Hello! Welcome to my profile, I hope it finds you well.
Where to begin? I suppose with the basics! I have always had a passion for storytelling. I wrote my first “novel” in the second grade (it was about twenty pages not counting the hand drawn illustrations). I began roleplaying the summer of my fifth grade year and I started doing post-to-play roleplaying in 2011-12. I’ve written two novels (not counting my second grade debut) and have collaborated on thousands of pages worth of roleplays.
I believe a person can only be happy if they are leading a creative life; and I’m excited to share and create new stories here in the Guild.
So, what do I write?
-Boundaries: Let's start with a brief 'will not write' list. I steer clear of graphic or explicit sexual content, preferring to 'fade to black' or focus on the emotional impact of a scene rather than its physical details. If explicit content is a must for you, we're not a match. Beyond that, I'm open to exploring whatever complex and challenging themes the narrative demands.
-Genres: I write serious, grounded stories with dark elements. The setting is just that, a setting. But I believe it is characters, their relationships, and conflicts that drive a story. As long as we have these elements met, I'm going to be happy in horror, fantasy, science fiction, historical, and modern settings. The only genre I don't entertain is slice-of-life.
-Romance: Romance is an excellent tool to create or advance character depth and conflict, and that's how I use it. I'm not going to be satisfied in a story where the romance is the point, but a romantic subplot contributing to a grander narrative is always welcome. Please know, I have a strong preference for naturally blooming relationships, those that even surprise the writers. I have difficulty forcing these things.
-Settings: I love original settings, yours or mine. I don’t like outsourcing the creative fun to Hollywood, although I could be persuaded to dabble in IPs close to my heart (Last of Us), but even then generally playing original characters. I’m sorry, I don’t watch anime or write in those settings.
-Style: In Guild terms, I’d describe myself as “advanced” and “literate,” though both sound pretentious. I try to balance detail and succinctness. That can mean 2,500 words in an introduction, but typically between 400-700 in an average post, deviating as the story requires.
-Contact: If you like what I’ve said here and think you and I have a story to tell together, send me a PM! Even if I don’t have the bandwidth to write with you right now (I’m very committed to not ghosting people, and a key piece of that is not being overwhelmed/managing expectations) I’ll be certain to keep it in mind for future opportunities. I’m happy to plot and chat OOC on Discord.
- Proposals: So, you want to write with old Hos, but you haven’t got an idea of your own, huh? Well, no worries, I have a few ideas I can bring to the table! These are not fully fledged narratives, mostly just ideas which could take place in multiple settings, or settings which could contain multiple narratives. Anything I’m interested in may show up here, and I'll add and update the list as new ideas occur to me. Take a gander, and see if anything catches your fancy:
-The Shrouded Skies: Humanity engineered the Ecological Disaster Emergency Nodes, or EDENs, in response to the smothering spread of pollution choking out all life outside the structures. Each of the monolithic buildings stretch miles into the sky and miles into the earth, and each home to hundreds of thousands of residents. The EDENs are built around the Aether Mines, extracting the inmate magic at the core of the world and using it to create breathable air, potable water, and the other barest essentials of life. However, the industry supporting the Mines, and the Mines themselves, spew poison into the air, further polluting the already dead earth. The elite live at the peak of the structure and enjoy access to sunlight and, at the highest levels, the planet’s last remaining natural, breathable air. Those at the bottom are forced to live and work in the dark and heat, surviving on scraps of food and water recycled hundreds of times before reaching them. The EDENs are too far apart to allow for travel between them on the forsaken ground, instead, all trade, travel, and communication must go by way of airship.
This is a magic infused, steampunk setting. I think it’s a good place to tell all kinds of stories. As for technological level, think Late Victorian. Some particularly interesting story concepts I’d be interested in exploring include: an illegal labor movement growing into a rebellion and a noir style mystery.
- In the Ruins of Peace: Berlin is a city of rubble. As the summer of 1948 unfurls, the charred remnants of Europe’s once-magnificent metropolis is divided between victors like corpse flesh among vultures. The pulse of the city beats faint, its populace halved by the ravages of war, its skeleton fractured—eight in ten edifices lay in ruin. Swastikas have been torn down, replaced by the new eagle of the Americans, and the grim sickle of the Soviet Union, but no matter their banner, soldiers still patrol the broken boroughs. Yet beneath the tenuous veneer of order, something sinister stirs. An unfathomable darkness. An entity not just foreign, but utterly otherworldly. Something as insidious as it is other.
Amidst the ghosts of the city, a private detective, adept in unraveling the fates of those swallowed by the war’s chaos, receives a case, first seeming like any other. An American woman has vanished without a trace, her last steps known only to the shattered streets. But the matter soon proves unlike anything he has ever encountered. To find her, he must navigate the treacherous divide of a city suspended by the Airlift, dodge the ruthless NKVD who also seek the enigmatic woman, and ultimately cross the imperceptible boundary where the concrete world dissolves into the mists of eldritch terror.
-Because We Live Here: This is less an idea, and more a series of tropes I think would be fun to explore. Specifically, I’m imagining two young people who have generally led easy lives. Finding their tranquility suddenly shattered by a swift and terrible defeat by an enemy tribe/nation/empire. This forces the pair to grow up quickly, fighting first just to survive, and then to bring vengeance for their country, their friends, and themselves. Themes I want to explore include: the loss of innocence, comradery, plucky rebels versus the evil empire, and the balance between a noble cause and the terrible acts to advance it. I think there are lots of ways this story could play out: two soldiers, a noble and their bodyguard, two children forced to take up arms, whatever. Likewise, I can see this working in just about any setting and genre. It’s flexible, let me know what you’re thinking, and if you like the themes, we can make it work.
-Writing Sample: I know some people prefer to see before they buy, so here’s a prologue I wrote to set the mood for one of my ongoing RPs. It’s not designed to be responded to, but it will give you a sense for my writing style.
Mercer leaned on the guardrail of the small balcony outside his office. A couple of years ago he’d added an awning overhead to make the space usable in the perpetual downpour. Now he could use the space to smoke. And think. His eyes focused on the little slivers of sky he could see in between the tall, grey buildings. When the smog wasn’t too bad, he could watch the storm clouds roll across the horizon. Today, he couldn’t distinguish between black clouds and the pollution smothering the city. He’d heard the top floors of some buildings were high enough to see over the muck, but he’d spent too much of his life down low to know if that was true. It was a nice thought, though.
He heard a distant cackle of static from his desk intercom inside and sighed. Back to work, he thought. He dropped the cigarette and crushed it on the balcony’s metal floor before kicking the butt down to the alley. The warmth of his office was a pleasant change from the dreary cold outside and he sat down in his chair and thumbed the intercom just as Julia opened his door.
“Oh, I just buzzed. I thought you were outside.”
“I was. Smoke break.” Mercer said, “A client call?” The phone—an archaic site anywhere else—had a call waiting button which wasn’t flashing.
“Not a client, no.” Julia said with a just a hint of hesitation that narrowed Mercer’s eyes, “it’s Lydia, she’s. . . .”
“No,” Mercer interrupted, grabbing the cigarette pack he’d just thrown on the desk now feeling a second was warranted, “whatever it is, the answer is no.” He lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. Almost a breathing exercise, he thought.
“She’s here, and she’d like to see you. She says it’s important.”
“She’s here?” Mercer said, standing up, “What are you doing, Jules?” Julia winced at his tone, but he continued, “I told you I don’t want her calling here, and I damn well don’t want her just dropping by whenever she feels ‘it’s important.’ Look, just tell her. . .” before he finished another woman appeared behind Julia. A pretty woman with long brown hair and deep green eyes. “. . . Lydia,” he said and let out a ragged sigh.
“I got something I want to talk to you about.” Her voice was quiet and steady. Like she’d practiced the line. “It won’t take but a minute.”
Mercer held her stare for what seemed a long minute before sitting down. “Then I guess you’d better come in,” he said and jabbed a finger at one of the chairs across from his desk. She nodded and took a careful seat, putting a purse beside her as Julia closed the door on her way out. As she settled, her eyes surveyed the familiar office before stopping on a blank piece of wall behind the desk and to the right. “What?” He said, turning to follow her gaze, “oh, the painting? Yeah, I took it down to have the walls cleaned and never got around to putting it back.”
“I always thought you liked that painting.”
“You didn’t come here to debate the merits of impressionism.” Mercer said, exhaling a line of smoke to the side. Her hands went instinctively to her stomach, he’d almost forgotten she was pregnant. He took another draw on the cigarette, “what do you want, Lydia?”
“Uh. . .” Lydia took a deep breath and clasped her hands together in her lap. When her words came, they came quickly, almost tumbling out of her mouth one after the other. “Zander and I would like to hold a funeral for Sophie.” She squeezed her hands together, waiting for his explosion, but instead, Mercer only took a deep breath and leaned back in the chair. “Five years is a long time, Alex, and. . . I don’t want to do this without you.”
Mercer looked away from Lydia, back to the balcony and to the rain. “That’s my daughter you’re talking about.” His voice was soft as he brought the cigarette back to his mouth in a slightly shaking hand. “She’s my daughter too, Lydia.”
“I know, Alex” she answered in a voice barely above a whisper. “I know she is.”
“That means I have a say in this, and I say ‘no.’” He crossed his arms, “now if that’s all, you can go ahead and leave now.”
“Alex, please don’t do that, I just want to talk about it.”
“We’ve talked about it,” he said, a funeral? She wants to have a fucking funeral? “And the answer is no.” He stood up and placed both hands down on the desk, leaning over her. “Now that we’ve ‘talked’ about it, you can go.”
She stood to meet his eyes as an equal, “you think you’re the only one who lost something, Alex? You think you’re the only one who misses her?”
I’m the only one who acts like I’ve lost something, he thought, but said nothing. Instead, he crushed the cigarette into the ashtray on his desk, walked over to the cellarette and poured himself a generous double. Turning his back to her, he took a drink. “Get out.”
“I bought a plot.” She continued; her voice softer now. “It’s out of town a little ways, under the sky. On a small hill. Even the city looks pretty from there. It’s perfect.”
Mercer tightened his grip, causing the liquid to stir slightly. He spoke slowly, each word a deliberate effort. “I said get out.”
Lydia hesitated but then added quietly, “you should see it, Alex. It’s like a scene out of one of her paintings.”
He slammed the drink back down on the cellarette, sending reverberations through the floor. “You’re talking about burying an empty box, Lydia.” He said not turning around. “An empty box. Now how does that make any sense?” “It’s a place to remember her, Alex. For both of us.”
“Remember her?” He scoffed, whirling around suddenly to face her again. “You don’t talk to me about remembering her. I haven’t forgotten her. I haven’t given up on her.” He spat the accusation. I’m not the one trying to replace her with some prick’s fucking baby.
She didn’t rise to the challenge, far too much a veteran of these fights. Instead, she reached into her purse, pulling out a pamphlet and placing it on his desk. “The funeral is in two weeks,” she said, “it would mean a lot to Zander if you would be there.”
Mercer looked down at the pamphlet, his daughter’s face smiling up at him. Oh, sweet baby girl. “You planned it?” He asked softly, his fingers tracing the image of his daughter’s face on the paper. His voice hardened, “you told Zander we’re burying his sister?”
“He needs closure, Alex. This isn’t good—”
“He needs his sister,” Mercer shouted, shredding the pamphlet in his two hands, “not an empty fucking box!” He glared at his ex-wife and let the shreds fall to the office floor before going back and taking another drink from his glass. “Get out.” He said again.
She took a careful, steadying breath. “Alex, if Sophie were here. . .”
His reaction was immediate. He spun and hurled the glass across the room, sending it slamming into the far wall and bursting into a thousand shards. She jumped as a fleck of glass ricocheted off the wall and cut her cheek. She put fingers to the wound and looked down in a daze at the blood. “Get out.” The cold warning stood in stark contrast to the hot outburst.
“Okay.” She nodded, she was pale now, her breaths shallow, and her eyes were full of tears. “I’ll go,” Mercer nodded. She paused, her hand resting on the knob, “But I’m going to leave the details with Julia, in case you change your mind.” He grunted a curse at her but couldn’t muster anything stronger. She left and let the door close quietly, leaving him alone again.
When he was sure she was gone, he let out a ragged breath he’d held for too long. I need a drink, he thought, but saw he’d just thrown the only remaining clean glass. “Fuck it,” he muttered before bringing the bottle to his lips, taking a long, slow swig. He sat down on the edge of his desk and stared down at the shredded pamphlet, straining to make out anything of his daughter’s picture. But it just looked like torn paper now. The rain picked up outside and the already dim light from the window grew darker. He moved back to his chair and sat there for a long while before opening his drawer. There, waiting for him, was the painting he’d taken off his wall months ago. A landscape with the city in the background. Sophie had never really been out of the city, but she was an artist and artists could create things they’d never seen before. And she was so talented. . . is, God damn it, she is so talented, he thought and hated himself. But what he hated more, in the moment, was that the painting did look very much like how Lydia had described the plot.
People called Jim Bennett a ‘woodsman,’ which he figured was better than most of the alternatives. Alternatives like ‘hermit’ or ‘recluse.’ Or just ‘fucking weirdo.’ For his part, Jim thought of himself as a loner. Born an only child in a town tiny enough to be counted small even by Idaho standards, he’d never had much choice in the matter. Not that it bothered him. Or at least, not much. The woods had taken him in, no questions asked. Even as a child, when daddy would come home angry and drunk and mom would start crying, he'd always been able to find solace in the wilderness. And he’d spent much of his adult life chasing the soothing calm one could only find in nature. He’d heard the National Park Service paid folks to spend months at a time alone in a cabin watching for fires and he’d always thought that sounded like a good job. But he knew they wouldn’t hire an old drunk. That was another thing people called him—and maybe the most accurate.
He’d spent over forty of his sixty years as a hardcore alcoholic. Happy only when he was alone, in the wilds, with a bottle. He’d dated ladies, of course, and even fathered children. But he’d run every one of them off, poisoning his relationships in a way only drink can. For the longest time, Jim had every intention of drinking himself to an early grave that stubbornly eluded him. After his third arrest for DUI, the court had gotten serious and ordered him to attend regular AA meetings. Of course, Timbermoor was too small to support its own chapter—well, no, that wasn’t quite right. There were plenty of alcoholics in the village, just not enough inclined to quit. Anyways, the lady-judge had told him it was either AA or bona fide jail time, and so Jim had rumbled his pickup the better part of 200 miles down the 112 twice a week for meetings at the Methodist church in Callam Bay. Jim wasn’t sure who was more surprised—him or everyone else—when those meetings actually took.
He'd worked his way through the sobriety pins: first the red chip for thirty days, then gold, green, purple, pink, yellow, blue, until one day his sponsor was finally trying not to stab him as he attached the bronze lapel pin—symbolizing a year of sobriety—on his ratty jacket. He kept every color out in his cabin, somewhere he could see them, on his table and scattered around the countertops. It hadn’t been easy, giving up drink, but it hadn’t been as hard as he imagined either. And for the first time in his life, Jim Bennett found a community to which he could belong. He’d been nearly eighteen months sober when he found an old bottle of Jameson’s deep in his tinkering shop. He’d bought the damn thing for himself before his last DUI and had forgotten all about it, hidden away at the back of his cluttered workspace. The way Jim remembered it, he sat for the better part of the afternoon deciding whether to open the bottle. In the end, he’d left it sitting on the dining room table and gone to bed. He’d stared at it for a long while in the morning as well, and again in the afternoon, and in the morning again. It became a ritual and one of the few true constants in Jim’s life, but every day the fight had been a little shorter and his resolve a little stronger. That bottle of Jameson’s still sat on his dinner table, though now he barely even saw it. He planned to take it with him next week when he drove to Callam Bay to get his ten-year pin and maybe leave it in a trash can down there or chuck it in the ocean on the way home.
Jim was down, below his lofted cabin, in the tinkering shop. He made a little bit of money tinkering on lawn mower engines and simple household appliances. It was a long drive to a home improvement store, and Amazon didn’t deliver out here, so he made enough to get by with the little business. Across the shop his old shepherd, Lucy, was laying down, recovering from a hard day of absolutely nothing. She had lived longer than most of her breed and Jim suspected that was because of all the fresh air and drizzly strolls. They’d been together almost as long as he’d been sober and, she’d become a token of his newer, better self. The one living thing in his life drinking hadn’t run off.
He’d just returned his attention to the blender he’d been working on when Lucy emitted a deep growl. It was lower and fiercer than any noise he’d ever heard the old dog make. He stopped and looked over at her, she had stood up, something she normally struggled to do without help, and was moving towards the large open door. He’d originally planned to work on cars down here, so he’d installed a garage door that he normally kept open. He liked the weather most days and the workshop wasn’t heated or cooled, so the fresh air was nice. But now Jim found himself wishing he’d put on an electronic door he could close from here. Sometimes, Lucy would sniff out bears, bobcats, and even a pack of wolves once. It was rare to see any of those here at his cabin since it was outside the dense woodlands a little way, but that growl told him something was out there in the black.
“You smell trouble, girl?” He asked the dog and grabbed the rifle off the wall behind him. He could finish work on the blender later, he decided, and moved towards Lucy. He had to carry her up the stairs to the living quarters these days and, while he hadn’t quite worked out how he’d carry the German shepherd and his rifle, he damn sure wasn’t leaving either behind. He’d crossed about halfway to where Lucy stood, hackles raised and knees trembling with effort, when he saw something. Timbermoor didn’t have much in the way of public lighting, especially this far out where there weren’t even real roads, and the pitch night didn’t make it easier, but Jim could still recognize the movement. He felt his stomach slowly knotting itself, it had really seemed for a moment those shadows outside had been twisting or writhing, almost like they—it—was changing somehow. Which was absurd, of course, but that knowledge did nothing to sooth the bile he felt creeping up his throat.
“Get out of here,” he hollered out into the void. He didn’t hear or see anything, so he fired the rifle a couple hundred yards into the ground outside, just to prove his point. No movement. Nothing. He watched Lucy. She couldn’t see any more, but her body was rigid, and alert and her nose was sniffing the air. She hadn’t even flinched when he’d shot the gun. “Come on girl,” he said and reached down to scoop her up. With swiftness she hadn’t shown in years, Lucy whirled on him, growled, and bit, shaking her head and tearing the flesh of his left arm, taking a piece of meat in the process. “God damn it,” Jim shouted and fell backwards, holding his bleeding arm and looking in shocked horror at his only friend. “What’s gotten into you, girl? It’s me!” Her eyes were grey with cataracts he couldn’t afford to get fixed, but her body betrayed no sign of recognition. Instead, she let out another menacing growl. “What?” He asked, getting back to his feet, “what has you so bothered?” He approached her again, more cautiously this time, and extending his right hand for her to sniff. She ignored him. Instead, she turned and bolted out into the night, growling and foaming. “Oh, damn it all!” Jim shouted before stumbling just beyond the threshold and into the night. “Lucy! Come here girl.”
There was no sign of the dog in the dark, though Jim didn’t understand how she moved so fast. Still, the notion of abandoning her when there was a bear or mountain lion lurking about was unthinkable, and so he grabbed his rifle off the floor and went out after her. He’d been walking only a short time when the sounds started. Music maybe? He wasn’t certain because he’d never heard noises quite like these before, but they seemed to have a certain alien rhythm to them. A fitting sound to drive men mad and the mind to its undoing. Jim started at the thought which seemed distinctly foreign in his own head and spun around, unsure if the voice had come from inside his skull or out of it.
“Whose there? I’ve got a gun.” He fired twice into the air for emphasis. The wind carried a feint howl to his ears and Jim spun in the direction. Whatever it was, it was too far away to be a threat. The temperature was falling rapidly, and he could see his rapid breaths in large puffs with the light from distant stars. Animals weren’t usually this quiet and a couple of shots would drive them back to the wilderness. After all, most of these woods were untouched and the animals didn’t have any incentive to bother people. Especially not men shooting guns. From behind him a good way, he heard Lucy yelp and immediately spun and lowered the rifle at whatever was hurting his dog. He pointed in the direction of the whine and aimed high enough he knew he wouldn’t hit Lucy then pulled the trigger. The shot rang out and, for the briefest moment, he glimpsed something in the muzzle flash.
Jim Bennett slammed the door of his lofted cabin hard behind him and flipped the lock. His breathing was ragged from the sprint, but at least he was alone. He could still hear Lucy yelping as he stumbled to his landline, having never found a cell provider to be reliable out this far, and immediately dialed 911. As he put the phone to his ear, he was greeted only by that same, strange melody from before. “What in the hell,” he whispered in a trembling voice. He’d thrown his rifle down to run faster but he had his Sig in the living room. He stumbled over towards it, bleeding now from a myriad of injuries—cuts, bites, burns—and knocked things off the counter to the floor as he went. He made it as far as his dinner table when the most insidious sound he’d heard yet tonight met his ears. His deadbolt was turning. He spun back to face the door and watched as the lock completed its rotation and his front door slowly swung open. With his eyes trained on the thing in the doorway, and without even a thought, Jim Bennett reached out a quivering hand, grabbed the ten-year-old bottle of Jameson’s, opened it with his teeth, and began to drink.
Call me Hos. Depending on how you define terms, I've been roleplaying for somewhere between ten and twenty years. A lot of it come on another website, NationStates, but it seems writing opportunities there have mostly dried up. So I've sought out greener pastures and found myself here. I really like how stories are broken down between free, casual, and advanced, and I've already found some cool people to write with! I'm looking forward to meeting new people and telling more stories.
Always feel free to drop me a line!
[center]Hello! Welcome to my profile, I hope it finds you well.[/center]
[justify]Where to begin? I suppose with the basics! I have always had a passion for storytelling. I wrote my first “novel” in the second grade (it was about twenty pages not counting the hand drawn illustrations). I began roleplaying the summer of my fifth grade year and I started doing post-to-play roleplaying in 2011-12. I’ve written two novels (not counting my second grade debut) and have collaborated on thousands of pages worth of roleplays.
I believe a person can only be happy if they are leading a creative life; and I’m excited to share and create new stories here in the Guild.
So, what do I write?
[color=CD5C5C]-[b]Boundaries:[/b][/color] Let's start with a brief 'will not write' list. I steer clear of graphic or explicit sexual content, preferring to 'fade to black' or focus on the emotional impact of a scene rather than its physical details. If explicit content is a must for you, we're not a match. Beyond that, I'm open to exploring whatever complex and challenging themes the narrative demands.
[color=CD5C5C]-[b]Genres:[/b][/color] I write serious, grounded stories with dark elements. The setting is just that, a setting. But I believe it is characters, their relationships, and conflicts that drive a story. As long as we have these elements met, I'm going to be happy in horror, fantasy, science fiction, historical, and modern settings. The only genre I don't entertain is slice-of-life.
[color=CD5C5C]-[b]Romance:[/b][/color] Romance is an excellent tool to create or advance character depth and conflict, and that's how I use it. I'm not going to be satisfied in a story where the romance is the point, but a romantic subplot contributing to a grander narrative is always welcome. Please know, I have a strong preference for naturally blooming relationships, those that even surprise the writers. I have difficulty forcing these things.
[color=CD5C5C]-[b]Settings:[/b][/color] I love original settings, yours or mine. I don’t like outsourcing the creative fun to Hollywood, although I could be persuaded to dabble in IPs close to my heart (Last of Us), but even then generally playing original characters. I’m sorry, I don’t watch anime or write in those settings.
[color=CD5C5C]-[b]Style:[/b][/color] In Guild terms, I’d describe myself as “advanced” and “literate,” though both sound pretentious. I try to balance detail and succinctness. That can mean 2,500 words in an introduction, but typically between 400-700 in an average post, deviating as the story requires.
[color=CD5C5C]-[b]Contact:[/b][/color] If you like what I’ve said here and think you and I have a story to tell together, send me a PM! Even if I don’t have the bandwidth to write with you right now (I’m very committed to not ghosting people, and a key piece of that is not being overwhelmed/managing expectations) I’ll be certain to keep it in mind for future opportunities. I’m happy to plot and chat OOC on Discord.
[color=CD5C5C]-[b] Proposals:[/b][/color] So, you want to write with old Hos, but you haven’t got an idea of your own, huh? Well, no worries, I have a few ideas I can bring to the table! These are not fully fledged narratives, mostly just ideas which could take place in multiple settings, or settings which could contain multiple narratives. Anything I’m interested in may show up here, and I'll add and update the list as new ideas occur to me. Take a gander, and see if anything catches your fancy:
[hider=Show Ideas]
[color=7B68EE]-[b]The Shrouded Skies:[/b][/color] Humanity engineered the Ecological Disaster Emergency Nodes, or EDENs, in response to the smothering spread of pollution choking out all life outside the structures. Each of the monolithic buildings stretch miles into the sky and miles into the earth, and each home to hundreds of thousands of residents. The EDENs are built around the Aether Mines, extracting the inmate magic at the core of the world and using it to create breathable air, potable water, and the other barest essentials of life. However, the industry supporting the Mines, and the Mines themselves, spew poison into the air, further polluting the already dead earth. The elite live at the peak of the structure and enjoy access to sunlight and, at the highest levels, the planet’s last remaining natural, breathable air. Those at the bottom are forced to live and work in the dark and heat, surviving on scraps of food and water recycled hundreds of times before reaching them. The EDENs are too far apart to allow for travel between them on the forsaken ground, instead, all trade, travel, and communication must go by way of airship.
This is a magic infused, steampunk setting. I think it’s a good place to tell all kinds of stories. As for technological level, think Late Victorian. Some particularly interesting story concepts I’d be interested in exploring include: an illegal labor movement growing into a rebellion and a noir style mystery.
[color=7B68EE]-[b] In the Ruins of Peace:[/b][/color] Berlin is a city of rubble. As the summer of 1948 unfurls, the charred remnants of Europe’s once-magnificent metropolis is divided between victors like corpse flesh among vultures. The pulse of the city beats faint, its populace halved by the ravages of war, its skeleton fractured—eight in ten edifices lay in ruin. Swastikas have been torn down, replaced by the new eagle of the Americans, and the grim sickle of the Soviet Union, but no matter their banner, soldiers still patrol the broken boroughs. Yet beneath the tenuous veneer of order, something sinister stirs. An unfathomable darkness. An entity not just foreign, but utterly otherworldly. Something as insidious as it is [i]other[/i].
Amidst the ghosts of the city, a private detective, adept in unraveling the fates of those swallowed by the war’s chaos, receives a case, first seeming like any other. An American woman has vanished without a trace, her last steps known only to the shattered streets. But the matter soon proves unlike anything he has ever encountered. To find her, he must navigate the treacherous divide of a city suspended by the Airlift, dodge the ruthless NKVD who also seek the enigmatic woman, and ultimately cross the imperceptible boundary where the concrete world dissolves into the mists of eldritch terror.
[color=7B68EE]-[b]Because We Live Here:[/b][/color] This is less an idea, and more a series of tropes I think would be fun to explore. Specifically, I’m imagining two young people who have generally led easy lives. Finding their tranquility suddenly shattered by a swift and terrible defeat by an enemy tribe/nation/empire. This forces the pair to grow up quickly, fighting first just to survive, and then to bring vengeance for their country, their friends, and themselves. Themes I want to explore include: the loss of innocence, comradery, plucky rebels versus the evil empire, and the balance between a noble cause and the terrible acts to advance it. I think there are lots of ways this story could play out: two soldiers, a noble and their bodyguard, two children forced to take up arms, whatever. Likewise, I can see this working in just about any setting and genre. It’s flexible, let me know what you’re thinking, and if you like the themes, we can make it work.
[/hider]
[color=CD5C5C]-[b]Writing Sample:[/b][/color] I know some people prefer to see before they buy, so here’s a prologue I wrote to set the mood for one of my ongoing RPs. It’s not designed to be responded to, but it will give you a sense for my writing style.
[hider=Sample (Noir)]
Mercer leaned on the guardrail of the small balcony outside his office. A couple of years ago he’d added an awning overhead to make the space usable in the perpetual downpour. Now he could use the space to smoke. And think. His eyes focused on the little slivers of sky he could see in between the tall, grey buildings. When the smog wasn’t too bad, he could watch the storm clouds roll across the horizon. Today, he couldn’t distinguish between black clouds and the pollution smothering the city. He’d heard the top floors of some buildings were high enough to see over the muck, but he’d spent too much of his life down low to know if that was true. It was a nice thought, though.
He heard a distant cackle of static from his desk intercom inside and sighed. [i]Back to work,[/i] he thought. He dropped the cigarette and crushed it on the balcony’s metal floor before kicking the butt down to the alley. The warmth of his office was a pleasant change from the dreary cold outside and he sat down in his chair and thumbed the intercom just as Julia opened his door.
“Oh, I just buzzed. I thought you were outside.”
“I was. Smoke break.” Mercer said, “A client call?” The phone—an archaic site anywhere else—had a call waiting button which wasn’t flashing.
“Not a client, no.” Julia said with a just a hint of hesitation that narrowed Mercer’s eyes, “it’s Lydia, she’s. . . .”
“No,” Mercer interrupted, grabbing the cigarette pack he’d just thrown on the desk now feeling a second was warranted, “whatever it is, the answer is no.” He lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. [i]Almost a breathing exercise,[/i] he thought.
“She’s here, and she’d like to see you. She says it’s important.”
“She’s here?” Mercer said, standing up, “What are you doing, Jules?” Julia winced at his tone, but he continued, “I told you I don’t want her calling here, and I damn well don’t want her just dropping by whenever she feels ‘it’s important.’ Look, just tell her. . .” before he finished another woman appeared behind Julia. A pretty woman with long brown hair and deep green eyes. “. . . Lydia,” he said and let out a ragged sigh.
“I got something I want to talk to you about.” Her voice was quiet and steady. Like she’d practiced the line. “It won’t take but a minute.”
Mercer held her stare for what seemed a long minute before sitting down. “Then I guess you’d better come in,” he said and jabbed a finger at one of the chairs across from his desk. She nodded and took a careful seat, putting a purse beside her as Julia closed the door on her way out. As she settled, her eyes surveyed the familiar office before stopping on a blank piece of wall behind the desk and to the right. “What?” He said, turning to follow her gaze, “oh, the painting? Yeah, I took it down to have the walls cleaned and never got around to putting it back.”
“I always thought you liked that painting.”
“You didn’t come here to debate the merits of impressionism.” Mercer said, exhaling a line of smoke to the side. Her hands went instinctively to her stomach, he’d almost forgotten she was pregnant. He took another draw on the cigarette, “what do you want, Lydia?”
“Uh. . .” Lydia took a deep breath and clasped her hands together in her lap. When her words came, they came quickly, almost tumbling out of her mouth one after the other. “Zander and I would like to hold a funeral for Sophie.” She squeezed her hands together, waiting for his explosion, but instead, Mercer only took a deep breath and leaned back in the chair. “Five years is a long time, Alex, and. . . I don’t want to do this without you.”
Mercer looked away from Lydia, back to the balcony and to the rain. “That’s my daughter you’re talking about.” His voice was soft as he brought the cigarette back to his mouth in a slightly shaking hand. “She’s my daughter too, Lydia.”
“I know, Alex” she answered in a voice barely above a whisper. “I know she is.”
“That means I have a say in this, and I say ‘no.’” He crossed his arms, “now if that’s all, you can go ahead and leave now.”
“Alex, please don’t do that, I just want to talk about it.”
“We’ve talked about it,” he said, [i]a funeral? She wants to have a fucking funeral?[/i] “And the answer is no.” He stood up and placed both hands down on the desk, leaning over her. “Now that we’ve ‘talked’ about it, you can go.”
She stood to meet his eyes as an equal, “you think you’re the only one who lost something, Alex? You think you’re the only one who misses her?”
[i]I’m the only one who acts like I’ve lost something,[/i] he thought, but said nothing. Instead, he crushed the cigarette into the ashtray on his desk, walked over to the cellarette and poured himself a generous double. Turning his back to her, he took a drink. “Get out.”
“I bought a plot.” She continued; her voice softer now. “It’s out of town a little ways, under the sky. On a small hill. Even the city looks pretty from there. It’s perfect.”
Mercer tightened his grip, causing the liquid to stir slightly. He spoke slowly, each word a deliberate effort. “I said get out.”
Lydia hesitated but then added quietly, “you should see it, Alex. It’s like a scene out of one of her paintings.”
He slammed the drink back down on the cellarette, sending reverberations through the floor. “You’re talking about burying an empty box, Lydia.” He said not turning around. “An empty box. Now how does that make any sense?”
“It’s a place to remember her, Alex. For both of us.”
“Remember her?” He scoffed, whirling around suddenly to face her again. “You don’t talk to me about remembering her. I haven’t forgotten her. I haven’t given up on her.” He spat the accusation. [i]I’m not the one trying to replace her with some prick’s fucking baby.[/i]
She didn’t rise to the challenge, far too much a veteran of these fights. Instead, she reached into her purse, pulling out a pamphlet and placing it on his desk. “The funeral is in two weeks,” she said, “it would mean a lot to Zander if you would be there.”
Mercer looked down at the pamphlet, his daughter’s face smiling up at him. [i]Oh, sweet baby girl.[/i] “You planned it?” He asked softly, his fingers tracing the image of his daughter’s face on the paper. His voice hardened, “you told Zander we’re burying his sister?”
“He needs closure, Alex. This isn’t good—”
“He needs his sister,” Mercer shouted, shredding the pamphlet in his two hands, “not an empty fucking box!” He glared at his ex-wife and let the shreds fall to the office floor before going back and taking another drink from his glass. “Get out.” He said again.
She took a careful, steadying breath. “Alex, if Sophie were here. . .”
His reaction was immediate. He spun and hurled the glass across the room, sending it slamming into the far wall and bursting into a thousand shards. She jumped as a fleck of glass ricocheted off the wall and cut her cheek. She put fingers to the wound and looked down in a daze at the blood. “Get out.” The cold warning stood in stark contrast to the hot outburst.
“Okay.” She nodded, she was pale now, her breaths shallow, and her eyes were full of tears. “I’ll go,” Mercer nodded. She paused, her hand resting on the knob, “But I’m going to leave the details with Julia, in case you change your mind.” He grunted a curse at her but couldn’t muster anything stronger. She left and let the door close quietly, leaving him alone again.
When he was sure she was gone, he let out a ragged breath he’d held for too long. I need a drink, he thought, but saw he’d just thrown the only remaining clean glass. “Fuck it,” he muttered before bringing the bottle to his lips, taking a long, slow swig. He sat down on the edge of his desk and stared down at the shredded pamphlet, straining to make out anything of his daughter’s picture. But it just looked like torn paper now. The rain picked up outside and the already dim light from the window grew darker. He moved back to his chair and sat there for a long while before opening his drawer. There, waiting for him, was the painting he’d taken off his wall months ago. A landscape with the city in the background. Sophie had never really been out of the city, but she was an artist and artists could create things they’d never seen before. [i]And she was so talented. . . is, God damn it, she is so talented,[/i] he thought and hated himself. But what he hated more, in the moment, was that the painting did look very much like how Lydia had described the plot.
[/hider]
[hider=Sample (Horror)]
People called Jim Bennett a ‘woodsman,’ which he figured was better than most of the alternatives. Alternatives like ‘hermit’ or ‘recluse.’ Or just ‘fucking weirdo.’ For his part, Jim thought of himself as a loner. Born an only child in a town tiny enough to be counted small even by Idaho standards, he’d never had much choice in the matter. Not that it bothered him. Or at least, not much. The woods had taken him in, no questions asked. Even as a child, when daddy would come home angry and drunk and mom would start crying, he'd always been able to find solace in the wilderness. And he’d spent much of his adult life chasing the soothing calm one could only find in nature. He’d heard the National Park Service paid folks to spend months at a time alone in a cabin watching for fires and he’d always thought that sounded like a good job. But he knew they wouldn’t hire an old drunk. That was another thing people called him—and maybe the most accurate.
He’d spent over forty of his sixty years as a hardcore alcoholic. Happy only when he was alone, in the wilds, with a bottle. He’d dated ladies, of course, and even fathered children. But he’d run every one of them off, poisoning his relationships in a way only drink can. For the longest time, Jim had every intention of drinking himself to an early grave that stubbornly eluded him. After his third arrest for DUI, the court had gotten serious and ordered him to attend regular AA meetings. Of course, Timbermoor was too small to support its own chapter—well, no, that wasn’t quite right. There were plenty of alcoholics in the village, just not enough inclined to quit. Anyways, the lady-judge had told him it was either AA or bona fide jail time, and so Jim had rumbled his pickup the better part of 200 miles down the 112 twice a week for meetings at the Methodist church in Callam Bay. Jim wasn’t sure who was more surprised—him or everyone else—when those meetings actually took.
He'd worked his way through the sobriety pins: first the red chip for thirty days, then gold, green, purple, pink, yellow, blue, until one day his sponsor was finally trying not to stab him as he attached the bronze lapel pin—symbolizing a year of sobriety—on his ratty jacket. He kept every color out in his cabin, somewhere he could see them, on his table and scattered around the countertops. It hadn’t been easy, giving up drink, but it hadn’t been as hard as he imagined either. And for the first time in his life, Jim Bennett found a community to which he could belong. He’d been nearly eighteen months sober when he found an old bottle of Jameson’s deep in his tinkering shop. He’d bought the damn thing for himself before his last DUI and had forgotten all about it, hidden away at the back of his cluttered workspace. The way Jim remembered it, he sat for the better part of the afternoon deciding whether to open the bottle. In the end, he’d left it sitting on the dining room table and gone to bed. He’d stared at it for a long while in the morning as well, and again in the afternoon, and in the morning again. It became a ritual and one of the few true constants in Jim’s life, but every day the fight had been a little shorter and his resolve a little stronger. That bottle of Jameson’s still sat on his dinner table, though now he barely even saw it. He planned to take it with him next week when he drove to Callam Bay to get his ten-year pin and maybe leave it in a trash can down there or chuck it in the ocean on the way home.
Jim was down, below his lofted cabin, in the tinkering shop. He made a little bit of money tinkering on lawn mower engines and simple household appliances. It was a long drive to a home improvement store, and Amazon didn’t deliver out here, so he made enough to get by with the little business. Across the shop his old shepherd, Lucy, was laying down, recovering from a hard day of absolutely nothing. She had lived longer than most of her breed and Jim suspected that was because of all the fresh air and drizzly strolls. They’d been together almost as long as he’d been sober and, she’d become a token of his newer, better self. The one living thing in his life drinking hadn’t run off.
He’d just returned his attention to the blender he’d been working on when Lucy emitted a deep growl. It was lower and fiercer than any noise he’d ever heard the old dog make. He stopped and looked over at her, she had stood up, something she normally struggled to do without help, and was moving towards the large open door. He’d originally planned to work on cars down here, so he’d installed a garage door that he normally kept open. He liked the weather most days and the workshop wasn’t heated or cooled, so the fresh air was nice. But now Jim found himself wishing he’d put on an electronic door he could close from here. Sometimes, Lucy would sniff out bears, bobcats, and even a pack of wolves once. It was rare to see any of those here at his cabin since it was outside the dense woodlands a little way, but that growl told him something was out there in the black.
“You smell trouble, girl?” He asked the dog and grabbed the rifle off the wall behind him. He could finish work on the blender later, he decided, and moved towards Lucy. He had to carry her up the stairs to the living quarters these days and, while he hadn’t quite worked out how he’d carry the German shepherd and his rifle, he damn sure wasn’t leaving either behind. He’d crossed about halfway to where Lucy stood, hackles raised and knees trembling with effort, when he saw something. Timbermoor didn’t have much in the way of public lighting, especially this far out where there weren’t even real roads, and the pitch night didn’t make it easier, but Jim could still recognize the movement. He felt his stomach slowly knotting itself, it had really seemed for a moment those shadows outside had been twisting or writhing, almost like they—it—was changing somehow. Which was absurd, of course, but that knowledge did nothing to sooth the bile he felt creeping up his throat.
“Get out of here,” he hollered out into the void. He didn’t hear or see anything, so he fired the rifle a couple hundred yards into the ground outside, just to prove his point. No movement. Nothing. He watched Lucy. She couldn’t see any more, but her body was rigid, and alert and her nose was sniffing the air. She hadn’t even flinched when he’d shot the gun. “Come on girl,” he said and reached down to scoop her up. With swiftness she hadn’t shown in years, Lucy whirled on him, growled, and bit, shaking her head and tearing the flesh of his left arm, taking a piece of meat in the process. “God damn it,” Jim shouted and fell backwards, holding his bleeding arm and looking in shocked horror at his only friend. “What’s gotten into you, girl? It’s me!” Her eyes were grey with cataracts he couldn’t afford to get fixed, but her body betrayed no sign of recognition. Instead, she let out another menacing growl. “What?” He asked, getting back to his feet, “what has you so bothered?” He approached her again, more cautiously this time, and extending his right hand for her to sniff. She ignored him. Instead, she turned and bolted out into the night, growling and foaming. “Oh, damn it all!” Jim shouted before stumbling just beyond the threshold and into the night. “Lucy! Come here girl.”
There was no sign of the dog in the dark, though Jim didn’t understand how she moved so fast. Still, the notion of abandoning her when there was a bear or mountain lion lurking about was unthinkable, and so he grabbed his rifle off the floor and went out after her. He’d been walking only a short time when the sounds started. Music maybe? He wasn’t certain because he’d never heard noises quite like these before, but they seemed to have a certain alien rhythm to them. [i]A fitting sound to drive men mad and the mind to its undoing[/i]. Jim started at the thought which seemed distinctly foreign in his own head and spun around, unsure if the voice had come from inside his skull or out of it.
“Whose there? I’ve got a gun.” He fired twice into the air for emphasis. The wind carried a feint howl to his ears and Jim spun in the direction. Whatever it was, it was too far away to be a threat. The temperature was falling rapidly, and he could see his rapid breaths in large puffs with the light from distant stars. Animals weren’t usually this quiet and a couple of shots would drive them back to the wilderness. After all, most of these woods were untouched and the animals didn’t have any incentive to bother people. Especially not men shooting guns. From behind him a good way, he heard Lucy yelp and immediately spun and lowered the rifle at whatever was hurting his dog. He pointed in the direction of the whine and aimed high enough he knew he wouldn’t hit Lucy then pulled the trigger. The shot rang out and, for the briefest moment, he glimpsed something in the muzzle flash.
Jim Bennett slammed the door of his lofted cabin hard behind him and flipped the lock. His breathing was ragged from the sprint, but at least he was alone. He could still hear Lucy yelping as he stumbled to his landline, having never found a cell provider to be reliable out this far, and immediately dialed 911. As he put the phone to his ear, he was greeted only by that same, strange melody from before. “What in the hell,” he whispered in a trembling voice. He’d thrown his rifle down to run faster but he had his Sig in the living room. He stumbled over towards it, bleeding now from a myriad of injuries—cuts, bites, burns—and knocked things off the counter to the floor as he went. He made it as far as his dinner table when the most insidious sound he’d heard yet tonight met his ears. His deadbolt was turning. He spun back to face the door and watched as the lock completed its rotation and his front door slowly swung open. With his eyes trained on the thing in the doorway, and without even a thought, Jim Bennett reached out a quivering hand, grabbed the ten-year-old bottle of Jameson’s, opened it with his teeth, and began to drink.
[/hider]
[/justify]
<div style="white-space:pre-wrap;"><div class="bb-center">Hello! Welcome to my profile, I hope it finds you well.</div><br><br><div class="bb-justify">Where to begin? I suppose with the basics! I have always had a passion for storytelling. I wrote my first “novel” in the second grade (it was about twenty pages not counting the hand drawn illustrations). I began roleplaying the summer of my fifth grade year and I started doing post-to-play roleplaying in 2011-12. I’ve written two novels (not counting my second grade debut) and have collaborated on thousands of pages worth of roleplays.<br><br>I believe a person can only be happy if they are leading a creative life; and I’m excited to share and create new stories here in the Guild. <br><br>So, what do I write? <br><br><font color="#cd5c5c">-<span class="bb-b">Boundaries:</span></font> Let's start with a brief 'will not write' list. I steer clear of graphic or explicit sexual content, preferring to 'fade to black' or focus on the emotional impact of a scene rather than its physical details. If explicit content is a must for you, we're not a match. Beyond that, I'm open to exploring whatever complex and challenging themes the narrative demands.<br><br><font color="#cd5c5c">-<span class="bb-b">Genres:</span></font> I write serious, grounded stories with dark elements. The setting is just that, a setting. But I believe it is characters, their relationships, and conflicts that drive a story. As long as we have these elements met, I'm going to be happy in horror, fantasy, science fiction, historical, and modern settings. The only genre I don't entertain is slice-of-life.<br><br><font color="#cd5c5c">-<span class="bb-b">Romance:</span></font> Romance is an excellent tool to create or advance character depth and conflict, and that's how I use it. I'm not going to be satisfied in a story where the romance is the point, but a romantic subplot contributing to a grander narrative is always welcome. Please know, I have a strong preference for naturally blooming relationships, those that even surprise the writers. I have difficulty forcing these things.<br><br><font color="#cd5c5c">-<span class="bb-b">Settings:</span></font> I love original settings, yours or mine. I don’t like outsourcing the creative fun to Hollywood, although I could be persuaded to dabble in IPs close to my heart (Last of Us), but even then generally playing original characters. I’m sorry, I don’t watch anime or write in those settings.<br><br><font color="#cd5c5c">-<span class="bb-b">Style:</span></font> In Guild terms, I’d describe myself as “advanced” and “literate,” though both sound pretentious. I try to balance detail and succinctness. That can mean 2,500 words in an introduction, but typically between 400-700 in an average post, deviating as the story requires.<br><br><font color="#cd5c5c">-<span class="bb-b">Contact:</span></font> If you like what I’ve said here and think you and I have a story to tell together, send me a PM! Even if I don’t have the bandwidth to write with you right now (I’m very committed to not ghosting people, and a key piece of that is not being overwhelmed/managing expectations) I’ll be certain to keep it in mind for future opportunities. I’m happy to plot and chat OOC on Discord.<br><br><font color="#cd5c5c">-<span class="bb-b"> Proposals:</span></font> So, you want to write with old Hos, but you haven’t got an idea of your own, huh? Well, no worries, I have a few ideas I can bring to the table! These are not fully fledged narratives, mostly just ideas which could take place in multiple settings, or settings which could contain multiple narratives. Anything I’m interested in may show up here, and I'll add and update the list as new ideas occur to me. Take a gander, and see if anything catches your fancy:<br><br><div class="hider-panel"><div class="hider-heading"><button type="button" class="btn btn-default btn-xs hider-button" data-name="Show Ideas">Show Ideas [+]</button></div><div class="hider-body" style="display: none"><font color="#7b68ee">-<span class="bb-b">The Shrouded Skies:</span></font> Humanity engineered the Ecological Disaster Emergency Nodes, or EDENs, in response to the smothering spread of pollution choking out all life outside the structures. Each of the monolithic buildings stretch miles into the sky and miles into the earth, and each home to hundreds of thousands of residents. The EDENs are built around the Aether Mines, extracting the inmate magic at the core of the world and using it to create breathable air, potable water, and the other barest essentials of life. However, the industry supporting the Mines, and the Mines themselves, spew poison into the air, further polluting the already dead earth. The elite live at the peak of the structure and enjoy access to sunlight and, at the highest levels, the planet’s last remaining natural, breathable air. Those at the bottom are forced to live and work in the dark and heat, surviving on scraps of food and water recycled hundreds of times before reaching them. The EDENs are too far apart to allow for travel between them on the forsaken ground, instead, all trade, travel, and communication must go by way of airship.<br><br>This is a magic infused, steampunk setting. I think it’s a good place to tell all kinds of stories. As for technological level, think Late Victorian. Some particularly interesting story concepts I’d be interested in exploring include: an illegal labor movement growing into a rebellion and a noir style mystery.<br><br><font color="#7b68ee">-<span class="bb-b"> In the Ruins of Peace:</span></font> Berlin is a city of rubble. As the summer of 1948 unfurls, the charred remnants of Europe’s once-magnificent metropolis is divided between victors like corpse flesh among vultures. The pulse of the city beats faint, its populace halved by the ravages of war, its skeleton fractured—eight in ten edifices lay in ruin. Swastikas have been torn down, replaced by the new eagle of the Americans, and the grim sickle of the Soviet Union, but no matter their banner, soldiers still patrol the broken boroughs. Yet beneath the tenuous veneer of order, something sinister stirs. An unfathomable darkness. An entity not just foreign, but utterly otherworldly. Something as insidious as it is <span class="bb-i">other</span>. <br><br>Amidst the ghosts of the city, a private detective, adept in unraveling the fates of those swallowed by the war’s chaos, receives a case, first seeming like any other. An American woman has vanished without a trace, her last steps known only to the shattered streets. But the matter soon proves unlike anything he has ever encountered. To find her, he must navigate the treacherous divide of a city suspended by the Airlift, dodge the ruthless NKVD who also seek the enigmatic woman, and ultimately cross the imperceptible boundary where the concrete world dissolves into the mists of eldritch terror.<br><br><font color="#7b68ee">-<span class="bb-b">Because We Live Here:</span></font> This is less an idea, and more a series of tropes I think would be fun to explore. Specifically, I’m imagining two young people who have generally led easy lives. Finding their tranquility suddenly shattered by a swift and terrible defeat by an enemy tribe/nation/empire. This forces the pair to grow up quickly, fighting first just to survive, and then to bring vengeance for their country, their friends, and themselves. Themes I want to explore include: the loss of innocence, comradery, plucky rebels versus the evil empire, and the balance between a noble cause and the terrible acts to advance it. I think there are lots of ways this story could play out: two soldiers, a noble and their bodyguard, two children forced to take up arms, whatever. Likewise, I can see this working in just about any setting and genre. It’s flexible, let me know what you’re thinking, and if you like the themes, we can make it work.</div></div><br><br><font color="#cd5c5c">-<span class="bb-b">Writing Sample:</span></font> I know some people prefer to see before they buy, so here’s a prologue I wrote to set the mood for one of my ongoing RPs. It’s not designed to be responded to, but it will give you a sense for my writing style.<br><br><div class="hider-panel"><div class="hider-heading"><button type="button" class="btn btn-default btn-xs hider-button" data-name="Sample (Noir)">Sample (Noir) [+]</button></div><div class="hider-body" style="display: none">Mercer leaned on the guardrail of the small balcony outside his office. A couple of years ago he’d added an awning overhead to make the space usable in the perpetual downpour. Now he could use the space to smoke. And think. His eyes focused on the little slivers of sky he could see in between the tall, grey buildings. When the smog wasn’t too bad, he could watch the storm clouds roll across the horizon. Today, he couldn’t distinguish between black clouds and the pollution smothering the city. He’d heard the top floors of some buildings were high enough to see over the muck, but he’d spent too much of his life down low to know if that was true. It was a nice thought, though.<br><br>He heard a distant cackle of static from his desk intercom inside and sighed. <span class="bb-i">Back to work,</span> he thought. He dropped the cigarette and crushed it on the balcony’s metal floor before kicking the butt down to the alley. The warmth of his office was a pleasant change from the dreary cold outside and he sat down in his chair and thumbed the intercom just as Julia opened his door.<br><br>“Oh, I just buzzed. I thought you were outside.”<br><br>“I was. Smoke break.” Mercer said, “A client call?” The phone—an archaic site anywhere else—had a call waiting button which wasn’t flashing. <br><br>“Not a client, no.” Julia said with a just a hint of hesitation that narrowed Mercer’s eyes, “it’s Lydia, she’s. . . .” <br><br>“No,” Mercer interrupted, grabbing the cigarette pack he’d just thrown on the desk now feeling a second was warranted, “whatever it is, the answer is no.” He lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. <span class="bb-i">Almost a breathing exercise,</span> he thought.<br><br>“She’s here, and she’d like to see you. She says it’s important.”<br><br>“She’s here?” Mercer said, standing up, “What are you doing, Jules?” Julia winced at his tone, but he continued, “I told you I don’t want her calling here, and I damn well don’t want her just dropping by whenever she feels ‘it’s important.’ Look, just tell her. . .” before he finished another woman appeared behind Julia. A pretty woman with long brown hair and deep green eyes. “. . . Lydia,” he said and let out a ragged sigh.<br><br>“I got something I want to talk to you about.” Her voice was quiet and steady. Like she’d practiced the line. “It won’t take but a minute.” <br><br>Mercer held her stare for what seemed a long minute before sitting down. “Then I guess you’d better come in,” he said and jabbed a finger at one of the chairs across from his desk. She nodded and took a careful seat, putting a purse beside her as Julia closed the door on her way out. As she settled, her eyes surveyed the familiar office before stopping on a blank piece of wall behind the desk and to the right. “What?” He said, turning to follow her gaze, “oh, the painting? Yeah, I took it down to have the walls cleaned and never got around to putting it back.”<br><br>“I always thought you liked that painting.”<br><br>“You didn’t come here to debate the merits of impressionism.” Mercer said, exhaling a line of smoke to the side. Her hands went instinctively to her stomach, he’d almost forgotten she was pregnant. He took another draw on the cigarette, “what do you want, Lydia?”<br><br>“Uh. . .” Lydia took a deep breath and clasped her hands together in her lap. When her words came, they came quickly, almost tumbling out of her mouth one after the other. “Zander and I would like to hold a funeral for Sophie.” She squeezed her hands together, waiting for his explosion, but instead, Mercer only took a deep breath and leaned back in the chair. “Five years is a long time, Alex, and. . . I don’t want to do this without you.”<br><br>Mercer looked away from Lydia, back to the balcony and to the rain. “That’s my daughter you’re talking about.” His voice was soft as he brought the cigarette back to his mouth in a slightly shaking hand. “She’s my daughter too, Lydia.”<br><br>“I know, Alex” she answered in a voice barely above a whisper. “I know she is.”<br><br>“That means I have a say in this, and I say ‘no.’” He crossed his arms, “now if that’s all, you can go ahead and leave now.”<br><br>“Alex, please don’t do that, I just want to talk about it.”<br><br>“We’ve talked about it,” he said, <span class="bb-i">a funeral? She wants to have a fucking funeral?</span> “And the answer is no.” He stood up and placed both hands down on the desk, leaning over her. “Now that we’ve ‘talked’ about it, you can go.”<br><br>She stood to meet his eyes as an equal, “you think you’re the only one who lost something, Alex? You think you’re the only one who misses her?”<br><br><span class="bb-i">I’m the only one who acts like I’ve lost something,</span> he thought, but said nothing. Instead, he crushed the cigarette into the ashtray on his desk, walked over to the cellarette and poured himself a generous double. Turning his back to her, he took a drink. “Get out.”<br><br>“I bought a plot.” She continued; her voice softer now. “It’s out of town a little ways, under the sky. On a small hill. Even the city looks pretty from there. It’s perfect.”<br><br>Mercer tightened his grip, causing the liquid to stir slightly. He spoke slowly, each word a deliberate effort. “I said get out.”<br><br>Lydia hesitated but then added quietly, “you should see it, Alex. It’s like a scene out of one of her paintings.”<br><br>He slammed the drink back down on the cellarette, sending reverberations through the floor. “You’re talking about burying an empty box, Lydia.” He said not turning around. “An empty box. Now how does that make any sense?”<br>“It’s a place to remember her, Alex. For both of us.”<br><br>“Remember her?” He scoffed, whirling around suddenly to face her again. “You don’t talk to me about remembering her. I haven’t forgotten her. I haven’t given up on her.” He spat the accusation. <span class="bb-i">I’m not the one trying to replace her with some prick’s fucking baby.</span><br><br>She didn’t rise to the challenge, far too much a veteran of these fights. Instead, she reached into her purse, pulling out a pamphlet and placing it on his desk. “The funeral is in two weeks,” she said, “it would mean a lot to Zander if you would be there.”<br><br>Mercer looked down at the pamphlet, his daughter’s face smiling up at him. <span class="bb-i">Oh, sweet baby girl.</span> “You planned it?” He asked softly, his fingers tracing the image of his daughter’s face on the paper. His voice hardened, “you told Zander we’re burying his sister?”<br><br>“He needs closure, Alex. This isn’t good—”<br><br>“He needs his sister,” Mercer shouted, shredding the pamphlet in his two hands, “not an empty fucking box!” He glared at his ex-wife and let the shreds fall to the office floor before going back and taking another drink from his glass. “Get out.” He said again.<br><br>She took a careful, steadying breath. “Alex, if Sophie were here. . .” <br><br>His reaction was immediate. He spun and hurled the glass across the room, sending it slamming into the far wall and bursting into a thousand shards. She jumped as a fleck of glass ricocheted off the wall and cut her cheek. She put fingers to the wound and looked down in a daze at the blood. “Get out.” The cold warning stood in stark contrast to the hot outburst.<br><br>“Okay.” She nodded, she was pale now, her breaths shallow, and her eyes were full of tears. “I’ll go,” Mercer nodded. She paused, her hand resting on the knob, “But I’m going to leave the details with Julia, in case you change your mind.” He grunted a curse at her but couldn’t muster anything stronger. She left and let the door close quietly, leaving him alone again.<br><br>When he was sure she was gone, he let out a ragged breath he’d held for too long. I need a drink, he thought, but saw he’d just thrown the only remaining clean glass. “Fuck it,” he muttered before bringing the bottle to his lips, taking a long, slow swig. He sat down on the edge of his desk and stared down at the shredded pamphlet, straining to make out anything of his daughter’s picture. But it just looked like torn paper now. The rain picked up outside and the already dim light from the window grew darker. He moved back to his chair and sat there for a long while before opening his drawer. There, waiting for him, was the painting he’d taken off his wall months ago. A landscape with the city in the background. Sophie had never really been out of the city, but she was an artist and artists could create things they’d never seen before. <span class="bb-i">And she was so talented. . . is, God damn it, she is so talented,</span> he thought and hated himself. But what he hated more, in the moment, was that the painting did look very much like how Lydia had described the plot.</div></div><br><br><div class="hider-panel"><div class="hider-heading"><button type="button" class="btn btn-default btn-xs hider-button" data-name="Sample (Horror)">Sample (Horror) [+]</button></div><div class="hider-body" style="display: none">People called Jim Bennett a ‘woodsman,’ which he figured was better than most of the alternatives. Alternatives like ‘hermit’ or ‘recluse.’ Or just ‘fucking weirdo.’ For his part, Jim thought of himself as a loner. Born an only child in a town tiny enough to be counted small even by Idaho standards, he’d never had much choice in the matter. Not that it bothered him. Or at least, not much. The woods had taken him in, no questions asked. Even as a child, when daddy would come home angry and drunk and mom would start crying, he'd always been able to find solace in the wilderness. And he’d spent much of his adult life chasing the soothing calm one could only find in nature. He’d heard the National Park Service paid folks to spend months at a time alone in a cabin watching for fires and he’d always thought that sounded like a good job. But he knew they wouldn’t hire an old drunk. That was another thing people called him—and maybe the most accurate.<br><br>He’d spent over forty of his sixty years as a hardcore alcoholic. Happy only when he was alone, in the wilds, with a bottle. He’d dated ladies, of course, and even fathered children. But he’d run every one of them off, poisoning his relationships in a way only drink can. For the longest time, Jim had every intention of drinking himself to an early grave that stubbornly eluded him. After his third arrest for DUI, the court had gotten serious and ordered him to attend regular AA meetings. Of course, Timbermoor was too small to support its own chapter—well, no, that wasn’t quite right. There were plenty of alcoholics in the village, just not enough inclined to quit. Anyways, the lady-judge had told him it was either AA or bona fide jail time, and so Jim had rumbled his pickup the better part of 200 miles down the 112 twice a week for meetings at the Methodist church in Callam Bay. Jim wasn’t sure who was more surprised—him or everyone else—when those meetings actually took.<br><br>He'd worked his way through the sobriety pins: first the red chip for thirty days, then gold, green, purple, pink, yellow, blue, until one day his sponsor was finally trying not to stab him as he attached the bronze lapel pin—symbolizing a year of sobriety—on his ratty jacket. He kept every color out in his cabin, somewhere he could see them, on his table and scattered around the countertops. It hadn’t been easy, giving up drink, but it hadn’t been as hard as he imagined either. And for the first time in his life, Jim Bennett found a community to which he could belong. He’d been nearly eighteen months sober when he found an old bottle of Jameson’s deep in his tinkering shop. He’d bought the damn thing for himself before his last DUI and had forgotten all about it, hidden away at the back of his cluttered workspace. The way Jim remembered it, he sat for the better part of the afternoon deciding whether to open the bottle. In the end, he’d left it sitting on the dining room table and gone to bed. He’d stared at it for a long while in the morning as well, and again in the afternoon, and in the morning again. It became a ritual and one of the few true constants in Jim’s life, but every day the fight had been a little shorter and his resolve a little stronger. That bottle of Jameson’s still sat on his dinner table, though now he barely even saw it. He planned to take it with him next week when he drove to Callam Bay to get his ten-year pin and maybe leave it in a trash can down there or chuck it in the ocean on the way home.<br><br>Jim was down, below his lofted cabin, in the tinkering shop. He made a little bit of money tinkering on lawn mower engines and simple household appliances. It was a long drive to a home improvement store, and Amazon didn’t deliver out here, so he made enough to get by with the little business. Across the shop his old shepherd, Lucy, was laying down, recovering from a hard day of absolutely nothing. She had lived longer than most of her breed and Jim suspected that was because of all the fresh air and drizzly strolls. They’d been together almost as long as he’d been sober and, she’d become a token of his newer, better self. The one living thing in his life drinking hadn’t run off.<br><br>He’d just returned his attention to the blender he’d been working on when Lucy emitted a deep growl. It was lower and fiercer than any noise he’d ever heard the old dog make. He stopped and looked over at her, she had stood up, something she normally struggled to do without help, and was moving towards the large open door. He’d originally planned to work on cars down here, so he’d installed a garage door that he normally kept open. He liked the weather most days and the workshop wasn’t heated or cooled, so the fresh air was nice. But now Jim found himself wishing he’d put on an electronic door he could close from here. Sometimes, Lucy would sniff out bears, bobcats, and even a pack of wolves once. It was rare to see any of those here at his cabin since it was outside the dense woodlands a little way, but that growl told him something was out there in the black.<br><br>“You smell trouble, girl?” He asked the dog and grabbed the rifle off the wall behind him. He could finish work on the blender later, he decided, and moved towards Lucy. He had to carry her up the stairs to the living quarters these days and, while he hadn’t quite worked out how he’d carry the German shepherd and his rifle, he damn sure wasn’t leaving either behind. He’d crossed about halfway to where Lucy stood, hackles raised and knees trembling with effort, when he saw something. Timbermoor didn’t have much in the way of public lighting, especially this far out where there weren’t even real roads, and the pitch night didn’t make it easier, but Jim could still recognize the movement. He felt his stomach slowly knotting itself, it had really seemed for a moment those shadows outside had been twisting or writhing, almost like they—it—was changing somehow. Which was absurd, of course, but that knowledge did nothing to sooth the bile he felt creeping up his throat. <br><br>“Get out of here,” he hollered out into the void. He didn’t hear or see anything, so he fired the rifle a couple hundred yards into the ground outside, just to prove his point. No movement. Nothing. He watched Lucy. She couldn’t see any more, but her body was rigid, and alert and her nose was sniffing the air. She hadn’t even flinched when he’d shot the gun. “Come on girl,” he said and reached down to scoop her up. With swiftness she hadn’t shown in years, Lucy whirled on him, growled, and bit, shaking her head and tearing the flesh of his left arm, taking a piece of meat in the process. “God damn it,” Jim shouted and fell backwards, holding his bleeding arm and looking in shocked horror at his only friend. “What’s gotten into you, girl? It’s me!” Her eyes were grey with cataracts he couldn’t afford to get fixed, but her body betrayed no sign of recognition. Instead, she let out another menacing growl. “What?” He asked, getting back to his feet, “what has you so bothered?” He approached her again, more cautiously this time, and extending his right hand for her to sniff. She ignored him. Instead, she turned and bolted out into the night, growling and foaming. “Oh, damn it all!” Jim shouted before stumbling just beyond the threshold and into the night. “Lucy! Come here girl.”<br><br>There was no sign of the dog in the dark, though Jim didn’t understand how she moved so fast. Still, the notion of abandoning her when there was a bear or mountain lion lurking about was unthinkable, and so he grabbed his rifle off the floor and went out after her. He’d been walking only a short time when the sounds started. Music maybe? He wasn’t certain because he’d never heard noises quite like these before, but they seemed to have a certain alien rhythm to them. <span class="bb-i">A fitting sound to drive men mad and the mind to its undoing</span>. Jim started at the thought which seemed distinctly foreign in his own head and spun around, unsure if the voice had come from inside his skull or out of it.<br><br>“Whose there? I’ve got a gun.” He fired twice into the air for emphasis. The wind carried a feint howl to his ears and Jim spun in the direction. Whatever it was, it was too far away to be a threat. The temperature was falling rapidly, and he could see his rapid breaths in large puffs with the light from distant stars. Animals weren’t usually this quiet and a couple of shots would drive them back to the wilderness. After all, most of these woods were untouched and the animals didn’t have any incentive to bother people. Especially not men shooting guns. From behind him a good way, he heard Lucy yelp and immediately spun and lowered the rifle at whatever was hurting his dog. He pointed in the direction of the whine and aimed high enough he knew he wouldn’t hit Lucy then pulled the trigger. The shot rang out and, for the briefest moment, he glimpsed something in the muzzle flash.<br><br>Jim Bennett slammed the door of his lofted cabin hard behind him and flipped the lock. His breathing was ragged from the sprint, but at least he was alone. He could still hear Lucy yelping as he stumbled to his landline, having never found a cell provider to be reliable out this far, and immediately dialed 911. As he put the phone to his ear, he was greeted only by that same, strange melody from before. “What in the hell,” he whispered in a trembling voice. He’d thrown his rifle down to run faster but he had his Sig in the living room. He stumbled over towards it, bleeding now from a myriad of injuries—cuts, bites, burns—and knocked things off the counter to the floor as he went. He made it as far as his dinner table when the most insidious sound he’d heard yet tonight met his ears. His deadbolt was turning. He spun back to face the door and watched as the lock completed its rotation and his front door slowly swung open. With his eyes trained on the thing in the doorway, and without even a thought, Jim Bennett reached out a quivering hand, grabbed the ten-year-old bottle of Jameson’s, opened it with his teeth, and began to drink.</div></div></div><br></div>
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