#i'm so sad about this but. it's so skizz. of course he went out this way. i lovee him

[briseise]

etho, i'm gonna ask you to take this axe. put that axe in your hand. do it. i love you guys.

[bearimba]

Ok wait I have vague GIG(G)S ideas:

Impulse: an Experienced Ghost Hunter(TM)!

He worked for whoever the in-game company is (they don't have a canon name as far as I'm aware?) for a while before going independent.

Accidentally made a pact** with a demon during his early days and is now racing to reverse it before he dies and his soul gets eaten

Something about the pact gives him plot armor so he's lowkey immune to dying (yes this is counterproductive. no I don't know why/how this works yet. probably something happened to make the contract go awry)

Surprise surprise, making deals with a demon goes against company policy, but breaking the pact like they want would also probably kill him. He makes a get-away by stealing their van, and since he's got the equipment and skills for it, he continues ghost-hunting to make a living while on the run.

He also offers services as an electrician on the side just for extra cash, which is great because faulty electronics is often a sign of EMF stuff.

He gets little demon horns? Maybe? It's for the vibe (and maybe a tail too, to hold his lighter with)

The cheat sheet is just a journal (or maybe a collection of journals?) full of notes he's taken over the years

Skizz: a literal and metaphorical angel*!

For backstory and world-building reasons I haven't figured out yet, he forms a sin-eating pact** with Impulse, and that's why they stick together (besides the fact they enjoy each other's company, of course).

He's a tradesman on the side just like Impulse, but he does more home-repair and carpentry stuff.

All his clothes are torn-up because he keeps dying in stupid ways, but he hasn't replaced them yet because he insists it makes him look cool.

He's in charge of taking pictures because his ✨angelic presence✨ counteracts the EMF stuff that messes up the camera. They used to have a much nicer one that wasn't affected by EMF back when Impulse first started, but they managed to break it and haven't been able to afford one like it since.

Honestly I don't have enough headcanons for him yet and it makes me sad :(

Gem: a totally normal… individual!

You heard of not-deer? Yeah, it's kinda like that >:]c Has she been replaced? Was she once Gem but has been transformed into something else? Has she always been this way and no one noticed until now? Who knows!

She and Grian met in middle school while causing trouble in the same arts class and have been buddies ever since.

She liked to spend a lot of time in the woods near her home partially due to a casual interest in botany and partially because she and Grian could get up to shenanigans without getting caught. Even when they moved to a different country for college (it was the only university they could find that offered decent programs for both architecture and medical science, not to mention his cousin offered to let them stay at his place rent-free), she enjoyed driving out to the nearby national park to hang out. That park was also her last-reported location before she went missing.

If you look too close, there's subtle details that hint that something's not quite right---eyes that reflect light, limbs that are a little longer than they used to be, very sparse blinking, and a smile that's a little too wide...

Grian was going to be her first victim. He was an easy target, after all---unlikely be missed under the right circumstances, and scatterbrained enough to fall for her tricks---but there was never a good time to strike without blowing her cover. Eventually, the cravings for human died down completely, and she (mostly) forgot he was supposed to be her meal instead of her best friend.

She likes to study other people and mimic their behavior, and she's gotten a lot better at it than she used to be when she first reappeared.

Imp and Skizz both realize there's something off about her, but she's not exactly aggressive or anything, so they just let her be. It doesn't help that whenever they try to question Grian about it, he insists there's nothing wrong.

She usually stays in the van because for some strange reason, the ghosts don't like to appear when she's around.

Although she didn't get to study anything in-depth, she does have more medical knowledge than the rest of the crew, and getting her to help is cheaper than going to a doctor.

Grian: a blind clairvoyant!

Despite Gem's disappearance, Grian managed to pull himself together enough to continue college in the fall. But about halfway through his degree, Jimmy pulled him along to study in a supposedly haunted part of the library because no one else would bother them there, during which the whole building experienced a blackout. The staff fixed it quickly enough, but when the lights came back on, Jimmy was confronted with a knocked-out Grian. For the rest of the semester, he'd be plagued by headaches, insomnia, sleepwalking outside and sleeptalking about the moon and eyes, paranoia, periods of amnesia, and other symptoms that almost made him drop out of college.

Ever since, he's had has this uncanny intuition for when something's about to go wrong and often suddenly knows things without any explanation as to how. Skizz swears it's like he's got eyes in the back of his head or something.

When Gem popped up right after he graduated and suggested to him that they leave on a long roadtrip, he wasn't really in a state of mind to question it. He just thought it would be a good chance to get his head on straight, and strangely enough, just being near Gem helps him to think much more clearly. He just assumes it's because they're such good friends.

He gets possessed at Point Hope, and although the crew manages to exorcise him, he still occasionally gets the urge to set sail and never come back. He's also noticed a lot more mollusks in strange places since then, though surely that must be unrelated...

Scar: a lovable salesman!

He's also considered an angel*, and he definitely likes to play the part to sell his wares.

The GIGS crew buys their supplies from him since certified sources are rare and trustworthy vendors are even rarer. Scar is still a pretty shifty guy, but he hasn't let them down yet---killing off his customers beloved friends would be bad business, after all!

He lives on the road just like GIGS for his own reasons, so they have to arrange to meet with him way both they run out of supplies.

His previous life is a well-kept secret, but he had an interest in the occult even before he became an angel. He claims it was to contact his old pets from beyond the grave, but unsurprisingly, no one quite believes him.

He loves to make outdated references, but no one knows if it's because he's that old or he's just a nerd.

Sometimes he'll join the crew on an investigation for fun, but he dies more often than not, and recovery is so inconvenient that he doesn't like to be on-site very often.

The crew:

They mostly deal in ghost identification, but they do offer extermination for an extra fee. It's more expensive than companies that specialize in extermination, but that's just the price for convenient/speedy service.

Each person has an unofficial role with Impulse as the ringleader, Skizz as the photographer, Gem as the man in the chair, and Grian as the odd-jobber. Of course, everyone has a little experience with everything, but they're most comfortable like this.

They all live in the van, and will usually stay in a town for anywhere from a few days to a couple months depending on how much work is available.

They tend to stay nights at motels and the like, but when money's short or there's nowhere to stay nearby, Imp and Skizz usually sleep in the cab of the truck while Grain and Gem get to camp in the back with sleeping bags.

Pay is split five ways: each member gets a set stipend for personal stuff, and the rest goes towards "work expenses" such as food, motel fees, gas, and the occasional treat for a job well done.

Other appearances:

Pearl, a mysterious woman with a wolfish grin and strange knack for attracting the supernatural.

Jimmy, Grian's well-meaning cousin who accidentally gets Grian possessed, freaks out when he goes no-contact on a sudden "road trip" with someone who's been presumed dead, and then nearly dies himself after an investigation gone wrong.

Lizzie (Jimmy's cousin on the other side) and her husband Joel, who contact GIGS for help and are surprised to find two old acquaintances among them (which is how Jimmy finds Grian again).

Ze and his new colleague Sneeg, two employees of Imp's old company that they run into at a haunting that got double-booked.

BDubs ("is that even a name?" "shut up. like you can judge, Mr. 'my-name-is-Grian-not-Grain.'" "yeah--- well--- at least I'm not named after some stupid stars!"), a very concerned patron who insists on supervising the investigation and gets roped into helping.

Ghostie-ghoulie stuff:

The supernatural is common enough to be recognized but isn't typically considered a part of everyday life.

"Ghost" refers to any supernatural creature that forms from human souls, which mean their appearences and attributes can vary just as much as human personalities. However, their traits can be greatly affected by the circumstances in which they were created (aka how a person died), so there's enough commonality to classify them.

Just like any other being, ghosts need energy to function. They absorb this energy in the form of heat and expel it and electromagnetic radiation. If they output enough of this radiation, they can create EMFs that can be detected by readers. This is also why haunted areas tend to be cold and events/hunts can be tracked by spikes in EMF levels.

If ghosts aren't formed enough enough energy to subsist right off the bat, they can wither away without intervention.

Most ghosts the GIGS that exist are fairly new, so they aren't strong enough to kill anyone. It usually takes at least a year of residence for enough EMF to gather for them to mess with the environment, and even longer to cause events. However, the older a ghost is, the more its sentience slips away.

The reason ghosts kill can vary wildly and may even depend on the type of ghost. Some ghosts are simply territorial, some hold grudges towards the living (though they aren't always aware enough to realize what/why), and some even want to possess the living.

Possessions are incredibly rare because it takes an immense amount of energy to possess someone, but most ghosts are no longer sentient to want such a thing by the time they've amassed enough power. Possession of a living body is even harder for the exact same reason.

*Angels and demons don't actually have anything to do with Christian mythology. Unlike other ghosts, neither are fully dead. The link between their soul and body is just messed up, though due to the rarity of both entities, how exactly this occurs is severely under-researched. For demons, their soul has been banished from their body (the still-functioning body is called a zombie and can be killed to destroy the demon), and their creation typically happens within an abundance of "bad energy" (ex: violent murder). On the other hand, angels are permanently bonded to their bodies and are created in the presence of "good energy" (ex: heroic sacrifice). They can also be killed by destroying their bodies, but unlike demons, the fact that their soul remains inside the body means they're able to regenerate even though the scars always remain. Both entities can rot (not age) to death within the average human lifespan but can prolong the wait by consuming energy, and both tend to have very clumsy/uncoordinated bodies due to the messed up soul link.

**Also, although it costs demons a lot of energy to form a pact with humans (and again, the manner in which a pact is formed/maintained is unknown), the fulfillment of a contract will grant them much more power than they out into it---it's bascially an investment. Angels can do a similar things called "sin-eating" but it works in reverse: it takes a little energy to make the pact, but the fullfilment will drain them greatly (no I don't exactly know how this works yet either. but it sounds cool so I'm keeping it >:]c )

[shadeswift99]

i am vibrating at the speed of sound at this, i know you said youre struggling to word your 3rd life impulse thoughts but this specific tag is EXACTLY it. This is someone who is competitive and knows playing sides in a way to keep himself from being a target is the best option for survial, and it was working perfectly! but accidentally being the one to kill tango is throwing such a wrench in that and im not sure how well hes gonna be able to pull that back, but oh boy is he trying- He absolutely knows what hes been doing and its gone very well so far,, just, yes absolutely the villianpulse options are so very there its very good

You get it!! His plan was to play everyone against each other, but never against himself. If his name hadn't been the one to show up in the chat, it would have been "it's too bad that had to happen, but you did the right thing!" to Bdubs' group and "I'm so sorry, they didn't tell me what they were going to do!" to Tango, and Impulse would have one less life competing against him and absolutely no blame on him whatsoever. He might have even gotten away with a strengthened alliance with both parties, if he'd played it right. But he screwed up. He let his need to get the upper hand outstrip his caution for exactly one second, all that it took for everything to go downhill.

Each person was supposed to shoot four arrows. Impulse killed Tango with his fifth.

Oh yes, Impulse wanted Tango to die. He just really, really regrets the amount of work he's now going to have to do to make sure that nobody else knows that about him.

[redwinterroses]

hey so here's an idea for a "two best friends but one turned evil and asked the other to kill him before he went too far gone" trope (you know exactly what i'm referring to)

the first character, looking into his friends eyes, stabs him in the heart. then they both fall down and the first character is left on his knees, head down, holding onto the sword embedded into his friend's chest, sobbing uncontrollably.

he doesn't touch the sword again and instead ties a ribbon around it in memory of the one he lost

you're welcome :)

- anon fierri

Not that this has been on my brain all day or anything, but... well. Okay. It has been. And then @/3lsmp posted that stuff about a zombie AU and-- well. This happened.

Yay for my first shulker box fic! (1,728 words, with mirrored/connected first and last lines)

Zombie stories don't have happy endings so... neither does this. Be warned.

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Jimmy’s waiting when Scott gets back home.

He stands in front of the door to the house they’ve been living out of, with none of his gear or weapons on him. He’s leaning against the old oak that grows next to the sidewalk, one foot perched on a root that ripples out of the ground and cracks through the old concrete. The sun is setting behind him, but the twilight shadows don’t quite hide the bloody stain that spreads from his right shoulder.

Scott’s feet come to a stop of their own accord, and he very specifically does not move his hand to the hilt of his sword. He shifts his satchel— filled with goodies he managed to find today; he discovered an entire village that hadn’t been raided yet— on his arm, its weight heavy after an afternoon of walking. He hates the wary tone in his words when he calls out:

“Jimmy?”

Jimmy, looking up to see him, gives a shrug. “Told ya this would happen,” he says, and there’s a quirk to his smile that could break other hearts.

((hard to break what’s already shattering.))

Scott swallows. “Show me.”

Jimmy pulls the collar of his shirt to the side, and Scott winces at the bloody mess that is his mangled shoulder.

“Skizz got me,” Jimmy says. “It was stupid— I should’a been faster, but… I mean, it was Skizz, ya know? He still kinda looked like himself, and I thought… I dunno what I thought. But by the time I realized he was already gone, he’d got my shoulder in his teeth and…”

((the earth is crumbling away beneath him. this is a nightmare. time to wake up now.))

((please wake up now.))

“Hey, don’t worry.” Jimmy covers the wound back up. “It doesn’t hurt or anything.”

“It doesn’t— No, Jimmy that’s not the way to make me feel better.” Scott takes another step forward, his arms aching to reach out and his gut telling him to get away get away get away— He can feel his throat closing, swallowing emotions he refuses to feel.

“Look— ” Jimmy takes a step forward and Scott backpedals, half-unsheathing the blade at his hip. He hates himself for it instantly, but the instinct—

The instinct is what keeps him alive.

Jimmy just puts his hands up placatingly. “Hey, hey— I’m not that far gone yet.”

“You’re fine.” Scott tries to sound scornful, and nearly succeeds. “We’ll get you patched up and you’ll be good as new in a few days. Don’t be such a drama queen.”

With a laugh, Jimmy shakes his head. “Nice daydream,” he says. “That would be cool.”

They stand there, in a silence that shouldn’t have been awkward, for a long moment. Then, at the same time:

“Scott, you know— ”

“So I picked up a— ”

Pause.

“You go first,” Jimmy says.

((Jimmy always puts others first.))

Scott grits his teeth and forces his voice to be light and cheerful. Nothing is wrong. They’re fine. “I found canned soup!” he says. “Five cans— one’s a little rusty, but I’m sure it’s fine.”

“That’s… um. That’s good.”

Scott steps around Jimmy—

((not too close. don't get too close— no. damn you, coward, get as close as you want, there’s nothing wrong— ))

— and moves toward the house. “So…” he says, “I’ll just… start up the fire? Get dinner going? I think we’ve still got some— ”

“Scott.”

Jimmy’s voice stops him, and Scott winces. He drops his head, unable to look Jimmy in the eye.

“Don’t make me do this,” he says. His voice struggles, and his free hand goes to his throat, as if he can pull the plea from his chest. “You… you can’t make me do this. You can’t.”

((i can’t, i can’t, i can’t— ))

“You gotta.”

((too close!!))

Scott’s head snaps up, and one hand flails behind him, catching against the siding of the house. Jimmy is right there—

((danger! danger!))

But other than the tell-tale red gleam in his eye and the bloody stain on the shoulder of his shirt, Jimmy looks the same. Same golden hair, same dimple as he quirks half a sad smile, same gentle hands spread wide. Unarmed, though that won’t matter soon. He stands close enough that Scott could reach out and touch him— punch him, maybe, for being such an idiot… or wrap him in an embrace that will never let go.

“Skizz got me an hour ago,” Jimmy says, and his voice is as low as a secret. “I’ve got… what. Maybe twenty minutes? Another hour if we’re insanely lucky?”

“You’re fine,” Scott says again. But this time it comes out as a plea and not a statement.

“I’m not.” Jimmy shakes his head. His eyes shift to the side. “I… to be honest, I’m already feeling it.”

“Feeling— feeling what?” Why was he asking. What a stupid question.

And yet… yet he had to know.

Jimmy drops his hands to his sides, and they clench and unclench. Scott watches, mesmerized, his heartbeat fluttering in time with Jimmy’s hands curling into white-knuckled fists and uncurling into trembling claws.

“I can’t— I can’t describe it. It’s like I’m on fire. Only I’m drowning at the same time. Or something. And I— ” he takes a deep breath, and meets Scott’s gaze. A low growl comes into his voice, and the hands squeeze tight into hard twists of bone. “I look at you, and all I can see is how easy you’d be to kill right now.”

Scott’s sword is drawn before his denial can catch up.

((instinct keeps you alive))

Jimmy looks down at the shining blade, and finally his façade of cheerful nonchalance wavers. There’s a crack in his voice as he says, “There we go. That’s… that’s the way it’s gotta be.”

((i can’t, i can’t, i can’t— ))

And then, as if he can hear Scott’s internal scream: “I don’t— I don’t want to become like one of them. I don’t want… you to see me like that.”

Like one of them. Scott’s memories skip over images of white-eyed creatures, people he used to know, monsters with mindless hunger driving them to rip, to shred, to devour—

Jimmy wakes up crying some nights. He tries to be quiet, Scott knows, but in the single room they’ve barricaded against the darkness, every sound is magnified— and Scott's always been a light sleeper. He knows Jimmy dreams of them, dreams of blood and gore and of being left alone— or worse, of being the one to do the shredding.

He knows because he’s dreamed it too.

“I won’t let that happen,” he says, his voice firm. But there’s a tremble in the sword between them.

“You didn’t let it happen. It just… it just did, dude. That’s life.” Jimmy takes a deep breath, and with a far too gentle hand, takes hold of the sword blade and guides it to rest over his heart. “Anyway, you promised.”

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“Right so, if I get bit, you have to take me out before I can hurt anyone.”

“Ew. What a horribly morbid things to say.”

“I’m serious! I couldn’t deal with it if I turned into one of those things and came after you or any of the others— ”

“It’s not gonna happen, so don’t be stupid about it.”

“Come on— just say it. Promise me that if I start to turn, you’ll… ya know. Kill me.”

“Jimmy— ”

“Promise me, Scott.”

“…Fine. But only if you promise the same.”

((it won’t happen. it'll be fine. they’ll be fine.))

“Of course, dude. I promise.”

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“You promised.”

Scott’s face is wet with hot tears that he can’t feel himself crying, and he wants to drop the sword— wants to fling it away from both of them and let fate do its worst. Who cares if he dies too?

((jimmy cares. If you let him destroy you, it’ll destroy him first.))

“Damn you,” Scott whispers.

Jimmy smiles.

The sword enters his body too easily.

It slides between the ribs, the only sound the soft catch in Jimmy’s throat as the blade bites into his heart.

For a frozen instant, they both stand there, outside the house they’d claimed— the home they’d defended. Jimmy looks down at the weapon in his chest, one hand reaching toward Scott—

And he falls

((he falls and falls and falls and Scott is falling too and the sword clatters to the ground and he’s clutching at Jimmy’s face and bundling the body to himself and pawing the hair away from his eyes and Jimmy’s hand is on his and— ))

There are no final words. No poignant goodbyes, no tearful proclamations or whispered last regrets.

There is only an ending.

There is only Scott, silent and dry-eyed, kneeling on the ground under the oak with Jimmy’s lifeless hand clasped to his chest.

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He doesn’t move, even as night falls around him—

((them))

— and the cicadas start their mournful chorus. Doesn’t stir until something rattles down the street and he dimly realizes that Jimmy would murder him if after all this, Scott went and got himself shredded by a zombie anyway.

Jimmy’s body is heavier than he expected, and yet somehow lighter than it ought to be. As if it’s missing everything that made it Jimmy. He drags it—

((him))

— inside the house and wonders what exactly he’s supposed to do now. Dig a grave, he supposes, but— where? In the yard? It seems so… anticlimactic.

((death is anticlimactic. life is the climax. death is… an afterthought.))

He leaves the sword where it fell. He can’t… he can’t bear to touch it now. Scott doesn’t believe in curses—

((yes you do yes you do you’re cursed this place is cursed and that sword is cursed and the ground where it lays is cursed and— ))

— and yet he can’t bring himself to fetch it. Someone else can find it.

He’ll dig the grave tomorrow.

Tonight… tonight he sits. Keeps watch. Hopes beyond hope that Jimmy will stir— knowing that if he does, it won’t be for any good reason. Knowing that if he does, he won’t be able to kill him a second time.

Tomorrow he’ll leave. Find a new place— far away. Sometime, maybe sooner, maybe later… he’ll find the end of his road too.

He hopes Jimmy will be waiting there, when he finally gets back home.