drive 3 hours after a crazy ED shift to come pick her up yourself. 3 hours later and you pulled into your driveway, saw the lights still on, and thanked God that your sister got the message, she cleaned, got the takeout from your favorite Italian restaurant, and set everything up so that you could leave right from work and drive to Virginia to pick up Dana. As you walked in the house you guided her right upstairs.

"Baby aren't we gonna eat I'm starving and I doubt you got a break at the hospital today, with the full moon and all."

"Oh trust me you're going to want to wait." You stepped into your master bedroom and that's when she saw it, dimly lit candles with her favorite scent, you made the bed but changed the sheets to black satin with a deep maroon blanket, and she realized that you weren't wearing scrubs and that you had nothing but a lace bra under your cream boyfriend button up, you had left the top three buttons open just enough that she could see down your shirt making her go rabid but not enough for anyone to notice from a distance, you also had on the skinny jeans that she loved they accented your butt and thighs so well.

You turned and looked at her expression, chuckling you kissed her forehead.

"You remebered?" she asked almost confused but amazed, she looked into your eyes seeing the compassion and the small smirk you had.

"Dana Catherine Scully you’re the love of my life of course I remembered. Now let me show you just how much I love you."

You turned closing the door behind you and leaned down to kiss her lips backing her up against the door. she played with the buttons pushing your shirt off your shoulders, and you started the buttons on her shirt revealing the blue lace underneath, she undid the button of her pants let them pool around her ankles revealing the matching panties, she stepped and kicked them to the side. “Mm baby you look amazing.” You grabbed the back of her thighs picked her up and pressed her against the wall, you started working your way down her neck and onto the exposed skin of her chest leaving bites along the way as she threw her head back against the wall letting out low moans, moans that went straight to your core. You unclasped her bra and pulled a nipple into your mouth, she gasped at the action but then you felt her hand in your hair telling you to keep going, you could feel her muscles taut against you.

“mhmmhm, maybe we should move this to the bed.”You quickly made your way to the bed laying her on the edge and she pulled you down with her.

"Y/N I want to touch you, to feel you, please."

"Whatever you want baby." you slipped off the rest of your clothes and then crawled back up the bed hooking your finger in her panties and sliding them off tossing them to the side. You leaned forward placing yourself in between her legs, you could feel her start to grind against you, kissing her again and stayed there for a minute before snaking a hand down between her legs and sliding it through her folds.

"Oh my God Dana you're so wet for me baby."

She moaned at the touch letting out a small pained laugh into the kiss, "Y/N I've been waiting for this all day."

"Well, then you shouldn't have to wait any longer." You pushed your first finger in and then another gently kissing down her body, you could already feel how close she was as she bucked against your hand, you kissed down her stomach and stopped right where she needed you most, kissing up and down her thighs, slowing down your hand and watching her squirm. Before she could say anything you attached your lips around her clit sucking harshly and starting your hand back up. Her back arched and before she knew it you had her seeing stars. You pulled your fingers out but coaxed her through with your mouth tasting all of her, you climbed back up her body, letting her catch her breath and kissed her deeply, letting her taste herself.

"I'm sorry for thinking you forgot about our anniversary." She apologized in between kisses.

"Love, there's nothing to worry about, and by the way I would never forget the day I married the most gorgeous, smart, and badass woman in the world."

"Mmmm, in that case," she moaned looking into your genuine green eyes, she hooked her leg over yours and flipped you both other, her sapphire blue eyes blowing bigger with lust as she positined herself above you.

"I guess I better show you how loved you really are," as she deepened the kisses.

[babyarmybabbles]

Run ARMY! (Meet Part) a1 d4 +155 Words

[Caution: These are not full fics, or even full parts of fics for some, these are part of my writing progress archive!]

Concept: Reader won the opportunity to film a spin off of Run BTS! celebrating the boys return from enlistment, called Run ARMY!, over the course of seven days.

Word Count: 1,250

Notes: Our first official addition! I wanted to do additions in intervals of 1,000, but I'm on the fence of just completely rewriting this entire fic. I'm really unhappy with it and it's fighting me at every turn. I think I focused too much on the little things between point A and B and establishing Reader's voice and character. Might keep like the first bit of the Arrival part and a couple bits here and there. I'll sit on it. Marked the addition with []

Took Inspirations from Run ARMY! series on Tik Tok by _yamanika_ and Guess The Bias! by HelloMyAlien7 on Ao3

Warnings: Reader is p anxious lol. Sort of panic attack? Anxiety attack? idk man. Just anxious Reader.

Masterlist Link <3 | Prev Part Link c: | Next Part Link :D

By the time the SUV is pulling into the underground parking garage to meet the band in you’re sweating buckets. Not literally, thank the stars, but you feel near to it. Hannuel smiles kindly at you from the driver’s seat, obviously able to see your nerves. You’re pretty sure a satellite could see your nerves right now.

“You’ll be fine.” She soothes as the car descends. “The boys are super nice, and they’re excited to meet you. You’ve got nothing to worry about.” You suck in a deep breath in response and let it out. It doesn’t help much.

“I’m more nervous about ARMY not liking me than BTS not liking me.” You admit with a nervous laugh, consciously switching to twisting your rings around so you don't pick at your nails in your anxiety. Having bloody fingers while meeting your favorite group would not be a good look. “Also they intimidate me.” You add quietly.

You hear Hannuel stifle a snicker and your head shoots up to glare at her in affront. She’s supposed to support you, not laugh at you! She must see your mulish stare in the rear-view, because she quickly defends herself.

“Sorry, sorry! I’m not laughing at you, I promise. It’s just that they’re so silly sometimes, it’s hard to find them intimidating after having known them.” You easily concede the point to her. You'd seen enough behind the scenes content to get that impression. It’s a bit soothing to hear from an actual staff member though. “They’re the sweetest, really,” Hannuel continues, “You’ve genuinely got nothing to worry about. They’ll take care of you.”

You groan and let your head thump against the seat. “That’s part of the problem!” You complain, “It’s my first time on this side of a camera, it’s my first time meeting BTS, it’s my first time being in Korea, It’s just a lot! What if ARMY sees me fumbling and the boys helping me and decide they hate me? I can’t be hated by ARMY! I’d die!” You dramatically slump sideways, coincidentally timed with a turn that scootches you that much farther over.

Score one for dramatics.

Hannuel laughs gently at you, and you continue somewhat more seriously from your slumped position. “I mean, ARMY is basically my home. I don’t know what I’d do if they hated me.” You murmur into the leather cushion.

Hannuel hums musingly at you and the two of you lapse into silence for a moment.

“Well,” She starts, “First of all, you probably already know that you can never please everyone.” You nod miserably, aware that she could no longer see you. Both your therapist and your friends had told you as much many times. She continues, “But ARMY loves to see the boys interact with other ARMY. It’s another way they get to know them and feel connected. If you ask me, you’ll have more people projecting onto you than judging you. Not that they won’t judge, but” She shrugs, “People always do.”

You slowly sit up and shoot an admiring look at the woman. “Woah,” you mumble, “How are you so wise?”

Hannuel barks out a surprised laugh. “Life experience, mostly.” She replies amusedly.

You settle back into your seat and finally notice that Hannuel had stopped the car before what you assume to be the final turn before the boys would be in view. You feel a rush of gratefulness for her.

You hadn’t known her very long, but Hannuel had already been an incredible help and a very soothing presence to you. You should buy her something nice before you leave if you get the chance. See if you can send a gift basket through Hybe for her if you don't.

She starts the car rolling forward again as you reappear in the rear-view mirror, fully over your momentary theatrics. You take another deep breath and let it out again. It helps more this time.

“It’s not like my socials are public or anything either," You soothe yourself aloud, "And my friends already know me, they’re just excited. Everyone else is secondary.”

“Exactly” Hannuel affirms. You startle just a bit and then try to pretend you hadn’t forgotten she could hear you. Luckily, she’s too busy driving the car to notice. “Like I said, you’ll be just fine.”

Unfortunately for Hannuel’s encouraging words, you’d finally rolled close enough for you to spot seven men standing near 3 other SUVs just ahead and you were suddenly incapable of hearing anything anymore.

Static fills your brain as you study them. You register the casual clothes, watch them nudge each other excitedly as they notice your vehicle, even note the camera crew nearby, but not a single thought makes it past the haze of panic. Distantly, you wonder if this is what an adrenaline rush feels like. You suddenly can’t remember.

Your heartbeat thuds in your ears as the car comes to a gentle stop.

You absently bring one hand up to the pulse point under your jaw to measure your pulse and raise the other to your chest to make sure you’re still breathing. Hannuel is repeating instructions for your benefit in the front seat, but you simply cannot engage your brain enough to listen. All too soon she's exiting the car. You manage to tear your hands away from their comforting positions as she comes around and opens your door for you.

Hannuel helps you down as you duck out of the car and gives you a brief sympathetic smile as she takes your trembling hand.

Excited exclamations meet your arrival and you hastily paste confidence over your every mannerism as you lift both hands to wave back with equal excitement. Hannuel is the only one close enough to be able to see your hands continuing to shake, or note the fact that you stop breathing as you approach BTS.

You hope your smile isn't too tight and that you look appropriately excited. Hopefully whatever the cameras are seeing right now can be explained by excitement and reasonable nerves. You'll take your near panic-attack to the nearest private space, thanks.

["Hello! Oh my goodness, hi!" You release your held breath and end up attempting a sort of half-bow-half-handshake combo with RM that looks and feels incredibly awkward.

You’re mentally screaming apologies to him and despairing your lack of social graces as you move to greet the next member, one Kim Seokjin. You're not sure you can recover from this. You may just have to perish right here right now.

Blessedly, the man takes the lead for the interaction, opening his arms for a hug. You hesitate for a moment, double checking that he was giving you permission to hug him, before gratefully diving into the embrace.

The hug is a standard, friendly thing. Just a bit of a lean in and affectionate tap-tap-taps to eachothers upper back. It relaxes you immensely.

It helps that he more passes you to the next member down the line than let's you completely reset for a new interaction. No chance of awkwardness in pre-established patterns.

In this manner, you gain a hug from most of the other members as well. Yoongi is the only one who declines, offering a handshake that goes much more smoothly than your initial one with RM.

Once you're done with greetings, the PD introduces you, prompting you to wave and bow at them. You're sure it looks awkward because you feel awkward, but at least it gets done. ]

[springsaladgaming]

i'm atrocious at doing regular status updates on this blog, but you'll be happy to know that i have been working on the chapter 3 rewrite

for those who are newer to this blog—or just as a reminder to those who have been around a while—like 98% of chapter 3 will be rewritten when compared to the choicescript version. the original antagonist motivation hasn't changed, but the introduction to the situation was too coincidental for my liking, so the rewrite will put the MC more at the center of what's going on and also make Sungjae's involvement make a lot more sense later down the line

there are a lot of reasons why it's been taking so long, but one of the major ones is that i'm just a better twine coder now than i was when i started moving Ninelives into twine. i'm encountering a lot of issues with the way i've coded certain things, and i'm having to go back and fix things that were just... coded stupidly

also there's a very high chance that, at some point, i will move the whole game onto to a different template, because the one that i've been using, while very lovely, has given me a lot of problems trying to get it to switch to portrait mode for mobile readers (i've mentioned this before, but it bears reminding)

the massive changes to chapter 3 will majorly affect a couple of scenes that take place after, but large chunks of chapters 4 and 5 will remain the same as what they were in the original choicescript, so chapter 3 is really the big hurdle right now (as it has been for a while)

so i promise, it's coming eventually, i just won't promise when or how much—but i think i'll do an update before the chapter is finished, just to give y'all something

also, it's the first chapter you'll get to properly meet our lovely ???, so that will be exciting ✌🏾🧡

[romaine2424]

Daily Blog June 21, 2023

Hi! Welcome to my first day of fandom blogging! I'm very excited about doing this and hope you'll join in on the conversation and really hope that you might start one of your own!!! So on that note, lets get going.

What I'm reading:

I'm currently re-reading The Changeling by @annerbhp. It's a canon rewrite of sort, with a big twist. Here's the summary: Ginny is sorted into Slytherin. It takes her seven years to figure out why. It's 182K from Ginny's POV. It does follow canon to a point. I read this about 6 months ago and I still think about it when writing Drarry. I now have to give Ginny a positive break-up with Harry. LOL No dissing her because she's such a badass in this story. While it's listed as Harry/Ginny, it really is mostly a Ginny story for the main story. There's follow on stories after this one that are fab too.

It starts with Year 1 and the house sorting. Ginny is surprisingly sorted into Slytherin. She at first thinks its a joke done by her twin brothers, but then reality sets in. Most of her family is devastated and she feels completely isolated. This is a Ginny you'll recognize from canon and then so much more. If you longed for more Slytherin background and lore than canon gave us, this you will love. And if you think Slytherin is dominated by the males...well this will give you a headcanon that you won't forget.

What I'm writing:

The Azkaban Letters, which I'm so far behind on I want to cry. It's a 2007 WIP I started right before HPDH came out. So it's canon divergent after HBP. I did edit the first 7 to be more in line with canon and post canon. My issue is I have too much in my head and too many ideas to get down on paper...er on the computer. When I stopped writing it in 2007, I had posted the first 7 chapters on The Hex Files. It came over to AO3 during the transfer and has been staring at me in the face since then. I'm now up to 16 chapters, which sounds like a lot, but there's 4 sections to the story and I'm in the middle of section 2. sigh.

Tumblr Posts of Interest:

@xanthippe74 on her blog has reposted her 2020 fic, Follow the Water in honor of summer solstice. If you have not read this fic, you are in for such a treat. Perfect summer fic. Give her post a reblog and fic some love!

@julcheninred posted on her blog yesterday that it was the 5th anniversary of Draw Drarry badly. I so love her block H/D art, and so happy we've had five years of her sharing them with us. Make sure to reblog to share the Drarry fun!

3. HDMpreg2023 has posted the reveals on A03. TWENTY fics in all. I only got to read about 1/3 of them, but whoa there are some serious gems. (If I find the Tumblr post for this, I'll add it.)

4. @lcdrarry has also posted their reveals! My apologies to the fest and authors/artists. I've only read a few this round but plan on diving into the treasure trove of Drarry. This was a new fest for me to watch when I came back to fandom. While I don't watch many movies or watch tv much anymore, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to follow/understand the stories as well as I should. I was wrong. Most I have found I could enjoy without knowing the source.

Tumblr Drarry Fic/Art Resource:

I'm guessing most of you follow @drarryspecificrecsdaily, but in case not, you should definitely follow! They post Drarry completed fics which have been posted on AO3 for the current day. I have found some amazing gems from this resource. Fics I haven't seen discussed or recced anywhere else and authors I haven't been blessed reading before.

Okay, that's it for Day 1! Hope you found something interesting. I'll be switching around the categories on a daily basis. Tomorrow, I'll be adding in Fic Rec from the way past. Feel free to comment. :)

[charmixpower]

From best to worst individually, how good are the Trix at commanding, channeling and harmonising?

Thank you for the lore questions!! Fun fact I'm making a lore bible with now with some major rewrites and somethings that are exactly the same, and that will be out... Before next year XD

The notes are about 7,000 words right now and I can say with complete certainty that it will be over 10,000 by the time I'm done XD I've already broken it down by part to make it easier to explain. Focused, thriving, moisturized, in my lane, ect ect. Excited for that, I'll rewrite this when I finish my lore

Icy: Commanding, Harmonizing, Channeling

Icy is a straight up prodigy at commanding magic. She uses cold air and water in the air to make her ice and throw it at people. That takes an insane amount of control!! Stormy is also really good at it, making lighting is hard, but she gets to start with air and wind being already present. Icy has to MacGyver that shit. Icy is theeee baddest bitch. As for harmonizing if she had literally any other domain she'd suck massive dick at it, I mean she'd be TERRIBLE. Icy just really REALLY vibes with ice in particular, both physically and metaphorically, making it extremely easy for her to harmonize with ice/cold. She kinda views the cold as an extension of herself, so it's almost second nature to her. Adding Bloom's power to her massively fucked up her ability to do that btw bc there was something foreign was in her. As for channeling magic she's still really good at it! Remember in s2 where she nearly killed Sky in RF by, I think it's implied that she kinda internally freezes him??? Yeah but she's good at that too. It requires more thought than the first two that she's a genius in and she can do by instinct but that only makes a difference of a couple seconds. Icy is EXTREMELY good at magic

Stormy: Harmonizing, Commanding, Channeling

It's really funny to say Stormy "chaos reigns" is good at harmonizing but that's exactly why she's good at it. Baby girl IS the storms. She's like the concept lightning tornados were a person, and said storm magic reacts to her back like that. They GET each other. Relating to that, Stormy is obviously far less controlled about her magic. Stormy intuits her magic, the only thing she's really intentionally controlling is her lighting bolts, otherwise she's just pulling at the magic and letting it do what it wants while pointing it in the direction of whatever she wants dead. On that note, channeling, channeling a large wild source of magic into a little box is literally the worst thing in the world for Stormy. She sucks ass at it. Like. Barely passing her requirements sucks at it. She's all like, fuck OFF storms are not meant to be contained in tiny little magic stones, immediately die about it. And then the teacher tells her to stop being insubordinate and just do the assignment

Darcy: Channeling, Commanding, Harmonizing

I feel like Darcy is at her best in combat when she's not a powerhouse. Icy and Stormy are already power houses, we don't need all three of them to be. Darcy's commanding and channeling magic are at the same level. She's not Icy levels of good at either but still extremely good. She uses her commanding magic to throw things around and attack from multiple directions and basically uses it to influence her environment physically, and channeling magic to use things inner darkness to cause havoc. She deserves a unique fighting style her magic is so cool. As for harmonizing. You remember in s1 where she pretended to be Stella and was SO TERRIBLE AT IT??? Remember in s2 when only Icy was any good at pretending to be a normal CT witch??? Darcy is good with physical darkness, she's great with messing with internal darkness, she's TERRIBLE at the trickster parts of darkness. Like. Blowing up Riven and gaslighting him into falling in love with her wasn't even HER idea, IT WAS ICYS!! She sucks at harmonizing, she's much better at it than Stormy is at channeling, she can mostly do it but it's not very good. It's passable. High C, low B grade

[toonifiedchaos]

Eyeless Jack Rewrite

Original By Azelf5000

Rewritten By Drb (No tumblr account) & NathanH (toonifiedchaos)

Quick notice - NathanH.

We are both fairly inexperienced writers and this is our first time doing an ambitious project like this together, and so we hope you can help us by giving criticism. We plan to bring much more to you all, and do our best to improve with the information you give us along the way. In other words don't expect this to meet demand please we're complete normies. With all that out of the way we hope you enjoy this story.

Drb Chapter 1 - Prelude

I don't know why I'm forced to write in this stupid book my mother gave me, but since the death of my sister and that horrendous car crash that my mother can't seem to move on from, she's been trying to make us feel better or give us some sort of emotional place where we can just be ourselves. Frankly, I don't see the purpose of writing here, but I'll do it for the sake of her. I don't really know what to write in a journal, but I guess I'll just start off with who I am.

My name is Mitch. It is February 1992, in my opinion, the greatest time to be alive. My brother is Edwin, my father's name is Lucas, and my mother is Elizabeth. And then there was my sister, who sadly has passed on from this world, her name was Erica. I don't know the specifics on how she died. Mom didn't tell me the details, but all we know is it was a really bad car accident, something to do with swerving. All I can say is that mother hasn't been the same since she lost her first. We all miss Erica, but that's beside the point.

Me and my brother Edwin have been recently trying out making some home movies. We don't have any ideas yet, but hopefully, we'll get something soon, something inspirational. I can feel it. He had an idea, something about Sci-Fi. I don't like that idea. Or some sort of Horror, and I like that one. But we're still trying to figure out what's going to be everything. Or maybe a fantasy. I don't know exactly what we're going to do, but we'll find something eventually we like. 

I just wonder now how I end a journal entry.

Today is a pretty good day. Mother and Father went out to get some takeout since Mom didn't feel like cooking, with everything and all. We had pizza; it was pretty good. While we were eating, my brother had a pretty good idea. He decided to start the process of actually writing a script. When I asked him what it was going to be about, he said it was going to be like some horror flick. He didn't know exactly what it would be about. I questioned him about how he was writing a script without knowing what everything was. All he did was look at me and say, "I'll figure it out."

It's 1:30 in the afternoon. Nothing new, but we are coming up with ideas, writing stuff down about ancient monsters and beings. We haven't really settled on a topic for our movie yet. It's going to be a horror one, and I'm pretty excited to make it with him. He's been feeling strange, or not really strange, just sad since the loss of our family member. We weren't close, but it's still sad.

This is my third day writing in this journal, and I'm kind of starting to warm up to it. We finally came up with a pretty good idea for our movie. It's about this cult. We don't know what they're going to wear exactly, but at least we have an idea down for once. We don't know what the cult is doing right now; we're just figuring out characters. But I'm hoping that it's going to be really cool. 

To be honest, I'm starting to warm up to the idea of a horror flick. I was hoping we could do something different, but I kind of want to now. It's that weird feeling where you don't want to do something, and then you just warm up to it over time.

Day Four: I really think I'm starting to get the hang of writing these journal entries. I think I'm going to try to list the days from now on, like Day One, Day Two, and so on. But that's beside the point.

Today, we came up with how the cult is going to look. I was thinking about some robes, maybe like the Spanish Inquisition, so we settled on a cult with blue masks of some sort and long black robes. They look a lot like the ones plague doctors had but not exactly. They're a bit different and not made of leather—maybe some sort of heavy wool material. I think I can just spray paint Mother's shower robe for the movie, but I'll have to ask for her permission and get the spray paint. Not sure where to find it, but I could probably ask Dad.

Everything's been looking up for us. Life has been actually good.

Today, Mom and Dad got into an argument. They were yelling at each other. I don't know; I didn't hear the full thing, but all I caught from the top of the stairs was that they were blaming each other for the death of my sister. Mom was yelling at him, saying if only he hadn't gotten her a car. Dad yelled back, saying if only she didn't let her go out that night to have fun. 

But all I thought was, how is this supposed to change our lives? At some point, I heard something—maybe Mom slapped Dad or hit him in some way. Dad left the house, not in a hurry, but walking out slowly before glaring at me. I quickly scrambled back up the stairs, almost tripping but getting back up quickly. He had a sad look in his eye—like guilt, sadness, and blame. I don't know how to describe it, but I feel bad for him, you know?

Oh, I almost forgot to write down the day: Day Five.

Nothing new today. Oh, I almost forgot it again—today is Day 6 of writing. Aside from that, nothing new. Dad still hasn't come back. I was a bit worried, so I asked Mom where he went. Mom said he was going to talk to his mom, so that means he's at Grandma's right now. I don't know exactly why—maybe he's dealing with something.

I asked Mom, "Will he be coming back anytime soon?"

"I don't know, honey. Hopefully," she replied.

Later that night, Dad came back. They had some heated discussion in the kitchen, but everything's okay now, thankfully. For food today, we had mac and cheese. It wasn't bad—Dad cooked, and I liked it.

Me and my brother did a bit more brainstorming too. We still haven't come up with anything, you know, good in my opinion, but we're getting there eventually.

Day Seven: Sometimes I feel like everyone in the house is distraught apart from me and my brother. The house feels not empty but dead since she left. Dad is sulking around on the couch most of the time. Mom is in the kitchen or anywhere else, God knows. Me and my brother are usually in our rooms, though he's in mine sometimes.

Despite everything, we have really good ideas we're coming up with. So far, we don't know what the cult is doing, but at least we know what the cult looks like. In my opinion, that's a big step up. In my brother's opinion, he just says it's a minor imperfection. I always kept asking, "What do you mean by that?" He always just said, "Well, some things can't be perfect in life, so we just got to work with what we're given." I like my brother; he has really good advice.

Today was the funeral. Since then, he hasn't been the same. No, he's the same person, of course, he's just a lot more depressed. He sulks a lot more than usual. He's been trying to go back to his old self; it's kind of hard, though. Mom and Dad are just distraught, and I don't know how to help them. I wish I could. I wish I had my sister back.

Drb Chapter 2 - Supernatural Conflict

I finally think I have a grasp or an understanding of how to properly write a journal. Since the last time I wrote here, nothing strange has happened, but we've actually started trying to find ways to make the costumes. My brother actually found an old robe. It was already black, so it was in the exact mentality we needed, but it wasn't the exact darkness we needed. It was a bit too light.

Oh, I forgot again—today is day 8. I have to remind myself to do this more often. It feels nice to write here. My brother has been a bit sadder than usual, but still, he's holding high spirits the best he can, the best all of us can since the loss of my sister.

But aside from that, everything has been going well. Dad got a raise at his job. Mom has been feeling better. In fact, she actually cooked yesterday. She made stir-fry pasta or noodles. I liked it. My brother didn't like it; he didn't like the vegetable part, to be specific. But aside from that, everything's been going perfectly normal.

Today was a pretty good day. My dad bought some spray paint, and we went outside and spray-painted the coat. Dad's actually in support of our idea. He's a lot more lively than usual. I'm really happy to see him as his old self. Mom is also becoming better. She's a lot happier than usual. She's not energetic, but she actually has a genuine smile of happiness once in a while, and I'm happy to see that.

Everything is actually going back to normal, except for a couple of things. It's probably nothing—probably just the tree branches against my window or just seeing things in the dark. The brain does that once in a while. But I've been seeing these shadows sometimes. It's probably just my brother going downstairs to get water, but it still has me a bit on edge.

I did it again. I almost forgot to add what day it was—day 9. I'm about to go to bed. Hopefully, nothing strange happens. I'm still a bit nervous, but it's not that bad.

Day 10: Today we finally got the costume done. I'm really happy with it. The mask is exactly how we envisioned it—a blue, oval-shaped mask with two eyes and no mouth. The black robe is finally done and dried. It fits perfectly with the hood on. My favorite part is when you put the hands together; it looks like they're connected. I took that inspiration from the Spanish Inquisition, or as my brother would say, it's not special; it's just an average cult thing. I tried to convince him, but he didn't really care. Well, at this point, I don't really care either. At least we have something we're working on.

But something has been going on. Once in a while, I hear things—like very light footsteps and sometimes, not scratching, but like someone's putting their hand on the wall and walking very slowly. As well, lights sometimes turn on and off, and doors sometimes creak slowly open and creak slowly shut. Sometimes they swing open and stay open, and then maybe an hour or sometime later, they just shut. But it's never the same door. It's always a new or different thing.

Day 11: The electrician has come by to check out the lights, but he says nothing is wrong with them. The doors, he can't explain that. To be honest, I don't really know what's happening. I thought it could be the wind pushing the doors open, but the doors closing—I don't know about that. That, to me, is extremely strange.

We've actually started recording the movie today. I'm pretty excited. We've just started recording a couple of scenes, but aside from that, we haven't really filmed much. We've planned out the script though, and we have it fully done and ready. We're planning on recording more soon. We're playing the scenes out sometimes, but we haven't got the film yet because the battery for the camera is dead and it's still charging. It takes a little while—I don't know why it takes so long. Maybe the lights turning off and on is affecting the power. We'll have to call the electrician back.

We found out that a small mouse was chewing through the power lines. That's why the lights are flickering. But the strangest thing is, even after fixing them, the camera could charge but the lights still flicker, the doors still shut, and I'm starting to get really scared that there's something here. It's probably nothing—just my suspicion taking over. My parents keep telling me it's probably just my imagination. "Nothing to worry about, kiddo," my dad tells me. "Stop joking around," says my mother every time I bring any of this stuff up. 

The strangest thing is, when nobody's home, this still happens. My brother and I were home one time while our parents went out to get groceries, and the doors shut, sometimes they creak open and creak shut. They shut loudly and close even quieter sometimes. The same for the lights—they still flicker. We sometimes check the attic to see if there are any mice chewing on wires. Nothing. At least the camera's charged though—that I'm excited for.

Day 11 (continued): I'm really excited to start recording soon. I'll probably start recording tomorrow. I don't feel like it today since it's already getting late, but I can hear something in the corner of the house. I can barely hear it, like someone's hand being dragged against the wall. Not scratching with nails, but a very light hand against it.

You can also hear very faint footsteps. They're very hard to hear, but if you listen patiently and quietly, you'll hear them, as well as light switches being turned on and off. It's like someone is playing with them for fun—flicking them on for a little while, then off, then rapidly flicking them on and off, and then leaving them alone. The same for doors opening. Sometimes the stairs squeak like a mouse being stepped on. I don't know what's happening, but hopefully soon we'll start filming.

I think my mom is right, and so is my father. This is all just my imagination.

Day 12: Recently, I went back up to the attic to check what was going on, and I found something pretty interesting. There were small scratches around the outside of the attic window. It's a pretty big circular window. Something a bit more unnerving that I found is at the top there's a latch opening. When I opened the latch, I realized I could stick my head through it, and there was actually space for me to crawl out.

But there's nothing to hold on to or step onto. It's a risk, and I don't think anyone could crawl up from the bottom all the way to the third floor. It's a strange discovery, and I'm not sure what to make of it. I hope it's just the wind or something natural causing those scratches.

Tomorrow, I'll focus on the movie again and try to put this strange feeling aside.

NathanH. Chapter 3 - First Contact

[Recording start]

“Alright, I’m recording this because in the past few days some… pretty weird shit has happened. This was such a mistake, WE NEVER SHOULD HAVE CAME HERE!”

[Brief silence as Mitch adjusts the position of the camera, showing he’s still in his hospital bed]

“Okay so I’m still in the hospital

“Okay, so I was trying to go to sleep about 4.. 5..? Nights ago and things were pretty normal, up until I woke up to the sudden crashing of glass in the attic, obviously I started freaking the fuck out, only to find out I couldn’t move. It was like an invisible force was holding me down, looking back on it I think it was sleep paralysis, but that isn’t what matters.”

[Mitch begins to visibly shiver despite the notably warm weather]

“What matters is what happened next. I saw something that night, all my fears, all my paranoia.. Was confirmed in the span of mere minutes as someone.. Or something carefully moved down the stairs from the attic and began to move towards my room”

[Mitch’s composure at this point breaks and he starts sobbing as he recounts what he saw]

“My door slowly creaked open, the squeaking of the old hinges sounding like the squeal of a dying pig. And that's when I saw it, an impossibly long and gaunt arm with tight, charcoal black skin that looked like it would begin to split at the seams at any second reached through the door, its fingers twisting the wrong way to wrap around the frame and clumsily push the door open”

“That's when I saw a familiar set of black fabric. It was wearing the robes from our costume and as its long crooked body that nearly touched the hallway ceiling hunched down to slide through the door I saw my homemade mask strapped over its face, the eyes looked like black holes and a clear, thick substance leaked from the eyeholes.. Almost like saliva from a hungry animal”

[Mitch takes a second to let his emotions out, sobbing and hyperventilating]

“That fucking abomination stood over my bed staring me down with NO EYES IN ITS SOCKETS, it hunched over again nearly on all fours, and I made the worst mistake I could have made… I DISMISSED THAT DEMON AS A HALLUCINATION, I was in the midst of sleep paralysis so it seemed like the logical conclusion, JUST A MANIFESTATION OF MY PARANOIA RIGHT?!?!”

“As the figure lingered closer my eyes closed, and past that everything became a blur… GOD I was such a fool..”

[As Mitch’s anger and terror boils up to the surface his voice raises, shouting and screaming before dropping to depressive wails and muffled words as he covers his face]

*sniff* “I woke up in the HOSPITAL, I was confused obviously but my mother told me that I had screamed in the middle of the night and when they were rushing up to check I weakly shambled into their room with a blister on my left cheek and a gaping patch of torn off skin and flesh on my abdomen rambling about the man in my room. My dad checked the bedroom, finding nothing but unnaturally large, three-toed animal-like footprints leading to my bedroom window which had its latches used to lock the window torn right off.” *sniff* “My mom called 911 as my dad found this and tried to prevent me from moving around in order to not risk more blood loss and by some MIRACLE they were able to get me to the hospital. If they were even a few seconds later I probably would have died. I was in a seriously critical condition, virtually dead… And yet I’m here recording this.”

[Mitch after letting out all this seems to calm down just a little]

“But you wanna know the most disturbing and baffling part of ALL of this, when the doctors were performing the operation they found something baffling. MY KIDNEY WAS CRUDELY REMOVED! Because of that as well as the accounts of my parents the police are getting involved meaning I probably can’t say much more than I already have. When I heard that my world flipped completely, I had so many more questions than I had before now. Why me? Why take my kidney of all things? Is any of this even real?’

“Well I’m probably gonna end this here, as I said before the police are involved in the case and there is currently an ongoing search, since I was in the hospital for quite some time to recover the investigation is nearly over, and my condition is mostly stable so tomorrow I can leave the hospital, I can lay down in my own house again… Talk to my brother again.. But I'm beginning to wonder if that's even a good thing, the police will be patrolling the area though, so I have some reassurance that I’ll be safe once I return… Let’s hope I’m not proven wrong.. My family is really worried about me.. I don’t think I’ve seen them this depressed or paranoid since we were informed about the… accident where my sister died…. I wish you were here Erica *sob* You were always the smart one.. You would know what to do ....”

[Mitch speaks his final statement through sobs and clenched teeth]

“I’m gonna try to sleep now, I can’t wait to see my family again… God give me strength in my time of need”

[Recording end]

NathanH. Chapter 4 - Second Coming

[Recording start]

“I’m so… so sorry Edwin *uncontrollable sobbing* I wish I could have saved you.”

[Mitch sits down at his desk, adjusting the camcorder position sloppily with jerky, forced movements]

“I- I need to document what happened, the world NEEDS to know what happened to Edwin. I woke up again a few nights ago, and I saw THE DAMNED THING AGAIN.. It CRAWLED through my open window like a contortionist bending and twisting to fit the unnecessarily small window..”

“I couldn’t do anything. All I could do was watch in paralyzing fear as it slowly got up, its bones audibly cracking and relocating as it stood up once more and the thing crawled closer to me.. I snapped, with a quick motion I reeled my legs back and sprung them into the demon's jaw. That was a mistake, its neck broke and the mask flew off but it was still alive and with one motion its neck clicked back into place like the final gear being put into a giant clockwork abomination and that's when I SAW IT’S FACE!”

[Mitch holds back tears once more, shaking violently like someone beginning to experience shellshock]

“IT’S FACE WAS HORRIBLE. IT HAD NO EYES, NO NOSE, NO EARS, JUST AN ALL ENCOMPASSING MAW WITH A LONG SERPENT'S TONGUE AND ROTATING GUMS WITH SHARP RAZOR BLADE-ESK TEETH, My comparison was more accurate than I had previously thought.. THE LIQUID DRIPPING FROM THE EYE SOCKETS WAS SALIVA”

“The creature let out the most ear-grating, horrible screech I had ever heard, hushed and quiet like a thousand goats and pigs being dissected while alive! IT WAS LIKE A CAT DRAGGING ITS CLAWS AGAINST A CHALKBOARD”

[Mitch collapses with his face down on his desk for a minute or two straight sobbing and quivering, before raising his head once more to continue his recounting of that night, that he had tried so hard to forget. The day he lost his most precious family member, an only child now and uncertain it won’t just come back for him and kill him someday]

“It slashed at me violently but I managed to dodge it by accident fumbling out of my bed, in frustration it grabbed my mask and donned it once more before running away a strange squishy object coated in a soft white cloth mixed with poor quality mesh like hastily crafted bandages from someone who's only ever seen one but never looked into how it actually works or what its made of. The saliva coated the object.”

“I tried to run after it, I RAN AS FAST AS MY SHAKING LEGS WOULD ALLOW but the hallway seemed so much longer than before, when I got there it was already too late, I was staring at a broken window as my mom and dad ran up behind me, screaming and wailing at the horrible sight, the same wailing I heard all night after my sisters death.. I'm so, So sorry, Edwin.. Please god forgive me”

After wailing and running through the staircase, I found a small spatter of blood on the door handle of my brother's room. I was taken aback. As I slowly turned, looking down the hall and then down the stairs following a trail of red specks staining the carpet, I saw him at the bottom of the stairs. It looked like he had been dragged from his bed. He was bloody and mangled. I couldn't even tell it was my brother, except for his pajamas. He was so mangled and bloody, like a sponge that hasn't cleaned for a while. As I sat there, staring at my brother's mangled corpse, I stood there in fear, shock, and awe at what creature could do this.

The one thing that was left, the one thing I held most dear apart from my parents, was my brother. I could feel tears swell up underneath my eyes as I slowly and quietly stepped down the steps. As I got there, I collapsed on my knees over his corpse, and my eyes and body went numb. The only things I felt were anger, fear, and pain from that moment. As I turned him over, I couldn't even recognize his face. It was that mangled. I was staring at my own brother's corpse. That monster, that thing, that creature took him from me, and I couldn't do anything about it.

[Mitch clenches his fist and slams it on the table violently as tears continue to violently flow down his cheeks like all the water within the world had manifested within his tear ducts]

“When the police arrived, they didn’t even recognize him. His bones were horrifically broken and dislocated, and his face was mauled to pieces. It looked like someone was lit on fire and then bludgeoned to death with a sledgehammer. That creature did all of that. As I thought about it in my head, I felt true terror and fear at what it could do to me, it did all of that within what must have been around 30-45 seconds. And the worst part of it all? There wasn’t a smidge of usable evidence to convict anyone, because it wasn’t someone. It was something.”

“The only evidence we had was saliva and small traces of D.N.A that couldn’t be tied to anyone, there were no fingerprints, I thought we had NOTHING, but then I realized something. I walked back into the hall and showed the police the makeshift bandages arranged almost like a sack. And as they opened it, me and the officers on site nearly vomited.”

“What they had in that sack, was my HALF DEVOURED KIDNEY COVERED IN BLACK SLUDGE AND CLEAR SALIVA, the officers refused the concept of anything supernatural but seeing those teeth marks I saw a look in their eyes, as if they were trying to search for a rational explanation that didn’t fucking exist.”

“I’m sorry for this abrupt ending but I can’t keep this log going, it hurts too much, within a little over a month and a half I HAVE LOST BOTH OF MY SIBLINGS”

[The last of the recording is Mitch's sorrowful screeches as he picks up the camera and shuts it off]

Drb Chapter 5 - Mourning

Day one since the incident

I'm at a loss for words. I don't know what to say, think, or feel. I've been traumatized. I was already devastated when my sister died; I was in ruin. But now, seeing my brother's mangled corpse, I don't know what to say. Mom tried to cheer me up by making pizza, and Dad brought a cake, but nothing changed. I ate it, thanked them, and just went to bed. I'm holding his favorite jacket right now. I don't understand why it had to be him. I wish it had been me instead. I wish he were alive and well. I wish they were here with me. I wish I didn’t have to wake up every morning and look at a shadow of myself in the mirror reminding me that my mental state has been slowly deteriorating, and that I will never see them again. Damn that creature. They say they will find it. I’m counting on their word.

Day two

Nothing new or interesting. My parents tried to get me up and out. They took me to the mall. As we walked around, I saw nothing interesting—just the shops we used to visit and the pizza place and arcade my brother loved. I don’t know what to do without him. It was me and him against the world, against the trauma of losing our sister. Now it’s just me. My parents don’t understand what I saw that day. They can’t comprehend or fathom the creature and my dead brother’s mangled body. Mom is taking it surprisingly well, but I know she’s going through a mental crisis. Dad has gone back to drinking. I don’t know what’s going to happen to this family. It seems to be deteriorating day by day.

Life has been quiet and slow since yesterday. Dad has been quiet, and Mom is tense but trying to make us happy. Dad doesn’t laugh or smile; his face is stone-cold. Mom, on the other hand, breaks into tears at any mention of anything. She’s wailing over the loss of a second child. I don’t know what to do, say, or feel. I just want him back. I was so desperate that I almost joined them last night, but I couldn’t do it. I realized he would have wanted me alive, no matter what. Thankfully, I didn’t go through with it. I changed my mind at the last second and threw the knife down. My parents didn’t catch me; it was quiet, but I was still extremely unnerved, paranoid, and broke down in tears until the next morning. My parents found me. I had hidden and cleaned the knife. I felt like I shattered, like a vase or glass hitting the ground. I couldn’t stop crying and begging God to bring him back. God wasn’t merciful; God couldn’t bring him back. I even started to question my faith. How could God let this creature exist? Or maybe it wasn’t God; maybe it was some ancient beast. My brother always loved horror, but at this point, I don’t know what to think. Any thought of him brings me pain. I wonder if God even exists, or why, or for what purpose this creature serves.

Day three

My father has been doing nothing but sitting on the couch, drinking shots. I hear him yell for another beer every couple of hours. Sometimes he comes home late, intoxicated. Mom doesn’t do any of that. She’s been awfully quiet. I can hear her crying in her room sometimes in the middle of the night. I comfort her, and sometimes she catches me crying, and we cry together. It’s a painful but comforting moment. Nothing can change this, though. She keeps telling me everything will be fine, but I wish I could believe her. This has been too much for me to handle, and I can’t imagine how my parents feel, losing a son and a daughter. I hope they get better, especially Mom and Dad. Mom has been feeling a bit better, but she’s not showing her distress like Dad, who’s been drinking. I hope he gets well too. I don’t know what to say. I’m just so tired and distraught. I just want to see my brother again. I’m not going to write as much, but I’ll try to pop in once in a while. Since it hasn’t been the same without him, I’ll miss him. Losing a friend is painful, but losing family is different. It’s turmoil, pain, and sadness all mixed into one big pot of depression.

Sincerely,

Mitch

Drb Chapter 6 - New lead

I was in a beautiful place in Hawaii. The beautiful sunlight, a beautiful beach, "Ommetarka," someone yelled. I could hear it getting louder and louder, like they kept yelling my name over and over. As I awoke, sitting in my old decrepit office, my partner Eremond woke me from my nice dream. There was no beach here; there was an old coffee cup, a couple of cigarettes, and a dead-end job.

"We got another one," he said.

My eyes opened up very slowly and surprised, but in an "another one" type of manner.

"Are you sure? Were they-"

Eremond interrupted, already knowing what Ommetarka was gonna say

"Yes, it's the same case as all the others. One kidney missing and the other half eaten and covered in an oily black sludge."

"But not exactly, this wa-" Eremond started to say.

Not letting Eremond finish, Ommetarka got out of his chair and swiftly made his way out of his office, slamming the door behind him. He started to pick up his pace, running a bit faster now, getting outside, slamming the door to the police car, and driving as fast as he could to the newest location.

When they got there, it was the same thing that they saw for every other victim. Poor kid, he was only 17 and got his face torn to shit and his kidneys eaten. This one wasn't even given the opportunity to survive. Ommetarka knew what Eremond had meant by it being different, this was an outright attack. Whatever happened it made the perpetrator furious.

"Come on, be a little, you know, nicer. They did just lose their son," Eremond said.

"Why can't I be blatant with it?" Ommetarka responded.

"Because we have to be kind. They just lost somebody; it's insensitive," said Eremond.

"Fine, fine. Okay, sorry."

"It's okay, I forgive you, but that's beside the point. Do you have any evidence on this guy? Anything, anything at all?" Ommetarka turned to him.

"We haven't had anything on this guy for the longest while and the longest time. How do you think this case could give something new when the light is more scarce than a smile around the workplace?" said Ommetarka.

"Geez, okay," responded Eremond.

As Ommetarka turned to the victim's parents once more, asking them some questions, "Can you tell us anything you know or anything you could have seen or any new information that you may have or any old or anything? It could help."

Jack, the father of the kid, responded, "Yes, actually I did do something. I have a Polaroid camera that I don't use often, but after I saw my phone was dead, I snapped a picture. He was at the door already, but I think he turned around for a second, I don't know."

As Jack handed over the Polaroid camera to Detective Ommetarka, "Hey, can you hold this for me?" He handed the camera over to Detective Eremond. As they thanked Lucas, the father of the victim, and Elizabeth, the mother of the victim, they said their great thanks. Practically only Eremond gave a lot of thanks; Ommetarka stayed silent most of the time and didn't say anything. But they had a lead that they hadn't had in a very, very long time. They in fact needed this. As they both got in the car and started driving away, they did hear one thing that Jack yelled out to them before they drove away, that they could answer.

He yelled at them, "What is this thing called?"

One of the detectives yelled back, "The Phantom Cannibal," in a monotone voice. I keep saying it thousands of times before this Phantom Cannibal that they've been chasing for a long time now has gotten away with countless murders, countless people, ...countless families, friendships, brotherhoods—anything you could really call of value in someone's life—ruined. That person has ruined so many people's lives. He had to be stopped, thought Ommetarka. As they both sat in the car, they wondered what they could do now. Ommetarka had a lot of ideas; he was thinking of the most blatant ones to easily execute this mission. 

Detective Ommetarka was a very sensible man; he was the definition of reasoning, inquiry, logic, speculation, and conjecture put into a man—but also if that man had alcohol problems, smoking problems, and was in general depressed. On the other hand, Detective Eremond was an entirely different person. He was very scared of being alone and he kind of had a little jump in his step, like he was a bit more lively than his partner. In this new case, the clues they needed were fractured into many pieces and hidden within an endless maze of ciphers and dead-ends. 

But back to Eremond, he was not only scared of the dark, he was a man of his word. He kept promises as much as he could, but he executed them even better. He was the type of guy you could trust and count on, being that one guy that everyone else would trust and count on. 

As both detectives got out of the car, finally reaching their newest destination, the photo lab, they registered and gave the photos, hoping that they would come out clean. About a week later, they got the photos back. The first photo was of pure black; nothing could be seen. The second photo was of a hand, but it was all black, maybe they had gloves.

"That helps," said Ommetarka in a sarcastic way. 

But the final third photo—that one was the money shot, because that one showed the killer in full. The photo was taken outside the door, turned back, looking at the camera directly. They saw it: fully black robes and a blue mask.

Eremond cried, "Hey, those robes are like the Spanish Inquisition!" he said enthusiastically. 

"And who the fuck cares about the Spanish Inquisition?" Ommetarka responded. 

"Nevermind, we actually have a shot of our killer. Do you know what this means? We can catch him. And this is why I give the questions and you answer," said Ommetarka.

"And why is that?" said Eremond in a way like a child would when they wouldn't understand or get something. 

"Never mind, it's okay," Ommetarka responded. "So, we actually have a picture of the killer. He's 6'1" if we can estimate by the door frame. We can't guess his weight or his skin color or anything of that sort, but we can guess that he's a guy by the build underneath the cloak and we can also get the exact height. How about this? We will try to set up some interviews."

After agreeing on the interviews, they both managed to find around five people that matched the height. 

"So, is this all we have to work with?"

"Yep, five people. Start sending them in."

The first guy that walked in was a pretty skinny but tall dude.

"The name is Jack, right?" Ommetarka looked up at him and said that with suspicion in his voice and eyes.

"That's me," said Jack in a bit of a nervous voice.

"So, we've checked your criminal record, Jack. You have nothing on here. You don't do anything?"

"Nope," responded Jack. "I don't do anything. I just live my life."

After a few minutes of the interview, they realized they had the wrong guy. Yes, the guy matched the description, but they checked everything—the medicals, the criminal record, they even had a search of his house. Nothing. 

And then the next guy, and the next guy. They didn't find anyone. None of the people they found had a criminal record. One guy was accused of robbing a store; he got 20 bucks out of that. ...countless families, friendships, brotherhoods—anything you could really call of value in someone's life—ruined. That person has ruined so many people's lives. He had to be stopped, thought Ommetarka. As they both sat in the car, they wondered what they could do now. Ommetarka had a lot of ideas; he was thinking of the most blatant ones to easily execute this mission.

Detective Ommetarka was a very sensible man; he was the definition of reasoning, inquiry, logic, speculation, and conjecture put into a man—but also if that man had alcohol problems, smoking problems, and was in general depressed. On the other hand, Detective Eremond was an entirely different person. He was very scared of being alone and he kind of had a little jump in his step, like he was a bit more lively than his partner. In this new key to the case, the key for some reason was broken into many pieces.

But back to Eremond, he was not only scared of the dark, he was a man of his word. He kept promises as much as he could, but he executed them even better. He was the type of guy you could trust and count on, being that one guy that everyone else would trust and count on.

As both detectives got out of the car, finally reaching their newest destination, the photo lab, they registered and gave the photos, hoping that they would come out clean. About a week later, they got the photos back. The first photo was pure black; nothing could be seen. The second photo was of a hand, but it was all black.

"That helps," said Ommetarka in a sarcastic way.

But the final third photo—that one was the money shot because it showed the killer in full. The photo was taken outside the door, with the killer turned back, looking at the camera directly. They saw it: fully black robes and a blue mask.

Eremond cried, "Hey, those robes are like the Spanish Inquisition!" he said enthusiastically.

"And who the fuck cares about the Spanish Inquisition?" Ommetarka responded.

"Never mind, we actually have a shot of our killer. Do you know what this means? We can catch him. And this is why I give the questions and you answer," said Ommetarka.

"And why is that?" said Eremond in a way like a child would when they wouldn't understand or get something.

"Never mind, it's okay," Ommetarka responded. "So, we actually have a picture of the killer. He's 6'1" if we can estimate by the door frame. We can't guess his weight or his skin color or anything of that sort, but we can guess that he's a guy by the build underneath the cloak and we can also get the exact height. How about this? We will try to set up some interviews."

After agreeing on the interviews, they both managed to find around five people that matched the height.

"So, is this all we have to work with?"

"Yep, five people. Start sending them in."

The first guy that walked in was a pretty skinny but tall dude.

"The name is Jack, right?" Ommetarka looked up at him and said that with suspicion in his voice and eyes.

"That's me," said Jack in a bit of a nervous voice.

"So, we've checked your criminal record, Jack. You have nothing on here. You’ve never done anything, correct?"

"Yep," responded Jack. "I’ve never done anythin’ illegal. I just live my life the best I can."

After a few minutes of questioning, they realized they had the wrong guy. Yes, the guy matched the description, but they checked everything—the medical history, the criminal record, they even got a warrant to search his residence. Nothing.

And then the next guy, and the next guy. They didn't find anyone. None of the people they found had a criminal record. One guy was accused of robbing a store; he got 20 bucks out of that. "I don't think that guy was the murderer. Going from stealing $20 from a convenience store to eating people's kidneys and mangling their faces just doesn't click in someone's mind." Then Ommetarka had a flash of inspiration. A genius idea. After telling the last interviewee to get the hell out, he burst out the door and yelled for Eremond.

"Eremond!" yelled Ommetarka. "I have a genius idea."

"What is it?" Eremond responded.

"How about we interview the people who were attacked? Let's interview them," said Ommetarka.

"Genius plan. I'll go set up the interviews," said Eremond.

A couple of minutes later, they had three people who actually decided to show up out of the five. First was a kind of average guy, the second was a girl, and the third was a pretty buff guy.

"Let the first guy in," said Ommetarka.

This scrawny, kind of skinny but not really skinny kid walked in. He looked to be between the ages of 20 and 25. As he sat down, Ommetarka immediately started asking him questions, looking at the folder with his information.

"Josh is the name?"

"Yes, it is, sir," he responded.

"Tell me your story," Ommetarka said.

Josh quickly had a small panic attack, looking around the room and starting to hyperventilate. "Is he here? Is he coming for me?" he asked, starting to yell.

"No, it's okay. Breathe," said Ommetarka. After calming him down, Josh told his story.

"One day, I was out late, and I got home a bit drunk—not a lot, but just a little bit. My brother was home, and I was sleeping. Then I woke up to the sound of his screams. I realized he was dead, mauled up, fucking gone, like he'd been ripped to shreds. But I couldn't move; I couldn't help him. I could hear the screams, and then they stopped. I tried closing my eyes so I couldn't hear him, and when I looked up again, I saw him right above my bed. Blue mask and black robes."

Josh cowered in fear in the corner of the room, backing up. He was about to start having another panic attack before Ommetarka put away the photo. "It's okay. I'm going to catch him. He'll be caught. I promise you'll be safe."

"Really?" said Josh. "Thank you."

As Josh was walking out of the room, he saw a woman sitting there. Josh looked at her, and the woman looked at him. Right before Josh was about to leave, she said, "You saw him too, didn't you?"

Josh stopped. He turned back, saying, "They said they'll catch him. Everything will be fine." And then he left.

The next person that came in was a woman. She was about the same height as the guy before, 5'10" or 5'11". As she sat down, Detective Ommetarka immediately started questioning her. She was more straightforward.

"You want to hear my story?" she said. "Also, by the way, my name is Emily. Here's the story: I was getting a friend from work, and I let them stay over at my house for the night. They were really drunk, and I wouldn't let them go home by themselves, so I let them sleep over for a day. They passed out on the couch immediately. I went up to bed. About five minutes later, I heard their terrified screams. After the police checked, they were mauled to death, but their kidneys were perfectly, somehow surgically, removed."

"Aside from that, though, I saw him too," Emily continued.

Detective Ommetarka interrupted by saying, "Let me guess: blue mask, black robes?"

"Yes, exactly," responded Emily. "Just a question: did the guy from the last interview also lose his kidneys?"

"He lost both," said Ommetarka. "Poor guy. I only lost one."

As the detective sat up, he pondered his next move.

"Son of a bitch," muttered Detective Ommetarka. "Okay, we'll try."

"Thanks," responded Emily.

The last guy was a big, buff man. He was six feet tall and muscular, and somehow his story was the most frightening of them all.

"Donahue?"

"That's me," said the towering man.

"Do you mind telling us your story?"

"Okay," Donahue began. "I got home one day from work late at night. My wife and my two kids were sleeping, and the next second, right before I passed out into bed, I heard my wife screaming. I look to the side of me but I can't move my body, and I just see something tearing into her. I saw it and then it just disappeared. She's dead. I realized it was gone with her kidneys. Then I heard the kids screaming and despite my efforts I couldn't do anything about it. The next morning, they were horrifically slaughtered—all three of them, my wife and my two kids. If you can, please bring that son of a bitch to justice. I want that man's head on my fucking wall," Donahue said, tears in his eyes.

"Thank you. This story will aid us in our search to find this man," said Ommetarka.

After finishing up all the stories from all the victims, they received an emergency phone call. The police said something was happening around 2:00 AM—it was a break-in. Ommetarka immediately thought they might catch the killer.

"Let's get him!" he yelled to the officer. They quickly ran out to the middle of the street, rushed into their car, and bolted out of there as fast as they could, not even stopping to buckle their seatbelts. They started driving and soon made it to the location

NathanH. Chapter 7 - Pursuit

The two detectives defying their original orders rush to the scene before the police to confront The Phantom Cannibal on their own and end up catching the creature in the middle of a dissection of the homeowner viciously ripping the stomach open, the phantom cannibal surprised by the sudden interruption panics and runs off jumping out the window and running deep into the abandoned steel factory

The detectives arrive at the scene and hastily exit their car, rushing up to the front door of the house finding it wide open.

“SHIT! Come on we gotta move” 

Ommetarka muttered trying to urge his partners to pick up their pace while not alerting the potential intruder to their presence.

Ommetarka silently trudges up the stairs of the home, Eremond following behind. As they reach the bedroom door Ommetarka takes a deep breath, noticing that it is slightly ajar.

Ommetarka and Eremond rush into the room drawing their weapons

Eremond begins to shake seeing the sight in front of him, they saw the phantom cannibal hunched on all fours on the edge of the victims bed, making an incision with its unnaturally long claw-like fingers. Ommetarka, who is normally gruff and stoic let out a petrified “What the fuck” as his hands froze in place

The Phantom Cannibals neck twisted 180 degrees like an owl without warning to face the two detectives the loud sound of cracking bone and squelching flesh reverberating through the empty room before letting out this ungodly shriek like a pained demon having its face melted away by hydrochloric acid.

Eremond shaking in fear began to back up while Ommetarka regained his composure and stepped forward raising his gun

“Put your hands up and get down on the ground, you have the right to remain silent. Anything said can and will be used against you in court of la-”

The Phantom cannibal in one quick motion lunged at Ommetarka using one of its claws to slash at his arm causing him to drop the gun before using its other claw to slash at his stomach, but before it can do any more damage Eremond manages to shoot the creature in the chest, causing it to let out another primal screech

Eremond runs up to Ommetarka as the Phantom Cannibal stumbles away and crawls out the window still bleeding

“Ommetarka, are you alright”

Ommetarka gets up, looking at his chest he sees that the slash just went through his coat and only left superficial damage

“Yep, nothing’ serious but we need to go after him”

Eremond seems like he’s about to say something but Ommetarka merely gives him a vague stare but Eremond seems to get the message after a second

“So we’re actually going after him?”

Ommetarka gives a quick affirmative nod and both of them rush down the stairs and out the door, getting into their car and barreling down the road following the visible specks of blood that stick out on the light gray sidewalk

After about 3 minutes of driving they find themselves at an old steel factory that was shutdown in 1968 due to safety and human rights violations

Eremond seems to freeze up looking at the massive facility

“So are we sure it's here?”

Ommetarka gets out of the car and follows small specks of blood leading up to the bashed in door

“There's no way to be sure until we see it but I don’t see anyone else bleeding out in town so it seems like a given, I don’t know why you asked”

Eremond seems to try and make a remark out of frustration but gives up after 10 seconds realizing in hindsight that the question was pretty stupid

“Fair enough, let's just go and catch this freak.”

The two detectives make their way into the old factory turning on their lights and venturing into what could be their last night

NathanH. Chapter 8 - Confrontation

As Ommetarka and Eremond walk through the empty halls and machines they begin to wonder if it ran away already

“Ommetarka don’t look like anyones here, maybe we should just go back and give the information we have”

Ommetarka seems to seethe with rage hotter than any fire could hope to burn

“WE AREN’T LEAVING, *sigh* look we can leave once we’ve searched the whole place, I know you don’t like the dark”

Eremond seems relieved at the prospect of being able to leave soon

“Alright, BUT YOU BETTA KEEP YA WORD”

Ommetarka just lets out a small chuckle as he opens a door to another catwalk, and less than a second later a loud crash reverberates from an indiscernible origin in the factory.

“JESUS!”

Eremond shouted without thinking and Ommetarka takes a second to let out some frustration

“SHUT UP! Wait.. well they know we’re here now.”

Ommetarka draws his gun and looks down to the nearby machines seeing a notable light. It’s molten steel, how it's still molten is anyone's guess but it's still here.. Maybe it was doing something?

“Wait, maybe that means..”

Ommetarka thinks before flicking a nearby switch, and just as he expected one of the empty conveyors roars to life weakly shifting

“So the building is operational, the lights are just dead from years of function. Interesting.”

Behind them they hear a metallic creak, and before they can turn around Eremond screams as he’s thrown several feet across the catwalk

Ommetarka quickly turns around and fires multiple shots, hearing the now all too familiar screeches before he is lifted off the metal grates by his feet and violently slammed into the ground several times before being thrown as well

As Ommetarka weakly tries to get up he doesn’t see Eremond anywhere

“EREMOND WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!”

The only response he gets is the creatures guttural growls of what appears to be irritation  as it holds Ommetarka down and begins to violently claw at his chest

Ommetarka can tell it's waited way too long in its head to do this even if it was only 25 minutes since they’re first encounter it already HATED both Ommetarka and Eremond, and that it revels in every second of it, and as the creature begins to pull at his kidney he sees Eremond fire at the creature a final time hitting it in the back of the head before pushing the creature which had let its guard down into the railing of the catwalk

The creature lets out another growl as it attempts to regain its footing only to find it the railing can’t support its weight, but before it can rectify this mistake and find something else to support itself on the railing collapses causing the creature to fall down and slam its back on the edge of the vat of molten steel and rolling in. The creature screeches and screeches as it burns alive, but Ommetarka isn’t focused on that at all

“Eremond!”

Ommetarka, despite the irritation his partner gives him, seemed happier than ever that he was alright. Eremond gives a casual remark

“Come on Ommetarka, you know better than anyone if there ain’t a body there's a good chance they’re still alive! You're a detective.”

Ommetarka for once walked right into one of Eremond’s cheesy remarks

“Good point, Eremond.. Good point”

Eremond takes a moment helping Ommetarka get to his feet and begins tending to his wounds the best he can so he doesn’t bleed out before professionals arrive.

As the two leave the facility, Eremond helps support Ommetarka so he doesn’t fall over. Ommetarka calls backup to the scene while Eremond gets the camera and other tools for the investigation process to the car.

The investigation yielded the charred corpse of the supposed phantom stalker, several locations marked on a rough map scratched into the break room wall, and several hundred buried kidneys from all around the town some of which had pieces of flesh carbon estimated to date back to the late 1700’s encased in preserving liquids.

Drb & NathanH Chapter 9 - Closure

Mitch’s section

Day 16

The date is February 27th, 1992. I visited the graveyard today. Just so I could lay down and remember the good times I had with my siblings. I saw the news as well, the Phantom Cannibal is deceased and will never have the opportunity to hurt anyone again. I know it's weird but knowing my brother's death and my suffering may have been the catalyst to saving dozens if not hundreds is a strangely comforting thought. At least his death wasn’t in vain. But I still can’t get over it because it still hurts knowing both of my siblings are dead and I’ve lost one of my kidneys, KNOWING I’VE BEEN TRAUMATIZED BY THAT THING, IT HURTS SO MUCH! IT HURTS EVERYDAY, AND I KNOW I’LL NEVER GET OVER IT NO MATTER HOW MUCH I TRY, KNOWING I’LL NEVER SEE ERICA OR EDWIN EVER AGAIN! MY LIFE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME! WITH ALL THAT'S HAPPENED TO ME, TO EVERYONE IN MY TOWN, I AM HOPING THAT WHATEVER MAN OR CREATURE OR WHATEVER THE HELL I SAW THAT NIGHT IS BACK IN THE DEPTHS OF HELL WHERE IT BELONGS!

I’m sorry this entry is so short and emotional, but I’ve been repressing these feelings for months

I’ll probably end this here so I don’t get too worked up. But it’s been nice letting my emotions loose.

Sincerely, Mitch

As the two detectives exited the building, slamming the door behind them, they got back in the car and drove to the police station. While driving, the air was silent except for the light hum of the car and the wind. Neither detective spoke; no sound dared to break the uncomfortable silence. They just contemplated what they realized they had seen.

After getting back to the police station, they immediately got to work, except for Detective Ommetarka. He was a bit traumatized after everything. Ommetarka got out a piece of paper and started filling out the report: "The Phantom Cannibal. Gender: Unknown. Name: Unknown." He still put down "The Phantom Cannibal" as the name. Cause of death: shot five times—four in the chest, one in the head. Broken shoulder blade and spine. Second- and third-degree burns all over the body, same for bone damage. Body is unidentifiable. Where once was a blue mask, there remained a blue mask, but shattered, crisp, and broken. It was still recognizable, and you could barely make out the old remnant, but it was now unidentifiable. The cloak was mixed in with the rotten flesh; we couldn't even distinguish which was flesh and which was cloak.

After finishing the report, Detective Ommetarka turned to Detective Eremond. "Hey, are you okay?" asked Ommetarka.

"Yeah, I'm... I'm fine," responded Eremond.

"Hey, how about we try to cheer up? There's a new coffee shop down the street. Let's get some donuts."

"Sure," Eremond replied. They both slowly got to their feet, trying to forget what had just happened, but they knew this day would affect them for the rest of their lives. As they got in the car and drove away, the image blazed in their minds: a shattered blue mask, burned and crispy on the edges, still a remnant of the past, now something that would haunt them.

Years later, perhaps 13 or 14, Detective Ommetarka suffered a heart attack. He was fine, but his friend Eremond decided to stay with him. They became next-door neighbors and lived out the rest of their lives drinking coffee and eating donuts. They were both married. One of them had two kids; the other had none.

Extra

The palm trees swayed gently in the night as the sun slowly rose on a new day. A small red car drove into town and parked in front of an old house that not many people visited anymore. An older man stepped out, looking up and down at the house.

"Honey," called out Charlie.

"Yes, dear?" responded the older man.

"Where are we?"

"We're home—my childhood home," said Mitch as he unlocked the door and walked in. "No one has been here for a long time. We'll stay here for the night."

Charlie looked at the stairs, the living room, and the kitchen before heading upstairs, having small flashbacks of the past. Mitch looked at his old room, where fond memories were made. After tucking his two kids into bed, he sat on the couch with his wife to watch some TV. Suddenly, the kids came running down, holding something he couldn't quite see in the dark.

"Dad, look what we found!"

"What is it?"

"It's this," they said, holding up an old VHS tape.

"Put it in; let's see." As he inserted the VHS tape, images blazed across the screen. It showed two younger boys—one holding the camera with shaky hands, and the other in an oversized dark coat and blue mask, clearly reading from a script. The boy read out, "I am the evil cult member. Be fearful of me," before the scene cut poorly to the next.

"Is that you and your brother?" asked Charlie.

"Yeah, it's me and Edwin," Mitch replied. But as he kept watching, his face turned pale, remembering what happened that night and what happened to Edwin. He winced in pain, grabbing his left side.

"Are you okay?" asked Charlie.

"Yeah, I'm fine, honey," Mitch replied as he headed up the stairs to bed. He slowly drifted off to sleep, only to be awakened by a loud clang. Looking around, he realized he looked like his younger self. Quietly stepping into the hallway, he felt something wet and soggy underfoot—a dark pool of blood on the carpet. He heard a nightmarish memory, a lullaby no one wanted to hear again: the screaming, crying, and yelling.

"Mitch!" a voice called, growing louder. "Mitch!"

Mitch woke up, realizing it was all a dream. In a cold sweat, he lay in bed with wide eyes, breathing heavily and holding his left side. He sobbed uncontrollably, the only word he could utter being, "Why wasn't it me?" He remained like this for days until he finally began to recover.

While Mitch was recovering, Charlie decided to explore the backyard, noticing how beautifully overgrown it was. Looking up, she saw a circular window with many scratches around it and a small incision, as if to easily open and close the window. Strange, she thought as she walked away, stepping on something. Looking down, she thought, Maybe it's a dead mouse—some sort of rotting thing. It looks like it's been sitting here for a long time. Probably just a mouse or some sort of animal. She buried it and walked back inside.

"Hey, are you feeling alright?" she asked.

"Yes, honey, I'm feeling a lot better. Let's go," Mitch responded.

"For what reason?" Charlie asked.

"Let's go," Mitch repeated, raising his voice.

"Okay, honey, no need to raise your voice."

"Sorry," Mitch said as they both gathered their things, got the kids, and drove away. Since then, Mitch hadn't been the same, often waking up with night terrors. He was feeling a lot better, though, attending a counseling group with others who had similar experiences. He had really bonded with two old men, whose names he couldn't remember, but they were both detectives working on a case similar to what he had experienced.

"Hey Mitch, don't you want to join us for coffee?" yelled Ommetarka.

"Sure," Mitch said, walking over and getting in the car.

"Don't forget me!" yelled Eremond from the end of the car as the trees swayed and they drove away, the sun blazing in the midday.

[supernatural-bias]

hello. i am curious about Ezra,,, im splitting these into different asks to maybe make it less overwhelming...

What is their favorite kind of social event?

Are they upfront about their feelings?

Who are they most honest with?

Is there a habit they have that they learned from someone else?

What would it take for them to get into a fight?

Have they had a meaningful encounter with an animal?

Is there an activity they used to enjoy that they now dislike?

What is a topic they would be excited to talk about? 

wow!! lots of questions! i'll do my best to answer them all tonight with as much energy as i can, but we'll see. grins

what is their favorite kind of social event?

movie nights honestly. ezra doesn't really look forward to normal social events, and he hardly gets to experience them anyways being a hunter and all. but movie nights, especially once everyone settles down in the bunker, is always his favorite way to spend the night with all the people he loves, even if it means fighting over what movie to watch. save him a seat between cas and dean

are they upfront about their feelings?

more than dean, and sometimes even sam, but that's not saying much. all three of them are some sort of emotionally incompetent. for a while, mainly the first few seasons, ezras whole shtick was being secretive (literally no one knew he was a ghost for most of season three), but later on, once he's spent years upon years with the winchesters and their acquaintances, he definitely gets better at expressing his thoughts outloud

who are they most honest with?

i'd be lying if i said dean and sam. the three of them lie to each other all the damn time for "the greater good" or to "protect each other," and then get mad when they find out everyone else has been doing the same thing. hypocrites. ezras probably the most honest with cas, and then most definitely jack in the last few seasons

is there a habit they have that they learned from someone else?

i think i've mentioned this in one of my song analysis posts before, but ezra chants stuff under his breath a lot to remember things, and he sort of picked that up from other hunters when he first started out in the hunting scene

what would it take for them to get into a fight?

easiest way is to try and snatch his beanie off his head or to attack him first. second easiest way to trigger a fight response is to attack his friends/allies

have they ever had a meaningful encounter with an animal?

you know, i don't think so. but i am doing my rewatch right now, which means i'm rewriting and adding a lot of ezra lore as i go, so maybe that could change

is there an activity they used to enjoy that they dislike now?

dreaming. having dreams when be was young was always great. but now, as he grows older and more and more shit happens, ezra finds that most of his dreams are nightmares. don't get me wrong, he still loves to sleep, but prefers if it's dreamless

is there a topic they would be excited to talk about?

the obvious answer here is the xmen. that's his special interest, baby. other than that, maybe the music he likes? there isn't much else he's been steadily passionate about throughout the years. it's sad, but after he died for the first time and got caught up in everything with the winchesters and heaven and blah blah blah, he sort of lost time to do anything he loved

[chocosvt]

hi choco! i'm so excited to see you back on my tl; i've missed you and your god-tier fics & i'm super duper excited to read your wonwoo fic as well (140k words? we will all be well fed fr 🤲)

i had a little rant? not exactly rant but something that's been itching my mind a bit haha, i hope you don't mind me sharing it with you! i genuinely want some advice over this.

as a long fic writer, how do you consistently come back to writing your fic without getting bored? i looooove writing long fics too (big lover of slowburn and angst lol) but i always get so impatient and bored of writing the story so quickly :(

i'd posted a teaser for a fic a while back and it got a good amount of traction (something i will always be grateful for) and someone asked me when i would release the full fic, to which i gave them a tentative date. fast forward to the day before the day i said i would post the fic and you have me typing out paragraphs upon paragraphs of stuff that i absolutely loathe in my writing. i ended up posting the fic anyway, but it's been only a day and i already want to take it down—not bc it's not getting any attention, because it is, but more so bc i hate that fic and would do anything to rewrite it.

iirc your joshua fic, 'best friend's brother' was a rewrite of a fic you'd written earlier, right? was your thought process similar to this? where did you start your rewriting process from? did you have any second thoughts when you took it down the first time?

i'm really sorry if this is too many questions 😅 please take your time if you do choose to answer this! much love and have a great day, choco!!! thank you so much :)

(is it alright if i use an emoji to sign off so i can find this ask later?)

— 🍫

first of all, THANK U SO MUCH <3

and i don't mind at all! these are rly insightful questions :o though i'll just chunk my answers a bit so i'm not all over the place.

not getting bored to be honest, i'm not sure if i ever "get bored" of writing out the plot. but i definitely get burnt out, and sometimes i get downright sick of reviewing my own writing, to the point where i just have to close my laptop and walk away. i think the most important & overarching piece of advice i can give--not just in terms of long fics but any fic for that matter--is to never force anything & take breaks!

when i'm busy at uni, there are like 5 month breaks where i don't bother writing at all. i always think that the second i have free time, i should theoretically want to write, but sometimes i just don't. and i make peace with it bc i know the second i force anything i will end up hating it (also takes the fun & enjoyment out of the process).

i think if you're getting bored, it's probably a sign that your body & mind just isn't interested in writing at the moment. so i would step away & take a break and attempt to get your mind off the plot. i think that taking a break also invigorates your mind a bit and gives you newer, better ideas (at least from my experience).

bfb rewrite the reason i rewrote best friend's brother was bc the og fic was from 2016, when my writing style was completely different. i still liked the concept but naturally, as my writing grew, i just detested the way the old ver was written, which spurred me to create the rewrite.

i wanted to give the characters a lot more depth & beef up the plot, so the new fic is actually a lot different in comparison to the old one. i wasn't attempting to do a scene-for-scene rewrite--it was simply just my approach to an old concept that i felt i could now execute better.

as to how i went abt rewriting it, i just picked out moments from the old fic that i liked and built around them. for instance, i rly liked the "skipping stones" scene that shows some intimacy & tenderness between joshua and reader. but it can't just happen out the gate. so i had to figure out the typical "why, when, and how is this moment happening right now?" from scratch.

the thing with long fics for me, it honestly is a test of patience & dedication!! bc it can truly be so frustrating :( a lot of times, you want to jump right into the good parts bc those are like the shiny glimmers that make the fic attractive. but depending on how impactful you want those moments to be, build-up is sooooo key! the thing is, build-up is just so critical in my opinion, but it can also be such a pain to write :p

i find when i review my writing, these are scenes i criticize or change the most--more than the big, hard-hitting scenes. bc to me, it's such a specific thing that you have to nail down justttt right. it's a lot of thinking and finagling and i think this process is what i dread the most? especially when it refuses to turn out how you want it--ugh, so discouraging!! but once you get it's like a silky flowy river!!

the big takeaways (i guess?) 1. taking breaks is so important! 2. don't force anything xxxx 3. take the big moments & build around them i totallyyyyy understand your frustration!! there have been so many moments where i'm like I NEED TO WRITE AHHHHH and then i promptly open the document only to sit there, blankly read a few sentences, and then get this rly big sinking feeling in my gut that is essentially telling me "never mind" and honestly i just listen to it bc if i'm gonna close & open the document 10 times in a row i obviously don't want to write. i'm just searching for something fulfilling and clearly not finding it in the task at hand so i should do smth else.

THIS IS EXTREMELY LENGTHY AND I''M BEYOND SORRY, but i hope somewhere amongst this mumbo jumbo there was something that stood out & may give you a bit of closure!

[platonic-qpr-selfshipping]

okay let me finally show you my updated f/o list!! I am also planning to add some s/i info but tbh i still havent gotten to it cause im procrastinating it while trying to relax doing other stuff klsdksj here it is!! (I am aware that the first photos look weird in phones so pls bare with me and put it in pc mode lmaoo im a carrd super-beginner)

now if you'd let me, Imma talk a bit about the changes just because

I wanted to get a bit more specific mentioning platonic f/os so even if I like many characters in sources like Obey Me, you can now see which characters I think my s/i would be the closest with :D!! I also played a bit with labels ig but I read this fic where Mammon said there was no need "to be anything" as long as we were in peace with each other and I felt that on a spiritual lvl so instead of overthinking how to label f/os sometimes I just put him as unlabeled lol I just love self inserting in his world being really close to him and he's my fav character of the game and all but ig it becomes hard sometimes to try to fit that into something so I said whatever, it's my little self insert world and they can do whatever they want that brings me comfort XD yknow, sometimes partnering concepts just feel off but at the same time I enjoy saying I am a Mammon simp cause I love the character so it's a bit of a mess in my brain sometimes, trying to make both my experience as a player and my s/i's fit for my best comfort

(yes this was another Mammon UR+ I did not get on Nightbringer)

talking about labels, I've decided to put all the Golden Deer as platonic soulmates :D! I think it suits us all and all the unique bonds they form with each other, and I thought that the whole thing of my s/i probably having this huge feeling of admiration and loyalty towards Claude felt better like this somehow, like it's a part of my s/i lore and not so much about what their relationship can be or not? I dont know if this makes sense worded like this but it seems to work out in my head XD I still plan to someday develop my s/i's story a lot so who knows

anyway, FRIENDS AND FAMILY!! I feel like it's pretty obvious that I've started to play Honkai Star Rail because suddenly I got a friend, a brother and a father from there- listen everytime I see the Astral Express Family written in the groupchat I emotionally cry happy tears (also I wouldnt be surprised if i ended up also f/oing Himeko in the future lmao, I love found families can you tell)

from Genshin Impact I've officially added Thoma as a platonic f/o :D!! (my hearts craves to befriend kind characters, yes) I think my Genshin s/i is probably the one with the most lore right now so I'm excited to write about this in the future! well,,,,, actually my Super Mario Bros s/i also has some info around themselves already,,,,,, like would you believe me if I told you I was already making up s/i lore while still watching the movie,,,,, the self-shipper experience huh.....

I love her

and do you know who I also love a lot.....?

those platonic f/os I've been mentioning in some reblogs lately saying I still havent talked about them......?

the dudes that may have taken over my brain recently using the power of friendship....?

yeah

yeah

aren't they the coolest tho

anyway I love them (repeating it as if i hadnt made it clear already) and I had to rewrite part of this cause I accidentally deleted it it so I think I'll finish it here ksdhkjs I believe there is a bit more to see in the carrd though, I'll put it in my pinned post soon :D! now if you'd excuse me imma go consume more hypmic manga as a healing experience, if you've read until here go drink some water, listen to Break The Wall and thank me later

[swap-dimentio-saga]

While me also thinking about Color Splash swap stuff I'm also doing Sticker Star swap but it's very different like. Our new partner!

Don't really have a name for them yet. But we'll just call them Monarch for now. So I decided to make all the Royal Stickers their own characters I don't really have any designs for them yet but I'll get to it.

Basically I swapped the last Royal Sticker you get with Kersti.

So pretty much how it goes the Sticker Fest is going on but they don't head to where the Sticker Comet is first like Dimentio and King Boo show up together for the Sticker Fest and talking to the Spides on what their wishes would be and seeing them have fun with small stickers.

When it reaches night the Sticker Comet falls and everyone gets excited to grant their wishes but.

O'Chunks shows up and is a bit annoyed that Princess Mimi didn't invite him to Sticker Fest. And she didn't cause she was a bit annoyed at him from the last kidnapping.

And just like Bowser in the original he goes to touch the Sticker Comet because he doesn't know the rules that you're not ment to touch it. And the Sticker Comet breaks but the Royal Stickers don't get seprated but land in the middle of the Sticker Fest confused and a bit annoyed at what happened.

Then Kersti shows up very angry as she yells at everyone for what happened. The Royal Stickers do try and calm her down. But she doesn't listen and says how angry she is at the Sticker Comet breaking and calls everyone there selfish for their wishes and that they don't derserve them.

Monarch does try and calm her down but it only makes her more mad.

And Kersti decides to make sure this never happens again and have the Sticker Comet never come back.

The other Royal Stickers aren't really sure what to do. But Kersti tells that everyone just wanted to selfishly take the wishes for themselves.

Annoyed O'Chunks complains by asking what is she even talking about which annoys Kersti enough to call him an arrogant brute.

Which annoys O'Chunks enough to go an attack her which causes the other Royal Stickers to get mad and try and protect her knocking back O'Chunks which their power.

After that Dimentio goes to intervene but the Royal Stickers stop him and start causing the mess that Bowser did in the original when the Royal Stickers apart from Monarch landed on him agreeing that Kersti is right.

And Kersti sends them off after making a mess of Sticker Fest to make everyone in this kingdom pay.

(That's what I got for a swap au Rewrite of Sticker Star so far I hope it's good. I am going to change up the areas they vist to get the Royal Stickers.)