A Beauty and the Beast rewrite I did which is actually part of a longer one, but the rest needs more planning work
I've been wondering how an OC I wrote as a teen in my "lol violent children are funny" phase would grow up, and I think she may turn out something like Seebs.
Random idea I had which has probably been done before; instead of Good and Evil, Heaven and Hell and their rulers instead embody Law and Chaos. Instead of one overpowering the other, they have to balance carefully so the universe can exist at all, and good and evil occur in both. Sure there's something I can do with that.
Are there words for female equivalents of daimyo and shogun? I'm writing kitsune as a matriarchal version of Edo/Meiji Japan in a thing I'm doing. I already sorted the honorifics. Adult humans are -san, boys are -kun, girls are -chan; all female nogitsune are -san and all males are -kun because they're socially infantilised a bit; and all the Inari-kitsune (or kami-kitsune because their gods don't have the same names as the ones used in our world) are -sama.
A thing I wrote up on the fly taking a breather from playing Watch Dogs Spoiler It's not fast, the little mom-car she'd stolen, but it was durable. The road was her pursuer's domain: they knew the streets and were fast. She couldn't outpace them if she'd stolen a sports car. But the ugly thing was durable, thank all the gods for domestic interest in safety, and they sacrificed that strength in order to be faster. She didn't have to escape their reach, just survive long enough for an opening. These five- if she could outlast them, she could get away before reinforcements came. The head of the pack rammed her from behind but she only swerved slightly; it took another hit from the side to send the car reeling. She convinced the airbag not to deploy: electronics were a mind, much simpler than human ones but much harder to reach. Instead of motivations and opinions there were simple flags: is this a crash? No, she told it, and spared herself having to drive around it. They weren't expecting that; when she sped off only a few seconds after coming to a rest it took them a moment to follow. The electronics of the city, too, answered her, lights changing in her favor as she approached. They knew the city better than she, would be trying to think four steps ahead: where would she be going that she thought she could lose them? Instead she took turns at random, jumping on and off the freeway, weaving through dense traffic rather than try and lose them in alleys and backstreets. One fell as she managed to change the light back as she passed the intersection, catching them them in the middle of cross-traffic. Two she pushed into oncoming traffic, using the freeway divider to trap one trying to ram her in the oncoming lane and taking off. The other was a victim of her weaving in and out of the lanes on the city roads, slipping between oncoming cars, back to the right line, sometimes driving straight down the middle. The last two she just had to batter into submission, relying on the durability of her own car though by the end it was barely holding together. She rolled down the windows as she drove it off an elevated road and into someone's unfenced yard. The driver's side stuck halfway, but the passenger's went all the way down. She didn't even bother with the doors- they'd been hit so many times they were probably jammed, but she'd climbed through smaller apertures before. Instead of taking what precious time she had to integrate with the crowds on the street- they knew her, they'd be looking for her- she went up. They might check the side streets and alleys, but the uneven ground of urban roofs would give her places to hide, willing herself vague. No such thing as true invisibility, but she could push away awareness, make it harder to be noticed. As long as there weren't too many minds to push against, and doing it on the move made it harder. How many would she have to dodge? Blood glued her shirt to her skin, and a pressure mounted against her head like the worst halo, a band of pain beginning to sear its way into her skull. She only had to survive this- outlast, not outrun. Once they stopped looking she could vanish onto the streets. But how much, until then? How much longer, how much more?
Friend and I have a character who's effectively a Fetish Fuel Station Attendant and we need ways for that to lead to bigger drawbacks for him. The character's a male-pronoun-preferring genderfluid shapeshifter, in a society which is at least a little dubious about both of those things; circumstances will mean he can't always shift on a whim. He has a shaky grasp of social rules, which leads to some not-all-that-Innocent Fanservice Person-ing, but he often doesn't really think or care about how his behaviour reflects on those around him, and they're at this point in a situation where nobody's too hung up on propriety and waving weaponry around stops people questioning him, but he won't always be there.
I keep writing poems during our Call of Cthulhu games. Fitting that my character also works as poet. As little girl by Nanna's knee One sister by the other, the third one on her lap These gilded evenings, filled with glee Like aunts and pops, we listened, rapt And Nanna said, he waits She was old then, now even more Of a long passed time, full of its tales And even older, of a distant shore With ribbons curlling in its gales And Nanna said, he waits My sister, with her head for dreams Said, waits he for a maiden fair? Smiling like the sun's bright beams A feather step, with Rapunzel's hair? And Nanna said, he waits My sister, with her head for gears Said, how do the roofs still stand? If the wind howls and never clears How are they not long since sand? And Nanna said, he waits Aunts and pops, when they were small Asked their questons, long since lost Just Nanna still remembers all Who of us knows the most? And Nanna said, he waits
a conversation about originality came up recently, so when i noticed this post come by my dash again i wanted to bring it to the forum source
Spoiler: 100% spoiler for next post; don't read first Inspired to write by good ol' r/nosleep and... having some troubles. Basically, I was like, "why are almost 100% of these stories either "surprise! gore" or "narrator is into sadomasopedobestiality"" and decided to try to write something that wasn't. I decided on a "creature" story because, for all that slenderman and company are super overdone, they're still my favorite creepypastas. I also like faking out readers by presenting information in a way that implies one plot but forshadows another, although this is obviously a super-pretentious goal. The hidden setup is: There are fae/fair folk living (or maybe just playing?) in a section of woods near a neighborhood that look like (creepy) hybrids of some animal and a human, and can only say pre-canned phrases. The more things they're able to say, the less powerful they are. The two main creatures can say one and two phrases/sentences respectively; there's also a chorus of minor fae shaped like frogs who can string together about 20 different words into short sentences. They have the standard weakness to iron/iron alloys and can't step onto church grounds. They also have some level of the mystical forces that prevent people from caring that they just saw a shambling half-bear half-man walking into CVS, which is somewhat weaker for children and people who truly believe in supernatural stuff. They're friends with a little girl who lives on the edge of the forest. For one reason or another, a local minister found out about the fae from her, and is out to get them in the traditional manner, which involves lots of Cold Iron and very little sympathy. The fae need help from a human adult, but they also have an effective vocabulary of three words, a poor understanding of human interaction, and are effectively invisible to most people! (Also one of them knocks out any human it touches. Oops.) Good news! There's one adult in the neighborhood who can see them! Bad news! She is freaked out by the sudden appearance of manimals! Also they may or may not accidentally lead her to believe they murdered someone for being a dick to her! The problem is I think my writing style thus far has not been real good. Advice would be appreciated. Spoiler: The story as written thus far It looks like it’s pretty typical for y’all to introduce yourselves and give a little background before you tell your stories, so here we are. I’m a pretty typical post-college pre-anything else kid. I took a few gap years to save up, so I’m a little behind everyone else – like, my childhood best friend has a kid, what is this – but otherwise unremarkable. My parents decided to make their last pre-retirement vacation a good long one, so they convinced me to house-sit for them this summer while I work on grad school applications. Let me tell you: those things are *boring*. My parents never moved, so the neighborhood is familiar. It’s a medium-sized town in the suburbs, which for some reason is basically split down the middle. One half has the grocery store, the high school, and most of the other shops, the other has more of the residential stuff (although not all of it) and a public meeting hall/church building. Directly between the two halves is woods. It just so happens that at the end of my street, there’s an area where the woods are thinner. I think it’s a sewer maintenance access road or something? I don’t know for sure, it’s just this truck-width path of scruffy grass and ferns that goes all the way over the gap. It was how I got to school back in the day, and how I still get to town when I’m too broke to pay for gas. It’s also where every neighborhood kid probably every has gone to play pretend. Back in the day, I used to pretend I was Robin Hood or something. I think the only kid right now is my friend’s, who lives across the street from us. The little girl just loooooves pretending to be a fairytale princess… Anyway, the woods. There’s some weird shit out there, and y’all are the weird shit folks. Help me figure things out. So, the first time it happened, it was late evening. The sky was already dark, but there was still that aura of twilight that makes greenery look lushly beautiful, and the fireflies were out in full force – the spring peepers were singing their hearts out, birds were whistling and cooing. There was also this strange ratcheting noise. I didn’t remember that part until a lot later, though. I was on my way to pick up a box of tea from the market and texting a college friend, Joe, about something with half an eye on my surroundings when I realized there was something strange about the view ahead of me. I hit send, slipped my phone back into my pocket, and looked up. Instead of a clear path ahead of me, there was a jog – I must have accidentally turned off onto a different path. These things happen – it’s not an old growth forest, just a set of fields the landowners surrendered back to nature, so there are intermittent clearings. I started to turn around when it dawned on me that it wasn’t the fact I was five seconds from walking into a tree that caught my attention… At which point I heard it again – a loud and raspy gasp, coming from right out of view. Steeling myself, I turned to face it. I… don’t really know how to describe the thing. (Him?) “Oh my god, get it away from me” was definitely my first thought. His face, his everything was just *wrong*. All the skin on his body was rubbery and a little shiny, like smoothed wax. The whole face was drawn forward, like someone grabbed it by the forehead and pulled out until the brow curved straight into the nose. His neck was horselike, and greasy hair continued down the spine like a mane. The hands… he was dressed in an old and shabby but otherwise normal business suit, but the knot of the tie was a complete mess. That’s a strange thing to fixate on, I know, but it was obviously because of the hands. They looked like cheap leather gloves or something – the fingers were twice as wide as they were thick, and slid around the far side of the palm. He must have been seven or eight feet tall, because he sure did loom convincingly. “Uh, hello?” I said, apparently forgetting that I should be *running the hell away*. He stepped closer. In an uncannily human voice, he said, “There’s something beautiful over the horizon!” “…What?” He was still shifting towards me, but I stupidly continued to not leave. He was close enough I could see the pupil of the eye he had pointed at me, and, let me tell you, that was trippy. It looked like a colon mark tipped sideways, with the two dots connected by a thin U shape. That was the point at which I decided I was dreaming. All the sounds of birds and frogs, the flickering fireflies, and the smell of fresh green growth seemed amplified a thousandfold, overwhelmingly. “There’s something beautiful over the horizon!” he said, reaching out to grab my wrist like an overenthusiastic panhandler. And then I woke up in my bed, and it was morning. It took me a while to think to check whether that last text was real. it was. Not only that, but Joe had sent a couple texts asking why I hadn’t responded again. There also wasn’t any tea in the pantry, or anywhere else in the house. Other than that, everything in the house and yard seemed perfectly normal. I didn’t know what to think, so I just shoved it all to the back of my mind and pretended nothing happened. The second time, it happened in broad. Freaking. Daylight. I don’t have the cash to casually drive everywhere, and I’d hardly stop going through the woods because of one bad dream – or who knows, trip – psyching me out. I go through the passage at least eight times a week, maybe more. Nothing had ever gone wrong before. Also, this time I was careful to pay attention to the road and not my phone. It had rained earlier in the day, so every blade of grass and cloverhead was coated in dewdrops. Downright magical. It was nice to get out and stretch my legs. I was just getting to this spot where the water tends to [end already written section]
ALRIGHT Anyone want to betaread some sweet, sweet horror? It's being written for r/nosleep, so the narrator is supposed to be a realistic person living in The Real World. The series will be presented in three parts, and posted approximately in real time; this post contains only the first. Spoiler: Trigger warnings Body horror, attempted sexual assault, unreality, passing out, brief description of hospital trip, excessive use of colloquial language and the words "like" and "something". Bc reddit formatting tech /this/ means italics. I may have missed a few... Spoiler: PT 1: "There's something I need you to know" I’m a pretty typical post-college pre-anything else kid. I took a few gap years to save up, so I’m a little behind everyone else, but otherwise unremarkable. I like to be a little goth, a little metal – but ultimately I’m a homebody, and only edgy in my dreams. My parents decided to make their last pre-retirement vacation a good long one, so they convinced me to house-sit for them this summer while I work on grad school applications. Let me tell you: those things are *boring*. My parents never moved, so the neighborhood is familiar. It’s a medium-sized town in the suburbs, which for some reason is basically split down the middle. One half has the grocery store, the high school, and most of the other shops, the other has more of the residential stuff (although not all of it) and a community center/church building. Directly between the two halves is woods. It just so happens that at the end of my street, there’s an area where the woods are thinner. I think it’s a sewer maintenance access road or something? I don’t know for sure, it’s just this truck-width path of scruffy grass and ferns that goes all the way over the gap. It was how I got to school back in the day, and how I still get to town when it’s not worth the price of gas to drive. It’s also where every neighborhood kid ever has gone to play. Back in the day, I used to pretend I was Robin Hood or something. I think the only kid right now is Emily’s - she lives across the street from us. The little girl just loves pretending to be a fairytale princess… Emily and I team up for some stuff, since /someone/ has to help pick up furniture and all that crap - lord knows, her Ex isn’t, so the rest of us might as well. The tyke occasionally ropes me into games when I’m out weeding. Annoying, but sweet. Anyway, the woods. There’s some weird shit out there, and y’all are the weird shit folks. Help me figure things out. So, the first time it happened, it was late evening. The sky was already dark, but there was still that aura of twilight that makes greenery look extra lush and green - the fireflies were out in full force, the spring peepers were singing their hearts out, birds were whistling and cooing, the whole deal. There was this strange ratcheting noise intermittently, but I didn’t remember that part until a lot later. I was on my way to pick up a box of tea from the market and texting a college friend, Joe, about something with half an eye on my surroundings when I realized there was something strange about the view ahead of me. I hit send, slipped my phone back into my pocket, and looked up. Instead of a clear path forward, there was a jog. I must have accidentally turned off onto a different trail. These things happen – it’s not an old growth forest, just a set of fields the landowners surrendered back to nature, so there are intermittent clearings, and the deer like to stomp down the brush between them. I started to turn around when it dawned on me that it wasn’t the fact I was five seconds from walking into a tree that caught my attention… Then I heard it again: a loud and raspy gasp, coming from right out of view. Steeling myself, I turned to face it. I… don’t really know how to describe the thing. (It? Him?) “Oh my god, get it away from me” was definitely my first thought. His head, his everything was just *wrong*. All the skin on his body was rubbery and a little shiny, like smoothed wax. The whole face was drawn forward, like someone grabbed it by the forehead and pulled out - the brow curved straight into the nose. His neck was horselike, and greasy hair continued down the spine like a mane. The hands… he was dressed in an old and shabby but otherwise normal business suit, but the knot of the tie was a complete mess. That’s a strange thing to fixate on, I know, but it was obviously because of the hands. They looked like cheap leather gloves or something – the fingers were twice as wide as they were thick, and slid around the far side of the palm. He must have been seven or eight feet tall, because he sure did loom convincingly. “Uh, hello?” I said, apparently forgetting that I should be *running the hell away*. He stepped closer. In an uncannily human voice, he said, “There’s something beautiful over the horizon!” “…What?” He was still shifting towards me, but, stupidly, I continued to not leave. He was close enough I could see the pupil of the eye he had pointed at me, and, let me tell you, that was trippy. It looked like a colon mark tipped sideways, with the two dots connected by a thin U shape. That was the point at which I decided I was dreaming. All the sounds of birds and frogs, the flickering fireflies, and the smell of fresh green growth seemed amplified a thousandfold, overwhelmingly. “There’s something beautiful over the horizon!” he said, reaching out to grab my wrist like an overenthusiastic panhandler. And then I woke up in my bed, and it was morning. It took me a while to think to check whether that last text was real. It was. Not only that, but Joe had sent a couple texts asking why I hadn’t responded again. There also wasn’t any tea in the pantry, or anywhere else in the house. Other than that, everything in the house and yard seemed perfectly normal. I didn’t know what to think, so I just shoved it all to the back of my mind and pretended nothing happened. The second time, it happened in broad. Freaking. Daylight. I’d hardly stop going through the woods because of one bad dream – or who knows, trip – psyching me out. I go through the passage at least eight times a week, maybe more. Nothing had ever gone wrong before. Also, this time I was careful to pay attention to the road and not my phone. It had rained earlier in the day, so every blade of grass and cloverhead was coated in dewdrops. Downright magical. It was nice to get out and stretch my legs. I was just getting to this spot where water tends to pool when I saw an unusually large frog hop out of the grass. I stopped to look at it closer. It was… not exactly a frog. Remember those photos of blobfish that have been circulating around? Like that. But with hair, and rougher skin. Honestly, it reminded me of political cartoons from the colonial era – this weird, blobby human face blended into a frog (toad?) so well you couldn’t tell where one turned into another. The frog part was a sandy tan, with a darker, greenish X on the back. It ploddingly turned to face me. “Help us, Miriam!” Oh yeah – one other important note: my name is Miriam. (My parents have fucking weird tastes in names.) While I’m still processing the fact it knows my name, I start to hear voices coming from all directions. “Help us, Miriam!” “Save us, Miriam!” The froggy things were everywhere – in the grass, in the little pond, climbing in the trees, stuck on the underside of branches. And they were all talking, albeit at different times. I shakily started to walk forward, hoping I could make it through the woods to safety. Suddenly, the chorus stopped. A single creature said, “Look out, Miriam!” The sour taste of pure fear rose in my throat. Someone – or something – had just walked out from the trees lining the path. I started to step backwards, but my imagination conjured up the hideous possibility of a squish – crunch, and… the little things had been kind enough to warn me. It would be rude to kill one by mistake. The new apparition looked a lot more human than the others at a distance – at first I wondered if it was an errant teacher. It was rather short and moderately stout, wearing a tweed jacket and brown pants that looked just like one of the Professor Emeritus who used to potter around in my school’s English wing, and a tiny pair of brass-framed circular glasses that only enhanced its thin-lipped, V-shaped frown. Thing was, it was way hairier than any human had a right to be – its eyebrows blended straight into its hairline, and as it got closer I realized the patches on its cheeks I had thought were skin were… not. The entire creature was covered in fine, velvety, speckled fuzz, except its eyelash-thin moustache and beard, which were thick, scraggly whiskers and stuck straight out from its face. As it trundled up to me, I was cautiously walking backwards, telling myself that as soon as I stopped seeing frogs in the grass around my feet, I would turn around and make a run for it. Thing is, I also got the distinct feeling that the creature could move a lot faster than I could if it really wanted to. (This inkling turned out to be true.) Finally, I made the mistake of getting snagged by a bramble. As I frantically tried to free my pants from the thorns, the creature shuffled forward its last couple steps, wringing its hands a little. Its moist eyes were a warm dark brown, probably the most human part of the entire deal. It cleared its throat speculatively, then said “There’s something I need you to know.” I shrieked and started to fall backwards. See, its mouth… That little V I saw? Just a tiny middle segment. When it started to talk, it looked like its entire lower jaw and then some was cleanly falling off. As far as I was concerned, it could probably have eaten me straight up in a single bite, like some sort of massive (but /very short/) snake. It grabbed onto my arm and pulled me back onto balance, then patted me on the forearm in a way that might have been reassuring if it wasn’t being delivered by a basement-bargain-bin human imitation. The fingers felt like dirty velvet. “There’s something I want you to know,” it repeated, in an almost smug tone of voice. Surrendering myself to fate, I said, “Well, spit it out then!” It looked down and to the side, tapping its stubby fingertips together. The ratchet noise sung out in the silence. “Help us, Miriam!” contributed one of the frogs. Nodding agreeably, Bigmouth said, “There’s something I need you to know.” Slapping a hand against my forehead, I said, “For fuck’s sake, I don’t have ESP. You, them, all of this bullshit,” I said, gesturing in the general direction of the frogs, which was everywhere, “Just makes me want to piss myself. Is that what you want?” The ratchet sounded again, but otherwise there was no response. Bigmouth looked a little contrite. “Well?” Making a series of nonsense hand gestures that I guess were supposed to mean something, it responded, “There’s something. I need. You. To. Know.” Loaded with frustration, I balled up my fists and shrieked. Before I could think of anything else, I felt someone place a large hand on my shoulder, and then I woke up lying in bed. It was still afternoon, although about half an hour after when I thought it should be. My phone and keys were tossed on my bedside table. The door was open a smidge, like I usually leave it. I moved to get out of bed when it hit me: I was still wearing pants. And I /never/ leave my phone unplugged when I sleep. I raced through the house, trying to find any other signs. There wasn’t really anything else out of place. No mud in odd places, no damp footprints, and definitely no monsters lurking in the closets. That incident really shook me up. I didn’t use the path again for three days, and only decided it was safe when an old friend from the other side of town walked over to meet me. Walking together felt much safer. I wasn’t exactly jumping at shadows, but I was watching and listening carefully, and there was nothing the entire time. The friend and I hung out at her parent’s place for a while, then went out to have some fun. There’s a few small bars in town, and one of them is legendary for its cocktails. We had a few. I had never been a heavy drinker, but after college, I didn’t really have the time and cash to spare to spend on alcohol, and I guess I forgot what being drunk felt like. Typically, I was already too far gone by the time we realized that there was absolutely nowhere in my friend’s house I could stay overnight to think it was dangerous for me to go back alone. It wasn’t that late. I would be fine. I thought about taking the long route around to the other side, then remembered the sections of that sidewalk that were right next to 55mph traffic with no shoulder whatsoever. Yeah, no. I’m not suicidal. I was only just out of earshot of town when I realized I could hear footsteps crunching through the leaves behind me. I tensed up and tried to walk a little faster, hoping that if I ignored it, it would go away. Drunk person logic, amirite? No luck. The footsteps weren’t gaining on me by much, but they weren’t falling behind by much either. I realized that I was starting to hear the ratcheting noise intermittently. My pulse must have been crazy; I was shaking like a leaf. The trees blocked out any hint of moon or stars. It was so dark. I couldn’t even be sure I was still on the path. The footsteps were getting closer. Someone put a hand on my shoulder. A big hand. My pace faltered. “Hey honey,” a deep, rough voice said. “It’s a bit late for you to be walking back alone.” Old Joe. Old Joe was infamous for being a bit of a creep. Nothing ever came of it, though. Ok, so he’d stare at girls through the pool fence, and look a little too intently at their butts when they were wearing short skirts at the bar. So did a lot of guys. But, I remembered, he’d been at the club earlier in the night. Slunk off before we’d left, but was definitely there. “Mmh, not much for talking, eh?” he said. That’s when I realized he wasn’t just putting his hand there, he’d actually gotten a grip on my shoulder. I tried to jerk away, but wasn’t coordinated enough to succeed. “Not much for getting ambushed, that’s what,” I said hotly, turning to face him. Mistake. His grip was closer to the neck, and I could feel a hint of how hard he could dig in his nails if he felt like it. Something ratcheted in the background. “And what’re you planning to do about that, kid,” he said, leering. He’d moved to put his free hand on the side of my breast. I hadn’t even noticed. I felt frozen in place. He was clearly about to say something else, but the words didn’t come out. A bird made a cooing noise in the background. He leaned forward, looking over my shoulder. “…the fuck?” He stepped back, face somewhere between horror and alarm. That’s when I noticed a huge shadow lurking behind him. I’m pretty sure nobody else in the history of ever will be so happy to see a monster club someone over the head with a two-by-four. As my drunk ass unfroze, blinking in confusion and wiggling around my arms and legs like I had pins and needles, Mr. Bigmouth shuffled out of the bushes behind me, absentmindedly brushing leaves stuck to the arm of his jacket. Being both really drunk and repeatedly shocked, my eyes started to mist up as my brain slowly figured out what was happening. Bigmouth looked at me kindly. “There’s something I need you to know,” he said. “Is that literally all you can say,” I asked, already sure of the inevitable answer. Rubberman had come up behind him. They shared some sort of meaningful glance. He turned back to me, and put his hands on my shoulders. Half proudly and half apologetically, he said, “The more we can say, the less we can do.” At that point I just lost it and started sobbing. Bigmouth pulled me into a hug, patting me on the back like someone’s kindly uncle while I cried onto his shoulder. He gave me a little squeeze. In an incredibly gentle tone, Rubberman said, “There’s something beautiful over the horizon.” This time, the feeling of his alien hand against my back was almost reassuring. And then I woke up on a hard and uncomfortable surface, with an awfully familiar voice screaming in the background. Angry screaming. Emily. It took me a moment to figure out that I was lying on the concrete porch right in front of my own front door, on a slightly muddy tarp of dubious origin. My keyring was on the [threshold] right below the doorknob, like someone dropped it in a hurry. Eventually I pulled myself together, and got Emily to give me some kind of clue about what happened. She was hysterical, which, minus the half-off-at-the-halloween-costume-shop group hug, should have been my reaction to it all too. At the time, I was still nursing an incredible fit of zen. She had been out to put the trash bin on the curb when she saw two guys carrying something heavy between them staggering up to my door. She realized what they were carrying when she saw one of them pick up my keys and, well… they sprinted into the woods as soon as they heard her yell, making “Indian whooping noises.” (I have no idea, man. That’s just how she described it.) As far as I can tell, she didn’t get enough of a look at them to see that they weren’t human. She’d already called 911, so the emergency crews showed up a little after that. I told the cops about Old Joe – not like, what he did, just that he had looked like he was in trouble too - and the EMT people insisted on taking me back to the hospital to check up on the whole passing-out thing. “Just in case.” So… they did a full rundown; blood tests, CAT scans, the works. Nothing. Just a little residual alcohol. I’m scheduled to see a neurologist in case it’s some kind of seizure thing, but… Old Joe. They actually found him, almost exactly halfway between the two sides of town. (Fucker was apparently waiting to catch me where no one could hear me scream. Ugh.) And… he was /alive/. More than alive, he was /fine/, except for a bruise on the back of his head. I only know because he was in the ER when I got back from getting a heart check-up. (Apparently there are a /lot/ of things that can make you pass out.) From what I overheard the docs whispering, they thought he had a concussion, although I’m not so sure. See, they reached that conclusion based on the story he was telling them. I don’t actually have to tell you what it was. You already know. Considering Joe didn’t get like, slaughtered or disappeared, I’m thinking that the creatures aren’t as dangerous as I thought before, at least towards me. I think tomorrow I’m going to see whether I can get more proof that these guys really exist.
The setup: standard rpg fare with the hero team having a token girl, but with the villains having at least two. A, B, and C are the heroic dudes, D is the heroic gal. D also has some sort of emotion reading powers TM. E and F are the major villainous gals, with E running the operation and F being one of the heroes biggest adversaries, having some sort of personal vendetta against A and B. F's speciality is tanking a hit and going 'Was that supposed to bother me? Go hit the gym for another century or so.", although she's also proficient in A's fighting style. Spoiler: the convo at some point A annoys F so much that she punches the wall next to him. F: I wanted to be like you! A: Wait what? F: Remember [Competition a year before F came out as major antagonist timelinewise]? The one with that one contestant that just wouldn't go down? A: Oh god that was you wasn't it F: I wanted to be like you. I wanted to join your group. So I went and earned that fucking trophy and asked. And I was told 'We already have a girl." A: Wait wha-- B: So when E came along, you joined right up? F: No. When E came, I told her I'd punch her face off if she said she'll make a girl group. She said 'No, we pride ourselves on equal opportunity. I'm here for your skill.'. That's when I joined up. A: Can I have a second? Who told you you couldn't join because we already 'had a girl'? F: -points at B- A: Is that true. B: uh-- C: Yeah, it is. I was there. D: Dude that was not a cool thing to do. A: Yeah no that was supremely shitty. B: ... I got that when she wrecked us at [Disc One Final Dungeon]. I'm sorry. Look, would you feel better if you punched me? F: You sure? Because I'm going to punch your face off. Literally. D: You shouldn't do that, B-- A: D, leave it be. She deserves at least that. D: No, that's not it-- F: -socks B in the face so hard he goes flying- F: ... I got some thinking to do. C: Hang in there. Spoiler: the last four pages if this were a comic B, later that day, inspecting the massive bruise where F socked him, is not feeling well. He's used to getting punches, bug that one stung. D, talking to a doctor. Up until B offering F to punch him, F's feelings were genuine, raw hurt and rejection and anger. Then, there was something glimmering from below, the triumph of cold murderous intent hitting the supposed target in full force. F, sauntering into the Evil Base TM, greeted by E. She's smiling. Mission accomplished.
i'm amused by how my decision to write an red vs blue reverse au focused on mark temple has lead me to research so far: names (for characters without canon surnames and/or first names, and the ocs which i realized were necessary for the fic series to work) capture the flag ('cause the wargames are based around it) halo let's plays (to see more of how the mechanics of the halo/red vs blue universe play out in practice, particularly during capture the flag) shakespeare (i decided that temple's codenames for his agents would be shakespeare characters) ender's game ('cause it does similar things with manipulation and wargames to what freelancer does) latin counting (for temple to name his ais) some canon red vs blue characters that turned out to be more important to the au than i first thought the canon red vs blue timeline and probably some other things i didn't even think to list and i've only wrote one little oneshot for it, an oneshot i haven't posted 'cause i'm not even entirely confident about it yet and i think it will stand up better with more behind it. and the oneshot barely even uses any of this shit. i really like my au idea but... damn... damn...
Random inquiry: do people still buy / look for short story collections? I've got this idea for a non-linear serial sort of thing that has a bunch of different happenings all in the same universe, but I'm not sure in my ability to stretch each to novel-length when it just lives in my head as episodic standalones.
Iv'e been writing alot of fanfiction in the past couple years, but i only have three fics posted online. im working on another one and i am working on a detailed original work that ive slowly started to get to the point where i feel i might start writing it. although all my ideas are so bad i feel i may never finish the story... its slowly turned into a horrible mash of ideas.
I'm seriously considering setting up an origfic porn Patreon, but I don't want it to be connectable to my real name, and it could be possible to trace me from my fandom involvement via my Etsy stuff. If I don't link to my fic stuff, though, I have an empty portfolio. Should I just hope nobody wants to dig up my real name, or what?
in that case I'd recommend starting up a new (unconnected) online identity with free post-by-chapter kind of thing to generate some interest
mhhhh depends on how muhc of a spread you're looking to offer I guess? You should offer a decent representation of your work I guess. One thing I've seen people do is if they write a trilogy they will offer the first novel in its entirety for free off of like amazon and then have the second and third book require you to pay. People love free shit so they can get hooked via that and if the cliffhanger is mean enough (and believe me this one was *super mean*) people are likely to buy the rest
