#sprawled out like a chalk outline at a crime scene

[darlingdaisyfarm]

im so sorry, i don’t even know how to explain myself at this point, consider this my apology for all the filthy nonsense i post here

so, this is a lil bonus to this post

nsfw (not really, but mentions of sex)

Ford is dead. Not literally (you check his pulse just to be sure), but emotionally and physically, this man has perished. Such a beautiful ruined mess underneath you, he’s sprawled out like a crime scene chalk outline, drenched in sweat, staring blankly at the ceiling as if questioning all his life choices.

But you’re not doing much better. Your legs shaking so much you can barely sit up, whole body feels like jelly and your brain isn’t working either. Somehow, you manage to flop next to Ford, throwing a limp arm over his scarred chest.

“Bravo, folks!” Bill exclaims. “what a show! Truly the pinnacle of human endurance and stamina! Sixer, gotta say, i missed seeing you like this, ah, the good old days!”

Ford groans faintly. “I hate you. . .”

“You’re so mean,” you mutter at Bill, glaring up at him with half-lidded eyes. “why’d you even join in? That’s not what we agreed on.”

The moment these words leave your mouth, you know you’ve fucked up. Ford’s body stiffens under your arm as his exhausted brain cells rapidly recalculating everything.

“What— what did you just say?” although his voice is hoarse from all sounds he made earlier, you still catch a note of seriousness in it. His head turns toward you in slow motion, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “What do you mean. . . agreed on?”

You panic. “Wait, I mean, uh—”

“Oh, let me tell him!” Bill interrupts. “she’s talking about the little deal we made! you know, where I said, ‘hey, doll, wanna fuck your dusty old man to death?’ and she said, ‘of course, Bill, but no creepy tendrils, okay?’”

Ford looks like he’s been hit by a bus. “WHAT?”

You swear you feel yourself sweat from panic and embarrassment as you look at Bill in pure fear. “I thought you’d just watch! Not—”

Demon cuts you off with a laugh. “Oh, sure, you thought! And by the way, Sixer? these pathetic, desperate little whimpers, ugh, they’ll echo in my mind for eternity! I’ve waited so long to see you like that. A helpless, sloppy mess, both of you, my little huma—”

Ford's face flushes with either shame or anger, and you think he’s going to explode. But no. He pushes himself up, pushes himself up, the madman, and throws the sheet off in anger.

But Bill keeps. “I mean, you came so hard I’m surprised you didn’t pass out after the first round, old ma—”

Ford looks at that demonic creature. “That’s it. That’s it, Cipher, you’ve gone too far this time.”

You barely manage a “Ford, wait—” as he pulls on his boxers with surprising speed for a man who five seconds ago looked like he was on the brink of death.

“I’ll make you pay for this,” Ford declares dramatically. “Mark my words, Cipher, I’ll find a way to make you regret ever stepping into my house again.”

Both you and Bill fall silent, watching Ford’s boxers riding low on his hips as he marches out of the bedroom.

You watch your Ford walk away, eyes wide with panic, realising what just happened, but then your gaze goes lower. At that tattoo.

Flirty Gal.

Bill floats beside you, narrowing his single eye slyly. “I know what you’re looking at, doll.”

You glare at him, exhausted and annoyed. “I hate you.”

Cipher’s gaze flicks to the doorway Ford just walked through. “hate me all you want, but you've got good taste. Sixer's got a hell of an ass for an old man.”

“STOP TALKING.”

[localvoidcat]

my current main thought about tmc is that dave lee's corpse was in pretty much the exact same position as Mark's which is pretty interesting/funny because that means either alex can only play a dead guy one way or that was intentional. is this anything

Anyway I'm coining a new phrase. Mark Heathcliff Death Pose

NO YEAH YEAH. i call it the mark heathcliff. they look just like chalk outlines

[fakesurprise]

Bends in the Road: the writer’s epilogue

Bends in the road (the finished version) can be found here (starting at the sept 11th entry). It began as a short story, but once I fleshed out the town of Oscars Bend a bit - to the tune of over 800 words - I realized it was going to be longer and a bit more than that. This summation is going to be chalk full of spoilers, and a fun exercise on my part I think. Overall goal: I wanted to do a longer form piece with Anya, Noah and Wilbur. The first draft switched POVs every section/chapter but I realized that wasn’t working as well so scrapped it at the 15K mark. The second draft was about 18K long since giving it one POV - Anya’s - helped focus it more. That, and the characters splitting up initially made no sense, there were several scenes in the first draft I knew needed more in order to be less bland.  What follows is the outline I had originally (including the poorest town map ever made) and my notes in italics after each entry.  Bends in Roads – INFO STUFF TOWN LAYOUT: OSCARS BEND             to Appleford                            |                    __________1_|_2_____3 (STORE) (CEMETERY)     4 |  5                                      |                             |   6 (MOTEL)

          to Rivercomb First off: there is no plot listed. I had some bits in my head, but not enough actually worked out. One reason why it took over 2 months to write such a short story. I tend to write novellas far more off the cuff, and the lesson here is to do less of that :) Gerry and Edith Truman  (#1)  (‘95)Gerry and Edith are perhaps the heart of the town, given they’ve been here the longest. They’ve been married over fifty years, Gerry – 82 – is a retired logger and Edith – 81 – worked for the Wakefield Fire Commission in accounts. They settled here officially in ‘95 because the house was very cheap, it was quiet and Edith wanted a large garden. Gerry, for his part, wanted a space for his private life to remain private. That being that he’s a lumberjack who likes to dress in women’s clothing. Almost no one knows this, because the jokes would be unbearable. Edith does, and doesn’t judge. Her ability to accept without judgement is the closest thing Oscars Bend has to a Talent, and she is the main reason the Outsider has not taken over. It can’t find a hold over her and has no desire what to make of that. (Of course, her husband and the town are a hold but the Outsider only thinks in terms of Secrets.) 

The importance of Edith is emphasized, though not to the extent it became in the actual story when she is closer to being a Fisher King than anything else, bound to the land to protect the town. This is, of course, not done often because the price she paid (or chose to pay) was extremely high. One major limitation of the magician series is that it set a specific limit to magicians and the places they generally exist in, so the series tends to explore the other ways places protect themselves.  The McTavishes (#2)  Scott, Amy, Peter (+Jenny), Kris, Susan, Paul, Mark, Becky  (‘01)Scott and Amy McTavish moved to Oscars Bend in 2001. Because the world didn’t end, and they’d sold everything in the name of the Church of the Final Truth, believing angels would come down. And the world just went on. Their children went with them, Peter and Kris growing up in the middle of nowhere. Peter got a bride online – Jenny – and they’ve had three children of their own (Susan, Paul and Mark). Kris moved away, got married and moved back after his wife died with his daughter, Becky.  They all live in the same large, sprawling house because Scott and Peter are both carpenters and keep it  in better shape than the rest of the town. Additionally, they have a YouTube channel run mostly by Peter about living off the land that brings in a nice bit of income. Susan, Paul, Mark and Becky all go to school in the town of Appleford an hours north of Oscars Bend. It’s a bit further than Rivercomb, but no one talks about why they avoided the larger town. 

The McTavishes had no Deep Secret, nor were ever meant to. I had hints toward it - why their grandparents moved there, why everyone moved back - and something is clearly going on, but it’s left as more an exercise to the reader since the length of the story didn’t permit most of them to actually be involved in it. That Edith wanted more people in the town is definitely a major part of it however. but the extent to which they were aware of what she was is probably not much at all.    Greg Sutcliffe and Daniel Wray (#3) – Store. (~4)Daniel runs the local store while his boyfriend Greg works online as part of Anonymous. They don’t care what everyone else thinks of them, but neither do their advertise their relationship. It helps that Greg pretty much never leaves the apartment above the shop and Daniel used to run with some nastier gangs; he is why they’re hiding out in the middle of nowhere, or as close to it as they could find. 

I never planned to do much with them; they were here somewhat to shake up the view the characters would have of an ultra-small town being very conservative and a fun exploration of how the shop - and town - actually made enough income to survive, The story took it into darker places than I’d intended, but I left it open-ended if the PCs would ever do anything about the situation. Using food banks to stock a convenience store struck me as an interesting form of opportunism that highlighted the extent the town would go to in order to survive.     Bob Plint (+Alvin) (#4) (10 years) Bob Plint made money in the banking industry, and accepted retirement when it was accept early retirement at 35 without any package or end up in prison. He and his common-law wife Tina moved to Oscars Bend since no one would know about Robert Plint here. Their son, Alvin, is severely disabled and kept at home. Tina died 5 years ago – 5 years after the move to Oscars Bend – and Bob keeps Alvin at home. He believes his son is just punishment for his crimes, and keeps him out of school because he doesn’t want Alvin to be a drain on the system. Bob is, also, immune to the influence of the Outsider because there is nothing in him for it to effect.

Bob and Alvin didn’t change; it was intended to be the darkest part of the story where you could understand what Robert Plint did even if you couldn’t sympathize with him at all.  Jennifer (nee John) Smith. (#5) (4 years)John Smith was a psychic. The kind who did tarot readings, tea leaves, cold reading. He ran into a magician, was terrified out of his mind and fled with the ghosts of those whose lived he had ruined on his tail. With several living people he’d tricked after him as well, he’s been lying low as Jennifer in Oscars Bend for 3 years now, repairing the last viable house (#5) and using the fact that people know Jennifer as a man to alleviate questions and suspicions. Even now, John is a conman at heart. As a con man, John Smith dressed as a woman - badly - to make people not ask too many questions about who he was, and everyone in town figured he was transitioning. Which was part of his con. Like Bob, he is hiding from crimes. Unlike Bob, he is doing even more crimes (essentially) in the process of hiding.  Bend in the Road Motel (#6): Hogan Baxter and Petunia Graves  (7 years)The bend in the Road Motel isn’t much to look at. It’s even less to own. It was, however, the only thing left to Hogan and Petunia by their father, Arthur, when he died seven years ago. Unable to find a buyer, they’ve ended up running it. Petunia’s ex-husband Ray won’t find her here, and Hogan – well, he’d never found a job or girlfriend or anything that fit him. They get along, mostly, and Petunia’s gift for accounting means they sometimes turn a profit. This was just notes for me, since I had no plans for them to be in the story beyond Noah renting the room from them. I was going to have them questioned in the first draft, but it ended before I got to that point and I mostly ignored them in the second one.  Eesh An entity from Outside the universe, Eesh appears to to be a shadow wreathed in fog, often as large as 8’ tall with a cartoonish body and wide white eye. The form is entirely a convenience as the real Eesh is the creepy cold fog about the projection. Eesh gets sustenance and enjoyment from pushing people to mental breaking points and joy from testing them. Mr. Pickles knows this, and Eesh is a test of the MCs as much as anything else. Eesh never shows up. Or exists. I was ¾ done the second draft, still trying to figure the Outsider out at all, and then realized the story worked even better if there was no Outsider at all. Accomplishing this just involved altering a couple of lines when the characters first probe Oscars Bend. At that point, the last of the story came together in a single day of writing. 

I don’t subscribe to the idea that characters tell the story or do what they want to, but it does come from the fact that writing a story is the easy part: you’ve subconsciously done the leg work already, and the trick tends to discovering that, and merging it all together and trusting you know what you are doing when it feels like you don’t at all.  I once did a novel for nanowrimo where things went off-rails and I was left going ‘Why ARE the characters going to Mars? That wasn’t in my outline … oh well. I can write it and take it out if it doesn’t work.’ It turned out to be a major and important part of the resolution near the end. Plot should always be in the service of story, and it was a  good example of that for me.