#instead of zombies it’s plague

[ibijau]

today I rediscovered a former plot bunny, wrote 3K on it, and then decided I maybe don’t like it enough to continue it so back to the shadow realm it returns for now

[anonymousbathtub]

Introducing Petr, the protagonist of my Divine Decay uni project - he’s a young, recently chosen Vessel of the Voice on his first crusade up to the surface world! Unfortunately something goes... wrong, during the battle, and he’s left stranded in the wilderness, hundreds of miles from his mycellium network, and with only a human for company.

(Boy, I sure hope he doesn’t discover any divine heresies while exploring ruins on the way back that will fundamentally alter his worldview!)

[totallyseiso]

State of Decay 2 got an update at some point in the past few days that lets you drop off supply rucksacks at upgraded outposts.

This doesn't seem like an update that should be happening like 6 years after release

[strangererotica]

EXPLICIT CONTENT | MINORS DNI

Art the Clown x Reader | SMUT | CW: reader is married to an abusive husband | reader uses drugs/alcohol to cope with her abusive marriage | murder/killing mentioned

This story is extremely explicit and deliciously fever dream-ish imo. Hope you enjoy it, my fellow clown fuckers ❤️

What the ever loving fuck is wrong with me?

That’s what you were thinking as your common sense peeked out briefly from the fog of alcohol and weed in your system…a moment of sobriety just long enough to make you question what motivation you could have for the decisions you were now making.

He smelled. Like dried blood and sex, the kind of sex that hurts you, but doesn’t stop you from wanting more. Maybe it would have been enough to stop you, under any other (sober) circumstances. But as it was, you were already sitting in this strange man’s lap, in the middle of an empty mall after closing. And what made the situation even more surreal? The fact that he was dressed in a goddamn Santa suit and wearing gaudy black and white clown makeup all over his face.

Yeah, you really needed to stop sneaking into the mall bathroom and getting fucked up. Swiping a pack of edibles and two travel-sized bottles of cinnamon spice vodka from the gas station had been a bad idea to begin with. Using the privacy of the bathroom to get wasted and scroll through your phone for two hours would have been considered strange behavior by most people. But most people (in fact, no one) knew the reason why you avoided home like the plague.

Your husband was abusive, in every way possible. He controlled every aspect of your life, to the point that sometimes, you worried he could even read your thoughts. Where you went, who you spoke to, your finances, your diet, your sex life; everything about you belonged to him. It was suffocating. And while your habit of stealing from the gas station and hiding in the mall bathroom was an unhealthy coping mechanism, you were coping. Even if eventually it bit you in the ass, like tonight. When you got a little too high, a little too drunk, to notice the time, or the fact that the mall outside the bathroom stall you were locked in had grown quiet…

The mall was closed. Fucking closed, with you locked inside it. You’d staggered out of the bathroom like a fucking zombie in what looked to be a post apocalyptic scene. The mall was empty, devoid of life. Everything was eerily silent, apart from your footsteps shuffling across the tile floor as you took in your empty surroundings. The mall was dimly-lit, the only light source coming from high above, moonlight streaming in through the big panel windows on the mall ceiling.

You found one of the exits, and tried the door. It was locked, or maybe you were too high/drunk to figure a way out? It didn’t matter because regardless, you weren’t going anywhere for awhile. Either you’d sober up and figure out how to get out, or you’d be stuck waiting till security came by in the morning and let you out. A pleasant thought tickled at the back of your mind: your husband had no idea where you were. It felt good to be so far beyond his radar that his ability to oversee your every move was completely fucked. What did scare you, however, was the thought of confronting him in the morning. How would he react to you staying out all night? Obviously it wouldn’t go over well, and just imagining what your husband’s punishment might involve had your stomach twisting.

So instead of ruining your high by worrying about the inevitable, you decided to finish the last of your vodka, yelling “fuck it!” into the empty void around you. Your voice echoed back at you off the walls of the empty mall. It was creepy, and a little exciting, being unsupervised and alone with this kind of freedom. The excitement you felt only heightened when you noticed him. Your mouth twisted into a grin of disbelief, because how fucking high WERE you that you were literally seeing Santa Claus in front of you right now?? You took a step towards him, still unsure if he was even real.

He was sitting in an ornate wooden chair framed by two massive Christmas trees. The strands of lights decorating them weren’t on, just like all the other lights inside the mall. Above him, a sign written in ridiculously large print read “SANTA,” as if the scene itself would have implied anything other than the jolly old elf’s presence. You forced your gaze to focus on the man/hallucination in front of you, the smile on his face as big as yours. And he was a…clown, too? You laughed out loud, the absurdity of it all becoming too much. Your laughter was tinny and soft, like the sound of jingle bells, and it seemed only fitting considering you were standing mere feet away from the man, the myth, the legend himself: Santa Claus.

He patted his lap, encouraging you over. The fact that he apparently didn’t speak made the vodka-soaked dreamworld you were currently wandering feel even more like a dream. As you approached ‘Santa Clown,’ the possibility of him being a figment of your imagination became less believable. When he reached for your arm and tugged you onto his lap, you were certain. He was absolutely real.

You gasped, a surprised giggle spilling from your lips. The clown seemed to enjoy your amusement, bouncing you on his knee just to hear the string of excited giggles that tumbled out of you. He was playing with you, and you were loving it. His hair, or the wig he wore, spilled over his shoulders in off-white waves, flecked by bits of red. It took you a few seconds to register that the red bits were actually dried blood, and that the same blood was caked onto the beard that hung loosely underneath Santa Clown’s chin.

Should you have been alarmed? Probably. But instead of sensing danger coming from the clown, you felt oddly protected, safe. Whoever that blood belonged to, whoever he may have hurt, the clown didn’t seem in any hurry to hurt YOU. In fact, based on the stiffening pulse of his cock under your ass, it seemed like the clown was enjoying your company very much.

To test your theory, you decided to tease him a little and see where it led. Shifting intentionally on his lap, you reached to smooth the blood-crusted strands of hair back from Santa Clown’s face, revealing his sharp cheekbones and smooth, painted-white skin. He was oddly handsome, attractive in a dark kind of way. The way villains are always more appealing than heroes, or more philosophically, how Eve must have felt when she was seduced by the serpent’s persuasive tongue. There was something forbidden about the clown, something instinctively, inherently wrong about wanting him. And yet, that wrongness was precisely part of the reason you did want him.

His smile faded slowly to an expression you couldn’t name, his eyes going dark. Had your flirting upset him? A chill ran through you as even the air around you both seemed to go colder. A sudden sizzle of electricity made you flinch, and you watched as around you, the lights on the Christmas trees were illuminated. You smiled, a pleased chuckle of surprise leaving your lips, and the clown smiled with you. He seemed to enjoy making you feel good; and perhaps the dark supernatural forces that followed him came in handy in times like these, when manipulating electricity could be used to impress a pretty girl?

The rest of the mall remained in darkness, with only the Christmas lights illuminating the festive scene. “It’s so pretty,” you said, and you realized it was the first time you’d actually spoken to the clown. He nodded, feigning a kind of bashful grin, and extended his index finger toward you, tapping lightly against your breasts. Your eyebrows lifted at the sweet gesture. It had been a long time since anyone had called you ‘pretty,’ and somehow, even in the absence of words, the clown had said everything right.

“Me?” you asked coquettishly, feeling emboldened by the vodka thundering through your system. “You think I’m pretty?”

The clown nodded vigorously, his big, toothy smile returning. “Well y’know what?” you asked through a giggle. “I think you’re pretty handsome, Santa.”

The clown’s mouth made the shape of a surprised ‘O,’ and he pointed to himself, his lips forming the word ‘me???’

“Yeah,” you replied. “And, as a matter of fact-.” You leaned in so your lips were at the clown’s ear, the coppery scent of blood stronger by his face. “-I’m ready to tell you what I want for Christmas…”

You didn’t expect to feel his hand on your chin, turning your head to face him. His expression had shifted back to the one you’d been unable to read earlier, the look you’d mistaken for him being upset. Now, as his thumb tugged your bottom lip downward and his dark eyes studied the shape of your mouth, you realized his expression was one of lust.

You sucked in a breath, extending your tongue to meet his thumb. The metallic tang of old blood met your tastebuds, melting over your tongue as the dried blood under the clown’s thumbnail was wetted by your spit. You didn’t care whose blood it was, because in this strange new reality, nothing beyond this space in the empty mall mattered. His eyes followed his thumb as it pressed deeper, your lips closing around its base, sucking lightly. You shifted again on the clown’s lap; it was so bumpy now that he was fully hard, his erection making it difficult to sit still.

His gaze was fixed on your lips, the space his thumb had disappeared between. You backed your head away slowly, letting his thumb slide out of your mouth with a wet pop. Your hands closed over his thighs to balance yourself as you slipped off his lap, locking your eyes with his as you settled between his boots on the ground. Resting your head against his right thigh, the heady smell of piss and sweat filled your senses. His hand was on your head, fingers laced through your hair and guiding you, inward. Closer. Closer to the space he wanted your mouth, where he needed it to be.

You wet your lips with your tongue and watched as the clown worked the large buckle of his belt undone. He tugged the waist of his pants lower, just enough for his cock to spring free, smacking against his stomach, pre cum clinging to the white fur trim of his jacket. Your mouth fell open at the sight of his member, its impressive length only half as striking as its girth. He closed his gloved hand around himself, pumping up and down his shaft in a few slow, unhurried strokes. The look in his eyes was almost wicked; he knew the thought of him filling your throat intimidated you, and he liked that fear.

With his other hand locked in your hair, the clown pulled your head closer, till your mouth was poised at his tip. He pressed the fat bulb to your lips, admiring the way they parted obediently for him. Urging his hips forward, the clown pushed his cock inside your mouth. The salty taste of his skin on your tongue was unpleasant at first, but you quickly forgot about any discomfort once he’d established a rhythm back and forth inside you. The head of his cock pushed the salty taste to the back of your throat, and you swallowed it down. From there, the only challenge you faced was opening your throat enough to take him. The clown’s hand on your head continued to guide it, pumping your mouth over him like a sleeve. You needed to breathe, to swallow the air his cock was denying you. Just when you thought you might be sick, the clown removed himself from your throat, allowing you the chance to breathe, a long line of saliva trailing from your bottom lip to the head of his cock. He grinned down at you approvingly, patting your head as if to say ‘good girl,’ before lifting you once again by the hair, and shoving himself back between your lips.

He leaned forward and closed his other hand around your throat, feeling his cock fucking you from the inside out. Your cunt was dripping, a pearly string of your wetness slicking the ground between your knees. You squeezed your thighs together as the clown used your throat, desperate for some kind of stimulation. He could sense your desperation, and offered you his boot as a relief, wedging it between your legs to give you something to grind on. You humped it gratefully, rocking your swollen cunt against the clown’s shoe. He stilled inside your throat, buried deep, his fingers tightening in your hair to the point your scalp was stinging. A gush of semen washed down your throat, followed by another. You struggled to swallow it all, your throat constricting as the clown’s cum filled it to capacity. You gagged and choked, and he pulled you off his cock just as vomit began creeping its way up the back of your throat. His wild eyes and wide grin beamed down at you, his chest rising and falling quickly in the aftermath of his climax. Semen you hadn’t been able to swallow dripped down your chin in a thick line. When you attempted to wipe it away, the clown stopped you with a swat of his hand against yours. He wanted to see the results of his work in and on you, his work of Art.

He jerked his boot where it was wedged between your thighs, bouncing you on top of it. You whimpered at the sensation, your neglected little cunt aching and engorged. You needed to come, so badly that it hurt. The clown watched as you stayed knelt at his feet, straddling his boot and humping it like a bitch in heat, grunting and panting, no more than an animal. Your orgasm shook you to your core, your muscles gripping and sucking around nothing, clit throbbing against the clown’s boot as you rubbed yourself into it, moaning and spitting a string of obscenities into his pants leg, where your face was buried.

After your body ceased shaking, you looked up to see the clown still grinning down at you. He offered his hands for you to take hold of, and helped you back into his lap. An hour passed, and then another. You couldn’t say for certain, but you think you must have fallen asleep in the clown’s arms for an hour or so, because at some point, you noticed that the stars were beginning to fade in the sky. Morning was coming, and that meant going home. To your husband. To your abuser.

Fear roiled in your stomach, along with the alcohol and cum filling it. You despised this feeling of dread, of being scared by a shit stain of a human being like your husband. If only you could live free of his tyranny, you imagined. How much better would the world be without the influence of such a toxic man as your husband…?

…And then, the idea formed in your mind. You tilted your head to the clown’s face. Studying the blood on his hair and skin once again, you decided to ask a favor of him. “Santa,” you began, because you didn’t know what else to call him. “You’ve killed people before…haven’t you?”

The clown feigned an apologetic expression and raised his hands as if to say “guilty.”

You nodded your head, a hopeful smile on your lips. And then, you asked him: “How would you like to kill my husband?” 🔪🩸🤍

@arts-bloody-gloves

[bitchesgetriches]

{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about Saving Money and Being Frugal

We’re all in this together. Don’t give up.

On food and groceries:

How to Shop for Groceries like a Boss

Why Name Brand Products Are Beneath You: The Honor and Glory of Buying Generic

If You Don’t Eat Leftovers I Don’t Even Want to Know You

You Are above Bottled Water, You Elegant Land Mermaid

You Should Learn To Cook. Here’s Why.

On entertainment and socializing:

The Frugal Introvert’s Guide to the Weekend

7 Totally Reasonable Ways To Save Money on Cheap Entertainment 

Take Pride in Being a Cheap Date

The Library Is a Magical Place and You Should Fucking Go There

Your Library Lets You Stream Audiobooks and eBooks FOR FREEEEEEE!

What’s the Effect of Social Media on Your Finances?

You Won’t Regret Your Frugal 20s

On health:

How to Pay Hospital Bills When You’re Flat Broke

Run With Me if You Want to Save: How Exercising Will Save You Money

Our Master List of 100% Free Mental Health Self-Care Tactics

Why You Probably Don’t Need That Gym Membership

How to Get DIRT CHEAP Pet Medication, Without a Prescription 

On other big expenses:

Businesses Will Happily Give You HUGE Discounts if You Ask This Magic Question

Understand the Hidden Costs of Travel and Avoid Them Like the Plague

Other People’s Weddings Don’t Have to Make You Broke

You Deserve Cheap, Fake Jewelry… Just Like Coco Chanel

3 Times I Was Damn Grateful for My Emergency Fund (and Side Income) 

When (and How) to Try Refinancing or Consolidating Student Loans

The Real Story of How I Paid Off My Mortgage Early in 4 Years 

Season 2, Episode 2: “I’m Not Ready to Buy a House—But How Do I *Get Ready* to Get Ready?”

The Most Impactful Financial Decision I’ve Ever Made… and Why I Don’t Recommend It

On buying secondhand and trading:

Almost Everything Can Be Purchased Secondhand

I Am a Craigslist Samurai and so Can You: How to Sell Used Stuff Online

The Delicate Art of the Friend Trade

On giving gifts and charitable donations:

How Can I Tame My Family’s Crazy Gift-Giving Expectations?

In Defense of Shameless Regifting

Make Sure Your Donations Have the Biggest Impact by Ruthlessly Judging Charities

The Anti-Consumerist Gift Guide: I Have No Gift to Bring, Pa Rum Pa Pum Pum

How to Spot a Charitable Scam

Ask the Bitches: How Do I Say “No” When a Loved One Asks for Money… Again? 

On resisting temptation:

How to Insulate Yourself From Advertisements

Making Decisions Under Stress: The Siren Song of Chocolate Cake

The Magically Frugal Power of Patience

6 Proven Tactics for Avoiding Emotional Impulse Spending

On minimalism and buying less:

Don’t Spend Money on Shit You Don’t Like, Fool

Everything I Know About Minimalism I Learned from the Zombie Apocalypse

Slay Your Financial Vampires

The Subscription Box Craze and the Mindlessness of Wasteful Spending

On saving money:

How To Start Small by Saving Small

Not Every Savings Account Is Created Equal

The Unexpected Benefits (and Downsides) of Money Challenges

Budgets Don’t Work for Everyone—Try the Spending Tracker System Instead

From HYSAs to CDs, Here’s How to Level Up Your Financial Savings

Season 2, Episode 10: “Which Is Smarter: Getting a Loan? or Saving up to Pay Cash?”

The Magic of Unclaimed Property: How I Made $1,900 in 10 Minutes by Being a Disorganized Mess

We will periodically update this list with newer articles. And by “periodically” I mean “when we remember that it’s something we forgot to do for four months.”

Bitches Get Riches: setting realistic expectations since 2017!

Start saving right heckin’ now!

If you want to start small with your savings, consider signing up for an Acorns account! They round up your every purchase to the nearest dollar and save and invest the change for you. We like them so much we’ve generously allowed them to sponsor us with this affiliate link:

Start investing today with Acorns

[st-just]

Less Boring 40k Demon Prince Ideas than 'Bigger Angrier Chaos Space Marine'

Unspeakably ancient eldar who was one of the decadent hubristic imperial magnates so good at murderogries they caused the birth of Sleanesh, happily sold out the rest of the species

Sisters of Battle canoness/living saint who was actually genociding people for Khorne instead of the Emperor (took multiple campaigns for anyone to notice, very embarrassing)

Demon Prince of Nurgle that literally is a zombie apocalypse plague, their consciousness distributed throughout the Resident Evil/Left4Dead-style horde and monstrous mutatioons

A Sauron-among-the-Numenoreans disciple of Tzeetch, appears as a normal looking charismatic savant genius who shows up and givens a world's leaders everything they need to start a glorious new golden age (eventual rebellion and/or disastrous collapse can be assumed)

Corrupted machine spirit of a titan (with bonus entire crew of the titan still eternally bound within it)

Just like, any aliens tbh.

[drchucktingle]

Good day Dr. Tingle. I haven't read your stories, but I've known about you from afar in this website for a while. Your recent post about separating Ideas and Message is very similar to how I teach a class. I wanted to ask you, if you could share some of your Messages, in whichever structure/length/complexity you think about them before writing, to have some real world examples to show in class.

Personally I tend to simplify and shorten my messages as much as possible, like "everyone deserves forgiveness" for example, so that I can permeate it throughout the story, and so that anyone experiencing the story can come to a similarish conclusion.

I'm curious as to how your Messages look like inside your head, during the creative process. Not the refined versions used for marketing and sales and stuff.

Thank you!

sure buckaroo.

high concept idea of the book STRAIGHT was this: zombie apocalypse story but the rage only effects straight cis people (there is also a second high concept idea in there which is: what if zombie plague only happened one day a year? how would culture handle this politically and otherwise?)

so i had this idea that i thought was good, but before i can write it i think 'well what do i want to SAY about this? what am i FEELING?'

and i realized that i was a little torn about how to write this story because of the one day a year thing. when is it okay to fight back? can you hurt a zombie if it turns back into a person the next day? is that right or wrong? and WHEN is it right or wrong? what situations?

then i realized that with the metaphor of this story what i was really asking was something bigger: why is it up to the victims (in this case queer buckaroos) to be forced to make these decisions? marginalized groups have TWO kinds of violations done to them, the first is the obvious act of violation, but the second is that they are forced to use their time and mental space and emotional tolerance to learn how to HANDLE the first violation in an 'acceptable way'

so THAT became my message. if you want to know how i feel about these questions you can read STRAIGHT and find out.

CAMP DAMASCUS high concept idea was (SPOILERS IF YOU HAVE NOT READ CAMP DAMASCUS STOP READING HERE) what if the church really DID decide the ends justify the means and instead of stopping demonic possession they were inflicting demonic possession to counter sinful acts.

but that is not the message of the book. that is just the idea. if i just had that idea i would not write it, but as things evolved i realized WHAT i wanted to say with this story

in this situation WHO is the force of 'evil'? would it be the demons? would it be the possessed? or would it be the SYSTEM AND MENTALITY that was creating this situation in the first place? so the book sets out the answer this question and express the conclusion that ive made for myself

i also noticed that many churches who are anti gay have a sort of infantilizing trot with how they handle their young buckaroos. this idea that gay feelings will just go away if they are ignored and that they can almost keep young queer buckaroos from ever aging into fully realized adults. obviously i think this is WRONG and so fighting back against this mentality became part of the message as well, and that informed most of the metaphor and symbolism in the book.

it is important to keep in mind that sometimes the message can change. as the book trots along i am LEARNING myself, working out these thoughts on the page and coming to a conclusion of my own. this is actually VERY true of BURY YOUR GAYS, which is probably most autobiographical thing i have written. i will save talking about that MESSAGE and HIGH CONCEPT for after book is out though

EDIT FOR CLARITY OF MY WAY:

when i say i write MESSAGE FIRST that does not mean i think of the message first in TIME (although that does happen sometimes) it means the message is the most important thing over plot or characters or anything like that (although those are important too). it means that i write with message as my north star, which is rare, but it is how i make art

[bogleech]

Can we get more on how Fectoids work? Is the microform literally one of the creatures, dissolved into cells and swimming around in your blood until it jumps back out and coalesces again? Do they retain their personalities or any kind of control over their tiny infectious components?

The initial idea of the Fectoids was that they'd begin as a sentient hive-minded viral infection, then all the little viruses would leave their hosts and fuse into one macroscopic monster body. Later I wrote some around an idea that a copy of the monster form would be born from every host, so they'd shift between microbial outbreak and swarm of monsters. All this was a little too tricky to justify for TTRPG mechanics, and I came to feel it complicated the idea of them as Pokemon-like partners.

So my current concept is that when they turn microscopic and infectious, they still have just a single "true" body. Basically they revert back to a parasitic larva and the rest of their biomass breaks down into millions of pathogenic cells. This borrows a bit from two real-world things: parasitoid wasps actually inject symbiotic viruses alongside their larvae to alter the biology of the host, and then there are creatures like the so-called "immortal jellyfish" that revert back to a larva instead of aging to death. They all still have the capacity to become a whole "outbreak," it's just not automatic; they actually need to mate with other Fectoids through spore exchange to make more macrobodies. This just means your Pokemon Partner Fectoid isn't automatically duplicating itself hundreds of times just to use its main ability; narratively, wild Fectoids are still causing zombie plagues and mass monster spawnings.

[hurgablurg]

Minecraft 2d animated (with rotoscoped / painted-over in-game backgrounds) movie plot where it doesnt feel the need to do the player's batman origin and instead starts in media res with

A trio of piglin children, let's call them lapis, lavender, and daisy (ego, id, superego / whatever trio trope you want to use), playing around an inactive, old portal frame in the nether, running home only to find their settlement being destroyed by territorial ghasts, their families nowhere to be seen - these are our focus characters, and the audience surrogates. A ghast catches sight of them and gives chase, firebombing the area behind until they run into the portal frame again and a fireball activates it - with no other choice, they flee through it (with minor hijinks as they try to run through it at first and only realize on accident that they have to stand in it) just as another fireball deactivates it.

They arrive on the overworld, in an old player base, and wander and wonder at their new surroundings, before one of them collapses and starts coughing and spasming, as the undead plague takes hold of all three. They are about to turn until they are doused with a splash potion of weakness and chunks of holy golden apple, inoculating them for the time being.

They awaken in the modest house of an aged and experienced Steve, dark skinned and stoic, but with a kind twinkle in their eye, like Santa claus.

The language barrier and Steve's muteness prevents any complex explanations, but the kids get through that they had a bad experience and need help.

There can be a comedy bit where Steve sweats over only having porkchops on hand and tries to make due with some noncontroversial mushroom stew, until the kids happily dig into the "hoglin meat" as well.

Steve plunges into the nether to clear a path for the kids to go home, not realizing they are telling them that their home is gone, until Steve sees it for themself. Unwilling to condemn the kids to a zombie apocalypse in the overworld, Steve elects to lead them across the land to other player's bases in hopes of finding a nether portal that leads right to a settlement or bastion, before their immunity wears off. Adventurous hijinks ensue as they marvel and panic at the beauty and dangers of this world!

Some bits and story beats could be:

Alex (or one of the other, or even all, of the default skins) is one of the players encountered, kitted with elytra and netherite, building a massive megastructure, contrary to Steve's humble lifestyle. Alex does some cool air tricks as they land, but Steve is unimpressed, even cocking their hip and raising an eyebrow.

Steve and another player seem to be communicating, eyes locked together, with Lavender theorizing that they have some kind of telepathy, until it briefly but jarringly switches to gameplay where the players are allcaps "screaming" at each other in text chat.

The kids are attacked and one seems to be on the precipice of death, or even infection, until one of the players slaps a Totem of Undying into their hands and they are saved in the nick of time, deposited a few blocks away.

Lapis is in awe of the gold ore littering a badlands canyon while camped and tries to be brave to get some, accidentally falling, as Steve jumps down after them, catches them, and buckets just at the bottom, revealing an expertise and practice with the game belied by their wooden cube house, grass block floor, and disorganized chests.

They see the ruins and zombie hordes and even the Skulk, spawned by whoever the Ancients were, and the dangers of going too far. Maybe they are even pursued by a zealous Warden who breaches the surface to "correct" these "anomalies", as an additional "big bad".

It ends up being, of course, that the portals all lead to inhospitable places, like soul sand barrens, nether fortresses, and somehow even above the bedrock ceiling. When they actually DO find a settlement, it's a bastion, and while the other piglins are ambivalent or cautious, the Brutes are quite dogmatic, refusing and attacking the kids on the basis that they are forest-dwelling foreigners who reek of the overworld. Luckily for them, they have a new found-family of players who've been quite taken with them over their adventures who arrive to help, and elect to build a sanctuary just on the other side of the portal for them to live in, and which they can visit freely. Overtime, other refugees make their way, and an amicable piglin village starts up (perhaps even hinting at a theoretical future piglin rework, hmm), with Steve raising the kids personally, and with proper anti-zombie safety precautions, showing them how to Build, in Steve's sustainable, low-impact style. A Happy ending!

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

the idea of a "not zombie plague" at the hotel.... what an effing comedy it could be...

thanks @sunsetcougar and @insert-funny-name-here69 for making me picture it XD

Vaggie comes back from Cannibal Town snuffling, no big deal, maybe it's all those feathered hats and fur stoles (sUSaN) or nice flowers or whatever. Vaggie goes to bed like normal, wakes up the next day GROANING, stiff and grumpy and shuffling around the hotel

Oh no!- Charlie the protective gf cries- what if there's some hellborn illness angels are weak towards??? It's time to physically carry Vaggie back to bed for rest (and keep doing that a few times until it sticks and she puts Razzle on guard at the door) (also print out and past their room's windows with pics of her own pleading pout so Vaggie won't try flying to freedom again) (and crashing again)

well this is kinda a weird and kinda funny for the rest of the hotel... until the Symptoms start to spread

sneezing is the first stage, the infection fun, a sign you've already got it, but everyone wants to blame Susan and Susan's specific perfectly matching (aka hostile harsh and annoying) choice of perfume lingering around the hotel, so they all (not vaggie) (vaggie thinks susan is The Coolest) just walk around sneezing and yelling "FUCK YOU SUSAN" afterwards instead of "bless you" or whatever

loss of appetite isn't that big a deal at first- between the guy with the drug addiction, his friend also with a drug addiction, an alcoholic, a tiny woman who can fill up on a single ritz cracker, a guy who eats rotting dear corpses, a pig who regularly gets his appetite spoiled with treats, an egg boi who doesn't know what he eats without his boss around to tell him, a goat demon stuffie hell bent on only consuming doughnuts, a demon princess too busy singing and scheming happiness plans to do things like SLEEp never mind EAT, her girlfriend who will care about stuff like hunger once everything else is taken care of and not a second before, an the KING of hell who hasn't even had an appetite for LIFE in ages.... no one notices the lack of eating going on at first, until it's Too Late

stiffness and aching of the joints has everyone complaining when it hits tho. Angel Dust is pissed it got in the way of his performance. Husk feels old again and gets grumpy when he gets called old man which makes him even MORE grumpy. Niffty enjoys it for 4 minutes until it throws off her rat kill rate. Alastor pretends to feel nothing but every time he moves there's a horrible CRACK from any and all bending joints and Cherri finds him stiffly stuck in a chair a least once. Cherri is the best off bc she mainly just feels like she got blown up and is used to it. Vaggie is having flash backs to the pain and weakness right after losing her first wings- Charlie wants to help but is hunched over so far she regularly rests her chin on Vaggie's head and doesn't have the energy to drag her back to bed. Lucifer is ACTUALLY hobbling around using his cane, snapping to false casualness whenever someone looks his way, secretly using a rubber duck as a stress ball. They grudgingly agree they can't blame this one on Susan (actually...) and migrate to the lobby as a group, trying to figure out what KIND of hell bug they've somehow caught.

Now is where the loss of appetite finally gets notices. Vaggie dragged out some food for the war council and NO ONE can stand even LOOKING at it. there are, however, at lot of OTHER looks going around....

Husk edges away from Angel, who's eying him even more hungrily than usual but without any of the sultriness. Niffty scuttling past gets his attention and makes his tail do the little pre-pound wiggle as he sinks his claws into the sofa to keep from FOR REAL pouncing. Cherri is staring at her bestie Angel Dust and gritting her many sharp teeth at the hallucination that he's limbs are actually full of drugs. Alastor's eye is twitching, the hotel gusts all having taken on the shape of deer carcasses from his point of view. Lucifer is fine until he looks over at Vaggie- he looks away instantly and shoves his ducky in his mouth to BITE, panics, yanks it free again, and when he looks down it's morphed into a stylized duck version of Vaggie with bite marks. Vaggie has gone dead quiet and is staring at her future father in law, clutching her spear, mentally roasting him over hellfire on a spit in her mind's eye.

Charlie sees all this happening like what is going ON guys, why are you all acting so... sooooo............Hm. Charlie wonders aloud if Razzle, Dazzle, and the Egg Boi have always had such a close resemblance to juicy little roast chickens?

Then Niffty bites Husk's tail and the hotel is overrun from the inside

it's not a ZOMBIE plague- it's CANNIBAL FLU- and now sinners are chasing sinners down the halls with knives and forks, Charlie is trying NOT to eat the little hellborn as they try and fail to nibble on her lanky limbs, and Vaggie and Lucifer-

there is a new hole in the hotel where Vaggie tackled her future dad in law through the roof and now anyone looking the hotel has great view of them both snarling, circling each other in the air, spitting out mouthfulls of feathers from successfully blocking each other's bites while failing to to grab any FLESH with their own

Thankfully Rosie had finally gotten wind of Vaggie leaving with a 'slight head cold' last time and waltzes over just in time to toss some of her best stock into the hotel, a fine selection of sinner, hellborn, and even some leftover angel steaks from the battle, smartly distracting the hotel crew from hunting and tearing into each other instead

One very upsetting but ENERGETIC meal later, the blankly traumatized (and blood spattered) hotel crew huddle in groups back in the over turned lobby, listening as Rosie assures them the worst is over and they should be good as gore by tomorrow morning!

Alastor politely informs Roise that the mention of gore at just that moment might not have been the BEST choice of words

right on cue, Husk starts making hairball noises, and everyone else looks suddenly sick

Vaggie sighs, patting her gf on the back as Charlie tearfully hugs Razzle after having had her jaw unhinged in preparation of swallowing him whole when Rosie made her timely arrival (Razzle forgives her, he was planning to try devouring her from the inside out or die trying) (meanwhile Charlie had put both Fatty Nuggets and the Egg Boi on a frying pan and was preparing to have a nice cozy ghibli-style family meal- of friendship. literally. of friends)

-alright, Vaggie gives in, fine. Just one time I'll say it too.... Who do we blame for all this?

SUSAN everyone growls

this reminds Rosie to pass out the "shove your groaning up your asses" cards Susan made for all of them, which are, of course, scented

Vaggie sneezes at the scent and there's a stampede as everyone not wildly in love with her tries to run and save themselves

cannibal flu. it puts the "i" in cannibal as in that's what it makes YOU

cannibals are immune to this party bc they would barely even notice if they had it, for them, it's just suddenly turning into picky eater for a few days until the craving is satisfied :3 sometimes with your next door neighbor but really, isn't that what neighbors are for~?

(charlie falls into bed that night, exhausted, only to look around at a strange chewing noise)

(it's vaggie. on the window seat, hunched over with wings huddled around herself, looking up frozen in the act of gnawing on lute's torn off and left behind arm)

Vaggie: ".... Susan sent it over for me, special."

Charlie: "Uh huh."

Vaggie: "I'm not sick anymore! I just, was kinda curious..."

Charlie: "Vaggie, I support you biting the arm of the woman who tore out your eye. And you look great smeared with angelic blood." (pouting) "....but can you be cannibal curious in the morning and snuggle with me now?"

Vaggie: (tossing lute's arm into the bathroom) "Always, sweetie."

Charlie: "Mmm gooood. Now kisses!"

Vaggie: "Shit wait, I should wash my mouth-"

Charlie: "Or not?"

Vaggie: "..not?"

Charlie: "I'm kinda curious too~"

and thus was Susan's cannibal propaganda successfully spread, by the power of gay love, and how hot the demon princess of hell thinks it is when her angel girlfriend is spattered with someone else's blood

[livingfandomly]

25 years ago I was born but, more importantly, 25 years ago The Mummy was released. Had a lil rewatch and the smile has not left my face.

First things first, thank you to the cast for awakening my bisexuality. Secondly, Evie is my hero and one of the first female characters I saw growing up that was not only doing a job I daydreamed about but was a badass as well as a librarian. Thirdly, Brendan Fraser…. No one is hotter than you or will ever be. You’re everyone’s type. You’re THE type. Each individual lock of hair on your head deserves its own room in a 5 star hotel. The clothes on your skin as Rick make me want to burn down the entire fashion industry for never being good enough, for never matching the standards you set. Fourthly, Jonathan……. You’re a cash-hungry kook and I will always appreciate you for it. Fifthly, Ardeth Bay… Ardeth Bay…….. Ardeth Bay…………… baby girl……………… you’re gay. You saw a white man trudge through the desert after being in a forbidden city and instead of killing him, as you would do with anyone else, you let him go. The second you saw him the next time your first words were “he’s strong”. When you first came face to face with him and his gun, you walked away AFTER you disarmed him. Then, you ran into mummy zombies to give your boyfriend time to save his girlfriend. Then you came back to say goodbye. You’re gay, son. And you made Rick gay for you too. Sixthly, Imhotep I hate you but in the kinkiest way possible. It’s giving screaming-“fuck you”-just-to-get-you-to-fuck-me vibes and I wouldn’t expect anything less unhinged from myself. Seventhly… Anck-Su-Namun, I too would raise hell and bring every plague to earth if it meant getting to spend time with you. Never seen a hotter human being in my entire liFE. Lastly…. Given that The Mummy has had two perfect movies, I’m still waiting for the final part of this incomplete trilogy. I am a patient child. I will wait forever.

K.

That’s all.

[clonerightsagenda]

For now I think I'm going to use #crude monsters as my catchall tag because I respect a clever title. I'll try to backtag stuff but given tumblr's search function I'm going to pile all my current thoughts in one place so this one at least will be tagged.

Thesis

I've observed a theme in SFF works from the last decade connecting the undead/death magic with fossil fuels/climate change in a way that makes even more literal our contemporary society being powered by dead things (fossil fuels) and positions climate change/pollution as a 'haunting' we've brought upon ourselves. The specter of communism may have been haunting Europe, but the specter of petrochemicals now stalks the globe, and it's getting hot (or cold) in here.

Examples I have collected so far:

The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir

This is the most blatant. House society runs on death even more visibly than our own. It was created by a man working to save the planet, but even his original project betrays a belief that humans can't possibly escape their extractive relationship with Earth - it relied on freezing the entire population until the Earth could recover, instead of changing anyone's behavior. John wipes out our society, but he ends up recreating a lot of its harmful structures, including a reliance on extraction and death. The Houses rely on labor performed by skeletal servitors (more akin to the original zombie-as-enslaved-labor than the modern ravenous swarm). They use material goods primarily made of plastic or human bone/tissue. The Empire expands by killing entire planetary ecosystems and harvesting the death energy, spawning vengeful hauntings that target necromancers (people born from and benefiting from this extractive process) and Lyctors (necromancers who have gone even further to make continual death and extraction core to their identity). John, the leader of the empire, is powered by the death of Earth, and that's what's literally keeping the lights on - when he's briefly killed, the sun starts to go out. Society's view of human life as fuel trickles down to the interpersonal level as well, with many characters blurring devotion and consumption, taking it as a personal rejection when someone refuses to eat them, or deciding that the kindest alternative to the societal status quo is mutual self-immolation (nuclear fusion?).

Beyond the resurrection beasts serving as the vengeance of slaughtered ecosystems, we also see the aftereffects of this regime in the River, which is filthy and polluted. The Cuyahoga River catching fire became a key symbol and tipping point in the environmental movement in the late 60s/70s, and here we have a river that's been befouled by however John broke the world.

Lockwood & Co by Jonathan Stroud

In this series, Britain is plagued by something no one wants to name. It's not haunting, it's a Problem. They're not ghosts, they're Visitors. The dead don't have names, they get nicknames like natural disasters. But at the root is a group of wealthy industrialists who are exacerbating a crisis and profiting off of it at the same time. Business leaders are invading the afterlife to extract a product literally made out of dead people, which stirs up the dead and heightens the Problem. Then they turn around and make money off it by selling key supplies and services (silver, iron, agents, etc.) The reliance on children's Talents is reminiscent of climate change rhetoric around young people. Polls suggest young people are the most aware and concerned about climate change (after all, like with Visitors, they can see and feel it most clearly). Many adults in Turbohaunted Britain are willfully ignorant of the situation, brush off their own responsibility, and talk about how "the children will save us", cheerfully dropping the problem into the laps of a generation that did not cause it but will inherit its worst effects. Of course it's not just children who suffer - the process of invading the Other Side is actively killing the people doing it as well, and yet they still won't stop, driven by extractive greed.

This extraction is also displacing a large population. The dead entering living Britain are victims, but they're dehumanized by the real wrongdoers who need an easy scapegoat and the money they can make off one. The later books in this series were published around the height of the European refugee "crisis", when Europe saw high numbers of migrants from Middle Eastern and North African nations experiencing instability that Western oil interests contributed to. Rather than recognizing their responsibility and welcoming these people, Europe as a whole mostly rejected and vilified them, and nations across the globe continue to latch onto cases where migrants do hurt someone as evidence that they're all dangerous monsters, using them as a smokescreen to deflect attention from the rich corporate architects of our collective misery.

The Scholomance by Naomi Novik

This is my third example, and I might be stretching the undead thing a bit, but not too much imo. In the Scholomance series, privileged magic users, primarily in Western and wealthy nations, live in extravagant protected enclaves, leaving everyone else at the mercy of dangerous monsters. It's eventually revealed that enclaves are literally built on the backs of human sacrifices, which spawn a tar pit-like monster (mawmouth) that roams around devouring people - mostly those unlucky individuals who don't get through the enclave gates, meaning the people who benefit are also the least impacted, just as we've seen with warming and climate disasters. Their comfort comes at a direct cost to everyone else. Mawmouths are made out of that original sacrifice but accumulate their screaming, perpetually dying victims, and El is eventually able to defeat them by reminding them that they're "already dead", so I'd say they're at least undead-adjacent.

When a Chinese wizard learns the secret of enclave construction, he confronts the Western enclaves, who refuse to stop. So, his faction feels they have no choice but to build their own enclaves, even if that makes the problem worse. It's reminiscent of how the West scolds "developing" nations for increasing their population and emissions despite having enjoyed the fruits of living large, carbon consumption-wise, for decades. ("We had our fun, now we're going to wag our fingers at anyone who doesn't want to sign emissions treaties. We're not following them though.") The New York enclave makes a more ~ethical~ mawmouth (Orion = greenwashing??) but mostly so they can weaponize it against anyone who argues with them. Orion being created as part of this arms race and El being born to 'balance' him out again hearkens to the idea that the children will somehow save us, and also revisits that children are the most impacted by our warming future, stuck cleaning up earlier generations' messes.

Hi Nay by Motzie Dapul

This connection was made during a Discord conversation and not by me, so I really need to relisten to the podcast with this framing in mind. A group of mostly wealthy Elders gain magical power through sowing the Toronto landscapes with Foci that harvest energy from death. The ones that bother with justifications say it's for the greater good and the deaths at least are random chance, but in reality the Elders are safe and their Foci impact the unprotected, just as we pretend natural disasters and pandemics are great equalizers when really they and other climate-induced destruction hit frontline populations hardest. Just like the wealthy in our world, they're profiting off of people's deaths and looking the other way as man-made disasters caused by their actions destroy people.

Additionally, the use of death magic at scale destabilizes the barrier between the worlds of the living and the dead, and locations where a Focus has activated in the past are more likely to experience problems again. Essentially it's a feedback loop, the way we see exponential warming and increased disasters as different 'symptoms' of climate change feed off each other. Foci creating corrupt, repulsive "miasmas" that distort the world around them is also reminiscent of ecological damage and pollution.

The showrunner has indicated future episodes might tackle this theme more directly, so I'm excited about that!

Limitations

Of these four works, three were written by white authors living in what I would categorize as an extracting area of the world rather than an extraction zone. All four works are at least primarily in English for an English-speaking audience. This does not reflect the frontline communities most vulnerable to the current ravages of climate change, and I would not be surprised if this theme has arisen in works I have not found, either because they did not make it through mainstream publishing's gatekeeping or because I do not speak the language.

That being said, hauntings often have their logic. There's unfinished business, someone (something?) wants revenge, people crossed lines they shouldn't have. So perhaps this theme popping up in extractive countries is an acknowledgement of that culpability, admitting that we dug up these angry dead, and now we don't know how to put them back to rest. Shame the rest of the world is paying for our trespass.

I'll continue to keep an eye out for more examples of this theme; feel free to let me know if you spot one!

[eldritch-spouse]

Bizarre possible explications for the zombie!au. Krulu is beefing with Miara for the hundredth time this week and maybe he’s not in a good mindset or is super pissed about something and decided “hey I’m the plague Master let me make a plague to kill Miara” So the virus works but it doesn’t work fully so instead of Miara dying she gets basically Siadar rabbies and starts infecting people. Krulu realized his lapse in judgment and tries to stop Miara. As expected it goes super poorly and they both wipe each other out but the virus still remains. OR The “higher beings” that are more powerful then the Siadar look at the Husk!Admin story and decide to reset the world in the worst way possible.

This is a good idea, genuinely!

It's true that Krulu set this in motion and dies at the hands of his own "plague", and it's also true that Miara is caught up in this. A disagreement is what could have spurred it all in motion.

Here's the thing, one of the scariest aspects of this AU is that Miara is still kicking. She's harder to kill than Krulu, both older and more powerful, the plague doesn't kill her, but it takes over her mind the same way it does many other individuals. She's a massive source of the spread and cannot be reasoned with anymore.

Many of her angels have made pointless efforts to contain her, dying in the process. All they've succeeded in doing is wounding her. And unable to heal herself properly due to missing mental faculties, Miara ends up requiring deep rests before she can wake again and rampage.

Encountering her is just game over in the most horrifying way.

[nonbinarytoast]

New plan: instead of saying stuff like “you need a spa day” or some other shit I’m gonna start going insane

“You should tunnel to the center of the earth, I’ve heard it helps with arthritis”

“You should throw a piano across a crowded stadium. It helped my depression, so I’m sure it’ll help yours!”

“Yea, pregnancy hurts. Have you tried screaming and running for your life while naked on the highway? I heard it makes you feel less sick.”

“Oh, you should definitely get your kids vaccinated. Studies show that it helps with the zombie plague from Antarctica!”

“Queerness isn’t a choice! What do you think we are, fungle infections?! THOSE SHITS CHOOSE.”

“Here’s a pamphlet on how to make dogs grow extra pairs of eyes, no inorganic produce. I think it’ll relax you”

[mad-hunts]

thinking about making a merrymaker that isn't, in fact, a joker fan-boy like they made him in the comics for some damn reason (LOL) and whom appears to he ironically nicknamed that until you really observe him / get close to him because this man tends to celebrate when he kills someone like some SICK and TWISTED menace to society since to him, this is the only way to keep his daughter alive.

this is because he saved her when she was on the verge of death by making a deal with a death god which ended with him basically becoming a zombie BC this would prevent them from getting in trouble for messing with the living as they ALSO have people they answer to... and this was a loophole to do that + he offered himself up to do literally ANYTHING to bring her back, which made this death god go 'HMM. anything, huh?'

and as a result, made him subsequently become this god's champion by bringing them souls that had somehow escaped them over the years, so yeahhh. eventually, his debt to them will be 'paid off,' but there are a SURPRISING amount of souls out there that have cheated death.

now, how are we feeling about this idea, ladies, gentlemen, and enbies? OH + he's also russian and oozes black stuff from his eyes as a result of being a zombie, as well as wears a plague doctor costume while delivering his uhh. Victims to this death god. so, i'm keeping his motif from the comics, but pretty much everything else about him is drastically different 💀 and he's also a pathologist + surgeon / researcher instead of a psychiatrist

[actual-changeling]

i am drowning in a sea of wips, so have a small excerpt from one of them! the temporary title is 'empty streetlights'. all the traveling we did not get to see is brewing in the back of my mind 24/7.

mostly it's just the two of them being disgustingly in love and making it everyone's problem.

————

Mulder lets her hurry him along without complaint, it's her way of letting off steam and regaining a smidge of control over their rudely disrupted plans. He watches her pace up and down beside the conveyor belt while finishing a bag of sunflower seeds, and he offers to carry both suitcases before she can grab her own. Not that she needs him to, but it will make him feel useful and hopefully relieve her of yet another thing to keep an eye on.

"Let me," he says in a low voice, their bodies so close they're almost pressed together chest to chest—as always for the sake of contact rather than audibility—and their hands brush when Scully pulls back with the slightest hint of a smile. A fraction of the stress keeping her high-strung seems to melt away, and he sticks to her side as they weave through the crowds towards the rental agency.

Nothing shows people's complete unawareness of themselves in relation to others more than packed corridors, queues, and full parking lots. Airports combine all three and wrap them up in a fog of irritation and sweat. Sometimes, Mulder's height is the only reason they're able to push through it and make it to the doors; other times, Scully's mere aura and heel staccato part the masses around her like the red sea.

Most times, they will reach for each other in unspoken agreement and thread their fingers together, holding on even when they traverse the terminals in the early morning hours, surrounded by empty space and silence. Then again, in the grey twilight, reality shifts and warps, hiding them in a safe pocket where no one is watching and their usual rules don't apply.

With both his hands occupied, he briefly mourns the missed chance—only to be surprised when a warm weight loosely wraps around his left arm. Scully is staring straight ahead, avoiding his gaze, but he catches her hiding a smile out of the corner of his eye. It's incredibly impractical, and the suitcases keep hitting his ankles, creating stinging bruises that will plague him for days, yet he cannot bring himself to push her away.

Instead, Mulder draws her in as far as she can physically go, deciding that this more than makes up for the pain. While travelling together, it is all too simple to pretend they're just another couple in a sea of strangers, and he loses himself in memories of zombies and countdowns.

The world didn't end. 

He would have kissed her either way. He would have kissed her until they were nothing but stardust and smoke. He wants to kiss her again and never stop.