working on a functional 10d ttrpg for Emerald Springs :> it's fun to do, but i can't say 100% that it'll ever be finished, regardless, keep an eye out for that. AMA is still open 

Oh, and for AMA, favorite animal?

Celine asked: Favorite animal?

Wren: If you're expecting me to say wrens are my favorite, you are unfortunately mistaken. It just sounded close to Winton, and there's the whole "Trans people name themselves after small birds or bodies of water" meme.

Alex: You chose your name over a meme?

Wren: Not exactly a meme, more like an in-joke. But anything is better than "Winton," gross. Anyway, this might be surprising to you guys, but I'm actually a huge dog person. Cats are cool, but I always feel like they're judging me. A big, slobbering golden retriever is as good a proof of God as you could possibly get. 

Diana: I, meanwhile, am a cat person through and through. At my old apartment, a bunch of cats were always walking around. They were super friendly, and you could walk right up to them and pet them. I miss my little buddies... But I live in a huge house with my girlfriends and best friend, so I guess everything turned out okay! 

Wren: Tell them about the thing.

Diana: Okay. I was born with a cleft lip, but the doctor took care of it before it was any problem. Regardless, I have a tiny scar, you can barely see it now, but it used to be pretty noticable. Anyway, when I smiled it used to literally look like the cat smile emoticon. :3 !!! Hehehe. I guess that made me like cats too! 

Alex: Uh, I actually birdwatch, when I have the time, which is never. I like all birds.

Sam: Dude, you have all sorts of time, we can hear you blasting that album by The Cranberries all the time, on loop. 

Alex: Look, I like them, okay?

Sam: Everybody likes the Cranberries, Alex. But not... Not that much. 

Alex: ... I've been having a lot of trouble doing things lately. So I just listen to music. I... I think I might be depressed?

Sam: ... Do you want to talk about it?

Alex: Not here. I don't think this is canon.

Tracy: Possums. They infest the dumpster near the trailer park I live in. They are disgusting creatures, with no regard for any other living being. They feed and swarm and care not. They are beautiful little monsters. 

Sam: Should I call you my little possum?

Tracy:...

Sam: Don't know why I said that what's wrong with me I suck so bad oh man I'm sorry dude it's so over oh no

Tracy: I'm considering it.

Sam: Uh, okay, while you do... I'm just gonna say it. My "ironic love" of wolves isn't ironic. Never was. I love them. They're majestic creatures. They howl at the moon and hunt in packs, they're basically awesome. I don't care what anyone says. My hoodies with ridiculous edgy-looking wolves? Not ironic either. Deal with it, basically.

Ryan: Coyotes used to hunt near my place at the trailer park. You could hear them howling, I think they're super cool.

Ten: Coyotes suck! 

Ryan: Who the heck are you?

Ten: When I was little, I saw a coyote eat my pet rabbit! D:  It was really awful, and there was nothing I could do! Luckily we lived on the Swinomish Reservation in the Skagit Valley... You know the one?

Ryan: Yeah... But... Who are you?

Ten: Anyway , my dad had special hunting permission I guess, so he let me hunt the coyote with him! And we got it! Divine retribution, seventy-seven fold! :D 

Ryan: Why are you here? 

GO TO THE FOREST==>

Yep. A critical lack of options has basically ruled out any other options... Ryan is back there, you guess you can tell him that his help actually is needed. There's no way you're getting past "Chuck" not in this dress... So yeah. Back exit it is. 

YOU: Okay... We need to run. Seriously, we gotta get out of here really fast. So on three-

Diana: Wren. You are wearing heels. 

YOU: I can run in heels. 

Diana: How? You are already  6'2, with the heels, you must be...

YOU: Dude, I can run in heels, we're all good. 

You count from one to three, and the three of you bolt. Alex slams into Mr. Aberdeen, who had been shakily trying to get up. He slams to the floor, and Alex keeps running, yelling and indistinct apology. Diana is first to the back door, and she slams through it like a marathon runner through a ribbon. 

... It's actually really hard to run in heels. You kick them off so you don't fall flat on your face. You have those socks that go up to the thigh on, and they're fairly thick, so you'll be fine. It's all gonna be good.

You and Alex make it through the door. Ah, fall. That wonderful time where the constant light of summer is swallowed by the encroaching darkness and cold of winter. You can kind of see what Margaret was going for with the theme. You slam the door behind you. The forest is cast in the dark blues of the evening.

Diana: I do not see anyone here.

Alex: Ah, you can hear them. Must just be deeper in the woods. 

YOU: Before we go, we should try to call Sam. He can bring Tracy, and maybe Antimony too. More the merrier. 

Diana: As wonderful as it would be to fight side by side with Antimony, were we not trying to keep her out of the public eye? So nobody freaks out?

YOU: Sweetness, there is a giant skeleton demon in a leather jacket back there, yelling about evil gods. The kid gloves are off, everyone knows what's going on. 

Alex: Okay, yeah, call Sam. 

You pull out your phone and punch the numbers in one at a time. The phone rings. And rings. And rings. Finally, it asks for a message.

Call one (of five)

YOU: Hey, man... It's me, Wren. You probably recognized my voice, I didn't really have to introduce myself, sorry. Uh... I'm sorry to interrupt your sweet date night with Tracy, or whatever you guys have decided to call it, but we kinda need a hand over here. So... Yeah. If you get this call, bring Tracy, bring Antimony, bring everyone, dude. We need every little bit of help. And, uh, we are in the woods behind the school. 

You hang up. Or disconnect, you guess. Nobody on the other side to hang up on.

You begin to plan your next course of options, when the door swings open and a figure in a hooded robe with a crossbow leaps through.

What do you do? 

heyo! from the ninth to the fifteenth, ill be unable to respond, but upon my return ill answer every ama question in one master response at the end.

ok, first, i am clearly not unavailable from the ninth to the fifteenth, given that i posted that on the tenth... my brain is wrong, sorry. it's the twelfth to the fifteenth.

second, Celine, your command is in the register, that will be the next one. however, i spent five hours on a plane today! i am feeling lazy! i'm going to post an interlude instead. for reference, it takes place before the events of the terminal, during the big storm that hit emerald springs. if it feels familiar, then you've read my earlier work from 2023. which is still tentatively canon.

~~

Your name is Aubrey Hawthorne. You are fourteen years old, and you remember what your father said when he had finished the shelters. It had been a gray day, and he had taken you to the edge of the woods, and he had told you that one day flames would tear the trees off of the earth, and that the shelters would remain unharmed. 

It's been three days since the rains came. Rain is far from rare in Emerald Springs. It's the amount of rain. It's the wind. It's the hailstones that break windows and the lightning that breaks houses. In the lower parts of the island, it's the floodwaters. It's the fact that it hasn't stopped, or even slowed, over all three days.

You think staying in the shelters might do you in. Alice is here, your confidant. But your "youngest" sister is here too. Anna. You had to drag her out of a hot tub. Hail falling around her, lightning cleaving a tree behind your house in half, and she's in a hot tub. Margo is here, which is nice, but your father is too. The two of them fight like dogs. It's miserable. 

Here is a list of the things that currently make you miserable. (not exhaustively compiled, but still fairly thorough.)

- Not knowing where Terrance and Danielle are.

- Not knowing where your estrogen supplement is.

- Not knowing how long you'll be here.

- The electric fans buzzing above you.

- Only having canned food to eat.

- Sleeping on an air mattress.

- Margo yelling.

- Your father sneering in response.

- Rain hitting metal 

- Dripping pipes.

You look at a wall. There's the photograph of the woman you like to think is your mother. She isn't with Dad in this one. She's smiling right at whoever is taking the picture. There is a long scar across her face. You wish she was your mother. She looks so happy. You know better than to talk about her though. Last time, your father hissed something about how she wasn't your mom any more than he's your dad. Then he broke the frame. You cried, and you've resolved never to cry in front of him again.  

Stop thinking about that. Eat some canned beans.

Sucks.

Okay.

You sigh, putting down the beans. You stand up. It's cold in here. You look up at the huge fan turning like a misplaced windmill. You're crying. Dry your eyes.

You think about how you suck, and how you're a baby. You privately resolve to grow up into an incredible person. To have a son or daughter and be really really proud of them. If they decide to transition, you resolve to support them, and not just shrug. If whoever you fall in love with goes missing like your not-mom did, you resolve to tell your child all about them, and you resolve to never, ever let them near Sketch Hawthorne. Because he poisons everything he touches. 

The rain stops. You wait for it to start again, but it doesn't. You laugh with joy, and run up the spiraling staircase to the great metal door separating you from the outside world. There's a keypad, and you input the numbers. It swings open.  You think to yourself: after three days in the tomb, I am free.

The rain is done. But...

Rubble is flying through the sky like a flock of very large birds. Out in the water, a great column of wind rises.

A tornado. In Western Washington. There has never, as far as you are aware, been a tornado in this part of the state. You watch a car, far off in the distance, rise up into the air.

You close the door. 

Hashem answers Job out of the whirlwind.

~~

i love being mean to my characters :/

@celine, yep, Aubrey died. not only that, her spouse or significant other (if she had one) is also missing, which she was unable to explain to Wren, and given that Sketch is Wren's legal guardian, that didn't exactly work out either... 

:( 

~~

BE INCONSPICUOUS==>

You start whistling, and backing away from the hooded figure. Alex starts to back up, and then stops. 

Alex: ... I'm a coward, sorry.

He bolts into the forest. That's real nice. Speaking of bolts, the hooded figure is loading their crossbow. You can't see their face under the hood, but honestly, there is no way they aren't looking directly at you. 

YOU: Deen, we probably need to run.

Diana: Yes ma'am.

YOU: Did you call me ma'am? That's weird...

Diana: Okay, running. 

You run into the woods, and a crossbow bolt pierces through a nearby tree. Diana jumps into the air like a cartoon character. You grab her, awkwardly carrying her in your arms. Whoa, her suit must be silk, it is freakishly soft. Maybe you'll keep carrying her. You continue to run into the woods, noting the fact that your socks are getting soaked. 

Diana: Wren? We should be out of the woods by now...

You stop. She's right. The forest behind your school is really just a thin strip of trees cutting between the school and the local IGA... But you're surrounded by trees on every side.

YOU: ... Dude, this is why I wanted to avoid the woods.

Diana: It is at least better than being shot by a crossbow. 

YOU: ... Yeah.  

She's right. If only there was a crossbow ready to shoot you every time you had to make a hard decision. It really puts things into perspective. You can hear people chattering to your left, and the riff from "Famous Prophets" is playing. You look around for Alex, and see him awkwardly waving at you.

Alex: Okay, first, my bad. 

YOU: Dude.

Alex: Yes, I know, my bad.

YOU: Dude, what was your plan? Ditch us? Run into the forest and leave us to potentially die?

Alex: ...yeah. Sorry. Genuinely sorry. I'm a coward. I don't want to die.

Diana: I will tell you what Wren told me several months ago, when I demonstrated a similarly cowardly streak: next time, jump into my arms, as Scooby Doo unto Shaggy.

Alex: ...do you think you'd be able to lift me? Aren't you, like, 5'1?

Diana: ...

Diana: Yes >:(

Alex:  ...you guys probably have a better chance at succeeding without my help anyway. I suck. Every time I try to help, I get hurt or something. I end up making it harder for you than if I just wasn't there to begin with.

YOU: I'm not trying to appear insensitive, but only a couple weeks ago, you were totally hyped up about this hero stuff. I remember a very inspiring speech given in that classroom.

Alex: No, yeah, I get it, maybe it seems like it's out of the blue, but I always do this. I convince myself that I believe all my crap, and then the second I think it through it all falls apart and I start going on misanthropic, childish, stupid STUPID rants and I look like an idiot and a hypocrite and-

He cuts off, making a weird whining sound. It's quiet for a while.

Diana: Do you think you might be depressed?

Alex: Uh...

Diana: Sometimes my mom gets depressed, and she gets headaches, and has to sleep a lot. Do you know what helps?

Alex: What? 

Diana: Nothing, really. Sometimes things must run their course. But it feels good to talk about it, or she says so. So if you want to talk about it, we will listen.

YOU: Of course. Maybe not right now, given our situation, but later, I would be happy to listen to you. That's what friends are for.

He laughs, a little bitterly, but his smile looks genuine. 

Alex: Thanks. Huh... Geez... I don't know. I know what it is. I do. I think. But I don't want to say it, exactly, because that would make it... Real. You know?

Diana: You do not have to express anything you do not feel comfortable saying. 

Alex: Yeah... Dude, I think I wanna just get it out. Uh, I dunno if you.,. Um. I'm not sure I'm a guy? Like, that isn't the root of my problems, at all, but it's like... A filter I've been viewing everything through? And kind of wanting to peel my skin off, because of... It? And maybe... Dude, the scary part is thinking I could be wrong? And maybe I'm just a bad person, actually? And the discomfort I'm feeling isn't because of dysphoria or anything... Maybe... Maybe it's just me. 

And you want to tell Alex that you understand everything they(?) just said, completely. And that you remember thinking those exact things. But you can't, because at that exact moment three hooded figures emerge from the trees around you.

What do you do now?

~~

hey, note, ive recently been obsessively rereading this project, and i'm not certain if i hinted at this plot development sufficiently? but anyway, i began drafting the outline of the novel i later reworked into the concept of the terminal, and from the very beginning, from that outline two years ago, my intent was to write alex as genderqueer and closeted. (mainly because i was dealing with similar feelings at the time.) suffice to say, this has always been my intent, and i tried to hint at it, although it doesn't feel to me like i did that well enough...

that's probably obvious, but you know. good to be clear

INQUIRY SEEMS TO BE IN ORDER==>

You decide that maybe, just maybe, you can talk your way out of this. It wouldn't hurt to try at least. These robed guys are presumably adults from around town, and you were able to make Sam's dad feel guilty, so... Time to put on the "scared teenage girl" act.

YOU: Who are you guys? What do you want? I... I know we aren't supposed to be back here, but we-

Cultist: We know who you are. We saw you run out, Scribe.

Shucks.

YOU: Scribe...? I'm not sure what you- 

Cultist: You know. As for why we're here, well, you could probably conjecture. We're here to corral the other students into the school. 

Wait... You recognize this guy's voice.

YOU: Principal Kessler?

Kessler: ...

YOU: Why are you doing this? 

He's completely silent for a while. You wonder what to do. Eventually he clears his throat.

Kessler: Grab them. I'll get this robe off and tell the kids to come in.

One of the hooded lackeys lunges for Diana, who yells and bites their arm. They scream, slapping Diana in the face. You sort of get very, very angry. There's a large stick nearby, and you swing it, smashing into the cultist's head. You turn to see Alex sprinting in the direction of the music.

Alex: I'M AWARE THAT THIS LOOKS KIND OF BAD BUT I'M ACTUALLY ACTING STRATEGICALLY

You assume they're going to get Ryan to help. The guy you hit with a stick is lying nearby, incapacitated, and Diana is going absolutely feral on the other. And Kessler left during the confusion, so you don't seem to be in much danger.  You decide to call for help again. 

...

Straight to voicemail.

Call two (of five)

YOU: Dude, I am not kidding when I say that you had better be occupied by something incredibly important right now. If you're not, like, unconscious and lying on the basement floor in a coma, we are going to brawl. If it turns out you were just macking on Tracy... Well, first I'll congratulate you, because they're miles out of your league, but then we will fight. We are fighting robed psychos behind the school, and a giant skeleton demon dressed like a punk rocker is going to feed us to Apophis. We need help, man.

You disconnect.

Diana: That was a  beautiful display of camaraderie, Wren.

YOU: I just spoke from the heart.

You hear a commotion rising from the direction of your peers in the woods, and see a few more cultists leaving the school, presumably to come get you.

What do you do now?