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creoterative · 1 year

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Let’s play a Game then Chapter 3 - Devil Trigger

Good evening you lovely people, or good morning, good afternoon, whatever the time is where you live!

Sonner than expected, I was able to finish the third chapter for my The Walking Dead Game fanstory, ‘Let’s play a Game then’. Chapter three is by far the longest now, well, until I write a longer one of course ^^

‘Devil Trigger’ will get the whole redemption train rolling, so I can start with building the kids relationships in the next chapter with the little party they have (ha, no spoiler since I’m going with the cannon as good as I can here :p)

Anyway, as always, I’ll leave a little little snippet here for you to take a peek, but the rest is on my AO3. To be honest, on that site it feels more like an actual book than simple posts and I like to think of it as a silly fan-dream put together in a... wayyy too long book, heh.

Thank you for visiting of course, if you do, and feel free to leave a comment, critic or praise, I’m fine with all of it! Or if you have any ideas I might take a look on, don’t be shy!

Have a nice day and stay safe out there!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/40118184/chapters/114616408

It is well known that the relationship to a place changes depending on what has happened in that place. One may have lived, slept and eaten in a comfortably warm cabin for years, calling it home. But the day the sweet smell of huckleberry jam attracts the first bear out of the woods will be the day the cabin turns into a trap.

The former principal's office never seemed particularly inviting to Marlon. It smelled musty, of old books (and special magazines...), in addition the walls were meanwhile completely yellowed and in some places ivy broke through already, which wanted to make itself a place under the wallpaper. The large, dark red carpets on the floor, which reminded Marlon of his grandparents' apartment, had certainly not always been this dark. If he bothered to knock them out, a whole army of insects would surely crawl out. He would gladly spare himself that.

Despite the signs of decay in the room, in the whole building in general, it had become his own little kingdom over the years. He had chosen this room in the first place because he could have his peace and quiet here. Marlon had never liked sleeping in the same room with other people, not even Louis, so this had been his first order of business after taking the lead. Out of the shared dorms, into his own world.

The older he got, the more he had liked the idea of making the room a real office again. It had felt cool to have some kind of job, even though under no circumstances did he want to turn in such bad work as most of the adults had done. In fact, Marlon and his... former friends didn't really see themselves as adults. And that was despite the fact that some would already be considered as such.

Louis had been right in what he had said to him. The adults had acted as pathetically as Marlon had done that fateful night. None of them wanted to see them give up their humanity for fear of being killed. Well, Marlon had obviously made the perfect leap into adulthood. Now he was one of those disgusting monsters himself, had let himself be guided by fear, and had thus deeply hurt his friends.

Strange how things could turn around after all.

Just as strange as his back felt right now. Marlon was lying on his side, finally back on his own mattress on the floor of the office, and felt a sharp pain in his upper back. Shit, what was that?

Grumbling softly, he turned to his other side, hoping it might be better lying there, but no such luck. So he rolled onto his back and contorted his face in pain as the twinge slowly trailed down his spine. Impossible, was the mattress too soft? That couldn't be possible. Or maybe after all these years his weight had simply made it sink in and it had adapted to his body. Had he had such tensions lately?

Well... he hadn't been on that mattress for three weeks. He had spent the last time in the basement, just lying there on an old carpet, a thin blanket over his body. But he had to honestly admit that he had been offered something better. Marlon himself had refused. He wanted to endure this cold. Something told him that he simply had to. After all he had done, he actually deserved a much worse treatment. That's why he had made his time in the cellar as unbearable as possible for himself.

And how unbearable it was. He had only exchanged a few words with Louis from time to time, when he had brought him a bowl of soup or allowed him to move around in the yard for an hour. Otherwise, Marlon had had no contact with the students at Ericson's Boarding School for a full three weeks. He had been doing laps in his little cell, keeping himself reasonably sane with workouts, as usual, but most of the time he had just stood in the corner and thought. Yes, stood, because sitting on the cold floor would have made him sick for sure, even if lying on it at night wasn't necessarily any better.

Then came Clementine. He was still terribly sorry that he had attacked her like that yesterday, even though she only wanted to help him. But in the end, it had helped to clear his head. As if the training would pull the dark cobwebs out of his brain and let light in again.

The light of the morning sun was still a long time coming, however, which was only natural at this time of year. It was getting colder and colder, frost was on the trees and the meadows, even on the railing of the balcony where one could step out through the two large doors. Marlon had taken pains to cover the broken panes in the individual tiles of the doors with wood or at least a cloth so that there was no constant draught, which worked for the most part, but he was still always cold as the end of the year approached.

Was perhaps also due to the fact that he could not sleep with a T-shirt and tried every time to curl up in the blanket like a caterpillar, only to throw everything around in deep sleep anyway. He had never really gotten out of that phase. He slept like a rock, lay very still for most of the night, but then there was an hour when he just rolled around. In the morning he woke up in the same position as when he fell asleep. Therefore, he had only found out about it through Louis, when they had still slept together in the same room.

Now lying on his stomach, he tried to close his eyes again and maybe doze a little, but at the latest when he now noticed the first wind, it was over with that too. Sighing and grumbling softly to himself, he pulled the blanket up over his shoulders and rested his head on his arms.

His blue eyes wandered to Rosie, who was lying right next to him on her own cozy sleeping spot. She made no sound, which surprised him at first, until he realized that the pit bull lady had long been awake. Her golden eyes were fixed on the door, as they always were when she was awake earlier than her master.

This was due to her trauma, which had occurred a few years ago. Marlon had been nestled in the office for some time, and Rosie had finally gotten used to sleeping quietly next to him and not having her head constantly tucked under his arm. One night, however, a walker had managed to make its way upstairs. To this day, Marlon couldn't explain how he'd managed it, but the walker had grinded its way up the stairs and tampered with his door.

And once Marlon was in a deep sleep, even a walker couldn't wake him. Fortunately, Rosie was more alert than he was. She immediately sensed danger and hunted down the walker, jolting him out of sleep and ensuring that all he could do in the end was watch the carnage.

The walker had been Joey. A young boy about five years younger than Marlon, he was just nine at the time. It was later clear that Joey had fatally injured himself during his shift for the guard at night, when he tried to climb down the makeshift guard tower, which was very unstable at the time. Why he had run to Marlon's office first was a mystery to them all. Probably most of the noise had come from that room, since Marlon usually stayed up late and also had Rosie, whose claws scratched across the floor.

All in all, this incident resulted in another death that everyone had to deal with first. It also ensured that Rosie automatically kept an eye on the door every time she was awake before Marlon, and continued to do so until he fell asleep at night. After that, Ms. Martin had arranged that no child was allowed to do night watch alone. A rule that had actually made a difference.

Marlon rubbed the palm of his hand over his right eye in an attempt to distract himself from the memories that once again haunted him like crazy ghosts. His eyes, dry from sleep, began to water a little, but that subsided after he wiped them with his hands and he was able to gradually look around the office more closely. Nothing had changed in the three weeks of his absence, that reassured him - at least one constant in his life, besides Rosie of course.

She now noticed he was awake and blinked at him kindly, causing him to smile a little. Her short stubby tail wagged back and forth for a moment, then she calmed down again and turned her eyes to the door. Marlon yawned softly and a moment later propped himself up on his arms to sit on his knees.

His left shoulder still hurt a lot, so he instinctively put a hand on the stitch and looked at the thread. Nothing was torn, thankfully, but the freshly healing wound was fiery red. Clementine had given him a good beating during training yesterday, and it would certainly have to heal for some time longer than it would normally have to, although Marlon knew, that this hadn't been her intention.

What the heck, now he had to deal with the pain. After he had straightened his tense back halfway, he stood up and reached for his washed-out, pretty worn, red-striped T-shirt that he wore so often. It was the only one besides the black one with the skulls on the back that still halfway fit; the others had grown too small. At least his beloved letterman jacket still fit, even if it was already half falling apart. Marlon had reached the end of his growth phase anyway, at least that's what he believed, so it was unlikely that he would grow out of this jacket.

On the balcony, as usual, he had a bucket of rainwater, which by now was pretty much always full to the brim. Either it rained or there was very thin snow for an hour, which then disappeared immediately, so the forests were also pretty wet at the moment. Or frosted, as this morning also. The trees glistened white, just like the entire balcony, and Marlon could imagine that the wooden benches below didn't look any better.

He squatted in front of the water bucket, dipped his hands in the shape of a bowl, and slapped a whole load of the ice-cold water on his face. Soon the bucket would no longer carry water, but ice, so he would take it inside with him, keep what was already stored.

The cold that abruptly spread across his face woke him up and immediately sent a shiver down his spine. A few drops ran from his chin and neck, making his jeans wet as well, but he didn't care at all. He would get dry when he sat downstairs in front of the stove, if it was already on, but he simply needed the cold water in the morning to wake up properly.

With one hand he took out some water again, but this time much less, and stroked through his tousled hair to straighten it a bit, which worked semi well. Well, the others always found fault with his hair anyway, so it didn't make up for it now.

Rosie had gotten up and was scratching at the door, so Marlon opened it for her and made his own way downstairs. His return to the main building had been... surprisingly quietly, even if there had been some voices against it. He himself had managed to avoid any conversations, something he regretted somewhat in retrospect. Those conversations would inevitably come about today and he dreaded that.

Louis, especially, would surely... he wouldn't believe a word he said, ever, just like Aasim and Mitch. He was also afraid of Brody's reaction. Either she was angry and, thanks to Clem, now had the courage to make that clear to him, or she was afraid of him and he would take that very differently now than he had three weeks ago. The fact that people were afraid of him had brought him here in the first place, to this school. Not that he had wanted that.

But it was no use thinking about it all the time, even though he had done almost nothing else all night. Maybe that was why his back ached so much. The large staircase in the main hallway seemed eerie to him because of the darkness surrounding him, which was only intensified by the hanging cobwebs. But Rosie's presence put him in a slightly better mood.

His footsteps were quiet on the dark carpet that clothed the old steps, so Ruby didn't notice him right away. She was carrying a couple of boxes, which he recognized by the number carved on the side of the largest of them. C-14-F. That had been the number of the year under Marlon, so these had to be some of the old files the teachers had created for the students.

Ruby raised her head attentively when Rosie greeted her with a soft but friendly bark, but her initial delight quickly turned to suspicion and uncertainty. Marlon tentatively raised a hand in greeting, trying not to appear threatening in any way. So casual gait, no frantic movements, staying in the field of vision.

"Morning." Morning, yeah sure, it still felt like the middle of the night. "Can I help you with that?" Ruby kept her eyes on him, as expected, and was about to take all three boxes without saying anything back, but her arms just didn't reach the bottom one. "Wait, I'll do it.",Marlon offered and walked towards her, taking the top box. It was heavy, and although he was taller, even Marlon couldn't have carried all three boxes at once. So Ruby had only refused because he was the one who had asked, but that was to be expected. After all, he had betrayed her just like everyone else.

Her blue eyes met his and he could clearly see the reluctance, but also the distrust that was coupled with uncertainty. He was uncomfortable with that look, especially not wanting to upset Ruby in particular. He would trust her to stab him with the next best fork, so he immediately took a step back with the box in his hands.

"To the common room with it.",the red-haired girl ordered and Marlon nodded immediately before following her with some distance. He ventured a look into the box he was carrying and was able to confirm his assumption with it - they were files. What was Ruby going to do with them?

But instead of asking, Marlon remained silent and trotted slowly after her. He noticed that Ruby occasionally watched him out of the corner of her eye. She didn't feel safe in his presence, which was now even more obvious. On the one hand, it gave him an uneasy feeling in his stomach, but on the other hand, he knew that it was bound to happen. The girl in front of him even seemed to treat him relatively normal, considering what he had done.

The common room was one of the rooms that had been most seized by vegetation. Ivy had broken through the windows, moss was spreading along the walls and eating through the walls. In the summer, you could watch golden flowers grow here, also trying to sneak in through the windows. Yet little else had changed over the years.

There was still an old piano here, which was smaller than the one in the large meeting room, but this one still worked well. Louis had hardly played on this one, it was almost like new, which is probably why it still made the right sounds. Similar to the eternally old record player that the director had dragged in. Marlon had sometimes listened to swing music on it. He liked the fast rhythm and besides, it was the only thing he could listen to in the available selection. Jazz was still good, he liked that as well, but country and classical music were really not his thing.

It was a pity that metal and rock were not something you listened to when you were the director of a school. Marlon would have given his left arm for a record of Metallica or Man 'o War, but nooooo.... You didn't hear anything like that at a school. Instead, you had to endure Mozart and Beethoven.

Ruby put the two boxes down on the floor and watched Marlon do the same. "...Thank you.", she said hesitantly, but he could clearly hear the stern undertone that was probably meant to make him realize that she certainly didn't trust him just because he was carrying a box. But Marlon didn't let this upset him, which even surprised him a little. Just stay calm, don't do anything wrong.... "No problem. What are you going to do with the files?"

He put his hands on his hips, as he always did, but this made Ruby cross her arms. Marlon slowly lost the slight smile he had put on and carefully lowered his hands again after a few seconds of awkward silence. Yes, maybe he shouldn't pretend that nothing had happened....

When he avoided her gaze and scratched the back of his neck nervously, Ruby actually seemed to feel a little sorry for him. She had always been emotional, and Ruby was actually the one who could most understand what he was going through. Not in terms of the Brody thing or the twins, but the anger. She had struggled with that anger as well, even though both of them had improved a lot over the years. Well, Ruby had.

She shook her head slightly, then averted her eyes from him and looked at the files. "I thought this might be interesting to Clementine and AJ. If she knows who she's leading into battle, it might make it easier. And I think after all she's done for us, she deserves to know who's actually fighting alongside her."

Marlon managed to look at Ruby again and his blue eyes showed understanding. Even if he didn't like it. He didn't want anyone snooping around in his file, there were some.... some unpleasant things in it. But some of the other kids had even worse files, so he couldn't complain.

Again, some silence fell, and Marlon wasn't sure how much he was allowed to talk before it seemed like he was trying to force himself on someone, or to push himself back to his old position in the group, so he preferred to keep quiet altogether. Ruby turned back to him after a while and eased her shoulders. He felt cold at the sight of her free arms. How could she walk around with her sleeves rolled up like that? If he allowed himself, he would immediately get the big coat the principal had left behind, it was stuffed inside with thick fur.

"You know, you don't get a free pass with me just because you helped me carry boxes." Oh, he hadn't expected that at all. Hoped, maybe, but he was aware that he was going to have to work slowly to regain the trust of the others. "I know. I also don't want you guys to run after me right away and act like nothing happened. I just... I just have to start somewhere, right?"

To his relief, she probably agreed with him there and nodded thoughtfully, her sky-blue eyes meeting his ice-blue ones. "True enough. Still. Just be careful what you do and say. We're certainly not going to forgive you for everything just because you're pitching in, now that you've been released from prison again."

Ruby made her way past him and Marlon stood in the common room for a moment, looking at the boxes of files. No, it really wasn't going to be that easy. As mentioned before, however, he was aware of that, even though he might not have necessarily accepted it yet.

Slowly, he turned and followed Ruby out of the room. She trotted toward the large doors that led outside, causing Marlon to swallow hard. If Ruby could halfway converse with him, even if she was rather threatening, surely he could talk reasonably with the others, right?

Rosie stepped up to his side again, which he didn't notice until he was already on the stairs. She had waited patiently for them to come outside and finally positioned herself next to him again, giving Marlon a little more security. He felt like a convicted felon, which in a sense he was now, though not by old world standards.

Court, judge, executioner.

Just different forms.

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beedalee · 7 years

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what are the stories/projects you work on or involved with?

EDIT 2019: FOR AN UPDATED LIST, GO HERE!

Oh gosh, it’s been a bit since I did a rundown of them… (I need to update my project lists tbh… ugh..) I’ve been working really hard on consolidating my characters and stories these last few years so I’m rightfully proud of my progress.. Even if no one can tell yet but me!! >8//);

Despite how many we have, only a few of them I seriously want to bring to completion and/or publish first and foremost. The rest are really just for fun until I/we feel like they could become something bigger. Also, Dye has involvement in most of my stories whether it be a full collab or just helping!

It’s a long post… so, BELOW THE CUT WE GO!

Collaborations

(with @dyemelikeasunset)

Ocean of Cycles: Our 4th Collab- Dye’s world-building project that I have the honor of helping flesh out. While we have our OCs and want to make it RPG ready for others to play in for fun, and we think making a book of the completed world-building someday would be fukken awesome, it’s largely a stress relief and creative outlet for Dye and I, so we’re not in a rush nor can Dye’s schedule allow for full-time work on it. Like Dye, I would like to do mini-comics about their adventures myself as well!!

Picture This Imagine That: (sorry this art is 4yrs old… T//w//T) Our third collaboration; Started small but became our means of reconciling our identities and coming out. After we came out some years ago, we put this one down to handle real life stuff and grow up a bit- but we do still fully intend to draw and publish their stories, we just took it offline and pulled back to a much more relaxed pace until it’s actually ready.

Solaris: Our second collaboration. Originally an Avatar: The Last Airbender fanstory, transplanted into an original universe. I’d really love to bring this one to life as a comic, but the plot hasn’t been finished yet! We love this one to bits though and I’d consider it a likely choice down the road sometime.

White|Outlines: Technically our first collaboration, a soft slice of life about troubled supernatural teenagers. My branch in the same universe/highschool as Dye’s SalaDays story (No, the SD cast doesn’t really interact with mine) I made this because Dye used to have the world open for RP, but we’ve long since closed it off. (That’s more geared toward OoC now) I don’t really have plans for pursuing this one outside of for fun!

Unlucky: A fun slice-of-life meets shounen kind of story set in a tightly knit chinatown. Dye helped create the bulk of this verse for a lot of homeless/floating OCS, like Quinn and Airi from my old beckoning cat magical girls team, Jake and Evelyn from anirangers, Tyberius and Farah from wwp’s “D’Amatos” godfather-parody show… stuff like that. It’s a bit more on the world-building side right now but I hope to draw things for it soon.

I also play around in or help with some of Dye’s more solo works like Kingdoms or Romaine Hearts, as well as a few offline projects that aren’t super involved/developed yet.

Magical Girls:

(yes it gets its own section)

Forecasters: My lovebaby of a story, featuring weather magical girls. My only active personal project that I want to make into a full blown webcomic right now. It’s 99.7% offline atm, I started this in 2013 after we put down PT. There’s still a lot to do, but I’m really excited about this one. It’s like my self-imposed college final project and/or legitimate story pitch I guess? I wanna post promo art for it so bad but I want at least the first two chapters drawn before that so bear with me…

Starless: Alien powered magical girls. Created from old (2008) tokyo mew mew OCs! The story’s been a bit ambiguous lately but I am very fond of this one and would consider it one I’d like to complete/draw for someday if the plot lets me WRITE IT lmao. Dye is helping me by adopting some of the characters!

Minor MG Stories: (click the link in the last bullet to see pics of these)

“Book Keepers”: Literature theme college magical girls, collabed with Dye. Currently just a loose idea with really fun fleshed out OCs, but not a super high priority.

“Candyland”: NEW! Candy themed magical girls. A tentative title for a bunch of OCs I’ll be posting soon enough so I guess I’ll add them now. Some of them are old af, some are super new. They’re just an early concept and a bit of a style-experiment.

Cheers!: Drink-themed magical girls. A very old team I don’t really plan on doing anything with right now, just currently trying to redesign them to my liking.. -stares holes into them- LET ME LOVE YOU

Cosmic Club! another design prompt with no story.. YET…. I love them and they seem v popular so it’s possible! We’ll see how it goes.

Even more magical girls over here in this list but are all in a similar ‘concepts only at this time’ status (Lucky is on this list but is no longer a magical girl series)

My Projects:

Shards of Moon: A fateful fantasy epic about birds and songs. Formerly Anathema, the first fully fleshed out “serious” story I wrote… It was terrible! It was merged with another story that had no characters, so all my oldest OCs live here now. I’m very very fond of this one but I’m letting it percolate very slowly. It’s a far off goal for now, but it is shaping up to be a story I’d like to tell.

Sleep Tight: About a little girl and her boogeyman and conquering fear. The second story I wrote in high school. This one needs… a lot of rework and a bit of gutting- I haven’t decided the direction I wanna take it yet, but I don’t mind waiting. (I mean, look at what happened to Shards of Moon- I was so sure I’d trash that whole story and its characters.)

Superglue: I have like NO new art for this one yet lmao.. Young superheroes dealing with past actions they ran away from. A third high-school story that has changed so dramatically it’s not even remotely similar to its first version. It’s basically a baby story with old re-homed OCs in it because I felt sorry for them. ;w;;; I don’t know how far this one will take off yet but yeah

Others:

I’m gonna get ta’ play in @caiterprince’s universes with Dye too, including the WIP Magical Girl Academy as a means to flesh out more magical girl designs (Eden is the most familiar, but I’ll have more soon), and a few cameos in Plainer in Hindsight and Weaver’s Debt eventually

Fancharacters like my SU gemsonas, my ponies, and my Tokyo Mew Mew OCs are purely for fun. If I want to write an original story about the characters (which has happened, see Solaris and Starless) I’d transplant them first.

I have a few other concepts laying around- placeholders like “fairyverse” or “spacewitchverse” where I throw similar-theme homeless OCs but don’t have a single story idea for, it’s just.. there. for now. So I won’t bother going over those.

AUs (like elf gfs Band AU) don’t really count as separate unless they become canon. (i.e. what happened with Solaris)

If anyone’s really curious on the development of my worlds and ocs, I honestly highly taking a peek through my sketchdump folder on my DA. (start at the bottom, its infinite scroll) You can find pretty much everything I’ve ever conceptualized in these. I started to sort dumps by story- there’s actually quite a bit of storytelling / oc growth nestled in there if you’re into that sorta info-binging. I-I think it’s kinda fun tbh…. I do apologize in advance for any slurs or problematic wording you may find in the oldest dumps, I’ve been cleaning it over the years but might’ve missed something.

That’s about it for now! (-sweats violently- no more pls i have… too many children.. -wheezes and lays down-)

#long post #beedalee art #bc it's relevant #Anonymous #askbox #i'll add more as they come along i think #maybe i should just hyperlink this post instead of updating separate pages

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