#why did they tell us about the top secret draft

[pinofdnp]

us hiding from all the hints that dan and phil are throwing at us

very real

[fryday]

Everything We Know About The Phagenda

I needed a place to organise all the info we've gotten from DNP about what the hell they're cooking, so this is the place. I might have missed things, so please always check the original post for the most up to date version of contents as I might change or add things over time. Any questions, just shoot me an ask or something. Thank you and happy conjecturing!

I tried to arrange the info roughly chronologically in each category.

It's probably more than one thing

Dan mentioned some things coming "somewhat after and a little bit soon after"

Phil said, "We've got a few things in our mouth at the moment"

Definition of "agenda" suggests multiple things

Money stuff

Phil made his cactus club subscription more affordable in preparation for what he and Dan are doing next

Phil took a question about what they're cooking in his latest Q&A video. He said that something may or may not "happen in the next month", but did not answer the section asking if we should be saving up for it.

Those who RSVP'ed will "be notified first as soon as the news drops" -> presumably related to a limited quantity of items up for grabs, which is why I've included it in this section, but that's just my guess

Concept / Nature of the Thing(s)

Someone on Twitter said, "So the phlonde has been in the works for months if that was the main reason he let his hair grow out" and Dan replied with, "what else is he plotting"

Dan and Phil included a blurred out image of a text message in their video, which Dan called "the draft for something that is top secret".

SuperSeizer (one of Dan and Phil's editors) is in on what's happening (the other person in this interaction is their other editor Kris, who may also be involved, depending on how you read this interaction)

In his birthday livestream, Dan talked about how they revived the gaming channel not knowing what the response would be, and were shocked by the enthusiasm from their audience. "Because it seems like there's a thing here. [...] And we need to be like, celebrate the things, acknowledge the things. So, I guess we can say in the most vague way that we can that Dan and Phil have been cooking."

Dan posted his story with the words, "the time is nigh - want to know what dan and phil have been secretly cooking? / reply to this story with: RSVP / and we will send you a dm as soon as the truth is revealed"

Another definition of "agenda" is "the underlying intentions or motives of a particular person or group".

5 of the images in the TV screens have been identified as of right now: Phil's Video Blog, Hello Internet, Saying Goodbye Forever, Giving The People What They Want, and Something We Want to Tell You

Laylo, the website DNP are using for this announcement, is a platform that creators can use to release merch, tickets, or content.

The initial wave of people who RSVP'ed got their confirmation emails from news@mail.danandphiltour.com with the reply email being dh@danielhowell.com. It was then changed; now the emails come from news@laylo.danandphilshop.com with the reply email being danandphilshopweb@gmail.com.

Dan and Phil would have been aware that they were using the tour email at first, as they would have had to manually enter it themselves. (Thanks @dnpbeats for the investigative work!)

They included a 3-second teaser clip at the end of the Sims fashion makeover episode.

[espinosaurusrexex]

Revision

Professor!SteveRogers x Student!Female!Reader AU

summary: Professor Rogers was a lot of things, but for you, he was even more. A secret affair? A fun little side thing? You didn’t know yet. But you'd gladly seek out every possible moment with him until you did.

a/n: once upon a time I had a crush on my professor… this is what came out of it (don’t worry it didn’t really happen) but shame on me for keeping this in the drafts for so long

thank you @sebsgirl71479 for finding this gif and also very special thanks to @urcatslitterbox for taking the time and making one herself! you are the greatest!

word count: 3.3k

warnings: age gap (reader is of legal age of course), student/teacher relationship, a little fluff (because apparently I can’t do it without) this is obviously smut (dry humping, praise kink, unprotected p in v - wrap it before you tap it guys, slight overstimulation, voyeurism - if you squint), I don't know what else to tell you !MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!

･ﾟ✫* 𝒎𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 ｡✭･ﾟ✶ 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐧 𝐀𝐎𝟑 ✧*･ﾟ

“Do you know why I asked you to stay, Ms. Y/L/N?” His arms crossed before his chest as his gaze followed the last students roaming amongst the rows of the vast lecture hall, a blonde strand of hair falling loose and settling in a soft curve over his eye. Professor Rogers looked intimidating, but so damn sexy as well. His biceps bulged beneath the checkered white and blue button-up, his sleeves halfway rolled up, restrained by his evenly muscular forearms.

“To be perfectly honest, Professor,” Your voice stayed even, a slight mockery undertone by the use of formality when you had called him far more personal things than that before. Steve, Stevie, Daddy... you shook out of it - there were still people here. “I don’t. I was quite confident that my assignment was to your... satisfaction.” A smug grin hid behind the last word, as you remembered the actual satisfaction that assignment had brought you as well.

Steve had to hide his smile, too. His eyes darted with amusement when he tilted his head forward to peer up at you through his thick lashes. Your eyes wandered to his legs. His tan chinos were tight on his muscular thighs and the way he leaned back with his knees spread even wider - holy mother of god.

He knew damn well how hot he was, and the annoying thing was that he also knew how to make it work for him. Steve reveled in the power his body language had over you.

He watched as your tights clenched together behind his desk. The simple movement of his fingers on a desk could make you keen thinking about the places they had done that before. His confidence seeped though every fucking vein in his body, dripping in thick undertones and slight remarks out of his mouth and invading your senses through his touch and smell.

He was to die for. Tall, muscular, charming, and older.

You looked him up and down again and as his head tilted to the side you knew exactly that he could read your every thought. His arms opened when the door closed behind the last student, one hand gliding to his inner thigh while the other motioned for you to step closer.

You did.

It was like an automatic response of your body. Though you leaned forwards on the wooden desk, your arms pushing inward to help the cleavage peeking through the collar of your top, Steve’s eyes pulled down in an instant as well. 

“It certainly was.” He rubbed his beard. “I just thought it would be beneficial to go over it once more, highlight the good parts and make sure you know what made them so... enticing.” He leaned forward now, his fingers brushing yours on the sleek surface of the polished wood, though his eyes remained on your breasts. Steve wet his lips before his eyes flicked up to yours again. “I’m willing to thoroughly talk you through the rougher bits as well.”

“Are you implying they weren’t all good?”

“Oh, they were good, just not as good as other parts.” 

It was a game. You knew that, and Steve knew that too. But the little role-playing brought an excitement to this ordeal that couldn’t be denied by either of you. He was like a magnet and your entire body felt like it was made of metal with the pull he had on you. You stood on your toes, pushing yourself further over the table, where Steve stayed entirely still. He was observing you, though. The slight intrigue in the twig of his brow when your lips came dangerously close to his. A fast glint to the double doors leading to the hallways full of students rushing to their next classes. There was no nervousness in his stare though. Steve actually liked the potential threat of getting caught. It spurred him on, enticed him, and turned him on beyond belief. You had learned that just the other week when he had dragged you behind the open door to the janitor's closet of the history building. He had absolutely no shame in getting his hands dirty while all the students walked past the dark room where Steve had his hand firmly pressed above your mouth as his other relentlessly plunged in and out of your wet cunt. 

“Huh.” You pushed back. And even though the muscular blonde on the other side of the desk tried not to react, you caught his shoulder slouch in disappointment. You liked playing tough, though. While his perfume worked hard to pull you back into him, your feet shuffled a little further back, looking him up and down again. His legs were still manspreading on the chair and damn did those thighs look inviting. You knew they were. 

The clock above the double door clicked louder now that the students outside had passed on to their next classes. You had one, too actually. But the professor was boring as hell and who wouldn’t trade a creepy scarf-wearing weirdo for this specimen of a man in front of you right now? Exactly: no one. But they didn’t have that chance. Steve had chosen you, reserved his glances and touches, and kissed for you and it was exciting. Getting to share his experiences, letting the older man take control of your body in such rough yet gentle ways. 

Your legs strode around the desk as Steve’s eyes followed you through the room. His arms had reached out to you once you were close enough for him to grab and once his index finger looped in the belt loops of your jeans, he pulled you onto his lap. As your hands wandered to his shoulders, his snook around your waist, his thumb gently stroking the skin beneath your top. A shiver ran through you when he leaned back, his icy blue orbs piercing the air as they focused on yours, a small smile twinkling in the corner of his mouth. 

“You look good.” You whispered, a hand smoothing over the collar. Steve’s lips escaped a laugh, and even though the sexual tension you build up with the sneaky conversation still lingered in the air, there was a softer, sweeter sound invading the atmosphere right this moment. 

“I know you like the blue.” He mumbled when he dipped forward, his nose brushed your neck and a trial of goosebumps traveled down your back. The rasp in his voice stirred something in your stomach, a slight tingle shooting up to your brain and telling you ‘hey that’s hot!’ In bright and blaring neon lights. 

Steve’s fingers ran down your legs and began massaging your thighs on each side of him. Another strand of hair came loose and fell forward. It tickled your neck as his mouth began to suck its way up to your sweet spot, your hands frantically cramming his shirt at the sudden attack. His tongue shot forward, soothing the place his teeth just nibbled on and the familiar burn ran over your skin as hisses and moans mixed in your mouth. Your hips jolted forward when he finally reached that spot behind your ear, hot breath blowing over the wet skin and a soft kiss right after. 

“You smell...” A growl broke through his speech when your hips ground a second time. “So sweet...” 

A jolt of confidence placed a grin on your lips. The perfume you wore had turned some heads before, but the only one that mattered was Steve’s. His mouth resumed his caress of your skin as his hand wandered to your ass, slowly pushing you forward and guiding you over the growing bulge beneath his pants. 

“Ah, yes!” It was only a breath out when the seam of your jeans was pushed into your clit by the hardness in his lap, but - God did that feel good! Your back arched when he continuously ripped you over the spot, your hands buried in his hair, pressing him deeper into your skin, encouraging him to keep going. 

“Goddamn...” His head switched to the other side of your neck, the skin on the neglected one already hot and tingly. But your sole focus lay between your legs, where his cock massaged your clit in perfectly firm rocking motions. The roughness of the jeans just added to the pleasure creeping through your body.

You could’ve gone like this forever, with the heat rising in your belly and Steve’s muffled panting lingering in the air, but Steve pulled away. A whine brushed over to him when his lips left your skin. You were burning from his touch but at the same time, a cool brush of goosebumps covered your body. It was crazy how much you craved his touch even when he was sitting right in front of you. His stare alone lit a fire within your stomach, butterflies flying wild patterns through every nerve ending when his light blue eyes found yours in the distance of the lecture hall. It had happened suddenly and spiraled beyond your control within days. And then, when he had finally kissed you, it was pretty clear that there was no going back. Steve was like a drug. Something you shouldn’t play with and something that was definitely illegal to pursue, but so so so freaking good because he made you feel things you could have never imagined. 

His voice pulled you back to reality.

“As much as I like your ass in those jeans...” Steve tugged on your Jeans with dark eyes, the silver button glimmered in the lecture hall light when his rough fingers yanked on the material. “They need to go.” That last part was just a growl in your ear but the tire of it made you eagerly wiggle out of the blue denim.

You stepped out of your jeans once he had finally opened them and when his eyes fell on the underwear covering your heat, he pulled you closer by your hips. His thumbs drove circles over your skin, sending yet another tingle of excitement up your spine. His hands wandered back to your behind, squeezing and needing the flesh all while pressing you into his front. 

Your lips attached to his neck like a magnet, your hand scraping the gruff on his chin with excited circles. A growl traveled past his lips when you reached his sweet spot - the one right beneath his ear, making him melt every time. A deviant smile spread about your face but before you could revel in the control you had over him - even if it was just for a short moment - he had you turned around, facing the rows of desks stretching to the walls.

“You’ve been doing this on purpose, haven’t you?” His hand wandered past your breasts down your front and stopped right by the edges of your panties, the other holding you by the hip, pressing his hard-on right to your back. The excitement shooting through you did nothing to hide, slick pooling between your legs, and your nipples already hard pebbles on your skin. “Putting on these scandalous little lace things thinking about how I’ll be seeing them today...” Warm breath tingled at your ear when he leaned closer, pushing his hand past the hem of the lace. “...taking them off of your perfect body.”

You moaned when his fingers slit past your folds, gathering some slick to smoothly roam about your clit.

“Maybe...” The shivers erupting from his touch interrupted your speech until you could collect yourself. “I’m always thinking of you, Stevie.” He bit your neck before his tongue smoothed over the spot again. It was a perfect interplay of pleasure and pain, the wet warm strokes of his tongue soothing the stinging and adding fuel to a desire only he could evoke in you.

“Say it again,” he growled, adding more pressure to the swollen bundle of nerves between your legs. You squirmed as the muscles in your abdomen tightened, clenching around nothing and reminding you what you had been missing. “What else are you thinking about?”

“Your hands all over my body...” Your hand guided his over to your breasts encouraging him to squeeze the soft flesh and breathing heavily when his thumb brushed over your hardened nipple. “Pushing me to bend over that desk while you fill me up with your big cock.”

“Nothing I’d rather do, doll.” Before you knew it your face was gently pressed against the cold and polished wood. Warm hands wandered to your ass where they pulled down your underwear painfully slow, having you fiddle in place impatiently.

“Now, don’t be so hasty, love. I gotta take my time.” You heard his belt unbuckle.

“Unfortunately, Professor, time is the one thing we do not have a lot of...” His hands stopped moving as you called him ‘Professor’, though you knew it wasn’t a bad thing. If anything, it probably turned him on more, which would hopefully speed up the process of him finally filling you up to the brim. Your pussy clenched at the thought of it again - a frustrating reminder of the emptiness you so wished to disappear. 

“Too bad, I would have loved to play with you a little more.”

“Tick Tock...”

“As you wish, princess-” And before the words had even reached your ears, you felt his swollen tip nudge at your entrance, stroking up and down your slit to cover in your arousal as a sinful sound escaped Steve’s lips.

His hands found their way back to your waist before he finally pushed fully into you, leaving you no time to adjust to his size as he started pounding into you with an unrelenting pace. The burn wasn’t painful though. You knew he was big, and even though you had not believed that he would ever fit inside of you, Steve had managed to not only do that but also ruin you for every other man to ever come. 

“Look at your greedy little cunt begging for my cock, practically sucking me in, doll.”

You couldn’t answer, too focused on holding onto the desk and controlling your body not to melt with his strokes as he pushed into you over and over again.

“Gripping me so tight... perfect little pussy.” A slap landed on your ass cheek to which you responded with another loud moan. If there had been a care for anyone to hear you doing the indescribable in this lecture hall before, Steve had certainly fucked it out of you by now. You turned your head watching as he spit down on his cock before it disappeared in you again, his head falling back with shut eyes while he reveled in every piece of pleasure you gave him.

“Fuck!” He locked eyes with you, a determined smirk painting his face when his hand wandered around your body again, finding your clit and rubbing tight little circles over the nub.

Your vision blurred as the hot pleasure crept up your spine. There was something about Steve’s touch that made you feel as though every nerve in your body fired twice and fast. You clenched around him again, watching with pleasure as his brows furrowed.

He picked up his pace, kicking your legs further apart and hitting an even deeper angle now.

“Oh my god!” Your eyes rolled to the back of your head before you closed them, trying to last longer than this. The feeling was just too good to let go of so soon. But with Steve’s hunky body towering over you and his cock stroking just the right spot with every moan he pulled from you, that seemed like an impossible task. You tried your best, though, but right when you thought that you would last a little longer, his fingers changed the direction of the circles on your clit and turned your brain to mush.

“I’m gonna- ah”

“The hell you are.” He pulled away, leaving you to whimper with the empty feeling you had never wanted back. But Steve pulled you up and turned you around in one swift motion, walking forward until you were pressed against the desk again. This time, though, he made you lay on your back with a hazy smile.

“I wanna see your pretty face when you come all over my cock.” He placed your legs on his shoulders and grabbed his dick to line it up with your entrance again. Then, he made sure to keep eye contact while he pushed himself into you once again, but this time, painfully slow.

You gripped him tight when he bottomed out, stroking the flesh on your thigh while he pulled back just to pound back in again.

“I fucking love this pussy,” he growled as his pace picked up much to your delight, “it’s mine. Tell me, baby.”

“Yes. Yes, it’s all yours, Stevie.” You couldn’t even focus on the words leaving your mouth at this point. You would say yes to anything he said just to make the feeling of his cock stroking your walls last forever.

“That’s a what?” He halted, raised eyebrows watching you expectantly.

“Yes, sir,” you smirked.

“Good girl.” The pressure built up again and when his hand found its way back to your clit, you felt like exploding. His pace didn’t falter, determination taking over while he watched himself slip in and out of you with hungry eyes. 

You would be busting in seconds if he kept it up like this, your walls clenching tighter and tighter, your stomach feeling rock solid from the pleasure building up with every circle of his thumb and every stroke of his cock.

“Don’t hold back now, sweetheart. Let go. Give it to me.”

That was all it took for the knot to finally come loose. “Ah!” Your back arched off the table while your hands frantically searched for something to grip, the walls of your pussy fluttering and making your core be on fire with pleasure. It just intensified when Steve slowed his strokes to let you ride on the wave of bliss that made your body tingle.

When you relaxed again, you felt your walls pulsing with lazy delight. A weak smile shining through your hooded eyes when you watched him intensify his strokes again. Shaky whimpers left your throat when his cock brushed over your sensitive parts. He was close, too. You could feel him twitching inside of you, waiting for the perfect moment to let go. And you would give him just that.

“You make me feel so good, sir. Your big cock stretches me out, fills me up. I want you to come inside of me.”

“Fuck, keep going.” He closed his eyes, speeding up his movements and making the pressure build right up for you again.

“You’re so big. I can feel you in my stomach, baby. Make me come by just thinking about you. So sexy and strong and- ah oh!”

Steve’s movements staggered his cock twitching as his face contorted into pleasure while you felt his cum spill inside of you. The scene was erotic, and the sounds coming from the man above of you made you reach another orgasm, milking the last drop from him with every pulse of your walls.

Your chest heaved as you leaned your head back, watching the clock above the door. It was too sad this moment was ending.

Though Steve took his time. He watched his juices drip after he pulled out, whispering a low ‘perfect’ into the room that made your head feel hot. 

How was this man making you flustered after shamelessly rearranging your guts in a public lecture hall?

“Put your jeans back on, doll. I don’t wanna get in trouble today.” He winked at you while he zipped up his pants and secured the buckle on top. You stood, fixing his slightly tossed hair and leaving your hand hovering over his jaw.

“Where’d you put my panties?” He kissed you.

“I think I’m gonna keep these,” Steve smiled while stuffing them into his back pocket.

“For revision, I presume?” You smiled with wicked eyes.

“Exactly.”

Here it is - finally! Please tell me what you think (hopefully it was worth the wait)! I've missed you guys so much; life is keeping me busy and excited for more. How have you been?? 💛

Wanna be added to the taglist?

@fangirl-swagg @mi-amoree1111 @lastwandastan @royalwritersoftheuniverses @dinwifey @stuckysgirl27 @broadwaybabe18 @buckybarnessimpp @goodkittyspost @simpxinnie @blackhawkfanatic @kandis-mom @circe143 @valkyrie418 @mirikusashes @noideawhyimdoingthislol @nikkitc0703 @lethallyprotected @erynnnn @misshale21 @wattpaduser200 @buckyseddie @adoreyouusugar @km-ffluv

[multicolour-ink]

More rough draft ideas for the Anastasia AU. This one is the bro's reunion, so if you don't want to spoil yourself for the story I have planned, maybe skip it! (tag will be #au spoilers)

~ also note that (due to memory loss) Mario goes by "Maurice" ~

* * *

They agreed to meet at the fire flower field.

"I'm sorry", Maurice began, softly. "I didn’t want to decieve you. I just...wanted to find out where I come from."

The Prince breathed in deeply, and then out through his nose like he was lifting a weight from his whole body.

"I'm just...so tired", he said weakly. "I'm tired of being tricked."

He raised a hand and aggressively wiped away tears that had already started spilling down his cheeks. Maurice, for reasons he could not fathom why, made to move forward, his hand reached out. However, he quickly drew back as he realised what he was about to do.

Prince Luigi looked back at him.

"You look so much like him. And you're so kind. That's what hurts the most."

Feeling more courage, Maurice gingerly stepped closer.

"Just, please tell me. Who am I?"

He clasped his music box to his chest. The Prince's eyes widened.

"Where did you get get that?"

Maurice looked at it, startled.

"I don't know. I've had it as long as I can remember. I think it's-"

But he stopped himself as he watched the Prince dig into his pocket, and bring out a music box of his own. This one was moon shaped, but the craftsmanship was very like Maurice's.

"Funny", said the Prince. "My music box is supposed to match with my brother's. A sun and a moon. A pair bound together. Would be funny, if you were an imposter, and you had just crafted a fake one just like his."

Maurice swallowed.

"I don't...know. Mine...could be fake. It has weird writing on the back. Might just be a signature or something."

He froze as some form of emotion went over the Prince's face.

"Can I see?"

Prince Luigi put his hand out. Maurice didn't miss the fact that it was trembling. He obeyed.

The Prince took his music box in the other hand, his pupils dilated, and he turned it so Maurice could see there was an inscription on the back.

, as long as we're together.

"My brother and I used to say that all the time to each other", the Prince said, his lip quivering. "We thought it would be fun to inscribe it on the back, so we carried a half each, and remember that we were never alone."

He held out the music boxes side by side. As Maurice looked, he saw that the inscriptions came together to form a full sentence.

Nothing can hurt us, as long as we're together.

"And that's always true", Maurice found himself saying with no warning.

He stopped. Now he was the one trembling.

Prince Luigi then tapped the top of his own music box, and an oddly shaped disc popped out. Taking it, the Prince then inserted it into the front of Maurice's.

"I didn't even know that was there!", he said in awe.

"A secret compartment in each of the boxes", the Prince explained. "That could only be accessed by the other's key."

He then twisted the box. The bottom slid away, revealing a smaller compartment with a tightly folded piece of paper inside.

The Prince handed the box out to Maurice, his eyes begging the younger man to open the paper.

Maurice was not going to argue. Unfolding the paper in shaking hands, he found it was a photo of two little boys. Both exactly alike, but a little different at the same time. They were smiling, holding each other like there wasn't a care on the world.

Prince Luigi had opened up his own secret compartment. Inside was the same photo. A copy.

"So that you two will always carry a happy memory with you."

Maurice stared at the photos. This really was it. He wasn't feeling like this was strange anymore. This was real, and he knew who he was.

He looked back up at the Prince. Luigi was crying, a hand pressed to his mouth as silent tears spilled out, his expression looking like it was begging for this to be true.

"Hi bro", Mario smiled.

The tears were shed on each other's shoulders, as they held each other tight amongst the fire flowers...

[sssammich]

hello quizno’s! :D

👀 Do you have any WIPs that you would never let see the light of day? If yes, what are they about?

🖊 Post a snippet from a current WIP.

😈 Is there anything you enjoy doing that you think your readers hate?

👩‍🏭 If one of your fics was going to get you arrested, which one and why?

💋 so about this rojascorp you mentioned…….

:D

lmao thank you sidetwang

thanks for copying and pasting for my benefit

👀 Do you have any WIPs that you would never let see the light of day? If yes, what are they about?

hmm idk actually; they're mostly probably wips from fandoms that i have since left or just never knew what to do with. that's kinda boring, but there really aren't, like, secret wips. i try to finish my wips even if it takes weeks/months/years. for example, there's a grief fic i wanna write about for revue starlight that's been sitting in the lazy susan since 2022 and i think i'm only now ready to write it.

but there are also some wips that i think have just passed its time and that i probably won't touch again (but never say never!)

🖊 Post a snippet from a current WIP.

oh very well this is actually for my rosebird (summer rose/raven branwen from rwby) divorce AU that i was thinking about; was able to write out like 2k of it this past weekend. i'll post the snippets after the cut because i am sometimes considerate. and also i just decided to make it a little baby love triangle with vernal because i am so nice

and also because you probably do not give a shit about that, i added a snippet for a supercorp romcom i am thinking about!

😈 Is there anything you enjoy doing that you think your readers hate?

god uh idk what do my readers hate? please tell me anonymous is turned on

thinking about this though i guess maybe i enjoy using 'says' or 'said' 98% of the time and maybe my readers hate that honestly im not sure just tell me it's fine yall can be honest

👩‍🏭 If one of your fics was going to get you arrested, which one and why?

lol what does this even mean!!

uh i mean i would say dickfic has some potentially incriminating mail tampering crimes and maybe dolores is not so wholly innocent so who knows

(am i an idiot? please tell me if i did this bit wrong)

💋 so about this rojascorp you mentioned…….

which one? the sad one or the happy one?

sad one: it's based off of a sad song and i am very excited about that. it's a breakup fic, im just gonna be upfront about that

happy one: it's a reunion and a coming back together.

they're modern AUs i think because im incapable of writing any real AUs

oh maybe that's something my readers hate, that i can't write AUs lol but i enjoy them

ANYWAY thanks for sendimg me these questions

fanfic ask game

fic snippets below the cut

rosebird snippet:

She's not immune to cabin fever, so she leaves the wreckage of her house and drives her truck downtown, parking it right in front of one of the three competing bars they have on Main Street.

When she pushes the glass door forward, the bell above it rings. She glances up, looks at the patina of the metal before meeting the bartender's eye.

Without a single word, Raven walks up to the corner of the bar just as the bartender approaches with a rag thrown over her shoulder.

"What're you having?"

"Just a beer for now."

"What kind?"

"Whatever's available."

The bartender studies her, but Raven just scans the room before taking a seat on the empty stool. She watches as the bartender takes a glass and flips it right side up before placing it under the draft spigot, tilted to the side until only a sliver of foam sits at the very top.

"Tab?" the bartender asks just as she places the glass in front of Raven.

Raven nods just before taking a sip of her beer.

The bartender leaves her alone, especially when a gaggle of girls walk in for some type of girls' night out. Her red eyes trail after the giggling movements of the six women sitting around one of the big tables towards the center of the open room. The regulars pay them no mind, even as their volume increases.

She scowls when a group of young guys filter through the bar and multiply the volume when they meet with the young women already there. So much so that she downs her scotch and orders for another.

The bartender quietly places another glass in front of hers, smirking at her, like they're sharing a secret. She just nods, pushes the empty glass from her hands in exchange.

"You new around here?" the bartender asks, leaning forward on her left side, her sleeve tattoo in full display. She's a bit on the younger side for Raven's tastes, but her short pixie cut and pale blue eyes have caught her attention.

"Depends."

"Haven't seen you around here before. I'd notice."

She lets out a small amused chuckle, wonders how much this woman believes this line she's giving Raven. "New enough."

"Where do you live?"

"That's at least a four drink question, and we're only on two."

The bartender plucks two shot glasses from underneath the counter and pours rum into both of them. She then slides one by Raven's hand, nodding towards it when she grabs hold of the one in front of her.

She plays along and grabs the shot glass, holds it up where the bartender clinks it and keeps her eyes steady when they both shoot, their hands dropping at the same time onto the counter.

"Now that's four," the bartender states.

Raven shakes her head at this woman's audacity all while the heat of the rum courses down her stomach. "You don't need to worry about where I live."

The bartender laughs at having been bested. She's just about to say something to Raven when someone calls for her, the name Vernal coming out from one of the regulars at the opposite end of the bar.

"Duty calls," Vernal says before retrieving the shot glasses and placing them in some bin under the counter. Raven doesn't say anything, just watches the woman leave to take care of the other patrons.

For the next ten minutes, she watches Vernal walk the length of the bar to create and serve so many drinks at once. It's impressive, all told. Every now and again, she catches Vernal turning towards her, like making sure she hasn't left yet. She doesn't, not right away, happy to nurse her beer. At one point, Vernal throws her a wink when she sees Raven's eyes dip down to her ass only to come back when their eyes meet. She's only a little bit ashamed, but she doesn't react, just takes a sip of the last dregs of her drink.

When the last drop of her beer passes through her lips, she quietly places her glass on the counter. Slowly, she slips her hand to the pocket of her jeans and pulls out a few folded bills. It's not until she sees Vernal preoccupied with some new customers that she decides to slink away from the bar, tucking her payment and generous tip under her empty glass.

She slips out right behind a couple definitely on a date walks in.

supercorp romcom snippet:

When Lena finds a stack of mail on her desk first thing Monday morning, she doesn’t expect a wedding invitation. Glancing at the K. Danvers at the top corner of the envelope, she frowns when nothing comes to mind with that name. She thinks perhaps it’s one of her employees that she’s just not familiar with. With a smooth swipe of her gold albatross-designed letter opener, she opens the envelope and tugs at the card inside.

She’s surprised to find the invitation reaching her desk, since Jess normally screens these letters for her

Her eyes furrow in confusion when she reads the card.

You are cordially invited to the wedding between Kara Zor-El Danvers and Future Spouse

That gives Lena pause. Future spouse?

She skims through the rest of the wedding details. She then presses the intercom button for her secretary.

“Jess?”

“Yes, Miss Luthor?”

She rolls her eyes at her secretary’s adamant insistence of referring to her by her last name despite her efforts to have Jess call her Lena.

“Can you run the name Kara Danvers through our employee roster?”

“Yes, Miss Luthor. I’ll send it right away.”

When she hangs up, she turns to the smaller card insert with the RSVP request. Her first inclination is to decline, if not altogether just hand the entire thing to Jess to take care of. Yet it’s the term Future Spouse that has her pausing, her curiosity quite piqued at the thought of a mystery spouse. Does this Kara Danvers not really know?

With a thoughtful tap of the card against her chin, she decides there’s no reason to expend energy thinking about it now. She’ll find out soon enough when Jess gets back to her.

[jamiesfootball]

📓 give me a glimpse into ur mind

Let me tell you about the Greater Richmond Pet Acquisition (aka Give Jamie Tartt a Cat)

So it starts here with Jamie, having just joined the team again in season 2, and he is struggling. He basically blew up his life and its in pieces and he's having things that definitely are maybe panic attacks

He accidentally ends up befriending Higgins.

Higgins who back in season one through poor late Cindy Clawford's collar into the curse fire. Since then they've gotten a new cat (who i had the perfect name for but i can't find it in my drafts and my tagging is shit), and just like Higgins shows Jamie pictures of ducks and the memes his kids use that he doesn't understand, he also shows Jamie pictures of their cat.

So Christmas rolls around, yeah? And Jamie fucked up secret santa, and Higgins invites Jamie to his house for the team Christmas but that doesn't feel fair to the team

(and him and his mum are still on the outs, have been for years, and one of these days he's gonna be accountable but he's not so much of an asshole he's not so much like his dad that he'd just drop in on her unannounced at Christmas)

So he spends Christmas in Richmond alone with the bottle of champagne that he got at secret santa and it's brutal and he's lonely and he sees an ad on the telly for an animal shelter and decides screw it- I'm gonna get a cat. If I'm gonna be miserable and lonely like an old cat lady then I might as well have a cat.

So he goes to the shelter and he's thinking 'yeah i'll get a nice sleek cat one of those cool posh ones with the markings' and then he finds this ginormously rotund squash faced orange fat bastard and just. laughs.

His name is Big Ben and he's a surrender. His previous family up and moved, and they decided they didn't want him anymore. He came from a house with three kids (responsible for the kinda lame name) but no one ever really gave him any attention. He was kind of a nuisance. Always underfoot. Always yowling for attention. Too needy. They were a bit relieved to have an excuse to get rid of him to be honest.

Jamie is weirdly upset by this and can't pinpoint why. He gets the cat.

He gets a bunch of cat stuff - beds and toys and a robot litterbox that cleans itself - and he takes the cat home an he's like 'wait what the fuck did I just do?' Because he's never had a cat, or a dog, or any sort of creature relying on him to keep it safe. So he looks up Youtube videos on 'what to do when you've fucked up and bought a cat' and they're like 'well start them off in one room in the house' and Big Ben hates that.

It's a horrendous first few hours for both of them, Big Ben yowling at the top of his big unhappy cat lungs while Jamie is about to lose his goddamn mind, spiraling and on the verge of a panic attack because oh god he didn't just fuck up his own life now he's hurting this big giant fluffball cat the cat is crying fucking hell what do I do I can't call Higgins it's Christmas

So he breaks. He lets the cat out of the room and Big Ben barrels into his legs and starts purring. Loud. Like the loudest a creature has ever purred in its life. And he's looking up at Jamie with it's big green cat eyes and it's making little chirpy noises.

"You wanna hang out with me, buddy?" Jamie asks, and he feels stupid, talking to a cat, and Big Ben leans against his legs and-

-tiiiiiips over. Flops right over on Jamie's socks and looks up at him with his big adoring face like Jamie's the best thing that's ever happened to him.

Jamie could get used to someone looking at him like that.

[jgmartin]

CROOKED ANTLERS

I sit down, pop a piece of spearmint gum and watch the woman across from me. She’s nervous, her hands are fretting in her lap and her eyes are bloodshot. 

“Long night?” I ask. 

She looks up, timidly. Her face is awash in anxiety. She doesn’t understand what’s going on here. She doesn’t understand what she’s doing sitting inside an abandoned warehouse with an asshole twice her age. 

It’s fine. I’ve seen it before. 

“Look,” I say, loosening the tie around my neck. “It’s just like I said. I only want to ask you a few questions, then you can go.”

“Why here?” she says, in a small voice. “This looks like the kind of place you’d take me to… I don’t know, murder me.”

I crack a smile. She isn’t wrong. “You don’t like it? It’s private. Besides that, it’s probably the safest place in the world for you.”

“Why? Do you have snipers on the rafters?” There’s sarcasm in her voice, but her eyes flick to the steel walkways lining the walls. She pulls her sweater tighter around her, shivering at the draft. “Or is this some secret government fortress?”

“No, and no.” I lean back in the wooden chair, and it groans under my weight. Damn. Not as slim as I used to be. “It’s much simpler,” I say. “This warehouse is the safest place for you, because I’m inside of it.” 

It’s not a lie. At least, not entirely. Still, she gives me an incredulous look. It’s the sort of look one reserves for blowhards and narcissists, and I probably deserve it. Time to change gears. “Tell me about the Event.”

She studies me for several moments, and then shakes her head. “On second thought,” she says, picking up her purse. “I think I’d prefer talking to the police.” 

She stands up, makes to leave and I don’t stop her. Her footfalls echo across the empty warehouse, the haphazard lighting casting her shadow in every direction. I hear her mutter something beneath her breath, but I can’t make out the words. I probably don’t want to.

Then, she stops. They always do.

“What’s an Event?” she asks.

I click my pen, and reach down for my clipboard with a groan. The last job did a number on my ribs. “An Event,” I explain. “Is a paranormal phenomenon, most commonly characterized by contact with a sentient entity. To use a more common turn of phrase, it means you stumbled across an urban legend.”

She swallows. At this distance, I can just barely make out her expression, but I already know I have her. I bring my pen to my clipboard and clear my throat. “You said your name was Amanda Haynes, correct?”

“Yes.”

I scribble it down. “And the Event occurred two nights ago, just outside city limits in the Cascade Mountains?”

Her sneakers patter across the concrete floor as she returns to her chair. Her expression shifts; gone is the nervous shyness, the small posture and the darting eyes. She’s staring at me now. She’s deciding whether she’s in or out.

“Yes,” she says at length. “It was in the woods. We were camping.”

I check three more boxes on my clipboard. “Stupendous.” So far the location matches up with previous sightings of the beast. I sigh, resting the clipboard and my lap and place my pen on top of it. “Why don’t we start from the top?”

“Before we do,” she says, narrowing her eyes. “How do I know I can trust you? This feels so... “

“Bizarre?” I offer. 

“Dramatic. Like I’m in an episode of the X-Files.”

“Fair point. You’ve seen my badge.”

“Badges can be faked.”

I bring a hand to my face, tracing along deep scars. “How about these? You don’t get these working for television.”

She’s quiet, skeptical, and her eyes drift down to the clipboard on my lap. She’s analyzing it. Determining if it’s a real government form or not. All things I’ve seen before. She wants to believe, but she isn’t ready yet.

“Let me ask you this,” I say, handing her the clipboard. She begins looking it over. “When you told the search and rescue team a monster attacked you, did they believe you?”

Her eyes meet mine, and I see it: the surrender. She knows as well as I do that I’m her only shot. What she doesn’t know, is she’s my only shot too. I’ve been looking for this legend for close to forty years now. 

One might say it’s been my life’s work. 

“I see your point,” she concedes. “Let’s get this over with.” 

She passes the clipboard back to me and I click my pen, bringing it to the box labeled ENCOUNTER. “Alright. You said that you were camping. Who was with you?”

“Just Rachel,” she says. Her eyes are filled with something. Guilt, maybe. “We’d been friends since elementary school. We hiked together pretty often.”

“Ah,” I say, noting her name on my clipboard. “Rachel Tully, correct?” 

The victim.

Amanda nods. “We went up to get a break from the doldrums of city life. Rachel just got out of a pretty serious relationship, and I didn’t want her cooped up in that apartment, stuck with all those memories.” 

Her voice cracks. Emotion spills into her words. “I suggested we take the weekend and go for a hike into the Cascades. There’s an old trail we spotted the last time we were up there, just off the main path. I said we could follow that, see where it leads us.”

She brings a sleeve to her face, wiping at forming tears. “Rachel didn’t want to. She said she was too depressed to shop for groceries, much less go on such a big hike. I convinced her eventually, though.”

“I see,” I say quietly. “How long was the hike?”

“I don’t know. It was a really old trail, overgrown in parts. There weren’t any mile markings.”

“Ballpark it.”

“Eight miles, maybe? We left early that morning, and it took us seven hours to get up there.”

I whistle, scratching at my gut. “That’s quite the walk.”

“It’s not that bad, honestly. We’d both done longer hikes, on harder trails. We actually didn’t go as far as we intended.”

“Why’s that?” 

“We came across an old cabin. It was run down, with shattered windows and it looked like it hadn’t been lived in for decades.”

My breath catches. I swallow the excitement before it has a chance to leak into my voice. 

“A cabin?”

She nods.

I’d gone looking for that cabin a hundred times. It was never there.

"What sort of cabin?" 

Her eyes leave mine, they’re gazing off at some distant point on the ground, transfixed. She’s replaying the memory. “We figure it must have been an old ranger cabin, which would explain the overgrown trail that led us there.” 

She pauses, her mouth hanging open, words struggling to break free. “Rachel suggests instead of using our tents, we could just stay inside of it. I remind her the windows are busted and it’s the middle of November. Plus, it’s probably filled with spiders. She says all the better. Let’s set up our tents inside the cabin. Double the protection.” 

Amanda gnaws on her bottom lip, her voice growing smaller and smaller with each passing sentence. “There’s dark clouds above us. It was supposed to rain, but it looks worse than that now. A lot worse. It looks like a storm’s coming, so I agree and we head inside to check the place out.”

“What did it look like on the inside?” 

"It looked like... a nest. We spend some time walking around it. It isn’t very big, there’s only a handful of rooms, but there’s… branches and leaves all over the floor. Every step we take, there’s a snap of a twig. 

"The entrance leads through a small kitchen alcove, with a wood stove and dining table, past that it opens up to a living area with some rotting chairs, and at the very end is a bedroom filled with splinters from a broken bed frame. The place is a mess."

The layout sounds familiar. I can almost smell the cedar and feel the toasty warmth of the wood stove burning during cold December evenings. 

“I check out the bedroom first,” she says. “I spot a couple of shattered picture frames. Call it the millennial blogger in me, or call it dumb curosity, but I’m drawn to them. One is old, yellowed and faded. It looks like it could be from the thirties. It’s a picture of a young man and woman, dressed to the nines. Probably their wedding day.” 

She smacks her lips, and then looks up at me. “Do you have anything to drink?”

I nod. “Of course.” I reach down and unclasp my briefcase, opening it up to reveal a stack of documents and three water bottles. Two filled with water, one filled with a black grime. I grab the two filled with water, crack them, and pass one to her. We both take a sip.

“Thanks,” she says, wiping her lips. "All this talking works up a thirst.”

"Sure," I say. "And the other picture?"

“The other picture is more recent. I mean, still old, but not ancient.” She laughs, but it’s a nervous, self-conscious laugh. “It’s a photo of an older guy, and a young kid with this mess of black hair. The two of them are standing outside the cabin holding rifles.”

“Interesting.”

“Yeah, I figure it’s probably the ranger that lived there, back when the cabin was operational. Before I can check out anything else though, I hear a snap. It sounds like wood cracking in half, and then a crash. I drop the picture frame and Rachel starts screaming from the other room.”

“Screaming?” I lean forward, my pen scratching at the clipboard. It feels too early for the Callous Man to appear. Certain criteria haven’t been met. Still, if the work of my late colleagues has taught me anything, it’s that legends can evolve, and I keep an open mind to that.

Amanda nods. “Yeah, she’s screaming bloody murder. I storm in there, my bear mace in hand, expecting to see a wolf or cougar or bear, but I don’t see shit. I don’t even see Rachel. I call out to her, and she calls back, but she’s whimpering. The sound is coming from the pantry, just outside the kitchen alcove.”

“I look toward it, but I don’t see her there. I jog over, wondering what the fuck is going on, when I catch sight of the floorboards inside of it. They’re busted. Splintered and shattered. There’s a dark hole in the ground, one big enough for a man to fit through. I almost have a heart attack when her arm reaches out of the blackness.”

Amanda closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. “She shouts at me to get her out of there. I tell her to give me a second, and I take off my jacket and put it over the jutting pieces of broken floorboards, because I don’t want her getting impaled on the things, and then I reach down and pull her up. She’s bawling her eyes out, hyperventilating and once she’s firmly out of the pit, she’s pointing to her foot. I ask her if she’s hurt, and she tells me thinks she twisted her ankle.”

Pieces of Amanda’s Event are beginning to connect in my mind. The twisted ankle. The panicked friend. They’re all familiar ingredients, and the end dish is anything but delicious.

She keeps talking. “Rachel says we need to get help right now, and I’m a little thrown off by her panic. I mean, it’s a twisted ankle, not a death sentence, right? Still, I pull out my phone and check for service. Predictably, there isn’t any. I ask Rachel for hers, and she can hardly speak. She’s still pointing, but this time it isn’t at her foot. It’s at the hole in the cabin floor.

“She keeps whimpering about dead things. Over and over. Dead things. Dead things. Dead things. I’m wondering if I just became a party to my best friend having a psychotic break, but I give her the benefit of the doubt and check out the hole. It’s dark enough that I can’t see the bottom, so I flick on my phone’s light.”

Her fingers play at the tips of her hair. Tugging at it. “It takes me a bit for my eyes to adjust, but once they do, my blood goes cold. There’s bones littering the ground. Deer bones. Rabbit bones. Then there, at the edge of my vision, I catch sight of a human skull.

“I’m swearing up a storm, and my imagination’s going haywire. Rachel’s hysterical, and I’m feeding into it, both of us are repeating the words ‘what the fuck’ like it’s a personal mantra.” 

Amanda takes a breath, holding it for a few moments. There’s goosebumps on her arms. Even reciting the account is beginning to work her up. She exhales. “Then I remember I’m not living inside of a horror movie. I remember what I thought Rachel was screaming about in the first place. I tell her to relax, that it’s probably just a mountain lion, or a grizzly's dumping ground.”

“In the basement?” I ask. 

“Sorry,” she says, hastily. “I probably should have mentioned it earlier, but the cabin’s raised off the ground on these wooden stilts. Where I’m at, it helps thing’s avoid getting trapped beneath snow. There’s a crawl space beneath it. I figure an animal was probably using the crawl space as some sort of shelter.”

I check a box on my form. The story matches up, so far at least. The cabin is identical to the one in my memories. The question is, did she really encounter the Callous Man, or some rabid wolf? A human skull is a promising detail, but it’s not like predators don’t occasionally snack on hikers. 

“A logical conclusion to draw,” I say. “Does it calm your friend down?”

“Yeah,” Amanda says with a nod. “Rachel starts to breathe a little slower. She relaxes a little. Eventually, she’s ready to try standing, and she can — but just barely. She limps over to a dusty wooden chair near the fireplace and sits down in it, grimacing. She tells me she doesn’t think she can make it back down the mountain.

“There’s a crack of thunder in the distance. I walk over to the windows, and see the sun turning a blood red, setting over the tree line. Storm clouds are rolling in. Rain starts pitter-pattering on the cabin roof. Rachel’s groaning in pain, and she shows me her phone. It doesn’t have service either.”

“You were picked up by a search and rescue team, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“How’s that, if you had no way of contacting them? You weren’t gone longer than anticipated.”

Amanda sighs. “I was just about to get to that, actually.” There’s an undercurrent of annoyance in her tone, she clearly doesn’t care for interruptions once she gets going. I lean back in my chair. All the better for me. 

“Like I said, Rachel and I go on these sort of hikes pretty often. Me more than her, but still. I come prepared. All-weather clothing, bear mace, flint and steel. You name it, I got it. I don’t cut corners, so I made sure to pack my GPS locator beacon. It sends a one-way distress signal.”

“Ah,” I say, noting it in the report. “A survivalist.”

The fire in her eyes falters, and she pauses. A moment of silence stretches between us, and when she starts talking again her voice cracks. “Not as much of a survivalist as I should have been. Rachel wants me to use it, but I tell her no.”

Odd. 

“Hear me out.” Amanda’s eyes connect with mine, and there’s a pleading expression on her face. A desperation to be understood. “Rachel wasn’t in any immediate danger. Not then. Neither of us were. Plus, a storm was rolling in, and it looked like a big one.” 

She takes a shuddering breath. I know the look. Memories are clawing at her mind. “My father was a search and rescue technician. He was killed trying to rescue a couple of teenagers who got themselves trapped in a cave.”

Ah, there it is. 

The tragic backstory. I was wondering when it’d squirm its way out of her mouth. Somehow, all the human stupidity in the world can be traced back to our emotions overriding our will to survive. I scratch her reasoning down on the clipboard.

“I didn’t want anybody risking their lives when we had food, shelter, and weren’t in danger. I told her no. No way. I— I couldn’t have that blood on my hands if something went wrong and…” She trails off. 

“... And Rachel understood.”

Amanda gets quiet. She’s staring at me, and there’s that same look I’ve seen a thousand times before. 

I want to roll my eyes, I want to spit in her face for being such a naive idealist, but I hold it down. Instead, I plaster an understanding smile on my lips, and nod my head sagely. “You made the right choice. It was the only choice you could have made, knowing what you knew in that moment.”

It works. She perks up. “Yeah, I suppose.”

“So the two of you decide to stay inside the cabin then? You’re not worried about the bear or cougar using it as a snack bar might swing by?”

“At that point, we don’t really have another choice. I’m the outdoorsy type. I’ve seen storms, and I know that the one coming our way is going to be a big one. We decide the cabin’s our best bet, but we take precautions. I keep my bear mace close by, and we close all the doors. A cougar isn’t going to open a door, and a bear might break it down, but only if it feels it needs to. It’s far more likely to wander into the crawl space, safely away from us.”

“Sure. Makes sense.”

“I decide to put an extra layer between us and the front door though. Just in case. I clear out the busted bed frame and sweep the splinters from the bedroom floor, then I get to work setting up the tent.” Her voice dies. Memories are calling to her again. Difficult memories. 

“What happened?” I ask, the hairs on my arms rising. “Did you see something?”

She nods. “Yes. Animals were running through the clearing outside of the window. They were running past the cabin. Deers. Rabbits. Then a whole flock of birds burst through the tree tops and started flying over us.”

I lick my lips. Yes. This is very promising. My pen scratches at the clipboard in excitement. The Callous Man has a defining characteristic, one unique to him in the realm of legends. He always comes from the same direction. Always.

“Which way were the animals running?” I ask.

Her voice is small. Brittle. I barely hear it over the sound of my pounding heart. “South,” she says. 

I write the word, and underline it three times. My fingers are shaking with excitement. My mind’s racing. After so many dead ends and broken threads, so many killed and missing, it’s finally coming together. I’ve found one. A survivor, and not only that, but one that might still have the Link.

“How many animals were running?” I ask. I know the answer, but I need to hear her say it. 

It takes her a second to get the words out. They’re uncomfortable for her. Disturbing. “All of them,” she whispers. “It was like... an exodus of life.”

My heart hammers. My breath quickens. All of it, each detail of her story means one thing.

The Callous Man is coming.

I take a breath and stand up from the chair, stretching my legs. My back feels like it’s been crushed between two boulders, and sitting for any length of time always turns it into a pin cushion. Still, I couldn’t be happier.

“Everything alright?” she asks.

“Peachy.” I pick up the clipboard and clear my throat. “What happens after the animals flee the tree line?”

She opens her mouth to speak, but stops. Her eyes glance down to my open briefcase, staring at the manila folders and the crinkled old water bottle, filled with grimey black fluid. “Why do you have that?” she says, wrinkling her nose. “Its label is… yellow. It looks like it’s twenty years old. What’s that gunk inside?”

I scowl, kicking my briefcase closed. “An experiment. It’s nothing to concern yourself with. Now then, if you wouldn’t mind continuing, I’d like to hear what happened following the exodus.”

There’s a moment of shared disdain between us. She feels like I’m hiding something from her, and I feel like she’s putting her nose in places it doesn’t belong. Thankfully, it doesn’t last long, and she continues her account.

“Rachel calls my name from the main area, then she limps into the bedroom, leaning against the doorway. She looks really shaken up. She asks if I saw all the animals taking off, and I tell her I did. Her eyes are getting wide and I can tell she’s throwing herself into another panic attack, so I… I tell her that they’re probably just running from the storm.”

“Do you believe it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? It seemed like the only logical reason, but at the same time the whole scene felt so eerie. So wrong.” She opens her water bottle and takes a drink. “Either way, it’s not like I’m gonna start feeding into Rachel’s paranoia. One of us has to be calm, right?”

I shrug. “Sure. You said the sun was setting when the animal’s made a run for it. Is it dark yet?”

She nods. “Mostly. I mean, the last rays of sunlight are just barely peeking over the treetops. The storm’s making it worse. The clouds are blocking a lot of the light. I get a move on with finishing setting up the tent, and we set up this LED lantern that Rachel brought. It… feels weird.”

“In what way?”

“The silence.” She pauses, shakes her head and then mutters something. “Sorry, that’s the wrong word. It isn’t silent. The wind is howling and the rain’s coming down pretty hard, but there’s no sounds of life. No crows cawing, no squirrels chattering. I don’t even see any bugs in the cabin, despite a whole shit load of spiderwebs.

“I brush it off though. I keep telling myself one of us has to be calm. So we close the bedroom door and settle ourselves into the tent. Neither of us have much of an appetite, so we eat a couple of protein bars for supper and pull out our books. We don’t talk. I don’t even know if we actually read — I know I don’t. I stare at the words but my mind’s a million miles away, too wrapped up in the feeling that something is wrong with this place. Something’s wrong with this scenario.”

She sighs, running a hand through her blond hair. “I chalk it up to the darkness. Things always seem scarier in the dark, you know?”

I nod. The dark has always had a powerful effect on human beings. It makes it more difficult for us to see our enemies, and in my line of work, easier for them to see you. It’s a lose/ lose environment. Unfortunately, it’s often a necessary one.

“You don’t talk at all?” I ask, sitting back down in my chair.

“Not at first," Amanda says. "After ten, maybe twenty minutes, Rachel breaks the silence. She asks if we should use my rescue beacon, since it’s getting pretty bad outside. I know that’s not why she wants to use it, though. Not the real reason. I remind her that we can weather the storm in here, and call for help in the morning once the storm clears.”

Amanda screws up her face like she’s holding back a wave of emotions. “I manipulate her. I remind her my dad was killed during a botched search and rescue job, all because some teenagers couldn’t exercise a little bit of common sense.”

I study her. Perhaps she’s more cunning than I thought. Naive though. Still so naive.

“Rachel lets up. She agrees we can call in the morning. I can tell she’s scared, and honestly, so am I, and I know what we’re both thinking so I blurt out that there’s no such thing as monsters. I tell her we’re…. Fucking adults, and we’ll deal with this.” Amanda chuckles, it’s a small thing, full of disbelief and regret. “I promise her we’ll laugh about it in the morning.”

The woman’s not bad with a story. I idly wonder how popular her blog is. Unlike the gum in my mouth, her words have flavor. I dig in my jacket pocket and pull out my pack, popping a fresh piece free. Spearmint. It’s not a cigarette, but it’s the next best thing.

“Famous last words,” I say with a grim smile. “What’s Rachel think of your peptalk?”

“She… she’s fine with it, at first. I think she might even be on board. She doesn’t want to spend the night terrified anymore than I do, so anything that makes that fear a little smaller is a welcome distraction.”

Amanda swallows, and her expression goes blank. “It seems like everything’s going to be just fine, like it's just another overnight hike. At least, until we hear the footsteps outside.”

Here we go.

“There’s a creaking sound — like old wood straining under something’s weight. It’s hard to hear over the roaring wind, but given of our mental states, it’s practically unmissable. Something’s outside. The footsteps are slow, gradual. Whatever’s out there is taking its time, and both of us are frozen in fear.

“Rachel grabs the lamp and turns it off, and I suddenly realize just how dark it really is. It’s pitch. I can barely see Rachel, and she’s sitting close enough that we’re touching. It’s just us, the storm, and the sound of footsteps now. I whisper to her that it’s probably a deer, or maybe a mountain lion or just some kind of animal looking for shelter from the storm.”

Amanda's eyes are glazed, her hands picking at the fabric of her jeans. She’s lost in the memory.

“I don’t believe it myself. Something inside of me is rioting and telling me that we’re not safe. We haven’t been safe since the moment we walked into that cabin, and we won’t be safe until we’re far away. Still, I take a breath. I repeat that stupid internal mantra that one of us needs to be an adult. One of us needs to be rational.

“So we wait. I whisper to her that all the doors are closed. No animals are going to get inside. We’re safe. We’re safe. I keep repeating it, like if I say it enough, I’ll start believing it too. I do my best to reassure her and stave off another panic attack.”

Amanda uncaps her water bottle and takes a quick swig. Her hands grip it, squeezing, and the plastic crinkles. “It works. Maybe. I can’t see her, but I can’t hear her either. She’s not screaming. It’s good.” She swallows. “Then I realize things are bad. Really bad.”

“Why?”

“We hear this sharp whining sound — like rusty hinges, and we recognize it. It’s the front door of the cabin. Something opened it. The next second, the sharp whining is followed by dull thuds, like heavy footsteps. The floorboards groan, and we hear it, whatever it is, moving through the kitchen and into the main area.”

I remind myself to keep writing, but it’s hard. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for, the moment when I can finally determine whether or not she’s actually encountered the monster I’ve been chasing my entire life.

“I’m clutching my can of bear mace to my chest, and Rachel’s whimpering beside me. I’m hissing at her to be quiet, to shut the fuck up, because I know that if whatever’s out there hears us, it’s going to come in here.

"She listens. Neither of us move, we just listen for the footsteps. Thunder’s crashing outside, and the weather’s screaming through the busted window, but somehow in spite of it all those footsteps are clear as day. I couldn’t tune them out if I tried."

Her fingers find the armrests of her chair, and she grips them. They scratch against the tattered wood. “I pull the safety tab on my bear mace, ready to blast something if that's what it takes. Rachel grabs my arm, and I feel her hand trembling, her whole body is. Something smells like piss, and I realize it’s her. She’s losing it.

“The footsteps get closer. They’re halfway through the living area now, and they’re approaching the bedroom door. Whatever’s out there is close enough that we can hear this… snickering sound. Like really fast, short breaths. Nyeh nyeh nyeh. It doesn’t sound human, but it doesn’t sound like any animal I’ve heard either. It sounds like a nightmare.”

I circle a box on my clipboard, identifying the sound as CORRECT. According to more recent eyewitness encounters, the Callous Man snickers before engaging with his prey. An evolution of his mythology. In my memories, I recall only the screaming.

Amanda keeps talking.

“Rachel’s squeezing my arm so hard that it hurts. Her nails are digging into me and I can feel her warm piss on the bottom of the tent, it’s soaking through my jeans but I don’t care. I don’t do a damn thing. I can’t, because as soon as I make a sound or a move, those footsteps are going to get faster, and something’s going to open the bedroom door and then I don’t know what happens.”

She stops talking. Tears are forming in the corners of her eyes, and she grips her sweater sleeve and dabs at them. “Rachel… Rachel can’t take it anymore though. She reaches across me, hissing at me to give her the rescue beacon. She’s begging me to activate it, and I’m trying to get my hand over her mouth and shut her up but she’s desperate and she’s fighting me.”

“The footsteps pick up their pace. They’re walking toward us, these heavy thumps on the creaking floor. I whisper to Rachel if we send the distress call, the beacon’s going to start beeping.”

Tears slip down her cheeks and Amanda stares, transfixed at the concrete floor. There’s something swimming in her eyes, and I think it’s self-loathing, but I can’t be sure. All I know is it’s familiar. “Continue,” I say.

“Rachel gets hold of it. She hammers at its buttons, and it works. It starts beeping. The signal’s sent.” Amanda’s voice trembles, her lips quiver with the onset of her next words.

“The bedroom door opens. It’s this long, drawn out screech and both of us freeze. It’s just the rusty hinges, and the beacon beeping. I want to scream. I want to run. I think we both do, but we’re too afraid. We’re paralyzed.”

She swallows. “I get my finger ready on the trigger of the bear mace. I don’t want to use it inside. It’ll probably fuck us up just as bad as whatever’s standing in the doorway, but I’m ready to if I have to. Moments pass, and all we hear is the beacon beeping, and the rain and thunder outside.

“Then, there’s that snickering again. Fast and raspy. It’s followed by footsteps, and now that it’s in the room with us it sounds big. The tent shakes, the whole room shakes. It’s dark enough that we can’t see so much as a shadow through the canvas of the tent, but soon we don’t need to. The footsteps start circling us, and then a finger presses to the wall of the tent and begins tracing around it.

“Whatever it is, it starts sniffing. Softly at first, then louder and with more intensity. I realize it isn’t a man, it’s some kind of animal. It sounds beastlike. Feral, and hungry.”

Amanda closes her eyes, putting her head in her hands. She takes a moment and groans. When she looks up again, her eyes are hollow. “Rachel can’t stand it. She screams. She screams to leave us alone. She screams we have a gun. She turns on the lantern and tells it to fuck off, go to hell, die in a fire, you name it.”

“I’m going to assume that didn’t go over well.”

She rubs her arm anxiously. “I don’t know. It didn’t seem to hurt things. It left the room— walked into the living area, but then it stopped. It didn’t leave the cabin.” Her voice trembles. 

“What happened after he — after it walked into the living area?”

“Rachel hisses at me that we should run,” Amanda says. “I remind her that her ankle’s fucked. She barely limped into the bedroom, how far does she think she’s going to get in the woods, over uneven ground that’s slick with rain? She tells me if we stay here, we’re both going to die.”

Amanda shivers. “I know she’s right. I know it, but I can’t bring myself to leave. It feels like the tent’s the only thing keeping that thing away from us. Like, as long as the canvas is between us, it can’t see us and we can’t see it. It doesn’t exist.”

It takes everything I have not to roll my eyes. Still, I flip a page on the clipboard and keep a neutral expression. Her perspective is not unlike a child’s. People often approach terror with irrational and sometimes nonsensical methods of survival. Of course, there’s nothing magical about her tent. There’s nothing about it that will save their lives.

“Continue,” I order.

“It starts with a creak of a floorboard. We hear it walking again, but it’s not coming toward us. It’s pacing back and forth, out there in the living area, and it’s snickering faster than before. Soon, the snickering gets heavier. Violent. It starts grunting, then growling.” She takes a breath, and chokes back a sob. Tears race down her cheeks, and her eyes are alight with terror.

"Then it goes silent. No movement. No grunting. No weird fucking snickering. Just the thunder outside, the howling wind, and the rain on the roof. I’m sitting there, clutching the bear mace and Rachel’s crying, and both of us are praying it’s gone. We’re praying it’s just given up. Decided to move on. And… and...”

“And what?” I press.

She meets my gaze with her own, and a hopeless horror swims in her eyes. “... And then the entire cabin shakes. Footsteps pound on the floor, and there’s this hateful, agonizing sound, like a hundred human screams mixed together and poured out of a single voice. Rachel and I lose it. We’re shouting, crawling over each other trying to unzip the door of the tent and get the hell out of there and then our world turns upside down.

“It’s like we’ve been thrown in a washing machine. My head cracks off her knee and we’re rolling around, bouncing in this cacophony of sound and fabric and then I realize the tent's been lifted off the ground. Above me, in the light of the LED lantern I see two crooked, broken antlers piercing through the canvas. That monster’s throwing us around, bucking like a damn deer.

“Soon the tent canvas tears and we fall free, crumpling to the ground in a painful heap. Rachel’s scrambling over me, holding the lantern in her hand and in the madness of it all I see her make a break for it toward the window. As she does, the light passes over that… that fucking monster.”

Amanda chokes back tears and sniffles. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I just need one second.”

“Of course.” I reach into my jacket pocket and retrieve a set of tissues. I pass them to her. “Here, blow your nose.”

She does. When she’s finished, both of us sit in silence for a moment. Her bottom lip quivers. “It must have been eight feet tall. It was crouched over, humanoid except its chest was covered in fur and its legs were scaly, like a bird’s. It had a long tangle of black hair and… and its antlers jutted out from its eye sockets.”

I mark the details down in excitement. Yes. Good. It’s a near-perfect description. It’s missing only a few key things. “The antlers,” I press. “Can you describe them?”

“They were crooked,” she says, slowly. “They came out at odd angles, both different, and around them was a halo of eyes. Tiny black ones.” She closes her own eyes and takes a stuttering breath. “I almost missed them except they all blinked in unison, and I remember thinking it was the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen.”

“The fact that all of them blinked?” I ask.

“No. The fact that all of them were looking at me.”

“Did it attack you?” I have to know. The defining characteristic of the Callous Man is his method of attack. If she nails it, then I’ve got her. I’ve got my Link, and I’ve got him.

She shakes her head. “No. I thought he might, but then Rachel makes a racket. She’s throwing herself up onto the window ledge, and then she falls over the other side. The creature turns toward her, snickers, and launches itself at the window. It seems like it should be too big to fit, whatever it is, but it isn’t. It’s like a snake, the way its body contorts to fit itself into the window frame. It perchs there, and I see at the bottom of its scaly feet are these thick claws, and the hands it uses to grip the window have thin, impossibly long fingers. It drums them on the wall, before it launches itself after Rachel.”

My pen races across the form, filling in details and circling boxes as the information presents itself. This is very good. I’ve waited my entire life for this moment.

“I sit there for a second, in too much shock to move, and then I realize my friend is out there being chased by some… some fucking monster. I get to my feet and turn my phone’s light on, and in the distance, through the rain and swaying trees, I can see Rachel’s light, bobbing in the darkness.

“I call out to her. I shout her name, but she either doesn’t hear me or she doesn’t care. I scan the area for the monster, but I don’t see a thing. I lean out the window, looking around the cabin, using my phone’s light to illuminate as much as I can, but it’s not there. The monster’s vanished.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t take your opportunity and run,” I say. “The creature was clearly more interested in Rachel.”

Amanda glares at me. There’s a stubborn defiance in her eyes, and I have to remind myself that most humans have a perverse obsession with self sacrifice. Maybe it’s the Hollywood brainwashing, maybe it’s the fact that they just haven’t suffered enough, but they can’t get enough of it. Before she even speaks, I see it in her too.

“I couldn’t leave her,” Amanda snaps. “I was the one who dragged her out there on that hike. I was the one who suggested we follow that stupid, overgrown trail. I was the one who refused to use my locator beacon before it was too late. All of this was my fault. If I walked away from her then, I could never forgive myself.” Her voice breaks. “I still can’t.”

Time to get a move on. “You went after her then?”

“Yeah… I clambered through the window and took off, following her light as best I could. I had the bear mace in one hand and my phone in the other. The light from my phone wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep me from tripping on roots or running into trees. I kept calling Rachel’s name. Kept telling her I was coming.”

“She can’t have gotten far with a twisted ankle,” I say. “Then again, adrenaline can do incredible things.”

Amanda shakes her head. “She wasn’t moving that fast, at least compared to me. I was gaining on her. I could just barely see her silhouette ahead of me, and the LED lantern bobbing up and down as she limped away. Then the light drops. Rachel’s silhouette vanishes, and I hear her scream.

“I double over, running with everything I have. My lungs are burning and my feet are slipping on the mud but I don’t care. I’m not thinking anymore. I’m acting on pure instinct, and my instincts are telling me that if I don’t get to Rachel soon, that creature’s going to kill her.”

The words stop. Amanda’s body trembles, and she breaks down. She can’t hold it in anymore. The torrent falls out of her, and her face gets ugly as she sobs into her hands. It doesn’t take long before her palms are glistening with wetness, but to the girl’s credit, she forces herself to keep going. She doesn’t quit.

“Rachel’s screams stop. I can’t see anything really. The lantern’s on its side far ahead of me, and I can just barely make out a shape in the darkness. It’s the sound that still haunts me though.I think it always will.”

“What sound?”

“This wet, tearing sound. Like skin being ripped, and blood splattering the ground. It’s followed by a dull crunch, and then I hear slurping. Swallowing. I charge forward and I’m basically just adrenaline at this point. I hold my phone up as I close the distance and I see… I see it.”

She takes a sobbing breath. “I see the man with crooked antlers. He’s crouched over Rachel’s corpse, and one of her arm’s has been torn in half, dangling by a thin strip of flesh. It’s missing her hand. Blood is everywhere, and it’s still spurting out of her torn limb. I’m too stunned to move. Too shocked at seeing my friend, dead on the ground in front of me, being eaten by this thing.”

Her voice trembles, and she launches into another fit of tears. She brings a tissue to her nose and blows a thick wad of mucus into it, before throwing it unceremoniously onto the warehouse floor. She wipes her face with the back of her sleeve. “Then the thing rears back its head, and it tears what’s left of Rachel’s arm off. It starts to chew it.

“It’s… it’s more gruesome than anything I’ve ever seen. I don’t think we’re wired to deal with seeing that shit, as human beings, you know? Like nothing in my programming knew how to deal with that. Once it finishes chewing, it swallows the arm, and it opens its mouth again.

“Its bottom jaw falls all the way to the forest floor, its gaping maw large enough for a grown man to walk straight into. It sits there in front of her corpse for a second, and then that uproar of screaming starts again, like a hundred anguished voices stitched together.

"A flurry of human arms reach out of its mouth, clawing toward Rachel’s limp body. They clutch at what’s left of her torn limb, her hair, her jacket. They clutch at anything they can reach. Then they start dragging her into the monster’s mouth.”

There it is. It’s just as I remember.

Amanda loudly blows into the tissue again. “Then… I hear Rachel whimper, and my fucking blood goes cold. I realize the entire time I’ve been standing there, watching this thing eat her, she’s been alive. I was watching her get eaten alive.”

“My mind goes blank. I point the bear mace and let loose a blast toward the monster, shouting at it to get the fuck away from her. It recoils, howling in that symphony of screams and shuffling back into the bushes. I take my chance and press the lantern into Rachel’s hand. I tell her she needs to hold that for us, and she nods weakly. Her face has lost all of its colour, and I know she’s not long for this world.

“I get her good arm over my shoulder, and keeping a grip on the bear mace, begin putting some distance between us and that monster. She’s groaning. She keeps saying my name. ‘Mandy.’ Over and over again, but I tell her to be quiet. She needs to save her energy, and I need to hear that thing.

“We don’t get far before I hear it’s thunderous footfalls pound against the forest floor. It’s running at us. I wheel around, and Rachel’s lantern illuminates the monster for only a split second before I let loose another round of the mace. It snickers in pain and brings those long-fingered hands to its eyes.

“I don’t wait around for it to recover. I keep going. I don’t know where. All I know is I need to get away from this thing, because it isn’t going to stop until it finishes what it started. Again, I hear its footsteps pound and the dirt, and again I wheel around and blast the monster. It shrieks in pain and shies away, but only a few moments later it charges again.”

Amanda keels over and starts bawling. She grips her hair, then starts pulling on it so hard I half-expect her to tear a chunk from her scalp.

“I realize,” she says, choking out the words between sobs. “I realize Rachel’s too heavy. I can’t carry her. I can’t get away from this thing because I can feel the can of mace is almost empty and every time I hit it with the mace it affects it less.”

She shakes her head, her eyes are bloodshot, her cheeks tearstained. She sniffles and wipes mucus onto her sleeve. “I have to leave Rachel. I have to. If I don’t, it’s going to kill us both. You understand, right?”

For the first time in her desperate recollection of the Event, I do understand. “Yes,” I say. “Life isn’t easy. There aren’t any real heroes, just people who pretend to be. You made a difficult choice, but a necessary one.”

Amanda stares at me, she stares at me for a long while like she’s searching my expression for something. Finally, she nods, slowly. “Yeah,” she says, wiping more snot onto her sleeve. Her voice evens out, the tears no longer coming in torrents

“I did what I had to do. I put her down, apologizing. I apologized over and over again, and I heard that thing coming and I took off. I ran, full tilt into the woods. Behind me, I heard that screaming. All of that awful, horrible screaming.”

She swallows, and her voice stutters. “I listened to that familiar sound of tearing flesh, and then the dull crunch of snapping bone. I listened to the creature chew on Rachel. I tried not to. I tried to just focus on running, or the sound of the rain, or the thunder, or the wind, but I couldn’t. All I could hear was my friend being eaten alive.”

Silence stretches between us. I clear my throat. “Is that it? You got away, ran into the SAR team on your way down the mountain?”

“No,” she says, closing her eyes. There’s a look of resigned regret in her features. “I hear another sound. I hear a helicopter. A moment later, I catch sight of its search light, beaming over the forest. I know this might be my only chance, so I start waving around my phone’s light, trying to make as much of a scene as I can.

“It works. The helicopter swings over, and it lowers a ladder with a rescue technician. He straps me to a line and asks me if I'm alone. I'm hysterical, shouting a mile a minute. I shriek that a monster attacked my friend, and I point toward Rachel’s lantern, faintly visible in the distance. I tell him it killed her.”

Amanda gulps, wiping at her eyes. “He radios in to have me brought up, and says he'll go look for Rachel. I tell him not to. I know if he does, he'll die too. It'll kill him just like it killed her, but over the wind and rain he either doesn't hear me, or doesn't care.

“I'm pulled into the helicopter, and a few minutes later I hear the man’s voice over the radio. It's desperate. Full of grief. He says he needs a stretcher down there. He says he found the other woman, and that she's still alive.”

Jesus.

“Have you spoken to Rachel since?” I ask quietly.

Amanda shakes her head. “No. She um — she’s in a coma. Both of her arms are missing, the wounds are infected and she’s developed serious pneumonia. Doctor’s aren’t sure if she’s going to make it.”

She brings a hand to her mouth and chokes back a sob. Her eyes are wide, and her body quakes. “I… I left her there to die. If I had just stayed with her a couple minutes longer then the rescue chopper would have found us. It would have scared that fucking thing away and Rachel…”

“Would still be gravely injured,” I finish. “You can’t blame yourself. You didn’t know the chopper was around the corner. All that you knew was something wanted to kill you, and it was winning the battle for your life.”

Her shoulders wrack with silent sobs. “I could’ve stayed with her.” She breaks down all over again, and this time I give her all the time she needs. I’ve scarcely seen somebody so grief-stricken in all my years of doing this, and it's almost as bizarre to me as the anomalies I’ve spent my life hunting. To hate yourself for something as simple as wanting to live. It’s inhuman.

“I’m sorry,” she says finally. “That’s… that’s everything. Can I go now?”

I lean back in my chair, frowning. It’s not that I don’t empathize with her, but such messy reactions only serve to get in the way of actually fixing problems. In her case, getting revenge for Rachel.

She stands up, sniffling, then answers her own question. “... I’m gonna head home.”

“Wait,” I say. 

She stops in her tracks. “What?”

“Can you take me there?”

She stares at me with red, puffy eyes. Her face is a mask of confusion. Disbelief. “Excuse me?”

“The cabin, I mean." I lean forward in my chair. "Can you take me to the Callous Man?”

_____________________

​

I’ve never been a fan of the woods.

Call it a bad childhood experience. Call it being an out-of-shape asshole. I’m even less of a fan when I’m stuck hiking through them for work, and yet it seems like work has a sick sense of humor, because I find myself in these fortresses of shit and sticks more often than I’d like. Which, for the record, is never.

Well, except for today. 

It’s a long time before we reach the cabin. The girl said it took her and her friend eight hours. Well, it takes us twelve. My best days are behind me, unfortunately, but luckily I don’t need to be very fit for what I’m about to do. 

“I still don’t understand why you couldn’t have just followed the map," Amanda says. " I told you exactly how to get to—”

“Because,” I say, still breathless from the hike. “This cabin doesn’t exist on a map. You can point it out to me all you want on your iPhone, but unless you’re right beside me, I’ll never see it. It’s just the way the Callous Man works.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “You keep saying that name. Why do you call him the Callous Man?”

I pull open the door of the cabin, and instantly it smells like shit and dead animals. 

Great. 

“I call him the Callous Man,” I say, strolling across the creaky floorboards, “because that’s his name. It’s the name the first person that ever encountered him coined him with, and so it is the name with which I refer to him.”

“The first person?”

“Yeah,” I say, stepping into the bedroom. “Me.” 

The floor is a mess, covered in what’s left of Amanda’s tent. A small device lays a few feet away, and I figure it’s probably her locator beacon. 

“Hang on,” she says, appearing in the doorway behind me. “You’re the first person you saw the crea— the Callous Man?”

I nod, bending down and picking up one of the shattered photo frames she’d mentioned. Dusting it off, I hold it up to her. “This is my grandpa and I, showing off our rifles before going deer hunting.” 

She looks shocked. Stunned. Her eyes gaze at the picture, then back at me. “On second glance, you two really do share a resemblance. You and he look so much alike.”

“Yeah, I suppose we do.” I toss the frame onto the ground.

“You lived here?”

“Visited. My grandpa lived here.”

“You're kidding.” She shakes her head, incredulous.“This whole thing is so bizarre. It has to be a nightmare. It can’t be real.”

I flip the water bottle full of black grime in my hands, catching it with a smile. “You’re preaching to the choir, lady. If I had to guess, I probably hope I wake up from this even more than you do.”

“Unlike you," she says with a glare. "I don’t have any… secret agent training, or whatever.” 

“Unlike me, you’ve got my gun. The only training you need is to point and shoot, and not hit me with the bullets.”

She taps my revolver, strapped to her thigh. It was the sole condition of her joining me on this little woodland excursion, that she gets to be the one who carries the gun. I told her that’s fine, with one stipulation:

“Remember," I say. "Don’t fucking touch that thing unless the Callous Man’s already pulling you into his big mouth. I don’t need you shooting me before I finish my business.”

“What if he's attacking you?” she asks. 

“I’ll deal with it.”

“You’ll deal with an eight foot tall monster with nothing but your bare hands?”

The water bottle crinkles in my grip. “Just trust me on this. I’m a professional.” I place my hand on the windowsill and look out over the clearing, out past the treeline. The sun’s turned a golden red. Soon, it’ll be night. 

“Nervous?” I ask her.

“What do you think?” she says. “I hope you're as good as you say you are.”

The way she moves, the way she speaks and the way she keeps touching the revolver on her thigh tell me everything I need to know. 

She’s terrified. 

“Relax,” I say. “Save the anxiety for when our friend shows up.” 

Amanda pulls one of the chair’s from the living area into the bedroom with me. She sits down on it, rigid and straight. I’m almost proud of her. Sure, she was only willing to accompany me with a revolver strapped to her thigh, but she still chose to do it; she chose to get revenge for what thing did to her. 

What it did to Rachel. 

“Almost there,” I mutter. My eyes follow the sun as it slips behind the treeline. Shadows stretch out, engulfing the cabin in thin strips of darkness. “He’ll be here soon.”

Seconds pass, then minutes, and then things begin to change. It starts with a crow taking flight, and I already know he’s coming. I can feel him. A family of rabbits follow, bounding through the clearing. Soon, the entire forest is fleeing past us, far away from the Callous Man, and the death he represents. 

I pop a piece of spearmint gum and start chewing. It helps me focus. “You ready?” 

“Why?” she says, shooting up from the chair. “Is he here?”

“Does it make a difference? You're either ready or you're not."

She scowls at me, but her body relaxes. “I'm ready. Are you sure you can kill him?”

A mad mixture of impatience and nervousness flutters in my stomach. I toy with the idea of lying. It’d put her at ease. Then I decide it doesn’t matter anymore. Both of us are in too deep. “No.”

“No?” she repeats, hysterical. She rises from her chair, rounding on me. “You said you were professional!"

“I am.”

“You told me you’ve dealt with a hundred different monsters!”

“I have.”

Her mouth opens, but no words come out. She stares at me with something between stunned disbelief, and absolute loathing. She thinks I’ve signed our death warrants. 

“I’m not going to lie to you,” I say. “I’ve dealt with a lot of creatures. Some bad, some worse. I know this job inside and out, and I don’t plan on dying today, but the Callous Man is different.”

“How?”

“He’s—” I catch myself. We’re on the precipice, and there’s no going back, but there’s still words that can upset the operation. I exercise some tact. “He’s powerful. He can distort this world, and manipulate dimensions. It’s why I needed you here, it’s why I needed your Link. He chose you. The Callous Man gave you the key to his world, and only you — but he never said you couldn’t bring visitors.”

She shakes her head. She’s trying to piece it together — bless her heart she’s trying her best, but there’s not enough pieces to make sense of it, and that’s intentional. It's by design. I need her obedient, not unruly. Everything hinges on her cooperation. 

“I don’t understand. Why did he choose me?”

The sun finishes its descent, its red-orange rays fading to darkness. I flick my flashlight on, holding it up to the window and watching the clearing with bated breath. The Callous Man is coming. 

“He chose you because of the life you live," I explain. "The values you represent. It means something to him.”

“Values I represent? What, like honesty and integrity?" She snorts. "What do values mean to a monster like that?”

I smirk. “They mean you taste good.”

The night is still. Silent. Just as she earlier described, there’s no sounds of life, except this time there’s no storm either. It’s a cloudless sky, without so much as a breeze, and I can almost hear Amanda’s heart beating out of her chest.

“Ha ha,” she says sarcastically. She’s close enough behind me now that I can feel her breath on my neck. She really is terrified. “What do those values actually mean to it?”

“To him," I correct. "Believe it or not, that monster really is a man. When you become as powerful as he is though, food stops meaning what it means to you and I. It’s less about calories and more about filling a void. It’s trying to supplement its diet with concepts, ideas that it’s missing.”

“Why?”

“To become better. To cure itself.”

There’s movement in the clearing, and my breath catches as I see it: a set of crooked antlers. They rise from the bramble, soon revealing a face covered by matted black hair, one with a tiny snout and a halo of dark, beady eyes. The dots glimmer in the beam of my flashlight. 

“It wants to stop being a monster?” she asks, her voice thick with disbelief. “It’s eating people to save itself?”

“Shh!” I hiss. My eyes are wide, and my mouth is split into the largest grin I’ve worn in years. “He’s here.”

I sense her tense up behind me, but to her credit she doesn’t unholster the revolver on her thigh. She keeps her cool. I grip the water bottle tighter, reaching a hand to its cap. 

No. 

I pull my hand away, reminding myself that I need to keep my cool too. It’s still too soon. The Callous Man can still make his escape. Fade away. I need him committed. 

At the edge of the clearing, the man rises to his full height. I can see clearly now his dark fur chest, and his long, thin fingers resting on the ground. His bird-like legs begin a slow march forward, their claws digging at the loamy earth. 

“He’s coming,” I say, taking a step back. “Stay behind me. Directly behind me.”

She doesn’t speak, but I know she’s nodding. I hear her feet creak on the floorboards in concert with my own. My fingers play at the cap of the water bottle. Everything comes down to this. Forty years of horror and misery have led me to this moment. 

A snickering sound pierces the air. The man’s moving faster now, each footstep coming at the pace of a light jog. There’s hardly any time left, but still I wait. 

“He’s coming,” Amanda hisses from behind me. She’s panicking. Her hand clutches at my shoulder and I grunt, shaking her off. 

“Don’t,” I tell her. “Relax. We’re almost done here.” My heart races. Seeing the monster again after all these years is dredging up old memories, and the little boy threatens to take hold inside of me. My palms are thick with sweat. 

It doubles over, sprinting on all fours. Its armada of eyes connect with my own, while its crooked antlers sway in concert with its powerful body. Clouds of earth burst out from behind it, its long fingers tearing at the ground with each stride. “Nyeh nyeh nyeh,” it snickers. “NYEH NYEH!”

It leaps at the window. 

For a moment, time seems to stop. I stare, transfixed at the creature I used to know so well. Its horrifying, inhuman face gazes back at me and inside of it I see an insatiable hunger. A need to feed. 

My body freezes, my blood goes cold. Terror grips me as its fingers reach outward, passing through the window while its vocal chords chitter in anticipation. It wants me. 

I lunge to the side. 

It collides with Amanda, its antlers piercing her stomach and showering the bedroom in blood. Her body crashes against the wall with a sickening crunch, and lays there in a broken, whimpering heap. 

I stay as quiet as I can. The Callous Man shakes his tangle of black hair and looks around, reorienting himself. First to me, then to her. 

Then back to me.

Fuck. My fingers begin untwisting the cap of the water bottle. It’s too soon. I need him distracted. I need him feeding and committed, but I don’t think I have an option anymore. It steps toward me. The floor groans. My mouth feels dry, my limbs twitchy. Fear takes root in my chest, and the little boy inside threatens to take hold. 

No. I have to hang on. I open the water bottle, and my mouth begins stuttering the words. “T-Thu Val Nolar…” 

The Callous Man lowers himself. His back arches, and his tiny snout begins to open, growing larger and larger. Screams of a hundred souls echo from the void inside of him, their arms reaching toward me, desperate to draw another into their nightmare. 

“Gal Nush Alza…”

I continue the words, but there’s no time. They’re so close. He’s so close. I press myself as far against the corner as I can, but still I feel their cold grip on my leg. They pull. They’re strong. My balance goes out from under me, and I fall on my ass. “Yust val kulna…” 

It wasn't supposed to happen like this. She held the values he needed. Her. Not me.

I keep speaking the incantation. I keep moving my lips, but now my body’s acting on instinct, on learned behavior. I can’t so much as think as I slip further and further into the abyssal darkness of the Callous Man’s jaws. I keep speaking the words, but my voice is drowned by the pleas of the dead. Screaming. Howling. Begging. The incantation is all I have left. It’s not enough. It’s taking too long.

A deafening bang rings out, interrupting the chorus of screaming souls. The Callous Man recoils, its jaw sliding across the floor and its body writhing in agony. It stumbles to the side and then two more gunshots pierce the night. It falls to its knees. 

I can see behind him now. I can see Amanda’s bloody, mangled heap. One of her legs is snapped backwards, and her white shirt is torn at her stomach, with pieces of her falling out of the hole. Blood spills from her mouth like a fountain, and in her trembling hands she holds the revolver. 

“Thank you,” I breathe, rising to my feet on shaky legs. “Thank you, Amand—”

Another blast of the hand gun, and this time my ears are ringing like church bells. I stumble to the side, and in the dim light of my lantern, I see a bullet hole in the wall beside me. I barely have time to look back at her before agony rips through my thigh, and I collapse onto the bedroom floor. 

Fucking bitch! My hands clutch the wound instinctively. I don’t need to look at it to feel the warm wetness of blood seeping through my fingers. I gaze up at her, and she steadies the gun at me. I was so close. So goddamn close. Forty years of this shit and I’m undone by a blogger. 

“Do it,” I growl. Death by a bullet isn’t a bad way to go, all things considered. “Do it before he takes us both!"

She lowers the revolver, and tears fall from her eyes. She’s choking on a word, but all that’s coming out is a torrent of blood. It’s fine. I know what she wants to say. 

“I did it because it was the only way,” I explain through gritted teeth. “One of us always had to die, but if it was me, then it meant we both did.”

Her body’s twitching in shock. She’s still moving her mouth, but it’s just blood now. No words. Only blood. Her face is pale and glassy eyed, but I only see it for another moment before the Callous Man begins to rise. Nyeh nyeh nyeh. He’s snickering, but it’s violent. Angry. 

His eyes gaze at me. The antlers are casting twisted shadows in the light of my lantern, and it’s making him seem even more unnatural. More inhuman. Nyeh Nyeh. He turns away from me. He turns to Amanda. 

“Fel guz rea…” I whisper. “Morath un gre’ shan.”

His footsteps groan on the rotting cabin floorboards. I don’t see Amanda, but I hear the gurgle of blood. I hear the desperate shuffle of her body, pushing itself against the wall. I hear a gunshot ring out. Then another. 

The footsteps march forward, and so does my incantation. The water bottle’s shaking in my grip now, the grimey fluid swirling in a murky maelstrom. “Grea yulia.”

Another shot. 

“Thel ra dua.” 

A cacophony of screams. 

“Set kil ona.”

Amanda lets loose on the hand gun twice more, and then the firearm clicks impotently. She’s burned through every round that it has. It wasn’t enough. It never could be. My lips keep moving even as I hear her body being dragged across the floor. 

The ancient language flows out of me, and I’m deaf to the sounds of her flesh being ripped and torn, her limbs being devoured inch by inch. She needs to hang on. Her role in this isn’t over yet. 

I speak the final words.

“Set rindas!” The water bottle jolts from my grip, the murky fluid inside exploding into a dark cloud, twisting around the room like a tornado of smoke. I hear the screaming falter, then I hear the Callous Man lurch around, snickering in confusion. I hear Amanda groan. 

She’s a fighter. Good. 

It takes the cloud only a handful of seconds to coalesce into the greatest monster I’ve ever seen, but in that moment it feels like a lifetime. Its form snaps and cracks with bolts of electricity. Its twelve eyes glow an impossible blue. Upon its six muscled arms are heavy chains, linking to a choker on its neck and its face roars in fury. 

“This time I’ll have your soul, little man. I’ll enjoy it over a glass of your misery!”

I let a grin slip across my lips. For the first time since the Callous Man appeared, I feel my sense of humor returning. “Sorry to disappoint, Dreighar, but I summon you by means of an offering.”

The genie’s brows furrow and his mouth opens to reveal a row of jagged teeth. “I see no living humans here, save for one.” He’s smiling. He reaches an arm out to grab me, but as soon as his fingers brush my throat, they hiss and steam. He recoils, snarling. 

“She’s your offering,” I say, pointing past the Callous Man, to Amanda’s mangled body. “Now obey my command.”

A legion of screams interrupt us. The Callous Man’s jaws have opened, and once more a hundred arms reach from the maw — this time toward the newcomer. They grasp at the genie, phasing through the gaseous image. 

Dreighar scowls, his voice dropping to a low growl. “Very well. The words are spoken. A soul for a soul.” His body splits in two, circumventing the Callous Man and reforming in front of Amanda. She’s nearly dead. She’s confused. She doesn’t understand what’s happening. 

I’ve given her a mercy. Dreighar will treat her soul better than the Callous Man ever would. The genie’s hand reaches out to touch her, and in the next instant, her body is gone. Only the bloodstains remain. 

The Callous Man looks back to me, its jaw scraping along the floor. It recognizes there’s nothing in the genie to consume. It wants what’s inside of me, though. It wants the memories of its humanity. Revenge. 

It takes a heavy step toward me. Then another. The screams are deafening, but I know I don’t need my voice to be heard. A command is a command. 

“For her soul, I want His.”

The pale hands reach out from the abyssal maw, grasping my legs, and I let them. My body falls to the floor. It inches toward the jaws of the beast. Toward damnation. 

Then, light fills the room, and the cabin shakes with the low bass of eternity itself. The screaming fades to a whimper. Then, after a loud pop, it’s gone. 

Everything’s gone.

The Callous Man. The cabin. I’m alone, laying in a dark field, my lantern illuminating a clearing of grass, with tall trees surrounding it. My thigh aches, my mouth is parched, and my conscience is in tatters. But I’m alive.

I’m always alive. 

“Soon you’ll have fulfilled our contract,” says a hissing voice, scraping along my inner ear. It’s everywhere and nowhere. “I’ve taken ninety three souls for you. Only seven more to go.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it before,” I say with a groan. “Now, hand over my soul.”

There’s a swirl of smoke, and the frowning genie appears before me. He snaps a finger on one of his six arms, and produces a vial filled with murky purple fluid. “The man never deserved this,” he says. “He was your own blood.”

“Don’t lecture me,” I say, reaching for the vial.“You and I both know he was never supposed to turn into that.”

The genie pulls back, gazing at the vial. “What is meant to be and what comes to pass are two different things. You shield yourself in the delusion of intention.” 

He encircles me in a snaking ribbon of smoke, his face materializing near my ear. “You forced that destiny on the man. He had no desire to participate in your war.”

“Yeah, well none of us do. And yet it’s coming anyway.” Something takes a seat in my gut. Regret, maybe? Remorse? It’s an ugly feeling, whatever it is. I blame it on the woman. Why didn’t she just kill me?

No, I think to myself. Shake it off. I've got more important things to worry about.

"The vial," I growl, holding my hand out.

"I think I may have miscalculated," Dreighar mutters, staring at the vial with curiosity. "A soul for a soul, such is the terms of our contract, and yet..."

I swallow and it feels like sandpaper. When's the last time I had something to drink? "You got your soul, now give me mine." My voice cracks. Fuck. My voice cracks. 

The genie's twelve eyes swivel their gaze to me. A smile slips across its lips. When he speaks, his voice is quiet. Unsettling. "I count over a hundred souls in this vial."

My heart slams against my ribcage. Damnit. "That's not fair!" I shout, trying to rise to my feet, but my thigh screams in pain and I fall back to earth. "I only asked for his soul! I never asked for the souls he devoured."

"And yet, they are still a part of him."

"Please…" It can't end here. "Be reasonable."

"Reasonable?" the genie roars, and his form becomes massive. Lightning sparks around him, and the wind whips into a gale threatening to unseat me from the ground.

"You chain me to this earth for decades, turn me into a common reaper for your own ends, and you confine me to a plastic bottle! You speak of reason to me?"

"I did what I had to!" I bellow. "A war is coming, and we need these souls! We need an army!" 

"Your petty war means nothing to me." Dreighar points a long finger toward me, and a red aura swirls around it. Sparks crackle at its tip. Then slowly, reluctantly, he curls it back into a fist. "I am, however, a reasonable being."

My breath hitches in my chest as I hang on the monster's every word. 

"You have broken the terms of our contract, but I have also willingly fulfilled your wish. For that, I will give you a compromise, little human."

Compromise? That's good. Better than nothing, at least. 

Dreighar's eyes glint. "One month."

"One month?"

"Settle your affairs. Prepare for your war. One month from now, I'll take the soul I've dreamed of for decades. I'll spend the next century picking you out of my teeth."

I sigh, falling back onto the grass. It's better than I could expect, all things considered. I'm surprised the cosmic asshole didn't just scoop me up right then and there. 

Fucking fine print. 

"Okay," I say. "Can you get me out of here?"

He smirks, turning into formless smoke. "A soul for a soul. No more, no less." He begins swirling like a mad tornado of shadow, howling and roaring and a moment later he’s gone, vacuumed back into the water bottle.

Asshole. 

Looks like I'm finding my own way down. Once more I try to rise to my feet, and once more I wince in pain and fall to the earth. Damn. The revolver did good work on my thigh. 

No, she did.

The woman tugs at my thoughts. Her resolve. Her strength. Her blog. She could tell a story, Amanda Haynes. She's gone now, but there's still a story that needs to be told, and I'm running out of time to tell it.

I spot a mess in the corner of my eye. A pile of canvas, torn and bloody with tent poles poking out. 

That should do.

I crawl toward it, and a moment later I find what I'm looking for: a black device laying a few feet away — just like it’d been in the cabin. 

The beacon. 

I reach out and grab it, and click the button. It beeps.

Good. 

It beeps. 

_____________________

​

You don’t need me to tell you that the search team located me, and you don’t need me to tell you that they had a lot of questions, but that the Facility stepped in and took care of it. You also don’t need me to tell you that I’ll be walking with crutches for the rest of my short life.

What you need me to tell you, is why I’m sharing this. You need to know why I’m telling you this story, and why I need you to tell it to others. Your friends. Your family. Everybody. 

The reality is, a war is coming. It’s a war that humanity isn’t outfitted for, but we’re doing the best we can. Strictly speaking, everything I’ve just said is classified, and yet it’s critical this information be spread far and wide. What’s coming for us can’t be stopped by missiles and guns. It can’t be overcome by men and women. It has to be through other means. 

Legendary means. 

The folks at the top don't want to admit that. They don't want to sow chaos and uncertainty and admit our hourglass is dangerously low on sand, but it is, and chaos is coming one way or another. 

We're doing what we can at the Facility, but it isn't enough. Not even close. They'd skin me alive for telling you this, but my time's already up, so fuck 'em.

I’m asking you —all of you, if you see a creature that defies explanation, or a certain something that goes bump in the night, share your experience. Make it known. Against the eldritch abominations coming our way, those monsters might be our only chance. 

And honestly?

We need all the help we can get. 

[envihellbender]

Snow White Steve, huntsman Eddie

Rating: Mature

Characters: Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington (called Edward and Steven for stylistic reasons), One (not called by his birth name for personal reasons)

Fandom: Stranger Things

Content: Snow White inspired AU (the premise but revamped for a dystopian / fantasy setting), slight gore, hinted at cannibalism

Summary: The Huntsman Edward Munson is sent by the Lord’s stepson One to kill Edward’s secret lover Steven Harrington, code named Snow White.

—

Ever since Steven Harrington’s affliction had become public knowledge, Hopper’s stepson had taken his place as his heir. The young man was known as One, and anyone who used his previous moniker had met an extremely brutal end. For a few years now, even before One took Steven’s place, Edward had been One’s preferred hunter. Now that he had taken the role no one thought he would, that made Edward the highest ranking Hunter in the barracks. That was why he’d been sent on the Snow White mission, and why Edward was stood, having presented an open organ donor case. Edward remembered this office, handsome and neat, when he first was drafted into General Hopper’s program. Back then, Edward was ten years old and Hopper was in charge. It isn’t changed much, the walls were still a bottle green, the windows let in hardly any light, and the large desk in the middle of the room felt more foreboding than anything else. One sat at it, staring at the new find like a child with a favourite toy.

“I present to you the heart of Steven Harrington,” Edward Munson declared somewhat needlessly. One did like the ceremony and theatrics, however. Edward stood with his hands clasped behind his back. He had a nervous smile on his lips as he kept his head bowed in front of One.

“Mm, nicely done, my dear Hunter,” One hummed, his eyes fixed on the bloody heart presented in front of him. Edward tried to control his breathing, slow and deep, in and out. He hoped One wouldn’t notice. “Tell me about it. Did he make a difficult prey?” Edward had been preparing for this, a dramatic over the top battle would arouse suspicion as would the suggestion that the kill was no problem at all.

“Not the hardest I’ve had, Sir,” he began, a hint of a sigh in his voice. “He was bothersome, attempted to play mind games, tried his luck at seduction like you said he would.” He couldn’t help but feel guilt twist in his gut at this comment, but he had to make it believable. Backing up what One thought and rubbing his ego was the best way to ensure Edward’s story held up to scrutiny. “Thanks to you I was prepared, when he fled and managed to cause the entire forest to help and hide him… Well, that was where he ran straight into my trap.” He paused for a moment. Partially for effect, primarily for him to picture the story in his head, she he might portray it more accurately. “The creatures protecting him were easy for me to kill, no hunter worth his salt would have had a problem shooting squirrels, deer, and chopping down trees.”

“Mm. Good,” One hummed in response, a wide, delighted grin spreading across his face and showing his crooked teeth. They were the only flaw on his beautiful face, and they were overshadowed by the delight in his eyes. “I knew you’d be able to resist his infuriating abilities. He’s a glorified siren.”

“Of course, Sir. My duty is to you, a pretty smile will not distract me,” Edward swallowed, trying to ignore the guilt in his chest.

“And? What then?” One’s eyes were bright like a child being told a bedtime story.

“Well, then- I-” Edward cleared his throat, he hadn’t ever truly lied to One before, it was terrifyingly easy but left him with a sinking feeling. “When I had him cornered he was easy prey, I pinned him to the bark of a tree, and then cut him open down from his collar bone to his navel. I pulled his rib cage open, his corpse collapsing upon my body, I began to remove his heart.”

“You always do impress me, my Hunter.” One silently slipped from his chair and got to his feet. “I cannot wait to see the look on General Hopper’s face when he discovers he’s dined upon the slut’s heart. His choice of heir, some whore who isn’t even his son, is out of the picture.” One let out an almost crazed laugh, lifted his arms and all but ran towards Edward, cupping his face in his hands and pressing their foreheads together. “You are my loyal, precious hunter. I know I will always, always be able to rely on you.”

“Thank you, Sir, I do- I do so desperately want to please you.” Edward looked up at One as he spoke, playing on how submissive and obedient he appeared.

“I know, my Hunter, I know. Ever since the day Hopper gave you to me as a chubby young boy whose arms shook and spasmed too much to aim a revolver or run a circuit, I knew there was something in you. I knew you were everything I needed.” One stroked Edward’s pale face, and pushed a stray brown hair behind his ear. Edward kept his hair tied in a neat bun when he worked, a decision that made him look the part of the heir of the city’s prized hunter. They were interrupted by a familiar clattering and banging from the front door beneath them, Hopper was home.

“Shall I take my leave, Sir?” Edward asked.

“Mhm. Unfortunately you cannot be present, he will become suspicious if it is more than a simple family meal. But thank you, my Hunter. You have outdone yourself. You’re excused.” Edward did one last bow and said his goodbyes. One stroked his hair before he left, a hand lingering on Edward’s back with his thin fingers.

“Thank you, Sir.” Edward tried to hide his relief, he gave a nod and walked out of the room slowly. It felt as if he was playing a character, a stoic, proper soldier. As soon as he let the oppressively ostentatious room he relaxed, he let out a deep breath and his shoulders fell from beside his ears. He took the familiar route out of the palace, his hands instinctively gripping the sling across his body. One finger followed the bullets, counting them, the other tapped against it with his thumb. Hopefully they would be safe now, he thought.

Edward travelled to the small cottage hidden in the woods that evening, he went back on himself several times to ensure he was not being followed. In his pack he had plenty of food and supplies. His radio was strapped to his jacket and no warning signal had suggested there was anything wrong. The code was simple, Steven Harrington was Snow White, and anything regarding that character - apples, dwarves, anything - was a clue to his whereabouts. Edward tried not to think of the possibility that One figured out that he couldn’t be trusted. He couldn’t help but be anxious, not until he entered the cottage and closed the door behind him. As he did he heard the shuffling of trees, the branches all moving to cover the door and windows. As much as Edward had secured the house, nothing matched the way the forest protected Steven.

“It’s Eddie,” Edward called into the house, as he did Steven appeared at the living room door with a grin on his blood red lips.

“Of course, who else would it be?” He teased.

“You can never be too careful, Stevie,” Edward said a little defensively but with a smile. He opened his arms as he approached his paramour, wrapping him into his embrace and burying his face into Steve’s black hair and pale white skin. Edward had seen childhood photos where Steve had chestnut hair, pale lips, and rosy cheeks. What had changed?

“I know you’re worried,” Steven assured. “I trust that you’ve handled it.”

“We’ll see how things go, apparently One is planning to feed your ‘heart’ to Hopper tonight.” Edward’s words made Steven tense, his eyes widened in horror.

“He… why? Why would he do that?” Steven’s mouth was dry, audibly so from how his voice croaked and cracked.

“To hurt Hopper, I think. I think that’s what this has been about to begin with.”

“Maybe I should contact him or-”

“Absolutely not,” Edward interrupted sharply. He took Steven’s hands in his own and pulled him closer. “That would undo everything. You need to stay here. Promise me.”

“I- of course, yes. I will,” Steven nodded gravely, his brow furrowed as he looked to the ground. The two fell into silence then, and Edward hoped and preyed that Steven was telling the truth.

[knotwerk]

holy shit i fucking love editing. (remind me i said that in two weeks.) 

i’m working on the proper hydration series finale aka PH6. i finished writing the first draft on 4/6/24, clocking in at 85k words. and then i sat on it for a few days before rereading it, did an extremely cursory once-over edit, and sent it off to my first reader & og beta @demolitionwoman-blog (CHEERS!!!). she started working on the beta, and by the time she hit chapter 3, she made the observation that the next step in the editing process for this might not be a typical beta read, but a structure/development read, and maybe a reverse outline would be a good next step. 

and i was like, i have never heard of a reverse outline. like, i have never heard of most things, really; i just started writing fiction in fucking august 2022 and am having a FUCKING BALL learning by doing. so i googled reverse outline, read the top three hits lol, and was like OH FUCK YES. 

because i do not Outline-outline when i write. all respect to those who do!!!!!, but i just Can Not. i have tried, and i get both daunted and bored, and that combo is like fucking kryptonite to my brain. for a longer piece (or a piece that doesn’t just burst out of my fingertips in response to a gifset or bts drop or tweet or gc comment 😅), i do make a sort of vibes outline. like, i open a fresh doc and splort down all the themey ideas i’m able to put words to at that point, and i make notes on whatever beats have already formed in my head, but it’s loose and sketchy at best. and then i write and see what happens as the story unfolds, and i go back to that notes doc to sort of talk to myself about it, to update the vibe outline as i get further in my draft, etc. 

but PH6 is the longest & most complex thing i’ve written yet, so by the time i got to the end of the first draft—by the time i’d put the whole story into words—i was like, oh my god, what is this. like, has this done the thing i wanted to do, per my vibe outline, and also, what did it actually do, and is it legible (whatever that means; like far be it from me to tell the reader what they should get out of something, but, generally speaking, is it cohesive.). now that i have told the story, like… what the fuck is the story about please, and does it "work." 

so i “finished” my reverse outline yesterday and omfg it’s helping so much and it’s SO EXCITING!!!! LIKE, THIS IS HELPING ME WRAP MY MIND AROUND THE THING I DID, SO I AM BETTER ABLE TO SEE WHAT I AM TRYING TO DO!!!! AND I CAN WORK WITH THAT!!!!!

it’s like i had a bunch of kittens scrambling around in my brain and while i was writing i was like 'oh i love these kittens so much, and i really hope this story herds these kittens effectively so they slow down just enough that people can really see their cute little faces (including me, i am people)' and then i finished the first draft and was like 'ahhh did the story herd the kittens??? i can't tell, they're still moving too fast in my brain' and then the reverse outline showed up and was like I COME BEARING TUNA AND FIFTEEN CARDBOARD BOXES and now i can see the kittens better. 

and then! i slept on it last night, and this morning my brain was like, “oh, here, why don’t i just efficiently articulate the vibes and arrange them in a tidy visual diagram that reveals how they all flow through the story for you?” WHEE!!

and then i got so excited that i had to put it down and write all this instead of working on it further 

(this, which could probably use its own reverse outline lmao)

like, i’m reading Mary Ruefle’s Madness, Rack, and Honey, which is a book of collected lectures that i cannot stop screaming about and that slaps so hard i keep having to throw it across the room, and just the other day i read, in the chapter “On Secrets,” 

I used to think I wrote because there was something I wanted to say. Then I thought, “I will continue to write because I have not yet said what I wanted to say”; but I know now I continue to write because I have not yet heard what I have been listening to.

and i think the reverse outline is helping me hear it a little better, and that is fucking exciting.

[strawberryicebreakers]

kiss me, son of god

blaming this on the fact that I keep getting videos on tiktok using "kiss me, son of god" -> makes me think about they might be giants -> makes me think about birdhouse in your soul -> makes me think about the silly little draft I have that does lurk in the back of my mind. so here's another short scene from that, taking place post-NYE. enjoy!

obligatory "this is horribly unedited" warning that goes on all my tumblr ficlets. also tagging @fredware ; thank you for being so kind about my uhf thoughts]

“What’s got you all smiley?”

Robert’s gaze flicked up, watching as Pamela hopped on the top of his desk. She readjusted her skirt, pulling at the hem to keep things G-rated, and smirked down at him like she’d caught him in the middle of some lewd act.

If she thought the way he signed paychecks was something to get hot and bothered about, he’d make sure to do hers in glitter glue. “What do you mean?”

“You’re smiling,” she repeated, sticking a finger out. Her acrylic poked him in the cheek, unnervingly close to his eye. “You used to be all sullen and mopey, but now you’re acting like you just got your di-”

“Good morning, Gloria!” Robert called out, louder than was strictly necessary. 

Pamela turned around in time to catch the high schooler’s wave. Her lips pressed together in a tight, pink smile, and she gave the girl a wave back. 

He waited for her to leave the room, then looked back at Pamela. “Please refrain from talking about that in front of the interns,” Robert said, flatly.

“Don’t walk around like you got your brain sucked out of your you-know-what and not tell me why.”

“Maybe I’m optimistic about the new year. The nineties are a new era, Pam. Anything could happen.”

“Something tells me something already happened,” Pamela said. She peered over as if she could read his secrets—aside from his banking information, of course—from his checkbook. 

He paused, laying his hands flat on his desk. “What, Pam?”

She leaned over far enough that, had he been a worse boss, he could’ve stared straight down her blouse. “Your nails are filed. Trimmed into cute little crescents, too.”

“They are.”

“You asked me what my nail file was back in October.”

Not one of his proudest moments. “That I did,” he admitted.

“Why?”

He swallowed, drumming his fingers against the check. Sweat from his palms dampened the paper, smearing the ink ever-so-slightly. “No reason.”

-

“You’re bleeding.”

“Huh?”

“The edge of your scalp,” Philo said, barely audible over the drone of his computers. He stepped forward, his hands lifting the hair from George’s head. He pulled it to the side, staring intently at the short, jagged scratch that extended from an inch behind his ear down to the base of his jaw. “You have a cut.”

“Oh, that,” George said. He laughed, ducking his head away from Philo’s touch. “It’s nothin’, Philo. No need for you to worry.”

Philo watched a flush rise on the young man’s face, his cheeks burning bright red. “On the contrary, George,” he said, “there are many things to worry about.”

“Like what?”

“The horsemen; war, famine, plague, death,” he mused. “But in your case, I worry most about the germ colonies that live underneath Robert Steckler’s fingernails.”

[charlottedabookworm]

Dawntrail Day 2

spoilers up to: lvl 93 msq (including first two dungeons and first trial)

original draft date: 29/6/24

scheduled release for: 27/7/24

time for more msq! only passively leveling picto atm - i ain't dealing with those dps queues - so i'm hoping to reach the first dungeon and trial at least today!

*

sorry wuk lamat but you did tell erenville you’d take any way that was available

*

awww Thancred’s embarrassing koana

*

….i stopped literally ten minutes before the dungeon unlock last night

ten minutes

fucker

*

question (that isn’t gonna be answered for a month lol): does who the cutscene mentions staying behijd change? cos i’m on drg and ali is staying behind but if i was a healer would it be alphi? or can alphi or wuk lamat switch out for dps on this trust dungeon?

…they probably just flex wuk lamat or alphi thinking about it

*

okay wow hi i hate that

*

sorry wuk lamat we’ll get you a rest soon let me just drive all over the zone collecting aether currents first

*

yeah but neither do your brothers

you heard even koana: he doesn’t see rhe point or ihih’hana when there are simpler ways to revitalise the soils aether. why care about tradition when you can have efficiency?

you want to learn wuk lamat and that’s the important part

*

the boy is just so damn pretty

*

i don’t care how villainous you are you do not take a seat at a cafe for your top secret villain meeting and then not at least order drinks

fucks sake support local businesses damn it

*

“As long as you cover my teleportation fees”

“…what is a teleportation?”

I’m dying-

*

time to get my arse handed to me in a spar with gulool ja ja!

*

fucking hell i was not expecting that active time maneuver to go so hard

fun fight tho not really hard but definitely has you bouncing around a lot

*

that none of them are ready for the throne?

yeah clocked that

but then that’s what this rite is for yeah? to teach them and see who will be ready

*

sareel ja is giving me major mad scientist vibes ngl

i am very worried about what he’s gonna get up to

maybe the true villain? he’s almost certainly gonna end up tossing aside zoraal ja at some point

*

damn she missed

*

i hate follow quests

doesn’t matter what game just hate

*

TWO????

there’s a second one?!?!?!

*

oh hey! nice!

we haven’t had a race speak a different language since the dragons iirc!

i mean these guys can speak both and are gonna try and kill us almost certainly but! own language!

*

wait what-

another dungeon already?

i know they do them on odd quests but still it hardly feels like any time has passed since the last dungeon esp when i played eight hours yesterday without hitting the first one

*

okay i’m digging the music in worqor zormor

*

rdm confirmed as a healer class square said it first

*

annnd valigarmanda is free

i’m not saying i’m blaming bakool ja ja despite having no evidence but

*

i were fucking right

*

that has to disqualify them right?

like bakool ja ja has to be disqualified from the rite for freeing valigarmanda right?

*

koana’s back!

i’d say they were gonna let us do trust for the trial but alphi isn’t here-

zoraal ja? huh

really expected him to have left tbh

maybe trust is back on the table then? but still no second healer (except for healer rdm ali who doesn’t steal the lb)

*

duty support yes!

i love it when they do this for trials!

*

….how tf did we get onto this platform? I see no way up in the slightest

yes i am typing this while standing in front of valigarmanda i’m on trust they’ll wait

*

huh

no idea if this is a trust trial thing? so you have a chance to learn from your mistakes? or if it’s supposed to be for everyone and it’s only showing on me cos of trusts

but also the trial was fun and can’t wait to see how the extreme ends up

*

i do appreciate that wuk lamat is basically the only one makinh friends so she’s (seemingly) the only one getting all these golden city lore dumps

*

flying unlocked for urqopacha and kozama’uka!

*

so i've been thinking aobut it for an hour or so (dog walk) and it's occurred to me what i found odd about this part of the msq

dawntraal bucks a trend that's been in every ffxiv expansion

we've had at least a single split zone since heavensward (sea of clouds) and two in every expansion since: the peaks and the fringes for stormblood, kholusia and amh areng in shadowbringers, and labyrinthos and thavnair in endwalker

dawntrail doesn't buck the trend here with urqopacha and kozama'uka

but in every previous expansion, those split zones were some of the first, usually the first, zones we visited. we explored half of them. we left and the msq continued on, we visited 1-3 other zones, and then we return once more late into the expansion to explore the other half of the zones. it has been this way in every expansion

except for dawntrail

dawntrail starts exactly were you expect, esp after shb and ew, you start the msq. the msq splits along two paths. those paths introduce the split zones. the msq remerges and continues

only instead of taking you to the third zone, as anyone who'd played the previous expansions would except, dawntrail immediately takes you back

urqopacha and kozama'uka are the two first zones you visit and then you go back and explore the other half and there are still four zones left to visit and i-

i'm really curious as to how this will change things. usually split zones are both beginning and almost endgame zones (usually place directly before the final zone in more recent expansions) so now that they are fully beginning zones what does that mean?

will this be the new trend now or is are they gonna change it up every expansion? is this just something for dawntrail?

idk and it probably means absolutely nothing but it's interesting

[ceph-the-ghost-writer]

Writer Tag Game

Thanks for the tag @lividdreamz!

No pressure tag @cljordan-imperium @mercurialsmile @late-to-the-fandom @space-cadead @mjjune @vacantgodling @korblez/@outpost51 @juls-writes @thatndginger and just @ me for anyone who wants to seize an open tag!

Do you write in order?

Mostly, though lately I've gotten into the habit of scribbling down scenes which may (or may not) appear until much later than where I currently am in the plot. Or just snippets formed from a detail a character mentions in passing. I figure why not just release these ideas into the wild instead of letting them flutter around and bang against the inside of my skull for who knows how long? I can always rework them later.

Do you start with something particular?

Usually a scene or situation for a new idea or character. With more established characters, though, I just start putting them in Situations and see what happens, like I'm playing with dolls.

How fully formed does your writing come out the first try?

It's fully formed in the sense that I rarely use placeholders or skip whole scenes (though I should probably start to if I want to be more productive). But it's not really "done" since I still have to assess whether the tone, events, character arcs, etc. match up to whatever idea I was going for. (And if I even still want to go with that idea--which is where the concept of AUs come in handy, saving me from myself.)

How many drafts do you go through?

As many as it takes, friends. It comes down to defining themes/ideas at the core of a story for me, I guess. Once I feel I have a solid foundation with those, I can remodel whatever I built on top as needed and claim the minor imperfections just add character.

Tell me about your process?

I'm an incorrigible pantser, I'm afraid. 😔 But there is some method to be found in the madness. Maybe. Just a little.

So, it goes something like this. I usually start with a scene that pops into my head, either purely imagined or inspired by a prompt/comment. Say, Human is taken captive by handsome yet murderous Vampire, for example. I immediately start asking questions.

What does each want? (Human: to survive; Vampire: that sweet, sweet vein juice)

How did the characters get into this situation? (Human: wrong place, wrong time; Vampire: hungry, has chosen to kill humans)

Okay, what was Human doing at the wrong place, and does that mean Vampire doesn't need to kill humans? (1. He's part of a supernatural research organization, that sounds like it'd be cool, right?; 2. Yes. Maybe Vampire is part of a rival, evil organization?)

Crap, now I have to come up with secret organizations. (The Coven and Unseen Hand are born.)

Why doesn't Vampire just kill Human? It's the smartest thing and he has the upper hand. (Because he thinks Human is amusing/sexy?)

I'm ace. There needs to be a more compelling reason than just sex appeal if I'm going to keep writing this. (Fine, fine. Maybe Vampire senses something's off? Has an attack of conscience?)

Now I have to explore this character's entire backstory and psychological profile, don't I? Damn it! (Cut to 40k+ words later, with plans to explore a magical revolution that takes place on a near-future Earth, spanning multiple books, protagonists, and themes. Ace rights. 🖤🤍💜)

It's way messier and more drawn out than that, but you get the gist. I just start asking questions until I have enough raw material to build a story. Following drafts are to make sure the structure's sound, get rid of loose ends, pretty everything up, etc.

[workingforitallthetime]

trying my hardest to "#FOR MY FILES" this but raven boy/shane wright and also raven boy/mason mctavish. why does he have so many canadian bulldog shaped bfs. more importantly mason/shane and that picture of them cradling the u18 trophy. the vibes between them are completely undecipherable and also logical at the same time. i want more

all very important thoughts, anon. and pondering the vibes among those three has prompted me to write a little more into the single existing scene with mason and connor and shane that i have in my top secret raven boy files, and i will give that to you below the jump. contains no explicit material regarding minors but if anybody is squeamish about minors existing in an a/b/o world this probably isn't the WIP for you.

Wright starts shuffling the pizza boxes around, consolidating the spare slices into one box and stacking up the empties.

Guenther flicks his last hand of cards toward the center of the table. “Knock off the omega bullshit, Shane.”

“Fuck off.” Wright tries to close the lid of the overfilled box, jamming it down over the rest of the pizza. “I’m an alpha.”

The room’s too quiet, like all the sound’s been absorbed into the padded partitions that section off their quadrant of the hotel’s conference center. Guenther’s mean laugh breaks the silence. “Son, your balls haven’t even dropped yet.”

“I got tested,” Shane insists, indignant as everyone else around the table laughs. “They said my levels are super high.”

“That doesn’t mean shit.”

Privately, Mason agrees with Guenther. The genetic test is maybe 70 percent accurate before you present. Not worth paying for, his dad said. Said Mason could prove himself just fine without some bullshit lab report.

“Scouts care,” Shane mutters, and no one tries to tell him he’s wrong. They’ve all heard that a doctor signing off on an alpha prediction can be enough to bump you up a team’s draft board.

“Nobody knows, though.” Zelly flicks the edges of his cards through his fingers. He probably worries about it more than most of them do. He’s the kind of small skills guy who’s probably spending his draft year trying to prove he won’t turn out to be an omega. “It’s not like any of us are going to be MacKinnon.”

It was big news when MacKinnon presented early. Showed up at the combine reeking of alpha and everybody knew what Colorado was getting at first overall. Knocked Seth Jones right out of the top slot, even though eventually he turned out to be an alpha anyway. Most first rounders do. Although the ones who don’t usually come from the U.S. program like Jones did.

Zelly looks around the table in search of agreement, but everyone’s looking at Mason. Mason keeps his hand still, fighting the nervous instinct to rub his knuckles over his beard. He wishes he’d shaved after all. But he was winning when he left Switzerland, and he wants to keep winning here.

“You have got to be an alpha,” Guenther pronounces.

“Seriously,” Stanks agrees with him. Guys are nodding.

Two seats down from Mason, Connor isn’t. His face is impassive as always, hard to read. But he’s got an awkward set to his jaw with his lip curled back a little, same as he did on the bus from the airport when nobody wanted to talk to him. Mason’s starting to figure out how to read him. Or at least he can tell Connor fucking hates any topic that might remind somebody he’s fifteen years old.

“What do you care?” Mason leans back in his chair. “You lining up to suck my alpha dick?”

Guenther’s voice is loud over the laughter. “Wright might be.”

“Fuck off,” Shane snaps. It must be hard for the little robot to deal with something he can’t control. No matter how hard Shane tries to work hard and do the right thing and ace the genetic test, he can’t predict how he’s going to present. Mason’s never seen him get even the least bit rattled before. Usually Shane’s the guy you want talking to the refs. He’s a good captain. Nice to everyone, no special treatment for the guys he likes. You can’t even tell who he likes. Maybe he actually hates all of them.

“Okay, stack ‘em up.” Mason shoves his chair back from the table and slots his poker chips into the cardboard box without bothering to sort them. “I’m going to bed.”

Chips click together and someone gathers up the stray cards and shuffles the deck to put away. Guenther and Stanks start arguing about the pot for tomorrow night’s game. Mason picks up his water bottle and falls into step with Connor on the way to the elevator.

The awkward conversation lingers around them like a bad smell. Mason can’t think how to change the subject. Connor’s quiet next to him. He hits the elevator button with the base of his water bottle. The doors open and the up arrow chimes almost immediately.

They’re the only ones in the car. Connor leans back in one corner and lifts his feet off the floor, boosting himself up with his hands on the railing that runs around the edge of the elevator. “Can I ask…” One of his slides threatens to fall off his foot and he points his toes upward to catch it. He lowers his feet back to the floor. “Never mind.”

“No, what.” Mason’s pretty sure he knows what’s coming. He looks up at the floors ticking off on the panel. 

“You don’t have to tell me.” The elevator starts to slow.

“It’s okay.” The numbers stop at their floor. Mason slips his keycard out of his pocket and balances it on opposite corners between his thumb and forefinger 

“You didn’t say…” Just before the doors open, Connor finally spits it out. “Are you an alpha or what?”

“Shit, I don’t know.” The vestibule on their floor is empty except for a glass-topped table with a vase and a fanned-out set of magazines about things to do in Texas. The flowers in the vase might be fake. Mason can’t tell.

The ice machine rattles in its alcove as they pass. “You haven’t presented?”

“Don’t look so surprised.” Most people don’t present at eighteen. Every year there’s some group advocating to move draft eligibility back to age 20 or 21. It’s always based on some bullshit about growth curves and developmental years but everybody understands the real advantage for teams would be knowing more about what they’re getting, dynamic-wise.

“I don’t know.” Connor rolls his eyes. “You just look…” He waves his hand like Mason’s self-explanatory.

“It’s the beard, isn’t it?” Mason rubs his knuckles over it. He does like the beard.

Connor snorts. “Yeah, probably.”

“You love it.” Mason shoulders Connor into the wall next to the door of their room. “Maybe it’ll rub off on you.” He scrapes his jaw against the side of Connor’s face, feeling reckless and giddy. Connor yelps, startled, and hip-checks him out of the way. Mason stumbles sideways across the hall. He keeps getting surprised by the power stored in Connor’s short frame. He lunges back at him, jamming his chin against Connor’s cheek. “C’mon, get some beard.”

Connor shoves him away with both hands on Mason’s chest. “Dumbass,” he says, but the tense set to his jaw is gone. He might even be smiling.

[lightwood-carstairs]

I posted 1,191 times in 2022

53 posts created (4%)

1,138 posts reblogged (96%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@khaleesiofalicante

@lxdyblackthorn

@delightfullyterrible

@literallytypogod

@tessherongraystairs

I tagged 136 of my posts in 2022

#the shadowhunter chronicles - 41 posts

#tsc - 41 posts

#secrets of blackthorn hall - 21 posts

#sobh - 21 posts

#jem carstairs - 14 posts

#will herondale - 12 posts

#the infernal devices - 11 posts

#tid - 11 posts

#tessa gray - 11 posts

#the last hours - 10 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#alastair being a brown boy at an academy full of white elitist holier-than-thou shits and having elias as his father was far more difficult

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Edited and fixed.

Family <3

120 notes - Posted March 14, 2022

#4

ONCE AGAIN INCORRECT QUOTES BUT THIS TIME WITH THE MT

James: As someone who has a long history of not understanding anything, I feel confident in my ability to continue not knowing what is going on.

——————————————————

Matthew: WHY DID YOU KILL HIM?! HE COULD HAVE HAD HOPES AND DREAMS, HE COULD HAVE HAD A FAMILY!!!

James: Matthew-

James: It- it was just an ant-

——————————————————

Thomas: What is wrong with you?

James: Loaded question. Elaborate.

——————————————————

Matthew: Now, the recipe calls for 2 shots of vodka.

Matthew: *upends the bottle*

——————————————————

Christopher: Sometimes I drink milk straight from the container.

Matthew: The cow??

Christopher: What?

James: Matthew, W H Y?

——————————————————

James: Someone care to explain why we have 6 dogs in our apartment?

Matthew: They're golden retrievers, dude. They retrieve gold. I did this for us.

——————————————————

Thomas: Do you take constructive criticism?

Matthew: No, only cash or credit.

——————————————————

Christopher: Why is everyone so obsessed with top or bottom? Honestly, I’d just be excited to have a bunk bed.

James:

James: I'm gonna tell them.

Thomas: Don't you dare.

——————————————————

See the full post

132 notes - Posted February 11, 2022

#3

Everyone,,,

I present to you : my interpretation of some of the unidentified snippets

#1 : probably Alec in QOAAD while his proposal but not included in the final draft

#2 : probably someone in TMI but still has a chance of showing up in TLH

#3 : TEC. Totally TEC. Probably in TBVOTD, before their wedding

See the full post

132 notes - Posted February 21, 2022

#2

Time for incorrect quotes my beloved!

Will: That's ridiculous, Jem doesn't have a crush on me.

Tessa: Yes he does.

Magnus: Yes he does.

Jem: Yes I do.

——————————————————

Magnus: Will, you'll be working with Jem and Tessa.

Will: Alright! My fantasy threesome!

Everyone else: *blank stares*

Will: ...Of people on a team.

——————————————————

Will: Why is Tessa crying on the floor?

Magnus: They're drunk.

Will: And?

Magnus: They saw a picture of Jem's spouse.

Will: But they're Jem's spouse.

Magnus: I know.

——————————————————

Magnus: Truth or dare?

Tessa: Dare.

Magnus: I dare you to kiss the hottest person in the room.

Tessa: Hey Will?

Will, blushing: Yeah?

Tessa: Can you move? I'm trying to get to Jem.

——————————————————

Tessa: What’s the announcement, Magnus?

Magnus: It’s a lecture. Jem’s gonna tell us everything he knows about sex.

Will, blissfully unaware: It should be an enjoyable 60 seconds.

——————————————————

See the full post

253 notes - Posted February 11, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Alec really saw Magnus flirting with him and said "k I found my soulmate" and proceeded to kiss him in public in front of his very first ancestors and relatives and his whole homophobic ass community, stalked his ex (😭wtf was that), stayed with him when he was sick, fucking proposed on a beach AFTER A BIG DIMENSIONAL WAR WITH EVERY KIND OF SUPERNATURAL CREATURE INVOLVED EVEN ANGELS(😭) AND MARRIED HIM HALF AN HOUR LATER

Not to mention GOING TO LITERAL HELL TO FIND HIM

Meanwhile also adopted two kids and built a home with him

317 notes - Posted August 28, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[soleil-in-the-sky]

Are you trying to give your OCs something to wear but feel that all you do has no style? Have you scoured the internet for clothing design tutorials and still cant come up with anything you like? Many years ago, I had this problem. I now know that while I knew the basics of clothing design, I did not know how to IMPLEMENT them because I had zero fashion vocabulary! I finally solved this by creating........

My clothing design inspiration board! It has a bunch of different types of clothes, accessories, patterns, and the like!

As a bonus, below the read more are some clothing/costume design advice primarily for character design purposes!

These are (sorta) recreations of notes—made for the general ideas section—which are currently impossible to find (though the advice below has more thoughts.) never mind guys i found them so now this post is gonna be a bit disjointed cause im just gonna slap in any unique advice from there. on top of the fact this has been sitting in my drafts for 3 thousand years. so, if this is hard to understand tell me and i will make a new version with a more unified and serious writing style.

first two-and-a-half advice were written yesterday who knows how long ago on pinterest, thats why they sound so informal. actually the whole post is so informal wow

Varied wardrobe:

[Title: Varied wardrobe]. If you have the time, give your characters different outfits! That can tell us so much more! (Not part of OG notes, but giving OCs different outfits for different situations can reveal stuff about different sides or layers of their personalities/headspaces! You can also just give them a wardrobe of different clothes. Either way, you can have different outfits have similar silhouettes and/or shapes, or have them be completely different, which could be used for a purpose like what I talked about above.)

Layers:

[Title: Layers]. Layers........... layeersssss....... yes.......... uhhh, yea I love layers (this is def not what i sounded like in the OG note) So layers! They make your outfits more interesting! They're really cool and, in my opinion, they make outfits feel more real. Also they give you an excuse to go crazy go stupid with clothing designs hahahahahaha brb im gonna go put 5 shirts on my OC plus 50 scarves and 2 hats (DEF not what I said in the OG notes its been a while and i have a lot more thoughts about this now)

ok and some thoughts from the original notes: Layering can tell us a lot about your character. You can even merge different clothing items! Think about it: short sleeves on long sleeves can make for a unique touch on an otherwise boring shirt. Go ham on the combinations!

Research (this one's important):

[Title: Research (this one's important)]. Research is cool! Look at all those buttons [, click: here: for link], no wonder there was a button shortage. Also obviously you have to research stuff before writing about another culture otherwise its gonna be some inaccurate crap. a well researched portrayal will be way more interesting and research (at least for me) can be rewarding in general. But you can also do research on time periods, jobs, and more! Research can be intimidating, but sometimes, you just gotta do it. And as I said about well-researched portrayals being more interesting, researching can give you ideas you would've never thought about [, click: here: for link to source]. Told ya research makes stuff more interesting. (really realizing these are more than just recaps, wow. im even citing crap.) So yeah, research is important for many aspects of storytelling, including costuming, and even if it's scary, your future self will thank you.

Imagery:

[Title: Imagery]. This is where you unleash your inner English teacher. You slap some object's shape, pattern, image, etc. somewhere to represent something. It could represent some deep-seated secret of the character, but it doesn't even have to be deep. It may just be a simple reference to a personality trait. Where you put the symbolism can also mean different things, like for example, hearts on a character are usually positive symbolism, but a heart on the sole of a shoe can, if you so desire, mean the character crushes others dreams.

Clothing variations:

[Title: Clothing variations]. Just look at this [, click: here: for link to an image of variations of vests]. Details. You can change them. All the details. Play around with them. Go even further, change the details no one notices. Have you ever seen a denim shirt? No? Make it happen. Make all those weird things happen. Yeah, that's it really.

Details:

[Title: Details]. (literally just copy-pasting the original note apart from maybe one awkward word replaced) Simple details like buttons, hemlines, lace or pleats can make your outfit feel all the more real. The possibilities are endless for such small add-ons.

Don't limit yourself to one type of anything, it's why I made this board! (Other than my own lack of ideas.) For example, learning to draw pockets is cool and all, but are you sure that's all you can do? I have a whole section for them!

So yeah that's it. I am tired and this post is very disjointed.

[faithfulcat111]

First Lines of 10 Fics Game!!

rules: share the first lines of 10 of your most recent fanfics and then tag 10 people. If you have written less than 10 fics, don't be shy and share anyways :)

...Again and again...because those I care for best, do me Most harm... (mature, in-progress)

“Nancy!” Nancy jerked her head up at the call of her name, away from where the melted monster that had been looming over her had been flung out the hospital room’s window. Sure enough, El stood at the door, blood dripping down from her nose. From behind her, Mike pushed past her to skid to a stop in front of her. “Are you okay?” he asked, looking terrified. 

this is the sun-filled sky (these are the singing blackbirds) (teen, completed)

His mom often told him that his curiosity would get him into trouble. Whether with the Lord or the Lady, with the farmers or village workers, with the Marshall. With somebody at least. He just never thought it would be…

Hand in Hand Together (teen, completed)

Maybe he should have been more concerned that nothing had shown up yet. But he found that he wasn’t. He had never been concerned with having that many names scrawled across his body. Having Will’s around the curve of his throat and his mom’s across the top of his shoulder was more than enough.

I tell you someone will remember us in the future (mature, completed)

Lure it in. Trap the damn thing. Kill it with fire. Seemed like an easy enough task.

Death is an evil. (mature, in-progress)

Maybe it was wrong to lie to Argyle about why exactly they had decided to take off for Hawkins, but he really shouldn’t have told Jonathan that he wanted to take a cross-country trip one day while high the whole time. Not if he didn’t want Jonathan to take advantage of it (although he probably had something other than running from the government and towards a potentially supernatural threat in mind.)

we may see less sleep than the piercing-voiced nightlong nightingale (teen, completed)

Steve threw himself from side to side, the sheets tangling around him as he huffed in annoyance. Robin being gone from his small apartment left it near impossible to sleep. It shouldn't be this bad, no one ever stayed the night at his place before Robin.

let the walls burn down, set your secret free (mature, completed)

Despite their best efforts, nothing could change the fact that no one had touched the cabin since it had been practically ripped apart last summer. The amount of work that would have to go into making it moderately safe was denied just like the drafts that plunged through the holes they couldn't fully cover and the lights that wouldn't work until the roof fully caved in over what used to be Hopper's bedroom.

chasing love up against the sun (teen, completed)

It was always easy to slip through the servant's halls without attracting any sort of attention to which direction he was heading. The other servants never seemed to care that Jonathan wasn't heading in any sort of direction he should be and his worn clothes and smaller build kept most attention off of him once he slipped across the main halls. All together, it made it simple to make his way towards the guard house and slip into one of the small bedchambers. 

surely once you too were a delicate child (teen, completed)

“What are you doing?” Carol’s voice was way too bored. The kind of bored that usually spelt that trouble was brewing. “I’m just checking in on her,” Steve said. “Now get out of my car.” He ignored Tommy and Carol’s shouts as he pulled away, driving back across town toward the suburbs where Nancy lived in. Normally, he wouldn’t care about leaving them to wait in his car while he did a quick check-in, but something about the way Nancy had looked holding that bat in her garage kept coming back to him.

survived all those long, lonely days (mature, completed)

"Shit, shit, shit!" Steve led the small crew running through the forest undergrowth, hacking at anything getting in their way with the Byers' machete. Jonathan blinked as he stumbled forward, the two bodies on either side of him barely keeping him upright as he tried to run despite the pain shooting up his leg.