#and that makes it feel unsatisfying and a little hollow

[heartpascal]

is it freedom?

▹— spiderverse (future) found family x platonic!reader

▹— summary: after losing everything, you struggle to accept the one thing you needed all along.

▹— a/n: ok i have been enabled by exactly two (2!) people. (thank you both) SO dare i start a spiderverse series??? IF YALL WANT MORE OF THIS… I WILL DO IT. this is really just a set up thing idk but i feel like arachnid has potential for further parts and ACTUAL found family!! also haven’t tagged people on my general taglist bc idk if you guys want to be tagged in ALL works or just all pedro works :(

▹— warnings: slight across the spiderverse spoilers, not really found family yet, injuries, blood, treating own injuries, stitches, fighting (canon-typical violence yall), dead parents (mentioned a LOT), a whole lot of angst (it’s a spider-person so what do we expect), reader has a whole lot of bad thoughts, loneliness, isolation

masterlist PART TWO

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Had you known what this, this thing, would lead to, you would have never started it. Not that you had done so purposely, at least to begin with, more so happening as an event of pure chance. You were in the right place at the right time, and since then, you had been addicted.

But if you could go back, look at yourself just a year younger than you are now, tell that kid what would come if you went through with saving a life for the first time, you wondered. It was a question that scratched deep in your brain, sending you off balance the more you thought about it; would you have still done it? Would you have saved that person’s life, knowing it would lead to your own falling apart?

You would like to think yes. In fact, you know that back then, when your eyes were bright at the prospect of helping people, when you still marvelled at the world like it was good, you would have been certain that it would be worth it. Why should that person die, just to save you? It’s a harrowing realisation. A conclusion that makes your fingers tremble, your voice shake. Now, you’re not sure you would do it. You don’t think you could bear to face that decision knowing what you know of the world around you now.

It’s something cruel, really, that the spider that bit you gave you these powers, and nothing to go back and fix your mistakes. Your perceived victories. Your losses.

But the worst has already happened, and the only one left to die is you, so you carry on. You don the suit every day, you sew up your own injuries on the top floor of the abandoned offices that you’ve claimed as your own. Each day, you wake when you choose, you sleep when you want to, and you work yourself down to your very bones with nobody to object.

The hollow feeling in your gut is a pain you have no choice to ignore, to smother with assurances that this is freedom. What else could it be? You do whatever you so please, you spend your time swinging through the streets of New York rather than doing schoolwork at home, you eat all the junk you could ever have wanted.

It’s freedom. It has to be.

You tell yourself that you don’t miss the home part of having to do schoolwork, promise your heart that you don’t miss home-cooked meals as opposed to greasy food that leaves you unsatisfied. You swear that you like having nobody to tell you what to do. There’s no other choice, after all.

And each day, when you spend a little bit longer out on the streets, getting yourself into needless fights that the police could certainly handle, you tell yourself it’s because you’re protecting the city. You convince yourself that it’s not because of having an unending rage to satiate, or a permanent feeling of breathlessness when you leave police to handle anything, as if you could relive the moment your father, the captain, was left to handle something he couldn’t.

So, you’re almost relieved by the appearance of something… strange. Something dangerous. This is what you live for — this is your job.

You crouch against the wall, fingers splayed and suit itching where you had crudely sewn it back together across your ribs at an almost too-close call. You hold your breath, you watch. The lenses over your eyes shield your sensitive sight from the harshest colours of this new opponent, who looks almost… unreal. Too different to be a part of reality. He yells out, seemingly glitching? A distorted scream of what is apparently pain, accompanied by flashes of colour that are unfamiliar to you.

“Well, that doesn’t look good.” You comment, eyebrows raised beneath your mask, and the strange looking guy snaps his head towards you, long hair slapping across the goggles over his eyes. He bares his teeth at you, something almost resembling a grin marring his face.

“Spider-man!” He yells triumphantly, cackling as he wipes the hair away from his face, tendrils unfurling from behind his back and lifting him into the air.

“Not quite!” You call back, dodging below the metallic arm that shoots towards where your head was, crumbling through the wall. You try to think back to the jokes you used to tell to rile up whoever you were facing, but find your mind is blank. Instead, all you can think of is questions. “Where the hell did you come from, anyway?”

The man follows you as you spring from wall to wall, heading towards the center of the building where it tunnels up for about forty floors, balconies overlooking the fountain below. “A new spider, eh? Well I’ll take you down just as easily as I have the other!” He tells you, though you’re immediately suspicious of his statement. You’re the only Spider-related hero around, and even if you weren’t, you doubt this guy could squash a worm, let alone you.

“Sure thing, man.” You say, sighing, already exhausted by the repetitiveness that comes with every fight. Your opponents always say they’ll beat you, kill you, squish you, take you down, and yet you always get back up at the end of the fight, and they always remain defeated. When you started doing this, you never would have thought you’d get so tired from winning all the time.

And yet here you are, slipping further and further up the building with the octopus-looking guy chasing after you, metal arms crumbling walls and bannisters on his way up. He falters once more, another one of those glitch-like movements sending him down a few floors, but he’s quick to recover. Of course, it wouldn’t be that easy.

You crouch down on one balcony, somewhere around the thirty mark floor-wise, peering down at the guy as he shakes lingering pain from his body. He charges upwards, aiming to reach you quickly with an almost predatory smirk on his face. Before he can even get close to you, however, you’re back on the move, setting a trap for him that he doesn’t even seem to notice.

It’s only when a group of late workers emerge on what you’re pretty sure is the twenty-first floor that you become more anxious about this fight. You don’t like when civilians are involved.

There’s about a dozen of them crowding the balcony, looking up to where you’re facing off with octopus-man above, some having begun to descend the stairs to the next floor before catching on to your presence. You try not to draw attention to them, but their pointing and whispering sets the Spidey-sense off, ringing loudly between your ears, almost deafening in its intensity. Maybe you underestimated this guy. The flash of a camera sends the last hope of him not noticing down the drain, and he grins at you as he switches targets, climbing down towards them with some semblance of caution.

You’re much faster than he is, dropping down and using a web to catch yourself rather than having to climb. It’s hard to stop yourself from yelling at them, cursing them out for being so damn foolish — who in their right mind would stick around a very dangerous fight to take pictures?

Instead, you choose to yell, “Get out! Go, go, go.” And usher them down the stairs, but it’s not difficult to realise that this guy is going to get to them before they manage to descend to the bottom. You shouldn’t be surprised, really. Nothing is ever as simple as it could be, not for you.

The split second decision to drop down and form a net-like web low enough to catch the workers worked out for you in the end, as you swung back up and pushed the workers off of the balcony and stairway just as the octopus man was reaching them. He cursed at you, refocusing his efforts on you as you vaguely noted the workers clambering down after their screaming had stopped. Honestly — did people really have so little faith in you? Had you ever sent anybody to their death before?

“You are just as pesky of an insect as Spider-man!” He growled out, teeth gritted, and came after you with renewed force. He kind of reminded you of that doctor you faced not long after getting your powers, but this guy looked completely different. The doctor you faced — aptly named Doc Ock — had turned himself into some form of a mutant, he had reinforced tentacles which sprouted from his back. Was this guy some kind of copy cat? Maybe he was just delusional.

“I don’t know who Spider-man is, man!” You shout to him as you ascend the building again, trying to figure out the best way to take this guy down. His tentacles seem electronic, so surely you could disable whatever machinery resides on his back?

“That’d be me.” A voice came from above you, two floors ahead of your position. Your head snapped towards it, seeing a man in a blue and red suit, framed by a burst of orange behind him. He didn’t linger up there long, instead moving to leap down to the guy who had turned his attention to the new guy. The closer you looked at this new guy, the more similarities you saw to yourself — his webs looked remarkably similar to your own, the pattern that went across his suit matched your own, even the wide white lenses that shielded your eyes on your mask. Who the hell was this guy?

The octopus man grinned widely, shaking greasy hair from his face. “Ah, finally! The real Spider-man. Got yourself a new protégé, I see.” He drawled, dodging this new guy’s hit straight off of the bat. You tried not to get annoyed at being referred to as a protégé, considering as far as you were aware, you were the only Spider-person around. Where was this guy when you were holding a bridge full of civilians together? Where was he when you took down villain after villain, never once failing to get the guy? No — you were the real Spider-man, if anyone.

“I don’t know who you are, man, but I’m handling this just fine.” You call to the guy, swinging down to rejoin the fight, webbing the villain’s metal tentacles to the wall behind him, before dropping down to kick him towards the wall.

“Oh, so you know how to send this guy back to his own dimension?” Spider-man asks you, eyebrows raised beneath his mask, and as if on cue, the guy glitches once more, ripping his arms away from the wall and just about catching himself on a balcony below before he could fall into your net.

You gape at the new guy, glancing back up to where the burst of orange remains opened, and is that a portal? Is this Spider-man from another dimension? Is that why you’ve never heard of him before? God, if your mother was alive, she’d kill to find out about this. Inter-dimensional travel was something she had spent her life researching. If you didn’t remain so bitter toward her even after her death, you might’ve been sad she wasn’t alive to see this.

But you were bitter, and it made the experience all the worse.

Because you’re pretty sure that that bitterness takes the place of grief within you. It’s hard to understand why you crave to feel that pain, that grief, as opposed to the aching resentment that floods you with the thought of her. It’s such a sharp contrast to thinking of your father, your kind father, the man who threw himself into a battle he couldn’t have hoped to survive, just on the off chance he could save somebody. You hope you take after him.

“Wait— you’re from another dimension?” You question anyway, eyes flickering between the battle and the looming portal above. In fact, you’re so distracted by finding out about that tidbit of information that you miss octopus man aim a tentacle for you, and it snatches you around the ankle. “Oh, you gotta be kidding me—!”

The man waves you around like some kind of rag doll, and you try not to be too bitter about being caught off guard. You should probably learn that getting caught up in your little pity party always ends up badly, always distracts you from that renowned Spidey-sense. You formulate a plan in your mind when the drip of blood around your ankle draws your attention back to the battle at hand.

You web the wall opposite and hold on tight, pausing the movements and letting the dizziness that had come over you fade away. The man growls out in annoyance, and gets closer to cut the webs with another tentacle, which is exactly what you planned for. The tension from the webs launches you towards him when you let go, and in his surprise, the metal tentacle releases you. You wrap around him, and start webbing up the machinery embedded in his back as Spider-man distracts most of the tentacles, keeping them from pulling you off.

His tentacles start faltering, clearly not obeying his movements, and you wrap them up where they emerge from his back, continuing along until the movement is so limited that he has to use them all to clutch onto the nearest balcony.

You crawl up the tentacles in the very same spidery manner that you’re known for, and crouch, watching the octopus man struggle as Spider-man observes from the balcony opposite. “You wanna finish this one off, Spider-man?” You ask, unable to hide any bitterness from your tone at his mostly unhelpful actions throughout the battle.

“Hey, not bad!” He praises, and it annoys you. You’re good at what you do — for the most part. You manage without help constantly, and that’s the way you prefer it. “You’d make a good addition to the Spider Society!”

Now, you don’t know what the Spider Society is. But honestly? You don’t care. You don’t need help, and you prefer working alone, and you certainly don’t like feeling patronised.

“Whatever, man. Just send him back to whatever dimension he came from.” You tell the guy, and drop down as you hear sirens outside, landing on your injured ankle and just about stopping yourself from cursing. Through all the adrenaline and fighting, you’d forgotten about the way the metal had ripped into your skin, drawn blood. It’s just be another place you’d have to sew up your suit with itchy, uneven stitching. “Officers,” You greet as they open the doors, guns drawn, radios murmuring. “All taken care of. Civilians okay?”

“Shaken up, but fine.” The leading police officer says, immediately relaxing and holstering his weapon. You wish it reassured you that the police trusted you now, but it didn’t. Nonetheless, the other officers follow suit. “Thank you, Arachnid.”

The name your world has bestowed upon you has yet to grow on you, but you nod your head regardless, and salute them as you make your way out, swinging across the city, trying to put the existence of the multiverse and inter-dimensional travel out of your mind. Surprisingly, it’s pretty easy when you have a busted ankle to fix up.

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You’re halfway through stitching up your suit, having already sewn your skin back together with as much skill as you possessed in the matter — which was, not much. But the bleeding has stopped, and your stupidly slow healing will take care of it within a few days. You know that the itchy stitches on your suit will just irritate the injury, and though you wouldn’t lose anything if your identity was revealed, it doesn’t feel right to go out into the city with any part of you on show.

No, you wear the suit for a reason. You keep every part of yourself covered because nobody can know it’s you underneath the suit. Not because you had anything to lose, no, you had already lost everything. It was because then you could never make a mistake, you would have to be absolutely perfect, flawless, to make up for the fact that it was you underneath the layer.

So, you settle with a sewn suit that will itch and make the stitches on your ankle sting.

However, when there’s a burst of orange across the room, you have no choice but to forgo the suit, to simply drop the needle and thread and hover your fingers over your web shooters. You wait, nervously, for some other villain to appear. You’re not sure if Spider-man appearing would be better or worse.

But when a foot steps through the portal, it’s nobody familiar. In fact, it’s a suit you have never seen before, made up of dark blues and bright reds, sharp edges and long claws. It’s… unnerving, and considering the silence coming from the person wearing it, you’re not entirely certain of what they’re here for.

A moment later and another person steps through, a woman, with bright yellow lenses across her eyes that filter her irises into an amber. She steps forward, standing beside the person who had stepped through first, and if she hadn’t showed up, you would’ve been tempted to attack. With that being said, you remain on edge, but there’s something… comforting about her presence. Like her presence softens the man’s jagged edges.

She says your name, and then adds, “Arachnid.”

You furrow your brows and curse as you glance back at the suit so crudely laid out on the floor. Still, it doesn’t explain how she knows your name. Was it an inter-dimensional thing?

“Spider-man told us about your work in capturing Doc Ock earlier.” She tells you, as if that explains their presence. You did what you were supposed to do, which was take out the bad guys. “We’re here to offer you a place in the Spider Society.”

You can’t help but wonder if this is some kind of good cop, bad cop thing. She presents an offer which doesn’t sound too bad, and then her sharp-edged companion presents all the drawbacks and the catches. They don’t seem like the type to take no for an answer, either way. You still don’t even know what this Spider Society was! Was it some kind of multi-dimensional cult?

“I already told Spider-man that I wasn’t interested in joining whatever cult you’ve got going on.” You practically hiss, though you didn’t exactly tell him in such blatant words. You were more dismissive earlier, so you’d have to be clear now.

“It’s not a cult,” The man speaks, voice harsh and sharp much like the blades that branch from his forearms. “We work to protect the multiverse from anomalies that threaten to destroy it.”

The woman glances at him in a way that you translate as being vaguely annoyed, like he wasn’t approaching you in the way she had wanted him to. “He means to say that it’s a big job, and we need all the help we can get.” She says, softer, but only in comparison to the man’s harshness. “Listen, kid, you’re good at what you do. We need that kind of talent.”

“You’ll have to find it somewhere else.” You say firmly, because why would you want to leave your universe? This was a lot to think about when you had only learned of the multiverse existing mere hours ago. Regardless, you weren’t about to abandon your city just to go across the multiverse to help other heroes who couldn’t keep a leash on their own villains.

The two of them shared a look, a mere glance, before the woman heaved a sigh. “Look,” She sighed, heavily, like whatever she was about to say was something she didn’t want to be voicing. “Before you make your choice, you should know, your Green Goblin is currently terrorising another universe.”

You couldn’t work out if this was some kind of recruitment tactic, or something. That just wasn’t possible. You had put Gwen Stacy in the highest security prison after all antidotes to her goblin-tech failed. She was stuck in there — permanently. There was no way she had gotten out, let alone gotten out to another universe.

…Right?

It’s hard not to think of the memories at the mention of her—Green Goblin, not Gwen Stacy. Never Gwen Stacy. You wonder if this is where your fear comes from, the terrifying fact that you are remembered only for your mistakes. Because before she was the Green Goblin, she was Gwen. She was everything to you. She was the sun you orbited, the stars that charted your path. And it hurts, it hurts that you can only remember the blood and the dust and the destruction when you think of her.

People aren’t born as monsters, are they?

Like the spider that bit you, that invertebrate that so many fear, it was born the way it was. It was born with those fang-lined maws, with those eight legs and dozens of eyes. It was made into the monster it became, artificially crafted to deliver a venom that changed you forever. But it wasn’t born that way.

Surely, Gwen wasn’t either. She was kind. You remember that about her. You can remember her soft hands that used to hold your own, the loud laughter that always ended in a snort when she laughed at her own jokes, the gentle eyes that stared into your very soul. But those eyes are the very same ones that let her see through your mask, let her see exactly where to hit you to make it hurt. Was that what she was born as? Or is that what she was made into? A killer. A monster.

“Show me.” You say, because what else could you possibly respond? If what they’re saying is true, if the Green Goblin is loose once more, then people will die.

You can’t let her get fresh blood on her hands. Not when somewhere, deep inside your chest, so far down it’s almost unreachable, you have hope for her. You have an innate desire to look for the best in her, even when the Gwen you knew was the first life that the Green Goblin took.

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If there’s one thing you’ve taken from being Arachnid, it’s to expect the unexpected. And you go through the orange portal after Jessica Drew and Miguel O’Hara with that exact mindset about you, staring at where an orange watch-like device is wrapped around your wrist.

It’s in your nature to be suspicious, and these people weren’t an exception to that.

In fact, their presence only heightened that behaviour. After all, what were you to expect from two Spider people, who supposedly came to you for your help?

You weren’t blind, you saw the aged lines of their faces the moment you got close enough to see them clearly, away from the dim lighting of the building. They were adults, adults who had clearly been doing this type of thing a lot longer than you had. You, who was barely bordering on adult, who had fought enough battles already to last a lifetime — so why would they need you?

It didn’t feel right.

And when this Miguel person summoned Lyla the moment you walked through the portal, it felt all the more wrong. She was a hologram of some kind, much higher tech than the kind of thing you saw on your earth. But then again, you had never really been in high tech labs back in your earth. Still, it unsettled you. “Lyla, get me the location of Green Goblin, Earth 5011.” He commanded, and they argued in hushed voices for a moment, before a wider hologram appeared, stamped at Earth 3899.

“How did she get to another universe?” You ask, then, because it doesn’t make sense, and you’re shaking underneath the thin material of your suit. You’re hyper aware of each drag of stitching against the wound on your leg, each patch of fabric you had sewn on in hopes of the suit lasting you just a little longer, because you didn’t have the resource to produce a new one.

“It’s an anomaly.” Jessica Drew tells you, her tone softer than you’d heard it, as if she was attempting to reassure you in some way.

It didn’t help. But how could it? The last time you had faced Gwen Stacy—Green Goblin— you had lost so much. It had been the beginning of the end of everything good in your life. The explosion she had caused at your mother’s laboratory was the very same one that killed her, the very same explosion that sent you and your dad miles apart all while living in the same home. And still, you found a way to hope that there was something to salvage within Gwen.

But not only had you lost your mother, and not long after — your father, you had also lost your closest friend. The one person you had confided in, who knew you from your surface to the deepest level, and she had used that against you the moment the Goblin had taken over.

It had taken everything in you to beat her, back then.

And that was on home turf! How did these people expect you to do that a second time, in a completely unfamiliar place?

“Specifics aren’t important right now. Jessica, you take Arachnid. Lyla, send another one of the teams.” Miguel instructed, dismissing your questions right off the bat. It was frustrating. They were leaving you completely in the dark, and sending you to fight the worst enemy you had ever faced, and they were sending you alongside others like you from different universes. It was like asking you to bare your soul in front of them, to reveal your secrets, your deepest regrets, everything that you wanted to stay buried.

You knew Green Goblin. You knew that’s exactly what she would do. She would undermine you, she would lay your life out in front of you like tiles on a scrabble board. In the end, none of it amounted to much.

Jessica Drew made her way out, glancing at you and nodding for you to follow along. Your moment of hesitation had drawn Miguel’s attention, and he called out to you after a moment of hesitation. “We’ve all faced one like it, kid. It’s easier with others.” He told you, though he held a pained expression on his face all the while. Instead of admitting to the way he had hit the nail right on the head, you simply nodded and followed after Spider-woman.

It was a whirlwind from there.

Meeting up with others. Travelling the length of the so-called Lobby to wherever it was that Jessica was taking you. When you finally arrived, she offered an empty glass box with a mannequin inside, bare. She gestured towards it like it should’ve been self explanatory, but soon realised she’d have to spell it out for you.

You shouldn’t have been so upset by the offer of a new suit.

But you were.

This suit was your life. You had nothing outside of it, not anymore. You couldn’t just throw it away, as if it meant nothing, as if every rip and patch and wonky stitch didn’t mean anything. These were proof that what you were doing was real, that it was worth something. Each stitch proved you had value. You weren’t about to throw all of that away, especially for whatever overly technical suit these people would provide.

You had everything you needed.

And so Jessica led you to the next destination: Earth 3899.

The moment you stepped through the portal, it was like you were hit with a wave of familiarity. And not in a positive, slightly nostalgic way, no— this was chaos. This was the state your world had been in when Green Goblin ran riot, unchecked. She had torn apart buildings, blown up parks, she had set New York City aflame. And she was doing exactly the same here.

It was more contained here than it had been on your earth, and you had to assume that was thanks to the Spider-man already on site, coordinating police, ambulance and fire responses to douse the fires as quickly as she set them. If only the police in your city had trusted you so much, back then.

“Where is she?” You ask, the moment you get close enough to speak to the resident Spider-man of the universe. He looks at you as if you’re familiar, but doesn’t comment, instead just pointing a finger toward a skyscraper just a short way ahead. You’re gone the moment he tells you where to go.

She had the uncanny ability to stay quiet. It had freaked you own back on your own earth, but it was even more terrifying here, where things were ever so slightly different.

“Arachnid.” Gwen’s voice called, and for a moment, you could forget. You could forget every horrible thing the Goblin had done, and you could remember your friend, your Gwen, who had called out to Arachnid more than once without knowing it was you behind the mask. Whether it was for a story or to provide information on your most recent opponent, the voice calling your alias was familiar. But then there was that crackle of laughter, an unnatural gurgle in the way it left her throat, and you turned to see the green-tinged pallor of her skin. “I was so hoping you’d show up.”

You didn’t know how much her appearance would effect you, until you were stuck to the side of the building, staring at what had once been your best friend. You’re so choked up that you can’t even formulate a response, because you want that to be Gwen so badly, but you know it isn’t. The more you look at her, the more Goblin you see, the more you know that the Gwen you love is never coming back.

“Nothing to say?” She asks, and then says your real name, the name she used to say down the crackle of a phone line, or across the school hallway, and she smiles. “I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

“You should’ve stayed in prison, Gwen.” You say, your voice unsteady as you say her name aloud for the first time in what must be forever. She seems to relish in the tremble of your voice, and you have to curse yourself for being so stupid, for already showing the vulnerability she was so easily able to pick out.

The Green Goblin tutted at you, stood atop her glider, but the smile you saw didn’t belong to Gwen. “You’re pathetically predictable, you know. You’re like a moth to the flame.” She tells you, and you fear that she’s right, that you’re the same person you were back when you fought her, back when she almost won. She sighs, like something heavy is weighing upon her, but it turns wistful in the blink of an eye. “I’m just glad your dad isn’t here to see this. He’d be so disappointed.”

“Arachnid, focus.” Jessica’s voice interrupts, before you can spiral down that rabbit hole. How did Gwen even know about your father? She was in prison long before he died. It didn’t make sense.

“Maybe,” You say, that familiar tremble around your words. “He did always hope for the best for you.”

She bares her teeth at your words, the only visible reaction before her mask is slipping over the bottom of her face, stretching out up to pointed ears, all metallic and tinted a murky green. Then, she’s attacking.

It’s muscle memory, mostly, you think.

If you don’t think too hard about it, it could be like playing a game with a longtime friend from your childhood. You know the moves to make, you know how she’ll respond. It’s a constant push and pull, a balance which leaves only destruction behind, the path of the Green Goblin’s wrath tangible in each battle scene the two of you leave behind. You can’t beat her like this.

It’s her glitching that gives you a slight upper hand — and you send her careening off of her glider to the ground below.

Your heart squeezes suddenly in your chest as you watch her fall, her eyes wide in what could almost be perceived as fear. If you didn’t intervene, would she die? Would you have put an end to her story, once and for all, when you secretly hope there’s a cure out there for her? You can’t bear the thought of finding out, of watching her die, and so you foolishly dive after her.

A web to her midsection allows you to grip her before she hits the ground, and you set her down with a far more gentle hand than you would ever admit.

She says your name, then, a whispered version of it that sounds like Gwen. You think you can see her in those wide blue eyes, in that stare, and you approach with some caution. “Gwen,” You say, more of a question, “You with me?”

“I’m with you,” She answers, as you reach her side, as you resist the urge to pull off your mask. You’re so preoccupied staring at her expression that you don’t see the blade until it’s too late, your Spidey-sense failing you as you wallowed in your search for someone who was gone. “You sweet, predictable bug.” She spits then, twisting the blade she had sunk deep into your side, and you writhe, trying to move away from her.

“Arachnid!” Jessica Drew calls out, drawing the Green Goblin’s attention, allowing you to pull away from her slackened grasp. You leave the blade where it is, knowing your only slightly enhanced healing wouldn’t make up for the onslaught of blood that would pour from the wound. “I think that’s enough, Green Goblin.” Jessica says, riding a motorbike that you swore she didn’t have earlier. Nonetheless, she uses it to put even more space between you and your villain.

“You need a hand, kid?” A new voice asks, and a gloved hand reaches out for you where you had knelt against the tarmac. You look up, seeing a new Spider-man, but this one has his mask up, showing off his aged face and the bags underneath his eyes. You wave him off, staggering up to your feet, and clench your jaw as you stare at Green Goblin, watch as she pulls bombs from her waistband, barely the size of a chocolate bar, but capable of causing irreparable damage. “Get back to HQ, Arachnid, we can handle this.” Spider-man tells you, in what you suspect to be a fatherly voice, but you ignore him.

Time flies, slips out of your grasp, and you don’t know how long you and the others spend fighting Green Goblin, but she proves to be just as difficult of a foe for them to face as she was for you. Each time the three of you manage to get the drop on her, she slips away before she could be caught. It’s frustrating, and you can even see the way irritation thickens in the air, tangible.

Spider-man, or Peter, as Jessica had called him, is with you, focusing on trying to take Green Goblin down, whilst Jessica Drew is focused on damage control, blowing up Gwen’s bombs before they could hit their intended targets. You’re pretty sure the resident Spider-man is around here, too, pulling any lingering citizens out of harms way before Green Goblin could end them. You’d admit, it works better than you had done alone back on your own earth.

But it doesn’t work well enough, and more than one building is damaged almost beyond repair, and in the dust and rubble, Peter was distracted by the few citizens poking their heads out of the gaping hole in the side of their apartments. He didn’t see Green Goblin coming until it was too late, until she had thrown two of her bombs, one towards him, and one towards the already wrecked building.

Your throat dries up as you try to figure out what to do, who to go for, but in the end, you don’t have to choose.

Beams of glowing orange webs shoot into the bombs where they arc towards their victims, blowing them up and leaving both Peter and the civilians in the apartments without a scratch on any of them. Well, nothing that wasn’t already there before. You see him then, running alongside Jessica Drew, none other than Miguel O’Hara — who clearly didn’t think that the three of you were capable of handling Green Goblin.

“We’ve gotta end this.” Peter tells the three of you, glaring over at Green Goblin after coming so close to one of her bombs.

“You distract, I’ll go in.” You say, the only plan that makes sense. The only plan that’ll work. You wouldn’t be much use as a distraction, not with the blood still pooling around the blade hanging from your side, but you could beat her. You knew you could.

Peter nodded, and he, Jessica and Miguel went in one after another, landing hits on Green Goblin before she could even think to withdraw another bomb, or land a hit of her own, whilst you made your way behind her, swinging as high as you dared to go in your state. She was getting angry, you could tell, a distinct flush rushing up the back of her neck, a tell that Green Goblin shared with Gwen.

It was only when she was starting to turn the tide that you jumped down from your spot against the side of a building, looking for your opening.

She sent Jessica Drew tumbling off of her motorbike, which was your chance.

Green Goblin heard you only a moment before you were on her, not giving her a chance to make a countermove. Instead, you were curling your arms around her, as tight as you could, holding her hands away from her waistband. You gripped the blade in your side and yanked it out, holding it to her chest, breathing heavily through the pain as you bared your teeth at her, her face beside your own.

“Don’t make me kill you.” You say, and try not to hear the pleading in your own voice, the distinctive tone of a beg. You may have the upper hand on her, but as always, she had the power. “Don’t.” You repeat, because you can feel it in your bones that you would do it. If it was the choice between her or the hundreds that she would kill on this world, it would be those hundreds. There was no doubt about it, no questions to be asked.

You may have resented your mother, but she wasn’t the only one who died because of the Green Goblin. You wouldn’t let that happen again.

Perhaps she heard the plea in your voice, the giveaway that you weren’t bluffing, because she went still in your arms, still enough for the other Spiders to approach with some caution, eyes on her hands where you held them away from any weapons, using your forearm connected to the hand holding the blade to her chest to keep her left hand from grasping anything.

“I won’t be asking again.” You tell her, which is as much of a threat as you can muster. Or, more so, a promise.

As Miguel pushed you back with a firm hand, throwing a machine at Gwen’s feet, you think she understands. If the two of you are ever in that position again, there will be no hesitation about it. You will kill her.

“Good work, kid.” Peter says as Miguel and Jessica get to work with getting your Green Goblin through a portal to the HQ. He glanced down at where your hand is now pressing into your side, blood pouring steadily. In your other hand, you still hold the blade that had pierced your own skin, that would have killed Gwen Stacy had she not surrendered. He winces as if it’s him who got hurt, and guides you through the portal after the others. “C’mon, we’ll get you checked out. You not got enhanced healing?” He asks, though you suspect he doesn’t expect you to answer, and you’re glad.

∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘

“I can do this myself, you know.” You sigh, wincing as a Spider-man — who apparently is also a doctor and works in the Spider Society’s infirmary — stitches up the wound on your midsection. It’s uncomfortable, though less painful that when you do it yourself. Still, it’s uncomfortable to accept help from these strangers.

“Ooh, shouldn’t say that to him.” Peter B. Parker laughs, one of the many Peter Parkers of the Society, but the same one who had fought Green Goblin with you. “He’ll lecture you on proper healthcare for days if you give him the opportunity!”

The Spider-doctor glares at Peter, or you assume he does, from the slight squint of the lenses of his mask. He kisses his teeth under the mask, tutting, muttering about “Spiders and their complete disregard for their health. Lucky you haven’t died ten times over from infections.” But he doesn’t say anything that requires a response from you, and he soon finished up the stitches. He goes to offer to fix up the injury on your ankle, but you’re up on your feet before he can even get the words out.

“Now, I gotta get back home to the wife, but Miguel wants to see you. He’ll take you home,” Peter tells you as he walks out of the infirmary by your side, but he stops you in the hallway with a hand on your shoulder, surprisingly gentle. “If that’s what you want.”

Your eyebrows furrowed before you could stop them, and the confusion over his words must’ve been written all over your face.

“Why wouldn’t I want that?” You ask, defensively.

Peter opens his mouth, but nothing escapes. Instead, it’s his expression that tells you everything he’s thinking. The crease between his brows screams pitying, or sympathetic. He’s talking about the way you live back on your earth, about the life you lead, Arachnid by day, and by night. With no room for you, no room for your secret identity. He’s thinking of the way you’ll be returning to a world with nobody awaiting you, with not a soul to look out for you, to stitch you up after a battle. Nobody but yourself, anyway.

You pull away from him, brows furrowing further, into an almost angered expression, and you don’t watch the way his hand falls away from your shoulder back to his side. He sighs when you turn away, scoffing as you make your way through the hallways of the Lobby towards where you think Miguel will be.

It’s overwhelming, all of these people. They all believe that they know you, that they know your circumstances, your story, but the truth is that they don’t. Nobody does, and that’s the way you prefer it. You don’t need a Society of Spiders surrounding you, breathing down your neck, telling you they’re sorry, or not trusting you to handle yourself in your own fights, because you can handle yourself. You’ve spent the last year of your life trying to prove that, trying to prove that you can do good things, that you’re worthy of the title Arachnid. You certainly shouldn’t need to prove that to a whole Society of people like you, most of which had been doing the job a lot longer.

You’re capable and you’re content.

You don’t need a life as your secret identity to be content, in fact, it’s better without one. You don’t have to tell so many lies, don’t have to worry about hurting the people you love, because there are none of them left. There’s nobody to hurt, and there’s nobody to lie to. Why would you want to change that?

The hallway ahead looks familiar, and you follow it until you enter a room where Miguel stands, looking at orange tinted screens on a platform halfway up the room. You enter with the absolute certainty that you want to return to your own earth, and you’re not going to let anybody stop you.

“I’m ready.” You tell him, expectantly.

He scoffs, saying nothing, still staring at the screens in front of him. For whatever reason, the reaction makes you angry — inexplicably so. You’re slinging up to the platform before you can have a second thought about it, and you’re pushing his shoulder so he’ll face you, so he’ll acknowledge you.

He stares at you, unimpressed.

“Send me back to my earth.” You press, brows furrowed beneath your mask, but you’re sure he can see the anger in the way your shoulders tense up.

“Sure,” Miguel said blankly, staring at you as if you’d suddenly change your mind or something. “But you know, there’s a lot more like her.” He added on when you said nothing, waiting for him to send you back to your world so you could give him back the stupid watch still wrapped around your wrist.

You stared at him like he was speaking a foreign language. “There are no more like her.” You respond, feeling that hot press on your chest. You don’t want to talk about Gwen Stacy anymore than you’re sure he’d like to talk about whatever he had gone through in his life. Hell, you don’t even want to think about her, but you know that nobody else you would ever have to face would hurt you in the way that she did. In the way that having to see her as an enemy, rather than your friend, had hurt. So, yeah, there was nobody like her, not for you.

Miguel seems ready to let you go for a moment, but then he’s shaking his head at you. “You have a place here. You can be with people like you. You don’t have to do this alone, anymore.” He says, and you think that is ironic, because you don’t see anybody else in here. To you, it seems like he is doing exactly that; doing the job alone. You can practically see the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“I prefer being alone.” You tell him, and it has to be true. It has to be.

His jaw sets, acceptance, you think, and he nods. He glances past you, to where a portal was open on the floor below. Considering that you hadn’t seen him set up the portal, you’d wager that his AI Lyla must’ve listened in and done it for him. You pull the watch off of your wrist, relishing in the way your very atoms seem to sag with the weight of being in another dimension.

“Thanks.” You say, and drop down, landing on your sore ankle but not murmuring a word about the pain. You walk back to your world with your head held high, despite your tattered suit and multitude of wounds that would take days to stop hurting.

Miguel stares after you as the portal closes, eyebrows furrowed. He barely acknowledges Jessica Drew’s arrival in the room, already having known she had been lingering in the hallway, listening in. “Well, that went well.” She comments, glancing between where the portal had been and where Miguel stands, brooding. She knows how much pressure he puts on himself, and she knows that he cares about each and every Spider-person in the multiverse. It doesn’t take a Spider-sense to see the way in which you struggle. It’s a familiar struggle, sure, but there were so many Spiders across the multiverse who had a shoulder to lean on in their hardest times. Who did you have? There was no Aunt May for Arachnid, or Gwen Stacy, or Harry Osborne, or, well, anybody.

Jessica thinks that if anybody were to know exactly how that felt, it would be Miguel.

[0v3rcast]

Departure

You can give no more than you have already. You leave.

(Abandoning a relationship, for your own sake. Angst.)

(Content warnings: I dunno, it's just sad? Mentions of a failing relationship?)

Three bags of your belongings sit at your feet.

In the largest bag are your clothes. Not the clothes they'd given you or any of their clothes that you'd claimed - they are your clothes, both from before the relationship and that you'd purchased for yourself, as well as several sets of traveling clothing that you'd purchased a piece at a time in the past months.

In the second largest bag are your toiletries. Soaps for your skin and hair, a toothbrush and toothpaste, fine-toothed combs, several ornamental hairpins that had belonged to a relative, a small lint roller, and small bottles of both perfumes and colognes.

In the third bag are personal possessions. Mora, photos, a music box you'd been given as a young child, a favorite painting you'd removed from the frame and gently rolled up.

You take nothing of theirs. Nothing they'd given you. Nothing you'd found shared meaning in as a couple.

The weapon you'd learned to master rests against your leg from where you sit at the kitchen table a final time.

On the table lie the supplies you'll require to outline your grievances. Word of mouth does not carry the same hollow permanence as a written message.

It takes you some time to gather all of the scattered emotions in your chest into a tight, controlled ball.

Ink meets paper, pooling for a single solitary moment, and you begin to write.

'To my beloved:

I am sorry, but I can't do this any longer, and I suspect from your lateness and distance in recent months that neither can you.

At the beginning of our relationship, you were the only person I could see - no other living being on Teyvat had the same attractive nature you did. You were everything to me, and in some ways, you still are.

I have tried to sustain this crumbling connection we share, to preserve the magnetism that bound us so tightly. Every morning, if you are even still there when I wake, I do not recognize the person I see.

My concerns for your health seem to go unnoticed. When I make you a meal, you've either already eaten or are too tired to sit with me.

When I plead with you to rest, you refuse to, even though I can see the exhaustion in your eyes.

My presence seems to irritate you. Our conversations tend to either devolve into fights or slowly go quiet.

You feel as cold as your side of the bed we used to share.

When I ask you to join me on my trips to enjoy a night with others or to visit a restaurant, you are unavailable due to work or simply have no interest in the journey.

I know you have not been finishing what I make you. I have found the meals in the trash, often with very little having been eaten.

You have given me gifts in recent weeks. Trophies of your victories, symbols of your status, proof of your work. Once upon a time, I would have lovingly collected them and placed them in our home in such a way that all who visited would see them, would know my pride and love for you.

They are no replacement for your presence in my life. You cannot expect them to be an acceptable substitute for all the little moments we no longer spend together.

But I suppose I should thank you, as well. The argument we had last week has given me much to think on, including myself.

Your behavior leads me to a single conclusion: the fault lies with me.

Was I not enough?

Did my actions push you away?

Was it something I said?

...is there another, one who can take care of you the way I cannot?

Am I so thoroughly unsatisfying?

The answer doesn't particularly matter anymore.

I wish to ask for one final favor. You may reject it, but for both our sakes I hope you will humor it.

Find another. Move on. Heal from this. Live a life you will not regret. I will do the same.

Perhaps in another life, this would never have come to pass. But here it has.

I doubt we will meet again.

Thank you for everything. Thank you for pretending. Thank you for being here long enough to make me feel special.

Beneath this note you will find two stacks of documents. The first are a collection of every expenditure I have incurred during our relationship, in the form of invoices, receipts, and bills, itemized from most to least expensive.

The second stack are records of withdrawals from my private funds for the purpose of repayment, with signed affidavits from bank managers to confirm that I have done this of my own free will and through legally-accepted channels.

I cannot give you back your time. All I can do is return the money.

When you read this, I will be gone. The world is too vast to stay and fester miserably in the absence of you.

This is goodbye, both as a person and as your partner. I do not do this to hurt you, but to spare us both more misery.

I want you to be happier.

I love you.'

You gently lay the letter down, pack away your writing tools, and tuck them into the third bag.

The front door shuts behind you with a sense of finality, and your shadow slowly follows you in the afternoon light.

You leave the place you once thought of as a home with no outward expression of the grief and sorrow oozing inside of you like wicked poison.

Those who question your sudden departure are simply told you are going to visit family, but otherwise you say as little as possible.

When they come home, the stars now twinkling in the night sky, they find the note.

As you said, you are gone. You crept over the horizon with the sunset hours ago.

And the weight of your absence slowly begins to settle on their chest.

[1awkwardpotofsoup]

Dating Peter Lukas HCs

It’s not even funny, I need him so badly like Jesus Christ

Content Warnings: mild angst, drug use at the end

“Dating” an avatar of the lonely fucking sucks, sorry Peter simps(myself included)

Loneliness in itself only works if you’ve had the knowledge of company

All the spooky singles who end up entangled with the Lukas’ know this

And you're no different

You’re basically his glorified sugar baby wearing the branding of “partner” and you’re made to want for nothing

Except, of course, his company

You’re so deliciously lonely every time he comes back from one of his “expeditions” that he can savor you for weeks on end like a succulent slow-cooked meal

And then he leaves again, and somehow it still hurts every time

But the few times he is around he genuinely seems to enjoy your company, and you unfortunately enjoy his

His gentle tones, soft and far more disarming than they had any right to be, all carried by dry wit and superficial charm always made something inside you melt

He’ll occupy your time together with basic conversation and engage with whatever you try to talk to him about but in the end, you will always leave you feeling cold like you’ve been speaking to an empty room

He would be the epitome of the perfect partner if it weren’t for all his time at sea, or the hollowness of his company

He dotes on you with pretty little trinkets, expensive dinners, cars, and all the like having a rotation of staff care for your every whim

But it’s all unsatisfying, every new gift only serving to highlight further how big the house was and how lonely you were when in it

Despite the endless cycle new things to occupy the time you know he’ll never once think about you while in the solace of the seas

No matter how you try to push for a connection you’ll always end up alone, it’s simply his nature

Still, you cling to him like he’s your only anchor in an unending storm

And he lets you

Let’s you take his much larger hand into your own and squeeze to remind yourself he’s truly there

Occasionally he’ll place a chaste kiss on the back of your hand like some kind of gentleman

And you’ll giggle to yourself as fluffy curls of his beard tickle your skin

Other times you’ll sit on the lounge with him and listen to his tales of the sea while the two of you share one of his stupidly expensive cigars

For someone who spends so much time alone, he sure likes to hear himself talk

And talk he does, so lost in his words he sometimes even forgets you’re there

You’re not offended, to make him feel alone even in your company is somehow the best compliment you can ask for

He’ll regale you with tales of the sea, his eyes soft and distant, like he’s reminiscing over an old lover he can’t wait to see again

And you’ll draw in a long breath of the aromatic cigar

Then you’ll pass it to him and he’ll slot it between his lips so perfectly you’ll end up wishing it was your own mouth

So you’ll straddle his lap as he cocks a graying brow, pretending not to know what you want

But he doesn’t stop you from taking the cigar from his lips and letting you share in the exhale of smoke as you lean in to kiss him

He’ll kiss you back, of course, so achingly gentle it’ll almost feel like he loves you

He doesn’t, of course, but he likes to indulge your little fantasy. It makes your loneliness much more appetizing

And you don’t want him to love you, he wouldn’t be your Peter if he did, and you wouldn’t have him any other way

[sleepy-vix]

ok guys i finished the poppy war wtf. i feel so hollow right now. i feel so... unsatisfied by the ending but not necessary in a bad way??? i have to read the other books and see what happens but at the same time it feels so hopeless and i dont approve of rin as a main character anymore (tho i am aware that it doesnt matter whether i "approve" of her or not) but i will still definitely read the other books bc i loved the book overall. i just think that the storyline rn is very... surreal?

also,

(spoilers below)

i NEED TO KNOW what the fuck happened to nezha bc i just know that rf kuang has smtg cooking for him. my personal theory is that he didnt die from the gas bc he secretly is connected to the god of healing (hence why his spine healed so fast and enki speculated abt his dragon insigna) and so hes alive and maybe imprisoned? maybe he was sent to a science lab to, or he somehow ran away, or he pretended to join forces?? idrk but im sure that hes alive and its got to do with his dragon insignia

im so sad that everybody from sineguard died/isnt in the story anymore (other than kitayyyyyy thank god. im so glad he reappeared) bc i tbh dont feel much of an attachment toward the cike members 😭 like idk i love Qara and Chaghan but the others are eh to me, like i would trade their presence for Irjah's or Raban or Niang or EVEN JUN 😭 tho im just being sentimental, i dont actually mean it. (tho i would like to see a jun reappearance and redemption...)

oh btw i think i rate this a 4/5 star read

my criticisms are as such:

- the middle part where they kept losing was very dreary (tho i imagine kuang was trying to make it seem desperate/devastating and tense, it was just droll to read tbh).

- the sudden reconciliation between nezha and rin felt very unnatural (like i understand the feeling of "who cares abt our petty rivalry when theres literally a whole ass war happening?" but then again, this is just fiction and it wouldve been nice to read their familiar banter- or at least have it dragged out a bit before the reconciliation). i feel like it was just very unnatural, unless.... unless nezha fell in love with Rin when she erupted into flames at sineguard???? if THAT happened then i feel like the reconciliation would make alot more sense bc when nezha came to khurdalain it was like he was desperate to make Rin like him/forgive him ???

- a few things were pretty predictable. it was pretty obvious that Jiang was the gatekeeper, which was disappointing because if that was a little less obvious, i feel like the scene were Rin and Altam discover Jiang in the Stone Mountain would've had a bigger emotional impact on the reader (me)

though here are the things i liked:

- Rin at the first half of the book was the best mc everrrr

- Kitay. i have nothing wrong with Kitay. he's my favourite for sure

- Jiang's style of teaching (i loved how they just conversed and would come to nonsensical philosphical questions that made Rin frustrated but made Jiang delighted. eg "Why do people dream what they dream?")

- the way Kuang described the god realm vs the human realm. it was all very believable and assured. it wasn't vague at all, in my opinion. theres ofc alot of questions abt the different planes still, but the genius of it is that she wrote about it in a way that assured that it was normal to have questions, and even more normal to not get answers for them, and that we should just accept it (idk, thats the vibe i was getting. like, she didnt say "just believe it" as an excuse for lazy writing, she said "just believe it" because, well, just believe it.)

ok yeah thats all i have to say for now :)

if you've read the poppy war, PLEASEEE INTERACT (no spoilers tho pls)

[proverbsss]

lion's den pt.2 (john tyler x reader) - nsfw

[read pt 1 here]

John Tyler, Tell Me Your Secrets

prompt(s): "Right there, that feels so good." [from this post]

notifs: john tyler is a bad bad man ; john's drugged and restrained reader, long-term ; in my mind this is cnc and i want people to consume media safely pls!! ; cutting clothes off with a blade, threats of bodily harm, John Tyler says 'jeepers' in a sexy way and this is the hill I will die on; explicitly AFAB reader; John objectifies you and defiles you in his thoughts; John says he loves you ; nipple play, vaginal fingering, penetrative sex, clit rubbing, breeding, talk of john's dick size, john's aroused by your spit and tears, i'm going to hell

terms used for reader: lady, girl, pretty slut, sweet girl, beautiful

“Someone didn’t wear anything underneath tonight,”

John is peppering your face and neck with kisses. Adrenaline, and maybe something else you can’t bring yourself to admit to, are sharpening your focus. His warm, strong hands, having pushed your shirt hastily up to your neck, his fingers are wandering your chest now, the fingers of one finding one of your tits.

Decisively, softly, John squeezes your soft flesh and his thumb grazes your nipple. Then. You let out a little whine and John crushes you to him, his free hand cradling your head, pressing your face to the neck of his patterned shirt. Nothing to his smell is descript, deodorant, laundry detergent.

“Taking notes, huh cutie? Trying to figure out how I got so close, so inside your life? I know it’s a lot,” Laying this fake-pity on heavily, he pinches harder and twists your nipple, thrusts against your thigh–and you’re suddenly twice as aware of every place his body is touching yours, of which limb is where, because you can feel–him.

He grinds on you like a horned up dog, barely noticeable movements that get a little faster, a little more insistent each time. ”Sorry, it’s just so, so good to see you. I'm more than a little excited…”

"What do you want from me?" You're saying, but it's hollow, robotic. "Please don't hurt me." You put on as brave, as fierce a face as you can, but with the cocktail of fear and whatever John’s drugged you in your bloodstream, it'd be a flat out lie to deny that he is making you wet.

Seriously wet. Sex of any sort hasn’t been something you have a lot of time for lately. Your body's only human and is under a chemical onslaught provoking these needy impulses to boot.

"I only hurt ladies when they ask me for it." He says. That's anything but reassuring, especially the way he speaks it as half-joke, half-threat. And especially as it's all he says before burying his face in your chest, somewhere between your neck and your breasts, that sensitive plane of your clavicle that no one ever seems to pay attention to.

Make that no one except John Tyler. He's tuned into every bit of feedback your body offers, thrilled at how you respond to his lips sucking, then biting, then lapping gingerly at every inch of your skin in front of him. He waited like a good boy, now he's basking in all this reward. "Are you going to?"

He asks, panting warm breaths in the narrow, sensitive canal between your breasts. He's freed both his hands now and is running them deliciously up your sides, smiling when he hits a spot that tickles or makes you squirm. You're so dizzy with conflicted emotion, with need for his mouth, his breath everywhere all at once, that you can't remember what he's asking.

John reads your thoughts. "Are you going to ask me to hurt you?"

Something primal and unsatisfied shakes loose inside of you and rather than answer in words a loud whine comes pleading out of you. Like before, but louder, more lost. Yes, your body cries out, please, anything you want.

"Yeah?" He mimics your neediness, condescension and want thick in his throat. "Is that what you need from me? That's why you closed the store by yourself? You wanted someone to come along and do this?" He's watching you the way a predator watches its next meal, happy to let the game go on, to keep you in suspense until he himself can't resist.

"Well I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,” he murmurs into your chest, "you don't have to worry anymore." he leaves on you yet another frenzy of kisses, too adoring and sweet to be those of a man who’s tied you up and plans to…and plans to…

Curse his pretty, long-lashed puppy-dog eyes. Now he lifts his head, keeping those eyes pinned to yours, and takes one of your tits into his mouth. You squirm all the harder, to get away? To get more? But John has you now, and he lets go of teething your nipple to groan, "I hope you can forgive me for doing it this way. Knew you were meant for me. Fuck, these tits…" his teeth again find those sensitive little places on the bud of your nipple that shut off whatever sector of your brain remained functional. "You are so delicious. You know that, I hope."

He mirrors the placement of his mouth and a free hand so that the other nipple benefits from the ministrations of his mouth while the hand squeezes the one he's left wanting.

"Did you just say 'please?' Did you?" Did you? It spilled from your lips without even forming as a conscious thought. You can't speak. You can't think. All you know, have ever known, seems to be this craving for more and more of John. It's an eerie, seasick heat that charges your lust for him. It crashes and spikes over your invisible, almost entirely forgotten fear and resistance to all of this, which has sunken to the very bottom of your attention like a drowned sailor screaming out the last of their oxygen in vain. John's hypnotic voice draws you back up to the surface.

"Already begging. Boy did I get lucky." His ridiculously skillful tongue elicits a ridiculously wanton string of moans from you and now both of you are finding a rhythm grinding against each other. He comes back up for a kiss on your lips, puts all his weight into thrusting properly and says into your mouth, "Yes, oh God, yes, just like that. Right there, that feels so good."

He's shaking and you're shaking and the bed is creaking and you might get close to an orgasm just like this, inhibitions are so deep beneath your conscious mind they might as well have never been. "Pretty, pretty slut, you're mine now. Maybe I can't get you to admit it in words, but I'd bet anything I have that your pussy is soaked for me."

The friction of your clothed wetness and the cock twitching to burst free from his trousers is intense. That hunger pang to be full, to take his length inside you comes from deep down and when he stops in midair above you your hips wiggle involuntarily.

"I have to see. Have to feel," he talks more to himself. So quickly he is crawling back down the length of the bed, fingertips grazing the sides of your abdomen, digging into the tender dip where your lower belly ends and the waistband of your jeans, ever an obstacle, begins.

"Gonna have to leave these down around your ankles, cutie. Can't risk you kicking and struggling for the sake of untying these little legs. Lift up."

Dominant, borderline paternal in a way you could never admit or compromise to by the light of day, John's simple command hotwires a response out of you and almost without volition you lift your hips so that he can pull your jeans down your thighs, your shins, to your ankles.

"Jeepers, you're wet for me. I didn't doubt that you liked it, but this. This is very flattering, I could cum in my pants like a junior high schoolboy. Not going to, it would be a tragedy not to fuck you tonight. But I very much could. Gonna touch you now."

It's a statement, not a request, that prefaces John's dragging one firm, curious digit across the wet spot over your slit. Your hips, thighs, hell even your back and upper body are involved as you buck against the contact. More. You're desperate in a way that's totally foreign to you. Both of you sense a shift toward urgency.

The pretense of charm, if it was lingering, now drops darkly and abruptly out of John's demeanor. You can see gears click away in his head, later you'll know he was cementing a mental image of you as his property, was 'thingifying' you. "Gonna fucking ruin you. This cunt is so needy, it's killing me."

You drip, you know you do, at the sound of his words, and the hypersensitive feeling of John pulling your panties to the side to feel your wetness firsthand.

"Okay, these are in my way," he practically growls, pulling a small pocketknife from his trousers and sneaking a finger under one leg of your panties to safely cut them off. "I don't want you to bleed just yet, and I really don't want to lose a finger. But they're coming off."

In an instant, he's sliced through the waist of your underwear on one side, then matched the action on the other side, so like the petals of the most sinful flower, John pulls the torn cloth covering away from your pussy. You spread for him, again never making up your mind to do so beforehand, and squirm at the sensation of being fully on display for him.

He takes his hands off your pussy, dances featherlight touches across your thighs, that gorgeous junction where your hips end and tummy begins, the soft hill of your pelvic bone. “Almost. Ask me for it.”

Your cloudy eyes search his, finding stormy resolve and almost no trace of the gentleness that hangs around in his voice like a lure for unsuspecting prey.

“Come on. No free rides. Not for me, not for you. Ask me to touch you.”

You search your mind for the defiant nerve that wanted to say, to scream ‘no.’ But there’s nothing but a dull throb between your legs watching his pretty fingers waltz across your skin. “Um. Please,”

John’s nostrils flare. Well that’s not quite good enough. “Please ‘what’?” he sing-songs, toothy grin catching the light above you. His sharp teeth. You never had time to notice how fang-y they look.

You’ve also never had anyone make you beg in bed. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say you liked it. Or…part of you did.

“Please John…your fingers…”

To make matters worse, he takes two digits into his mouth and sucks on them. He watches you enjoy the sight. Relishes the power.

“These?” he asks, performatively dorky, “where do you want them?”

You calculate a trillion possibilities. Thrashing your way out of these restraints like some superhuman adrenaline fiend. Giving into the dubious want hammering in your bloodstream. Kicking him in the groin–well, not that one, you can’t do that one. John pulls you out of the internal debate and shakes you pretty roughly by the shoulders. The fingers that went in his mouth are still wet on your shoulder. You wince.

“Nothing worth having comes easy, you slut. I’m not talking to myself anymore. Speak.”

“I want your fingers…in me, in my pussy, please.”

“‘That’s a good girl.” John smirks appreciatively. He drags his fingers down your shoulder, your upper arm, your forearm. “You’re so lucky you were specific, I might have had to play with your ass.”

You’re familiar enough with your own body to know that whenever anyone has even barely touched you there, they haven’t taken enough time for it to be enjoyable. So it’s a scary thought. As John meant it to be.

“Another time. For now…” His fingers continue their slow glide down your sides, the outside of your thighs. Then in a swift gesture, his hand drifts torturously above your pussy. His middle finger almost grazes your clit. “Tell me again.”

“I want your fingers in my pussy.”

That bottomless, hungry blackness comes into his expression again and he pushes that same middle finger inside your cunt. You gasp a bit as he strokes the tender heat he finds inside you, brushes little spots that make you want to buck against him and squirm away from him at the same time.

“Hello, beautiful. Do it. Fucking open up for me.” His encouragement flowers in your subconscious and your hips thrust toward more of that feeling. That fucking feeling. John lets you have your fun. His cock stiffens at the thought of your resistance dropping away. You grind your mind away on his one rough finger and he watches you like you're something to eat. Which you are, but that's for another time too. Because he's feeling fucking restless.

"Ah, if you're close, you have to tell me. You're not cumming on anything but me." he promises, and you believe it enough to stop thrusting in the direction of the sensation that feels so good, so everything. "Does that mean you're ready? Can you nod for me?"

You do. Just why you do is something you'll deal with by daylight, if you ever get out of this place. But it's an irretrievable truth now that you want to get fucked by him, to feel him. John's eyelashes flutter as he strips off his pants and underwear in a clumsy, reckless rush, and then he's back on top of you. His ankles touch where yours are tied up. And his length bumps wetly against your stomach.

That is...primally exciting and frightening all in one go. Your senses scream that there's no way you'll be able to take him even as John lines himself up with your entrance and starts to enter you.

Slowly. You're reminded suddenly of your heartbeat. It's not the kind of opening up that can be achieved in one sloppy, marginally satisfying stroke. John is stretching you beyond what you thought possible, and he's slow, but he isn't prepared to wait forever.

This is the law of balance, he thinks, smirking to himself as he watches the naked fear and want in your face. I scratch your back, you let me fuck your slutty cunt into oblivion.

You can’t hold him. You’ll come apart, the world is coming apart.

John lets go of a deep, deep sigh, cock still so unbearably deep inside you. “Mmmm. I know, I know, I’m a little big, you can take it, good-girl-good-girl…”

You haven’t spoken in 45 seconds to a minute. Some sense of the present seems to have left your eyes, dripped out through your cunt. A gorgeous silvery little teardrop is in the corner of your eye. Impulsively, gripping your wrists, John leans down and licks it. You wince away from the feeling.

John lets go of a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, tastes you on his tongue. 

“Please,” you whine meaninglessly. Please don’t hurt me. Please untie me. Please fuck me. Please let me go. Your desires are all confused.

“S’fucking good.” his hips move a little, he doesn’t even thrust on purpose. Just needs you. 

You let out a little cry. The pressure is immense. You’re wet, but he is so much bigger than anything or anyone you’ve ever taken inside. 

“Oh yes. More of that. Fucking give that to me,” he pants out, capturing your mouth in another enveloping kiss to swallow your sounds as he starts to move with a bit more intention. So much. 

The bed creaks under you as John finds a rhythm he enjoys that you're grateful isn't ripping you apart. You've never had this level of internal vertigo between pleasure and pain. Your vision is blinded white. And this isn't going to last long.

"You make me wanna be a better man," John laughs to himself, half-serious and half-mad with lust. "Fuck, I want to touch you more than anything. You'll cum if I rub your clit, I know you will."

You let out a loud moan as he fumbles a hand and finds a sensitive nub at the arch of your pussy. He's so distracted that initially all he does is lay a hand on you, deadweight, vaguely good but not nearly enough. You're so far gone that you try and fail to wrench your arms free and cover his hand with one of your own.

He entertains toying with you this way and not indulging what you so clearly want. But really, more stimulation is just going to make you gush. And that is something John Tyler needs to see and feel before he dies.

He reads you with his index and middle finger as he did before with his mouth, and attentive, filthy pitcher ears. You like a bit of circularity, and a little bit of pressure--so slippery now his hand slips off you now and again and he laughs, laughs. You watch him get lost in it and get rougher, and if there's any trace of fear left in you under his ministrations, you're climbing too high to be brought back down by it. You've heard people say their mind so empties, so fills up with pleasure that sex feels like the soul leaving the body. This must be your version of it.

Fate has it happen under the constricting body of big bad John Tyler, but there really is no time to worry about that. "Yeah. Good. Fuck." Even he's growing less eloquent.

Your walls clench down around him and release starts as an intense wave curling your toes. "Yeahfuck-cum-I'm gonna cum inside you. You know you want it. You know, you know, you know me--" he chants, a groan leaving his lips as you shake up apart and cum on his length. He spills his seed inside you, warm, sticky, satisfying, foreign.

"Oh..." You say, a small, animal noise having met the brink of your presence of mind and gone past. It sounds surprised, and sweet, and bruised, and fucking filthy.

"I love you, noisy girl. Fuck I love you," John sighs, collapsing over your body, his face in your neck. "Never fucking letting this go. Never never never..."

[melongraph56]

This survey will contain questions that may be of a concerning manner, and could cause discomfort.

By selecting 'I Understand', you consent to this experience.

Did he really understand?

(cheeky response to @yogscastshipbracket's survey)

A zap of electricity stung the chill of night. The energy made its way down from the heavens striking an artifact in the hands of a being sitting in front of a fire, crackling against the sounds of rustling leaves blowing in the wind. The crystal gem encased with refined metals pulsed with a soft hue in his palm. He held it up as it conjured a mirage, the following words appeared:

[SURVEY_024.GF]

[PLEASE RESPOND]

It can't be... How have they sent him a message? A Yoglabs rat escapee. A better question how did they find him? He ensured there wasn't a trail attached to him when he ran. Though the message was something he didn't expect, it was a form. To be honest, if he were to receive word from the facility, they wouldn't have said a thing especially, if it was a warning if they found him.

His empty hand rose to the holographic screen created by his communication stone, reading the terms and conditions. His hand reeled back in hesitation before he could press 'I Understand', he shouldn't. It would expose him, leading him back to being captured and locked away for more testing. The underground laboratory's precious sentient being, created from a plant of unknown origin to house ancient magicks. They've been constructing a method to hone such magical strengths for quite some time and he was the product of their curiosities.

His lip quivered as his chest tightened, holding in a breath. He found himself pressing next, proceeding through the survey. Slowly his index scrolled through the form, clicking each answer that applied to him. Why is he taking part in this? More than half of the questions didn't make sense to him. This was a trap, he knows it is. However, something innate compelled him to keep responding. Perhaps it was all the testing done to him. He felt like he had to or else he'd suffer consequences if he didn't comply.

He answered as honestly as he could but by restrictions of the survey, or possibly it was his will faltering, the choices became limited to one answer.

Are you sure?

No.

The answer contradicted his response to the previous question. He could change his answers around to make it correct though that would be lying. The situation felt forced, a trick question to keep him stumped and left pondering. A common trend the scientists used against him as they quizzed him on his intellectual abilities. He was unsatisfied with his choice but he had to move on.

Is the chip in your neck active?

A hand shot to the nape of his neck, scratching at bandages hidden under his cloak. He felt himself take a sharp breath through his nose, his chest rising. There shouldn't be a chip in there, he removed it as soon as he could when he escaped their clutches.

Have you lied to me?

No.

Are you sure?

The magical artifact cracked under the strength of his grasp, his other hand tugging away at the medical dressings around his neck. He touched little tuffs of hair and bare skin as he ran his fingers back and forth searching for the wound. Where- He furrowed his brows. It should be- No... No no no. The wound, it should be here, right? He clenched his jaw as his breathing picked up. He can't- Why can't he find it? His fingernails dug into his neck, his eyes wide as he stood up. He could feel his magic swirling through his veins causing his heart to beat even faster than it was previously.

He threw the messenger stone straight into the campfire set at his feet. The fire swelled and engulfed the new fuel source, the smooth iron finish tarnished under the heat, turning black with soot. He closed his hollowed eyes and took a deep breath, allowing his body to calm itself, though he couldn't shake away that feeling. He couldn't bring himself to finish the rest survey, not like he could anyway. He opened his eyes once again and stared into the flames, watching his gadget char. The screen remained for a short period before it frizzed and faded as the last of the magic stored in the device disappeared. He caught a glimpse of the last line of the form before it was gone for good,

You really shouldn't worry about it.

A chill ran down his spine, taking in a staggered breath. Even though he was near a fire, he shivered. He packed his things with haste and left just as fast into the night.

[being-of-rain]

I wasn’t really a big fan of The Giggle by the time I finished watching it, and I liked it less the more that I thought about it. Which is a real shame, because I think it was full of a lot of great ideas that were squandered with poor execution. I didn’t really want to just post pages of negativity, so I’ll quickly skim through a list of things I think could’ve been done better, and maybe I’ll expand on some of them later or if I’m asked about them. Still, this is your warning for negativity.

The whole 'screens are evil and making everyone think they're right' felt so shallow and cheap, especially because it was set up as the main obstacle and then largely ignored. A lot of the characters at UNIT really didn't do much (I totally forgot about The Vlinx after my first watchthrough) but I think that didn't bother me much while watching because I was used to Chibnall regularly ignoring characters like that. It was nice to see Mel again, but she didn’t really serve much purpose.

RTD’s take on the Toymaker is quite similar to his take on the Master, which was sometimes fun and sometimes annoying (specifically the German accent, which lost its appeal pretty quickly for me). But he felt pretty hollow and full of wasted potential beyond that, feeling like he was there just to give the episode a villain. Although speaking of the Master, his brief inclusion was hilarious and an easy way to write him back into the show later, nicely done.

The last third of the episode had some many intriguing and potentially awesome ideas behind it. The new Doctor turning up partway through a story? Cool! The Doctor defeating his final villain alongside the next star of the show? Fun! The Doctor getting self-care and words of wisdom from his next self? So heartwarming! One Doctor retiring to be happy while his next incarnation travels off to continue the adventures? A fun use of the show's format!

But for me these ideas just didn’t work or didn’t fulfill their potential, and it’s mostly because there’s no narrative justification for them. No cause and effect. There’s no given reason for the Doctor to bigenerate, it just happens. There’s no particular reason that it was the Doctors rather than the Toymaker who won the game of catch to save the world, it just happens. Without any narrative reason the third act feels so unsatisfying, like spectacle for the sake of spectacle, and (I don’t say this lightly) incredibly lazily written.

That lack of story reason also undermines the ending, clearly the thing RTD was most interested in, by making it feel unearned. Like a first draft script that worked backwards to make it happen. The retirement ending itself I have mixed feelings about, which I’m not sure I can fully articulate. One thing I love to see is that RTD can actually do a genuinely happy ending rather than making every ending a tragedy. But said happy ending feels a little too ‘married-with-kids-and-a-white-picket-fence’ to me – though obviously I can’t stress enough how relieved I am that romance didn’t factor into it. It just felt like it wasn’t set up well enough. I’d probably like it a lot more if they made clear if Tennant’s Doctor was going to turn into Gatwa’s Doctor or if they’re just separate people now. It was sweet of RTD to try and bring a conclusion to the ‘Doctor is traumatised’ thing that he introduced to the show 18 years ago, but he did it poorly. At least it offers interesting new possibilities for the show going forward!

With all that said, in the end The Giggle felt to me like RTD retreading some of his biggest flaws as a writer, and throwing in a few borrowed from other showrunners for good measure. It was a disappointment both because of the good ideas just below the surface, and because it came after a very fun first episode and an incredible follow-up.

But like I said, I’m excited to see what the show does next! I saw talk that there’ll be lots of mythical and unnatural creatures turn up due to the Doctor’s salt thing, which is super cool. And obviously I’m excited for more Gatwa! I haven’t really felt a lot of reason to be excited about Ruby yet, but as always I’m ready to fall in love with the new companion quickly!

[bigfan-fanfic]

Writing Game 1.2: Disappointment

Prompt: Disappointment Pairing: Geralt/Link

Hope y'all are enjoying these! Drop a comment or an ask if you want me to start up another poll to do another one!

So, this Link is sort of an amalgam of all of them, though most closely linked (pun not intended) to the Breath of the Wild or Twilight Princess ones.

Geralt knows, deep in his soul, he can never let Dandelion know what he's thinking at this moment. Knows the bard would be oh-so-giddy to know that Geralt finds himself perplexed and uncertain at times when his companion remains so silent.

"Oh, looks like the shoe's finally on the other foot, eh, Wolf?" he'd say, perhaps. Or worse, he'd compose a ballad on how the quiet, stoic witcher met his match in the silence provided by the young swordsman he traveled with.

Link sits, staring into space with more than just his usual silence permeating the air between them. If it were normal silence, Geralt could easily tolerate it, but the lad was... if he weren't so stoic, Geralt would have thought he was distraught. Something in him had a kindred spirit in the Hero, though he was just a wanderer who stumbled into Hyrule, into a legend not his own. Geralt knew what it was like to be entangled in the games of Destiny, and he resolved then that the lad would not be alone in her grasp.

"Another one of those damn temples cleared. A good sign of progress." he began neutrally. It was still so awkward to be on this side of the silence. Geralt was beginning to feel some sense of sympathy for Dandelion. "And yet you seem... unsatisfied."

Link turned his head to look at him and sighed softly.

"You thought you'd find her there." Geralt states. It's not in his nature to dance around the point. "Your princess."

A nod. Geralt wonders if his own eyes can convey such a feeling of being lost. Wonders if he's ever mirrored the lad's unspoken need for a companion, a friend.

"I've had my share of lost people. And that... that ache of missing them. Every corner you turn a fresh disappointment. A reminder that you're still... incomplete."

Link's eyebrows furrow, but he's turned fully to face Geralt across the campfire, across the pot that the witcher still isn't sure how Link managed to make a wonderful meal from (Geralt has eaten better on the road with the Hero of Courage than ever before and he isn't sure how to feel about that).

"But... I still found 'em. In the end. What I'm trying to say is that while it hurts like hell, while you can feel the separation and distance in the hollows of your bones... it doesn't mean you're a failure." Geralt's hands move as he speaks, as if trying to help impel the words and impress them on his companion's heart. "I'm not... good with words. I know it all sounds like the shit anyone would say to try and make you feel better..."

Link chuckles a little at that. Geralt forestalls the tide of words and lets out a soft chuckle of his own.

"We'll find her. And we'll make them pay for it."

The smile becomes a grin - a little violent, but at least the gloom was dispelled. Geralt nods, pleased.

Link's smile softens, and then turns to a curious look. "Your... lost ones. You found them?"

"Yeah." Geralt cracks his neck, stretching. "Dandelion tells the story better. My Child Surprise. My... daughter."

"Surprise?" Link raises his eyebrow, lips quirking in amusement.

"Oh, great, now I have to explain the Law of Surprise..."

The night passed in story - though gruff, Geralt was not a poor storyteller by any means, and finally there was an audience that could relate with him. And Geralt chased the lad's disappointment and heartsickness away with his own stories, sure that one day their goal would be within reach.

[kemendin]

Contentment

What can I say, I woke up today and chose snuggles. Small sequel scene to my fic ‘Cover Your Crystal Eyes’.

Jedi Knight x Lord Scourge Words: 925

The first morning he wakes up next to Scourge, Cas turns a look over his shoulder, and smiles.

They must have shifted positions during the night. He remembers being settled on top of Scourge, drifting off with his head tucked beneath the other’s chin, feeling the slow swell and fall of the Sith’s broad chest beneath his cheek.

Now Scourge is a bulwark of warmth against his back, his body not so much moulded to Caspian’s as Cas is to him. One weighty arm is wrapped easily around the Jedi, his scarlet hand spread over the dark skin of Cas’ abdomen, where he can feel the steady rhythm of his partner’s breathing against his palm.

Cas studies the Sith fondly for another moment, soaking in the view, before passing an idle glance around the cabin of his ship. Early sunlight is threading itself through the narrow windows, melding with the muted glow of the gold-lit panels that border the walls and floor. With the Seeker at rest in its glade behind the Alliance base, and no other occupants aboard, the entire ship is so quiet, so calm, and the Commander is basking in it.

Sighing happily, Cas shifts himself closer against Scourge, sinking deeper into the Sith’s heavy embrace. Sleep is still dragging at his eyes and his brain, and the temptation to succumb to it again is undeniable. But there’s something to be said for savouring this as well, this liminal place between consciousness and slumber, where his entire existence has been reduced to the softness of sheets and the warmth of unyielding muscles now relaxed against him in repose.

A tiny smirk pulls at the Jedi’s lips. The irony of the situation has not escaped him; that for all the Jedi Order’s talk of finding serenity, and clarity, and peace, Cas has at last found all of this here: in the powerful, protective arms of a Sith.

Absently he seeks out Scourge’s hand with his own, weaves his fingers into the empty spaces between the Sith’s stronger digits. To his surprise he feels a slight squeeze in response, and then a tickle of breath across his ear.

“Awake so soon, Jedi?” Scourge’s voice is a thick hum that Cas can almost feel upon his skin.

Caspian rolls back against Scourge, turning his head around to regard him. The sight of the Sith’s half-lidded yet still-bright gaze causes his smile to broaden into a lopsided grin.

“I wasn’t sure you’d still be here,” he admits.

“I promised I would be,” replies Scourge. There’s a light rebuke in the tilt of his browstalks. “And I keep my promises.”

“Well, in that case - good morning, Scourge,” Cas says, more brightly. He cranes his head farther to deposit a blithe kiss on the nearest of the Sith’s chin tendrils.

“Good morning, Jedi,” returns Scourge, before nuzzling his face into Caspian’s silver hair and inhaling deeply.

Cas laughs a little. “Does my hair smell that good?” he teases.

Scourge considers. “It smells - like you,” he answers after a moment, slightly muffled, and Cas chuckles again. He understands that this is as good as a ‘yes’. 

Raising his head again, Scourge lets out a low groan of satisfaction and tightens his hold around the Jedi. “You are a very sound sleeper, Caspian,” he goes on. “I was beginning to wonder if you would ever wake up.”

Cas makes a wry expression at this. “I’m not, usually. But this….” He exhales a similarly contented sound, and tilts his head back, and smiles again when he feels Scourge meet the crown of his head with a kiss. “This was the best I’ve slept in… years. No tossing and turning, no waking up in the middle of the night. No awful dreams.”

Scourge hums deeply again. “I have not felt this well-rested for as long as I can remember,” he agrees. “Being bound by the Emperor’s ritual, I was not disturbed by dreams - but sleep was always hollow and unsatisfying. And the return of my emotions only made me more restless.”

With some effort, Cas manages to squirm onto his back while remaining cradled against his partner. He reaches up and brushes his thumb across Scourge’s lips, and the Sith’s mouth quirks beneath his touch.

“Ssshhh,” the Jedi scolds him, still smiling. “Don’t talk about all that, you’ll ruin the moment.” His forefinger strokes along the other’s ridged cheek. “None of that matters right now, remember? It’s just us, here, together.”

He stretches up to catch Scourge’s mouth in a full, tender kiss - only to have this blissful sentiment rudely interrupted by the sound of the ship’s hatch opening. A moment later the familiar trill of an astromech droid burbles from the central deck.

Scourge lifts a browstalk, pushing himself up on one elbow and glancing towards the door, even as Cas falls back with a disappointed groan.

“Just us - and the droid,” the Sith corrects drily. “I suggest you relay to him that there is no more room in the bed, before he starts getting ideas.”

A whir of servos approaches the cabin door. [T7 = bringing breakfast for Jedi + Sith!] comes the proudly beeped announcement.

Cas lets out a loud sigh, and looks up at Scourge. “What d’you think?” he asks ruefully. “Should we let him in?”

Several light thuds vibrate from just outside - like an astromech droid is running repeatedly into the door.

“I think,” says Scourge matter-of-factly, now speaking over the distinctive sound of a lock being overridden, “that we are being given very little choice in the matter.”

[davekat-sucks]

agreed completely with last anon. i think the problem is, or at least what could have caused all of these misunderstandings and miscommunications, is that the truth is that Hussie has never been really good at writing character arcs, what he IS good at is at writing memorable characters with unique voices and visually appealing simple designs. and that's because, technically, he somewhat stole them from other media or started from referencing character tropes from old movies, homestuck has always been a mix of many different 80-90s media. so for example, the humans are stereotypical movie/comic characters (john= dorky nerd protag, dave = cool best friend, rose = snarky goth, jade = girl next door), and that's what makes the audience instantly like them, because they are familiar, but, at the time, modernized in a way that was actually entertaining with in-depth interests, different viewpoints, and funny chemistry. it's all that has worked for years concentrated in an easy to digest mold that gave it the potential to be something more than usual. and yet, john, jade and rose had ZERO character growth, dave had negative and became a fucking douchebag, and these four don't even act like friends anymore by the end of the story. what the fuck.

it also happened with the trolls, because as i said before, how did the "chosen one" character that was said to be caring and the second coming of christ ended up as admiring the tyrannical ruler that genocided his race and did nothing afterwards except be dave's sidepiece and never talking to his friends again. who the fuck would like that for a conclusion to his story? there is nothing satisfying about it, why should i now be invested in Karkat in hs2, if he is a bad friend with bad morals that ends up amounting to nothing? Hussie wrote that i shouldn't, that's what i get for assuming real people have character arcs, karkat was never meant to be a leader, but sea hitler jr, meenah, sure was.

that's what makes it unlikable and what causes disconnect between fans. he subverted not only the trope, but also the little character building he himself wrote, and ended up with confusing themes. he didn't do the hard job of keeping a consistent structured plot until the end, he just applied twists as convenient to act smugly cynical about it afterwards, like he's allergic to sincerity. you also see this with how he treated johnrose/davejade or karezi, or how he says davekat and now june were always meant to happen all along.

and so, what some fans like about karkat or dave, for example, is not what they actually achieved or did in the source story, because they ended up with nothing and also their wiki page was too long to read, but the fandom idealization of them. and that's how you get the wildly ooc dialogue you see in hs2, the writers see nothing wrong with this, dont understand how to separate their personal bias from these characters or what was actually appealing about them in the first place, and what we end up with are projections of who THEY would like to see in a story: characters that act like the writers themselves. hollow self-centered assholes with no sense of humour disconnected from reality that communicate via twitter memes, therapy speak, and the trendy political issue of the day, all so they can pat each other on the back and feel better about amounting to very little in life too, now with semi-canonical homestuck facepaint on.

sorry for the armchair psychology, but my conclusion is, what closure i try to give myself from this shitpile of a franchise, is to view it as a cautionary tale of caving to social pressure and treating people that find value in your work like shit. homestuck ended in a very unsatisfying way for many, and it continues to get worse because it's easier to call someone a bigot and double down on your beliefs than concede you made a mistake, wasted so much time and have no idea how to fix it.

Yes to everything said here! Say it loud for everyone to hear! I dislike when Hussie or people use the excuse that he was just SUBVERTING expectations. Not questioning on why even built it up in the first place if it meant NOTHING at all. It's a complete waste of time. And not in an ironic sense. A waste of time and emotion audiences felt before being slapped in the face and kicked in the balls for even caring. Like, I know Hussie is known for trolling. He made himself as this asshole-but-likeable persona for some time even prior to Homestuck. Sadly, this is probably one of the few times it wouldn't have worked if it means damaging your reputation in the long run. And I don't mean the edge humor he throws into the comic. I mean the treatment towards his fans where there's not much genuine sincerity and it's all asshole mode that it's hard to tell if it's joking or truly being hostile. He could have said he would like to be left alone, but perhaps pride and fame got in the way for him to say that. Even when it was the large amount of fans that made him feel pressured in the first place. I don't know how James or anyone in the team can really fix this mess without addressing problems people had with the series overtime. And not just stuff from Epilogues or Homestuck^2, but address things that were never answered or felt anticlimactic from the base webcomic.

[emoelrics]

i'm really interested in the path that asa's character arc is headed. i think it's going to be a really pivotal one. it's going to force her to confront her self-concept and lack of self-esteem.as we know, asa is a character who has extremely low self esteem, has suicidal tendencies, lacks close friendships, and all around is disconnected from her peers.

now she is thrust into the spotlight with people finally respecting her and idolizing her proving that she indeed has value in this world. while she outwardly denies liking fame, i think deep down she really doesnt believe this. with fame, she has external validation to prove all of her notions of herself wrong. she's finally being and celebrated for who she is. she is even called beautiful and her accomplishments are affirmed by the media and society as well. she has coveted fame which so many people especially teenagers crave and desire.

many teenagers in our society often ones who are lonely and depressed yearn to be famous. they believe that being famous will make them happier and will solve all of their problems. (wanis, 2013). people with low self esteem tended to desire to be famous since they believe it would compensate for their vulnerabilities and perceived sense of inadequacy. they tend to fear who they are and are unsatisfied with their lives and fame seems to be the natural solution for that as it may help them overcome their feelings of self-worth (noser & zeigler-hill).

boys tend to believe that it will make them happy while girls are more likely to think that it will make them happier in school (wanis, 2013). tying this in with asa, she has mentioned that she has little desire to establish relationships with her classmates. deep down she probably she genuinely does. she is completely alone with no one who cares about her not even her parents. fame finally has given her this. people care about her. they like her. they notice her. her status in school has probably drastically changed because of this. she is probably no longer bullied because her classmates finally respect her and love her.

on this note, i immediately think of mean girls. cady heron is a social outcast in her new school. she eventually is able to rise in the social hierarchy and insert herself into the plastics who hold influence and power in the school. she eventually becomes just as self-centered and egotistical as them, losing herself to popularity. this form of social influence and power genuinely does corrupt. when you go from a nobody to a person who is noticed and valued, it does something to you. you lose yourself, your self-concept changes. as professor of psychology mitch prinstein states regarding popularity, teens "become almost addicted to any type of attention from peers" (kris, 2017)

for someone like asa, someone with little self-esteem, the external validation will fill temporarily fill the void of loneliness, depression, isolation, lack of appreciation, and purpose but this is nothing without a sense of internal validation. you are forever chasing that high of being appreciated all the while not loving yourself. external validation cannot fill this void. you will be empty and hollow relying on people's words to uplift you.

and we can see with denji who is forever chasing that high of being chainsaw man. without it, he feels like he is nothing. he is aimless because in the end he doesn't value himself. there is no fake it until you make it even with fame. when that fame goes away, you are left with nothing but yourself. at the end of the day, you are the only one capable of uplifting yourself.

references

[clownmaggot]

Sacred Ground

( Fic image created by @crescentloon! ) Floor three. A bustling, lively, upper class city of eternal sunshine. The clean city streets were filled with tourists and performers alike, and rows of clothing stores lined them. So many places that were considered tourist traps were littered here and there. Various statues of people and fountains broke up the cityscape into nice resting areas. Children laughed and played in the water, throwing their coins and making wishes. Their squeals of piggy delight filled the air, laughing and drunk singing among friends rang out ceremoniously from whatever occasion they found themselves in, holding each other arms locked and swinging. Billboards hung above on top of buildings, showing off the many glowing faces of the modeling industry. Something Olivia herself was exceptionally passionate about.

Olivia was the model of the entire Tower. She didn’t exactly know whether or not it was a good or bad thing that her face had become generic. Either way, everyone knew of her not just because of her career, but everyone knew that she was head of floor three. The bosses were leaders for a reason, and that was no laughing matter. It was a high honor, especially with implications of who was in charge. Even though she was well known and beloved, why’d she feel so alone?

No matter how many people were captivated by her beauty, she felt so incredibly hollow and unsatisfied. Disappointment was an everyday thing, staring from atop her mansion, watching the elevator in the distance. Awaiting some motion. A light. A shape coming down. Everytime without fail she dropped whatever she was doing and sprinted upon seeing any movement, forgetting any etiquette or social cue, only to be let down by a small moth and her watchdog exiting from their grand descent. She loved her niece. She helped fill the emptiness, and Olivia felt selfish for feeling it wasn’t ever enough.

Though many lined to her door to get a photo of her, her luxurious home felt so… empty. Its size only amplified the vacancy. The only thing that filled the quiet home that could provide any comfort to the bot was the shelves of silent liquor. Mute vodka and still rum. Dumb margaritas if she was feeling extra that night, but she didn’t want to info dump onto them too much. Oh who was she trying to kid? Every night she was feeling extra and every night she poured her feelings into a drink, but no matter how much she processed, her memory refused to let her forget.

What was she doing again?

Oh yeah.

Check the room.

It’s where everything happened. Everyone that Pasturo created deep down knew in their soul something bad happened here. It was this place that the denizens avoided like the plague, but for her it was a worse feeling. This was like walking upon a holy land, or worse, an unmarked tomb that she constantly trespassed on. It was a horrible little corner when compared to the bustling city that left her chest cavity feeling empty. This wretched darkness. This one place in the whole floor was the antithesis of the environment. Silent, devoid of life, and pitch black. She begged Pasturo to fill it with something. Olivia poured her heart and sober thoughts into all the possibilities, all the different things it could be used for, just to be harshly shut down. Everytime it was an argument and she never knew why. Olivia shuttered at the argument that kept her quiet on the subject for the foreseeable future. She was flustered and angry herself, finally just letting it all come out, to just turn the place into a dump if it’s just going to be a useless little space. Her pistons lurched at the thought, the mad look in his eyes. His booming voice overwhelmed her, the crazed hatred in his voice. Shut up and do what I made you for. The next time you say that I’ll disassemble you myself. She stopped asking after that.

There was nothing she wanted more in this life than for her father to love her. That’s who Pasturo was to her, her father. He made her with love, he crafted her albeit a bit quicker than her siblings, but there was nothing wrong with not getting it right the first time. He loved her, she thought at the time, but now it was very uncertain. He never came to this floor, and if he did it was to continue to the next one down. Their conversations were brief after the fight. She had never experienced the whimsy of childhood but she so desperately wanted his love like a forgotten little girl. She would do anything. Anything. To earn his love, and that included braving the room.

I’ve got to do this. It’s the one responsibility I have. 

Dressing herself in some thick clothing and shades to hide her true figure, she braved the streets with a brown paper bag and drink of choice firmly grasped in her hands. Her siblings, Pasturo’s henchmen, and newly acquired niece all mocked her for her drinking, and she’d always laugh along with them, but deep down it hurt her unlike any mortal wound. It was a deep cut to her pride, a sadness and illness that no one understood. She could tolerate some heckling sure, but no one took her seriously. Buddy, someone she’d admit she really wasn’t fond of, looked down on her for having Mitzi repair her for drinking so much her intake would overflow. He’d chastise her for being drunk on her watch… But was it ever really her fault? He would drop her by without checking in on her first. How was she supposed to magically know they were coming when they didn’t bother to even talk about visiting? How? How was she supposed to be sober when she had to go into this room? This goddamn room?

As Olivia walked the streets, the people grew fewer and fewer, but the shops never went away, though the landmarks became uninteresting and basic. All of them were lit up, despite not having any customers let alone people working there. Finally once she reached the end of the street, it looked like a hole in the landscape. A god’s mouth waiting to swallow her once again. This part of floor 3 was completely void of life. Turning her head,  Olivia could confirm that no one had followed her or let alone was brave enough to come down here. She hadn’t seen anyone from a full 10 minute walk, a chill shot down her spinal unit. The space was so liminal and eerie, like no one but here ever came here. She wished… just for once someone would have followed her, or braved the distance like she did. But no one ever came.

“ Okay. Let's just get it over with. “

Olivia popped open the bottle of space wine and immediately chugged, the concoction swirled with purple and silver as it poured into her intake. Her silicon lips wrapped desperately around the hole in the bottle, leaving a red lipstick stamp around it. It took no time at all, and thankfully it all was able to fit inside of her fuel reserves this time- but what she wouldn’t give to malfunction at a time like this. She threw the bottle and bag into an alleyway filled with shattered glass and crumpled paper bags, an alcoholic's tally board, and began to work up the courage to enter, or to at least allow the brew to integrate into her system. She walked into the darkness, allowing herself to be consumed once again.

Olivia’s night mode kicked in, she stared at the floor of the entrance and scanned for prints. Two sets, good. One set was small and beginning to disappear under the dust. Olivia’s scanner was having a difficult time picking them up after so long, but these existed before she did, it was only natural for time to reclaim its spot after so long. Another set was also here before her, a few more prints coming out and in than the smaller one, but fresher. These prints dwarfed the other deer-toed tracks of the first. They led to a locked chain length fence, paired with faded “ DO NOT ENTER “ and “ CLOSED “ signs in dulled red and rotted yellow police tape. The fence was rusted and neglected, along with the chain that kept the door locked firmly into place. Once Olivia unlocked the door she was his with a wave of hesitation. It wasn’t a new sensation, the location was always the same. Her night vision could only see so far. The flat, unpainted purple brick underneath her feet continued without bump or irregularity. It was the soil of her home, an unmolded clay waiting to be shaped, but uselessly collecting dust in the dark. She moved past the threshold, looking back towards the light behind her that slowly faded the further she trekked on. 

What would the human experience be shaped like if human consciousness could recount the moment they were born? The trauma of being birthed, robbed out of your mother’s womb? What about before that? Constrained and confined for nine months or worse, what if you remembered the time you didn’t exist? Olivia remembered, and that’s why she hated this room.

This dark.

Silent.

Lonely.

Lifeless.

Room.

She remembered a time when she didn’t exist, when everything was as dark as this room, before she could think or even comprehend what was happening to her. All of it was traumatic. She was alone forever until now. For all of time she was nothing, not even a thought. Did she even exist before unexistence? Was there ever a beginning? The more she thought about it though, the more appealing it seemed. Logically, being an unknowing thing out in the universe was calming, never knowing pain, never knowing disappointment. Never knowing being loved by people only for them to ignore you…

Olivia patrolled the outskirts of the room. Unsurprisingly, there was no sign of life. No one had entered, nothing had changed. What if she decided to go back to nothing? Was the pain she felt just one fried motherboard away from release? Was it worth waiting for everything to get better? Maybe she was just afraid because she knew she wouldn’t be able to see anyone ever again… but it’s not as if they ever bothered to see her in the first place. She grew weary waiting for someone… anyone in her family to give her the time of day. After the deed was done, she wouldn’t feel the pain of it anyways. Why did she even care about something she wouldn’t be able to comprehend when she was gone. All of the sudden, this darkness was becoming all too comforting.

She began to move inward after examining the outer ring, going deeper within the depths of this large section of the tower. This room was gigantic, it was at least the third the size of the town. What was this place even for? God she really didn’t care. It was blank, hollow and creepy. Soon it all wouldn’t matter. 

She was a joke amongst her family, the one person in the world she wanted the approval of threatened to destroy her himself, her illness was a punchline, and she was blamed for being ill. To hell with it. Fuck this room. Fuck everyone! The model stamped her foot, the blade tinking off the hard brick floor. She gritted her mini hydraulic presses together, her mother board sizzling with anger as the sparks in her brain olive zapped repeatedly like a thunderstorm. She felt her face grow wet with tears as she screamed in anger. She hated being here, she hated being alone, she hated the dark, she hated being drunk, she hated being ill, but most of all, she hated how all these things could go away if someone, anyone would love her in the way she was always supposed to be loved.

Mechanical knees malfunctioning, extreme distress detected. She crumpled like a paper bag discarded on the floor. She wailed and pleaded incoherent whys in this empty room. She was as useless as shattered glass and worn past her welcome, but she didn’t want to leave. She couldn’t believe anything would ever get better for her, but giving up now would mean that she’d never been proven wrong. Olivia longed to feel nothing, but feeling the good things made it all worth feeling something. Even though her encounters with Pasturo could be miserable, she knew that he loved her from the moment of her creation. It didn’t excuse his behavior of course, but she wanted him to love her again like he used to, to hug her when she first felt the warmth of the air. Yes… Now she remembered. The first thing she ever felt in this life was love.

Olivia sat in the middle of the room in silence, letting herself cry her tear reserves out before continuing her observation. She didn’t bother keeping time on her internal clock. She didn’t care for anything but coming down from the intensity of her emotional spiral. Not noticing at first, her vision became lighter and lighter. It was… fairly strange? Why was her vision malfunctioning? Great. She’d have to get an earful from Mr. Shitbrick house for having Mitzi fix her. He’d probably blame her drinking again instead of assuming it's a typical technical error. It was always her fault after all. Well. No point of keeping her night vision on, they burned dots into her vision spheres for hours after examination anyways.

The light remained.

The celebrity was hit with a caution ping of anxiety, startled as she turned the night vision off the light remained, and even changed to a vibrant orange hue. But how? Her neck tilted with a slow robotic squeal as it traced the wall in front of her. She saw high above on the wall was a window, the sky outside turning from cold to warm hues within minutes. She gasped, realizing quickly what she was beholding. A sunrise. She had never experienced the night, but now she understood its purpose. The silence that amplified noise. 

“ Olivia! “ Olivia nearly lept out of her silicon skin. A deep voice called out from the dark. She heard two sets of footsteps approach her, their faces and bodies illuminated by the new, organic light.

“ What thou doing, dear sister? “ A lighter voice from her pepper devil brother pitched in without the usual mischievous undertones. “ Watching the sunrise I see? “

“ I guess so. “ Olivia’s voice slurred.

“ Are you okay? “ A taller figure stepped forward, his feathers glistened in the sunlight, his masquerade less convincing up close. Figaro rested his soft, plush hand onto her shoulder. 

“ Oh you know me! “ Olivia feigned laughter. “ Just a little tipsy is all. “

The two brothers looked at each other, and then back to Olivia. She was taken aback by the concern in their eyes, almost startled that they didn’t laugh along with her or at her. They got closer to her, planting themselves beside her on the cold, slightly moist floor. Fig’s arm wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her close as Lucifer’s usual goofy and crazed expression remained absent.

“ I know you don’t like me to pry but- “

“ I’m not okay. '' Olivia sniffled, her nose wrinkling as tears threatened to terrorize her makeup once more. “ I miss you. I miss dad so much. I just want us to see each other again like we used to before we got caught up in our work. “

“ I miss you too. “ Figaro agreed in his soft, therapeutic voice. Although, there was a strain, as if he himself was crumbling under the weight of it all. “ I wish we saw each other more, this all has been unexpected and incredibly unfair. “

Lucifer nodded, she could see the stress in his face as he anxiously twirled one of his leaves around his finger. Under emotionally intense situations he found himself to be mute, Olivia didn’t mind. She knew from his expression he cared deeply to stay with her under such uncomfortable distress. His leathery head rested on her shoulder, listening intently to what she had to stay.

“ I feel like no one loves me and I’m so so sick. “ Tears fell down her face as her vocal box’s quality fluctuated. “ The only way I can feel better is if I’m drunk until I can’t function anymore. I don’t even care if I ever wake up after- sometimes I just aim to finally break. “

Figaro and Lucifer’s eyes widened. Figaro was even dumbfounded by this revelation. This was really the only time she ever broke down, even in private she was completely silent about her feelings. Olivia’s sobbing continued and escalated until the sky in the window turned blue. A release of all these feelings granted her a satisfying catharsis. Her brothers’ embrace tightened on her as they both held her, giving her soft affirmations and thanking her for telling them. For so long she was worried they would never take her seriously let alone care. But they were her brothers. Despite everything, the jokes, the heckling, they loved her. If one of them was hurting, they all hurt. 

After crying and holding onto her brothers for dear life, her pistons nearly came to a halt once they rose up. She nearly began crying again, begging them not to leave, but instead they helped her to her feet, ensuring that her intoxicated, wobbly step remained stable. Was she just so in her own head she was willing to believe anyone would just leave her? Maybe the thoughts weren’t based on nothing, but she had to trust her brothers loved her. She had to hold on, she had to stick around long enough for these thoughts to be proven wrong.

“ Sister. “ Lucifer began, speaking again quietly and shakily. “ Wouldst thou prefer we accompany you for your expedition? “ He smiled softly to her, holding her hand in his.

“ I would love that. “

[gayleviticus]

8 years after watching the TV ending of FMA 03 for the first time, I finally watched Conqueror of Shamballa for the first time. Tbh I was a little scared of what I’d find – fma 03 was a super special series to me back in 2015, but rewatching it the TV ending felt way more inconclusive and unsatisfying than I remembered.

I knew what would happen in Shamballa from years of scrounging through tv tropes entries and Wikipedia plot summaries, but I didn’t know what it would feel like in practice. I needed something that fulfilled the melancholy, dark, emotional, but hopeful promise of the series. I needed angst and loss and sadness, but not grim-darkness and cruelty just for the sake of it.

Thankfully, I enjoyed Shamballa on the whole. Now, to be sure, it’s undeniably very, very messy. Unlike, say, End of Evangelion or Madoka Rebellion it doesn’t feel like a movie except perhaps towards the end; the new characters introduced like Alfons, Noa, and Eckhart are more interesting thematically than because they’re afforded any particular depth, and the plot mechanics aren’t especially well-crafted (but granted this has always been the case for 03).

It feels like there’s also a ton of incredibly character dynamics they could milk but just don’t have room for – how did it feel for Ed to live with someone who looked so much like his baby brother but just wasn’t the same person? How did Winry feel being left behind forever by her best friends after being locked out of the loop for so long? How did Al losing his memories of the past 5 years and embarking on a quest to bring Ed back shape his relationship with everyone else in Amestris? Did Ed feel guilty that Al ended up throwing his whole life in Amestris away to come be with him on earth? There’s just so many possibilities this movie throws out that could have been explored, and emotional beats (like the brothers reuniting!!) that aren’t used to their full potential.

These are all pretty noticeable flaws. But I also kindve think… it doesn’t matter that much? Don’t get me wrong, I would’ve loved to see an actual proper 13-episode second season fleshing out Shamballa’s boatload of cool ideas, but I think there’s something just as captivating about the huge range of possibilities the movie can’t possibly hope to contain. There are plenty of stories I’ve experienced that do an objectively better job of fleshing out their characters, but it's like… well, you’ve already exhausted their depths. There’s not much left to mine. 03 + Shamballa might not use its characters to their maximum potential, but I think it’s impressive it creates such a firm foundation for its characters that they have that kindve potential in the first place?

(On that note this just makes me curse the fact the 03verse in general has been so neglected by FMA fans even more, bc it just feels like its begging so much for fans to plug these gaps and analyse and dissect and headcanon these characters? But anyway)

Something I was a little torn about at first was the ending – it was more satisfying than TV 03’s awkward mix of open-ended sadness with sickeningly saccharine optimism, but I couldn’t help but feel this awkward sense of hollowness. It was tragedy on the brink of cartharsis, but not quite there. I wanted to cry and mourn everything the Elrics had lost, I wanted angst and conflict between the two of them, I wanted to experience the weight of everything they’ve gone through.

But after thinking about it, I realised that the thing about Shamballa is that it’s not about pain, as such, but specifically ache, and loss.

Doomsday, a Doctor Who episode that aired about a year after Shamballa, is a similar tragedy of people separated forever across parallel world. But it’s a very different type of pain – it’s sharp, acute, sudden. It’s having someone you loved so much so deeply snatched out of your life with no warning, no buildup, barely any chance to say goodbye.

Superficially, Shamballa is similar. In the chaos of Eckhart’s invasion Ed and Al disappear forever into the other side of the gate. But I think it’s very different in that the Elrics aren’t really leaving a specific person behind?

Of course, there’s Winry, and obviously it must hurt for her to lose her best friends since childhood so suddenly. But even then, her life goes on. She loved them so much, and she’ll always remember them – but she’s not a widow sitting at home mourning the death of her husband in the war. She has friends, she has family, she has her career as an automail engineer. Life goes on for Winry. It hurts, but it’ll go on.

Aside from her – well, Izumi’s gone. Rose was friends with Al but didn’t really know Ed. Mustang’s crew clearly care for the boys, but I think for the most part their relationship in 03 is relatively professional. In the end what the boys are cutting off isn’t any individual person in particular, but their past.

And so what Shamballa is about isn’t the sharp, shocking pain of losing a loved one, but the dull, heavy ache of grieving your past. As Ed says at the end, Earth is their world now – not Amestris. They’ve resigned themselves to losing their past, to leaving behind the childhood world of miraculous alchemy and friends and carving a path in the here and now.

It’s the pain of mourning a past that can’t come back, the people you once loved who just aren’t in your life anymore, the innocent childhood you’ll never be able to reclaim. The brothers who once tried to reclaim their stolen innocence through resurrecting their mother have made their peace with living in the here and now – and though they’ve finally found happiness, and paid the price for their original sin, they’ll never forget everything it took to get to this point.

It circles back to what Ed told Rose all the way back at the beginning. Stand up and walk on your own two legs. Keep moving forward. Fight against tragedy, but remember that you cannot rewrite your own past.

The Thule Society and Noa mistook Amestris for Shamballa – a perfect world, a homeland – in their longing for heaven. But no such promised land exists. There’s only the here and now. The Elrics give up their longing for something they never had, accepting heaven is lost, and find their home in themselves.

[blueberry-lemon]

You've probably seen this image. I've seen it many times. I have mixed feelings about it.

It's a funny image, and represents a good cause. It's usually posted by people who want to support fairer working conditions for game developers, and want to show support for smaller titles.

It's usually posted in contrast to something like Cyberpunk 2077, Watch Dogs: Legion, The Last of Us: Part II, or God of War: Ragnarok.

There's a part of me that cringes every time I see it, though. I imagine there may be other game developers who feel similarly.

I think the reflexive cringe comes from the phrase "shorter games with worse graphics." People being paid more to work less sounds great, tbh, and barring any sort of production pipeline blocking, I think most devs would be into that.

These are the thoughts that fly through my mind when I hear people say "I want shorter games with worse graphics."

Short compared to what?

Shorter than Elden Ring? Shorter than Hollow Knight? Short like Venba? Short like Celeste? How short could a AAA game be before, even despite posting this phrase, you'd find it unsatisfying or incomplete? How short could an indie game be before you don't consider it a "real game"? Games can be anything from Ulysses to a haiku, but it rarely seems like people are talking about the haiku style of games.

What does "worse graphics" mean?

I just can't imagine a world where "worse graphics" could possibly correlate to Hi-Fi Rush, Undertale, Hollow Knight, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, Celeste, Mario Odyssey, Wind Waker, A Short Hike, or Hades. Even though those are the types of games that I often see people use this meme in support of. Those games have incredible art that talented artists worked really really hard on. It feels like a bit of a sting to associate those beautiful games with the term "worse graphics." That phrasing, sadly, implies that photorealism is the bar by which all other games are compared.

Forever Games

Where do replayable games, like roguelikes, tycoons, crafting games, and farming sims land on the realm of "shorter games"? They're not inherently any shorter than a big AAA game, and they're designed to be replayable and to suck your time in. That can be great, but it also might be a treadmill that is not inherently any more honorable than a game trying to tell a linear story.

Are you really "not kidding"?

This meme has a very confident, smug energy and I think that tone invites this question: Do you REALLY want shorter games with worse graphics? I know this is going to depend on the individual lives of each human being who's ever reposted this meme, and it can never be truly answered, but it really begs the question of whether or not people REALLY DO WANT "shorter games with worse graphics." Because let me tell ya, there's a lot of shorter games with worse graphics right now and they ain't selling very well. Check the Steam reviews. Ask devs how many copies they sell on itch. There are many devs out there who make shorter games with worse graphics and no matter how many times people post this phrase, people don't seem to flock over to support those projects. And that sinking feeling of "oh, these folks don't mean the games that my friends and I post regularly on itch, they mean Hi-Fi Rush and Wind Waker" is a little bit demotivating, given the gusto with which this meme is posted. There are people whose whole careers hinge on the hope that there's an audience out there that wants "shorter games with worse graphics" and there doesn't seem to be an actual sea change that's helping those projects out. There is a treasure trove of games out on itch that you can play in between hyped releases, but most people's playing habits don't seem to shift.

Lastly...

...there are thousands of devs out there who work hard, collaborating with other devs and artists, to make their games the best they can be. Devs work hard to bring their artistic vision to God of War: Ragnarok or to Bomb Rush Cyberfunk or to experimental indies with intentionally-ragged art styles. Everyone is putting their heart into their art to make something that will connect with the player. Sometimes, this can be pulled off by 1 or 2 people. Sometimes, this will require hiring more onto the team. It's slightly dissonant to see people say they want to see "worse graphics" when you're trying to get a job in texturing or particle effects and want to deliver something your team is trying to push a boundary on. This is true in both small projects and big projects. Artists are putting their stamp on Horizon Forbidden West just as much as they're putting their stamp on Venba. There are artists looking for work in the indie space who want to make better and more beautiful "graphics."

Anyway, no disrespect to people who post this meme. I understand that it's a show of support and solidarity. I understand that it's just a joke. I know that it's not a big deal.

But I'd be lying if I said that these mixed feelings didn't flash through my mind every time I saw this hedgehog. Figured I would share them.

[richardsphere]

My conclusive overall review of RWBY Vol 9

Now that my feelings on the finale have had half a day to settle. I feel it is time to give my opinion on the season overall instead of just the finale on its own.

The new cast of characters is also somewhat wanting. While one-off characters Jinxy, Herb and the King fulfill their purposes perfectly well. some crucial characters important to the seasons overall narrative (Cat, Lewis, Alyx and Little) were with all either one-note (little), Hollow shells of plot serving to sell a future spin-off book(Lewis and Alyx). The cat was fine though, and fulfilled its purpose well.  For the first half,  Volume 9 suffers from a major disconnect as the plot relies on the characters familiarity with the fairytale. which makes it sort of unsatisfying to watch cause we have no idea how the fairytale even went. As a result we spend half the season wandering around, seemingly aimlessly, while neither characters nor audience have a clue what they are doing besides vaguely advertising an RT’s eventual spin-off book release.  Sort of like the early Sherlock Holmes books, where the plot is moved by sherlock but we only have Wattsons’ knowledge of events to guide us through. Its a clueless mystery with no fulfillment to it. Then moving into the later-half of the season, Where the show attempts to handle difficult topics and, in true RWBY style doesnt always handle it well. While the eventual handliing of ruby’s self-acceptance issues is in the finale is good . The decision to have Jaune’s problems of self-worth be solved by “yes you werent the hero, but would you like to be one now?” leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It feels like its trying to say “Ruby, your impostor syndrome was a bad thing, you should learn to accept yourself for who you are. You’re actually fine as is dont worry about it you are good enough”. meanwhile to Jaune the tree’s messaging is: “yes you’re right, you do suck major ass. and while we dont have any tips on how to improve yourself as a personi can put you in the right time and place to be usefull for just this once because your woodshell happens to be above the cat RN.” and now for  the origami-paperes elephant in the room. The race of little star-shaped Alexanders-the-Great, who commit mass ennui-motivated suicides because they ran out of acre to conquer and/or decorate, and are portrayed as right for taking the easy way out of their boredom. Now i’ve had someone respond to me on an earlier post about the stars, that they believed the stars were meant to be an allegory for people with terrible wasting diseases that leave them frail and in terminal misery, and the process of them making the difficult choice of euthenasia, as well as the difficult path of a family member to come to acceptance with that choice. Which is a heavy, nuanced and important topic that I do not want to make light of in the slightest. So please take no offense when i say that; While I could see the space in which people with those experiences could project themselves into Jaune’s struggle with Penny’s death. I cant actually see that as being the actual situation facing the paperstars themselves. Because the way the stars explain their problem to RWBY is verry much one of boredom and listlessness rather then any state of terminal misery of which only death could possibly grant relief. So the star-subplot either tried to tackle euthenasia and missed the mark by a mile due to framing issues (which is dangerous), or it just said “Remember suicide is an acceptable cure for boredom” which is actively evil. as messages go. Add onto that the fact that, in the long term their solution doesnt actually work, as they’ll redecorate the acre with gems instead of paper. Run out of acre to decorate again like they did the first time and have find a new way to kill themselves again and this subplot fails critically. And because the latter half of the plot is trying to tie 3-or more such heavy topics together in quick succession all together (Ruby’s attempted suicide, Jaune’s grief over Euthenising Penny, Ruby’s self-worth issues, Jaune’s sisiphean hell, Jaune’s self-worth over failing Alyx) the toxic messaging given by the stars subplot spreads across the adjacent plots like a malignant viral infection. Tainting all of them with a “pro-suicide” undertone that i can only hope was never RT’s intention. Top that all off with a the rather unsatisfying finale, focussed more on loredumping then tying together or resolving the seasons emotional beats and I can only say that, Despite its promise for the tone of the series going forward by presenting hope as an actual thing instead of a mere nebulous concept, This season was in my opinion nonetheless, the worst season of the series so far.

[yukine-sakamoto]

I finished Bocchi the Rock, so here’s a little review. Mild spoilers, but it’s a slice of life so nothing major.

Overall, I liked it. I’m normally not that interested in music themed anime, so initially I dismissed it as a some kind of generic K-On clone. It got so many good reviews and so many people talking about it though, so I had to check it out, and it generally lived up to the hype. Very cute, very relatable, the music was pretty good, it was really well made with a lot of interesting shots and some very funny animation style changes. I especially loved the exaggerated expressions they gave everyone. That’s one of my favorite parts of animation as a medium, and they used it really well. So I’d definitely recommend it. That being said, I do have some criticism.

The show’s main draw and the thing that separates it from similar shows is Bocchi’s introversion and social anxiety. I appreciated the effort that they went to in order to show her inner thought processes which lead to her otherwise strange reactions and behaviors. It makes her more realistic, dynamic, and relatable to the audience and less like a flat side character that’s used just for laughs but considered foreign to the way “normal” characters think, as these types of characters sometimes are. (And I appreciated that they showed the other characters getting to know her and helping her with her struggles rather than just thinking she’s odd.) This deeper characterization sets up one of the main threads of the show, Bocchi’s growth in overcoming her social difficulties, but that arc felt kind of hollow to me.

We want to see characters overcome their various plot challenges through hard work. That feels satisfying, and that’s especially true, I think, for characters that have struggles that the audience identifies with. It’s inspiring to see someone better themselves through hard work. It makes you think you could do it too. Bocchi definitely put work in, and she did things that she wouldn’t have done before, that were difficult for her. However, it felt like she was just being carried along for a lot of the show. There are several instances where she feels she can’t get out of doing something, like the job, or the first show, or the street concert, and yes it was hard for her, and yeah maybe she grew a little bit, but it wasn’t necessarily through her own power. In a couple of pivotal moments it was pure chance, and that felt like a (very mild) deus ex machina.

In the first episode, in the moment that sets the whole show in motion, Nijika happens upon her through chance and just happens to need a guitarist and happens to be the type to approach a total stranger. It’s partially because Bocchi had her guitar; she chose to openly display something she’s interested in, hopping to find someone like minded. That’s good, except we saw that fail to work for whole episode up to that point. Bocchi acknowledged that being passive and putting the onus on others was a bad strategy, but then Nijika swoops in so that’s left unaddressed. Same thing with meeting Kikuri, it was a random encounter. I think most introverts want an extrovert to come and adopt them, and I get that, I do too, but it’s still unsatisfying as a plot point.

This also sets up another problem I wrote a bit about in another post. It’s obviously a Bocchi-centric show, she’s the title character after all, but I was hoping for more from the others. It’s obvious after the initial park meeting that Nijika and Ryou like her and want to be friends, even if it started as just needing a guitarist. And when Kita joins the cast, she becomes fast friends as well. But they all comment on how they don’t understand why Bocchi has trouble at school, why no one hangs out with her. In many ways they are part of this random chance as well; their behavior hasn’t changed much either. We see in the summer vacation episode that, left to their own devices, they just forget about Bocchi. It’s likely Kita never would have approached her at school of her own volition, as she hadn’t up till now, but ironically seems confused seeing this behavior in her classmates. It made their relationships feel a bit shallow, like they were taking care of Bocchi as almost a charity case. I honestly started to feel a little, like, secondhand guilt for how far out of their way each would go. (I did like that they started to understand her behaviors and her triggers, so to speak, but that feels pretty minimal) I mean it’s normal and good for friends to cover each other’s weaknesses with the other’s strengths, and Bocchi’s definitely weak where the others are strong as far as social skills, but this felt off somehow, unbalanced. Perhaps, in a second season, we’ll see more from the perspectives of the other band members and see their relationship as a band deepen.

It also felt very slightly like a classic teen movie nerdy character arc in which introverts are painted as sad, pitiable creatures who have no joy in life, and if only someone would show them how to have fun the extroverted way, the correct way, then they could be saved. I mean it’s minor, but loud concerts with bright lights and lots of people are very stimulating environments. That’s not generally where introverts thrive, and there’s nothing wrong with that; it’s a matter of taste. I’m just surprised that Bocchi seems really into that, especially based on the lyrics she writes.

Anyway, I gave it an 8/10 on my anime list. I’d definitely recommend it, and I’m looking forward to season 2.