#i wrote this while watching buzzfeed unsolved

[stardustbarbarians]

The Devil Knows My Name

A Daniel Wagner / Samuel Kiszka fic

Summary: Sam and Danny travel the world together hunting ghosts. And Danny has a secret.

Tags: ghost hunting au, humor, horror elements, demonic elements, getting together, this is low key a buzzfeed unsolved au

Trigger Warnings: mentioned child abuse (explained in A/N)

Words: 8.8 k

A/N: Right off that bat: one of the locations Sam and Danny investigate is a real abandoned orphanage that had rumors of child abuse tied to it. Unfortunately, all of the claims mentioned about the place in the fic are real allegations. If that makes you uncomfortable, do not feel like you have to read that section as you won't miss any plot points. Outside of that, this fic is very lighthearted. I wrote it as a part of @hearts-hunger GVF Halloween Event, which I was not expecting to finish this soon (I picked prompt 15!). It was super fun to write and I hope you all enjoy! As usual, this fic is dedicated to @ofthecaravel. Title taken from The Garden by the Crane Wives.

+++

“I was reading the comments on our last video-” 

“A wonderful thing for your mental health, I’m sure.” 

“-and I couldn’t help but laugh.” 

“Oh? Why is that?” 

“Everyone seems to agree. They think you’re a demon.” 

+++

Daniel had known Sam for, like, ever. They went through grade school together, graduated together, even went through a failed band together, too. In fact, it seemed they did everything together. Mostly, it was on purpose; truly at this point it felt wrong to be somewhere without Sam at his side. But, becoming famous ghost hunters? That was an accident. Really, if Danny had known that ghost hunting would be their future careers, he never would have accepted that dare. 

“Come onnnnn! Ghosts aren’t real, anyway!” Josh lamented, attempting to shove his baby brother out the door of their house. 

“Yeah, you chicken,” Jake tacked on at the end, a knowing smile barely contained on his lips. 

“I am not a chicken!!” Sam roared, slapping Josh’s hands away from his back. There was a deep frown on his face that was somehow halfway to a pout. 

“We’re even letting you take Danny! Honestly, we’re being very generous about this whole ordeal,” the oldest brother continued, fighting off a laugh of his own at seeing Sam acting tough. Acting, being the key word. 

“Sure. And what are you gonna tell mom and dad when we end up shanked by some drifters protecting their territory??” Sam squawked, trying to get back into the house. But Jake and Josh had blocked the entrance, standing shoulder to shoulder in the doorframe. Sammy might have towered over the twins, but it was clear who was stronger out of the three of them. 

“Oh, please. There’s no vagrants at the Garnet house, just a bunch of teenagers doing drugs and shit there.” 

“And, I mean, you don’t have to take the dare…” Jake offered. A fake olive branch if there ever was one. The devious smile on his face betrayed his caring tone. 

“Yeah, and do your guys’ chores for a month?? I don’t think so,” Sam snipped, ripping the family movie camera out of Jake’s extended palm. 

“Uh, don’t I get a say in this?” Danny finally pipped up, watching in silence while the three Kiszkas bickered. 

“NO,” all three barked in unison. Danny shut his mouth so fast, his teeth clicked. 

“Like Sam would go anywhere without you,” Jake muttered under his breath. Sam shot him a fierce glare that only succeeded in causing the twins to implode into laughter. 

“You guys are the WORST!” Sam exclaimed before turning on his heel and stomping down the porch into the backyard. Danny was quick to follow, scrambling after his best friend and clicking on the flashlight he was given. 

Sam didn’t talk to Danny for a solid minute after his altercation with his older brothers. He was too busy cursing them under his breath and indulging in his temper tantrum. 

“This is the worst sleepover ever. Why did we even let them join in the first place??” Sam whined, the first words he spoke that weren’t muttered. That was how Danny knew he was talking to him. 

“Oh, c’mon. We were having fun with them before this dare,” Danny offered, his eyes watching the leaf-covered terrain for any rogue branches he could trip over. They were not exactly quiet as they trudged through the dried autumn leaves, each step sounding like static. 

Sam shot him a look that was halfway annoyed and halfway resigned. “Yeah, whatever. But they took it too far like they always do.” 

“Gee, I don’t know, Sam. Maybe if you hadn’t boasted very loudly about how ‘ghost hunters aren’t shit’, ‘they’re a bunch of pussies’, and ‘I could do that’, maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation,” Danny countered. It was all lighthearted, of course. Danny could never truly be annoyed at Sam. He did choose Sam, after all. 

“That’s because they are! They’re all acting for the camera and it just makes them look like a bunch of wimps!!” Sam had finally turned to face Danny, his pale face illuminated by the flashlight as he turned his expression to a caricature of the host of the ghost hunting show they just watched. “Huh! A creak in an old house that hasn’t seen maintenance since ‘Nam! Must be a g-g-g-ghost!!!” 

Danny couldn’t help his snort of laughter as Sam mocked the ghost hunters. He himself didn’t believe in ghosts, either. Especially the tv shows that claimed to always find ground-breaking “real” evidence every episode. If they had something to gain monetarily, Danny didn’t trust them. 

“Then why are you so scared to do this dare?” Danny baited, knowing it would get a reaction out of Sam. Sometimes he just couldn’t help but rile him up; it was easy and fun. 

“Ok, first, I’m not scared. I am rightfully cautious. Not only will we be trespassing, but we will be filming our crime,” Sam held up the camcorder in his hand and waved it a little, “and we don’t know if it will be empty. For all we know, there could be squatters in there who are a little too stab-happy!” 

“Says the one with the arrest record,” Daniel muttered under his breath, loud enough that Sam could hear. 

“Hey!” 

+++

“Are you rolling?” 

“For the hundredth time: yes, Sam,” Danny exasperatedly replied, adjusting his hand holding the camera. The hand strap was digging into his skin and he really just wanted to get this over with. He hadn’t felt good since they came upon the house when the woods cleared.

“Alright, snippy, no need for the attitude,” Sam shot back, giving Danny a look as he adjusted his long hair. 

Danny just rolled his eyes, signaling with a wave of his hand for Sam to hurry it up. They both had a few drinks before walking out there and Danny was starting to feel them. The last dare he got was to shotgun a beer and he wished he had chosen truth instead. 

“We’re standing in front of the Garnet house where it is said that William Garnet murdered his wife, Sylvia, back in 1956-” 

“God, everyone knows that’s just some stupid urban legend. There’s literally no proof anyone was killed here,” Danny lamented, tired of hearing about William and Sylvia Garnet. He’d looked into the real story himself. 

“Are you the host, or am I?” Sam snapped, an annoyed pinch in his face. “Start over.” 

“Nope. Keep going.” 

With a pointed, heavy sigh, Danny could see in the small LCD screen as Sam rolled his eyes. But, he continued anyway. “Because of that, the house has been abandoned since that bloody day.” 

“Because they moved out and couldn’t sell the house because of the location. Do you see how far away from a road we are?” Daniel had panned away from Sam to show the lengths of woods surrounding them. 

“You’re no fun, Daniel,” Sam whined, sounding like a child. Danny even heard his foot stomp into the cold dirt with his boot. “Let’s just… go inside.” 

Danny didn’t stop recording as they trudged around the house, looking for an opening they could slither through. He probably should’ve been less focused on filming Sam looking for an entrance and more so on helping him, but oh well. Someone had to hold the flashlight and also, it was a cool shot getting Sam tracing his fingers along the crumbling brick of the old house, looking up at the windows. His profile was perfectly illuminated by the light, making his jawline look sharper than usual. His misting breath was also being caught in the flashlight beam, looking like an apparition in its own right.  

They ended up having to climb into a window, Danny boosting Sam in. With a grunt of exertion, Sam was able to hoist Danny in. However, his foot slipped out from underneath him just as Danny’s torso passed the windowsill. So, instead of the graceful landing Daniel was hoping to pull off, he instead found himself on all fours in the dust of the dilapidated flooring. The abrupt change in position as well as the scraping of his stomach against the windowsill did nothing to help his alcohol-induced nausea. 

“Are you alright?” Danny asked, having to swallow thickly to keep his bile down. 

Sam groaned from underneath him, something that Danny hadn’t even realized until that moment. “Yeah, I’m fine.” 

Danny got up as quickly as his spinning head would allow him, offering a hand out to Sam as soon as he was stable on two legs. They both tried to brush the grime off of them, knowing that they would need to wash their clothes to truly be rid of all of it. 

“Alright, let’s be quick. If there’s anyone here, they would have heard that.” For the first time that night, there was a slight tremor to Sam’s voice. That was all the indicator Danny needed to know that Sam was more scared than he was letting on. That, and the way Sam’s hand had trembled in his own as he helped him up. 

“No arguments here,” Danny commented, scanning the floor with his flashlight to find his dropped video camera. Luckily, it was unharmed and still rolling, capturing the embarrassing moment of them falling to the ground, despite being about ten years old. But that was good old early 2000s technology for you. Once he’d found the camera, Danny passed the flashlight to Sam. It made more sense for him to hold it as he led them through the house. 

“Let’s just find the bedroom, ask a few questions, and leave. That should be enough to satisfy the twins’ stupid dare.” Sam seemed half distracted as he scanned the dark rooms around him. And, to be fair, the place was rather ghoulish and imposing. The walls showed exposed wooden slats behind the crumbling drywall, cracks formed all around the ceiling, graffiti stained the walls, and the odd trashed piece of furniture that you’re sure was a person in the corner of your eye decorated the space. 

In order to lighten the mood, Daniel quickly thought of a way to make Sam laugh. Though, “quickly” was relative as his head was still spinning a little. 

“The bedroom? Sam, you should at least take me out to dinner first.” The teasing tone Danny used just caused Sam to let out an abrupt bark of laughter and nudge his best friend with his elbow. 

“We both know you wouldn’t even need dinner first,” Sam jested back, a sly smile pulling at the corner of his lips. This was far from the first time their teasing had toed a line. They both silently acknowledged that line existed, and also acknowledged that it wasn’t weird to cross it with one foot from time to time. 

Danny had gotten the urge to shove Sam in the shoulder, but they were climbing the stairs. They were rickety and treacherous enough as it was; no need to add another risk. 

“Who’s body count is higher?” 

“Like it’s a bad thing-” 

Knock! 

Both boys froze in their tracks. They were about halfway up the staircase when it sounded like knuckles rapped against some wood. 

“Did you hear that?” Sam’s eyes were huge as he turned to look down at Daniel who was one step below. 

“Yeah. Sounded like it came from upstairs,” Danny truthfully answered. 

Sam let out another groan, his bottom lip finding itself worried between his teeth. It was a bad habit Sam had when he got nervous. “I really hope that’s a ghost and not some addict.” 

“You and me both.” 

Taking a steadying breath, Sam worked up the courage to continue up the steps. He was climbing them slower than usual, but that was to be expected. But, that did not help the very loud squealing of said steps. It really only made the squeaking worse and drew out the sound. 

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, they reached the top floor and were greeted with a liminal hallway. A dusty chandelier cried broken crystals and cobwebs, more graffiti scored the walls, the floor was littered with joint cones and cigarette butts, and the doors along the walls were all closed, but not shut entirely. All of them stood ajar which, for some reason, was more unnerving than if they were completely shut or completely open. 

“Let’s see what’s behind door number one, shall we?” Danny prompted, realizing Sam was frozen in fear next to him. Despite the flippant tone he was employing, Danny was feeling awful. His head hadn’t stopped spinning since he stepped onto the property and his stomach was still churning. He felt cold but couldn’t blame it on the late October weather. 

With a shaky smile and a nod, Sam reached for the door handle on his right and gingerly pushed it open. It revealed a similar decrepit state as the rest of the house, the LED light from their flashlight casting it in an eerie glow. It seemed they had found the bedroom, a four poster bed frame pushed against the wall with the whole thing covered in carved initials and names. More graffiti coated the walls, but it all seemed to have a theme. 

“Talk about sympathy for the devil,” Sam joked, tepidly entering the room and illuminating all the 666s and reversed crosses on the walls. 

“Please allow me to introduce myself,” Danny quoted, attempting his best Mick Jagger impression. That got him a laugh from Sam, even if it was just from how shitty the impersonation was. 

“Mick Jagger is rolling in his grave for that one.”

“Mick Jagger is dead? Has anyone checked the news??” 

Once again, Sam elbowed Danny in the side. A huge grin was on his face as he did it, so Danny counted that as a win. However, it was a short-lived victory. Just as Danny had found himself in the center of the room, he doubled over in pain. 

“Daniel? What’s wrong??” There was genuine concern in Sam’s words as he raced over to his best friend’s side. 

“I… I don’t…” he dropped the camera to the ground as he clutched at his stomach. It was as if he had just been punched in the gut by Mike Tyson as his nausea came at him with full force. 

Sam had grabbed the camera off the ground, a decision that would solidify their fates. Now armed with both the flashlight and the camera, Sam became the cameraman as he documented Danny’s sudden distress. 

He didn’t even know what caused him to look up. But regardless, as he tilted his head backwards, Daniel noticed a pentagram on the ceiling in black spray paint. 

“What’s going on?” Sam’s voice was shaky. And if Danny wasn’t trying his best to vomit all over the scuffed and dirty floor, he might’ve noticed the way the house seemed to shake around them. 

The footage of this moment would be shaky and just slightly out of focus. It was something Danny, as well as the rest of their audience, would clown him for for years to come. However, that was about the only funny thing about it. At the time, as Sam filmed Danny being doubled over and the house rattling around them, it was no laughing matter. You see, as Sam illuminated Daniel so that he could be seen, a dark shadow was cast behind him. One that seemed to slowly seep out of the shadow that Danny cast against the wall. Sam was petrified for a moment as fear gripped his mind and forced his muscles to turn to stone. But, as the shadow grew what looked to be claws, that’s when his concern for Daniel leaped into overdrive. 

His shriek of terror was the last thing the video they uploaded of that night would show. However, there was about ten more minutes of footage that only Jake, Josh, and Sam and Danny would see. It recorded the floor as Sam grabbed Danny’s wrist and bolted out of the house. It recorded the rustling leaves and their labored breath as they sprinted away from the house and back towards Sam’s. It also captured the sound of Danny’s misery as he threw up in the bushes, Sam frantically trying to soothe him but also get them to safety. But none of that made it into the video. 

+++

Their success happened seemingly overnight. It was a few weeks before their video got views over the double digits. But then, a famous reaction channel had used their video and suddenly, people flocked to it. Most people just commented on whether or not they thought it was fake, others commented on how hot they thought Sam and Danny were. But a good chunk of them, including the youtuber, were clamoring for more from them. It seemed a lot of people found them highly entertaining and wanted to see more of them. 

It was a complete accident that they became famous internet ghost hunters. That’s what made their job seem so surreal. Not only were they able to travel the country searching for ghosts and ghouls, but the world as well. They would get recognized on the street or in stores, being asked if they could take pictures with a wide variety of people. Suddenly, not just friends or family followed them, but complete strangers. Hundreds of thousands of people. Frankly, it was a little overwhelming. Daniel, and Sam, was just glad he had his best friend with him the whole time. 

“When is this video going out?” Daniel asked Sam with a sniffle, the two of them getting ready in their shared hotel room. 

“It should be posted in about a month,” Sam responded, staring into the mirror of the bathroom trying to get his hair to de-frizz. He had never really put that much effort into his appearance before, but they were now being scrutinized by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. So, Daniel stopped brushing out his curls and actually had a multi-step hair routine. 

“I was reading the comments on our last video-” 

“A wonderful thing for your mental health, I’m sure.” Danny interrupted, a crooked smile on his face before he blew his nose into a tissue.

“-and I couldn’t help but laugh.” Sam had finally emerged out of the bathroom and started to lace his boots. They were an old pair of Doc Martens that he’d owned forever and usually only wore for ghost hunting. 

“Oh? Why is that?” Danny was pouring himself out a dose of DayQuil, throwing it back as if it were a shot. He would have plugged his nose if it weren’t already stuffed. He hated the taste of both DayQuil and NyQuil vehemently, always making him gag despite how effective they were. 

“Everyone seems to agree. They think you’re a demon.”

Daniel had stopped himself short of pouring out another dose of DayQuil, the bottle still in his hand poised to pour. After realizing he was frozen, Danny forced himself to set the bottle down and face his best friend. He was sitting on the edge of Danny’s bed (it was closer to the door), struggling to pull his boot onto his foot. He really hadn’t seemed to notice Danny’s reaction to the accusation, too focused on cursing the tight boots that he stubbornly refused to loosen the laces on. 

“Oh yeah? And why do they think that?” The amusement in Danny’s tone was not manufactured, nor was the smile pulling at one corner of his lips. 

“Well,” Sam started with a grunt, letting out a satisfied sigh at finally getting his boots over his feet, “they seem to think that because you’re hardly scared in any of the places we go into that you must be a demon.” 

“Oh, so, because I’m not afraid of non-existent ghosts, I myself am a supernatural entity?” Daniel dryly questioned, shaking his head and returning to his previous task. 

“I mean, there is also that shadow creature that emerged out of you our first investigation. Should you be taking that much?” 

“I need a higher dose or else it won’t work,” Daniel flippantly answered, waving his hand in a dismissive manner before throwing back his second full dosage of the medicine. That one he could taste in full, the bitterness making him hiss in disgust. “That ‘shadow creature’ was just my shadow.” 

Sam handed Danny a bottle of water, watching the man down it before going to brush his teeth in the bathroom. “There was also that time you got a nosebleed the second you walked into a church. And we got it on camera,” Sam persisted, not one to lose an argument so easily. He had followed Danny to the entrance of the bathroom, leaning against the door jamb with his arms crossed. 

“Eh wa thuh ead uh winer, am,” Danny rebutted, toothpaste foaming in his mouth and hindering his speech. Sam managed to understand him: It was the dead of winter, Sam. Danny spit out his toothpaste, brushing his tongue a little before going back to continue his argument. “It was drier than the Sahara in that old building.” 

“Ok, then how do you explain the fact that you were the only one who had their eyes roll into the back of their head when they were touched by that exorcist?” Sam shot back, kind of impressed at himself for remembering all of these instances off the top of his head. 

Danny rolled his eyes at that, a smile pulling at his lips as he shooed Sam out of the way so he could put his shoes on. “I thought it would be funny! What’s with the third degree, anyway? You’re picking on a sick and weak man.” 

“Yeah, those arms are just for show,” Sam countered, flicking him in the bicep. As a reaction to that comment, Daniel, on a whim, ducked down, grabbed Sam by the waist, and hauled the man over his shoulder. Sam started giggling and squealing at the act. 

“Still think they’re just for show?” Danny casually asked, pacing around while holding Sam as if he weighed nothing. He could not keep the smile off his face as he did so, enjoying Sam’s own laughter. 

“No! Now, put me down, you menace!!” Sam had managed between giggles, his hands lightly beating into Danny’s back. Truthfully, Danny hadn’t known why he thought to pick Sam up. It just crossed his mind and Danny decided to go for it. That usually seemed to happen when he took cold medicine and he hoped it wouldn’t bite him in the ass later. 

Instead of placing him back down on the ground, Danny threw him gently onto the mattress. Sam bounced as the springs took on his weight, and then Danny’s as he climbed onto Sam. They both continued to giggle, Sammy throwing his arms around Daniel’s neck as they came face to face with one another. 

“Hi,” Daniel breathed with a honeyed tone. 

“Hi there,” Sam responded, his tone equally as candied. They both wore matching grins as they searched one another’s eyes. But that was where they stayed. This was a fairly recent development in their dynamic, starting back about two or three months ago. They already spent a lot of time together back when they still lived in Frankenmuth, but doing this job was drastically different. Instead of hanging out for 12 hours out of the day, now they saw each other 24 hours out of the day. It was not hyperbole in the slightest to say that they saw each other the most out of any other human on earth. And that kind of time spent together, well it draws people closer. So, this development seemed… natural. But, neither of them wanted to make the first move for equally valid reasons. So, this purgatory-state they were in (comfortable enough to hold one another as they slept but scared to even think about kissing the other) was where they stood now. 

And people noticed. 

Sam let out a short, nervous laugh. “We oughtta get down there. The rest of the crew is waiting.” He relinquished his grip around Danny’s neck, patted him twice on the shoulder, and then slipped out from under him to go stand by the door. 

Danny sighed, disappointed in himself as he watched Sam fidget with his hands out of the corner of his eye as he put on his own boots. He wanted to take that plunge with Sam so badly, but he also knew that there were too many risks involved. For one, their job depended on their dynamic. Part of their appeal was the way they so effortlessly bounced off one another comedically. And the other: if they went south - which Danny had a feeling they would because of him - not only would their jobs suffer, but they would too. They had been best friends for life and Daniel did not want to risk losing Sam because he couldn’t keep it in his pants. 

Danny knew he had to do something. They couldn’t go into the shoot this way. So, as they walked out of their hotel room, Danny tapped Sam on the arm with the back of his hand and chirped “you’re it” before bolting towards the stairwell. Danny didn’t have to turn around to know Sam was racing after him, he could hear Sam’s laugh following him. 

+++

“Greetings Travelers!” Danny started their intro with a wave of his hand. Ever since they had started taking this job seriously, Danny no longer had to be behind the camera. Instead, it seemed his presence was demanded in front of the lens alongside Sammy. 

“And welcome to the Old Holy Family Orphanage in Marquette, Michigan,” Sam finished for Danny. They were standing shoulder to shoulder with the building to their backs, the structure illuminated behind them and looking just as imposing as it felt. 

“This one is right in our backyard!” Danny smiled over at Sam, never having to fake a single one for the camera if Sam was there with him. 

“Give or take a few miles.” 

“Like… 400.”

“That’s a pretty big backyard!”

The two of them broke out into laughter, despite the joke not really being that funny. But, that was their dynamic. No matter what, they would always laugh. 

“Alright, Dan the Man. Shall we get into the depressing history?” Sam had slung an arm around Danny’s shoulders, the touch making Danny feel all warm and fuzzy. It was a welcome feeling considering the cold darkness that seemed to seep out of the building behind them. 

With a smile that bordered on sad, Danny poised his pointer finger in the air and swirled it around, just as he did every episode. “Roll the tape.” In the final cut, this is the part where they would cut away to a voiceover of Danny with b-roll of the place they were investigating behind it. 

Danny slid his phone out of his pocket, the script he wrote containing his research saved there. No matter how large their audience would grow, Danny refused to let anyone else research the history of their locations. Not only did he want to make sure that he was respecting the lives of those who perished at these locations, but he also did not want anyone to weaponize and abuse the history just to make it seem like ghosts existed for their gain. Sam was the only one who didn’t seem to think he acted prissy over the whole thing. 

“So, the place was built in 1915 and funded by the Catholic church. Their idea was to take in only white kids and give them to white families-” 

“Racist bastards,” Sam cut in, his breath tickling Danny’s cheek as the man leaned in to see Danny’s phone. Daniel tried extremely hard not to think about how close Sam’s lips were to his skin. (He failed miserably, his blunder displayed in the form of a pink blush dusting his cheeks for all to see)

“Oh, it gets worse. Now, that’s where all the documented information ends on this place. So, we’re slapping a very general ‘allegedly’ on everything from here on out.” Danny made the mistake of looking up from his phone and into Sam’s eyes, their faces barely inches apart, his breath catching in his throat. 

“They don’t even have proper sources,” Sam commented in a theatrical disapproving tone, his eyes never leaving Danny’s. Danny could feel rather than see the easy smile on Sam’s lips. 

“Th-They - uh,” Danny cleared his throat before tearing his eyes away and back to his phone. “There are claims that Native children from the surrounding areas were ripped away from their families as babies and then ‘Americanized’ before being adopted to white families. They wouldn’t find out the truth of their heritage until well into adulthood.” God I hope they don’t include me being so flustered in the final cut

“You mean this was a residential school??” Sam seemed genuinely outraged at the news, his outburst causing Danny’s ear to ring. 

“Allegedly,” Danny responded, using his free hand to rub at the affected ear. 

“I say again: ‘Racist bastards!’” 

“I’m pretty sure calling nuns ‘bastards’ gets you sent to hell.” 

“Fine! That means I’ll get to fist fight ‘em while I’m down there!” 

Danny shook his head, laughing at his co-host and best friend’s theatrics. “You’re something else, Sam.”

“And by ‘something’ do you mean charming, handsome, and funny?” Sam batted his lashes while preening, tossing his long hair over his shoulder. 

“Sure… we’ll go with that.” 

Sam let out an offended squawk, causing Danny to giggle. He shot Sam a wink before continuing on with his script. 

“Once again, there’s not a whole lot more on this place besides a lot of stories with no real sources. However, a lot of adults who lived in the orphanage as children would report terrible living conditions and mistreatment by the nuns. One report claimed that a little girl who was staying in the orphanage got caught in a huge blizzard, then died of pneumonia after she returned to the nuns. And instead of burying her right away, they put her body on display in the lobby as an example for the other kids.” 

“Jesus Christ almighty. Like, dude, I’m genuinely so fucking mad that I can’t even think of a joke,” Sam fumed, his grip on Danny’s shoulder tightening. 

“Well, these are all alleged-” 

“I don’t care. Usually I feel bad annoying the ghosts we visit. But tonight? I fucking hope I piss these bitches off!” 

“If ghost nuns even exist,” Danny countered. 

Sam didn’t respond verbally. Rather, he shot Danny a long-suffering look that really told Daniel how thrilled he was over that particular bit of input from the man. Danny just laughed, tilting his head a little so that it was resting against Sam’s. Sammy still had yet to let his arm drop from around Danny’s shoulders. 

“Is that everything?” 

“One last little thing, and then we’re all clear to go in. We’re actually pretty lucky to get in here when we did. We’re the last group of ghost hunters allowed to investigate this place before they start renovations.” 

“Pfffff, why? From the pictures I saw online, it’s beyond saving,” Sam looked over his shoulder at the aforementioned building. Just the exterior of the place was in bad shape: the brick was covered in crawling ivy, spray painted tags providing the only color to the faded orange brick, and practically every window was shattered or boarded up with plywood. 

“The previous owner was bought out. Another company, who graciously agreed to let us go through with this investigation before they started construction, is gonna turn this place into an apartment complex,” Danny explained, slipping his phone into his pocket once more. 

Sammy’s mouth fell open, a knit in his brow that showed just how much he was in disbelief from that claim. And that was when he slid his arm off of Danny. Quick to follow the void of the affectionate warmth of Sam’s touch was the frigid and sinister grope of the orphanage. Daniel never before put stock into Sam’s bullshit “energy” of the locations they visited, but this one felt different. 

“Hope those renters don’t mind having demonic nuns as their roommates,” Sam jested, his light-hearted tone simply a ruse for him still reeling over the fact that people are going to live in the building that has rumors of child abuse attached to it. 

Daniel could not help the wheeze of laughter that squeezed out of his lungs. “Damnit, Sister Mary! I told you not to leave the light on at night!” Danny played along, hoping that his joking around with Sam would ease the dread beating in his heart. As unsettling as it was, that unease seeping into Daniel’s bones felt familiar. 

“I’m gonna start making you pay rent!!” Sam continued with a laugh, his smile brighter than the floodlight pointed at them for the camera. 

“Would you rather have a demonic nun or a creepy ghost child as your roommate?” Danny asked as they began to walk up to the entrance of the old orphanage. 

Sam hummed in consideration, his fingers tapping on his chin. “Honestly? The nun.” 

“Really?” That was not the answer Danny was expecting. Sam had a long documented history of not liking demons in the slightest. He was the most afraid of the “demonic” locations they visited. 

“Well, 9 times out of 10, the ghost kid is actually a demon in disguise, right? So, rather than having the stress of having to guess whether or not it’s an actual kid, I’d rather have a demonic nun lady who’s honest about her identity.” Sam enthusiastically waved his hands as he spoke. 

“So… you’d pick a demon?” Danny’s hopeful tone surprised even himself. 

Rather than listen to Sam’s response, Daniel was instantly hit with a ringing in his ears that tuned him out the second he crossed the threshold into the abandoned building. He felt as if the world was moving in slow motion, his senses all zeroing in on the dark energy permeating out of the very walls of the place. Darkness charred the edges of his vision as they focused in on something at the end of the hall, something that was watching them from behind a corner. It was insane, but Danny felt as if he knew this presence, as if they were someone he was familiar with in passing, but was not closely acquainted with. And that wasn’t even the craziest part. Danny felt as if this… thing’s… attention was squarely on Sam and Sam alone. 

“-aniel?” 

With a touch of his hand to his shoulder, Sam yanked Danny out of whatever state he was just in. Like he emerged from a body of water, suddenly Daniel’s hearing was back to full capacity and his vision was fully intact. As he turned his head to look into Sam’s rich, amber eyes, time was restored to the correct speed. 

Glancing back down the hallway once more, Daniel found nothing but a dark, liminal space with fallen plaster and wood pieces littering it. He shook his head to clear it, his curls hitting his cheeks. However, he was still left with the feeling of his brain being waterlogged. 

“Are you ok?” Sam’s words dripped with concern, his eyes even glittering with it. With Sammy’s focus on him, Danny felt better. As long as he was next to Sam, nothing bad would happen. He vowed his life. 

“I think you're right, I shouldn’t have taken that much DayQuil,” Danny joked, hoping it would distract a little from what just happened. 

“Do we need to stop? You don’t have to do this tonight if you’re not-” 

“I’m alright, Sammy, I promise.” Danny flashed his most charming smile towards his best friend. He knew it was manipulative, but he also knew that it was justified. What Danny had stopped Sammy from suggesting was the man doing the whole episode by himself. If Danny wasn’t there, Sam would most definitely get into trouble. Life-threatening trouble. 

With an uncertain sigh, Sam gave Danny a comforting squeeze of his shoulder. That translated to him that Sam didn’t agree with Danny, but he was dropping the subject anyway. 

“Alright. Let’s go into the nursery first. Apparently more than a few people have gotten voices on the Ovilus in there,” Sam dictated, pulling a flashlight from his pocket and clicking it on. The beam of cold LED light illuminated a flurry of dust particles that made Daniel want to sneeze just looking at them. Please let there be no asbestos in here

“And where is that?” 

Daniel’s blood turned to ice in his veins as Sam pointed his flashlight beam down the hallway Daniel had just been staring down. “Somewhere down there. To the left, I think.” 

The side that Thing was hiding

Daniel had to roll his eyes at himself. There wasn’t anything actually down there. It was probably just too much cold medicine making his brain weird. 

“Ready for a baby, Sammy boy?” Danny jested, a crooked smile pulling at the left corner of his lips. He fumbled into the pocket of his own jacket, clicking on the flashlight as soon as he got a good grip on it. 

“Only if it’s yours,” Sam replied, not missing a beat. Stunned, Danny turned his head to see Sam bounce his eyebrows at Daniel before trudging down the hall. For the second time in five minutes, Daniel found himself having to shake his head to clear it. Sam was going to be his demise, that he was sure of. 

+++

“One more time. If you want to talk to us, please say one of our names back to us! My name is Sam,” Sam paused.

“And I’m Danny,” Daniel finished without missing a beat. He was used to having to introduce himself to empty rooms. But this time, he could not shake the feeling he was being watched. And it couldn’t be blamed on the cameras pointed at them. 

“Da-an,” the electronic voice of the Ovilus device coughed out. That thing, allegedly, picked up on ghosts and spirits manipulating the environment and formed sounds in what was called “phonetic mode”. Most of the time it just sounded like a robot with a bad cough, but sometimes it would form some words that even Danny couldn’t deny. 

“Oh, that’s a first. It wants to talk to you, Daniel,” Sam taunted, a shit-eating smirk on his lips as he held the device out to Danny. With a roll of his eyes, Danny took the thing from Sam’s hand and entertained the “ghost” trying to talk to him. 

“You’ve reached Danny,” the man droned in an unenthusiastic tone. He tucked his arm around his middle and rested his arm holding the equipment on it. 

“Hello… bro-o-ther.” That same chilling feeling that had been rattling his bones since Danny stepped onto the property slammed into him in full force, as if Lake Superior herself had sent a titanic wave to drown him. He wasn’t aware of the way his eyes widened nor the way he froze in place as if Medusa glanced his way. 

With a weak smile, Danny tried to recover. “Josie? What are you doing all the way over here? Last I knew, you were still alive.” 

“In-n-n-fernal.” 

All of the moisture left Danny’s mouth. 

“Uh-oh.” 

If Danny didn’t know any better, he would’ve said the thing was laughing at him. 

“What do you want?” Daniel’s tone was cold yet sturdy, like a predator growling out a warning. 

Before the response came, Sam yipped in surprise, jumping about three feet in the air. He bolted over to Danny’s side from his spot across the room, tucking in against Danny’s arm. “Something just grabbed me.” His voice trembled on his tongue. 

“Sam.” Out of instinct, Daniel wrapped a possessive arm around his best friend and pulled him tight against his side. 

“What do you want from me?” Sam was attempting to be brave, but the way his voice wavered betrayed how scared he was. 

“Everything.” With each word it spoke, the Ovilus became clearer and clearer. It still maintained its robotic tone, but the thing was not spouting words clear as day. 

Perhaps it was the cold he was suffering from or too much DayQuil. But, no matter what you wanted to blame, the outcome remained: Danny slipped up. Again. 

“Like hell you are,” Daniel growled. At the same time the Ovilus did. 

“Daniel?” Sam’s meek voice squeaked out to his right. 

“Scared. Tasty.” 

Daniel pulled Sammy closer to his side out of a surge of protectiveness. His eyes were now rapidly scanning the darkness surrounding for any signs of danger or threats. 

“Demons feast off fear…” Sam whispered. Because he was so close to Danny, the man could feel his best friend shaking. 

That was when the Ovilus started to spew words in a different robotic tone. It sounded crazy, but it was as if the voice setting was changed on the device to make it sound higher-pitched. 

“MINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINE-” 

“Sam,” Daniel interrupted, his eyes locked onto the doorway to the room they all stood in. The Ovilus was still repeating itself in Danny’s hand. 

“W-What?” Sammy’s tone quivered as it escaped his lungs. Danny didn’t have to look over at him to know his face was drained of blood and his eyes were as big as the moon. He’d been in enough places that scared the shit out of Sam to have that expression of his permanently etched into his mind. 

“I need you and the crew to get out.” It was a demand that left no room for argument. 

But, of course, Sam was the exception to that rule. 

“What?? No! I’m not leaving-” 

“Damn it, Sam! I’m trying to save your life! So for once in your fucking life, do as I say!” He snapped his head over to Sam’s direction as he screamed at his best friend. There was a large pang of guilt that stabbed him through the heart as he realized he’d made Sam cry. 

“Your… your eyes…” Sam trembled out, a quaking finger pointing at Danny’s face.

With a guilty sigh, Daniel kissed Sam on the forehead as he forced himself to soften his tone. “Please. Take everyone and get as far away from here as possible. I’ll meet up with you as soon as this is over; that’s a promise.” 

With a few rapid blinks, Sam nodded his head shallowly. Daniel, reluctantly, let go of Sam before the co-host grabbed their cameraman by the arm and bolted out of the door. He spared Danny one last frightened glance before completely disappearing into the darkness. Daniel prayed (the irony was not lost on him) that seeing his love in such a terrified way was not the last way he’d ever gaze upon him. 

“In love. Disgusting.” 

Daniel just scoffed. There was no way in hell he was going to be ashamed of what he felt for Sam.

“Attach. Sam. Still.” 

“I sent him out of range, you brainless bastard,” Daniel hissed, his eyes back on the doorway. It was the spot in the room where he felt that frigid darkness in the highest volume. He would be able to see it if he weren’t in this form. 

“Sam. Frightened. You,” it taunted. Daniel knew it was just trying to get in his head, but, fuck, if it wasn’t true. He’d seen that look of terror on Sammy’s face as he’d yelled at him. 

“I’ll take that over him being dead.” Daniel growled out, his jaw clenching so hard it could have shattered his teeth. 

With a clench of his fist, the Ovilus shattered into thousands of pieces in his hand. He paid no mind to the stinging pain he experienced as his skin dripped with the blood of his fresh wounds. 

“Enough chatter. Let’s dance, gingerbread.” 

+++

Daniel had found Sam pacing on the crumbling street in front of the orphanage. While he was a little miffed that Sam decided to stay that close to the building, he could hardly stay mad. He watched for a moment as Sammy plowed his fingers through his silky locks, or chewed on the skin of his thumb, or shoved his hands into his pockets. It wasn’t until Danny approached Sam (more like limped towards him) that the man even noticed him. 

Instead of the bone-crushing hug he was expecting from his best friend, Daniel was greeted with a face full of scalding, searing, divine, holy water. 

“Fucking SHIT!” Danny wailed, clutching his face with his hands as he doubled over in pain, his knees hitting the dewy grass beneath him. 

“YOU’RE A DEMON?!” 

Sam’s screaming accusation echoed off the surrounding houses and trees, a flock of poor, unsuspecting birds taking flight into the twinkling sky. 

Daniel, feverishly wiping the blessed water off his burning skin with the sleeve of his jacket, winced at the thundering volume Sam employed. Once he got as much of the water off of his face as he could, he looked up at Sam only to be met once more with a dousing of angelic H2O. 

“Mother- Could you quit it with the holy water, please?!” Daniel begged, more than a little desperation in his tone as he pawed at his scorching skin. He was convinced that his face was going to be bubbling with blisters. 

“You’re a demon.” It was a statement. A law of nature. What goes up, must come down; Daniel Wagner is a dirty fucking demon. 

“Yes,” Daniel sighed in resignation. There was no denying it now. Not only was Danny very visibly adverse to holy water, but he was pretty sure in the heat of the moment, he had fucked up and flashed Sam his true eyes. 

“Where the fuck is my best friend?” Sam growled through gritted teeth, his hand holding the holy water lifting up as if ready to strike again. 

“Right here! Right here,” Danny rushed out, shielding himself with his arms. 

“LIAR!!” 

“No, please! Sammy! Sammy,” Danny begged again, dropping his arms so that he could look Sam in the eyes. “It’s me. It’s always been me. I swear.” 

Danny wasn’t sure what it was, but Sam lowered the holy water. A breath of relief punched out of his chest, but the demon knew that this was far from over. There was still a righteous fury burning in his eyes and a set in his jaw that would have been extremely sexy if Danny weren’t so scared of losing Sam. 

“Prove it.” 

For a moment, Daniel didn’t know what to do. His mind floundered for a way to prove that the person Sam had always known as Danny was a demon. As he fumbled around his head, Sam deemed that he was taking too long and lifted up the holy water again. 

“WAIT wait!! Shit- the first time we ever had a sleepover! It was at your house, and- and- we stayed in your shared bedroom with the twins at first, but then we snuck down to the basement to play Clue at 1 am. We got caught because we played that Carole King record too loud and woke up your mom.” Daniel was talking a mile a minute, feverishly attempting to pour his soul, or, the demon equivalent, into his words in the desperate hope Sam would believe him. 

Sam thought for a second. But it was only for a second. 

“Not good enough-”

“NO! God, Sam, please! I swear it’s me. I-I don’t know what else I can do to convince you. But I swear on my life, I’ve always been this way. And, yes, I did trick you and lie to you the whole time, I don’t deny that. But, that guy who you travel the world with and laugh with and spend all your hours with? That’s me.” Daniel didn’t know when he started crying, but he frankly didn’t care. He was too focused on searching Sam’s face for any indication that he was getting through to Sam. 

His face was as impassible as stone. 

“Fuck,” Danny whimpered under his breath, hanging his head as sobs wracked his body. 

He was losing Sam. 

“I know you don’t believe me. Hell, I don’t deserve to be believed. But, please just… please just try. You’re… You’re my best friend. You’re the reason I trapeze around the world looking for ghosts, why I shower in cold water because you take yours so scalding it nearly burns off your skin, so I let you go first. You’re the reason I know all the words to Layla by Eric Clapton and why I learned guitar. You’re the reason I get up in the mornings… the reason I breathe, Sam; so that I have enough air in my lungs to crack a joke on the off-chance I get to hear your laugh. I…” The words caught in Danny’s throat as it closed in on himself, painful sobs hiccupping out of his mouth that he tried to stifle with the press of his hand. “I love you, Sam. And… And I’d rather be tortured by Satan himself than lose you. But, I know that I hurt you. And I know that you’re afraid of me. So… if you le-” He couldn’t even form the words, even thinking them too painful of a fate. “But if you turned around and never came back, well… that’s more than I deserve.” 

The night was perfectly silent, save for Daniel’s lamenting that echoed around him, as if taunting him. He was the worst demon ever forged in hellfire. Instead of feasting off of Sam’s soul and turning him towards hell like he’d been assigned to do, Daniel went and fell in love with the bastard. And there he was now, crying like a wimp because he thought he was going to lose Sam forever. 

He was coming up with plans on how to get himself exorcized by some priest when he felt a pair of hands grab his wrists and pull them away from his face. Before Danny could even process what was happening, a pair of soft lips crashed into his own. They were so, so warm. In fact, they felt like sunshine as they chased away all of the storm clouds thundering inside of Danny. 

Before he could really even savor them, the lips were gone from Danny’s. He’s ashamed to admit it, but the demon whimpered at their loss. 

“You’re Daniel.” Despite being spoken as a statement, Danny heard the question in Sam’s words as he rested their foreheads together. 

Danny didn’t trust his voice. Instead, he nodded in confirmation. That was all Sam needed. 

“I’m so fucking pissed off at you. And I will be for a very, very, long time.” 

Daniel could not control his cry of relief as it slipped out of his mouth. A fresh set of tears flowed from his eyes, these ones warm as they streamed down his cheeks. Once again, Daniel was able to read between the lines of Sam’s words better than anyone else; Sam wasn’t going anywhere. 

“Thank you,” he managed to breathe out. He wanted so badly to pull Sam into a crushing hug, but he also did not want to test his luck. 

“I have about a million questions for you that I expect answers for. Every. Single. One. Is that understood?” Sam’s tone was still steely, but Danny could hear his resolve start to crack. 

“Anything you want. I promise.” 

Finally, Sam let go of Danny’s wrists and wrapped his arms around him. That was all Daniel needed before he copied Sam and lunged at him with so much force, Sam was sent to the ground, landing on his back. He let out a grunt as he collided with the grass, but did nothing to remove his grip on Danny. The two of them stayed there for a length of time, god only knows how long. 

“I love you, too,” Sam whispered into Danny’s ear. Overwhelmed by that confession, Daniel burst into tears all over again. Sam said nothing, just stroked Danny’s back in a soothing manner as Daniel released all of his worries over Sam rejecting him. 

After he ceased crying, Daniel helped Sam up out of the grass. Despite it being July, the night was still cold. And Danny was still sick, something Sam would make fun of him for later on when he realized it. 

“I don’t think we’ll be able to film anymore tonight,” Sam posited, his hand finding Danny’s and lacing their fingers together. Daniel felt his heart leap into his chest at the action, a smile so wide on his lips it made his cheeks hurt. 

“Good thing we have access to it tomorrow night as well,” Danny reminded, swinging their interlocked hands as they walked back towards the car they drove there from the hotel. 

“So… if demons exist… does that mean…?” 

Despite his head tilting back in exasperation, Sam’s question only made Danny’s smile grow impossibly larger. 

“Yes, Sam.” 

“I KNEW GHOSTS WERE REAL!!!”

+++

@doodle417 @sammykiszkasunusedshoes @jmks-housewife @alwayssotiredbutneverofyou @ageoferin @etoilesnoor @ascendingtostardust @godlygreta @s0livagant @gretavanflowerpower @morganic-goods  @baguettejuliette @fan-girl-97 @gaby-gvf @age-of-nyahh @mzbrightside @myownparadise96 @xserenax-13 @sammysvanfeet @strugglingtodoshit @loofypoofy @chalametpwk @seventieswhore @razorbladekiszka @unfortunatelykristin @welightthefire @gretavanfleas @sammiejane22 @satanplayshisfluteforhim @starsasone  @writingcold @tearsofbri @teddiie @GardensGateDaisy @sparrowofthedawnsworld @angelbabyyy99 @whollyfreeamongststars @gretaswhore28 @l0rdoffli3s @kay-jordan @lightmyloverry @kenzie18 @gotavansleep @roosterbbradley @freckled-wonder @flower-power-anthem @Gabyvanfleet @Sarakay-gvf @Mamalikes-gvf @josh-iamyour-mama @st4rdust-ch0rds @fallonfatality @earthlysorrows @jessicafg03 @rossy1080 @hippievanfleet @spark-my-nature @hayley1623 @schleeble @gretavanflipflop @mehboihourz @jakeydoesit @BusyBeingTrash 

[quaranmine]

Missing 411 guy?

David Paulides, the guy who is the creator of "Missing 411" which is basically a conspiracy about suspicious clusters of people going missing in National Parks in the United States. He is also the bane of my existence for the past year as someone who is researching a story about someone who goes missing in a National Forest.

To start with, if you've ever been even on the fringes of "irl spooky stuff" videos on YouTube, you might have encountered this. There are a lot of youtubers and podcasters who cover this guy's content without understanding What and Who they are giving platform to. Sometimes, people don't even mention him but will relate the cases that he covers in his books or use the same conspiracy points as him. I would not be suprised if you watched a Buzzfeed Unsolved/Watcher video (which are fine btw) and then got recommended something related to Missing 411 in the sidebar since it's a similar genre. It's super popular to the point where its outgrown its creator. I can't stress enough that many of you have probably encountered this content, at least in passing, without knowing what it was.

So to recap, Missing 411 documents cases of real-life people who have disappeared or been found dead in national parks, national forests, etc and claims that these cases are unusual and mysterious. It frequently talks about missing person "clusters" and things like that. There is often an overt, if not outrightly stated, implication that something supernatural, crpytid, or UFO/alien related was involved. For starters, David Paulides has written a ton of books trying to prove the existence of bigfoot. Now, I have no issues with people believing in bigfoot, or cryptids, or aliens, but I do have an issue with people co-opting real life tragedies and twisting information to push this as conspiracy. I simply do not think it is helpful or respectful to talk about missing and dead people (and children!) like this. Also, with the high prices of his books ($100-200) he just reeks of grifter to me.

To me, Missing 411 "criteria" is a stretch at best. You will see cases "mysteriously" connected because both of these people wore red when they went missing. Both these people's bodies were found near water (as if many National Park do not have water features.) Both these people's bodies were found near granite rocks (like, the most common rock type in mountains lol.) All these cases involve the weather turning bad! (um, yeah, that's a big reason why people get in trouble?) He frequently claims that bodies being undressed is highly unusual, without ever acknowledging paradoxical undressing. Or he claims laughably weak connections between people like "these two women who went missing in different years are connected because they both had three letter names that started with A." I haven't personally listened to this talk but there is a data scientist mentioned in his Wikipedia page who examined the case data and found nothing out of the ordinary in them. If you don't want to watch a video (I don't either right now) then he also wrote this article. From a different person, this article from a podcast is also good.

David Paulides does not present Missing 411 cases with accuracy. He has been known to cherry-pick data and purposefully omit data to make them seem more unusual. Many cases he covers are either already solved, or have extensive information available. He does not retract information or admit when he is wrong. Even if he does present a particular case accurately, he has such a bad track record with reliable research that he cannot be trusted as a source. There used to be someone on reddit who would deconstruct cases he covered. In this post they found several instances of cases of Paulides missing sources and coming to incorrect conclusions.

Note there's a few differences in the sources I just linked. The data scientist and podcast skeptic both said they found the data to be accurate, while the redditors have found evidence to the contrary. The data scientist also says he found Paulides' presentation of information respectful, but I personally find all of this highly disrespectful. But despite these differences I think we can all agree....the claims of Missing 411 are pretty ridiculous.

Also, let's talk about David Paulides himself. Before becoming a writer, he was a cop in California. He was a cop who was fired for corruption (well that's hard to do), because he was caught soliciting donations for a fake charity he set up. That's straight from his Wikipedia page. He continues to use his past as a "dectective" to attempt to make his claims sound more reliable. There was also a redditor who pulled up some other career highlights from when he was a cop in the 80s, by looking at court transcripts and news articles. His job used to be entrap gay men by pretending to be gay, getting them to invite him home with them, and then arresting then. He and his unit were also accused of police brutality many times in the 80s, with Paulides testifying in defense of his unit. And he has not changed btw, he's a Qanon stolen election covid denier type of nut right now on his YouTube channel (according to reddit. I am not watching this man's videos.) So yeah, I think his character speaks for itself.

Anyway, I'm tired of hearing about this guy and seeing 411 related content pop up around YouTube, Reddit, Tiktok, etc. Pay attention if you watch things related to "creepy and unexplained real life disappearnaces." I do not think he is a good person, I do not think he can be trusted, and I do not think that his work actually benefits the families of the missing persons in question. These are real people. He turns them into spectacles to push ~unusual~ circumstances and paranormal activity.

[ex0rin]

oh look a distraction from work!

tagged by @jdeanmorgan (thanks! 😘)

10 questions for 10 writers

How many works do you have on AO3?

195, would have been more but i recently orphaned a whole pile of them (sorry if this is the way you're learning of it)

What's your total AO3 word count?

686,289

What fandoms do you write for?

i know i haven't written anything in like two months, but i'm still going to put The Walking Dead since all of my active WIPs are from that one - but like, in general i write whatever i'm into at any given time (prev: The Boys, TFATWS, CA: TWS, Witcher, Watcher Entertainment, general rpf, etc etc)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I SWEAR I TRY i'm just so fucking bad at it, when i'm in an upswing of writing i don't want to stop to reply (which makes me an asshole) and then when i can't get words out i'm just too sad to try and respond to everything... usually once a year (right before @febuwhump i do a full two weeks of JUST responding to as many as i can from the previous year) (so i guess if you haven't heard from me, wait till January 2025 😅)

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i have! multiple times. almost ALL rpf from Buzzfeed Unsolved stuff weirdly enough

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

also yes! i think the only one(s) posted are the ones with @ponderosa121 (Gotham, Constantine) but i've done some Very Good and Very Long RP fics with @sparklingbinjuice that one day i'm going to make into actual fics and post

What's your all-time favourite ship?

why do people keep asking me this 😅 if you asked me RIGHT NOW (which is kind of what's happening) i would say neggie (negan x maggie) but this answer is subject to change at the drop of a hat. a month ago it would have been cegan (negan x carl), seven months ago it would have been butchie (butcher x hughie), and before that it was winterbones (rumlow x bucky) or hell, roosmav (rooster x maverick) and so on and so forth

What are your writing strengths?

smut. descriptive smut.

What are your writing weaknesses?

dialogue. jesuschrist i hate writing dialogue (esp for negan, fuck that guy and his tone and innuendo and run on sentences) (affectionate but still annoyed)

First fandom you wrote for?

first posted on AO3 is for NBC Constantine but that's only from 2015 and i've been writing smut since the late 90s 🙃 reader-insert for Star Wars was probably the first thing i ever wrote (before i even really knew what fanfic was tbh) (luke x me babyyyy) but some of the first stuff i published to an audience back in the yahoo groups days would have been the UK queer as folk or... shit, gundam wing probably?

(also, sidenote but tfw you realize charlie hunnam was in the UK QAF on this day of our lord 2024???) (just need a moment while my childhood watching queer as folk collides with my adulthood adoration for pacific rim crash into each other)

okay, anyway, tagging: @sparklingbinjuice @the-ravening @unlikelymilliner @winterbonesthings @duchessonfire @sequencefairy @crushcandles @grianhole @stunt-lads (my tenth @ is whoever would like to participate! you can say i tagged you)

[xe-company]

➤ SUMMARY: GWAN SUNHUI, JANG TATIANA, & LEE CHUNJA three members of the six membered girl group VALLEY OF THE DOLLS answer some of the questions that TOYMAKERS have been wondering while showing the last things on their phones. The three of them show and tell what they last took a photo of, the last song they’ve listened to, their last texts, and their most used emojis. ➤ UPLOADED / POSTED: MARCH 08TH, 2019 ➤ VIEWS: 1.6M ➤ LIKES: 921K ➤ TOP COMMENTS: ● beccamelecca: I’m excited for their next comeback!!! ● o.o_jas: A trio I never knew i NEEDED ● kimjiyoonie: the styling for this era--the stylist needs a raise tbh

[ALL]: PUT ON YOUR DOLL FACES! Hello, we are three members of VALLEY OF THE DOLLS!

[CHUNJA]: Hello, I’m LILITH!

[TATIANA]: I’m TATI!

[SUNHUI]: I’m SUNHUI! And this is the Last Thing On Your Phone Interview with WIRED!

[LILITH]: A lot of mirror selfies. Bibi came in after I took one of myself and we had a whole photoshoot! We came out looking awesome as always. Maybe I’ll post some on Instagram. [she winks to the camera.]

[TATI]: One of Noa unnie being a literal meme. She was mad at me for days!

[LILITH]: Yeah, she was not having it when you accidently posted it on our Twitter account.

[The girls shared a few chuckles.]

[SUNHUI]: [she scratches the back of her neck.] Mine is of the Busan skyline when Nina and I went together during a break in our schedules. 

[LILITH]: How to get rid of your older brother. . . Junsu oppa really won't leave me alone.

[SUNHUI]: Where I can watch Hit and Run Squad. I heard it was a good movie and it came out in January so I wanted to see where I could watch it. 

[TATI]: Oooo, Pretty outfits! I wanted to look at some cute outfit ideas for us to wear sometime! Sunhui unnie helped hehe.

[SUNHUI]: Stay tuned Toymakers!

[TATI]: “Unnie, please buy me some perfume!'" [the girl giggles, covering her smile.] I wrote this to our manager because I ran out and was too lazy to get it myself. She was already out anyway!

[SUNHUI]: “Sorry I had to leave so quickly! I just wanted to say your newest song DANCE was really good, I’ve had it on repeat for days!” That was to one of my friends YOURA! She just released a new song and I hadn’t had the chance to tell her my thoughts on it since I had to leave for schedule. 

[LILITH]: [she looks at her phone.] “Junsu, shut up or I will put you on BuzzFeed Unsolved." [she looks at the camera like it's The Office, an unimpressed look on her face.] He's always annoying me, I'm telling you. The BuzzFeed Unsolved part is a promise, oppa. [she directs her last statement to the camera while pointing.]

[TATI]: Five minutes! I got a spam call and I just went along with it before getting bored and hanging up on them.

[LILITH]: Uhh. . . I think it was only a few hours? I was talking to my mom and we just ended up talking about everything haha.

[SUNHUI]: A few minutes, it was just me calling BIYA when her and the other members were at the dorm and I called to ask what drinks they wanted from the cafe I was at. 

[LILITH]: The thumbs up one [👍🏻], definitely. I always text it in our group chat and to our manager.

[SUNHUI]: The smiling face with the hearts around it [🥰]...I send that a lot after we do well during practice or recordings!

[TATI]: The side eyes! [👀] I always send it to Biya when I see or hear her spoil things, hah!

[LILITH]: That’s the sign to look out for. [she whispers.]

[SUNHUI]: It’s a video I took of OH MY GIRL’s performance at one of their U.S. tour shows! Nina and I went to one of the shows back in January!

[LILITH]: A TikTok dance with my brother. If he looks like he's been threatened at gunpoint. . . Yes.

[TATI]: It was me showing off a makeup look that Nina unnie tried on me! It looked so cute! I was sad to wash it off. . .

[LILITH]: Some photos I took for Bibi. They all look good, and before you ask, yes, they were used as concept photos for her. The credit is all to me. [she laughs.]

[TATI]: A cute outfit I recently bought! [She pulls out her phone and scrolls through her gallery, finding the picture and showing it to the camera.] It's my new favorite outfit hehe.

[LILITH]: Tati posting outfit challenge-failed. 

[She laughs as Tati playfully slaps her arm.]

[SUNHUI]: A set of photos I took when I went back home to Changwon to see my family! It was well needed and some of the girls met my siblings. 

[LILITH + TATI]: MY PACE!

[The two girls enthusiastically shout together.]

[TATI]: We played it in the car on the way here!

[SUNHUI]: YOURA’s song DANCE that I talked about earlier in the video!

[SUNHUI]: I actually don’t have any...

[She turns her phone around to display the clock/alarm app to the camera].

[SUNHUI]: It’s like my body has a internal clock that always wakes me up before anyone’s alarms.

[LILITH]: Two. . . I only need two for schedules.

[TATI]: Like. . . Ten? [She scratches her head, frowning slightly.] I'm a deep sleeper. . .

[SUNHUI + TATI]: Thank you for watching!

[LILITH]: Make sure to stream our newest album GIRLS! Thank you for supporting us and we hope to see you soon!

[mogamingcanthink]

I truly think that some gen z kids my age in particular were just built different (An essay on the way young people around the ages of 16-19 consumed digital media from an extremely tired person in that age-range who wanted to be asleep like 3 hours ago)

Cut added because I wrote more than I expected to

Note before my first couple paragraphs that I am not condoning the types of parents who take their 9 year old to see deadpool or even their 5 year old to see the barbie movie, parents should be responsible and look at commonsense media or something similar and not bring their kids to see things they don't understand/will fuck them up

But like also my brother is at the age that I was when I watched a full ddlc playthrough as it was releasing and I came away from that like "cool that was an interesting and scary game" but I think my brother would not be able to handle it, he would have nightmares

Idk maybe he's just a wimp but I genuinely believe that the majority of gen alpha would not handle the type of content my age-group was able to consume on the internet, which is probably a good thing.

Again, parents not monitoring what media their children consume is BAD. There are scientific studies on this topic. Not all pg-13s are created equal, same with any film rating. I feel fairly lucky that I didn't encounter anything too wild when I was younger, just some horror games and buzzfeed unsolved, I didn't even watch a rated R film until sophomore year of high-school when I took a film-studies course

But yeah, letting young children watch films and YouTube videos not meant for them is not great, most people born around the same time as me were just in the golden age of not being iPad kids but also learning and adapting to technology super fast at a young age and usually having personal internet access at (based on what conversations I've had with friends) the ages 7-10. Most of us weren't chronically online until the pandemic, but we did often have an insane amount of freedom on the internet either because of boomer parents or (in my case) extremely trusting ones, whether that was trust in the internet user or the quality of YouTube children's content or god forbid the YouTube kids app.

This utter freedom in our formative years led to a lot of kids finding things not originally intended for them. I refuse to believe that Five Nights at Freddy's was originally intended to be for children with the whole serial killer thing, but it got into our grubby elementary-schooler hands and we were obsessed. DDLC was DEFINITELY not meant for kids but I watched a full playthrough of that as a wee 10-year-old who had yet to watch a PG-13 film my mom hadn't watched before me. And that's all just games. True crime documentaries, controversies, "kids" content, and challenges that could and did lead to physical harm were all at our fingertips.

The other thing is that most of us did grow up on cable, dvds, cds, and even vcr in some cases. We grew up as technology was absolutely exploding (hell, I was born the same year the iPhone was released). We were forced to play outside and with toys despite also finding an online presence. Technology and educational online games wormed their way into the school curriculum. As a first grader we would learn our spelling skills through a browser game but I'd go home and my choices were PBS kids or the backyard. Obviously technology continued to improve at this extremely accelerated rate, but I, and every one of my peers I've discussed this with, had several years where the most we'd interact with new-fangled technology was Xfinity on Demand or the Wii (both staples of my childhood).

I do think that Covid was the major cause for most of my age group being extremely online?? Prior to that (in middle school) I'd watch vines with friends while doing try not to laugh challenges, listen to music, pull up a minecraft let's play after doing my homework, and maybe play a game on the Xbox on the weekend. During covid, though, I feel as though that's when most of us started to be more online. Hell, my discord account was made in 2019 but sat dead until 2020 and is now my main form of communication. We all started to use out devices more and engaged with online content to a much higher degree. I'm sure all of our logged steam hours increased tenfold, I know mine did. Such an insane life event, a genuinely traumatic period for most of us, and probably the reason why we're so chronically online. Keep in mind we were all tweens when this hit, middle-schoolers or freshmen, and now we're either adults or will be next year. It was a wild time to be alive and definitely had a MASSIVE effect on how this age group consumes media

Gen alpha, by the most common definition, begins high-school this year (or month for most people). This is absolutely insane all things considered, but let's compare their consumption of media to gen z. First, there are still the parents who do not give a shit and take their tiny child to see deadpool but since they are the minority I won't mention them

Next, gen alpha, for the most part, was put on devices at a young age to keep them quiet. One story I know with my stepbrother is that he one time thought his grandmother's TV was broken because it started playing a "grown-up show". It was an ad. It was cable TV. If course not every kid is like this, but we need to understand that for the younger of this group (which is Who I'm referring to) maybe don't even remember the start of covid. Their parents have been trying to distract them to get their own work done for some of their most formative years. That leads to tiny children who literally come up to my waist while standing at full height knowing more about celebrity drama than I do and also pointing at popular characters in the horror or adult animation genres and saying "I know that guy". Yes I do believe that they often have less access to this kind of thing than me or my friends did when we were younger, and often these "horror games" are directed at a younger audience than they used to be. Poppy Playtime and Security Breach hardly compare to seeing Yuri literally stab herself to death and watching her corpse slowly lose life over two days. Parents have simply wisend up to what kind of stuff is on the internet, and if it isn't marketed towards children in real-life stores or isn't approved by other parents, it can simply be filtered out. Honestly I see a lot of kids who only have access to the kids tabs of large streaming services, definitely an improvement from the world of YouTube. Honestly this stuff (ie. Internet trends, slang, quotable stuff, etc) just sort of spreads to a few kids through the actual source material and to every other kid in school my word of mouth

I don't know guys, I just think that the way technology has had an affect on my life versus the lives of some young children is interesting but I've been writing this on my phone for over an hour when I was planning on checking tumblr and go to sleep this was literally just supposed to be "I don't think my brother could handle ddlc" and nothing else but here I am. Maybe I'll write a real thing on this later and actually interview my friends. Anyways I hear something crawling in my walls and it's probably a mouse lmao I'm gonna go tf to sleep

[betweenthings2]

27 for the ao3 wrapped!

Thank you for the ask!! =)

27. What do you listen to while writing?

It very much depends. If it's a fic inspired by a specific song, it's that song, possibly on repeat. If its a very temporal fic, then it's the album the fic is associated with, for instance when I wrote All This Barely Getting By, I listened to A Brief Inquiry a lot and a lot of Last Show Puppets fics are soundtracked by them. More often than not, it's whatever I was listening to before I sat down to write, but also the ADHD comes in strong and I watch a lot of Buzzfeed Unsolved or Watcher Ghost Files or Puppet History while I'm writing.

[ao3feed-renga]

Sk8: Unsolved

Sk8: Unsolved

by LucidCyklamen

An alternate universe where Reki doesn't drag Langa into skating, but ghost hunting. 'S' isn't a skating race, but a goofy Saturday nightly ghoul lovers meetup (isn't any less crazy). Pretty much a buzzfeed supernatural AU that came forth from me watching the ghoul boys as comfort while also being hooked on skate fics. Enjoy!

*Warnings*: Scattered mentions of Langa's dad here and there, will be added chapter warnings when they happen. Hurt/comfort comes up later, I haven't written that yet. Only fluff for our bois now! Also, if you're uncomfy with ghost stuff, idk what ur doing here but this may not be for you!

Words: 5721, Chapters: 6/?, Language: English

Fandoms: SK8 the Infinity (Anime)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: M/M

Characters: Kyan Reki, Hasegawa Langa, Kyan Reki's Family, Hasegawa Langa's Family, Chinen Miya, Nanjo Kojiro | Joe, Sakurayashiki Kaoru | Cherry Blossom, Higa Hiromi | Shadow, Shindo Ainosuke | Adam

Relationships: Hasegawa Langa/Kyan Reki, Hasegawa Langa & Kyan Reki, Nanjo Kojiro | Joe/Sakurayashiki Kaoru | Cherry Blossom

Additional Tags: Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural, Buzzfeed Unsolved References, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, The Ghoul Boys (Buzzfeed Unsolved), Sharing a Bed, Mutual Pining, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Ghosts, My First Work in This Fandom, How Do I Tag, Past Character Death, Daddy Issues, Spirits, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Cute Kyan Reki, Bisexual Kyan Reki, Gay Hasegawa Langa, Everyone Is Gay, Gay Panic, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, To Be Edited, Ghost Hunters, Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Strangers to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, Alternate Universe - No S Races (SK8 the Infinity), I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping

From https://ift.tt/C6xrFKZ https://archiveofourown.org/works/46323235

[mudpuddlenl]

Oh this is DIFFICULT

Hmm

I could pick multiple for each but...

So many fears could go in the first spot, but I think Desolation is a big one. I first picked Dark and Slaughter for this, so here's what I wrote for that: One of my very specific fears is that I'll be murdered in my sleep. You can thank Buzzfeed Unsolved's Axeman video for that, after I watched it I slept badly and was extremely paranoid for a whole week, and it singlehandedly reignited my fear of the dark. While I also hate bugs and spiders, the dark and the slaughter won out just over them. (and now Desolation won out over those, because my fear that I mentioned above could also fall under that if I dig deeper into that fear)

Honestly not sure how to give a proper explanation for the second one, it just feels right? Alternate options are Spiral, Lonely, Web and Desolation. Because to be clear, I would not choose to become an avatar.

Also I don't know, I just love the Stranger. I like the aesthetic I like thinking about it

I'm so bad at tagging people for tagging games, so honestly if anyone who sees this wants to do it feel free to!

The magnus archives tag game!

I don't care what your zodiac sign(s) are, I want to know about your TMA entities! First: the one you fear the most Second: the one you're most likely to be an avatar of Three: the one you are fascinated with

Here are mine:

tagging my lovely @tanith-rhea who made me discover the magnus archives, and anyone who wants to join since I'm not in the magnus archives fandom!

You can join even if you're not in the fandom, fears are universal :) (link to the wiki)

tagging other people I don't know if they know tma but maybe? (no pressure) @dianneking @yourlocaldisneyvillain @opheliauniverse @i-have-insane-that-i-am-paper and anyone who sees this and wants to join :))

[ao3feed-matchablossom]

Sk8: Unsolved

by LucidCyklamen

An alternate universe where Reki doesn't drag Langa into skating, but ghost hunting. 'S' isn't a skating race, but a goofy Saturday nightly ghoul lovers meetup (isn't any less crazy). Pretty much a buzzfeed supernatural AU that came forth from me watching the ghoul boys as comfort while also being hooked on skate fics. Enjoy!

*Warnings*: Scattered mentions of Langa's dad here and there, will be added chapter warnings when they happen. Hurt/comfort comes up later, I haven't written that yet. Only fluff for our bois now! Also, if you're uncomfy with ghost stuff, idk what ur doing here but this may not be for you!

Words: 5721, Chapters: 6/?, Language: English

Fandoms: SK8 the Infinity (Anime)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: M/M

Characters: Kyan Reki, Hasegawa Langa, Kyan Reki's Family, Hasegawa Langa's Family, Chinen Miya, Nanjo Kojiro | Joe, Sakurayashiki Kaoru | Cherry Blossom, Higa Hiromi | Shadow, Shindo Ainosuke | Adam

Relationships: Hasegawa Langa/Kyan Reki, Hasegawa Langa & Kyan Reki, Nanjo Kojiro | Joe/Sakurayashiki Kaoru | Cherry Blossom

Additional Tags: Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural, Buzzfeed Unsolved References, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, The Ghoul Boys (Buzzfeed Unsolved), Sharing a Bed, Mutual Pining, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Ghosts, My First Work in This Fandom, How Do I Tag, Past Character Death, Daddy Issues, Spirits, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Cute Kyan Reki, Bisexual Kyan Reki, Gay Hasegawa Langa, Everyone Is Gay, Gay Panic, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, To Be Edited, Ghost Hunters, Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Strangers to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, Alternate Universe - No S Races (SK8 the Infinity), I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping

source https://archiveofourown.org/works/46323235

[hoperays-song]

Sing Characters’ List of Fears: Johnny and Ryan

Johnny Taylor:

Coulrophobia (Fear of Clowns)

Ash made him watch IT once and the poor boy never recovered. Meena has the same phobia for the same way.

Melissophobia (Fear of Bees and Wasps)

He has never been stung by anything and the fear developed from him constantly trying to keep that record.

Nosocomephobia (Fear of Hospitals)

Johnny’s mum died in a hospital and he’s had a phobia of them and everything medical related since.

Trypanophobia (Fear of Needles)

Also due to his mum’s death, but he also hates the way the feel in his arm so that does not help with the fear.

Ryan Willis:

Astraphobia (Fear of Thunder and Storms)

He’s been scared of thunder his whole life and while it has lessened while he got older, it never went away.

Claustrophobia (Fear of Small or Enclosed Spaces)

Ryan developed claustrophobia due to some events of his childhood.

Phasmophobia (Fear of Ghosts)

Not only is he a firm believer in ghosts, he is absolutely terrified of them and due to this he refuses to watch horror movies.

Sociophobia (Fear of Social Judgement)

This comes to light during the writing of the revamped show, when it is revealed that Ryan is scared of being judged for his singing.

[leolynn]

after seeing Ghostbusters: Afterlife a whole Twice this weekend, i thought i’d record some headcanons!

i wrote these all out but then exited the app and it did not save. whoops.

phoebe is autistic! it’s almost canon but they never actually say the word

they’re also non-binary. they use she/they but prefer they/them

they love dead poets society. she cries every time. (me too)

phoebe excels in school, but struggles with art, gym class, and socializing

luckily podcast is very sociable. he makes friends for the both of them.

podcast is genderfluid! he uses he/she but doesn’t mind other pronouns.

she’s obsessed with pop culture as well as supernatural events

buzzfeed unsolved stan

cried when supernatural ended

he can always tell exactly how phoebe is feeling. he knows when they’re upset, happy, nervous, panicking, or mad and she knows perfectly how to help phoebe handle their emotions.

trevor is a car guy. he watches a lot of youtube tutorials

he also is just naturally good at fixing things.

he helps podcast make a youtube channel

podcast likes to feature trevor and lucky occasionally, but phoebe is always his costar.

trevor does the editing and is credited as a producer.

lucky does have a boyfriend. i’m naming him andre.

she and andré aren’t together very long, but when they break up, she still needs time.

trevor is always there for her. they’re best friends

even podcast and phoebe invite her to hang out with them when she’s sad

eventually she gives in and lets trevor take her on a date

gary and callie keep going out.

the kids are weirded out by it for a while, but eventually the dirt farm house feels quiet when he’s gone

he moves in as soon as trevor lets him

gary and phoebe are an unstoppable force. he teaches her how to play practical jokes on people

with the kid’s consent, gary asks callie to marry him

she says yes, but they remain engaged for a long time. she’s still fixing up the dirt farm and paying off debts.

[meltwonu]

wonwoo ✨ u n s o l v e d✨

pairing; fratboy!wonwoo x female reader

notes; fratboy!wonwoo, mostly crack, buzzfeed unsolved jokes, a little bit of paranormal stuff but nothing scary??, fucking in an abandoned building?, i wrote this while i was shad0wb@nn3d and thinkin i was abt to have to delete my blog so enjoy this comedic relief i provided myself, yes based on the gose ep, also u can consider this as taking place a little after the last chapter of caffeine!! This was just for fun, dont inbox me saying this was weird i know its weird ☠️🤣

*REPOSTED because tumb1r fl@gged the original 😭 much like the previous drabble, nothing about this has rly changed so I don’t know what to do lol the kicker is the note is like ‘wrote this while I was shad0wb@nned!’ LMAO

You shoot Wonwoo an incredulous look when he sneaks through the small gap in the metal gates, foot tapping nervously as you stare at him from the other side.

“Wonwoo… I don’t know about this… Can’t we do something else...” You mumble. He rolls his eyes at you jokingly, momentarily adjusting his glasses before he leans over to hold the gap open for you to crawl through. “C’mon, you promised. And I ate you out for an hour and a half while we watched dumb rom-coms.” He deadpans.

That was true.

“Yeah but--but why couldn’t you have asked someone else to come with you?” Whining, you ease through the metal gates, figuring it’d be safer with Wonwoo than waiting outside alone. 

Wonwoo grins at you, helping you dust off your skirt before he starts heading for the abandoned building.

“That’s because everyone else was too scared to come back after I told them I saw a ghost.”

“Then why are we here? Scratch that, why am I here?” You complain.

Wonwoo shoots you a pointed stare as he stops in his tracks.

“Because I want to make sure I really saw a ghost. And because I trust you to not run off without me.”

“Hey there demons, it’s ya boy.” Wonwoo announces to the empty building. His voice echoes as he steps over the broken glass littering the floor - telling you to watch your step as he reaches for your hand. “Can you not call them demons? What if there’s something here?” You harshly whisper back.

Truth be told, this was absolutely not your ideal date for a Friday night but you had promised the tall and handsome idiot that you’d come with him, even if you were slightly regretting it now. “If there’s something here then we have proof ghosts exist!” He whispers back, turning his flashlight on as he guides you further and further into the two-story building.

Every creak sends you into overdrive as your eyes peer into the darkness and Wonwoo’s flashlight seems to be low on battery; only emitting a soft glow that barely does anything to pacify your fears.

“Maybe we should announce we’re here?” He offers.

“Did you not already do that when we walked in? When you called them demons? What else can you possibly say to make them friendly?”

Wonwoo chuckles; feeling your clammy palm gripping onto his a little tighter when he veers off into one of the many rooms. He inspects the room quietly, eyes flitting over the desk and filing cabinets lining the walls. “I mean, maybe we should do it again?” Wonwoo clears his throat, staring into the darkness before speaking.

“Hello? We’re here for the cult stuff?? We saw the ad on craigslist?” He trails off. The panic floods your senses almost immediately at his stupid question. “Are you fucking mad? Cult stuff? We’re looking for fucking ghosts for fucks sake, Wonwoo!” He can only laugh at your panic, still pointing his flashlight in various directions before he starts opening the filing cabinets.

“Hey, calm down a bit. This building hasn’t been abandoned that long! And nobody’s reported any weird stuff about it except for the one time and it was me. If there’s anything here, it’s probably just the raccoons scurrying around.”

It does little to calm your nerves but you accept it for now; pressing up to Wonwoo’s side as he leads you into a different room. “Okay, but if we see anything we’re leaving, like, immediately. Not buts!” You murmur against his shoulder.

Wonwoo nods, stepping into a room that seemed oddly much cleaner than the rest of the building. He spots a table closer to the center of the room, placing his flashlight down onto it before grabbing a small device from his pants pocket. “I brought this radio thing. We should maybe try it and see if we can get anything?” You tilt your head in confusion, eyes finally adjusting to the darkness as you stare back at him.

“What does it do?”

“Well, it scans a bunch of different radio stations really fast and then if there’s a ghost or demon who wants to talk to us, sometimes it can stitch together coherent words. We just ask it questions.” He explains. You nod slowly, jolting when the radio roars to life in the quiet room.

“Fuck, that’s loud!” You exclaim, hands digging into the material of Wonwoo’s cardigan.

“Is there anyone here? Are there any demons here? We’d like to speak to you.” Wonwoo questions. The sound of static and various jumbled noises are all you can make out; no real words or answers coming through. “Is there a ghost here? What happened to you? Why are you trapped here?” He inquires again. This time, however, something floats through the speaker.

“D--did it say… s-spaghetti?” You bite your lip to hold in your laugh, watching as Wonwoo quickly shuts off the radio instead; somewhat embarrassed. “Okay, this thing doesn’t work, and no, it didn’t say spaghetti!” He argues back. “I don’t know, Wonwoo… I think our ghost is hungry.” You laugh out, suddenly a little less scared at how stupid the radio was.

“Okay, okay, let’s go check upstairs. It’s where I think I saw the ghost.”

He leads you up the stairs and into a smaller room filled with boxes, bookshelves, and a metal locker that seemed to have been pushed onto its side; oddly clean just like the last room you’d been in.

“Okay, how long has this place even been abandoned and why do some of the rooms look so okay and others are so fucked?” You ask. Wonwoo sets his things down on the bookshelf, scanning around the small room. Technically, this was the exact room he’d seen the ghost in. 

But unlike the first time, there was nothing offsetting or in the room at all.

“It was just an office building and it’s only been abandoned for a few years so some of the other rooms are still intact. Lots of uni kids throw ragers here since it’s kinda out of town which is why some of the other rooms are so beat up. Some of the doorknobs are also broken so people try to avoid them in case they get locked in.”

A chill runs up your spine at the thought and your first reaction is to shuffle closer to Wonwoo again, wrapping your arms around his slim waist. “Can we go now? Your little ghost friend isn’t here…”

Wonwoo turns around slowly, wrapping his arms around you and hugging you back. “Are you that scared?” He grins, pressing his front to yours as you notice he’s already slightly hard.

“Wonwoo… you cannot be serious.” He lets out a boisterous laugh that seems to echo for ages, backing you into one of the bookshelves that line the wall.

“Tons of people have fucked here before too, y’know. And it’s only you and me out here… and you’re so cute when you’re clingy.” He teases; hands already touching you over your clothes. “So you’re okay with someone or something seeing us like this then?” You retort, already giving in when Wonwoo’s gentle fingertips dance across your skirt’s hemline.

“Why not? We wouldn’t be the first. We can check it off our bucket lists.”

“That’s… true.”

He’s definitely right.

But, regrettably, it takes a lot more foreplay to get you in the mood this time and Wonwoo can sense how on edge you are even when he’s between your legs, eating you out for what seems like hours. He uses a free hand to keep your panties pushed to the side, tongue running up and down your wet folds before he dips it into your entrance.

Your fingers tangle in his hair when he starts lapping at your clit, sucking the nub into his mouth as you bite your lips to keep in your moans.

“You don’t have to do that, y’know. We’re the only ones out here. You can be as loud as you want.” He mumbles against your skin. You nod tentatively, still a little worried that someone would show up unexpectedly. 

But if there’s anything Wonwoo is good at, it was definitely turning your brain into a pile of mush and making you forget your surroundings.

“Oh, f-fuck, please…”

“Mmh?” Wonwoo pulls away slightly, your grip on his hair loosening as he stares up at you.

“Not to be horny in an abandoned building but can you fuck me already? I… I’d ask you to finger me too but… your hands are probably filthy…” Mumbling, you shyly avoid Wonwoo’s slightly judging eyes.

“Okay, get up.”

It’s a simple but stern command as you shuffle off of the sideways metal locker. He replaces you, sitting on it himself before unbuttoning and unzipping his pants. His cock curves against his lower abdomen and you gulp, already imagining the feeling of him deep inside of you.

“You can spit on my cock and sit on it, princess. Since you wanna get fucked so bad.”

The cockiness in his voice has you spiraling as you hurry to sit on his lap, wrapping your arms around his shoulders before the two of you peer down into his lap. Gathering as much saliva in your mouth as you can, you open your mouth as it drips down onto Wonwoo’s cock; mixing with the precum the leaks from the head.

When you deem it enough, you reach down, pulling your panties to the side as Wonwoo helps guide you over his cock. You take a deep breath, positioning him at your entrance before you slowly sink down onto him.

The two of you share a moan when you finally sit down all the way; thankful that Wonwoo was a pro at getting you wet even in a potentially haunted building.

“Hmm, you were so hesitant but you’re so tight and wet around me, sweetheart.” You grind against him, resting your head against his shoulder as he massages your back. The entire thing feels a lot more intimate than you anticipate, all things considered.

“Mmh… you’re just good at making me forget we could get possessed in here, I guess…” Wonwoo’s deep laugh reverberates through your body, sending thrums of arousal down your spine as you clench harder around him. Neither of you make an effort to go any faster; grinding and holding each other close.

But Wonwoo’s body tenses after a few minutes, hands sliding down your waist as you rotate your hips. “I wish we could stay here longer, sweetheart, but we should probably hurry a little, hmm? We can take it back to the house if you’d like.” He offers, watching as you lift yourself up a little, only to slam back down into his lap. The head of his cock taps your g-spot and you mewl, nodding feverishly as you let Wonwoo take control.

“Hold onto me, sweetheart.”

Wonwoo slides his hands under your thighs, gripping them tightly before he stands. Your legs automatically wrap around his waist when he backs you into the bookshelf; his flashlight hitting the floor as he starts fucking into you at a ruthless pace.

“This was cute. You’re so cute when you’re clingy, I have to admit.” He teases. This time, his cock slams into your g-spot with each thrust, toes curling behind his back as your eyes slide shut from the immense pleasure.

“God, W-Wonwoo, puh--please…”

“I know, me too… Don’t worry, I’ll get you there, sweetheart.” He whispers gently, angling his hips better as you whimper. The sound of your moans and his harsh breaths seem to be even louder in the quiet space; although you don’t pay it any attention now that you were so close to cumming. You clench around him, feeling his cock throbbing between your walls.

You feel his lips on yours, swallowing all your moans and cries when you cum unexpectedly; Wonwoo following suit as his hips stutter. His nails dig into your thighs a little harder as he grinds into you, his own muffled moans against your lips.

The bliss pours over your body, milking your orgasm for all its worth until the air returns to your lungs. And Wonwoo works you and himself through it, grinding against you until his own orgasm starts to ebb away.

After a few moments, he pulls away slightly, keeping you pressed into the bookshelf as he catches his breath.

“Full offense b-but we’re n-never talking about this to a-anyone…” You mutter, blinking slowly as Wonwoo’s equally tired eyes meet yours. “Why not? They’d probably be jealous.” He laughs breathily, pulling his hips back as his cock slips from inside of you; your panties sliding back into place. 

You groan as the cum starts to pool onto the material and Wonwoo gives it another second before he gently lets you down onto your feet.

“I… can’t say anyone I know would be jealous about what we just did… I also think we need a massive disinfection once we get back. Also, I’m kinda hungry now too...” Your lips press into a firm line, watching as Wonwoo rebuttons his pants. He fishes into his back pocket once he’s done, pulling out a small bag.

“I’ve got some peanuts?”

“Um… no… I can… wait.” A sweet gesture, nonetheless.

Wonwoo picks up his discarded flashlight once the two of you are presentable, reaching a hand out that you take. “We can stop by the 24-hour diner on the way back and then take a shower at the house. You can spend the night, since I’m betting you’re still a ‘lil scared, huh?” You nod shyly, pressing into his side as he slowly leads you out of the room and back into the hallway.

He leads you down the stairs, checking the doors and rooms that line the hallway on the way out.

The two of you reach the main entrance soon enough; a relieved sigh leaving your lips when Wonwoo opens the door for the two of you to exit.

You all but skip to the metal gates, waiting for him to hold it open as you crawl past it.

“Are you disappointed?” Wonwoo glances down at you for a second, humming at your question. “That we didn’t find a ghost?” You nod.

His jaw clenches as he watches you dust off your skirt once more; watching as you turn to face him under the moonlight. He steps through the gap in the metal gates as well, linking your fingertips with his as he guides you back to the car.

In all honesty, the only reason why he had suggested the two of you hurry was because he did see something maybe scamper across the hallway. He figured it was probably just a raccoon though, even if it was too big to be a raccoon. And it looked like it had long hair, and human legs.

Not that he would tell you that.

“Nah. Ghosts probably aren’t real anway.”

[themagichour]

1, 11, and 16!

YESSSSSSSSSSSSS thank you my darlin

1.

Who is your favorite character to write for and is this the character you find easiest to write for?

I am not answering with just one character, because I don't have just one, and because I can never stop talking. (Just came back to this sentence to add I went through my entire fanfic history.)

This is hard to answer, because beyond my SpongeBob fic where his pineapple was haunted not in an R.L. Stine way, but in a Shining way, my first real foray into fanfic was............... Radiohead RPF. It was 2005, and I was sixteen.

I'm............................. so conflicted over RPF, and admitting to writing Radiohead fanfic is..... UUUHHHMMMM.

So, for over a decade, my favorite character to write was an obviously heavily-fictionalized version of a real person, Thom Yorke. :| My idea of him was very easy to write. This. I. It's-- I am. Uh. This is a painful confession.

All my RH fic is lost to a Power Mac G4 Cube, time, and the eventual expiration of a 2000s archive. We were a small group, and we called it "cheesecake". I almost exclusively wrote Thom/Jonny, but the only surviving fic is a novel-length collab between myself and a friend. I.......... did not want to write Thom Yorke/Michael Stipe. It's ultimately Thom/Jonny, but. Yo. I had an unbalanced relationship with my friend, and I didn't want to write about Michael Stipe, and it wasn't a great time in my life. It's the only collab I've ever done, and I wasn't very happy doing that. I typically find reading collabs jarring, and I find writing under those circumstances more jarring.

Still, I'm proud of it. It's good writing, and we did a lot of research. Everything that sounds like the prose of someone tripped and burnt out on Red Bull while working at a pumpkin patch in Culver City is written by me. Here it is shruggy guy emoji shruggy guy emoji shruggy guy emoji I can't believe I wrote fucking Thom Yorke/Michael Stipe smut.

What else. I remember that as a young teen I wrote Mulder/Scully and Han/Leia fic that I never published because I was fourteen and I'm p. sure fanfiction.net existed but all I can think is, what, angelfire????? I wrote one House/Wilson fic that I published to livejournal. Someone copied it and posted it elsewhere and claimed it as their own. Flattered!!!!!

Then there was like.......... one Sherlock fic that never saw the light of day. I was nineteen. Forgive me. Fuk Sherlock.

Uh so BEYOND THAT, I really didn't write fic again till Hannibal. I found Will very easy to write, and I found Hannibal easy to write through Will's POV. Which I felt worked, considering his supernatural empathy. It put enough of Hannibal's mindset into it. It almost feels to me that Hannibal doesn't have an inner monologue. But in terms of understanding him as a character, here is EVIDENCE!!!!:

I swear to FUCKING GOD this is real. When the episode in which Bedelia asks Hannibal what he sees in Will aired, I said aloud, to a college friend who was watching with me live, "An opportunity for friendship." And then Hannibal fucking said, word for word, "An opportunity for friendship." It sounds like I am bullshitting beyond belief, but I swear on my favorite cat's grave. I wish I knew where that college friend is now, so they could corroborate this. They're probably married with a baby and a great career.

I have an abandoned WIP and two short fics or something, idk, but I like this one. This was before S3 and before we knew who was playing Molly. I based her upon the character in Red Dragon, and in my mind she was played by Rose Byrne. And their son was named Willy in the book, so he's named Willy there.

Then I FUCKIN committed the RPF crime again with this lil' romantic friendship Buzzfeed Unsolved fic. It got popular! I feel like I can write Shane really well. End me. anyway

MASH!

I can't believe I've barely written MASH fic. I feel Hawkeye so much, but it's very difficult for me to do his POV for some reason. Which really doesn't make sense. My headcanon is that Hawk is bipolar, and I'm bipolar II, but I just can't get into his head. I can observe him well as an outsider through BJ. This is pretty much the only complete thing I've written. Though I did write a Hawk childhood fic from his mother's point of view, which I quite like. Oh and there was that time I accidentally made either Potter or Mildred eat ass when I meant cunnilingus.

NOW......... now, my friends. My most recent and most favorite character to write is Tom Wambsgans. He's so easy to write, and I don't know what this GODDAMN says about me. But this is what I'm working on.

11.

What perspective do you write from most and/or least and why? (1st, 3rd limited, 3rd omniscient, deep pov, etc)

I write exclusively from third limited POV. I don't think I've ever written first person. I've never really thought about it before, but I think I don't write first person because I approach writing cinematically, if that makes sense? And while I empathize very much with characters, it doesn't feel at all natural to me to approach them in an "I" sense.

I write third limited because I naturally gravitate towards it, but because it also allows for an outsider's/audience's POV and for a deeply unreliable narrator, which I love. And if I'm goin REAL DEEP, I think I'm not even comfortable enough with writing a personal diary to write anyone else going "HEY I'M SAD AND/OR HORNY and here is why in poetry"

16.

Do you have a method for getting characters to sound/feel in character?

Too much empathy and a lifelong experience of being autistic and studying people in order to understand and act like them. I also find people FASCINATING. In terms of "skill", that's what it is. But what drives the desire to use that skill is becoming obsessed with the characters and having fun with them, especially with friends! I know many find obsession with any subject that doesn't result in a successful career unhealthy -- lord knows many in my life have told me my fixations are just that -- but that's how I'm wired. And I like it. And it makes me creative, happy, and social. I met my best friends and my sister through Radiohead nearly twenty years ago. So I think fandom and fanfiction's great.

[superiorratboy]

I’ve been kinda stressed lately and last night I impulsively wrote Shigaraki x reader headcanons (technically on accident since it was supposed to be just hc’s about Shig, but I’m happy with the outcome anyways lmao) these are all relatively random as well so there’s no theme to this whatsoever :)

Can draw relatively well and likes to doodle on whatever paper is near him if he’s bored.

Writes down his plans thoroughly and goes over them constantly and changes little things here and there, but also while he thinks of what to add he doodles on the margins of the paper.

you can look over his shoulder at his written down plans and you’ll see little half-assed doodles of game characters all over his paper

He’s cuddly and touch-starved, but also terrified of touching the people he cares about for obvious reasons.

will definitely wear artists gloves or something to avoid hurting you, but will still only use four fingers just to be extra cautious cause he cares about you too much

when he gets a new game he’ll probably get distracted and play it so much that he’ll forget to take care of himself, during those times you have to remind him to eat, drink water, and sleep, and even then you’ll probably have to drag him away from the computer or console just to get him to do that

dont worry though, he’ll make up for the lack of attention he gave you after he finishes the game and will constantly bother and cuddle you as an apology

Outright refuses to watch any movie or movie series if it’s a superhero thing. It just pisses him off for obvious reasons

is totally down for watching horror movies and true crime/unsolved crime documentaries and such

buzzfeed unsolved true crime? He’s watched every single episode at least twice and will not hesitate to watch it again, just say the word and the two of you can binge every season with zero complaints from him

When the family league nights start he’ll complain that he hates them, but the more and more often they happen he complains less and less, and then he’ll start being the one who reminds everyone that is family night because he totally loves them

like having his nails painted :)

also loves to have matching nails with you because that’s cute

will teach you how to play his favorite games because that’s what he enjoys and he wants to share that with you

he will also let you drag him into doing things you enjoy, because he wants to know why those things make you so happy

enjoys just sitting in silence with you, words aren’t always necessary, sometimes cuddles and silence is enough :)

he loves when you play with his hair, wether your just brushing it or braiding it whatever, he just loves it and it calms him down

Sometimes he’ll sit in front of you on the floor or lay his head on your lap and just sit there doing nothing because he doesn’t want to outright ask for you to play with his hair, and at first it confused you but then you realized what he wanted and now it’s just a normal thing

hes not the best at comforting people when they’re upset, so if your sad he’ll be there to listen to you and give you hugs and cuddles if that’s what will help you feel better

hes also 100% down to hurt whoever made you upset, you just say the word cause he will

hes very protective and you can’t tell me otherwise :)

[fxckingghxst]

Warmer Jacket

pt.1 || pt.2

Paring: Corpse Husband x GN!Reader

Genre: Angst

Warnings: small argument between Corpse and reader

WC: ~1.4k

Request: hiya! can i request an angsty fanfic of corpse x reader? for example, corpse didn't know that he has been neglecting y/n and one time when y/n confronted him, he just burst out and said something he didn't mean and then y/n decided to just leave him for a while (like went to a park or stay with their friend) and then yeah something like that

A/N: Thank you for the request anon! It’s been a long time since I wrote angst so I hope this is good enough! Hope you enjoy it!

Your arm was starting to cramp up. You had been in the same position on the couch for the last two hours watching YouTube. You had started off watching some videos that were on the trending page, but it quickly spiraled into stupid animal fail compilations to Buzzfeed Unsolved videos and now your arm was starting to feel the tension of the position you were in. You turned your body and let your arm fall to your side as it started to go numb. 

You were bored. So unbelievably bored. This wasn’t how you expected your night to go at all. You expected popcorn, Disney movies, hot chocolate, a soft, fuzzy blanket, and your boyfriend, Corpse. Unfortunately for you, his friends had called him on to fill the last spot in an Among Us game. Usually, you would have been supportive of him, encouraging him to go play and helping him ease his anxieties, but this was the fourth date this month he’s chosen his friends over you. You hated that you felt this way. So jealous over a stupid game. So unimportant. 

“Well, that was probably the last game for today!” Rae states as her red character follow the crowd around the room. “Corpse, thanks for joining when you could.” Rae thanks him and you smile as you realize that your boyfriend will now be joining you back on the couch. 

“It’s no problem. I wasn’t really doing anything anyway.” Corpse responds and your smile instantly drops. Did your date mean so little to him? Instantly you closed the video and tossed your phone onto the cushion next to you. You felt sick to your stomach like you were going to puke out all the popcorn you ate by yourself. You heard some movement coming from the bedroom and your fight or flight instincts stalled. You were frozen in your spot on the couch. You hated confrontation, but you couldn’t just ignore these feelings that were starting to crush you from the inside out. The door to the bedroom opened and Corpse walked out before walking towards the kitchen. 

“It’s no problem. I wasn’t really doing anything anyway.” Corpse responds and your smile instantly drops. Did your date mean so little to him? Instantly you closed the video and tossed your phone onto the cushion next to you. You felt sick to your stomach like you were going to puke out all the popcorn you ate by yourself. You heard some movement coming from the bedroom and your fight or flight instincts stalled. You were frozen in your spot on the couch. You hated confrontation, but you couldn’t just ignore these feelings that were starting to crush you from the inside out. The door to the bedroom opened and Corpse walked out before walking towards the kitchen. 

 “Sorry, it was a bit longer than I thought.” He stated as he started to re-warm his cup of now-cold hot chocolate. You hummed out a response as you try to figure out what to say. Should you even say anything at all? Would it make things worse or would it make them better? You barely moved when he had sat down next to you on the couch. “Did you not watch the movie we chose?” He asked you and you knocked yourself out of this trance you were in before looking over at him. 

“Uh. No, I was waiting for you.” You respond as he leans back into the couch, getting comfortable like you were before he got the text from Rae. 

“You didn’t have to wait for me, babe.” He says as he leans over to kiss your cheek. You turned to him and just decided to ask him about what he said. You both had agreed that you need to be honest with each other about your feelings since communicating is neither one of your strong suits. So with fear coursing through your veins, you started. 

“I was watching the stream and uh- you said something towards the end that is kind of bothering me.” You look away from him and take a deep breath before continuing. “When you were leaving, Rae said thanks for joining and you said that it’s alright and that you weren’t doing anything anyway- and I don’t know that comment kind of made me feel like you were disregarding our date and spending time with me and all that.” You finished as your voice got smaller and smaller. 

“I’m not disregarding my time with you. I love spending time with you, babe.” He blows you off completely and you can’t help but roll your eyes at his remark. 

“Love spending time with me? You’ve canceled the last four of our dates to go play with your friends! You leave me out here for hours waiting!” Your voice starts to raise an octave or two as all these bottled up emotions start to unveil themselves. 

“You’re the one who’s always pushing me into stepping out of my comfort zone and when I finally do, you yell at me for it!” Corpse replies in an equally annoyed voice. The fact that he’s not even listening to your feelings is making your blood boil. 

“Of course I want you to step out of your box, but I don’t want you to cancel on me every time your friends call when we are supposed to be hanging out. I’m your partner, and it just feels like you’re putting your job before me.” You say and he just shakes his head while rolling his eyes at you. 

“You’re so fucking difficult to please.” He exhales in a quiet voice, but you hear it anyway. Your eyes widen in shock and you pinch your lips together to try and keep your composure. 

“Fine. You think I’m so fucking difficult, I’ll leave.” You comment as you get up from the couch and make your way towards the door. You grab your jacket from the hook and start to put your jacket on. Immediately, Corpse gets up from the couch and follows you towards the door. 

“You know I don’t mean it like that-wait.” Corpse tries to grab your arm, but you pull it just out of his reach as you grab your keys and wallet from the table and open the door. 

“Let me know when you're done being an asshole.” You snap before slamming the door in his face. You wrap your arms around yourself as you make your way out of the apartment building and into the cold night. 

It was a little after 11 and the cold was biting at any exposed skin. ‘God, why was he being such an asshole?’ You think to yourself as you make your way down the block. You weren’t sure where you were heading to, but you knew the place well enough to know where not to go. You just needed some air right now and walking helps you clear your head so you can start to think rationally. 

After a few minutes of walking, the park comes into view and you decided to sit down at one of the picnic benches. You fold your arms on the table and let your head rest on your forearms as you let a large sigh leave your lungs. You felt everything and nothing all at once. You were angry, upset, and guilty. You hated that you felt that way and hated that you said something, but you had a right to...right? You can’t just keep these things to yourself. You’ve learned the hard way that bottling emotions, especially since being in a relationship, is not a healthy thing to do, and at the beginning of this relationship with Corpse, you got into a lot of arguments with him about this. And you both were to blame for that. 

You had just hoped he had been more considerate and not as defensive as he was. He was so quick to turn you down, it was shocking, to be completely honest. He usually is never like this. He would always listen to your feelings and hear what you have to say, even if he may not agree with you, at least he would be calm enough to ask why you felt that way and how he felt as well. Why was this so different this time? You could guess that maybe he’s on edge because of something. Maybe something about his anxiety or something to do with streaming or making music had triggered this event to happen. You weren’t sure. You were between a rock and a hard place right now, with little answers and a thin jacket that didn’t seem to keep the cold out as much as you wanted it to. You should’ve grabbed a warmer jacket.

[addictedtooverwatch]

Short Story - If a Tree Falls...

Alright, this is the first short story I've written in a while. I wrote this for my English class and I think it's good enough to share here. The main story and epilogue will not be in one big post, but this post and a reblog because this is pretty long for a single post.

Word Count of Main Story + Epilogue = 3,054 words.

Trigger Warnings (I've never done anything like this, so if there are any other warning you want me to add, let me know and I will):

Violence - I don't explain any injuries in much detail, but part of the climax scene could be a little disturbing as the main character is attacked and briefly gagged.

Death - No one explictly dies, but a dead character is discussed.

Aftermath of attack - Again, this isn't too bad, but the main character ends up passing out.

This isn't a trigger warning, but I would like to mention that the epilogue is a bit of a silly riff on Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural. I was watching it while I was editing and I decided to write an epilogue based on it... Anways, I had a lot of fun writing this and am really happy with it, but if you have some, constructive critism is always welcome. I hope you enjoy! ~ Nova.

If a Tree Falls…   

When I was little, Nana Delilah always told me to never go into the Green Byerl Growth. She said it was infested with things we shouldn’t mess with. She said that the forest could truly come alive, but she would never say exactly what would happen there. I would ask her, “Isn’t the forest already alive?” 

“Technically, it is,” she would say, “but you’ve never seen it truly alive. Alive in a way that would make you never want to leave the house again. Alive in a way that would lead to you never getting a wink of sleep again. It’d scare you so much that you’d forever feel like it was watching you.”

“How do you know that, Nana?”

“I had to learn that because of your father.” The conversations would always end like that. I’ve always wondered what he was like, my father that is. Nana never has any photos of him around our cottage, the ash walls barren and the granite countertops empty, but she said I looked a lot like him with the field of freckles across my face and my short cinnamon brown hair that, unwashed, would look like a bird’s nest. That would be all she ever commented on though, she would never mention where I got my emerald eyes or lanky limbs from. I assume it's from my mother, but I think Nana would rather die than talk about her. All she would ever say about my mom is, “Your mother is the reason you’re stuck with me.”

I wish she had told me what that really meant (it would have saved me a lot of confusion). 

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

It was a sunny day on June 28th, 1961 which was quite normal. The weather was always nice in Rosary Valley, no matter the season. It was our paradise sitting in a little pocket of North Carolina. You could grow pretty much anything you wanted here, but cypress trees happened to especially love the area. They permeated through the entire town and surrounding area mixed in with yew and wych elm trees. Nana and I grew a lot of plants in the area around our house. We mainly grew crops, but I loved our flowers. My favorites were the hyacinths, chrysanthemums, and lilies. Our plants always grew a little faster than normal, always looking brighter and more alive than usual, but they made good money for us so I would never ask about it (I should have). From what I could remember, Nana never got along with people that actually lived in town. That’s why I was the person to set up my white plywood cart in the center of town, selling whatever we harvested from our small fields or garden that day along with whatever photos I had recently taken. 

I won a polaroid camera by playing Mama Said by The Shirelles on my guitar at a school talent show. The camera was a light cream color, like the color that coffee turns to with enough milk, with a rainbow stripe right down the middle and a bright red button. I had been using it a lot since the school year had ended, taking photos of things I found in our garden. People had really loved the pictures I had taken of butterflies. I found a Pearl Crescent resting on a Blazing Star, a Black Swallowtail perched on a Bloodroot, an American Lady on a beautiful Eastern Blue Star, and a Mourning Cloak laying on some Foxglove Beardtongue.  I had also taken some photos of the three churches in town, each very different looking with walls of gilded blackstone, colored cinder blocks, and stained glass. I got paid a good amount for those photos. The churches also bought me more film to take pictures from the town’s post office once I had finished with their pictures. 

On that day, I had 12 photos for sale. Three were of the town’s broken clock tower at dusk the night before, four were images of a melanistic herd of deer in one of our broccoli patches, six were of a late clear night when I saw a myriad of fireflies, one was of a discolored midnight black rose, and one was of a Carolina Swamp Snake that was sunning itself contently on a rock near the Green Byerl Growth. I was able to sell most of them except the pictures of the rose and snake. While I was rearranging the remaining flowers I had, Ashur and a younger boy stolled over to my stand.

“Hey Allie, this is Jacob. I’m watching him for Mrs. Straus. Anyways, what are you going to be submitting to the art show next week?” Ashur asked. Ashur was one of my few friends. We went to school together and shared a love of being outside, but he was alway busy with work or babysitting. So, we never hung out much aside from during school, but people still thought we were siblings with how tall both of us were. Sighing, I replied, “I’m probably just going to bring some of my butterfly pictures. Or maybe I’ll bring these.” I handed them my remaining photos. 

“Oh, but that’s boring!” Jacob squawked as he shuffled between the pictures before handing them back to me. Humming, I took the photos, “What do you think I should bring then?”

“You should bring a photo of that rock in Poppy Acres!”

“No!” “What?” Ashur and I simultaneously said. Jacob leaned over one of the handles of my cart and continued, “You know that Poppy Acres is in the center of the Growth.” Ashur and I nodded.

“Well,” continued Jacob, “there’s a big rock in the center of the Poppy Acres that has some type of writing on it that no one has ever been able to read. You should take a picture of that for the art show, you’d win for— ”

“Yeah, but there’s a reason no one has ever read it,” Ashur interrupted harshly. He ran his hands through his wavy caramel hair, “Poppy Acres is in the middle of the Growth and doesn’t your grandma like, never want you to go in there?” 

“Yeah,” I nodded, “I think something bad happened to her there and she doesn’t want me to get hurt.” Something also happened to Dad there, but I doubt she’d tell me that. Jacob groaned and shook his head, “But it’d be so cool! You're the best photographer in town, so you could make it look really awesome and you’d win like $150!”

“I would?” “She would?” We asked Jacob simultaneously and he nodded his head. $150 would be a lot of money to win by just taking some cool pictures, I could get some really nice equipment with that money. 

“Allie, you can’t do it,” Ashur pleads. 

“How did you know I was thinking about doing it?” 

“Because you get a certain look in your eyes when you are contemplating doing something stupid.” 

“It wouldn’t be stupid!” Jacob roared. He spun around to look at the clock tower, “If you left now, you could go there and back before sunset.”

“You think so?” I asked. Jacob nodded enthusiastically, “I’d be awesome! Also, if you go, could you take some photos of bees for me? I heard there’s really friendly bees in the Growth and I want some proof so I can get my Mom to let me go in there.”

“You’re ten Jacob. Your mom isn’t going to let you go anywhere near the Growth until you’re older,” Ashur bluntly stated. 

“Well, then I want to go home! Take me home Ashur and let me know if you get the bee photos Allie!” Jacob exclaimed. 

“Okay! I’ll let you know when I get them Jacob,” I chuckled while Jacob started pulling Ashur away. Ashur started following Jacob with a frown painted across his face, he yelled back to me, “If you’re going, be careful Allie. I don’t want to lose my best friend to a stupid art contest.” I hollered back, “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine!” And with that, I started packing up my cart. They disappeared behind a corner and suddenly, I was alone.

From there, I quickly packed everything up, pulled it along the red brick road home, and placed it back in its spot under a weeping willow that guards the front of Nana’s house. She wasn’t inside, she was probably out picking peaches since they were in season. I left a note saying, 

“I sold everything I could at the town center. I’m going to go take some photos outside for the art show since I don’t have anything I want to submit right now. I’ll be back before dark. 

Love you,

Allie.” 

Once the note was placed on her desk, underneath a green crystal paper weight, I grabbed my polaroid camera and placed it in my sage green backpack. I put my lucky emerald earrings on which were supposedly from my mom and I headed northeast, towards the Green Byerl Growth. 

It was just after 2 o’clock when I reached the entrance to the Growth. It was made of two flint colored columns, connected by an overgrown gold arch that had the words, “The light awakens the Ovlumber when the sun reaches the earth” engraved into it, though it took me a few minutes to figure out what it said. As I passed through the gate, I felt a sudden sense of guilt. I was doing the one thing that Nana had told me to never do… But it didn’t matter (at the time), I was going to make a shit ton of money off of these pictures (no, I wasn’t). She’d see that it was worth it when we’d be able to buy more camera equipment and whatever gardening related items she wanted. It’d be worth it. So, I continued on the cobblestone and coarse dirt pathway that never seemed to end, surrounded by the dense (impenetrable, really) forest made of sky-scraping redwoods, yews that held their hands out to you, wych elms with green hair, and oddly well-groomed cypresses. 

I walked and walked, moving further (too far) into the thicket when I finally reached the edge of Poppy Acres. It was odd (it was a sign), the unruly flora forming an almost perfect circle around the blanket of poppies which surrounded the aforementioned rock with only the dirt path leading up to the stone acting as a disturbance to the symmetry. It felt daunting to walk on the small path up to the stone (I should have just turned back), so I chose to look around the field first, avoiding the inevitable, and I realized a few things. One, it was much later than it should have been which meant I had been walking for longer than I intended to. It looked like the sun had fallen over, leaving a bloody trail of light on the upcoming night sky. Two, I don’t know if I found the bees that Jacob was talking about, but I did take some pictures of a bee sleeping in a poppy. Three, since it was definitely too late for me to be out alone in the middle of the Green Byerl Growth, I needed to hurry the hell up and take a picture of the rock.

So, I mustered up the courage and started drifting over to the stone, but I realized that it just wasn’t just some engraved stone in the middle of the forest. It was a tombstone. It was a pearly white marble with streaks of gold and light orange covered by vines and weeds that made it look eroded and decayed. It was cold to the touch which was strange considering the past few day’s high temperature. Gently, I moved some of its greenery aside to read what was carved into it and what it said sent a shiver down my spine, “Here forever rests Damien Alexander Lorelai - You made the forest weep.” I repeated the name over and over and over (he had my last name). I finally understood what Nana meant when she talked about Dad. I let out a wet breath, I needed to take the photo and leave. I shakily stepped back, making sure I had a good 50 feet between myself and the tombstone. Kneeling down, I held my camera to my eye, angling the lens to capture the entire gravestone of my late father. With a quick flash of light, the photo was taken, and Nana’s stories all came true.

The surrounding trees burst into action, unrooting themselves and closing in around me, using their branches to drag themselves closer, creating deep gashes in the ground. The poppies at my feet tried to pull me to the ground, winding themselves around my ankles, similar to how tomatoes wrap around their cages. I shot up and swiftly stumbled towards the center of the field (towards the gravestone), ripping up the red flowers as I went, creating a path of crimson red petals. My vision became blurry as I panicked. Unable to control my rapid breathing, I bumped into the tombstone, my back hitting the cold hard marble. Immediately, the previously unanimated flora that encircled the stone, reached around my neck and chest, securing me against the only reminder of where my father had been laid to rest. I began screaming and shouting for Nana, Ashur, Jacob, anybody that could help me (but it wouldn’t have really done anything in the end). I kept yelling and I would have continued until I was hoarse if a vine hadn’t shoved itself into my mouth, effectively stopping my desperate pleas for another person. Once I was muffled, I began crying. As tears dripped down my face, I silently hoped that if the forest killed me it would, at the very least, make it quick. Branches wrapped around my arms and legs, rough bark cutting my skin, and the vines’ flowers wrapped themselves around my face.

As my vision began to fade and I began to sink into absolute nothingness, a voice yelled, “ENOUGH!” With that only word, the trees and flowers returned to their homes of dirt, their roots sinking themselves back into their places, leaving Poppy Acres the way it was before I took that godforsaken picture. All that remained was me and a tall woman, who I assumed to be my savior, quietly staring at each other as I panted loudly. That was until she asked, with a honeyed voice, “Where did you get those earrings from?” I couldn’t remember what I was wearing, after the whole ‘almost being killed by fucking trees’ thing, so I took my earrings out then whispered, “My mom, I think.”

“You think?” the woman tilted her head. I shook my head and slowly stood up, “That’s what my grandma told me. I’ve never met either of my parents. Well, I’ve never met them alive at least.” She stepped closer to me as my legs shook like a fawn’s. My savior held her hands out and let me sink into their gentle embrace (there’s another reason I immediately felt so safe).

“What do you mean by that?” I emitted a shaky sigh and pointed to the gravestone, “I think that’s my father’s grave.” She let out a quiet, “Oh,” and hugged me. So many thoughts were racing through my head, but they all became foggy. I didn’t want her to let go, but I needed to go home. 

“What time is it?” I asked, looking right into her glowing emerald eyes.

“Very late.”

“I need to get home.” The woman hummed, “Alright, I’ll take you home, Alastor.” I didn’t remember telling her my name (I didn’t need to), but I trusted her. 

“Ok,” I replied, “can I sleep?” The woman picked me up, slipping her arms around my legs while I put my arms around her neck, “Yes, go to sleep, honey.” With that, I let the darkness which now draped itself around me like a soft blanket, take over. I fell asleep. 

Epilogue: Does it Make a Sound?

 “This week on Behind the Crime we are covering the Disappearance of the Rosary Valley Photographer,” began Bryan. Zayne raised his eyebrows, “That is very specific.”

“I know, now let me explain. On June 28th, 1961, fourteen-year-old Alastor “Allie” Lorelai went missing. Allie’s Grandmother, Delilah Lorelai, had found a note that day from Allie saying that they would be back later that night, but they never came back.”

“Did the note say where they were going?” asked Zayne. 

“All it said was that they sold what they could at the market that day and were going out to take photos.” 

“Ohh, so that’s where the photographer part came from.”

“Yes, that’s where it’s from.”

“They didn’t say where they were going?” asked Zayne.

“No, I literally just said what the note said,” Bryan responded, exasperated. 

“Ok, well why wouldn’t they say where they were going?”

“I don’t know, it was like 1961, people just did shit like that! Anyways, all that has been found in relation to the case was the following: a broken white and rainbow polaroid camera, four pictures of a bee laying on a poppy, one undeveloped picture, and a set of emerald earrings. Two boys, Ashur Lake and Jacob Straus, said that the last time they saw of Allie, they were going to be going to take photos in the nearby Green Byerl Growth for an upcoming art contest.”

“So… Allie disappeared in the forest, right?” questioned Zayne.

“We’re pretty sure, yeah.” answered Bryan.

“And the items found were definitely from Allie, right?”

“Yeah. It was their stuff and they planned to take pictures of some bees for Jacob.”

“One, how did they get the items back? And two, it’s Jacob’s fault then, right?”

“I wouldn’t say it was Jacob’s fault,” Bryan laughed, “but people think that a forest spirit took Allie and returned their items as a way to let people know to not come into the Green Byerl Growth.” 

“So, that’s why we’re here,” Zayne groaned.

“Yup,” cheerly replied Bryan, “today we are going to walk around the Green Byerl Growth here in Rosary Valley, North Carolina to investigate our ongoing question of, are ghosts real?” Bryan paused, looked behind him at the overgrown arch, then looked back to Zayne and asked, “Shall we?”