Bitten's Creations

If I try to drive from here in Maine to New Mexico, it’s 2,400 miles. 

From here to Oregon, 800 miles from my current residence to my relatives in NJ, then another 3,000 miles after that. 

A brisk 8 day drive that meanders through mountains, forests, corn fields, dry, flat, empty plains, more mountains, and then a temperate rain forest in Oregon.

The land has some seriously creepy stuff, even just right outside our doors. 

There is often barking sounds on the other side of our back door. 

At 3 am. 

When no one would let their dog out. 

It’s a consensus not to even look out the fucking windows at night. 

Especially during the winter months. 

Nothing chills your heart faster than sitting in front of a window and hearing footsteps breaking through the snow behind you, only to look and not see anything. 

I live in a tiny town whose distance from larger cities ranges from 30 miles, to 70 miles. What is in between?

Giant stretches of forests, swamps, pockets of civilization, more trees, farms, wildlife, and winding roads. All of which gives the feeling of nature merely tolerating humans, and that we are one frost heave away from our houses being destroyed, one stretch of undergrowth away from our roads being pulled back into the earth.

And almost every night, we have to convince ourselves that the popping, echoing gunshot sounds are really fireworks, because we have no idea what they might be shooting at.

pretending we don’t know we’re sitting on top of limestone caverns filled with icy water

meanwhile in maryland the summer is killing-hot, the air made of wet flannel, white heat-haze glazing the horizon, and the endless cicadas shrilling in every single tree sound like a vast engine revving and falling off, revving and falling off, slow and repeated, and everything is so green, lush poison-green, and you could swear you can hear the things growing, hear the fibrous creak and swell of tendrils flexing

walt disney, that famous madman, walked into florida and built a multibillion dollar entertainment empire in a swamp in the middle of florida. the swamp did not forget. the swamp is eating the old and broken things in the heart of glittering, new disney world. the swamp is all. if you hear low, piglike snorting from the swamp, you’re told it’s gators in mating season, even if it isn’t mating season. 

(you’re better off believing it’s the gators.)

the humidity. the heat. the humidity. tourists drop by the scores, heatstroke in July and August. you wear your sweat like a second skin and every breath is wet. florida would never have been settled if not for the timely invention of the air conditioner. that is a true story. once we grew oranges, strawberries, produce. we shipped them all over the states. before the freezes of the 1980s. before the blue tabebuia inexplicably all died. (not the yellow or the pink, only the blue, the rarest and most beautiful.) now we export only tourist memories. 

the ocean is nigh unreachable in part of the state, an unfamiliar and ugly wetland where they used to launch men into the stars. take a road. drive east. go over a bridge. drive east. go over another bridge. drive east. drive into a wilderness of scrub and palmettos until you finally hear the ocean, an hour later than you thought it would take. the barrier islands go layer upon layer into the waters of the Atlantic, and you have to wonder why so many strips of land. is the land trying to prevent people on the sea from coming to the shore–or is it trying to keep the people on the shore from ever reaching the ocean? 

i hear popping shots at night, in the woods outside my home. in ten years i have never discovered what the sound is. 

A land of centuries of contrarians, of change that means nothing because it is a land of change.  Here was both east and west.  Here was both north and south.  Here there is nothing, and everything.  Arrive at the fur trader’s posts, where the French built cities older than states to the east; leave from Independence, the town named for the thought of leaving.  There’s no part of Missouri that’s not filled with ghosts.

There are ruins dotted through the vastness, too. Sometimes it’s the failed dreams of forgotten towns, sometimes it’s a “heritage site” - those preserved monuments to the men and women who braved the isolation and wilderness of a half-settled Canada, and sometimes…sometimes you aren’t sure what you’re seeing peeking through the prairie grass, all wind-stripped wood and rusted metal. Was it a house? A church? A barn? Something else? Whatever it is, you don’t linger. You can feel the sorrow clinging to the half-buried remains, and you know if you linger too long the sorrow will follow you home.

Then there are the animals. The loons with their mournful cries, the moose who tower over you, the cougars that stalk unwary hikers, and the bears so common that cars are left unlocked in Churchill, MB so the unlucky might survive to see the next day.

What’s out in the grass stays low, out of sight from the perfectly clear stretches of highway. There’s no trees or bushes by the edges of the road for cover. This is what keeps you safe. So long as you don’t stray into the long grass that waves oh so gently a scant five feet away from your car you’re safe. Well, at least outside of smoke season. The signs telling you to pull over when the smoke is thick are telling the truth only for a few weeks of the year. If it is not smoke season, whatever that is, it’s coming from what lurks within the grasses. You might have to stop, but by the gods do not unlock your car, no matter how sweetly the person begging for a lift right outside your door might ask.

And the rest stops, those few and far places on the highway to pull in and stretch your legs, use the bathroom, do not visit them for long. Most of the time, you only visit for a few minutes and continue on, unaware that these liminal spaces are frequented just as much if not more by Them. And sometimes these rest stops close without warning, leaving you to continue on, but not on the highway you were before. Rarely can this be remedied by stopping again, more likely than not when you finally pull over after driving for days without a mile marker or indicator of a town, the things in the grass will come to you, and your car will be just another abandoned vehicle for semis and minivans to pass by on their way.

But when you can make it unscathed into a town, oftentimes that is the most dangerous time. The popping sounds at night could be anything. Guns, pickup trucks, other things. The fields of corn and wheat stretch further than the eye can see, you can’t see the neighbors and while that could make sense since most people in small towns work on farms, you could clearly see both houses from the road and they weren’t that far apart. Surely they weren’t.

The safest places are the churches, where belief in a God offers a counterweight against the dangers of what awaits after dusk, or cities, where the iron and steel scare off whatever fae does not adapt to it, and even then, you do not acknowledge Them when they come in. For they will come in with the Sunday church crowd, they’re in the mall, window-shopping and waiting for unsuspecting victims to keep in the American heartland.

You drive through the mountains at night. You hear another car, but you don’t see it. Don’t look out the window. Don’t stop at the rest areas.

You go hiking in the mountains. You always hear people talking, but can never find the other hikers. You see one pass by, have a little chat.

“beautiful day for a hike!” They say. You agree, and keep moving. When you look back, only seconds later, the hiker is gone. You pass another one five minutes later. “Beautiful day for a hike!” They say. Keep agreeing. Don’t let them know of the repetition.

The mogillon monster is real. Don’t look for it.

You live in Arizona. You were born somewhere else. Someone asks, “why do you live there? It’s so hot!” You say it’s a dry heat. Everyone says it’s a dry heat. No one is there by choice. But they never move out.

The reason the North feels so new is mainly because it is. Hundreds of square miles of foothills and greenery and water all forced molded into shape by metal and concrete and machine. All the ghosts are new, too, schoolchildren and suicides and ex-employees and stories that have been told and grown and twisted until fact and fiction are indistinguishable. We saw an empty desert and wrenched made life from it instead. It’s truly an impressive monument to human pride stubbornness hubris ingenuity.

There’s an interesting thing about that desert though. It was all sand and clay left over from an ancient lake, thousands of years ago. And as anyone who’s ever worked with ceramics will tell you, clay has a memory.

You can feel it in the summer months. In the oven-dry air that bakes your lungs from the inside out. In the rustling of the trees where there is no wind for how could there be wind the land is a dead thing even now (especially now) it remembers that. In the way every rainstorm vanishes into the thirsty soil as soon as they end. In the way the tide lines on the reservoirs sink a little lower every year, the rivers and snowmelt unable to completely combat the demand of so many people living off of them the dead land was never meant to support life again you should have let it lie.

Of course, if you want to beat the heat you can always head up into the mountains. The rivers are fed never enough by snowmelt, so the forests are truly a sight to behold.

As long as you keep to the trails.

It’s actually a fairly well-known camping destination, with campsites and parks dotted all throughout the peaks. They all have their rules to follow, though.

Stay on the trails. The undergrowth can be dangerous and hide so much worse than snake nests or you could twist your ankle stepping into an abandoned but never empty badger den. Even if it’s just a clearing or open field, don’t walk through it unless there’s a marked trail. It’s not the domain of humans and it’s ever so rude to enter a home uninvited. You don’t want to trample the new-growth saplings or wildflowers the trees don’t take kindly to that.

Always make sure you have a way to get back to camp at all times. It’s very easy to get lost even on the trails sometimes especially if the forest doesn’t like you.

Don’t go into the forest at night. It is not your place anymore. Most predators, like Bears and Mountain Lions and so much more are nocturnal, and will usually stay away from fire or bright lights. As long as you are within a designated campground the places humanity has claimed and the forests have allowed in an uneasy truce and store your food securely, you’ll probably be fine as long as you don’t leave the glow of the firelight. Anything can happen in the darkness beyond that.

Don’t litter. Just don’t. Ever.

If you are near an area with cliffs and/or waterfalls, observe all relevant safety precautions to the best of your ability. The mountains love their children, but they are not merciful.

And then there are the special places.

National parks and town landmarks and centers of old superstition. They only have one rule, really, and all of the others fall under it.

Leave everything as it is

Don’t take things. Don’t leave things. Don’t move things around. Only observe. Because these are Northern Utah’s connection to its history. Anchors stretching centuries, aeons into the past.

Do not disturb them.

They are older than you. They are older than your parents. They are older than their parents and their parents and their parents and possibly even their parents before them. They are not man-made monuments. Those are different and have different rules. Those are ours. These are not. They are a part of the land and the land remembers and it remembers long.

If you are respectful and remember exactly where you stand, you will be fine.

If you are not, well. The earth always reclaims it’s own.

You know what they say, after all.

If you travel the state, stay on the major highways. The scenic routes will only show you the forests and mountains too small to be anything but the mounds over the graves of what was here first. Do not explore the abandoned amusement park in Dogpatch. It’s abandoned for a reason, and the area wasn’t named for the dogs. When someone asks if you want to go caving/spelunking, tell them you have other plans. You don’t want to know how they managed to escape or what they had to promise in return for their “freedom,” and you REALLY don’t want to make them upset.

If someone from a small town invites you to visit, be prepared to get lost, but only stop at the gas station for instructions. Do not stop at one with cheap prices; it’s been closed for decades, even though the “Open” sign is lit. Stay on the roads wide enough for two cars, do not cross one lane bridges, and never pick up a hitchhiker in the woods. You’ll be driving on dirt roads, be prepared to dodge potholes. Do not get too near them; they’re much deeper than they seem.

The middle of the state is filled with towering mountains, like the spine of some giant creature, stretching farther than you can imagine. One day it will rise and walk away, and the United States will be separated once more. When driving through the mountains, if there’s a detour due to a landslide, follow the signs carefully & don’t stop at the “cozy looking cabin” for directions. People don’t live there by choice, no matter what they say about “getting away from civilization.” Near the southwestern edge of the mountains, there’s a stretch of road known as the Million Dollar Highway. If you must drive it, go slower than the speed limit and do not stop to take pictures, no matter how pretty the trees look. There’s a reason the road has no guardrails and most of the “accidents” only involve one car & driver.

The western side is desert, and don’t be fooled by how green some areas look. The desert has learned the art of camouflage & will trick you in any way it can. Visit the wineries and vineyards in the Grand Valley, but don’t drink too many samples and be sure you are safely out of state before you drink anything you’ve bought; it’s much harder for the Valley to tempt you into staying if you’ve already left. If you were born there and want to leave, be sure to give an offering and accept the land’s blessing before you go; its hooks sink deep, and it has no remorse when it pulls you back.

If you go hiking or skiing in the mountains, keep to the posted trails. There are bears, mountain lions, and other things that will eat you if they can. Don’t go too far up the mountains; there’s a reason trees won’t even venture that far. Be kind to the aspens - the others will know if you stop to carve your initials into one, and there are many places for convenient “accidents” to befall you. If you camp, choose your area carefully and always put up a tent, even if it’s just a tarp strung onto some rope. The trees won’t be able to see you if you’re covered.

Tammy and the T-Rex (1994) dir. Stewart Raffill

…THERE’S A TRAILER!

BABE GUESS WHAT WE’RE WATCHING TONIGHT

My Girlfriend: ……………

Samantha what have you found

If its another Shark movie I’m saying no right now

Me: I promise it’s not about sharks

I am saddened I never saw that one…

And ahhhhhhh

I have most of the clothes I need- Except for the God damn vest.

I know how to do the fricken pale af makeup, and I have most of it.

I have the cane.

I even bought a wig and fake gauges.

BuT hOW ThE FUCK dO I DO the EYEBROWS-

I HAVE TWIGS ON MY FACE AND I HAVE NO CLUE HOW TO TURN THEM INTO THAT.

LIKE, YOU CAN’T EVEN SEE MINE AND HIS ARE THICC AF.

LIKE, EGJDJCJ MY FUCKING MAKEUP SKILLS ARE BAD AS IT IS BUT HOW DO I DO EYEBROWS LIKE THAT-

Good thing I saw this in the morning, when my heart is dead. But here’s what happens when I imagine that:

—tw: blood, death, general angst—(Sorry, mobile won’t let me put the “keep reading” in here)

Looking back, no one who survived was sure what had started it. They’d been in a meeting when the sound of Dark’s aura spiked in a crescendo of ringing throughout the room. There was maybe half a heartbeat for the egos to react, more than enough time for Bing, Google, and Silver Shepherd to move.

Bing had been sitting next to King of the Squirrels near the door, the two planning to go outside as soon as the meeting ended. Bing was working on a new kickflip, and King had some new subjects to ease into his little family. As soon as he heard the ringing, Bing made a break for it, not even bothering to open the door and crashing through the wood. His movement turned the aura’s attention to the door, and King was the first to go, the shadowy tendrils gripping him tightly enough to crush his ribs. Multiple jagged bones pierced his lungs, and King’s peanut butter beard turned bloody as he coughed up his life.

Google was farther from the door, and he realized that any sudden movement would mean trouble for them all. He crept slowly to one of the windows behind them, moving much slower than a human would. He could hear the sounds of bones breaking and screams of pain as Dark’s aura made quick work of the room, but he didn’t turn to look. He managed to open the window enough to fit through, and began to climb out.A suit-clad body knocked Google off balance, shoving him to the floor as Bim made a break for it. Bim’s delay, and mad dash for the window, brought the aura’s attention to them. Google’s head was pulled from his body, exposing the wires and fibers in his neck. They sparked and flashed as his shell fell to the floor. Bim was climbing down the side of the building when the aura caught him. He was lifted from the bricks and slammed back against them, head crushed like an overripe tomato. His corpse crashed to the ground.

Silver Shepherd had reached Dark’s form just after King’s unfortunate demise, planning to fight Dark long enough for the others to escape. His first punch caught Dark’s aura off-guard, but his second was caught by a large tendril of the aura. Shepherd screamed in agony as his fist was crushed, the crackling of broken bones loud enough to be heard. The aura dropped him to the floor as it reached for the others.

Ed Edgar didn’t have time to run or bargain, dying in his chair with Dark’s name on his lips. “The Host trembled, knowing that the aura was reaching out for him next. It gripped him by the throat,” Host’s words cut off in a choked gurgle as the aura made quick work of crushing his neck. The taste of blood flooded his mouth, and the narrator was silenced forever.Yan attacked with a screech of “You killed senpai!” They managed to cut through one of the tendrils before another grabbed their katana. The scent of blood filled the room, heavy and copperish, as the aura used the blade to slice Yan open. The red-haired ego’s last thought was of their failure to protect or avenge senpai.

Wilford managed to draw his gun, standing at the edge of the room. Everything had happened so quickly, and he wasn’t sure whether Dark would or could listen to reason. He could see Dark’s form where he’d crumpled around himself after Silver’s punch, and sympathy stopped him from firing immediately.“Darkling, please,” he managed before the aura slammed into him. The tendrils flooded his mouth, filling it with the taste of smoke, rather than the dark chocolate that was characteristic of Dark. He fired his gun in Dark’s direction, missing as the aura jerked Dark from the spot. More tendrils filled his mouth, shoving his jaw open as they moved down his throat. He gagged and choked, feeling his breath cut off as they went deeper than Dark had ever sent them.

Dr Iplier entered as Wil’s body was jerking in its death throes. He gasped in horror at the sight of the carnage before him and dropped to his knees. The thudding noise was loud in the silence of the death-filled room, and his sobs brought Dark back to himself.

“Doctor? Why are you…” his words trailed off as the scene before him registered. He caught sight of Wil’s signature pink floof and rushed over to his partner.

“Wil? Wilford, please, this isn’t funny.” He knelt beside Wil’s still form, hoping this was one of his pranks. His hands reached out to touch him, only to be batted away by the doctor’s.

“Haven’t you done enough already?” the lab-coated man growled. “Look at them all, Darkiplier. You and your jealousy killed everyone.”

“No, it’s one of Wil’s tricks, it has to be!”

“Wilford has never done something this morbid to you, and you know it. You did this, Darkiplier. You, and you alone.”

Dark’s head dropped to Wil’s chest and he whispered, “It was an accident, Wil, I swear.” He spoke louder, letting the doctor hear him. “It was my aura. I…it took over and shut me out. I don’t even remember what set it off. Can,” he hesitated. “Can you save him? Them?”

[Wil] Little town, it’s a noisy alley Every day different from before Little town, with int’resting people Waking up to say

[Ensemble] Bonjour! Bonjour! Bonjour! Bonjour! Bonjour!

[Wil] There go the androids holding hands, like always Rory, Bing, and Oli, too Every day they wander ‘round Greeting everyone in town They’re the cutest little bots

[Chase] Good Morning, Wil!

[Wil] Good morning, Chase.

[Chase] And where are you off to, today?

[Wil] Anti’s store. He’s got a new shipment in, with lots of daggers and kukris, and -

[Chase] That’s nice. Jace! The plushies! Hurry up!

[Townsfolk] Look there he goes that man is strange, no question Dazed and distracted, can’t you tell?

[Oli] Always giving out free treats

[Benji] When’s he’s not between the sheets

[Townsfolk] No denying he’s a kinky guy, that Wil

[Lucas] Bonjour!

[Amy] Good day!

[Lucas] How are the Jims, dear?

[Jace] Bonjour!

[Jackie] Good day!

[Jace] How is your store?

[Hendrick] I need a charm!

[Shawn] That’s too expensive!

[Wil] There must be someone here that I could stab!

[Anti] Ah, Wil.

[Wil] Good morning, Anti. I’ve come to see what you’ve got in stock.

[Anti] Back already?

[Wil] Oh, I love getting new blades. What have you got today?

[Anti] Nothing, the shipment’s late.

[Wil] Well, lucky day for me. I’ll go stab the deliverman!

[Anti] Again? But you’ve stabbed him twice!

[Wil] Well, he’s my favorite! Begging for mercy, playing along -

[Anti] If you like it all that much, he’s yours!

[Wil] Wow, really?

[Anti] Have fun.

[Wil] Thank you. Thank you very much!

[Townsfolk] Look there he goes that guy is so peculiar I wonder if he’s feeling well With a crazy, feral grin And a mind that’s filled with sin What a puzzle to the rest of us is Wil

[Wil] Oh, isn’t this amazing? It’s my fav'rite part because — you’ll see Here’s where I’m going to stab him But he won’t know that I’m here until he bleeds!

[Dapper Dan aka Jameson Jackson, signing the lyrics] Now it’s no wonder that his name is “Warfstache" His ‘stache has got no parallel

[Dr. Iplier] But behind that big pink floof I’m afraid he seems aloof

[Jacob] Very diff'rent from the rest of us

[Townsfolk] He’s nothing like the rest of us Yes, diff'rent from the rest of us is Wil!

[Author] Hey, wait up Dark! Wow! You knocked them for a loop, Dark! You’re the greatest manipulator in the whole world!

[Dark] I know.

[Author] No one alive stands a chance against you. If ya know what I mean.

[Dark] It’s true, Author. And I’ve got my sights set on that one.

[Author] The madman with the candy store?

[Dark] He’s the one - the lucky guy I’m going to marry.

[Author] But he’s -

[Dark] The most beautiful guy in town.

[Author] I know, but -

[Dark] That makes him the best. And don’t I deserve the best?

[Author] Of course you do!

[Dark] Right from the moment when I met him, saw him I said he’s gorgeous and I fell Here in town there’s only he Who is beautiful as me So I’m making plans to woo and marry Wil

[The fans] Look there he goes, Isn’t he dreamy? Darkiplier, he’s so cute! Be still my heart I’m hardly breathing He’s such a tall, dark, strong and handsome brute!

[Benji] Bonjour!

[Dark] Pardon

[Wil] Good day

[Signe] The plants!

[King of the Squirrles] Needs peanut butter

[Marvin] What lovely soup!

[Crank] {screeching noises}

[Natemare] Ten yards!

[The Host] One stab

[Dark] ‘scuse me!

[Yan] I’ll get the sword

[Dark] Please let me through!

[Virgil] This bread -

[Patton] Those fish -

[Virgil] it glows!

[Patton] they fly!

[Marvin] You’ll be ok, guys.

[Virgil & Patton] I sure hope so

[Townsfolk] Good morning! Oh, good morning!

[Wil] There must be someone who can understand!

[Dark] Just watch, I’m going to make Wil my man!

[Jims] Look there he goes The guy is strange but special It’s demons, Jim, oh can’t you tell?

[Robbie] It’s a pity and a sin

[Roman] He doesn’t quite fit in

The other day I came across this awesome program by accident (I don’t even remember what I was actually searching for, but on the several times I’ve looked for a program like this I’ve had no luck). It’s cool enough that I wanted to share it.

It’s called DesignDoll (website here) and it’s a program that lets you shape and pose a human figure pretty much however you want.

There’s a trial version with no expiration date that can be downloaded for free, as well as the “pro license” version priced at $79. I’ve only had the free version for two days so far, so I’m not an expert and I haven’t figured out all of the features yet, but I’ve got the basics down. The website’s tutorials are actually pretty helpful for the basics, as well. 

Here’s the page for download, which has a list of the features available in both versions.

There are three features the free version doesn’t have:

Can’t save OBJ files for export

Can’t download models and poses from Doll Atelier (a sharing site for users; note that the site is in Japanese, though)

It can’t load saved files

The third one means that if you make a pose, save it, and close the program, you can’t load that pose/modified model later. You have to start with the default model. I found that out when I tried to load a file from the day before (this is why reading is important…). Whether saving your modifications (and downloading models and poses) is worth $80 is up to you. 

But, the default model is pretty nice and honestly if all you’re looking for is a basic pose reference it should work fairly well as it is. Here’s what it looks like:

There’s a pose tag that lets you drag each joint into place and rotate body parts. The torso and waist can be twisted separately, and it seems like everything pretty much follows the range of movement it would have on an actual human.

Even the entire shoulder area is actually movable along with the joint! See, like how the scapular area of the back raises with the arm:

The morphing tag is one of the coolest features, in my opinion. It lets you pick and choose from a library of pre-set forms for the head, chest, arms, legs, etc. It has some more realistic body shapes in addition to more anime-like ones. Don’t like the options there? Mix a few to get what you want! Each option has a slider that lets you blend as much or as little as you want into the design. 

So you, too, can create beautiful things like kawaii Muscle-chan!!

The scale tag lets you mess with the proportions and connection points of different joints. This feature combined with the morphing feature not only allows more body shape variations, but it also means that you can do things like make a more digitigrade model if you want. (The feet only have an ankle joint, but for regular human poses that’s all that you really need, so whatever.)

Or you can make a weird chubby alien-like thing with giant hands and balloon tiddies if that’s more your thing.

The ability to pose hands to the extent it allows is far more than I could have hoped for from a free program. Seriously, you can change the position of each finger joint individually, as well as how spread out the fingers are from each other. Each crease on the diagram below is a point of movement, and the circles are for spread between fingers. 

And to make it a bit more convenient, there’s a library of pre-set hand poses you can pick from as well, and then change the pose from that if you like. 

In both versions, you can also import OBJ files from other places for the model to hold, like if you wanted to have them hold a sword or something.

That shaded ball on the left is your light source. You can see how moving the point changed the shadow cast.

Oh and all those other nifty looking things in that bottom bar there, yeah it’s what you think. You can change the model color to one of these presets or even customize your own palette.

Plus for all you lovely people who want something a little more simplified to use as a pose reference

It’s not the best, but it *is* my first attempt at digital art with people. Inspired by a scene in RP between King of the Squirrels (sans crown and cloak) and Marvin the magician, after his mask was broken.

Marvin conjures confetti, and King is delighted.