#asks and things

[cameoliob]

Dropping by to say that I'm ENAMORED I am OBSESSED with your depiction of and characterization of and BACKSTORY you've provided for Kallus

You're able to convey so much depth and complexity through your drawings alone. Just??? Wow??? Literally so impressive??

(I'd read a ten novel book series about your young Kallus. Just letting you know)

The effort and thought that goes into your art is so apparent it's all so 💖💖💖

(Let's all pretend this is a coherent message)

AHH THANK YOU SO MUCHH

I'm so glad that the work i put into those backstory drawings pays of :,)

[visions--of--collisions]

for @spidereticas who requested 400 words of something I have fragments of: here is .. more than 400 words of an inspired-by/follow-up to I Get So Hungry (When You Say You Love Me) by AbiCats16, in which an experimental trial at Spider Society goes poorly for Hobie (and for Miles, in turn)

EXCERPT: some of us will never sleep again • hobie/miles, drama, romance, angst, friendship, established relationship; rated: m

“Ope,” said LYLA, somewhere close to Hobie’s ear. “Incoming!”

Peter crossed the cell to get the door, and Miguel dismissed the last of the medical team with a sigh. Miles’ anxious voice carried over the noise of their departure; Hobie rolled his shoulders and climbed to his feet.

“You’re cleared to go,” Miguel informed him, pointedly not looking up from his readings as Miles led the charge across the room with Margo and Peter in tow. “Your system’s clean, but I’m going to ask that you take the next twenty-four hours to rest. Margo here’s agreed to cover your patrols for the evening; Pavitr will take over when she’s done.”

“Just call me Renfield, I guess,” Margo drawled. She watched with raised eyebrows as Miles reached up to grab Hobie’s face, turning it this way and that like he was looking for physical proof that the serum’s effects had faded.

Like he wasn’t the one with the scars to prove its viability.

“Let’s not,” Miguel grunted. Hobie snorted. Margo hadn’t been privy to the trials until she’d shown up for her morning shift and Peter’d convinced him to rope her in, according to the texts Miles had sent from Medbay. Miguel hadn’t been happy about it then, and he wasn’t now, it seemed like, regardless of how much sense the choice made. He dismissed the projected screens with a curt motion. “There were no previous reports of any side effects, but if anything feels off, ping LYLA and come back to HQ. That applies to you both,” he added, with a meaningful look Miles’ way.

Miles made an affirmative noise, though his focus remained on Hobie. “You look wiped, man,” he observed. He thumbed across the hollow under Hobie’s left eye.

“M’alright,” he mumbled. He caught Miles’ wrist and managed a smile. “Better for seeing you in one piece.” There was an adhesive bandage matching Miles’ skintone just visible under the cowl neck of the sweatshirt Medbay must have supplied him with. The tall boots and the slate-coloured trousers had to be theirs too then, because getting him into anything that tight that wasn’t his Suit was usually a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of occurrence.

Miles chuffed. “‘In one piece?’ Are you kidding, I slept through the whole thing. I dunno what they gave me, but that stuff was potent.”

“This man was fully snoring and drooling when I walked in there,” Margo agreed. “Sheets fucked up, pillows on the damn floor. Giving the whole ward a free show! Pete really had my ass worried for nothing.” She folded her arms, tucking a neatly-folded bundle that looked awfully like Miles’ Suit into the crook of her elbow. “I thought I was gonna be hauling both your corpses through a portal, the way this dude was talking.”

“In my defence, you kinda blipped out of there before I could elaborate,” Peter pointed out. Hobie noticed he was still just in his Suit, for once; his memory of the night was all over the place, practically blank in some spots and almost excruciatingly vivid in others. MJ’s dressing gown had vanished in one of the latter - really, in the clearest stretch - after Jess and Miguel had burst in to rescue Miles before things went any further south.

Didn’t really take an educated guess to work out what had happened to it.

“Well, you know, you tell a girl one of her friend’s in a cell dosed up on Nosferatu juice and the other’s bleeding out in Medbay, it really lights a fire under her!”

Miles’ pulse was strong and steady under his thumb. Hobie didn’t remember feeling for it. He loosened his grip and let Miles slip free.

Miles grabbed his forearm before he could step back. “You good to get outta here?” he asked.

The hopeful tilt to his smile made Hobie’s answer easier than it probably should’ve been. “Yeah, mate.” He cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’m good. You?” he couldn’t help but ask. There was none of the feverish sheen or the washed-out look of his skin that had shocked Hobie into letting Miles go after their last ill-fated conversation, even though he was looking for it. His hair might have suffered a bit of shrinkage while he spent the night in a hospital bed, but it was negligible. 

The shirt was thick and its sleeves fell past Miles’ knuckles. He couldn’t make out any telltale bump where the gauze might be taped over an IV site. Hobie decided he’d ask when they had a second alone.

Assuming Miles was feeling up to that any time soon. Who could blame him if he wasn’t? “I have been ready, Hobes,” Miles informed him. He was smiling, his eyes creased at the corners in the way that meant Miles was laughing at him.

The knot in his stomach unravelled a bit. “Alright, shit. Don’t hang about on my account.”

Miles reached up just in time to intercept the folded bundle of his suit before it hit him in the head. “I am also ready to leave, if we’re all done here with this Twilight bullshit,” Margo chirped.

“Great. Thanks. How do you even know what that is?” Miles groused. He tucked himself against Hobie’s side, looping an arm around his lower back like he was ready to do the walking for him if need be. Hobie waited until Miles met his eye to drape his arm around his shoulders with exaggerated enthusiasm, pecking his temple when he glanced away sheepishly.

“Are you kidding, Pavitr lives for those movies! He’s got Collector’s Editions. Gayatri hates them and it’s like he doesn’t even care.” She oof-ed a bit as Hobie hooked his free arm around her avatar’s shoulders, but tucked her hand in between his and Miles’ sides readily enough.

“Huh. You know, that scans, actually,” Peter opined.

“Hmm. Espere un momento,” Miguel interjected, behind them. “You can go from here. LYLA, open access for Peter, por favor.”

“Y’got it!”

Peter rubbed his hands together. “Okay, where to, guys? Straight to ‘138 or should I drop you someplace else?”

Miles shook his head when Hobie glanced at him; Margo rolled her eyes and called up her mask. “Nah, mine’s good. I can give you the coordinates.”

Peter tapped at his Watch’s interface. “Go for it.”

Hobie rattled off the location of the first towpath bridge that came to mind; he hadn’t moored anywhere near there, but they could swing the rest of the way, and he had a better shot at finding Roxie the further afield they were. A minute later, the portal opened up a hole in the adjacent wall of the cell. Miles stuffed his Suit into his waistband, underneath the shirt.

“Okay, you guys, have a good one. Call us if you need anything! Me and Jess and Miguel are all burning the midnight oil this week, so don’t worry about catching us at a weird hour. Reach out whenever. Try and get some rest in the meantime, and make sure you eat, Hobie!”

The three of them waited in front of the portal, staring. “ … Anything else?” Margo prompted him.

“Remember what we talked about,” Miguel said, before he could answer. He was squinting at something LYLA was showing him, half-turned away. Just in case anyone was audacious enough to hope for context clues or a clarification, Hobie supposed.

He didn’t need any, but it was the principal of the thing.

“ … Cool. Alright.” Even with her headgear donned, Margo managed to give Hobie a disbelieving look. “Catch you later.”

She nudged Hobie forward; on his other side, Miles’ hand closed around the arm that hugged him close, and they walked through the dimensional door.

*

The portal dropped them into the half-light under a bridge in Islington. Experience had quickly taught Hobie to note the coordinates that pointed away from nearby bodies of water (it hadn’t been a learning curve so much as one or two deeply unpleasant and inconvenient swandives directly into the Thames) so instead they fetched up against a wall covered in faded graffiti and posters and some piss, which was still better than the alternative.

Between the three of them, it was Miles and Hobie who managed to cling to enough of their wits to stick out a leg before they all face-planted into the bricks. Margo let out a surprised breath where Hobie had twisted her back by the shoulders, on reflex.

The ruddy cast on the walls dimmed and died as the portal closed up behind them. In the gloom it left behind, they collected themselves and took stock. Hobie lifted his right arm high enough to check his watch without letting go of Miles. It had been after ten in the morning when the last tests declared him free of any traces or symptoms; his HQ watch had already dutifully ticked over to local time. 17:02, the glowing orange face read.

“Huh. Well this feels pretty on-brand.” Margo’s gear shone lilac when Hobie turned; her silhouette was stark against the fog spilling into the far end of the tunnel.

“What do you mean?” Miles asked. He reached up and squeezed Hobie’s hand, waiting for him to take his arm back before he turned to consider the other end of the tunnel, which looked much the same.

“I dunno, the London fog, this Dracula nonsense. You know?” Margo put her hands on her hips, frowning as she glanced about. Her lenses multiplied. “Where’s the good ship Demeter at?”

“Not here.” Hobie stretched a bit and checked his web-shooters. “We’ll swing over. Haven’t seen Roxie in a bit; I wanna find out where she’s got to.”

“‘Find her?’ In that?” Margo said, doubtfully. Her peripheral lenses changed colour as she tabbed through different visual modes, casting soft rainbow reflections off the surface of the water. 

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Miles watching the rippling colours as he clipped on his web shooters and dug out his mask. Hobie adjusted his guitar strap. “S’fine, I know her usual spots. Let’s cut.”

Miles’ and Margo’s footsteps were bare whispers following the echo of his boots as Hobie lead them out onto the towpath. In the open, the mist hung thicker in his lungs than it did in the air; Hobie tugged his mask on and told them to stay close, just in case. 

The approaching rumble of a lorry made him straighten up, and the other two turned to follow his gaze. Briefly, as its headlights cut through the haze, Hobie’s eyes caught on the sliver of skin between the slouchy neck of Miles’ jumper and his mask, where the bandage underneath strained against the torsion of his neck. Then Miles turned to him, the lenses of his mask refractive and questioning. Hobie nodded and threw out a web after the truck, letting its momentum haul him off the ground.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

[daftpatience]

slow down for your disabled friends. thats like a bare minimum kindness that we shouldnt have to ask for. i love that youre so quirky and walking fast is a cool personality trait to you and all that but i bet you can count your physically disabled friends on less than one hand

[pookapufferfish]

[goldensunset]

if someone is talking about how much they love their parents do not jump in and start venting about your issues with your parents. if someone is venting about their issues with their parents do not jump in and start talking about how much you love your parents. peace and love amen swag city

[koobiie]

shoutout to everyone who wants to infodump but cant string together coherent thoughts to form sentences and instead just look at you like this

[aroaceleovaldez]

i had a thought of "do people not know what AUs are anymore?" and then i remembered nobody explains fandom stuff to new people anymore so it is entirely plausible people genuinely don't know what AUs are and nobody has explained it to them, so for today's lucky 10,000:

"AU" stands for "Alternate Universe" or "Alternative Universe" (same difference) and is basically any thought scenario for a fandom that isn't canon and can't fit within the canon universe. If it takes place in the canon universe but something is notably different, that is typically what's known as a "Canon divergent AU," because it diverges from canon.

an AU can be absolutely anything. There's a couple of widespread pan-fandom au scenarios that often get thrown around, like coffee shop aus, genderbend aus, hanahaki aus (hanahaki is a whole thing in itself i'd recommend researching on your own), etc. One you might hear sometimes is "crossover AU" which is when you have characters from one fandom interacting with characters from another.

You can have as many aus as you want. They can be whatever you want and you can do whatever you want in them. It's a sandbox for you to play around in and explore how things would be different or how the characters would act in those circumstances or environments. Maybe they have different relationships with each other. Maybe they behave slightly differently. Or you can just say "Okay, [x] is true. How did they get here? How would things have to be different for this to occur?" which can also be fun.

If you are ever confused about why people ship something that seems completely out of the blue or doesn't make sense to you in the canon setting, there's a good chance they like it in an AU setting! Not everything everybody is interacting with is necessarily the canon! Not everybody wants things to exist in canon and just want to explore playing dolls in a different sandbox and that's okay. And their sandbox might look a lot different than yours, and that's also okay. You have the freedom to make your sandbox whatever you please. Do whatever you want forever. Get funky with it. AUs are fun.

Okay that's my schpeal. everybody go have fun and play nice now.

[gayvampyr]

asking people to be mindful of others when sharing a communal space (especially one you cannot just up and leave from) is not selfish or misanthropic. come on now

[icewindandboringhorror]

(also feel free in the tags to clarify Why you made the choice you made!! :0c)

[stealingpotatoes]

My apologies, Lady Normal. But where does you Eunuch come from?

[visions--of--collisions]

for @its-just-a-glitch who requested 200 words of an active work-in-progress, here is an uh er um slightly longer than 200 words-preview of:

EXCERPT: let me ease your mind (chapter 3) • hobie/miles, post-canon, omegaverse; rated: e

Hobie’s bladder woke him a couple hours later, albeit not as many as he would’ve liked, if the darkness was anything to go by. He grunted and dragged his cheek against the pillow under his head.

Miles was warm in his arms, muscles twitching in his sleep. He’d backed up against Hobie at some point in the night, and Hobie had performed some kind of death roll to accommodate him, apparently; the blankets were a tight cocoon that would’ve been cozy as anything if Hobie weren’t worried about pissing himself. He eased his arm out from underneath Miles and wormed his way up into a half-sit. Hobie propped his weight on his elbow as a yawn seized him, squeezing tears out of his eyes. He wiped them away with his knuckles and leaned over to peer at Miles’ face.

His eyes were darting about under his eyelids as he dreamt, but his brow was relaxed enough. A sheen of that weirdly clean-smelling heat sweat limned Miles’ shoulders; he’d lost his shirt again, which wasn’t all that surprising. He wasn’t quite a furnace under Hobie, as he gingerly crawled over Miles, but that was probably because Hobie ran fairly hot himself. However many hours spent cozying up under bedsheets had to have warmed them both up, besides. 

He peered over at his alarm clock, which had just ticked past four. Hobie sighed and laid his brow on Miles’s shoulder. Five hours and change would do it, alright. A shame it hadn’t been more than that. He reminded himself it could be, if he extricated himself sooner, but when Hobie shifted to do just that a hand fisted in his shirt. Miles turned his head, ribs quaking with a noise that was part-grumble, part-keen, all-protest.

“M’here, Miles, shhh. You’re alright.” Hobie buried his face in the curve where Miles’ neck became his shoulder. The tendons beneath his skin stretched and strained against him as Miles raised his chin to expose them. He pried Miles’ hand free and tangled their fingers together, holding them against his chest to feel the vibrations as he purred. “Need the lav; go to sleep, yeah? Be back in a sec.”

He spent a long minute nosing at the pulse thrumming under Miles’ jaw before he squeezed Hobie’s hand and relaxed against the mattress. Hobie felt his sleepy, reciprocal purr more than he heard it; he bussed Miles’ temple and clambered out from underneath the covers, tucking them over Miles’ hand before he crept out of the room.

It was dark enough that even the thought of turning on the bathroom light made Hobie’s eyes sting. He flicked on the galley light instead, and left the bathroom door open wide enough that he could see where he was aiming. After he’d flushed and washed his hands, Hobie shuffled back into the kitchen with his eyes mostly-closed to wet his suddenly-parched throat. As he was leaving his glass in the sink, the empty cooking pot on the draining board snagged his attention. Hobie thought for a minute, squinting in the direction of the fridge. He dug out some chicken breasts and half a pound of sausages and left them to defrost before he turned off the light and retreated back to bed.

The change in Miles’ scent was obvious, with the bedroom door shut behind him. Hobie crawled back into the nest as quietly as he could. Miles was turned away from him, hugging one of the spare pillows to his chest, but he wasn’t sleeping deep enough that he didn’t notice Hobie’s arrival. He’d barely settled his head on the pillow before Miles had backed up into him, his shoulder blades two hard, sharp points through Hobie’s thin shirt.

“Oof! Easy,” Hobie entreated, the surprised laughter huffing out of him. Miles’ only response was to continue shuffling until their lower halves were aligned to his satisfaction, and then to keep right on going. Hobie took the hint and got his arms around him, squeezing tight enough it made them both grunt. Miles writhed like he was trying to get free before he went lax, purring deep in his throat. His eyes were pleased slits in the darkness, when he rolled his head back.

Hobie could feel him rocking against the pillow he was still clutching at. The high, quiet noise Miles made when he tightened his arms left Hobie swallowing through a sudden thickness in his throat. He groaned under his breath and wet his lips. “Miles. Oi,” he mumbled. Hobie squeezed him again all when he got in response was a vague murmur and a brazen non-cessation of pillow-fucking. He bent his head to speak into Miles’ ear. “D’you need a minute? Where’s your stuff?”

The purring stopped. “I’m …” Miles croaked. “S’under the bed.” The almost-sweetness of the sweat on his temple didn’t quite distract Hobie from the way his hips kept moving. He was tempted to nudge a thigh between Miles’ legs. Instead, he pushed himself up and twisted around to grope about among the peripherals.

The leather satchel was lying on its side behind a discarded shirt; Hobie found the handles and dragged it out. He hefted it up onto the bed and turned to find Miles lying on his front, the pillow trapped underneath him. He turned his face away when Hobie met his eyes. “Man … You just got back in bed.”

Hobie reached over to rub his back. “Allow that. Couch is already set up and all; I’ll be cotched.” There was a damp spot starting on the back of Miles’ shorts, visible even in the gloom. He pulled the blankets up over it, arranging them around Miles’ shoulders. “Wake us when you’re done. If you ain’t out like a light after,” Hobie added, nudging him.

Miles didn’t answer right away. He’d stopped moving, finally; his face was buried in Hobie’s sateen pillowcase. If he didn’t know Miles better than that, he might’ve thought he was sulking. Hobie sighed through his nose. “I can’t stay if we ain’t talked it out first, mate,” he said, quietly.

Miles turned his head, settling his cheek against the pillow. His face was flushed, the corners of his mouth down-turned. “I know,” he mumbled. “Sorr–”

“Boy, if you say sorry …!” Hobie shoved his shoulder lightly, jokingly mean-mugging at him from a few inches away. Miles swallowed, noisily. Hobie kneaded his back again. “Ask me later,” he offered.

Miles looked at him with dark eyes. “What’ll you do?” he murmured. When Hobie just stared at him, he added, “If I say ‘sorry.’ What are you gonna do?”

“I …!” The surprise and delight winded him for a second, filling up his throat. Unable to speak, Hobie pressed his teeth into Miles’ shoulder, blankets and all. The purring had started up again; a thin vibration he could feel right through the layers. Hobie shoved himself off the bed, feeling a bit like a fish that had managed to escape its hook. “I am gonna leave this room like I said I would!” he declared. He fished a piece of blanket fuzz out of his mouth as discreetly as he could. Hobie glanced at the empty space next to his alarm clock and hesitated. “D’you need water?”

“I don’t need water,” Miles hummed. The blankets shifted as he moved underneath them.

“Okay, alright,” Hobie scoffed, playing at disapproving while something not far removed from glee filled his lungs like smoke. He snatched his patched dressing gown out of the nest and reached down to scruff the back of Miles’ neck. “There's fresh batteries in the inside pocket. Be good,” Hobie said, and walked out before Miles’ breath could even.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

[derangedorange]

I hope he views fanart like this

[shandzii]

this cookie so intelligent

[wardensantoineandevka]

is that piece of media actually bad, or is it just not following the blueprint you projected onto it? is that work actually not good, or are you just demanding something from it that is absolutely antithetical to its themes, genre, tone, and narrative goal? is that story actually poorly written, or do you just dislike that it is not the specific things you wanted from it that it never set out to be, never was, and never is going to become? is it actually bad, or is it actually well-executed and you just dislike the story it chose to be because it isn't catering to your specific desires and expectations?

[i-say-stupid-things]

i’m gonna hold your hand with a glove on when i say this

when disabled/chronically ill people tell you they can’t do something, then that is not your cue to tell them that they can actually or that they’ll always find an excuse if they’re looking for one.

when a disabled/chronically ill person says they can’t do something, sometimes that doesn’t mean it’s outside the realm of possibility, sometimes it means if they (attempted to) do that, they will seriously hurt themselves.

when a disabled/chronically ill person says they can’t do something, sometimes it’s preventative care, and they refuse to do that thing to prevent a flare up from happening/their symptoms getting worse in the first place.

disabled/chronically ill people are not “looking for excuses”, they are giving you reasons why. something they don’t even have to do! so maybe just accept the reasons they give you.