onlyfangs

[nerasnotes]

My name’s Nera ( she/her 30+ ) and currently I am being absolutely devoured by this wip and its teeth. I’ve been writing since I was a wee thing but mostly that was within other media ( fanfiction ) so this has been quite the adventure. These posts always make me feel like being a new kid in class again: What’s your name? Tell us something interesting about yourself. And then you completely blue screen and don’t remember your name let alone ANYTHING about yourself, interesting or not. So yes this is going to be short because– I’m out of things to say.

WIP PAGEㅤ WIP TAGㅤ WIP EXCERPTSㅤ WIP TAG GAMES ㅤBY OTHERS ㅤ ANSWERED ASKS ㅤWORLDBUILDING ㅤ PLAYLIST

CRUENTUS ( adj. ) - blood-stained · (figuratively) blood-soaked, bloodstained; blood-thirsty, cruel

synopsis: Shocking news out of the southside docks as workers have found a body. The victim is believed to have been ambushed and their body mutilated beyond what was needed to subdue and murder them. Sources are telling us the victim is unidentifiable due to the violence they sustained during this brutal attack. Police have not released a statement and are struggling to collect any evidence thanks to the season's rain. Eyewitnesses have also revealed further information on the state of the victim claiming there were even what appeared to be -- bite marks. Dead Month has officially started....

features: vampires as monsters who do monstrous things ( not just the pretty people ); all sorts of sinful debauchery; dark themes; gore and body horror; crime and punishment (teehee); multiple species of vampires; wealthy people doing bad things; strange hungers; biting fetishes, and a lot of gratuitous violence

content warnings: graphic descriptions of gore and violence; descriptions of autopsies and hospitals; violence towards women; murder; badly written police procedures; vampires; sexual content -- and may not always be tagged, not because I don't care but because I forget so keep these warnings in mind when following

if you wish to follow along to all posts regarding this wip, the tag for everything cruentus is: cruentuswip

[nerasnotes]

WRITING SHARE

I originally had this as a chapter opener but might work it closer to a preface or synopsis option.. just something I wrote to help set the tone and get those creative juices running. ( I do have a version of this opener as an opening for a shadow and bone fanfiction I'm working on as well so you might have seen it or something similar in that fandom on ao3 )

WHAT WAS THAT NOISE? Cami tried to focus on it but it sounded so far away. Muffled and silent almost from another room… But that couldn't be because she was outside wasn't she? She had to be because she felt cold. And wet. What was that noise? Violent spasms shocked through her body jerking limbs randomly; a body short circuiting. A nervous system overridden. What was that noise? Something flashed in the dark blinding then restoring the world to painful clarity. Another jolt of electricity down her spine ripped a gasp from her dry lips. Why were her lips dry? Why was she so wet? Another sound rumbled beneath the previous one. So low she felt it in her chest but only for a moment then that too was drowned out. What was that noise? Her hands trembled at her sides, water soaking up from the puddle she knelt in. Frail frame shook through a cold that froze the marrow striking her dumb. She blinked a few more times against the rain falling in sheets. No. Now it came slow. Too slow. Drop by drop by drop. Icy cold and burning hot over the apples of her cheeks causing another short to snap down her spine. Another electric bolt down then sparked up crashing into the base of her skull. Another broken gasp from lungs that forgot how to breathe. More blinks, slow, deliberate. Drop by drop by drop. What was that noise? Shuddering through a deeper breath her system began rebooting. From her knuckles to her knees, yeah, yeah there they were. Wet. Cold. Just a lump of something— Red. Drop by drop by drop. What was that noise? The air stilled into unnatural quiet. Rain no longer prattled against the leather of her jacket. Heartbeat lost in graveyard silence although it hammered violently. All there was now was... Red. God so much red. Red water. Red rain. Red lights. Red blood. Red. Red. Red. Drop by drop by drop. What was that noise? Jesus… it was her.

This has been significantly cut down and so may read a bit choppier than I'd like but I wanted to share something since it's been a Minute as the kids say. Hope you enjoyed! This opening was heavily inspired by the poem Boots by Rudyard Kipling which amazing and highly recommended

[nerasnotes]

WIP UPDATE(s)!

Finally got my brain in enough order to compile an official wip page and link an official playlist I have for this particular project! The playlist features mini-playlists for each character so far but all the songs are under the main playlist as well! Anyway, there's a bit of writing I want to do and maybe share some character edits today but might take a wee break because those two projects took a lot out of me! Things are coming together, slowly, painfully, beautifully.

[nerasnotes]

WORLDBUILDING 001

DEAD MONTH is a special season soaked in blood. It's nearer the cooler seasons of early winter or late fall when the sun comes later and the best way to stay warm is booze and bodies. Since tourists are more apt to go home with strangers or steal away to the back alleys dotting the city, more and more people willingly put themselves in more dangerous situations and so during Dead Month rates of missing persons and murders skyrocket. It's a known time of year within the Red City and to many of those outside the bubble of decadence. It's the month police and those who deal in the dead spend the most time on the streets and yet the prisons stay empty. No one can miss you if no one knows you and anonymity is the main currency in the city.

[nerasnotes]

I think having more than wip is really helpful when writer's block hits or if you're working on a particularly heavy or larger project that may lead to burnout. I have another project that's taking a lot out of me and this is is an entirely different genre and almost changes my writing style but the point is, for me, when I get burnt out on other projects or wips this one is my comfort wip. Not because it's "simpler" or "not as immersive" or what have you but because horror is my comfort genre so things like this come naturally. I rarely finish any writing project I take on but writing and the prose just seems to come more naturally in horror, so I'm really glad I've set up different spaces for these two projects. And I'm glad they're both almost polar opposite genres and styles.

[illsrtns]

[nerasnotes]

UNSOLICITED WRITING SHARE

This was not proofread thoroughly so please ignore typos I swear I can write. Consider this an open tag and I leave a light tag for.. everyone reading this. Everyone. Yes even you. Especially you.

Thomas lounged in an overstuffed booth but there was nothing leisurely or relaxed about the sharpness in his stare. Nicholas remained stiff-backed with his chin high, hands tucked in front of him in a familiar stance of a soldier. Benny imitated his partner best he could but never managed Nicholas' cold detachment. Swallowing the lump in his throat before it choked him, Benny struggled keeping his eyes on the vampire sat in front of them, rather than the woman behind him. As pale as Thomas was, Benny watched color slowly begin slipping through the older vampire's pallor; the warmth and life of fresh blood reviving the decaying, rotting pieces of walking corpses. He'd seen it plenty but every time Nicholas drank, Benny's stomach collapsed into his feet; he'd never have the stomach for it. A weakened gasp charged the air, the sound lingering, a pendulum hanging low over his head. He couldn't stop his eyes darting to the source-- a woman hanging by her ankles, tubes and catheters wired through various pulmonary veins dripping her blood at a snail's pace. If done properly, the woman would stay that way, crucified upside down and displayed on the ornate bar gleaming a deep cherry brandy, for days. Possibly over a week. All the elders would drink the poor woman dry and she'd just be another body tossed in some back alley dumpster. Nothing left. As useless and empty. Thomas was just the one sat nearest. And he chose this spot specifically for Benny benefit. A gruesome reminder of how dangerous Benny's position was to him. "You remember Miranda, dont you, Reuben?" Thomas' sneer thickened his accent, his death-pale eyes clocking every shift in Benny's posture, every twitch in his expression. Reuben spared another quick glance, eyes tracking the way her expression tightened and eyes rolled dizzily. He did know her. Miranda — something. "Good help is so hard to find these days," Thomas continued casually, "Thankfully she's kept her blood clean. As required," Thomas slowly sipped from his lowball glass and this time, it was Nicholas who shifted his feet, understanding, now, why they had been summoned. Lowering the glass, thick blood stained Thomas' own bloodless smile. "You two share that in common," the elder gestured noncommittally behind him. Miranda's breath hitched, unable to breathe properly being upside down even just the time he and Nicholas arrived. Strung up like the cattle all humans were seen as. Thomas continued, unfazed by his own cruelty, "There's always a use for you humans. Whether that be under our employ -- or under our teeth."

[kyotoprotocols]

[sictransitgloriamvndi]

Paradise Lost: Satan, Sin and Death (c.1735–40, Oil on canvas) - William Hogarth

[nerasnotes]

I LOVE 30 Days of Night, it's one of my favorite vampire movies and in the top 5 of my favorite vampire designs but -- I can't figure out how these guys managed to survive to the last night of their polar night. It's true that for like a month the sun's at its furthest point which, I mean, definitely is a prime setting for a bloodbath ( which this movie DELIVERS ) but -- am I supposed to believe these human managed to hide in the same attic for 28ish days? Only able to slip into the safehouse for food and water? With no heat? In the furthest point of Alaska and only some jackets? And when the whole city is virtually dead, these vampires who've hunted like wolves and could presumably hear heartbeats, didn't find them? For 28ish days?

I don't know why I can't figure this out but it kinda irks me that they weren't found sooner. But movie's gotta movie and I'm cursed with taking these things too seriously.

STILL! A great movie and a really neat take on vampires-- truly monstrous and scary predators.. I recommend.

[nenive]

Genre: ghost story, gothic, psychological horror, literary-upmarket

Demographic: adult

Form: novel

Progress: third draft complete (soon seeking beta readers)

Inspiration: Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, the short fiction of Shirley Jackson, Twin Peaks, Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, Yellowjackets, Possession (1981), Ethel Cain’s discography, A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, the behaviour of cuckoos, the limestone quarries of South West England

Aesthetics: rotting apples fallen from the tree, chainsmoking, Bathstone, stigmata wounds, tradgoth fashion, flies, dust, decaying autumn leaves, pastoral bliss corrupted

Synopsis: In the drought-ridden Somerset town of Twygrave, eighteen-year-old Peter Linwood gets trapped in the disused limestone quarry. With his loss sparks a chain of events that have Violet Spencer, his stepsister Grace’s best friend turned bitter nemesis, leaving the town – and the country – seemingly for good.

Six years later, with Peter recovered, it’s the brilliant, magnetic Grace now missing, and all her husband Malcolm can do is adjust, a plan is thwarted by Violet’s sudden return. Violet reattaches herself to the charming (and wealthy) Linwood family, tries to make a tentative truce with Malcolm, and reunites with her teenage sweetheart Rhona, but cannot ignore the inexplicable happenings within the town that can only be described as a haunting.  Violent and Malcolm find themselves lost in horrifying revelations that call into question what happened to Peter in the quarry, what Rhona might be hiding, and just who Grace, the woman they all loved and despised, really was.

(In other words, my 'main' project, the thing I've been working on since the summer of 2022 and have been really nervous to post about, finally here!)

[nerasnotes]

WIP (re)INTRODUCTION.

CRUENTUS ( adj. ) - blood-stained · (figuratively) blood-soaked, bloodstained; blood-thirsty, cruel

synopsis: Shocking news out of the southside docks as workers have found a body. The victim is believed to have been ambushed and their body mutilated beyond what was needed to subdue and murder them. Sources are telling us the victim is unidentifiable due to the violence they sustained during this brutal attack. Police have not released a statement and are struggling to collect any evidence thanks to the season's rain. Eyewitnesses have also revealed further information on the state of the victim claiming there were even what appeared to be -- bite marks. Dead Month has officially started....

features: vampires as monsters who do monstrous things ( not just the pretty people ); all sorts of sinful debauchery; dark themes; gore and body horror; crime and punishment (teehee); multiple species of vampires; wealthy people doing bad things; strange hungers; biting fetishes, and a lot of gratuitous violence

content warnings: graphic descriptions of gore and violence; descriptions of autopsies and hospitals; violence towards women; murder; badly written police procedures; vampires; sexual content -- and I think that's all the major warnings right now

[nerasnotes]

UNSOLICITED WRITING SHARE

Another little something silly I've stashed away in my drafts. Still a new blog so throwing out an open tag for everyone.

Death and posies. That's what the morgue smelled like. Jaehwi always struggled to put a name to the unique smell of this place and only now figured it out. Posies were stuffed in the pockets of plague victims and it made sense Jiyu would decide that was the perfect scent to counter balance the stench of sterilization and human waste. Leave it to his sister to find a way to make the morgue more unpleasant.

[nerasnotes]

UNSOLICITED WRITING SHARE

I wasn't tagged in anything because, new blog, but I'll leave this as an open tag for anyone who wants to!

Death left a special scent hanging in the back of the throat. Stuck to the skin for weeks blurring the line between life and death. Blood, however, smelled differently. A taste sweeter and metallic stuck to the teeth. And it was blood thickening the stale air of the lounge. Air of a disturbed grave stirred subtly; churned that bittersweet smell with the tang of black cherries. Brandy swirled leisurely in its lowball glass. Rich black with the ghostly kiss of red, blood and brandy mixed seamlessly. Black cherries reminded him of a childhood long buried. Of a life he could have led, would have led, and how time gave him more than all of it. And so it was brandy his glass nursed— and blood he drank. Behind him, crucified above colored glass, backlit by warming lights, and barely conscious, hung Thomas' closest employee. A woman who warmed his bed not three nights ago, a woman who stepped too heavily on Thomas' toes, now faced the consequences of too many questions. Curiosity would be the end of the human race. Lessons were taught slowly and a Bleeding was no different. Time was precious, malleable, and predictable. Human bodies replenished their supply in time with the bodies needs so, as close to death as she may have looked, Miranda could, and would, remain hung by the ankles, catheters and tubing laced through vein and skin, until Thomas decided she was done. Stilling, Thomas heard another death rattle, the plea to God more breath than sound but it tickled the shell of his ear drawing his attention. The glass stilled, too. "God?" Thomas curiously repeated, turning his head slightly in her direction. Thomas' eyes were inky caverns of black, deep and hollow but smoldering with hellfire, seizing Miranda's chest and stuttering her heart. "God's not here. I am."

[hawkaye]

SINNERS (2025) dir. Ryan Coogler

[madisonissneezing]

how to write monsters that actually scare and not sparkle

✦ first rule: don’t over-explain. once you give me the monster’s exact height, weight, claw count, and dental record, it’s not scary anymore. it’s a pokémon. mystery is the muscle. a shadow that almost looks human will always hit harder than a full description of a swamp beast. leave gaps. let the reader’s brain fill them in with their own worst fear.

✦ physics should not apply. horror monsters are terrifying when they break the rules of the world we think we understand. a body folding in ways it shouldn’t. joints bending the wrong direction. silence in a place that should echo. footsteps that sound like they’re coming from the ceiling instead of the floor. once you warp reality, the reader doesn’t feel safe in their own.

✦ chasing is fine. but waiting is worse. scarier than claws, scarier than snarling—try a monster that just stands in the corner and watches. even scarier? it smiles. because predators don’t smile unless they know something you don’t.

✦ let it act like it knows you. a growl is scary, sure, but a whisper of your name in the dark is worse. a hiss of your birthday. a laugh in your mother’s voice. monsters are no longer “other” once they feel personal. they’re invasive. they’re inside your head.

✦ bonus tip: give them wrong appetites. a monster that eats flesh is cliché. a monster that eats wallpaper? horrifying. one that eats memories, so a character wakes up without knowing their own name? disgusting. one that eats reflections from mirrors so you don’t see yourself anymore? revolting.

[elwintersoldado]

30 Days of Night (2007) dir. David Slade