#just in case i gotta go through and tag all their stuff all over again

[dismaltouch]

@housefircs

[telesodalite]

I've got like 5+ other creative projects i want/need to do, but holiday cookies gotta be made, lol. Started with almond cloud cookies <3

Ft. A lump of soon to be choc chip cookies

[confused-gender]

Monsters 2.5

Summary: You survived for so long. The yautja came to clear out the xenomorphs and to find you.

Months passed after I moved all my stuff back into Du’sa’s house again. We’re currently on a hunting trip which leads me to now. I have no fucking clue where I am. “How th-.” Something buzzed by me and straight into the tree next to me. I turn to look to see a makeshift spear in the tree next to me. What could have made that? Du’sa said we’re just hunting animals. Did he forget to mention other life to me? I heard a twig snap and I quickly turn in the direction. I listened carefully and could hear footsteps coming towards me. I pull my weapon out and also get ready to press my location device just in case I need Du’sa to find me. I get into a fighting stance but lower my guard when I see a man coming at me only to stop in his tracks. “Wait you’re not one of them?” He asked me confused. “What are you talking about?” I ask. I stare at him confused. “Them! The huge aliens that hunt us for sport!” The man yells at me. I look even more confused. “Huge aliens?” As far as I’m aware the only… No he didn’t.. “Can you describe those aliens?” I ask kindly. If this is what I think is I’m gonna be pissed. Before he could answer clicking could be heard. I was so caught off by the clicking i didn’t realize the guy grabbed my arm and started pulling me with him. “Come on!” He yells. I begin to run with him. “Where are we going?” I ask him. “Some where safe.” He said. Finally we come to a stop in a clearing. “This isn’t a safe spot there’s to many places for them to hide.” I tell him lowly. I go to touch my location device and it gone. I pat my body down in a panic to see if maybe I slipped somewhere. “No.. no…” I say quietly to myself. That’s when I hear a twig snap. I immediately grab my weapon pulling it out and pushed the man behind me as I look to where the twig has snapped. “We gotta move and we gotta move now.” I tell him. I begin to move backwards with him. “Run!” I push him further away from me as I’m tackled and feel a shooting pain in my leg. I manage to get my attacker on their back and I quickly grab my staff. I bring it back over my head before bringing it down on the arm of my attacker. Clicking fills my ears but i didn’t care. “Oman-di..” I froze. No it can be him. He wouldn’t have attacked me. I quickly put my weapon down and go to pull the mask of the person I’m on top of. As soon as the mask comes off I sigh as I see it’s not Du’sa. I’m soon thrown on my back with a roar. I roll out of the way before they could slam their foot down on my head. I quickly get back on my feet and wince as I put pressure on my left leg. “A challenge? A puny human like you challenging me?” The yautja said. I smirk and nod. Before I know it I’m falling into perfect step with this yautja. I dodge his fist and hear woosh past me. I back up from him and spit the blood out of my mouth. “You hit like a Youngblood.” I laugh dryly. He charges at me and I take notice that the arm the I impaled is just dangling a bit. I sweep his legs out before taking the moment he falls to grab his already hurt arm and pull it tightly behind me. “Oman-di!” I hear again. I don’t let my guard down before I feel myself get pulled off. On instinct i pull my knife out and stab one the hands on me. They instantly let me go. Clicking once again fills my ears. “Two against one isn’t fair. Yet again who said you were. You’re hunting pray that are pathetic compared to the other things your kind hunts.” I say angrily through gritted teeth.

Tag list: @sophiaj650 @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @yondus-girl @vintage-bumblebee

[loverslantern]

The Hunter and The Witch~ Dean Winchester x f!reader

Description: The group investigates the case of a maniacal ghost inhabiting a long abandoned Texas farmhouse known as `Hell House'. They believe the ghost is the spirit of a deceased depression-era farmer who killed his family, but they soon realise it is something far more powerful.

Warnings: Cannon violence, mentions of suicide and sh within the cannon story, a guy being a little icky.

Credit: While I’ve had the idea for a certain part of this story for a while i’m still going to give credit to @arjwrites for it because she wrote something pretty darn similar, even more than just pretty darn so yes check their work out and stuff.

Tag List: @jesllianaquilesrolonsworld @okayiamkassandra @fablesrose @ada--44 @bonkydarnes @star-yawnznn @crazyunsexycool @onlyangel-444 @seninjakitey @mystic-mara @mxltifxndom @stilesxreid @chaotic-luvrs @tiggytaylor @deanwasscaredbyacat @imaginexred

Word Count: 11,341

Hell House

(Masterlist, Previous Ch, Next Ch, Outfit Board)

The Impala cruises down the interstate, yellows, and browns passing by as the hot Texas sun beams through the opened windows. Hair blowing back in the wind and tickling my skin, my sunglasses perched on my nose as I nod along to the Blue Öyster Cult song that played quietly on the radio. If Sam wasn’t peacefully sleeping, head leaning far back against his seat and mouth hanging open I’d ask Dean to make the song louder—it was a really good song though I prefer (Don’t Fear) The Reaper over Fire of Unknown Origin any day.

Dean stretches an arm back, leaning over the seat to grab hold of a stray plastic spoon left on the seat beside me. He places the spoon in Sam’s open mouth. He chuckles to himself as he thumbs through his pocket for his phone, flipping it open and taking a photo. I scuff and roll my eyes at the sight as my hand finds its way into my bag where I pull out my digital camera, “Do a pose,” I whisper to Dean. He checks the empty road in front of him, slowing the car significantly before half turning and spilling widely with a thumbs up, I try not to laugh as I take the picture. I nod to him in confirmation that I got it, he puts his attention back on the road, putting more pressure on the gas pedal, glimpsing at Sam to make sure he’s still asleep before his fingers find the knob on the radio and turn the music all the way up. “Fire of unknown origins…took my baby away!” he sings loudly.

Sam jerks awake, arms flailing around in panic as he spits out the spoon. Dean air drums along to the song, fingers hitting the steering wheel, grinning as Sam wipes his mouth of drool. He turns down the music, an unamused look on his face, “Ha ha, very funny.”

Dean chuckles, “Sorry, not a lot of scenery here in East Texas, kinda gotta make your own.”

“Man we’re not kids anymore, Dean,” he complains, “We’re not going to start that crap up again.”

“Start what up?” Dean asks, feigning innocence.

“That prank stuff. It’s stupid, and it always escalates,” he clarifies, very annoyed with the little prank. But he was right, it did always escalate. I have heard many stories of the things they did and they were not pretty. As long as I didn’t get caught in the crossfire, they could go at it all they wanted, “But you’re never too old to do stupid things,” I add.

“Aw, what’s the matter Sammy, scared you’re going to get a little Nair in your shampoo again, huh?” Dean teases, grinning like a madman.

“Alright, just remember you started it,” Sam warns, smirking right back.

“Bring it on, baldy,” he taunted.

“Ok, but don’t make him bald again, that would be so tragic. Every guy with pretty hair gets a buzz cut and it’s like an angel lost its wings, it’s horrible,” I butt in.

“That’s the point,” Dean chuckles, probably reminiscing on the first time he did it to Sam and how much worse it would be now as an adult than when he was a kid. “Anyways where are we?” Sam asks, apparently not worried about the danger surrounding his hair.

“A few hours outside of Richardson,” he answers, “Gimme the lowdown again?”

Sam pulls out the file he created, printed papers neatly held in a manila folder, “Alright, about a month or two ago this group of kids goes poking around in this local haunted house.”

“Haunted by what?” Dean asks.

“Apparently, a pretty misogynistic spirit,” he answers. I sigh, these kinds of spirits made for an incredibly annoying job, “Why are they always misogynistic? Literally, go kill anyone else! Or, spice it up and kill guys too.”

“Take that up with the spirit,” Dean says.

“Yeah, no thanks, I like living,” I retort with a smirk.

“Well, legend goes, it takes girls and strings them up in the rafters,” Sam continues, “Anyway this group of kids see this dead girl hanging in the cellar.”

“Anybody ID the corpse?” Dean asks, also getting back on track.

“Well, that’s the thing. By the time the cops got there the body was gone. So cops are saying the kids were just yanking chains,” Sam elaborates.

“Do you think they were?” I question, it wouldn’t be the first time kids lied about this sort of thing as a prank or for attention and coverage, and it likely wouldn’t be the last. But, on the other hand, if you're looking for something to happen in a known haunted location there’s a good chance you’ll get something. “Maybe, but I read a couple of the kid's first-hand accounts. They seemed pretty sincere,” he answers.

“They made the papers?” I ask, taken aback a little. Though it made sense for the case to likely make the papers, it would be surprising for accounts like that to be taken in main news articles, it’d be seen as a waste of time. “No,” Sam responds without making a sign he would elaborate.

“Where’d you read these accounts?” Dean pushes. Sam smiles, his cheeks just turning the slightest shade of pink, “Well, I knew we were going to be passing through Texas. So, um, last night, I surfed some local…” he drags before getting the rest out quickly, “paranormal websites. And I found one.”

I give him a questioning look, it’s hard to take those sites seriously, especially when it's hard to weed out the crazies from real accounts. But even more than that, in the case such sites are speaking the truth, then it was putting said people in danger they wouldn’t know how to solve, which meant a whole lot of stubborn and ignorant people. “And what’s it called?” Dean asks, smirking as if he knew where this would lead.

“HellHoundsLair.com,” Sam almost mumbles, obviously knowing how illegitimate and silly it sounds.

“Lemme guess, streaming live out of Mom’s basement,” Dean muses, and like any sane person I can’t help the laugh that escapes my chest. Sam, somehow, manages to just grin, “Yeah, probably.”

“Yeah. Most of those websites wouldn’t know a ghost if it bit ‘em in the persqueeter,” Dean adds.

“What’s a persqueeter?” I ask, the word slow and clumsy on my tongue. My eyes squint slightly as I try to figure it out. “It’s a—“ Sam cuts him off, “That’s not important right now,” he starts and I frown at not getting my answer, “Look. We let Dad take off. Which was a mistake, by the way. And now we don’t know where the hell he is, so in the meantime we gotta find ourselves something to hunt. There’s no harm checking this thing out.”

“Alright,” Dean gives in, “So where do we find these kids?”

“Same place you always find kids in a town like this.”

Guy 1: “It was the scariest thing I ever saw in my life, I swear to God.”

Guy 2: “From the moment we walked in, the walls were painted black.”

Guy 1: “Red.”

Girl: “I think it was blood.”

Guy 1: “All these freaky symbols.”

Guy 2: “Crosses and stars and…”

Guy 1: “Pentagons.”

Guy 2: “Pentacostals.”

Girl: “Whatever I had my eyes closed the whole time.”

Guy 1: “But I can damn sure tell you this much. No matter what anybody else says…”

Girl: “That poor girl.”

Guy 2: “With the black…”

Guy 1: “Blonde…”

Girl: “Red hair, just hanging there.”

Guy 1: “Kicking!”

Guy 2: “Without even moving!”

Girl: “She was real.”

Guy 1: “One hundred percent.”

Guy 2: “And kinda hot. Well, you know, in a dead sort of way.”

“Okay!” I exclaim, “And there’s the necrophilia!”

“And…how’d you find out about this place anyway?” Sam asks.

“Craig.”

“Craig.”

“Craig took us.”

I prop my sunglasses on top of my head, pushing some of my hair back from my face, as we walk into the record shop ‘Craig’ works. Considering each person's answer, and how they hardly matched up, I couldn’t even fathom what Craig would tell us. But in all fairness their responses, while…odd, did make sense considering there are about eight things that affect the observation of an eyewitness.

The bell above the door once more as it closes behind us. Whether Craig would be helpful didn’t take away from the beauty of this record shop, the stands filled to the brim with all sorts of vinyls neatly sorted into separate genres. “Fellas,” a spiky-haired brunette greets from behind the counter, “Can I help you with anything?”

“Yeah, are you Craig Thurston?” Sam asks as we move closer. “I am,” he confirms.

“Well, we’re reporters with the Dallas Morning News,” Dean begins, “I’m Dean, this is Sam and Y/N.”

“No way. Well, I’m a writer too. I write for my school’s lit magazine,” Craig informs.

“Well, good for you Morrissey,” Dean remarks a little rudely. I ignore his comment, hoping it won’t discourage him from speaking with us, “So, we’re writing an article on local hauntings and we heard you would be someone to talk to.”

“‘You mean the Hell House?” he asks.

“That’s the one,” Dean answers.

“I didn’t think there was anything to the story,” he admits and frankly he has a right to be suspicious. “Why don’t you tell us the story?” Sam suggests.

“Well, supposedly back in the ‘30s this farmer, Mordechai Murdoch, used to live in this house with his six daughters. It was during the Depression, his crops were failing, he didn’t have enough money to feed his own children. So I guess that’s when he went off the deep end,”

“How?” Sam pushes.

“Well, he figured it was best if his girls died quickly, rather than starve to death. So he attacked them. They screamed, begged for him to stop but he just strung ‘em up, one after the other. And when he was all finished he turned around and hung himself. Now they say that his spirit is trapped in the house forever, stringing up any other girl that goes inside,” he explains.

“Where’d you hear all this?” Dean asks the logical question.

“My cousin Dana told me. I don’t know where she heard it,” he answers, his expression dropping a little, “Ya gotta realize, I–I didn’t believe this for a second.”

“But now you do,” Sam finishes, giving him an understanding nod.

“I don’t know what the hell to think, man. You guys, I–I’ll tell you exactly what I told the police, okay? That girl was real. And she was dead. This was not a prank. I swear to God, I don’t wanna go anywhere near that house ever again, okay?”

******

Mud sloshes beneath my shoes as we walk up the muddy path to the dark-wooded house. It was a simple house with a rickety porch in the middle of nowhere. “Can’t say I blame the kid,” Sam comments.

“Yeah, so much for curb appeal,” Dean jokes.

We soon split up, taking a little peek around the bleak property for anything at all. Sam and I meet up halfway and walk back to the front, meeting up with Dean and his EMF reader. “You got something there?” I ask, playfully nudging into him. He taps the reader, the EMF level not changing, “Yeah, the EMF’s no good.”

“Why?” Sam asks.

“Maybe you need another walkman to toy with,” I guess, only half teasing. His green eyes shoot to mine, “This baby’s foolproof, nothin’ wrong with it,” he defends.

“Mm,” I hum, “Then why is it ‘no good’ now?”

He gestures upwards, my eyes following the overhead power lines, “I think that thing’s still got a little juice in it. It’s screwing with all the readings.”

“Yeah, that’d do it,” Sam agrees.

“See!” he wiggles the EMF reader in front of my face, a wide smile curling on my lips, “Nothin’ wrong with it.”

I place a hand over his, pushing his hand and the reader down from my face, “Sorry! I just think your whole DIY thingy is adorable,” I laugh.

“It’s not adorable. It’s genius,” he defends.

“Fine, it’s adorably genius,” I correct, having a hard time keeping the stupid smile off my face.

“You two ready to go?” Sam asks. I turn towards him, his arms crossed over his chest, and his lips pursed together in that silly, sassy way he does it. I know what he’s insinuating by the way he says it and the way he’s impatiently waiting. But, I don’t want nor need him to bring that up again, let alone now, so I respond, “Born ready.” Before moving away from Dean and stepping up on the porch, my hand reaches for the doorknob.

I turn the knob and push the door open, letting more light crawl into the dark home. The sunlight creeps along the floor, stretching its arm as far as it can reach inside. The walls are a grayish-blue wallpaper littered with graffiti and the occasional hole, the windows are broken but the soft yellow glow of the sun still makes itself known through the plastic wrap covering it. There’s still some furniture left behind, an old red chaise sofa pushed to the wall, a fallen tree lying in front of it. Quite the house. But, it’s clear it was beautiful once, and in some odd way, perhaps it still is. “Looks like old man Murdock was a bit of a tagger here in his time,” Dean whistles.

“And after his time too. That reverse cross had been used by Satanists for centuries but this sigil of silver didn’t show up in San Francisco until the ‘60s,” Sam informs, pointing at a painted cross with a circle around it.

“That is exactly why you never get laid,” Dean comments, staring at his brother.

“That is a very weird thing to say,” I reply as Sam takes a photo of the sigil, “And that was a very fun fact.”

Dean shrugs, moving to another wall, “Than—“ Sam tries to say as his brother cuts him off, “Hey, what about this one, you seen this one before?” He gestures to a symbol of a cross with a dot in the middle, the bottom stroke looking like an upside-down question mark. “No,” he says simply.

“Me neither,” I shake my head.

“I have,” Dean informs, “Somewhere.” Sam reaches out to the symbol, rubbing it, he pulls his hand away and looks at his now fingers, “It’s paint. Seems pretty fresh too.”

“I don’t know. You know I hate to agree with authority figures of any kind, but….the cops may be right about this one,” Dean says. And while Dean was quite the skeptic when it came to whether cases would actually be our sort of cases, for him to say that, to even possibly agree with the authority was big. “Yeah, maybe,” Sam mumbles.

Then, suddenly there’s a rustling or shuffling noise from the next room over. Immediately we move into action. Dean grabs a hold of my wrist and pushes me beside him as he takes position near the door, Sam taking the other side of the door. Our backs flat against the wall, Dean nods his head at his brother before they burst through the door. Immediately, they stumble back, shielding their eyes from bright lights and the shouts of…two guys. I move in after them, moving around Dean to be involved in the seemingly unthreatening situation.

Two short guys decked out in all sorts of gear stand before us. “Oh, cut. It’s just a coupla humans,” the one with black hair scuffs, wearing huge goggles on his head—maybe night vision, and a studio light in hand . The other guy holding a camera switches it off. “What are you guys doing here?” night vision questions, eyeing us. “What the hell are you doing here?” Dean shoots right back.

Night vision laughs, “We belong here, we’re professionals?” he answers as if it should’ve been obvious. However, the only obvious thing here was how stupid they looked. “Professional what?” I ask, somewhat confused. Night Vision smirks, reaching into one of the many pockets on his beige vest before pulling out a white card, “Paranormal Investigators,” he identifies, handing me his little card. I take it from him, looking at him skeptically, “There you go, take a look at that, beautiful,” his eyes sweep over my frame slowly, stopping too long at one too many areas. “Oh, you gotta be kidding me,” Dean grumbles, rolling his eyes.

“Wow,” I say plainly, “Ed Zeddmore,” the night vision guy nods his head in confirmation “and Harry Spengler, so professional they have their own business cards for their website,” I throw a look at Sam and Dean, “HellhoundsLair.”

“You guys run that website?” Sam asks in disbelief.

“Yeah,” Ed smiles confidently, practically beaming in his boast.

“Oh yeah, yeah, we’re huge fans,” Dean says sarcastically, a stupid grin on his lips.

“And ah, we know who you guys are too,” Ed claims, all high and mighty. Once more I’m confused by this dude. “Oh yeah?” Sam challenges, looking at him sharply.

“Amateurs,” Ed explains and immediately Dean walks away in lost interest, rummaging through cabinets instead of really listening. “Looking for ghosts and cheap thrills,” he continues. I cross my arms across my chest, “Right…” I drawl sarcastically, “‘Cause I just love a cheap thrill.”

“I can give you an…ex-expensive thrill,” Ed winks smoothly despite the words coming out awkward and choppy. His eyes drop to my breasts that peek out from my top, staring at them like they’re the only things in the room. I grimace, cringing as I unfold my arms in hopes it will help…it doesn’t, “Oh…that’s not, um…no…”

“Well, if you guys don’t mind, we’re trying to conduct a serious scientific investigation here,” Harry speaks up.

“Yeah, what have you got so far?” Dean asks, sauntering back over.

“Harry, why doncha tell ‘em about EMF?” Ed suggests proudly, chin raised.

“Well…” Harry says before Sam cuts him off, “EMF?” He tries to keep a smile off his face as he clearly tries to play dumb. These poor guys.

“Electromagnetic field?” Harry responds like we’re idiots, “Spectral entities can cause energy fluctuations that can be read with an EMF detector,” he turns around to rummage through his backpack before producing the gadget, “Like this bad boy right here.” He turns the box on, adjusting the antenna. A knowing smirk crawls on Dean’s face, we obviously know they won’t see anything, at least not anything accurate. “Woa. Whoa. It’s 2.8mg,” Harry announces, eyebrows shot up.

“2.8,” Ed exclaims, “It’s hot in here.”

I have to bite my lip to keep my laughter back. Dean whistles in admiration, Sam remarking a “Wow,” with a hint of irony.

“Huh. So you guys ever really seen a ghost before, or…” Dean asks.

“Once,” Ed declares, “We were, uh…we were investigating this old house and we saw a vase fall right off the table…”

“By itself,” Harry finishes, emphasizing it with a firm head movement. “Well, we, we, we, we didn’t actually see it, we heard it,” Ed backtracks, stumbling on his words, “And something like that..it uh…it changes you.”

“Mm, I’m sure it does,” I play. They were total idiots, they’d be lucky if they don’t get themselves killed. Dean nods, his voice bored and unamused, “Yeah. I think I get the picture. We should go, let them get back to work”

“Yeah, you should,” Ed replies, crossing his arms clumsily across his chest. With his back turned towards the naïve boys, Dean widens his eyes at us, nodding his head towards the door in front of him. “Oh but, um,” Ed stammers, looking at me, “If you wanna stay we can show you the real deal.”

Sam and Dean seem to pause in the doorway. I try to hide my shock and disinterest behind a tight-lipped smile, “Oh…no thanks…” I spin around, more than ready to leave. But, just outside the doorway, I pause, spinning back around to end it with, “Seek happiness in tranquility, and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries.” I smile even as confusion falls upon their faces and when I turn back to my boys a similar expression graces theirs.

Yet, only as we descend the steps of the old house do they break. “Did you just quote Frankenstein to them?” Sam asks, his brows twisted with confusion as a boyish smile pulls at his lips. I skip down the last step, “Maybe…”

I catch Dean's eyes rolling, he mumbles something beneath his breath before mumbling just a little louder, “This is why I’m the only one who gets laid.”

Sam and I move as one, walking down the stairs of the library. Dean approaches us, his eyes flicking over us. “Hey,” Sam nods to him. “Hey. What you got?” Dean asks as we hit the last step.

“Well we couldn’t find a Morechai but we did find a Martin Murdock who lived in the house in the ‘30s,” Sam explains, summarizing our findings.

“And, he did have kids but only two of them, both boys, and there’s nothing on him killing anyone,” I add. Our findings only supported the theory that this was nothing more than a story, maybe it wasn’t our kind of job.

“Huh,” Dean hums, most likely thinking the same thing.

“What about you?” Sam asks as we approach the Impala. Dean rounds the car, speaking over the top of it, “Well those kids didn’t really give us a clear description of that dead girl but I did hit up the police station. No matching missing persons. It’s like she never existed. Dude, come on, we did our digging, this one’s a bust alright. For all we know those HellHound boys made up the whole thing.”

“I really hate to agree and blame this on faulty witnesses and a scary story, but…we really do got nothing,” I nod. I don’t know what those kids saw, maybe it was some sort of prank or being scared and seeing something that wasn't there, either way the story was likely made up.

“Yeah, alright,” Sam surprisingly agrees. He’s usually the one to be stubborn on this and see it out, or just have a feeling that we should see it out. So, for him to agree was more than confirmation. “I say we find ourselves a bar and some beers and leave the legend to the locals,” Dean suggests, a smile on his lips. He gets into the car, and before I can round the car Sam grabs my forearm mouthing a ‘just wait.’ I give him a confused look, brows furrowing, but he leans down to peer into the car through the window and instantly I know this is a prank.

I roll my eyes but I too peer through the window, might as well see the outcome. He turns the key in the ignition, and immediately Latina pop music blasts from the car, loud enough to hear clearly from the safety of outside the car. He jumps, his fingers fumbling for the key in the ignition but instead, the windshield wipers turn on. He shouts something but all we can see is the moving of his lips, the music too loud. He quickly reaches for the volume dial, hitting it the music ceases, his shoulders drop a bit as he hits off the windshield wipers too.

Finally, I round the car as Sam bursts out in laughter. I get in and a moment later Sam’s opening his door and sitting. He licks his finger and draws an imaginary ‘1’ in the air, then points to himself. Fire might as well have ignited in Dean's green eyes as he gives his brother the dirtiest look, “That’s all you got? Weak. That is bush league,” he challenges.

The early morning sun breaks the horizon, painting the sky a soft orange. The lights of emergency vehicles spin in colors of red and blue, police officers move around, a filled body bag being rolled away on a stretcher. We missed something.

“What happened?” Dean questions another bystander, there’s a small group of people that watch the scene from behind the yellow caution tape. “A coupla cops say a girl hung herself in the house,” the man answers.

“Suicide?” Sam asks.

“Yeah. She was a straight-A student, with a full ride to UT too. It just don’t make sense,” he explains and he’s right it doesn’t make any sense. Of course, you don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors, but to come to this specific run-down house with haunting rumors to kill yourself is odd. For whatever reason the man walks away, maybe leaving the scene after realizing there was no point in being here anymore. “Whaddaya think?” Sam asks, shoving his hands in his sweatshirt pockets.

“I think we’re wrong about this not being our kind of job,” I answer, we must have missed something.

******

Darkness cloaks us as well as the thick bushes we crouch behind. We wouldn't be hiding if it wasn’t for the cop car parked outside the old house and the two cops standing around. “I guess the cops don’t want anyone else screwing around there,” Sam comments. It makes sense for them not to want stupid teenagers coming around or another teen to kill themselves here, as horrible as it sounds.

“Yeah but we still gotta get in there,” Dean responds. It’s why we were here, after all, try to figure out what we missed. The cops had been around the place all day, nighttime was supposed to be a clearing. A cool breeze rustles the leaves softly and chills my body, a contrast to the heat earlier in the day, I pull my sweatshirt closer in an attempt to fight off the coolness.

“I don’t believe it,” Dean grumbles randomly. I turn my head to follow his line of sight, and just a couple of feet away are the two idiots from before. They approach, decked out in all sorts of gadgets, more than before which I hadn’t thought possible. They whisper to themselves and shush each other, I wouldn’t be surprised if they started laughing in the way you do when you're trying to be quiet, and yet everything is suddenly funny. “You gotta be kidding,” I mumble.

“I got an idea,” Dean says. He rises slightly, turning towards the cops. He cups his hands around his mouth, “Who ya gonna call!” he shouts. Ed and Harry look around frantically, muttering to themselves, eyes wide like a deer in headlights. “Hey! you!” one of the cops shouts, eyes locked on the two boys before him and his partner heading straight for them. “Freeze!” the cop warns. But one of the nerds yelps a “run!” and they turn around quickly before hauling it. “Get back here. Hey,” the cops shout before following them. Our laughs blend together despite trying to hold them back. But we use this opportunity to make a break for the house, our shoes hitting the ground hard.

Quickly we get inside and immediately Sam is taking the duffle bag off his back, jumping straight into action. Dean and I take out our flashlights that were hidden in the waistband of our pants and concealed by our jackets. The lights of our flashlights go on, illuminating the dark home just enough.

Sam breaks out the rifles, handing one to each of us. The rock salt is already locked and loaded. “Where have I seen that symbol before? It’s killing me!” Dean exclaims, his flashlight hovering over the symbol of the cross with a dot in the middle, the bottom stroke looking like an upside-down question mark. “Come on, we don’t have much time,” Sam urges. There’s no saying when the cops would stop their chase and if they’d come to check inside.

We move through the house quickly until we find the basement, moving down the stairs just as fast. Racks of shelves practically take up the whole basement, rows of them. Each one dusty and cornered with cobwebs, all kinds of glass jars filled with questionable liquids. “Hey, Sam. I dare you to take a swig of this,” Dean says, holding up a particular jar filled with a pale red liquid of some sort. There was no way of knowing what that liquid or any of them are without a lab and some testing, which naturally we don’t have. “What the hell would I do that for?” Sam shoots back.

“…I double dare you,” he grins. Sam just shakes his head, going back to looking around. A rustling noise draws our attention towards a cabinet but before we can investigate it a rat pokes its head out, squeaking before running away. “I hate rats,” Dean grumbles, lifting his feet up as the rat scurries away.

“You’d rather it was a ghost?” Sam questions, one eyebrow quirked.

“Yes,” Dean deadpans. I roll my eyes moving forward, “Do you think these jars are old pickled stuff or, like, bodily fluid stuff?” I ask, casting a glance over my shoulder at Dean. But before I can take another step, I’m yanked back suddenly, my breath catching as the belt loop of my shorts is sharply tugged. In an instant, my back slams against Dean's chest just as the shelves in front of me crash down with a deafening shatter. An axe buries itself in the spot where I had just been standing.

The sound of gunfire explodes in the room as Sam fires off two shots at the spirit of the old farmer, but it does nothing to stop him. Heart pounding, I whip my gun up, the weight familiar in my hand. Without hesitation, I pull the trigger, aiming at the spirit now dangerously close. Mordechai goes up in a mist, disappearing, “What the hell kind of spirit is immune to rock salt?” Sam exclaims.

“This one apparently!” I shout, moving from Dean's hold as he urges us towards the stairs. But Mordechai appears again, he smashes his axe down, catching the shelves and bringing the jars crashing down on Dean, glass shattering all around him as he goes down with it. My heart pounds in my ears, adrenaline rushing through my veins. I raise my gun, steadying my hands before taking my shot, rock salt explodes from the gun, hitting its mark but still doing nothing to the spirit. The spirit instead turns and charges at Sam. Shot after shot reverberates through the room emanating from Sam’s gun, “Go! Get outta here!!” Sam yells.

I rush towards Dean, shotgun hanging at my side. The glass crunches beneath my shoes as I pull Dean up, dragging him by his forearms. He grunts as he gets to his feet and if we weren’t being chased by a farmer ghost right now I’d take the time to dust the glass from his jacket. Instead, I grab hold of his hand and drag him behind me as I bolt for the stairs.

The axe seems to come down somewhere else in the room, electrical whizzing noises following it, but I ignore it as we shuffle up the stairs and be-line to the front door. We bolt out the door, caution tape breaking as Dean breaks through it, nearly stumbling down the steps.

A camera is immediately pushed into our faces, the nerds of course behind it, “Get that damn thing outta my face,” Dean commands, an arm raised to block its view.

I lay on my stomach on Sam’s bed which I’m temporarily stealing to research. An arm beneath my chin props my head up, my legs kicking slowly in the air back and forth, as I try to find any info on my laptop sitting in front of me. Dean sits on his bed, sketching something on a little notebook as his brother sits at the table with his laptop researching too.

“What the hell is this symbol? It’s buggin’ the hell outta me,” Dean grumbled, hitting the book down to his leg, “This whole damn job’s buggin’ me. I thought the legend said Mordechai only goes after chicks.”

“It does,” Sam confirms.

“All right. Well, I mean, that explains why it went after you guys, but why me?” Dean questions. I roll my eyes at his sneakily placed joke, if the legend was right then it should’ve only gone after me, jokes aside. “Hilarious,” Sam responds, “The legend also says he hung himself but did you see those slit wrists?”

“Yeah,” Dean says but I certainly missed it, though I was busy trying not to get chopped by an axe. “What’s up with that? And the axe too,” Sam points out, “I mean, ghosts are usually pretty strict, right? Following the same patterns over and over?”

“But this mook keeps changing,” Dean adds. Sam types away on his laptop, the keys satisfyingly clicking, “Exactly.”

“Maybe we got a different breed of ghost here,” I suggest, throwing the idea out there even though it’s unlikely. Sam shakes his head, “I’m telling ya, the way the story goes—“ I peer at him over my laptop at his sudden stopping, his face scrunched, “Wait a minute,” he says.

“What?” I ask.

“Someone added a new post to the Hell Hound site,” he informs, “Listen to this. ‘They say Mordechai Murdock was really a Satanist who chopped up his victims with an axe before slitting his own wrists. Now he’s imprisoned in the house for eternity.”

“A story changing over time makes sense, like a game of telephone. But a spirit that changes with it?… Can they do that?” I ask.

Dean suddenly sits straight up, eyes locked on his drawing of the symbol we saw. “I don’t know,” Sam answers, then huffs as he leans back in his seat with his arms crossed against his chest, “Where the hell is this going?”

“I don’t know but I think I might have just figured out where it all started,” Dean announces

******

The bell above the door dings as we enter the empty record store, the only person there being a bored Craig. Good thing he’s working today. “Hey, Craig? Remember us?” Dean begins an unamused smile on his face.

“Guys, look I’m really not in the mood to answer any of your questions okay?” he responds looking deflated.

“Oh don’t worry. We’re just here to buy an album, that’s all,” Dean reassures. He saunters over to the ‘rock’ section of records, flicking through them until he finds what he wants. He lifts it out and up. “You know, I couldn’t figure out what that symbol was and then I realized that it doesn’t mean anything,” Dean explains, directing his words to Sam and I as we approach the counter, “It’s the logo for the Blue Oyster Cult.” He turns his attention to Craig, pressing the album record of Club Ninja onto the counter, “Tell me Craig, you, uh, you into BOC? Or just scaring the hell outta people?” The boy in question's face drops, his eyes dropping to the album before landing on Dean again. “Now why ‘n’t you tell us about that house…without lying through your ass this time,” Dean orders.

Craig sighs, “Alright, um. My cousin Dana was on break from TCU. Ah, I guess we were just bored, looking for something to do. So I showed her this abandoned dump I found. We thought it would be funny if we made it look like it was haunted,” he explains, “So we painted symbols on the walls, some from some albums, some from some of Dana’s theology textbooks. Then we found out this guy Murdock used to live there so we…we made up some story to go along with it. So they told people, who told other people. And then these two guys put it on their stupid website. Everything just took on a life of its own. I mean I, I thought it was funny at first but…now that girl’s dead! It was just a joke, you know. I mean, none of it was real, we made the whole thing up. I swear!”

“Alright right,” Sam says softly, ending the conversation. We have our information now, or at least a direction. None of it’s real and yet, somehow, it’s very real.

******

“There you go,” the nice barista smiles, handing over our drinks. Dean takes two of the coffees while I take my latte, “Thank you so much,” I beam, placing a nice tip in the little plastic jar.

We make our way to an empty table. Sam immediately pulls out his laptop, wiggling around in his seat and fixing his jeans with a grimace on his face. “Dude, what’s your problem?” Dean asks, calling him out.

“Nothing, I’m fine,” he denies in the least convincing way ever.

“Are you sure?” I ask, eyes sweeping over him, “You look really uncomfortable.” But he just nods his head even as he adjusts himself one more time, “Yeah, yeah, I’m good.”

“So, ahh, alright keep going,” Dean moves on, “What about these Tulpas?”

“Okay, so there was this incident in Tibet in 1915. group of monks visualized a golem in their head. They meditated on it so hard they brought the thing to life. Outta thin air,” Sam explains.

“What? So, they manifested it?” I ask. I know manifestation and intention are powerful things but for a whole being to come from it sounds bizarre. “Wait, I guess that makes sense considering that just the belief and fear people have and or give off in reaction to a spirit gives it more power,” I think out loud, answering my question.

“So?” Dean counters.

“That was 20 monks. Imagine what 10,000 web surfers could do. I mean Craig starts the story about Mordechai, then it spreads, goes online. Now there are countless people all believing in the bastard,” Sam elaborates.

“Does the HellHound site actually have that many people looking at it?” I question, I mean people believe whatever they see. And it’s not like these things don’t exist, it’s just that Ed and Harry certainly weren’t finding it. “Unfortunately,” Sam quips. That many people would be impressive if not for the idiots that are behind it all. “Are you trying to tell me that just because people believe in Mordechai, he’s real?” Dean speculates.

“I dunno, maybe” his brother answers, shifting in his seat like he or it’s uncomfortable.

“People believe in Santa Claus, how come I’m not getting hooked up every Christmas?” Dean points out.

“Cuz you’re a bad person,” Sam deadpans, replying a little too fast, “And because of this,” he turns his laptop around to show us a photo of a complex symbol, “That’s a Tibetan spirit sigil. On the wall of the house. Craig said they were painting symbols from a theology textbook. I bet they painted this, not even knowing what it was.”

“Man, what are the chances of that?” I mumble.

“Now that sigil has been used for centuries, concentrating meditative thoughts like a magnifying glass,” Sam continues, ignoring my comment, “So people are on the HellHounds website, staring at the symbol, thinking about Mordechai…I mean, I don’t know, but it might be enough to bring a Tulpa to life.”

“It would explain why he keeps changing,” Dean replies. Sam grimaces, adjusting himself again, one too many times for it not to be concerning, “Right, as the legend changes, people think different things, so Mordechai himself changes. Like Y/N said before, it's like a game of telephone. That would also explain why the rock salt didn’t work.”

“So what does work?” I ask, “If that’s even a thing here.”

“Why don’t we just, uh, get this spirit sigil thingie off the wall and off the website?” Dean suggests.

“Well, it’s not that simple. You see, once Tulpas are created they take on a life of their own,” Sam explains. In conclusion, stupid teenagers draw random symbols on a wall to scare others, somehow choose one that uses belief, it becomes a big legend, scary fake farmer kills people, and it’s our problem now. The chances of all that genuinely have to be so low. “Great,” Dean remarks, “How the hell are we supposed to kill an idea?”

Sam itches around his hips and shuffles in his seat again, “Well it’s not gonna be easy with these guys helping us. Check out their homepage.” He clicks on a couple of things before a video of last night plays, “Since they’ve posted the video their number of hits have quadrupled in the last day alone.” God, I wish we could just hit them in the face so hard.

“Hmm,” Dean hums, “I got an idea. Come on.”

“You do?” I ask though that little glint in his eye is enough proof. “Where we going?” Sam adds.

“We gotta find a copy store,” he answers. We rise to go, grabbing our to-go cups of drinks and Sam grabs his laptop before itching and wiggling, “Man, I think I’m allergic to our soap or something,” he complains. A stupid grin stretches on Dean's face, laughing as he walks away. “You did this?” Sam says through clenched teeth. And if Dean's confusion to laughter isn't an answer then I don’t know what is. “You’re a fucking jerk!”

“That is some evil shit,” I comment. I don’t even know when he had time to pull his prank but it definitely beat the car thing Sam had pulled. “Oh yeah,” Dean smiles, satisfied.

******

“I think Y/N should be the one to bait them,” Sam reasons as we walk towards the trailer. Dean has his whole plan which requires fake papers, a copy machine, and some lying. What more could you want? “Do I have to?” I ask, “They’re, like, all weird.” But really I mean creepy or gross.

“Yeah, I can do it,” Dean defends.

“That’s the point though, they’ll listen to her ‘cause she’s a girl and those two look like they haven’t interacted with one before two days ago,” Sam explains. I laugh shortly, “Ha, they definitely didn’t, at least not a real-life one,” I then exhale, “Alright fine I’ll do it.” It’s not even a big deal to begin with to be fair.

We approach their trailer, a little garden flamingo standing tilted in the grass and a couple of foldable lounge chairs sitting about. Dean pounds on the door, fist-hitting it repeatedly. A squeal comes from inside before someone calls out, “Who is it?”

“Come on out here guys, we hear you in there,” Dean responds.

“It’s them,” one of them whisper-shouts, too bad we can hear them. But there’s a click and the door opens up a crack, both their heads squeezing to stick out the door. “Ah, would you look at that! Action figures in their original packaging,” Dean remarks, looking right over their head to peer into their trailer, “What a shock.”

“Guys, we need to talk,” Sam starts.

“Yeah, um, sorry guys. We’re ahh, a little busy right now,” Ed responds, adjusting his glasses.

“Okay, well, we’ll make it quick. We need you to shut down your website,” Dean says bluntly.

Ed laughs, almost like a bark, “Man, you know, these guys got us busted last night, spent the night in a holding cell—“

“I had to pee in that cell urinal. In front of people. And I get stage fright,” Harry adds in, eyes jumping around like he’s paranoid or anxious.

“Uh..thanks for sharing that with us…?” I respond, smiling awkwardly.

“Well, why should we trust you guys?” Ed asks, crossing his arms.

“Look, guys. We all know what we saw last night, what’s in the house. But now thanks to your website there are thousands of people hearing about Mordechai,” Sam explains.

Dean adding, “That’s right. Which means people are gonna keep showing up at the Hell House, running into him in person, somebody could get hurt.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Ed nods slowly, rubbing his chin. “Ed maybe he’s got a point, maybe…” Harry adds softly.

“Nope…” Ed decides and Harry’s demeanor does a full 180 as he says “No,” too.

“Right, so you have no morals,” I conclude, “If—no, not even if, when someone gets hurt their blood’s on your hands.”

“We have an obligation to our fans, to the truth,” Ed defends.

“Well, I have an obligation to kick both of your little asses right now–” Dean threatens through clenched teeth.

“Dean,” I cut him off, holding him back with a hand on his shoulder, “It’s not worth it, god knows you can give ‘em one hit and they’d be crying back to their mommies. Hell, I could tell them that thing about Mordechai and it wouldn’t matter, they just don't care.”

“We should just leave,” Sam adds.

“Whoa…whoa…” the idiots say, interest peaked.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Dean gives in. With that, we turn back around and begin to walk away, purposely moving slowly. “What you say about…?” Ed asks, trailing after us. “Wait…Wait.” We turn back to them, an unamused look on my face. “What thing about Mordechai you guys?” Harry asks, trying to be nonchalant.

“Don’t tell ‘em,” Dean warns me.

“Not even if they agree to shut down the website?” I ask.

“They’re not going to do it, you said so yourself,” Dean reasons. I sigh, shaking my head, “You’re right.”

“No wait!” Ed rushes out, “Wait. Don’t listen to him, okay? We’ll do it. We’ll do it.” Like fishes on a hook getting reeled in.

“It’s a secret, Y/N,” Sam reminds, his voice as serious as can be. I look up at the two nerds, their eyes sparkling with intrigue, if they were dogs I'm sure their tails would be flicking behind them, “It’s a pretty big deal, you know. It wasn’t easy to find, so we really have to have your word. You have to promise you’ll shut it all down.”

“Totally,” Ed says. I pause a moment, eyeing them as if I’m really considering it before nodding at Dean. He pulls out some folded papers from the inside of his leather jacket, handing it over to them. “That’s a death certificate from the ‘30s,” I explain, “We found it at the library and according to the coroner the actual cause of death was a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

“That’s right, he didn’t hang or cut himself,” Dean confirms, emphasizing our “find.”

“He shot himself?��� Ed asks, a little skeptical as he looks up from the paper. “Yup, it’s all right there,” I answer, “With a .45 pistol. To this day they say he’s terrified of them.”

“Matter of fact they say if you shoot him with a .45, loaded with these special wrought-iron rounds, it’ll kill the sonuvabitch,” Dean adds. They snicker like school girls, the apples of their cheeks brightening with their smiles. Harry spins and bolts it to their trailer, Ed moves more slowly as he follows behind as if he’s trying to play it cool. “Harry,” he mumbles through his teeth, “Slow your roll buddy. They’re gonna know we’re excited.”

“Dude!” I exclaim, laughing a bit as Dean pops a stolen fry into his mouth, “You just finished your food, leave my fries alone.” But he shrugs with that charming smile on his lips, his arm resting on the booth's top, practically stretching out. The golden crisp of oil goodness is hardly missed with a sight like this. He turns his attention to the woodwork of an old goofy fisherman holding a big fish, a string dangling from it. He reaches up and pulls the cord, the fisherman’s mouth moving up and down as it laughs this obnoxious laugh. I myself try not to laugh as I sip on my soda.

Sam reaches up and pulls the cord again, the laughing stopping immediately, “If you pull that string one more time I’m gonna kill you,” he threatens, looking up from his laptop. In all fairness Dean had pulled the cord at least twice already since we’ve sat down, and yet, to me, it was funny every single time. The kind of stupid humor or even stupidly contagious laugh that made you want to snicker. The threatened man across us deadpans, staring at his brother as he slowly reaches up and pulls the cord again. The fisherman barely has time to laugh himself before Sam is pulling it to stop, glaring at Dean. It's like a standoff. Dean snickers, “Come on man, you need more laughter in your life. You know you’re way too tense,” he reasons.

Not having it, Sam gives him a dirty look. Clearly not amused nor having any desire to be amused. Dean sighs, seemingly giving up on his conquest, “They post it yet?”

Sam turns his screen towards me, an easier thing to do then all away around, as he angrily stabs at what’s left of his salad. My eyes scan the screen, immediately landing on the new post, “‘We’ve learned from reputable sources that Mordechai Murdock had a fatal fear of firearms’” I read and I have to admit their choice of words is awfully intelligent sounding, “Hey, look at us, we’re reputable sources,” I point out.

“Reputable copying machine,” Dean corrects a shit-eating grin on his lips. They had fallen into his exact plan, of course they wouldn’t shut down the website regardless of what they promised (good thing it wasn’t a pinkie promise), and of course they would take any information like starving dogs and post it as soon as possible. ‘Obligation to their fans, the truth’ as he had said. “Alright. How long do we wait?” Dean asks.

“Long enough for the new story to spread, and the legend to change,” Sam answers, “I figure by nightfall iron rounds will work on the sucker.” He picks up his beer bottle and holds it up to us, taking the small victory we gently clink our drinks together in a silent ‘cheers.’ “Sweet,” Dean grins, the light reflecting off of the glass beer bottle, gleaming at its base as it’s tilted up to his lips. I’ve never really understood why one would drink before a hunt, not that one bottle would do anything to him of all people, yet, when his lips are on the rim that sort of thing doesn’t seem to matter. Another interesting thing, drinking has never looked so attractive as it does on him. But perhaps that’s the bias you have when you like someone, somehow everything becomes attractive.

The bottle finally clanks to the table, his hand still wrapped around it. But when he lets the bottle go his palm sticks to it, fingers stretched out he shakes his hand around like the bottle will fall off. It doesn’t. Sam loses it, cracking up even more as Dean says, “You didn’t.”

A little tube of super glue is raised up, “Oh, I did!” he laughs, pulling the cord this time, the fisherman laughs again.

“All I’m saying is as stupid as they are, I do feel bad for them, one of these days they’re gonna wind up dead,” I reason, walking with Sam the short distance back to his motel room.

“Yeah…” he shrugs, “But it’d be on them, I mean they haven’t ran off yet, not even after seeing Mordechai.”

I hum, absorbing his words, “That’s true.” The door is open just a little, like it didn’t close fully behind him when he had left to come get me from my room down the hall. I push open the door, “Do yo—“ my words die in my throat replaced with a gasp as cold water dumps on me. A bucket thumps to the floor, just barely missing my head. My hair and clothes drip as I ball my fists at my side, shock from the sudden cold still rattling in my bones as I shake slightly. “Dean?!” I scold.

“That was not meant for you,” he replies, eyes wide as he sits up in his bed.

I got caught in a prank meant for Sam. But didn’t he know Sam was getting me and that there was a chance that I would walk in first instead of him, which is exactly what had happened???!! I exhale, trying to rid myself of any frustration or annoyance. “I’m so sorry Y/N,” he adds.

I laugh, moving a wet piece of hair behind my ear, “You are so getting it.” My shirt clings to my skin, shoulders bunched up from the feeling. Sam chuckles behind me, I turn slowly towards him and immediately he tries to cover it with a hand over his mouth, “Oh you too Sam, you’re not safe. His hand and face drops, “Why me? I didn’t do it?!”

“No, you're right,” I nod, “But you’re part of the reason it happened, your little prank war.” I look between both boys, “You’re both gonna get it, you Winchesters better watch out,” I threaten. I huff moving past Sam, “Now if you’ll excuse me I’m gonna go change before I start stripping in front of you two.”

“I mean—“ Dean calls out and I can hear the grin on his face before I yell back, “Don’t even think about it!” I shuffle off down the hallway, and only back in the safety of my motel room do I fix my situation. I snap my fingers and instantly it’s like nothing ever happened. There’s no need to change when I can do something like that, but what I can do in the privacy of my own room is think of how to get them back and execute it.

******

Early night cloaks the sky, the sun just barley below the horizon as we head to the Impala. A comfortable silence envelopes us. I stop before opening the back door of the Impala, crouching down to re-tie my shoe as they get into their respective sides of the car. The doors seem to shut in sync.

One, two, three, four, five. The doors are being shoved open and they tumble from the car coughing and covering their noses. I stand with a smirk as the smell of rotten eggs escapes the car. “What the hell?!” Dean yells. Sam reaches back into the car, pushing the seat forward to find the source. He fishes out a puffed up square, he holds it by the corner, “Really?”

“Oh, wow, how’d those get there?” I ask, folding my hands in front of me. He gives me a dirty look before throwing the fart bomb to the side. “Real childish,” Dean remarks, holding up his own puffed up fart bomb. “Which part?” I ask, “The pranks or putting fart bombs beneath each of your seats?”

“The bombs, dumbass,” he replies, throwing the little puffed square at me. I laugh, as it hits me in the chest, kicking it away when it hits the floor, “Childish and yet still funny.”

“Yeah if you think gas chambers are funny,” he mumbles.

Our guns are drawn, eyes sharp, brain and body on high alert now that we’re back in the house. The cops had been outside like the night before, but instead of using the idiot ghost hunters as bait Dean had used the stolen fisherman from the diner that he somehow stole. Its current home is now somewhere deep in the woods, a mechanism set up so that it consistently laughs. They were drawn into the forest like pirates drawn to sirens, except what they’ll find is not an attractive mermaid but an obnoxious fisherman.

“I barely have any skin left on my palm,” Dean comments.

“I’m not touching that line with a ten foot pole,” Sam mumbles.

“What are you talking about?” I ask, usually people say that about something. Like ‘I wouldn’t touch that with a ten foot pole’ but there was nothing brought up regarding touching something. “He’s tryna lead us into an inappropriate joke.” Sam explains. The gears slowly turn in my head, cogs rotating trying to figure out what joke, “Oh! You mean masterbation!”

“Yeah,” Sam sighs, and if he hadn’t had both hands trained on his gun I'm sure he’d be pinching the bridge of his nose like a disappointed father.

“So you think old Mordechai’s home?” Dean asks as he move into another room, switching topics.

“I don’t know.”

“Me either,” a voice suddenly says from behind. I spin swiftly around, gun trained.

“WOAH! WOAH!” Ed yells, him and his buddy shuffling back with their hands raised. I scuff, lowering my gun. And of course they’re decked out in their goofy gear. “What did I tell you?!” I exclaim, looking at Sam.

“What are you trying to do, get yourself killed?” he asks the doofuses.

“We’re just trying to get a book and movie deal, okay?” Ed answers.

“Look, the only time you’ll ever be written about is when your obituaries are in the local newspapers,” I spit, not caring how harsh my words are. But Ed doesn’t look defeated or deflated, instead his eyes seem to sparkle, “You are so hot,” he says softly. I drag a hand down my face, sighing, “What part about any of this are you not getting?”

“Why I don’t have your number yet,” he answers. I shake my head, walking away. This is just ridiculous now. “Alright, that’s enough there buddy,” Dean says, placing a firm hand on the guy's shoulder.

Then, the sharp noise of metal on metal comes from behind a door but inches from us. The door to the basement. As if in sync, thinking the same thing, our guns are immediately raised, body and mind back on high alert. “Oh crap,” Ed mumbles and with some shuffling and shoving each other they wind up crowding behind us. Or cowering, if you will. “Uh guys, you wanna…you wanna open that door for us?” Ed asks.

“Why don’t you?” Dean remarks unamused.

Suddenly, the door bursts, wooden shards exploding everywhere as Mordechai bursts through the door holding his axe. Screams and gunshots clash together, the dissonance cracking the atmosphere. I pull the trigger over and over, working at the mechanics of the gun until the cartridge is empty, until there’s nothing left to give. It’s no surprise when the old farmer wavers and disappears into mist with the amount of bullets shot between the three of us, but the real question is did it work?

Once more, we seem to share the same mind as we reload our guns quickly, shoving bullets into the chamber before splitting up. It’s all wordless, movements and thoughts that have been implanted into our mind long before there was even a comprehension of the fact. Every part of my being is on high alert, eyes scanning the room for the spirit. I clear the dusty shell of a room I walk into when I hear a squeal.

Immediately I spin right back around, rushing into the room I stood in only moments ago. I nearly bump into Sam as we meet back in the room only to find Harry on the floor with a shattered camera in front of him. “Hey!” Dean shouts as he enters the room from the opposite side of us, “Didn’t you guys post that B.S. story we gave you?”

“Of course we did,” Ed defends, helping his friend off the floor.

“You know, that didn’t sound all that convincing,” I quip, looking at the destroyed camera. There was no saving that thing and I don’t think any amount of insurance would help it. “But then our server crashed,” Harry corrects.

“So it didn’t take? Dean asks, eyes a little frantic.

“Ummm,” they hum in unison, the noise high pitched as their eyes jump around the room to look anywhere but the gruff man across from them. “So these, these guns don’t work?” Dean laughs darkly, running a hand down his mouth.

“Yeah,” Ed breathes.

“Great,” he murmurs, “Sam, any ideas?”

“We are getting outta here,” Harry declares, no longer concerned with documenting the truth—not that they could. “Yeah. Come on,” Ed agrees. Harry grabs hold of Ed before they run past Dean into the next room. And not even a moment later does girlish screams come from that room.

Yet despite how annoying they are, and all the trouble they’ve caused, Sam and I follow after them. Mordechai corners them against the front door, the boys cower against the door screaming “The power of Christ compels you,” over and over, louder and louder. “HEY! Come and get it you ugly son of a bitch,” Sam taunts. And for whatever reason Mordechai turns and goes after him instead. Sam leads the spirit away from the boys giving me the time to move to the idiots at the door.

I motion for them to move and quickly they shuffle away. I grip the door handle and give it a hard pull, maybe using just a little power to give me more help. The cool breeze blows in as I hold it open for them, the shuffles and grunts of fighting close by, “Go!” I command, pointing out the door. They shove each other as they stumble onto the small porch, Ed turns back before they reach the first step, “So, is your number still on—“

“NO!” I shout, slamming the door in his face. I spin around only to find Sam pressed against the wall with the axe against his throat, pushed higher and higher off the ground until his feet dangle. Immediately I lift my gun and shoot one, two, three, four, five times, glad that the angle I occupy is viewing them at their side. Mordechai disappears in a mist once more, Sam falls to the ground holding his neck as he coughs, but this time I know the spirit isn’t gone for good.

Unfortunately I don’t leave room to ask if he’s okay as I swing around the nearest walkway, “Dean?!” I call, I don’t know where he went off to and I don’t want Mordechai to take advantage of him being alone. “Right here, sweetheart,” he answers, appearing from the next room over. He holds a little metal can of something and when he splashes it around the room as he approaches me I know it must be some flammable liquid.

He nudges me forward, forcing me around before leading me with a hand on my lower back. I move away from his touch to help Sam up from the ground. “Mordechai can’t leave the house, we can’t kill him—we improvise,” Dean explains, shaking what’s left of the can of kerosene.

“Arson…yay,” I answer, watching as he dumps the rest of the liquid. Just then Mordechai appears at the far end of the room, axe raised, he charges at us, “Go, go, go!” Dean directs. I follow after Sam, running to the front door. I hear the flick of the lighter, the clinking of it falling, and the swoosh of flames going up.

We make it outside and down the short steps just as the building quickly ignites in flames. It spreads quickly in the old house, orange and yellow brightening the darkness as the flames lick at the rotting wood. “That’s your solution? Burn the whole damn place to the ground?” Sam exclaims, rubbing at his neck.

“Well nobody will go in anymore,” Dean reasons, “I mean look, Mordechai can’t haunt a house if there’s no house to haunt. It's fast and dirty but it works.”

“Well what if the legend changes again and Mordechai is allowed to leave the house?” Sam counters.

“Well—well then we’ll just have to come back,” Dean stammers, clearly not having thought of that.

The flames consume the entirety of the house, at least it seems that way. It won’t be long till it’s nothing but ashes. The only thing that’ll be remembered is the legends of a man who did not exist, that is if people care to remember at all. And all the while the real story of Martin Murdock and his boys will continue to be forgotten by this town and history. “Kinda makes you wonder. Of all the things we hunted, how many existed just cuz’ people believed in them,” Sam ponders, the words swirling in the air and lingering like the smoke filling the sky.

“I’d rather not think of that one,” I mumble. Our ‘job’ was complicated enough, it didn’t need another layer. We didn’t need another thing to keep us up at night.

The boys had decided to make a stop to see Ed and Harry before leaving town. I’m not really sure why, I certainly would’ve gone on just fine without saying a farewell. But, atlast we sit at a picnic table in the trailer park, the boys in question walking over with very full grocery bags. “Man, I got the munchies right now,” Ed comments, talking to his friend. Then, his attention turns to us as they stop at the table, “Gentlemen. Gentlelady,” he nods, and I have the suspicion that if he were wearing a hat he would’ve tipped it at us.

“Hey guys,” Sam greets with a simple smile.

“Should we tell ‘em?” Harry asks Ed, stupid smiles on their faces.

“Hey, might as well, you know, they’re going to read about it in the trades,” Ed points out, chin raised.

“Yeah? What’s that?” I ask, looking up at them. I can’t imagine what they’re gonna say. “So, this morning we got a phone call from a very important Hollywood producer,” Harry tells us, pride dripping in his voice.

“Oh yeah, wrong number?” Dean remarks, ripping a laugh from my lips before I can stop it.

“No, smart-ass. He read all about the Hell House on our website and wants to option the morton picture rights. Maybe even have us write it,” Ed boasts, shoving the stuffed grocery bags into their stuffed car, their trailer hitched to the back. “And create the RPG,” Harry adds.

“The what?” Dean asks.

“Role playing game,” I answer. Dean's eyes turn to me, confusion written in his irises, “What?” I defend, “Can’t a girl know things?”

“You know the lingo,” Ed admires, hearts practically shining in his eyes, “Anyhoo, ahhh, excuse us, we’re off to la-la land.”

“Well, congratulations guys. That sounds really great,” Sam says.

“Yeah. That’s awesome, best of luck to you,” Dean adds. And it’s that that makes me suspicious. It didn’t seem like he had said it sarcastically and from how irritated they had made him I doubt he would mean such a thing sincerely. It’s fishy. “Oh yeah, luck. That has nothing to do with it. It’s about talent. Sheer unabashed talent,” Ed corrects, chest puffed out. I decide to keep my comments to myself, let them have their delusions.

They hop into the overfilled car and start pulling off, “See ya ‘round,” Ed says from out the window, “Call me!” he adds, finger gunning at me. I cringe but ultimately ignore it, I will not be calling him or thinking of them in any degree. “Wow,” Dean exhales, standing up.

“I have a confession to make,” Sam declares, standing up too, hands shoved in his pockets.

“What’d you do?” I ask, laughing.

“I, uh…I was the one that called them and told them I was a producer,” he confesses, a smile trying to pull on the corner of his lips. I can’t help but laugh. It’s certainly a cruel prank and yet so deserved. Dean laughs too, “Yeah, well I’m the one who put the dead fish in their back seat.” Sam joins in on the laughing too, it’s kind of hard not to with the ridiculousness of it all. “My god, you guys are evil,” I smile.

When the laughing dies down Sam says, “Truce?”

“Yeah truce,” Dean agrees, “At least for the next 100 miles.”

[munson-blurbs]

@corrodedcoffinfest Day 19: In the Garage

Word Count: 732/Rating: G/Pairing: None/CW: Principal Higgins is an ass, anxiety about being accepted, divergent from FoI/Tags: Eddie Munson, Gareth, Jeff, Grant, Principal Higgins, Corroded Coffin

Divider credit to @silkholland

November 1984

“On my count.” Eddie slings his guitar over his shoulder and adjusts the strap. He turns to his other bandmates, all of whom nod in acknowledgment. “Two, three—”

“Mr. Munson!”

Eddie looks at the band room door when he hears Principal Higgins bellow out his name. A smirk slowly stretches across his face. “We were actually looking for four.”

Higgins sighs, trying his best to ignore the snarky remark. “Mr. Munson,” he repeats, “I’m going to have to ask you and your buddies to leave.”

“Ooh, no can do, Higgsy-Poo. We’ve got a big gig this weekend,” Eddie says, not making eye contact as he strums a few random chords. “Gotta practice, y’know?”

“That was an order, Mr. Munson; not a suggestion.” Principal Higgins points his forefinger at Eddie. “You have two minutes to pack up your stuff, or you’ve earned yourself another suspension.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes but concedes, flipping off his principal once the older man has his back turned. “Fuckin’ asshole,” he mutters, hoisting the guitar up and over his head and placing it back in its case.

“Now what?” Grant asks.

And isn’t that the million-dollar question.

Eddie’s place is obviously out; the trailer barely holds him and Wayne, let alone three other men and a drum set. Same goes for the tiny apartment Grant shares with his mom. Jeff’s grandma is still convinced that heavy metal is used to summon Satan. Which leaves…

“We can use the garage at my house.” Gareth speaks up from behind his drums. The freshman is the newest member of the band, and also the quietest. “I don’t think my parents will mind.”

Jeff raises his eyebrows. “Y’sure about that, freshie? Doesn’t your mom keep a rosary in her car?”

Gareth shakes his head, curls bouncing. “Nah, that was my grandma’s car. She was just borrowing it while hers was in the shop.”

“I dunno, man.” Grant gnaws on his lower lip. “Your parents look like Ward and June.”

Jeff snorts. “Does that make him Wally? Or the Beav?”

“Shut up!” Eddie launches his guitar pick at Jeff’s head. Grant was right–Gareth’s folks seemed a bit too straightlaced to tolerate Corroded Coffin’s music. But with Higgins now barring them from using the school’s practice room, they’re out of options.

“All right,” he says finally, rubbing his nose with his palm. “We’ll give it a shot. But if your parents call the cops, I’m lighting your hair on fire.”

Gareth nods. “Noted.”

The freshman’s words are insufficient for calming Eddie’s nerves. All he could picture as he drives up to the Emerson house is Gareth’s parents taking one look at his torn jeans and wild hair and dismissing him. Chastising him for being a “bad influence” on their son. Which, chances are, he is. But that’s besides the point. 

The garage door is open; Jeff and Grant are already inside warming up. Gareth waves at Eddie, and the man and woman next to him smile. 

“You must be Eddie,” the man says, sticking out a hand for him to shake. “Mark Emerson. Gareth’s dad. And this is my wife, Christine.”

“Nice to meet you both,” Eddie says warily. “You’re, uh, really okay with us playing here?”

Mark laughs. “You kidding? This is the first time I haven’t had to yell at Gare to clean out the garage.”

“Dad.” Gareth mumbles through gritted teeth, clearly embarrassed. 

“We like all kinds of music,” Christine Emerson says simply. “Metal, rock, country, jazz…” She trails off, cocking her head. “Your last name is ‘Munson,’ right?”

Here we go. A pit forms in Eddie’s stomach. The Munson name has bitten him in the ass once again. What’ll it be this time—his dad’s reputation, or his own?

“Y-Yeah.”

Gareth’s mom grins and turns towards her husband. “He must be Wayne’s nephew! The guy who helped me when I had a flat tire.” 

Relief floods Eddie’s chest. “Sounds like my uncle.”

“Seems like a good guy. Always looking out for people.” Mark smiles. “Gareth told us how you asked him to sit with you at lunch. Looks like the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.”

“Dad!”

With a chuckle, Eddie takes his guitar out of its case. “Let’s see if you still like me after the neighbors complain about the noise.” He adjusts the microphone to his mouth. “All right, guys. On my count—two, three, four!”

[dnalt-d2]

(TW for racism/xenophobia, as well as what's going on with Cellbit right now. For anyone who wants to know about that, I put the documents he put out in the replies for the post, as well as TWs for what it contains)

You know, I gotta say I'm really glad I'm hardly on twitter and BARELY know how to navigate it. Because I never actually SEE any of the drama going on over there, I just hear it from tumblr people coming here from over there, and that's definitely the case here as well as well

And I know I haven't really talked much about QSMP Drama before, but what's going on right now is hitting me a little harder than I would've thought, so I do wanna give my two cents on it

For starters, I read through the entire document that Cellbit put out and I feel absolutely horrible for what he's going through right now, and for what he went through in the past. Especially since I've been through something similar to one of the things he mentioned. Not to mention the fact that I'm also most likely asexual as well. (This is kinda why I wanted to talk about it at all, if I'm being honest) I really hope things get better for him, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart

And as for the apparently rampant xenophobia that's been targeted towards the Brazilian community, I honestly feel absolutely terrible that this has been happening. And I really hope that people can come here and find a better part of the community to interact with, if they choose to stay at all. Which I can certainly understand anyone choosing to leave, however unfortunate that is. Either way, I'm really sorry this has been happening to you guys, and it never should have happened in the first place (And anyone else who's experienced this, you have my sympathy as well, even if I know it isn't really gonna help much)

For anyone that stays, I'm really sorry things have been so shitty. Obviously there's not gonna be any place that's completely safe and tolerant, but I certainly hope things over here are better than on twitter

QSMP has been an amazing experience for me, and the fact that I've learned so much about so many different cultures has been absolutely incredible. I'm not the kind of person who can just learn this kind of stuff by reading up on it, so this has really been a great way to learn about things that I either never thought to look into, or just wasn't able to understand for whatever reason

Anyone that sees this sort of project, which has been connecting so many different communities and cultures, and decides to still be so intolerant and hateful, are just a special kind of awful. And frankly, they're the ones losing out on something incredible

(Btw I'm not sure what all to tag this as, since again, I don't really talk about drama stuff all that often, so if anyone wants me to tag a specific trigger or anything else, please let me know)

[brisquad-unit-4402]

Congratulations on the 100 followers, unit 4402! You've been working so hard. i'm proud of you and your writings are always beautiful!

As for the event, can i ask for pining prompt with the lovely sorcerer, shu yamino? Thank you so much!

-🍰

ah hello again 🍰! and thank you so much for the kind words, it really means a lot. i'm extremely proud of how much of myself i've been able to put into this blog and it only makes it all the sweeter when others think the same way of it

eeeek shu works so well with pining, it's kind of unreal. please enjoy

tags: pre-relationship, gender neutral reader, vtuber!reader, light angst, pining

cameos: ike eveland, luca kaneshiro, mysta rias, vox akuma

⚠ drinking

#100 followers for 4402 - 7. pining

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

Shu wonders if he's too obvious. He probably is.

Your name appears often on his schedule. First it was a group collab with you and a few other newer Vtubers in your unit, then a duo collab two weeks later for a long game that needs at least two more streams to complete.

He enters VC daily, and when you join in after your work for the day, your voice colors his world brighter. No wonder you got hired; you sound just as pretty as you look. Hearing you laugh out loud is straight sugar, and your words relax him until you go on a passionate rant. He swears it's like sending his heart on a roller coaster.

Shu realizes that whenever you're on the line, he always hesitates to disconnect before leaving, just in case you say... something. He doesn't know what he wants. Anything. Just another word would be fine.

Three drinks in at a boys' night out with Luxiem, Vox bonks his head before ruffling his hair. "You've got it bad."

"I know," Shu says. He slumps over the table, phone in his hands and your last DM under his fingers. He's drunk on two things, and it shows through half-lidded amethyst in his eyes and rose quartz on his cheeks.

Ike watches on as Vox pats his back. "Have you ever thought about telling them?"

"Nooo..." Shu buries himself further into his own arms. "It's not a big deal."

"I'd argue otherwise."

"And I'm scared to ruin stuff," he continues. "Just talking to them is enough. I like them so much."

Luca laughs out loud. "You really have it bad. Want me to text them for you?"

Shu snatches his phone and holds it close to his chest. "No! It'll be fine, thank you!"

Mysta leans back in his chair, cocktail in hand and silly straw along his lips. "You're seriously hopeless, you know that, right? You gotta tell them at some point before it eats you alive. Or before they're unavailable."

Shu's eyes gloss over the table before he averts them. He should do something about it. The thought really does terrify him, though. Falling for a coworker is risky enough, but even if somehow you feel the same, he has no idea how open you would be to long distance.

Maybe it's the drinks hitting him, or how sleepy of a drunk he is, but the last time you met up he couldn't get the scent of your shampoo out of his mind. The memory is saccharine, and cuts through the boozy air. All this sweat in the bar. His folded arms become a pillow, yet he longs to wake up just about anywhere else as long as your shampoo lingers while you sleep next to him.

Under his arms, Shu pouts. The boys have a point. He really does have it bad.

Then he immediately denies that thought. It's just the drinks, that's all. Alcohol always makes emotions run wild. He'll pass today off as just that, alcohol and emotions, and when he recounts how yesterday he wanted to see your smile, and how he listened to you passionately talk the day before—that's the alcohol, too. Memories also feel more intense when he's drunk, and he'll go along with it even though he'll still think about you in the morning when he's nursing his hangover.

"I'll be fine," he lies. "I'm ordering more."

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

✧. ┊ event post ✧. ┊ masterpost ✧. ┊ kofi

[gachawolfiebloom]

Your Pursuit of Perfection

Story and Artwork By: @GachaWolfieBloom

Chapter 4: A New Challenger

Summary: A few months after the events of WOTFI 2023, SMG4 starts having really bad dreams about the "Its gotta be perfect" incident. One night however, his fear allows the nightmares to break through and he gets taken to a horrific dimension. He finally meets the tv adware, who manipulates him into returning to his insane ways, intent on claiming much more than the perfect video. Now it's up to his friends to stop this madness and save SMG4. Can they do it in time or will they lose SMG4 forever? (In case you are unaware this is a sequel to the its gotta be perfect movie)

Tags: angst, its gotta be perfect, love confession, luigi, mario, meggy, melony, nightmares, scary, smg3, smg4, smg34, smg3 x smg4, tari, tv adware

They all went back to the castle to think of a new plan. Meggy was pacing back and forth while everyone else was worried. Mario was the most freaked out as he kept running around screaming "SMG4 IS GONE!!! MARIO'S NEVER GOING TO SEE HIM AGAIN!!! DO SOMETHING SMG3!!!" Tari tried to calm him down. "It's okay Mario! We'll find a way to save him!"

"Who was that and where did he come from?" Meggy pondered. "Whoever the hell that was, he's so dead when I find him." Three said with a serious tone. After what he had witnessed back in March, he was not taking any chances this time. If anyone hurt or killed Four, consider it their funeral. Boopkins asked "That icky stuff looked kind of familiar..."

Meggy had a realization just then. "You're right Boopkins! That's the same substance that we saw engulf Four with the its gotta be perfect incident!"

"The what?" Melony asked. Right. She wasn't there when they faced the insane man. "Oh sorry Melony. We faced some kind of weird goop and Smg4 got possessed from his obsession of making things perfect." Melony felt distraught when she heard that. "That's horrible! I hope that Smg4 is okay. Maybe we should have paid more attention to him." Three's face changed into a guilty expression when he heard Melony say that. "Three? Are you okay?" Meggy asked.

"Yeah sure..." Mario suddenly got an idea and ran up to Three. "SMG3! YOUR MEME POWERS! USE THEM TO BRING SMG4 BACK PLEASE!!!" Before he could say a word, a voice behind them spoke "I'm afraid that won't work."

They all turned to see Smg1 and Smg2 standing behind them. "Your meme energy won't connect with each other when you are in different realms." They all looked in confusion at the meme guardians. "What do you mean different realms?" Tari asked. The two shared a glance with each other and sighed. "We know who has been targeting Smg4 and where they took him."

"WHO!?" It was finally time for them to know about the mysterious figure who was watching from the shadows all these months. "His name is the TV Adware. He has taken Smg4 to his world, The Realm of Torment or as you call it, The Nightmare Realm."

"Well then what are we waiting for! Let's go over there and kick his butt already!" Three said, about to make a mad dash for the door. "Wait!" called Smg2. "We don't know what he's planning."

Smg1 lowered his voice. "You deserve an explanation. This is something that we had hoped would never come to pass."

"The TV Adware is a being that likes to corrupt others by using their disabilities against them. Back when you faced Smg4, he apparently knew exactly what to say to convince him to his side. He used his fear and hatred to give him the powers that you all encountered. After you defeated him, we hoped that his forces of darkness would back off...but we were wrong. He has watched you all these months and has now gained enough strength to claim what he wanted all those months ago."

Meggy pipes up with curiosity "What would that be?" Smg1 did not hold back when delivering this announcement. "TO CLAIM ENOUGH POWER TO BREAK THROUGH AND TURN OUR WORLD INTO HIS OWN DARK KINGDOM!!!" They all gasped and a few even looked scared. Luigi and Tari clung onto each other, shaking. Smg1 calmed down and apologized. "Sorry. We realize this is a lot."

"You're telling me! It's not like we just learned that our friend is kidnapped by some evil tv guy and is going to be used to let all hell loose!" Smg2 decided to help out. "We should have told you sooner, but there's no time for that. We must travel to his dimension and save Smg4 before the TV Adware can take control of him again."

"H-h-how are w-we g-g-going to stop h-h-him..." Luigi said nervously. "If we can all join our powers to Smg4, we might have a chance to save him." Smg1 said. "But what about our home?" Meggy asked. "Leave that to us!" Another pair of characters came up behind them. Swag put his sunglasses on while standing in a cool pose and Chris just rolled his eyes. Chris explained "The US military can hold them off while you guys go stop this guy."

"But how are we going to get there?" Tari asked. Smg2 pointed out "We know of a place where we can open to his world." Meggy rose up "Let's all be strong for Smg4! Who's with me!" She put her hand in the middle as Melony followed. "I might not know about your first encounter, but I'll help in any way I can!" Tari put her mechanical hand on top and says "It sounds scary, but I'll do it for Four!" Boopkins had some trouble, but put his hand in the middle as well. "Count me in!" Bob followed "FINE. I'LL BE NICE THIS ONE TIME." Luigi shakily puts his hand in as well. "I-i-i'll try..." Mario excitedly slaps his hand in the middle as well. "YIPPEE! MARIO WANTS TO RESCUE SMG4 AS WELL!" Saiko put her hand in and says something in anime.

Only one person left. "Well Three..." He thought for a few seconds and said "As much as I hate to admit it, I really don't want to lose that idiot." He put his hand his in as well and they all lifted them up. "We're coming Smg4!"

Smg1 said "We must hurry... we don't know how long Smg4's bravery will protect him..."

Your friends won't save you this time...

Chapter 5: The Return of I̵̤̫͘ǹ̷͇̇s̸͈̦͗̆ȁ̵̟̉ñ̷͔̰ḯ̶̲͇̅ṫ̵̝͗y̴̺̠͆̀

[hood-simz]

Directory📝

→PSA/Intro! (read b4 u have a bitchfit)←

The name is Piqt and this blog is 18+. My playstyle features the lifestyles that stray away from the typical "happy-nucleur-family-in-windenberg" type stuff and instead sheds light onto the other side of the pond. I'm on Windows, play with almost every pack due to a beautiful thing called ✨piracy✨, been in the game since the month it released (in case you need to reach out to someone seasoned for troubleshooting), and am currently using 5+ GB of cc/scripts.

WCIF friendly and I hope I can actually help you in that regard through my shitmix of a folder!

Going forward, since you will encounter content in this pinned post that some in the community have had literal tantrums about, I would like to state ✨EA is a leech, delivers broken content again and again for a loaded price and doesn't deserve your morality✨ and I, as someone who has been pirating since 2005, will keep pirating it's content and advocating for others to do so. In the terms of me sharing my own + others mod folders, I also give 0 fucks about someone losing .3 cents of ad revenue as I believe internet ads are literal acidic dogshit and shouldn't exist.

→Tags for this blog←

#thebuildtag [my own builds]

#thescenerytag [scenery edits]

#thelifetag [portrait/life shots]

#thememetag [meme/shitposts/glitches]

#favbuilds [builds i love by others]

#favcontenttag [content i love by others]

The Masterposts!

◤Anadius's Twitter (site in bio)

→Kinda speaks for itself. Kudus to this guy for his work & time in creating such programs for our community!

◤Blogger who compiles DLC content made BGC by various creators

→An absolute godsend before I got the courage to tell EA to go fuck itself and just rip their entire game + all their packs. These creators are absolutely amazing for doing this♡

◤Sims 4 Mod Manager

→Vital in any scenario when sorting mods/cc due to it's access of all the thumbnails, but you just gotta have this if you're gonna download someone's 50+ GB mod folders like I tend to do. Kudos to this guy as well for an amazing, user friendly program!

◤Sims 4 Price Call Out

→A while back I made a post calling out the insane price EA makes for content that lacks its worth + is almost always broken upon release, leaving us to fix it. This post is updated every few months and is there to show you just how much your paying for assets that lack functionality + are bare minimum in terms of design.

◤Paysitesmustbedestroyed + TS4Rebels

→Both sites hold cc content that is blocked behind paywalls.

◤My personal Mod Folder + recommended/best scripts↓

→*take note as its been a few patches since I made this list and folder, both could be out of date though as of today (04/04/24) it works- check with creator pages/popular conflict detectors if worried*

Mod Folder (5+ GB)

Script List w/ links

•♡•♡•♡•♡•♡•♡•♡•♡•♡•♡

Though this blog is mainly a simblr-story type blog, it will also feature CC I find appealing + reblogs of other simmer's gameplay. If you find yourself ever with a broken game, need to find CC, or just need basic troubleshooting help, shoot me an ask/PM and I'll try my best to help!! Also, though it's pretty abandoned, my older storylines are over on insta @ hoodsimz if you want to check it out

[lizardtheartist]

SO I THOUGHT OF A GHOST MAX CONCEPT AND I GOTTA TALK ABT IT!! (305 spoilers)

Just some silly little concept of Max but he turns into a ghost after TDP

So after 305, y’know how Max dies in monster form right? He like teleports himself to space and he explodes in space and dies n stuff?

What if after that all happened, there’s a ghost Max all the way in space, in his normal form, just a little ghost bunny. He realizes he’s dead and he immediately wants to go find Sam, so he goes back down to earth to do so but when he does, he sees that a Max from a different timeline showed up. While that ending scene with Sam and other timeline Max is happening, there’s a ghost Max watching over them. Ghost Max kind of feels jealous or betrayed but he knows that this other timeline Max will take good care of his Sam.

So Ghost Max just hangs around, he sometimes tags along on the Freelance Police Adventures, but most of the time he just stays at the apartment. He likes to think of himself as a guard ghost, he protects the apartment in case of any burglars and such. He also just likes to haunt the neighbors or freak out the nearby civilians outside.

Sam and Max always feel watched in a way when they’re at home, Max even jokes that there’s a ghost in the apartment haunting them.

Ghost Max can easily pass through walls and go through objects and such, but he does have the ability to lift things and pick stuff up. He uses these powers to his advantage and scares people, including Sam and Max. Rarely though, he’ll take the time to clean the apartment, even if it’s something he hates doing the most, he has nothing else to really do. He’s very very bored all the time, not being able to communicate to the residents of the apartment or to anyone at all. The most he can do is write things but as we all know, Max isn’t very bright and his writing skills are..minimal at best.

Sam and Max eventually start thanking Ghost Max for all the work he does around the home, they think of him as some sort of ghost helper, they don’t even know that it’s Max in the ectoplasmic form at all.

Most of the time, Ghost Max just floats around, wishing he had the ability to hug Sam again.

Imma just call this the ghost max au

[ilguna]

hii! idk if you do this stuff but do you have tips on how to start build an acc? like mutuals followers just general stuff. i'm kinda stuck lmao.

ahhh this one is a hard one to do. if im being honest, i’ve had this account for a while, at least since 2017 😬 buutttt i took a look at your account, im liking the vibes.

when it comes to fanfiction and building an account, usually you have to start writing and posting. i would suggest looking at some of your favorite writers, especially on tumblr if it’s gonna be your main domain and see how they layout their post and try to do something similar.

i’m going to use my acc as an example but there’s many other ways you can go about this.

when i’m looking for fanfiction, i like to see the title of the fic and the person that im looking for specifically. i do it as the title of the fic, some people have it in the body of the text posts.

next i try to summarize it to let people know what it’s going to be about. when i look for fanfic, i have something in mind that i want. i always put warnings because it’s the easiest thing to do/keep track of. sometimes fics can get heavy.

i put a word count in case someone doesn’t want to get caught up in a long fic and they’re just looking for something short and sweet.

and notes is where i put anything important. for that fic, it was the fact that it was based on the taylor swift song. if you’re ever writing based off a certain episode of a show, i would put: spoiler: season x, episode x. or s2ep3. something in that general format.

next comes your fanfiction. people will either love it or hate it. and that’s totally fine. you can put your heart and soul into something and they don’t have to like it. you’re just putting your works out on the market, if they wanna read they will!! if they wanna come back, they’ll follow!!

and tagging is probably the most important way to get traction, in my opinion. i have curated this tagging system over a couple years. it seems to work pretty well. the only rule that i NEVER break is that i DO NOT tag fandoms or characters that are not the main interest of the fic 🙅‍♀️

for example, if the fanfic is about finnick, there is no way that i’m tagging a side character like katniss just for existing inside of it. it clogs up the katniss tags.

anywayyy, that’s my unsolicited advice for writing in general. you just gotta write and post. people will find it in the tags. will you get a bunch of likes/reblogs overnight? not at first. but as long as your works are consistently good, people will follow and come back.

followers on tumblr are not a huge deal. most of the time, people are finding your fics through the search function. they’ll like and move on. if your writing sticks out, that’s when they search your account.

i do not base my entire account around followers either. people will follow and then won’t interact for a loooonggggg time. or ever again. there’s nothing you can really do about it. it’s nice to see a high number but it’s not the end of the world

AND when it comes to mutuals? i don’t really have a lot of advice. i got a lot of my mutuals from the colby brock fandom (shout out to them) back when it was like 15 of us and we were running the whole fanfiction game lol. we still follow each other, but hardly interact.

and it’s kinda the same for some of my other mutuals 🤷‍♀️ i love them all. i think about them sometimes. if we talk to each other, that’s great. if not, i’m not gonna get all uptight about it. life gets in the way and we lose interest in shit.

mutuals are nice if you’re boosting each other’s fics. or to talk to about the latest news with the fandom. yknow. they’re just an internet friend.

i hope this helps? this is just the basic stuff too. when it comes to layout and colors and making your profile look all aesthetic-y, you figure it out over time. i’ll be here if you have any questions 😊

—

edit: also, make sure you turn on anonymous questions!! people usually like to request fics on anon!!

[chirpsythismorning]

I dont even think the tag is dead at all tbh. We were really spoiled last summer with 2k post per day, and something crazy happening everyday like Mikhailgate, scriptgate, sock anon or people impersonating Ross duffer, but if you check most tags on this app, that's rarely the case. The thing is, it's been a year since season 4 came out and we're still getting around 300 posts per day and I need people to realise how crazy that is. Before season 4 the tag had like 5 k followers and there could be days without a single post. The fact that it's been a year and we still surpass 200 posts, AND we've already made it through the most content drought phase of the hiatus (since filming is about to begin and we'll increase the daily posts again) is crazy. This tag is still very much active, even for a show that hasn't released any new content for a year. And also AO3 is still active. The fact that for a whole year, there's been writers who still update fics or create new ones everyday is something I'm not used to coming from other smaller fandoms.

I get it's a bit more boring right now and we are looking back to the may-august craze, but we've already made it through the worst and we only need to hold on for one more month

This is definitely the best way to look at it!

I think I’m also maybe sad bc a lot of familiar faces aren’t as active, like some folks I remember seeing daily are gone. Which is fine!

And even despite that you’ll see posts in the tag get like hundreds of likes, so there are definitely a lot of people still lurking just not posting. Which is also fine!

It’s so true though that we are a lot more active than we realize.

Tumblr in general I used to think of as like a no man’s land pre-s4 bc it tends to really only be active in specific fandoms where like the unity is on point bc the content is just rolling in.

So many fandoms reside here at a point, but dwindle over time, and I feel like we are very fortunate to have made a big space here bc it is a cool platform when you have a lot of people that like a certain thing and want to talk about it.

And we’re fortunate enough to be so massive and not only that but this is sort of just the beginning. Imagine how many followers we’ll gain leading up to s5, during and after…? Or the aftermath of people coming here to look at theories and be like YOU GUYS WERE RIGHT! All the queer fans who kind of talked down on us (understandably) for potentially falling for queerbait, joining in and being like wow this is surreal, it finally happened. It’s going to be magical.

For now I guess it just makes me wonder if I should take a break too?? Like seeing yourself over and over in the tag is almost a wake up call that I should step back like everyone else is for the time being? Bc like idk if it’s maybe annoying to see the same person over and over? Or if it’s just the reminder of how inactive things are and that’s what makes people step back too?

Not even a bad thing necessarily like you said, bc this is still an unprecedented case of a fandom being quite active despite the circumstances.

Honestly though, even if there isn’t much news going into May and in the couple months after it, beyond like the bare minimum of what we’re expecting, I’ll try to embrace it and maybe step back or even focus on more detailed posts instead of the day to day fodder.

I also hate myself for this, but I rarely go in the top posts tag??? I’m always like living in the recent posts part of it and that’s probably also the problem 😭

So reminder to anyone that’s like me who does the same, we gotta support more of us that have top posts too bc I will literally remember the top posts exists, go there, find absolute gems (obviously it’s top posts???) and then be like why the fuck don’t I come here more often??? That’s another way I could probably curb my disappointment about us not being as active as I’m used to. And it’s super simple.

There’s a lot of stuff like that I could do better at to contribute to the solution of this being a better experience for myself and other still active on here!

Thanks for the pep talk anón 😇🙏

[transannabeth]

hii, i did start the second game! i did the first case and i really liked it, i'm curious to see if weirdly spelled maddie shows up again. i also played maybe an hour or two of the second case and i'm loving the change of scenery and the new game mechanic with the locks. ALTHOUGH it makes it a bit more complicated than before because sometimes you have a lock that you don't have the evidence for but you don't really know you don't have it and that's unfortunate. but still fun! i also find it a bit funny that maya is once again a murder suspect jfjdjd. and pearl. she has my heart i'm sure she's amazing

also oh my god i'm incredibly honoured to have my own tag!! i will definitely keep updating you as i go :)

i forgot to answer this!!! i am not on desktop tumblr nearly enough i am so sorry

i'm glad you've been liking it! i personally enjoy the magatama mechanics but i'm also like. terrible at them. because i have a bad memory and if i stop mid investigation... it's all over i have no idea what i'm doing anymore rip!! i do wish that the port allowed you to skip text (a la other visual novels where you can skip to new text) since you just gotta sit there and rapid click through stuff you've already read

there is one thing about maya fey and it is that she will be in situations. never doubt her ability to be in situations!! and pearl :] i love her so much. she is so tiny and has such big feelings and i get it

[nokingsonlyfooles]

A Good Rule of Thumb: Too Clever is Dumb

Sooo, I am going through the site, post by post, to make sure everything is legible. Got about 100 left to go. But, here's the deal, my custom reusable blocks, which WordPress is so proud to offer... Aren't.

It's the updates. It's a year's worth of updates since I designed most of them, to WP and to the third party blocks that hafta keep up with it. Milo's cards don't really work anymore, nor do my existing accordions - although the the template still works on the latter if I stamp out a whole new block, the accordions weren't as complicated.

There wouldn't be as much of a problem if I could make a post and never, ever open it in the editor again, ha-ha, but that's not how I roll. So, while I am fixing colours and minor formatting errors, I am experiencing an occasional crashed block. I haven't killed any of Milo's cards yet, but the template doesn't work to make new ones, so it's inevitable.

First, I am correcting for legibility. But, eventually, I will have to go back around and redo the cards, and probably the Liner Notes, and other random stuff. I'll have to pick a new card format before I post the next instalment, because there's a card in it. I might end up going way more simple with no font or graphics at all - I'm having trouble with the theme fonts overriding the card fonts. Or else I'll hafta go back to images, which is less accessible and won't work with the dark mode. I know probably nobody's willing to put up with my work via a screen reader, but I'm trying not to be an asshole, just in case, ya know?

Well, tl;dr, I believed WordPress about a thing and made more work for myself. If grouped in a complex structure, Gutenberg's reusable blocks aren't reusable. Depending on complexity, you got about a year, then you gotta remake them all over again.

Beyond that: Since Discuz started dropping updates of untested compatibility, the SPOILER tags don't work anymore! There are spoiler-heavy comments now. I might be able to fix it, but in the meantime, NEW READERS (if any) BEWARE THE COMMENTS.

[todayisafridaynight]

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TRUSTING ME BRO I COULD CRYYYYYYYYYYYYY 😭😭😭😭😭I hope it does not disappoint... REAL THOUGH about the drama you mentioned in your tags, that's exactly how I felt reading If My Wife Becomes An Elementary School Student's title, for example, but I'm told it's wholesome☠️☠️I would love to hear about the one you were thinking of though!

I WILL BEAR IT IN MIND TO PREPARE FOR ARACHTAGON WHENEVER THE TIME COMES... totally understandable to get frustrated with RNG on top of that, RPGs can be so evil 😭😭😭still, again, I'm glad you're back to it! Also totally understandable to want to play on the original consoles... NOTHING beats the experience... the availability of playthroughs nowadays is nice for sure to be able to experience the series without investing that much!

I would LOVE to see more Normal interactions between Ichiban and Jo for real😭they have so much potential for silly moments... ever-thankful for your content and I Can't Say Enough always looking forward to whatever you might have in store :] whether it's that or something else :]

I EXPECT YOU'RE DONE WITH EPISODE EIGHT NOW AT MINIMUM SO I WILL JUST SAY the Ohashi arc and Episode Ø [<- why the hell is ep eight called this] are peak to me I am soooo glad you enjoyed the arc... LOVE the OST too, Yugo Kanno is a legend. HOWEVER all the songs on it are titled words that start with S and P so you get titles like Scarlet Pussy 😭

OH BUT SPEAKING OF SP'S WACKASS STRUCTURE pleeeeeaaaase consider watching SP: The Motion Picture and SP: The Motion Picture: The Final Episode after you finish the show... there is A Cliffhanger and those are the true conclusions to the story... and SP Final In Specific is what blew my nuts clean off...

STOPPP NO THAT'S EXACTLY THE DRAMA I WAS TALKING ABOUT BUT I DIDNT WANNA SNITCH ON MYSELF 😭😭 it really is a cute show..... im ngl it has some of my fave tsutsumi scenes/performances like it TRULY blew my expectations out of the water. i just feel SOOO awkward about it cause.. with a title like That and a premise Like That i wouldnt blame a single person for giving me a weird ass look so i generally try not to talk about it ☠️ its my guilty treat so to speak and i cant even tell if im making it sound worse than it actually is (╯x╰ )

in any case... i finished Security Police SO !!! onto After The Rain for me when it comes to Media Thats Awkward To Talk About But Please Believe Me When I Say Its Not What You're Thinking :]

LMAO PLEASE like... so long as you have the right equipment you don't even really have to do much extra grinding by the time you get to him... it truly is just hoping RNG doesnt dick you over ☠️ i've been cruising through the game since tho ! i dont expect myself to get into anymore awkward blockades anytime soon and then i can finally say i finished this game (●ˇ∀ˇ●)

THANK YA THANK YA it aint much but its honest work..... i have been real dead this week tho and i always get scared if ill draw again durin periods like this- i HOPE to come up with something soon cause there really is an untapped well of Good Stuff to be explored :]]

THE SOUND DESIGN OF SP WAS REALLY GOOD IN GENERAL THOUGH LIKE not just music wise was it good but i really loved hos inoue's migraines gave me migraines... immersion... but also just knowing when to keep things dead silent (like finding nishijima's corpse) did SOOO well to put emphasis.. the weird as hell names are just bonus points by now like. Gotta Let Bro Have SOMETHING As A Thank You For The Sound Design (╯▽╰ ;;) OH BUT IM GLAD THERE'S MOVIE TIE-INS CAUSE THE LAST SCENE HAD ME CONCERNICUS LIKE 👁️👁️? i was only able to find the first 2010 movie on the site i usually go to but its somethin...

[aquadestinyswriting]

OK, so replying to these tags. Popping everything under a readmore because this is gonna get long.

#re that first one: that's fair :') titles are hard tbh and also lbr#looking forward to seeing what the AU is going to be titled! 8)

Thank you. Yeah titles are usually the hardest part about this writing thing for me. I think I'll likely have a working one by the time I get to around chapter 8 or 9 (which will totally end up as the actual title in the end because I'll get attached ^_^;).

#but also oooh so she's *not* a dwarf#ngl the beard is totally what made me wonder! but I'm fascinated by the fact that it's a genetic thing#I wonder if that means she counts as intersex which would be a cool thing to think about

I thought it might be and the intersex idea is a fascinating one, but I'll need to go do a lot more research into it to make sure that it's handled well. We covered the topic a little in my degree, but not in any great depth, it was more of a passing topic kind of related to something else we were learning.

#also tysm for the geographical context! I had a feeling it was someplace northward#but now I have something to look up specifically to get better mental images 8) 8) 8)

You're very welcome. The area around Fort William and Ben Nevis is gorgeous and I swear I saw a hill that looked like the perfect place for a dwarven hold on the way up there last year. I'll need to get my dad to stop so I can get a decent picture if we end up that way again this year. We zoomed past so fast I couldn't get my phone out in time. I swear, the highlands look like something right out of a fantasy novel.

#also I'll be real it sounds like you've managed to adapt a lot of the DnD politics to a 90s backdrop rather smoothly#(though I'll also be real in saying Toreguarde's partial destruction hits differently knowing what I know about UK politics in the 90s :')#but in any case I'm definitely looking forward to those plot things haha

Thank you very much. Having watched all of Due South by now and living in the UK has helped a lot. I obviously picked up a lot more about the political climate here in the late 80s through to mid 90s than I thought, but that's not too hard given the best satire shows we've ever made are from that time. Yes, Prime Minister is probably going to a major source of inspiration for some other background characters later on. Glad you're looking forward to the plot

#and also? I'm fascinated by the fact that so many of your characters wound up in politics or police or military#like I totally understand given the nature of what writing an AU of a political fantasy would need to entail#but still I gotta admit sniper was not a thing I was expecting haha#and totally okay to nothing set in stone—you are after all just getting started!

It is a bit weird, especially since the first campaign I took part in was your standard High Fantasy shenanigans. I think my husband just wanted to explore the fallout of some of the major catastrophic events that happened. To be honest, he was also on a major UK history documentary kick at the time, and he loves incorporating things from the media he's watching and reading into his plots. There were still plenty of high fantasy shenanigans in the Destiny's New Servants campaign, but there was also a lot of quite gritty, political shades of grey stuff thrown in.

As far as my characters getting into politics or the police/military, part of that is the political fantasy and transplanting that into a more realistic setting. It's also partly because this whole thing was inspired by that Due South marathon, and also partly by the fantasy that good cops will win and actual justice will prevail in the end. Also, Elowyn started out as a watchperson, so partially blame Dru as well, I guess :P.

This is a massive tangent, but I guess it helps that there's a class I took throughout secondary school called Modern Studies*. It's a class that goes over things like recent history (basically everything from the start of the Cold War onwards, because history ended when WWII did, duh! *insert eyerolling emoji here*), the political structure of various countries and world powers, starting with our own, and major current events and news**. It sparked a love of political intrigue and working out how different kinds of government, military and police forces would function in fictional societies.

*This was a mandatory class for the first two years, then was one of the social sciences choices for Standard Grade and onwards (the other two being history and geography). I took both the Standard Grade and Higher classes, so I took it from 1st year through to the end of 5th year.

**I was in 4th year in 2001-2002, so I was in the second year of my Standard Grade courses. Needless to say, we spent a good few weeks on a certain event that occurred a month after we started that academic year. And at least one class a week going over the major events that were going on afterwards at least once every few weeks for the rest of the academic year.

Ayyyy, Aqua! :D Happy STS! So I'm making my way through Titan Modern AU, and . . . actually, take two questions on it. 8)

I have legitimately looked everywhere, and I am severely curious. :') Have you thought of a title for this one, or is its title literally just Titan Modern AU?

More importantly, tho, how much did you have to change to make the world of Fangthane's Folly fit the modern day? (And what did you end up keeping? I notice there's magic and dwarves, but how different are these bits compared to their DnD roots?)

Hope this ask finds you well! :D o/

Hi Jax, this is technically a day late, but not really because time zones are a thing :P. I am very well, thank you. I am enjoying the fact that the words seem to be flowing quite easily for the time being and taking advantage of that to write a lot for all my ongoing series and creating new ones. Thanks very much for the questions, I have a lot to talk about with this AU :D. Answers are under a cut because the second one is going to get quite long.

Question 1

I don't currently have an actual title for this one yet. I have a tendency to title WIPs towards the end of writing them and this one is no exception. I have some vague ideas, but I'm not too concerned about it just yet. Especially since there's a high possibility that this one is going to throw some major curveballs my way once I get into the thick of the plot that might well change the kind of title I want to give it.

Question 2

Ah, the dwarves are technically not a thing for this one. Everyone is more or less human, unless it's directly stated otherwise. The reason Fangthanian women can have beards at all is down to a slight genetic quirk which means they are pre-disposed to much higher testosterone levels than average. The Throffite community, in particular, is very insular and tend to inter-marry within themselves due to a history of discrimination against them.

As to how I changed the setting to fit with the modern aesthetic:

I've modelled Fangthane city a little bit after towns like Fort William, since the location of Fangthane in Allansia has a relatively similar geography to that of the Scottish Highlands. So Fangthane city is no longer built into the mountain, but is a city that was built very close to the mountain (which is now called Ben Oir). Extrapolating from there, and taking into account the maps that exist of Allansia, it was a a matter of figuring out how and why there would be outposts for the kingdom that are so far away from the capital. In that case, an old empire made a lot of sense, and taking into account the relative time period this AU is set in (roughly the 90s to early 2000s), it also made sense that said empire had been disbanded, but that communities deriving from it still exist (hence why Stonebridge and Firetop are still mainly natively Fangthanian). So, yeah, culturally speaking Fangthane is basically the UK transplanted into Allansia at this point.

I wanted some of the history of Toreguarde to remain intact because there are plot things related to that that will pop up later in the story. The city was almost destroyed, officially, by what is considered to have been a terrorist organisation that was working on behalf of another state and/or one of the ruling council of Toreguarde of the time who went just teeny bit mad with power (Greydown was an absolute ass in canon, and is in this AU too).

As the setting, rather purposefully, appears to be lacking in magic, no mentions are made of demons, portals or the breaking of reality, even by those who were present at the time. The remaining Heroes still exist, but I'm working out what their exact roles in all that were. Egrim is still a priest, so that's him covered. Alexis, upon talking to Dru about it, was probably a sniper that was a part of the military forces of Toreguarde at the time, while Selene was probably some sort of science-y nerd person brought in to help explain some of the weirder stuff that went on that was kind of acknowledged and then later given plausible and sensible scientific explanations. She just happened to be somewhat decent at this diplomacy lark when communication with the reinforcements from Fangthane started going south, hence her current role in the story. She probably worked quite closely with Ivan, who I have yet to figure out the details of, with regards to that. I also need to figure out what Fai did and what happened to him...

I am doing a lot of this worldbuilding and adjusting Fantasy canon on the fly, to be quite honest, so not a lot of it is set in stone just yet. However, I have given some thought to the Throffite community both in Fangthane and in Toreguarde and some of their history and culture, drawing a lot on what I established about Throffism in the fantasy canon and doing some major research into the irl history of such things to make sure that anything I write about it is handled as sensitively as possible. I have also written copious notes on the hows and whys of the fractious relationship between Fangthane and Toreguarde that would fit in with more modern (Western, as that is what I'm familiar with) political norms.