#i don't have the brain power but I have been spinning around the idea that memoire antique and Uruwashi no Nightingale are connected

[arolesbianism]

I may be failing my plan to not make any isat aus. So there's this guy her name is Euphrasie right. What if I took her and combined what could be 3 separate au concepts into one. And in the process forced myself to go back and reread a bunch of shit to make sure I know how to maximally fuck over this sad wet puppy of a woman

[prokopetz]

One of the more frequent anecdotes you'll hear from Dungeons & Dragons podcasters is that any time they switch to a system other than D&D, even for a one-off arc, they immediately experience a large drop in listenership – sometimes up to eighty percent! – only to see most of those listeners come back once they switch back to D&D.

What's interesting about this is that the greater part of D&D podcast listeners do not play Dungeons & Dragons. They might have a general idea of what the game's rules look like based on what they've been able to passively absorb from listening to the podcast, but they don't have regular groups, they don't own the rulebooks or maintain subscriptions to the e-book service, and many of them have never rolled a d20 in their lives.

How, then, do we account for that sudden drop in listenership? Why does which system a tabletop roleplaying podcast is using matter so much if most listeners neither know nor care about the rules?

The answer is, unfortunately, quite simple.

In many ways, advocacy for indie RPGs has never moved past Ron Edwards' infamous argument that playing Dungeons & Dragons causes actual, physical brain damage. Deep down, a lot of indie RPG advocacy seems to believe there's something sinister in the structure of D&D that's responsible for what they regard as its unaccountable popularity. You can see this in everything from the casual assumption that D&D players aren't "really" having fun (and all that's needed to convert them to other systems is to show them they've been tricked into falsely believing they're enjoying an objectively un-fun activity), to the rambling thinkpieces that talk about getting folks to try other games like they're liberating people from the fucking Matrix.

Yet we come back to the same problem: how can the mechanical structure of D&D be implicated for its culturally dominant position in the minds of those who've never picked up a twenty-sided die?

The truth is that Dungeons & Dragons enjoys cultural dominance, both within the hobby and elsewhere, because it's owned by the same multinational corporation that owns Monopoly and My Little Pony, and benefits from all the marketing strength its owner can bring to bear. The problem, in brief, is brand loyalty. The aforementioned podcasts lose listeners in droves whenever they give a non-D&D system a spin because all most of those departing listeners care about is whether the thing that they're listening to is called "Dungeons & Dragons". The structural particulars of the mechanics are irrelevant.

The bitter pill we've got to swallow as indie RPG authors is that we can't fix brand loyalty in tabletop RPGs by fucking around with the shape of the dice. There are lots of productive causes we can support to help address the problem, but they mostly have do to with intellectual property and antitrust regulations and such, which are areas where our finely honed ability to debate the correct way to pretend to be an elf is of very limited utility.

Like, I enjoy an abstruse argument about the ideology of dice-rolling as much as the next nerd, but let's not fool ourselves that we're speaking truth to power here. The gamer who just wants to roll dice to hit the dragon with their sword is not your enemy.

[my-writings-and-musings]

Clawing my way out of depression with some incredibly silly Bumblebee x Reader, in which our beloved Scout is shrunk down to the size of a kitten via science magic and reader must keep him warm in their coat. Reader is gender neutral beyond having titties for Bee to huddle against. Read and join me as I defeat SAD with the power of silliness.

Shrunken Earthspark Bumblebee x GN!Reader

Rated PG for silliness, fluff and booby mention

Hunkering down at the abandoned warehouse you'd been told to wait in, you kept your eyes and ears on the horizon, hoping that the hum of familiar engines would cut through the howling wind and whirling snow before long. Though the air was frigid enough to freeze your breath, the bitter cold accounted for only a small portion of your desire to swiftly reunite with the team, as you had much bigger problems that you needed help with. Well, perhaps "bigger" wasn't the right word for it...

Standing atop the opposite end of the windowsill for his own vigil, Bumblebee looked remarkably alert and well composed for someone a fraction of their natural height. You supposed that his brush with Mandroid could have gone much worse; at least the device the scientist had escaped with had only shrunk the Scout, and done no further harm. It was a double miracle that you'd managed to find his tiny form amidst the knee deep snow of the battlefield. Rubbing your gloved hands together and trying not to stare, you told yourself that Wheeljack would be able to fix everything in no time, and that a few broken laws of physics would return your beloved bot to his usual towering height. Seeing him this tiny was just too strange, and not to mention unspeakably adorable.

A kitten-sized sneeze drew your eyes away from the snowy landscape out the window, and you looked over to find the Scout hugging himself through a dramatic shiver. "Bee? You okay?" you asked quickly, unable to help feeling far more protective than usual.

"F-f-fine!" he replied just as quickly, spinning around to face you. Digits trembling, he forced a shaky smile as he attempted to pass off crossing his arms as a casual gesture, though the tiny crystals of ice you noticed spreading across his frame gave him up just as readily. The poor mech sounded like he was seconds away from turning into a tiny Autobot popsicle as he shivered through every syllable. "Just a little... ch-chilly... B-but I'm f-fine!"

A number of realizations pinged through your mind at once; Bee must have lost a considerable amount of heat while buried in the snow, he was now far too small to regain said warmth, and he had no real idea how to stop himself from freezing now that he didn't have mass to protect himself. His pride had undoubtedly kept him from voicing the problem as it worsened, leaving you with a very tiny and very frozen Scout to thaw. "You're obviously freezing! Why didn't you tell me?"

"N-never been a p-problem before..." he replied as he gave in and started to shiver. Your heart twisted in pity, and you looked about as your brain raced to think of a solution, the lack of supplies leaving you with very few options. There was no way to build a fire, nor was there any power supply to start up the building's climate control, which was probably busted anyway. If only you had a tiny jacket to share...

"I need to get you warm; fast. Let me think... oh!"

The solution that came to you was very silly, and in a less life-threatening situation you would have thought it was quite embarrassing, but the prospect of saving your beloved Scout left no room for such doubts. Unzipping the front of your coat, you offered a hand for him to climb onto.

"Come here. You'll be plenty warm under my coat." you explained, figuring he'd fit perfectly between your shirt and the ample padding. Despite the chill, Bee managed a pink blush across his frozen cheeks, optics going wide in bashful embarrassment as he put together what you meant. It seemed that his pride hadn't shrunk with him.

"Y-you don't have-"

"Shush. At this rate, you'll freeze before our ride gets here" you insisted, voice growing a tad more urgent at his worsening freeze. Just watching his wings shake in time with his shivers made you care little for any kind of pride, including your own, and you used your concern to remain steadfast. Bringing your hand close enough for him to feel the warmth radiating from your glove made his resolve visibly waver. "So for now, my heat is your heat."

"Mmm..." he hummed in uncertainty, growing more tempted by the second. No bigger than a kitten and only slightly more intimidating, he cracked after only a few additional moments of hesitation, steadying himself against your thumb as he sat in your palm. He couldn't have weighed more than a pound, and you had to stifle a reflexive squee as he instinctively pressed himself into the warmth of your hand. A drooping of his optics made resisting that much harder. "Maybe just for a few minutes..."

"Of course." you said with a knowing smile. Gently sliding him into the opening of your coat, you just managed to avoid hissing as his frigid mesh settled against your shirt, though it was easy to ignore the discomfort when the tiny bot melted against you. With the outcrop of your breasts to support him, and the... "plush" of the area in question to keep him comfortable, Bee settled down as quickly as one would on a luxary mattress. Shivers dying down before your very eyes, the Scout rested his helm against you with the tiniest sigh. You had an undeniable urge to pet him as you whispered down into the little pocket of warmth. "There. Better?"

"Much... thank you." he murmured, looking up to meet your eyes with a smile as grateful as it was sleepy. Hoping he couldn't hear the resulting flutter of your heart, you pulled the zipper up a tad to keep the heat from escaping, grateful that your mammalian physiology could come in such handy. You'd have happily watched him rest his optics for hours, but a hum in the distance drew your gaze to the frosty window. Through the thick whirls of snow, your squinting eyes made out the faint outline of a familiar truck and aircraft, followed by a number of other vehicles you'd been hoping to see. The convoy had arrived.

"I think that's our evac, do you want-"

You went quiet at the sound of the tiniest snores you'd ever heard emanating from your coat, and as soon as your heart was done with its backflip, you found yourself wondering whether or not Bee would wish to be woken before his comrades saw him snoozing atop your breasts.

[togglesbloggle]

In Defense of Bad Things

'Bad' here meaning mostly 'amateur'; stuff made enthusiastically by people at an unprofessional level. Art with visible gaps between what the artist imagined and what they achieved, products of flawed craftsmanship. I suppose everybody can appreciate them to some extent, it's a rare parent that doesn't put up their kid's drawings on the fridge in one way or another. But it turns out to be a fully general skill you can cultivate, and the more I do, the more I'm glad I did.

Partly, it's the teacher thing; finding delight in amateur work is one of the ways to find delight in the process of learning. Cultivating a love of striving-qua-striving can help make you a force for good in the world, as people start to feel safe trying to do things when you're around, even when their efforts are wobbly. You get to participate a little more in the process of atoms spinning themselves into ideas, even when there aren't any illusions about whether you're helping cultivate some revolutionary genius in the field.

And partly it's a fabulous way to build community. By necessity, our professional-level skills tend to be at the service of other people, performed for economic benefit; that's kind of how you get professionally good at something in the first place. When we're acting for our own sake, and among friends, most of what we do with one another is amateurish. I only cook middling-okay, I can't hold a tune that well, I'll never be a speed runner for anything. If you can only enjoy singing from the hundred best singers in the whole world, manufactured and polished by major studios, then you and your friends will sit shoulder-to-shoulder and passively listen to music. But it's so much richer an experience to sit face-to-face, actually singing together, even badly; you expose yourself to so many new ways to appreciate and respect one another, building relationships on what you've accomplished and not just by witty criticism or liking the same things.

And partly it's because some of the most powerful and innovative artistic experiences are in high-churn environments with low expectations and low barriers to entry, if only because those catch the passionate and driven young people that have been otherwise overlooked by our systems. The golden age of webcomics meant that a ton of the actual art involved was pretty lousy, but it also produced work that people still talk about today. D&D began as a profoundly unpolished collection of handmade rulebooks sold at cons in a plastic baggie. By the time these products of enthusiastic amateurs filter themselves through various levels of popularity and absorb mainstream cash influx, they're often risk-averse and missing a lot of the bold spark that inspired their fans in the first place; others will simply never drift towards the mainstream at all. I'm not saying you should be the person who goes out to dig through the slush piles of the internet looking for overlooked art, unless you want to be-- but sometimes a work of actual staggering genius also happens to be a Supernatural fanfic by a first-time author who's a little hazy on commas, and if that's a dealbreaker, you're going to miss out on some profoundly valuable experiences.

And hiding behind all of these things is, like...

Our appreciation of beauty has an odd structure, right? When things are done very skillfully, by brilliant artists with years of training, we can usually appreciate those accomplishments. And when we're looking at nature without human influence, and especially when we think very deeply about natural processes and understand them in context, we often rediscover that sense of beauty. There's just this bizarre hole in the middle where we declare things 'ugly'; as if a little skill is worse than none at all.

I really don't trust that gap. It feels like a trick my brain is playing on me, you know? It has me suspicious that a lot of what I consider 'ugly' or 'bad' is not a very direct experience of the world at all, or an informed judgment. That it is, rather, a declaration of (self-, social-) identity; a desire to be seen as a person of good taste, or as somebody who does things well, or just more primitively as one of the monkeys who is in the good-stuff-tribe and not one of the monkeys who is in the bad-stuff-tribe.

[blue-rose-soul]

"Great Alastor Altruist* died for his friends!"

This scene has been spinning in my brain since Thursday. Like a lot of other people, my first thought was that this was an indication that Alastor had grown to care for Charlie and her friends at the hotel. And it's not because of the words he says. Even if you're watching without subtitles and don't see the quotations around that phrase, it's pretty obvious that he's laughing at the very thought.

"Me? Alastor? Dying for them?"

"Ridiculous."

"Absurd!"

"Utterly laughable!"

No, what makes me think that there might be a kernel of truth there isn't the words by themselves. It's the look on his face as he says them.

This is the part where Alastor's angry snarl breaks and he begins to look genuinely afraid. He clutches his chest. He digs his fingers into his scalp, drags his hand down the side of his face. And that's a perfectly reasonable reaction to nearly dying! It's very human! But I think it's very telling that this expression doesn't settle on his face until he's talking about dying for someone else. Before this he looked more angry than anything, and he lapses back into anger up until he begins talking about trying to find a way out of his deal.

Now, don't get me wrong, I understand why anyone would think otherwise. The thing about Alastor is that, despite how blatant it is, his mask works. Like I stated earlier, I find myself searching every word, expression, and gesture from Alastor for double meaning. Ostensibly, there's no one here for Alastor to lie to**. No one he has to put up an act for. But his smile, which he's already fully admitted is faker than fake, remains firmly in place. I wonder if putting up an act is so second nature to him at this point he can't help but do it even when he's alone. Maybe he tries to fool himself as much as other people.

I believe that he has come to care, but I can't fully believe it. I won't be surprised to be wrong. But there are some scenes that just don't make sense to me if he really doesn't care at all.

His chat with Niffty the night before the extermination, for example. Niffty isn't really someone he needs to trick. He has power over her, whether it's because he owns her soul or because of her blind devotion to him. It's telling that while everyone else is hanging out together, sharing drinks at the bar, Alastor keeps his distance and positions himself above them. At this point, Alastor seems to care about them the way we, the audience, care about them; as entertainment. He's enjoying watching their story unfold up close, but that's all there is to it. He admits to Niffty that one could get accustomed to being with them. Not him though! He's above all that.

Then the battle happens. At first, Alastor's role in the battle didn't require him to assume too much risk. He was on crowd control, limiting the number of exorcists the rest of the hazbins have to deal with at once. And he slayed a not insubstantial number of angels in the process***. But then Adam broke through Alastor's shield and singled him out. It would have been reasonable for Alastor to put some distance between himself and the Lead Exorcist. Charlie did say it was his job to deal with Adam, but as I've already discussed, Alastor really had no hope of winning that fight alone. Maybe if he'd escaped right then and there, or fought Adam alongside Charlie things would have turned out differently. Granted, I don't think his pride would have allowed him to take either of those options.

Regardless, the end result is that Alastor did come very close to dying for a cause that wasn't his. Considering what Adam did to the hotel, Alastor's pretty damn lucky he's not in two pieces here.

Now, I don't think this means Alastor is immediately going to turn around and integrate int o the hazbin family. Immediately after this line where he mocks the idea of dying for Charlie's cause, he gets angry again, leans further into the Radio Demon persona and starts contemplating ways to escape his contract. I think, that like someone recoiling after accidentally touching a hot stove, Alastor's going to pull further away from them. One thing I am certain about is how Alastor feels about his leash; he hates it. He wants to be rid of it. He doesn't know how to do that yet, but he's working out a plan and having Charlie in his corner is part of that plan. Giving a genuine shit about her or the other hazbins is not part of that plan. It's another leash, not as literal as the one connecting him to his patron but just as binding.

Alastor realizing he might actually care about these people may just make him more dangerous to them than if he just didn't care at all.

-

(*The word 'altruist' here being used as a title, not a name. Like something you'd see in a newspaper headline, or on a headstone.)

(**There do seem to be some odd eye motifs in the environment, but at no point does Alastor give any indication he is aware of them or acknowledge their presence in anyway. And I highly doubt he would have said certain things if he believed his patron was actively watching him.)

(***Taking this opportunity to go off topic a bit to call the Vees out on their hypocrisy. For all their bluster about 'taking the fight to Heaven' and how 'pussy' the older Overlords supposedly are, I didn't see any of them on the battlefield. Alastor was. He fought as long and hard as he could. There was nothing cowardly about him living to fight another day.)

[sunnynwanda]

Hi! Ive been following you for a long while and I love your writing so much!

If you feel like it, could you write a hero x villain, one of which is the type to get touchy and playful when drunk and accidentally confesses to the other like that? With the other being surprised

Ofc you can take it in whatever way you want! :D

Do Your Worst

Warnings: intoxication, slightly suggestive (i guess?), bad flirting xD

Villain was stoic. Cold as ice, unmoving as a mountain. They never flinched, never winced, never recoiled. No matter how strong the blow was, no matter how bad it hurt. No muscle dared to twitch on their carved face, not one sound escaped their pale lips.

They were made of stone - Hero was sure of it. 

Here remembered their first battle with Villain, the power of their blows unmatched, rumbling in the emptiness of the building, concrete crushing under their fists as they chased Villain relentlessly. In retrospect, Hero knows they must have broken at least five ribs, if not more. Yet, the only reaction they got from Villain was a quirked eyebrow - a mocking challenge. A dare to keep going, to give more. Bring it on.

Do your worst. 

Hero hated those words despite having heard them a thousand times before. A spark ignited deep within, turning into lightning, rushing through their veins like a wave. Passion and power. Hero had no idea where to draw the line. Villain was insatiable in their hunger, unstoppable in their pursuit of a thrill. Yet there was no satiating Hero's thirst either - they wanted more. More fire, more freedom. More of Villain.

But Villain was the epitome of indomitable. Impassive. Equable.

All the more surprising was the state they found Villain in today. No, surprising was not the word for what they were feeling. They were struck dumb, astonished, speechless. Anything but surprised as they take in the look of Villain swaying on their feet and coming to a halt in front of them with the sweetest pout on their soft lips. 

"Baby-y," they exclaim, excitement colouring their voice in a way Hero has never heard before. "What are you doing here?" 

Hero staggers back, their eyes blown wide. Villain attempts a smile, their lips curling up to reveal the dimples on their cheeks. Hero feels their heart skip a beat at the sight.  

"Villain, are you alright?" They start cautiously, part of them suspecting that their nemesis has been drugged. 

Villain nods, failing to form a stern expression and setting on an adorable frown. "Mhm. Missed you. So much." Their words come out slurred but manage to send Hero's eyebrows up into their goddamn hairline. 

"You... what?" Hero mumbles out, breath hitching in their throat as they process the words. They are quick to react when Villain stumbles forward, gripping Hero's outstretched arms for stability. 

Except, they don't stop at that. Once Hero steadies them and lets go of their hands, Villain doesn't step back. Instead, they wrap their arms around Hero's waist and rest their chin on Hero's chest as they tilt their head up. 

"Hi, baby," they muse, their pupils dilated from intoxication. Hero's throat goes dry at the sight, their hands twitching to touch Villain's flushed cheekbones, brush their fingers over the sensitive skin, ignite them the same way Villain's words have them on fire. 

"Hi," Hero breathes out, their mind spinning. "You're drunk." They state the obvious, earning a deep rumble of a chuckle from Villain. 

"Mhm," Villain hums, leaning closer, their chest flush against Hero's. "And you're pretty." 

"I- w-what?" Hero stutters out, their brain short-circuiting when Villain's hand slides up their chest to their neck, their fingers brushing the side of Hero's neck. "What are you doing?"

"Hm?" Villain looks up at them, blinking innocently and sending a shiver down Hero's spine. Holy mother of god. 

Hero wants to remove Villain's hands from their body, they really do. But, the moment they actually try, Villain gives them the most adorably heart-shattering pout they have ever seen, and who the hell is Hero to refuse them? 

They sigh heavily, cupping Villain's jaw, their thumb rubbing soft circles into their cheek. "Shh, let me get you home, okay?" They ask, gazing intently into Villain's heavy-lidded eyes. Villain nods, leaning into their touch with unexpected desperation, their lips parted in strained pants.

Hero draws them closer, holding them upright, but almost drops them when their apathetic nemesis yelps. Hero stares at their enemy cradled in their arms when Villain does the unthinkable. They giggle. The sound rings through the air, and Hero all but dies on the spot, their mouth hanging agape for a moment too long, drawing another soft laugh out of Villain, who must have decided to break Hero's mind because they wrap their arm around Hero's shoulders, nuzzling into their neck. 

"I've wanted to do this for so long," they mutter against Hero's skin, sending a flood of lava down their throat. Hero lets out a guttural groan, barely restraining themself from lifting Villain's head from their shoulder and devouring them on the spot. 

"Villain, please," Hero whispers, unsure of what they are pleading for - for Villain to stop or to keep going. Keep ruining me.

Villain shakes their head, their lips brushing against the side of Hero's neck when they speak again. "I won't have the guts to say this when I'm sober," they confess, and Hero freezes, too stunned to move, speak or even breathe.

They can't remember what they need the air for when Villain's cold fingers trace the outline of their lips. They feel intoxicated, Villain's drunken state influencing them in the strangest way possible, making them feel lightheaded like no alcohol ever could. 

"Villain," Hero warns through gritted teeth, struggling desperately to maintain control and composure when Villain stands on their tiptoes, leaning on Hero's chest for stability. "One more word from you, and I won't be responsible for my actions."

They press their forehead to Villain's, their eyes meeting with scorching intensity, Hero's gaze glowing with insanity and desire.

Villain might be made of stone, but Hero isn't. 

Hero is on the verge of falling apart, crumbling under Villain's smouldering hands like they are made of clay. 

"Do your worst," Villain whispers against their lips, and Hero loses it, capturing Villain's mouth, crushing into them with a groan rambling in the back of their throat. 

No, Hero is not made of stone. And neither is Villain.

A/N: Hi, sweetheart! Oh my, thank you so much :) You have no idea what this means to me and how good it makes me feel to receive requests and notes like this! Love you with all my heart <3 xo Sunny

Masterlist

Taglist: @marvellousdaisy @alltimelowing@lateuplight @surplus-of-sarcasm@betwist@excusemeasibangmyheadonawall @enemies-to-idiots-to-lovers@miaowmelodie @thatonerandomauthor @hhabaddon@burningoutlikeicarus @daemonvatis @weepingcowboywolfbat @thelazywitchphotographer @kaiwewi @soul-of-a-local-bard @pigeonwhumps @aflyingsheepnamedrose @thatneptune @ohwellthatslifesstuff @worldsfromhoney@thiefofthecrowns @crow-with-a-typewriter @qualityrabbitsoup @stargeode@villain-life @villainsblood @whumpifi @glassthedumbass @silviathebard @misskowe @ayeshaturnedtoashes4444

[sailing-through-hawkins]

✧ 1 ✧ 2 ✧

"What if - ooh, what about Patricia?"

Robin rolls her eyes, picking at the grass by her ankles. She's tempted to throw some at Steve but she doesn't really wanna see the blades phase through him right now, even if he'll play up his outrage to distract her.

He's been doing that a lot lately. Trying to distract her from the fact that he's - that -

"Okay, okay, hear me out - Chrissy Cunningham."

"The cheerleader?" Robin wrinkles her nose. "Steve."

"It could happen!" Steve says defensively,  sticking his tongue out when Robin gives him her most 'seriously?' face she can muster. "Don't judge a book by its cover, or whatever."

"You're literally meant to do that, that's what the cover's for!"

"Well then, why do people even say that?!"

"I don't know!"

"Is it always like this with you two?" The grouchiest voice cuts through them and Steve spins around in place, floating up even higher so he can stare down at Eddie.

Robin just snorts. "Pretty much."

"Don't be too jealous, Munson," Steve coos, turning himself upside down with a wide grin. "You'll find your soulmate at some point, probably."

"Oh wow, probably," Eddie grouses, and Robin has to bite back a laugh when Steve, still upside down, floats behind him with a silly face stretching out...the scar on his chin. "I am ever so gracious for your faith, oh Generous King."

"This guy's a riot," Steve laughs, poking a finger through Eddie's shoulder and making him jump in place. "Bobbie, can we keep him?"

She wrinkles her nose and shakes her head. "I'll end up being the one taking care of him if we do."

"I'm right fucking here," Eddie glares at the both of them, which is just prime material to get them snickering. "Whatever, did it work or not?"

And with that, the laughs cut off.

Robin remembers.

Steve's dead.

"Hey," The ghost of Steve floats over to her, sitting down beside her on the grass. "It's okay -"

"It didn't -" Robin chokes out, avoiding Eddie's eye, staring down at the dirt that she's plucked bare of green. "It didn't. They couldn't see."

The air is silent.

"Probably for the best," comes a sigh and Robin feels rage boil through her blood.

"What the hell?" She glares up at Eddie, who holds his hand up in surrender.

"Look, I know you're both desperate to get your little 'Party' up to speed but like...I mean, just look at him." Eddie waves to all of Steve's ghost, who looks more and more affronted with every word Eddie says. "Do you really think it's a good idea for actual children who watched him die to see him again in the exact same get-up? With the same wounds?"

Robin pauses but Steve just glares harder. "Oh sorry, I didn't know I was supposed to go shopping at Ghosts-R-Us and pick a whole new outfit! What, you think I want to be stuck in this uniform? In the shorts?"

Eddie's face goes red and Robin distantly thinks 'serves you right' as the echo of "watched him die" cycles through her brain. "Well I - I don't know, you're a fucking ghost, you should have ghostly powers or something!"

"Have you ever met a ghost before?!"

"Have you?"

"Stop," Robin chokes out and she immediately gets the chills as Steve waves a hand through her shoulder. "Just stop."

She can't feel him, because he's gone. He's gone. He's gone -

"I'm right here, Rob," Steve's voice murmurs to her and she sobs. "I'm always with you, promise."

"I'm so sorry," she cries, burying her face in her hands and curling up, grief pulling down at her heart. "I'm so sorry, Steve -"

"Shh, it's okay, birdie," he says and she almost feels the warmth he should have. "It's not your fault, it's okay."

"I thought - I just - if we tell everyone, maybe they'll know what - how to - I'm sorry -"

"Wasn't your fault, Bucks," Eddie says gruffly, sitting down next to her roughly. "Just what happens sometimes. That kinda shit...'s out of our control."

She sniffles, burying her hand deeper into her own skin, hoping it'll suffocate the tears out of her, or maybe make her pass out so she doesn't have to think about all of it for a bit, or scratch away the endless void of pain inside her chest -

"Birdie, hey, look at me."

She doesn't.

"Robin."

She can't.

"Please?"

With another choked out sob, she looks up to see Steve Harrington, smiling at her like he never left. Like she didn't leave him.

"No matter what happened, or what happens," he says softly, nearly see-through fingers trying to brush her hair out of her face. Maybe she should get bangs. "I'm always with you, Robs. Not even until death do us part. Platonic soulmates for the rest of time."

She wails and shoves her face into his shoulder, not even caring if she passes through him. A hand pats her back, probably Eddie's, and she sobs louder because why did he get to see Steve? Why did she force him to know? Why couldn't they just be happy?

"Woah, how the hell -"

Robin blinks.

She's sobbing into Steve's shoulder. He's patting her back.

She quickly moves back and stares, Steve's own surprised face staring back, no bruises or scars or Scoops uniform in sight.

"What -"

And in a snap, his face turns back to battered and the warm red sweater he was wearing just a second ago turns back into the bright blue sailor shirt. His hair loses its fluff and goes back to that sad, wiry, bloodied mop.

He changed.

"So you do have ghost powers!" Eddie says triumphantly, as Steve sputters.

"I guess?!" He looks down at his hands, reaching out to touch Robin's fingers, but all she feels is the cold. "How did - why did it stop?"

With one last sniffle, she cups the air around his fingers and looks up at the both of them, her Steve and their spontaneously adopted Eddie (in retrospect, maybe they are weirdo magnets? Better think about that later). She says, with as much determination as she can muster, "This isn't over. We're getting you back."

[inmymagnetoera]

Requested by @undead-vendetta

I think that the one bed trope is my food? My air?!? MY ONLY REASON TO LIVE?

Anyway, here is it for you!

___________________________________

Just in Erik's style

"You must be kidding me." Erik sighed as he saw the room where he and Charles would spend the night. The room itself wasn't bad: clean, or at least, clean by American standards, the windows looked out onto the road they had come from and, fortunately, onto their car parked just outside the motel. To the side was a small wooden desk with a chair and opposite it was a small bathroom that Charles was inspecting.

"Oh, come on, it's not the end of the world." Charles said as he walked out of the small room with only a shower and toilet. He placed his backpack on the side of the only bed in the room and sat on it.

"It's not the end of the world? Charles, you woke me up once when you moved around in your sleep and we weren't even in the same bed! You'll push me down as soon as you close your eyes." He crossed his arms and looked out the window, unable to see much further from the parking lot given the late hour and the low light.

"How dramatic of you, Erik. We should call you Dramneto instead of Magneto." He laughed at his own joke and rolled onto his side.

"Really? Dramneto? Is that the best thing you could find?" He turned his torso to look at his friend, but looked back out the window when he saw that the other was undressing to go to sleep.

"Stop babbling and come to sleep, tomorrow we have to get up early to go visit that mutant in prison. Alex? Right?" He put on an old white short-sleeved t-shirt and remained in his boxers.

“I could sleep on the floor.” He proposed, although the idea of ​​sleeping on the cold wood didn't appeal much to him.

"Don't talk nonsense, Erik. Come here."

Erik realized there was no way out and prepared to join Charles.

They stood side by side and Erik turned off the light with his powers. The two mutants stood still for a few seconds looking at the ceiling in the darkness, both wondering who made them do this.

"Uh, okay, maybe I should-"

"No no, wait, I'll-"

After various movements worthy of an Olympic gymnast, the two lay back to back on the small bed and remained silent, listening to each other's breathing. Erik felt Charles' spine crushing his back muscles and, with that feeling, he fell asleep.

The next morning, the situation was worse than before.

When Erik woke up, he felt a strange presence on him, like a weight on his chest. He ran a hand over his eyes before opening them and being blinded by the sunlight. When his brain realized where he was, Erik thought he was still dreaming.

Charles Xavier was leaning on him, his face was resting just above Erik's sternum, his arms were wrapped around the other's body and, at this moment, a light thread of drool was dripping and dirtying Erik's shirt .

What to do? What to do in this situation? Erik wishes he had his own phone to look up "what to do when your crush your friend falls asleep on you" but he was afraid that just one small move would wake Charles. As he thought about it, the body next to him began to move.

Charles lifted his head briefly from Erik's chest and stood with his eyes half closed, he began to move his hands over Erik's belly and, when he connected the dots, he pulled his hands back as if he had been electrocuted and looked at the man next to him, now both much more awake than before.

"I think I'll... go to the bathroom." Charles said after a few seconds, running a hand through his sleep-disheveled hair and standing up, without looking at Erik, locking himself in the other room. Erik got up and got dressed, going to look in the parking lot to see if the car was still intact, while his head continued to spin.

"Did you sleep well?" The woman behind the counter asked with a small smile when she saw Erik coming down the stairs.

"Yes, very good." He replied with a hint of a smile.

"Oh, good! You know, your friend had requested a single room and when the two of you arrived here, I told him that we also had double rooms available but he didn't want to change." The woman continued to smile and shrugged.

Erik stared at her and nodded, heading towards the car and thinking about asking the woman about nice places to eat nearby. Maybe asking Charles on a date right after getting a teenager out of prison wasn't the best, but it was just Erik's style.

[hbyrde36]

for @penny00dreadful

Ch 1 Ch 2 Ch 3 <-

Chapter 4: No Place Like Home

WC: 5496 | Ch 4/4 | AO3 <-

It was a surprisingly smooth landing as Steve was brought into the highest tower of the Witch’s castle through a large open window, caught in the exceptionally strong grip of the two flying monkeys who carried him there. 

Eddie had arrived the same way only a moment or two ahead of him, and was now struggling against his own guard monkey's hold, trying to get to Steve while being dragged out of one of the room’s two doors.

“It’s so kind of you both to visit me in my loneliness.” The Wicked Witch cackled, standing in the middle of the chamber next to a huge crystal ball, the image displayed within it fading before Steve could suss it out. 

“What are you gonna do with Eddie? Where are they taking him?!” Now that his feet were on solid ground, Steve tried to fight back, but couldn’t seem to shake his captors.

The Witch waved a dismissive hand. “Never you mind about that.”

“Give him back to me!” Steve raged.

“Certainly, certainly, as soon as you give me those slippers.”

Steve swallowed hard, hesitating. He knew what Eddie would probably say, that it was a terrible idea to give her even more power—to give her what she wanted. 

At his silence, she turned, addressing a few more of her little monsters that were waiting on standby around the room. “Very well. Boys?”

The flying monkey’s ears perked up. 

“Hurt him.”

Steve braced himself as The Witch’s henchman quickly moved to follow her command, but it wasn’t him they were coming for, instead they raced out the same door Eddie had just been forced through.

“No!” Steve shouted, willing to risk anything if it kept Eddie safe.  “Take the damn shoes, I don't care! Just don’t… don’t hurt him, please.”

She shot him a cruel grin, and the monkeys holding him finally let go, backing away as she stalked closer. “That’s a good boy.” 

Steve snarled, briefly considering kicking her right in her smug face as she bent down, but thought she might be less likely to let Eddie go if he did. 

Begrudgingly, he held himself still as she reached out her hands, but before she could even lay a finger on the shoes, there was a flash of light, a spark like electricity crackling, and a force lashed out to zap her. 

The Witch jumped back, hissing. “Curse you!”

“That wasn’t me! I swear!”

“No, but I should have known. My sister must have put a spell on them. They’ll never come off… as long as you’re alive.” She circled him slowly, tapping the end of her pointed chin. “Now the only question is how to do it.”

“Oh for the love of—” Steve scrubbed a hand over his face. “Just kill me if you’re going to kill me, alright? Why do you people always have to drag shit out?

“What people?”

“Bad guys!”

She huffed, straightening her cloak. “These things must be done delicately, or you hurt the spell.”

“They're always monologuing about their evil plans too. I mean, what’s up with that?” Eddie’s voice rang out from where he had suddenly appeared in the doorway behind The Witch, somehow having given his guards the slip.

She stomped her feet. “I don’t mono—” She began, then gasped, spinning around. “How did you get free?!”

Steve wracked his brain to come up with some kind of distraction, anything to keep her busy long enough for them to get away. 

“Hey, Witch!” He called out as he squatted to pick up the massive crystal ball he’d noticed on arrival, even heavier than it looked, and began to carry it towards one of the  windows. “You don’t need this for anything important, right?” 

“Put that back! It’s priceless!” she shrieked.

“It’s pretty heavy, I don’t know if i can–” Steve cut himself off, pretending to stumble, and tossed the ball as hard as he could, hoping she’d try to catch it.

She dove, and in an impressive show of strength and dexterity managed to get under the ball before it hit the ground, preventing it from breaking. She looked stunned from the fall, the weight of the crystal pinning her to the ground for the time being.

Steve made to run to Eddie’s side, but just then, the other set of doors burst open and half a dozen very tall foot soldiers in ornate uniforms, furry helmets, and with the same bright green skin as their ruler, spilled into the room, rounding on Steve and cutting them off from each other. 

“Just go!” Steve shouted.

Eddie shook his head, eyes darting from the door behind him to what he could see of Steve between the soldiers. “I’m not running away and leaving you here!”  

“Get out and find help! It's not running away if you’re coming back, right? Now— go!” 

“Damnit, Harrington.” Eddie cursed, taking a few stumbling steps towards the way out. “I am coming back.”

“I know.”

With one last tortured look Eddie took off, his pounding footsteps echoing as he ran through the hall and down what sounded like a set of stairs. Half the guards took off after him while the others remained with Steve, backing him into the wall.

Steve craned his neck, near enough to a window to peer out, hoping to catch a glimpse of Eddie’s escape and know first hand that he’d gotten away. 

“Come on, come on,” he chanted quietly to himself, even as the soldiers started trying to pull him back over to The Witch, who was unfortunately back on her feet again. The castle doors began to close as he watched, and for a second Steve thought all hope was lost, but then he spotted it—moonlight shining on dark curly hair, slipping through the opening just before the door slammed. 

Steve’s heart leapt, and he finally let himself be led back over to The Witch. No matter what else happened here, at least Eddie had made it. 

“You’ve been more trouble to me than you’re worth, brat!” 

“Heard that before.” Steve mumbled to himself. He didn’t fight as the hands on him shoved him down into a chair, figuring it was smarter to save his strength for now.

“But, it'll all be over soon,” The Witch added as she snatched a giant hourglass off a nearby shelf, flipping it over onto the table in front of him. “That’s how much longer you've got to be alive. When the sand runs out, I'll have made my preparations.”

With that, she and her soldiers left, locking both doors up tight, leaving him alone in the tower.

Steve didn’t waste time wondering why he wasn’t tied down or handcuffed, and was out of his seat in a flash. First he checked the doors because, duh, but they were, indeed, locked. He then ran back over to the window, wondering if he’d survive the drop. It didn’t seem likely—even if he did, there was no way he’d walk away from that kind of fall without needing serious medical attention, and he had yet to see a single hospital in Oz. 

His next move was to search the room for weapons, something to break the doors in, or anything he might be able to use to climb down. The curtains proved to be useless, moth bitten and too slippery to really tie together, and apart from a chair leg he managed to break off that doubled as a wooden stake, he found nothing else useful to defend himself with. 

Time passed slowly.

And yeah, Steve had been through a lot in his life, but he’d never been kidnapped before. He never would have imagined it could be this… boring? 

There was only so long you could stand at attention, waiting for your captor to come back before your eyelids started to droop. He wound up sitting at the windowsill, head resting on his arm as he gazed out at the night sky, letting his mind wander. He didn’t really believe this was the last night of his life, he’d survived too much to be taken down by some psychotic pea-soup looking bitch, but any hope he had of seeing home again was gone.

He thought back on all the time he’d wasted—squandered opportunities to tell the people he loved just how much he loved them, the number of times he blew Dustin off to go on a date with some girl he couldn’t give two shits about, all these months since Vecna with Eddie, unable to accept his own feelings, and too afraid to admit them aloud. 

He was so lost in it all that he almost didn’t hear the sound of someone pounding on one of the doors. Reasonably sure The Witch wouldn’t be knocking in her own castle, he ran to it, pressing his ear to the wood. 

“Steve?!” A muffled voice shouted from the other side. 

Eddie!

“It’s me, yes! In here!”

“Stand back, I’m going to chop through the door!”

Steve stepped back, watching in awe as the wood slowly splintered away with each blow, until finally he could see Eddie’s face through it, distantly thinking it looked like he had some sort of animal resting on his head. 

A few more chops and there was a hole big enough for Steve to squeeze through. 

Once on the other side, he saw that Eddie wasn’t alone. The Tin Woman, The Scarecrow, and The Lion were all with him—all dressed like The Witch’s soldiers.

“Costume change?” Steve asked.

“Long story.” Eddie let out a shaking breath as he tore the fuzzy hat from his head and flung it aside, managing to shrug out of his big coat just in time to catch Steve as he threw himself into the other boy’s arms. 

“I wasn’t sure I'd ever see you again.” Steve whispered with his face pressed into Eddie’s hair. 

“You didn’t think I was really coming back?”

“I knew you’d try, even if I hoped you wouldn’t.”

Eddie squeezed him tighter. “You’re such a self sacrificial ass.”

“Takes one to know one.” Steve pulled back, punching him lightly in the shoulder before turning to The Scarecrow, drawing her into a quick hug too. “I can’t believe it, you’re really okay?”

“Might be missing a little stuffing here and there but, these two did a great job getting me back in one piece.”

Their reunion was abruptly cut short by shouts in the distance.

“We gotta get out of here!” The Lion roared.

“What about the broom?” Steve said.

Eddie grabbed his hand. “She wants to kill you, Steve, fuck the broom! We’ll find some other way home.”

The group of them flew down the stairs back towards the way they’d come in. By some miracle they didn’t see a soul along the way, but as they raced across the foyer, just before they reached the exit, the doors swung closed, right in their faces.

“Going so soon?”

Steve turned at The Witch’s voice, spotting her standing on a balcony above looking down at them, laughing, as soldiers began spilling into the space from every direction. They were surrounded, though oddly none of the green men actually attacked, only approached slowly and menacingly.

“That’s right,” The Witch praised her guards. “Don’t hurt them right away, we’ll let them think about it a little first.”

Steve rolled his eyes. 

Eddie raised the ax he still held, as though he would take on the entire brigade himself, but The Scarecrow snatched it out of his hand. 

“What the–” 

She swung it around, chopping and cutting a rope tied to the wall that Steve hadn’t even noticed, and sent a giant chandelier falling from the ceiling to land on a large group of the soldiers. 

“Good thinking!” Steve said, and they used the momentary distraction to flee, running up a different set of steps to get away since it was the only path that was clear. They had no idea where they were going, and up didn’t seem likely to lead out, but they had little choice now. 

The soldiers unaffected by the chandelier attack gave chase, and the five of them ran down corridor after corridor before finally spilling out onto the battlement, a part of the wall where soldiers patrol. It was a dead end and quickly they found themselves backed into a corner, soldiers on both sides, The Wicked Witch among them. 

“Well,” she sing-songed as she zeroed in on Steve, “ring around the rosie, a pocket full of spears. Thought you’d be pretty foxy didn’t you? Well the last to go will see the first four go before him.”

Eddie leaned into Steve’s side, whispering, “What the hell did she just say?”

“I have no idea.” Steve said.

“I think she’s going to kill the rest of us first and make you watch.” The Scarecrow guessed.

“Right you are, Scarecrow. So how about a little fire?” The Wicked Witch raised the head of her broom up to one of the many torches that ran along the length of the wall, lighting it.

There was no way Steve was letting her anywhere near The Scarecrow with that thing, she’d go up in seconds and unlike being disassembled he was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to come back from that. He lunged for the broomstick before she could lower it, grabbing it in the middle and fighting for control. 

The next thing Steve knew he was being soaked in water like he was a contestant in a wet t-shirt contest.

The fire was put out instantly, the broomstick clattering to the ground as The Witch started screaming bloody murder. 

“Look what you’ve done! I’m melting! Who would've thought two pretty-boy-brats like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness.”

It was only water—from the now empty bucket Eddie was holding that he’d found god knows where—but as though she’d been dipped in the most corrosive acid known to man, The Witch began to sizzle and smoke, and truly did melt away into a puddle on the stone floor, leaving nothing solid but her clothes behind.

“She’s dead, you killed her.” One of the soldiers blurted out.

Steve hovered, trying to shield Eddie, unsure of how this was going to play out. The witch might have been gone, but they were still sorely outnumbered if her henchman’s loyalty extended past the grave. 

But Eddie wasn’t having it. He remained in front, tilting his chin up. “Honestly, it was an accident, but she did try to kill us first, so—fair is fair.”

There was a moment of absolute silence before the entire army, monkeys included, let out a deafening cheer. “Hail to Steve and Eddie! The Wicked Witch is dead!”

Eddie looked back at him, jaw dropped, and Steve could only smile.

When the cacophony died down, Steve approached the first soldier who spoke, supposing he might be the leader or general or something. “The broomstick, can we have it?” 

“Yes, of course! Please, take it with you.”

After a short reunion with a certain stunned-to-see-them-still-alive guard, fresh off what must have been an epic frolic through the poppy field and subsequent mystical slumber—if the state of his very red and heavy lidded eyes was any indication—Steve, Eddie, and their companions once again entered The Wizard’s throne room.

“Why have you come back?!” The deep voice of the Wizard rumbled through the air.

“We did what you asked.” Steve said simply, holding the Witch’s charred broom above his head.

They all waited with bated breath for some kind of response, but were met with nothing. After a few long moments Eddie took the broomstick from Steve and stepped forward. 

“The Wicked Witch is dead, and uh, we brought you the broomstick.” He cleared his throat loudly, unceremoniously tossing the burnt bit of wood in the direction of the dais. “So, make with the wish granting, yeah?” 

“I’ll have to give the matter a little thought. Go away and come back tomorrow.” The voice eventually responded.

“Tomorrow?!” Eddie snapped.

Steve shook his head, hands balled into fists at his sides. “But we wanna go home now!”

“We did everything you asked!.” The Tin Woman argued.

“Yes! At least send them home! They deserve it after performing such a great public service!” The scarecrow added, staring defiantly up at the floating head. 

As the others jumped in to help argue their point, Eddie began to look around the room, searching, and beckoned Steve to follow him. They quickly found something odd tucked in a dark corner that seemed not only out of place, but frankly looked like an obvious control center of some sort hidden behind a green curtain. How hadn’t they noticed it before?

Together they crept closer, each grabbing one side of the cloth, and on a silent count of three…

“Do you dare to criticize the Great Oz? Think yourselves lucky that I'm giving you an audience tomorrow instead of twenty—” 

…Flung the curtain back to reveal a young girl, about their age, with red hair, a bowler hat, and an all around Molly Ringwald vibe.

“...years from now.” 

She swiveled in her chair as she finished her sentence, the words a strange mix of the booming voice they’d been hearing, and her actual voice coming through as her mouth got further from the contraption she was using to alter it.  

“Ah, shit.” The girl, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Robin’s almost-girlfriend Vickie, sighed as she spotted the two of them, realizing she’d been caught in the act.

The others came over to join the party just as Eddie got up in her face. “Who the hell are you?” 

She looked down, fingers playing with the hem of her top. “Would you believe… The Great and Powerful Oz?”

“What a scam! You’re a phony!” Steve shouted.

“I am, yes.” Her shoulders slumped. “These are all tricks I learned working with a magician at the State Fair.”

Eddie fumed. “You sent us on a suicide mission!”

“And I'm very sorry about that!” She said quickly, holding her hands up. ”In my defense, I didn't actually expect you to go after The Witch, I thought if I gave you an impossible task you would just give up and not come back. Then my reputation could stay intact.”

“I suppose this means no brain for The Scarecrow, or heart for me, or courage for The Lion?” The Tin Woman said. 

“You don’t need me for that, you already have all those things. Think about it, Tin Woman. Was it not for the love of your friends that you helped them to get here, and to defeat the Wicked Witch? Someone with no heart wouldn’t do that.”

The Wizard smiled, rising from her chair, facing The Lion next.

“And you, Lion. What, you think just because you’re afraid that makes you a coward? You still did it, you still stood by your friends. See, the trick isn’t to not be scared, it’s to be scared and do it anyway. That’s courage.”

The Wizard turned lastly to face The Scarecrow and audibly gasped, her face turning an incredibly bright shade of red. “You, um, you helped to argue your friend's cases well, and I-I think it’s quite clear that you have a-a brain.” She paused, swallowing hard. “A b-big gorgeous brain, with, just—so many thoughts. I… sorry I don't usually—”

She trailed off, completely flustered and unable to look away from The Scarecrow’s face. 

For a moment The Scarecrow looked equally entranced by the Wizard, but then she frowned, looking back at Steve and Eddie. “But, what about the boys? They want to go home.”

The Wizard bit her lip. “Well, I might have a way to get them there, but it would mean taking them myself, never to return.”

“Will you?” Eddie asked.

“Of course,” She said hesitantly, looking from him and Steve to The Scarecrow and shook her head. “I—of course. I used to live in Indiana too, y’know. I was working at the fair, like I said, and one morning the boss asked me to test the propane tanks in the hot air balloon. I didn’t know what I was doing but it seemed easy enough. Damn thing took off on me, and just never came down. I got caught in a wind storm and landed here in Oz, came up with this ruse about being a Wizard and, well, you get the idea.”

“Do you still have the balloon?” Steve asked.

She grinned. “How do you think we’re getting you home?”

-

Steve and Eddie finally leaving Oz turned out to be a grand spectacle, with every citizen wanting to thank them for ridding their lands of not one, but two Wicked Witches, in such a short span of time. Even Glinda had made the journey to see them off. 

The balloon was set up in the middle of the square, and as The Wizard checked and re-checked her equipment, Steve and Eddie set about saying their farewells.

They hugged The Tin Woman and The Lion, and while It was difficult to say goodbye to them, it was nothing to the way Steve felt about leaving The Scarecrow. He had his own Robin, his best friend, waiting for him back home, but he felt connected to this version of her almost as strongly. 

It didn’t help that he’d seen the way she and The Wizard had been looking at each other since the moment they’d met. 

“Alright boys, ready to go?” The Wizard asked, looking sad.

“No,” Steve answered, turning an apologetic look on Eddie. “I can’t. I can’t ask her to leave forever, not if…”

“It’s okay, Steve. I saw it too. I want to go home, but I feel terrible.”

“Maybe Glinda can help?” Steve said.

One mention of her name and suddenly The Good Witch was right beside them, as if she’d been waiting for this moment. “You don't need to be helped any longer. You've always had the power to go back to Hawkins.”

Steve blinked at her. “I have?”

“Then why didn't you tell him that before?!” The Scarecrow asked. 

“Because, Steve had a few things he needed to figure out first. Isn’t that right?”

Steve gulped, giving her wide eyes.

“I don’t get it.” The Lion said. 

The Tin Woman shushed him, patting his hand. “I’ll explain it to you later.”

Eddie tilted his head. “What does she mean, Steve?”

“Well, I-I.” Steve stammered, eyes darting between Glinda and Eddie.

The Good Witch smiled, nodding encouragingly. “If you are ready to accept the truth, those magic slippers will take you home in two seconds.”

Steve but his lip. “Eddie too?”

Glinda laughed, high and bright. “Of course, Eddie too. Now stand together, and facing each other.”

They did what she asked, and while he remained quiet, Eddie was giving him that curious look again. 

“What do I have to do, are there, like, magic words?” Steve asked.

“There are lots of magic words, Steve, but to get home you need only close your eyes, tap your heels together three times, and show the truth that is in your heart.

There was only one way Steve could think of to show the truth, so…

He took a deep breath, closed the space between him and Eddie, and crashed their lips together. His eyes fell shut as Eddie kissed back, melting into it—and as Eddie threaded gentle fingers through his hair, Steve clicked his heels together, three times.

-

“Steve?”

Eddie’s voice rolled over him out of the dark, tinged with concern. 

Steve groaned, disoriented, his neck aching from the angle it was at, and he could feel a bit of drool drying on his chin. 

“Stevie, wake up.” This time Eddie gently shook his shoulder, and Steve’s head snapped up, eyes popping open wide. He looked around wildly, confused to find that he was slumped in a chair behind the desk at Family Video—but it didn’t matter where they’d landed, he supposed, the shoes had worked, they were back!

“Did he fall asleep again?” Robin’s voice called out from directly behind, and Steve spun around so fast he knocked his chair over, which in turn knocked over a small stack of tapes.

He ignored the mess, pulling her into a tight hug. It was really her! No straw, no burlap, just a sweatshirt she’d stolen from his closet two nights ago, with her work vest over the top. 

She shook her head like he was an idiot, but hugged him back anyway before letting go to set the chair back on its legs. “I was only in the back rewinding returns for half an hour!”

“Oh,” Steve breathed, finally registering what she’d first said, and felt suddenly lost. He could have sworn it was real, but Robin wasn’t freaking out the way he knew she would have if he’d disappeared for an entire night and day…

Or was it two? 

The more he thought about it the less sure he was of how long he and Eddie had been stuck in that colorful other dimension. 

If—if he had been stuck in another dimension. 

Robin said he’d been asleep, and he was just slumped in his chair at the desk at the end of his shift, and there Eddie was, right in front of him looking amused, if a little worried, and… and wearing a completely different shirt than he’d had on as they trekked through—

Oh.

Eddie, who was here to pick him up for their hang out because Robin was borrowing his car.

Steve groaned again, rubbed his temples. “I had such a weird dream.” 

“Was it a nightmare?” Robin asked.

It was a fair question, and something they all experienced from time to time even this many months out from their final dealings with the Upside Down. But this…this had been something wholly different.

“I’m not sure.” He settled on, yawning as he fought to think through the fog that was slowly lifting from his brain. Had it really all been in his head? A dream, a fantasy?

“Some of it wasn't very nice, but—” He glanced at Eddie again and felt a blush spread over his face. “Most of it was beautiful.”

“You were there.” Steve continued, giving the other boy a little nod. Eddie’s lips twitched into a crooked smile. 

Steve turned to Robin next.  “You were too—and Nancy, and Jonathan, and Argyle, and—” he trailed off, trying to remember everyone else he’d encountered along the way.

Eddie chuckled. “Did Robin make you watch The Wizard of Oz on repeat again?”

Steve froze.

Oz, yellow brick road, Munchkins…

He was such an idiot.

“It was slow this morning!” Robin lashed out, defensively. And you know I’m seeing Vickie tonight, I needed my comfort movie to settle my nerves!”

“Yes, I am well aware of your impending date, Buckley, hence me and my van being here to play chauffeur.”

Steve checked the time, he still had about fifteen minutes until he could officially lock up and clock out. “You’re early.”

Eddie shrugged. “I still have to pick us a movie for tonight. You go do your closing duties, or whatever, I'll be perusing the stacks.” 

Steve couldn’t tear his eyes away as Eddie walked off. He could still remember the other boy’s fingers pushing into his hair, gently cradling his head as they’d kissed—how his lips had felt so incredibly soft.

He wondered if it would be the same in real life.

“Steve… did you OD over there?” 

Steve startled as, once again, Robin's voice came from directly behind him, though much softer this time. He took her hand, pulling her to the other side of the room. 

“Do you remember that thing we talked about?”

She scrunched her nose. “Which thing?”

Steve sighed, speaking low. “You know, the… how some people go both ways, thing?”

She gasped, grabbing his arm, and looked back over her shoulder to where Eddie was still browsing, before whispering, “Do you mean…?”

Steve nodded, unable to stop his mouth from spreading into a wide grin.

“Are you gonna tell him tonight?!”

“Yeah, I think so.” Steve bit his lip. “Well, that, or maybe just stick my tongue down his throat the second we’re alone.”

Robin snorted. “And they say romance is dead.” 

“Okay smart-ass, how do you think I should go about it?”

“I think—it doesn’t matter what you say or do, because that boy is just as crazy about you as you are about him.”

“I hope so.” Steve looked down, wringing his hands. “I really like him. I-I might even–” He trailed off, too afraid to finish the thought even though he knew it was the truth.

“I know, dingus.”

At the other end of the store, tape in hand, Eddie began to make his way to the counter.

Robin gave Steve a little push towards the break room door. “You go splash some water on your face and change. I'll get your man checked out.”

“Not mine yet.”

“He will be. I’m proud of you, Steve.”

“Thanks, Robbie.”

As much as he’d joked to Robin about just going for it, Steve spent the whole drive to the new Munson trailer trying to compose the perfect speech to tell Eddie how he felt, but by the time they arrived he had nothing to show for his efforts but sweaty palms and anxiety.

Should he have just reached over the center console, taken Eddie’s hand, and hoped he got the hint? Maybe he shouldn’t make such a big deal out of it. No, no. Steve was supposed to be good at this! Eddie deserved more, he deserved the perfect moment. 

“You, uh, planning on coming inside?”

Steve sucked in a breath, snapping to attention, and realized Eddie had already gotten out of the van and come around to open the passenger door.

“Sorry.” Steve’s face grew hot as he climbed out of the van. “Guess I'm still feeling a little out of it from falling asleep earlier.”

Eddie frowned, reaching up to feel Steve’s forehead with the back of his hand. 

“Are you sure that’s all? You do feel a little warm.”

“I’m fine.” Steve ducked his head, throwing off the touch, though what he really wanted was to lean into it, and followed Eddie inside.

Eddie went right for the kitchen, throwing the bag from Family Video bag on the counter before diving into the fridge, digging out two beers.

Steve tried hard not to stare as Eddie bent over, reaching for the bag for something to do instead, and pulled the single tape out, flipping it over to the cover. 

“Seriously? Return to Oz?”

Eddie turned, grinning as he took a sip from his own bottle, sliding the other one towards him. “Come on, that's funny!” 

Steve huffed a laugh and tossed the tape back onto the counter.

“And, y’know… it’s a good movie.” Eddie went on, grin slipping a little as he set his beer down and rubbed the back of his neck, looking away—looking nervous, Steve realized. He realized something else too—there was never going to be a perfect time, or a perfect way to say what was in his heart. He knew how he felt, and he was pretty sure he knew how Eddie felt now too, or at least his subconscious did. Now he just needed to take that leap of faith.

“I know you don’t really like all the horror stuff me and the kids usually make you watch, and since it’s just the two of us I figured—” 

In the middle of Eddie’s adorably flustered ramble Steve stepped around the kitchen counter, took the other boy’s face gently between his hands, and crushed their mouths together.

Eddie went very still under his touch and Steve quickly pulled back, panicked for a moment that he had it all wrong, until Eddie wound his arms around him, gripping the back of his shirt as he pressed him into the counter, and suddenly Steve was the one being kissed.  

And what a kiss it was.

At the first brush of tongue Steve smiled into it, unable to contain his joy because Eddie had kissed him back! 

When they finally pulled apart again, Eddie blinked hard, looking dazed. “Shit, Steve, am I–am I dreaming right now?”

“God I hope not.” Steve went right back in, winding his hands into Eddie’s hair as their lips met again and again, their bottles of beer forgotten, left to grow warm on the counter. 

-

Later that night, when the movie was over—not that they’d seen much of it—after they’d actually talked and made their relationship official, and made out so much that Steve’s lips were sore, they curled up in Eddie’s bed together. 

As he burrowed deeper into Eddie’s side, and Eddie wrapped his arms around him even tighter, Steve let out a contented sigh. 

Dorothy had it right—there really is no place like home.

Thanks again to @pearynice and @hitlikehammers for all your help with this!

[deconstructthesoup]

Some beginning ideas for the chapter 3 Slay the Professor vessels:

Unique to the chapter 2 Professor:

The Modern Prometheus: You get the Modern Prometheus if you remain in the library with the Scientist, and he will respond by tormenting you with visions of death and dying until it's too much for you to bear. When you reawaken in the city, all of your voices have joined you, but your will is entirely broken, and you have no choice but to let the Professor out... and there's nothing you can do to prevent that from happening.

The Surgeon: You get the Surgeon if you run from the Doctor or do a poor job of fighting back, both of which end in you dying anyway. He still has his organ-resetting and organ-breaking powers from when he was the Doctor, but he's much more precise---though, this also comes with him taking his sweet time, giving him a disadvantage if you try to fight him like this.

The Awakened: You get the Awakened if you kill yourself when the Academic takes over you and eliminates the Guide. He is an angel now, towering above you and glowing with heavenly light, as he has now been blessed with all the knowledge in the universe... and, yeah, there's no way to defeat him. He'll appreciate it if you try, though.

The Hoard: You get the Hoard if you're merely killed by the Dragon instead of being devoured by him. While he is still very much capable of speech, he is even bigger and more monstrous, and he's changed his mind---he doesn't want to eat you, but he does want to keep you around as an addition to all the treasures he's amassed. Yeah, he's pretty fucking terrifying.

The Clipped: You get the Clipped if you hand the knife over to the Warlock as a sign of trust, and though he immediately betrays that trust and feels pretty smug about it, you do see a little bit of panic setting in as you fade out. When you find him again, he regrets killing you, and while he claims it's because he knows that he can't escape without you, you can see that he's rethinking his perspective of you. (This is not a romance route---the love story is between you and the Guide---but it is very much a "I think I understand you" route.)

Nothing Up My Sleeve & The Clockwork Man: One of two possible routes that can spring from the Inventor, this is what you get if you go down with the knife. You can keep on fighting against his onslaught of firearms and spinning blades, but it'll always end in the same way---with him eventually shedding his skin and revealing that he's an automaton, with the only thing that's flesh-and-blood being the brain set inside of his metal skull.

Conned And Trapped & The Last Spark: The same as the other Inventor route, except you didn't take the knife, you don't fight back, and it ends with his mechanical body falling apart.

Shared Chapter 3s:

The Judge: You get the Judge if you kill the Wizard or the Archivist, and while they are the same route, they are radically different depending on which Professor you start out with. If it's the Wizard, he will take on the visage of a heartbroken man who degrees that, because you betrayed him, you will be burned at the stake. If it's the Archivist, he will take on the visage of a cold and merciless man who degrees that the only justice you will receive is to be drowned in a well.

The Lich: You get the Lich if you either repeatedly attempt to kill the Creation or successfully kill the Scientist. The Lich has lost all sense of mercy and sympathy and is done with attempting to reason with you, and will puppet your body so you can lead him outside, where he will attempt to end you once and for all. He's pretty much one of the scariest Professors you can get.

The Plague: You get the Plague if you try to fight the Doctor without the knife or keep on fighting until he puts you out of your misery, or if you break free of the Academic's control and kill him. The Plague is hateful and only wants to make you suffer, and will do so by infecting you with a sickness that kills you over and over again, in increasingly agonizing ways.

The Underworld: You get the Underworld if the Dragon devours you and you kill him from the inside out, or if you either kill the Warlock or get trapped in the basement by him. You awaken, not bound to the Professor as one, but in a place where you see nothing but the repeated cycle of death and torment, over and over again. You hear the Professor's voice in your head along with the Guide and your aspects, hissing that this is all because of you, that it is your fault, that everything would be so much better if you were gone. And you can ignore him, and listen to the Guide when he says that this isn't the full story---and if you do that, you get the briefest and barest glimpse of the world beyond the city. But if you listen to him and follow the voice, you will find the Professor chained to a rock, tired and dejected and bitter. It's up to you whether you release him or leave him there.

Also, quick note---when a perspective of the Professor is collected, he cracks and turns into shards, which are then retrieved by a pair of talons. The perspectives are referred to as "shards," and the Professor doesn't consider them parts of his heart, but rather, parts of his mind.

[hellfirenacht]

Reader ==> Meet The Party

Isekai Chronicles Masterlist

FIRST CHAPTER LINK >> START HERE <<FIRST CHAPTER LINK

Summery: Through no powers of your own, you end up in Hawkins 1985, in a tv show that you once saw on Netflix.

Tags: Slow burn, Eddie Munson x Reader will be canon, choose your own adventure to a degree, monkey’s paw author, meeting the party

Monday August 5th, 1985 

The next few hours were a blur of Mike and Dustin interrogating you and tearing into your D&D books. It was far too late to have anyone else over.

You tried to answer any questions they had; who were you? How did you get here? What were you doing in the Upside Down? Other than who you were and where you came from, none of your answers seemed to satisfy the two boys. 

"We need to tell the others," Dustin said, for the tenth time that night. 

You had been sitting on the couch of the Wheeler basement as they debated back and forth on what to do. Dustin was ready to wake up half of Hawkins to tell people that you had fallen into the Right Side Up out of nowhere. Mike was less into the idea. 

"No one's even going to be awake!" He snapped. 

"Max might be!" Dustin countered. 

"Hey, what day is it?" You asked suddenly. "Like day of the week."

"Uh, it's Sunday" Mike said, looking surprised that you actually spoke up. You hadn't been able to get much of a word in between the barrage of questions. 

"Monday now" corrected Dustin, looking at a clock. 3:45 am. God, had it really not even been 2 hours since you got here? Your shoulder still hurt and you kept stretching it to try and ease it. 

"Shouldn't you kids be in school?" You asked. "I know this is the opposite of priorities, but..."

You trailed off, not even knowing where you were going with your question. 

Your head was spinning, and nothing you did could convince you this was a dream. The boys had poked you, attempting their own experiments on you. Light didn't bother you, and neither did heat, except when they had you hold a match that had nearly burned your fingertips. 

They quickly ruled out that you were under any control of a mind flayer for now. 

"School doesn't start for a week," Mike said. 

That conversation line quickly died down. Dustin was still flipping through your Players Handbook. "Jesus there's so much here. How do you keep track of all of this? The Advanced Dungeons and Dragons manual is basically a flier compared to this thing. And there's three of these books?!"

"Uh... Short answer is- I don't." You said. "Honestly my group took those books as more suggestions than ironclad rules."

The two teens looked at you as if you'd grown a second head, which would only be marginally weirder than everything else that had happened tonight. 

"That or I look it up on my-" the word was out before you could think, "phone."

You seemed to have grown a third head. 

"Your phone?" Mike looked dubious. "You have some sort of D&D 800 number in the future?"

You couldn't stop yourself from laughing at the question- it was a good question. The best one they'd had tonight probably. But knowing what 800 numbers had a reputation for in the future was too much for your tired brain to handle. 

You couldn't stop yourself from imagining calling some shady 800 number, where some random man or woman would give you any d&d answer, but in an overly sexy voice. 

Roll for seduction.

The thought broke you, and you found yourself covering your hands with your face as tears threatened to spill. You must have looked like a fucking psycho now to the only people who would bother helping you.

"Yeah. Sure. D&D hotline." You manage to gasp out between laughter. There was no way you had the mental capacity to tell them that you basically walked around with a super computer in your hand at all times where you were from.

Your phone was back in 2023. Still on the charger. Maybe it'd be fully charged when you got home. 

If you got home. 

Your laughter died down, as that realization hit you. Home. You had no idea how you got here and had no idea if you even could get home. 

"We'll call El first thing in the morning." Said Mike, deciding it was safer to ignore your bout of temporary insanity. "Leave Max alone tonight, you know she's been having trouble sleeping since..."

The air was heavy now. You knew they were referring to the Star Court Mall fire. Billy died. That cop- El's not-father? Shit what was his name? That guy was presumed dead. 

How could these kids keep smiling after the horrors they faced? 

"Yeah, yeah good point." Dustin said. 

Mike turned back to you, "You can hide in here for now ‘til we figure out what to do next. Just try and stay out of site from everyone."

"Are we gonna tell Nancy?" Asked Dustin. "I mean she's seen everything-"

"I'm not bringing her into this yet." Mike said. "We can handle this"

“Who’s Nancy?” You already know who Nancy was, but it would be weird not to ask. Just as they had been trying to get information out of you all night, you had been trying to keep track of everything that they had told you too. With your approximate knowledge of many things, you didn’t want to slip up and give anything away without thinking about the consequences. 

“She’s my sister, but don’t worry about that.” Mike said. “Listen, you can stay down here tonight and tomorrow we’ll call the others and decide what to do and what this means.”

“What about Steve? He’s seen this stuff before too.” Dustin asked. 

“No, for now this has to stay in the Party.” Mike seemed very firm on this stance and you couldn’t figure out why. Then again, after a night of falling through portals, being attacked by vines, and appearing in a dimension that you had absolutely no business being in, your brain was quickly shutting down and running out of steam. 

If you were lucky, and you had a very strong feeling that you weren’t, you’d wake up in your own bed with the tv on Netflix askinging if you were still there and if you wanted to continue watching. 

You didn’t miss how Dustin went upstairs with Mike holding the Players Handbook still. That was fine, it’s not like you were exactly using it anyway. Now there you were, left alone in a strange basement hundreds of miles from home. Could you even measure the distance in miles? You doubted it. Nothing about this was right. 

Still, even with your mind racing and with how lumpy the couch was, sleep found you. The two boys opted to sleep in Mike’s room to give you some semblance of space. Taking a few deep breaths, darkness claimed you and your mind was quiet for the first time in over 24 hours. 

---

It felt like you had just closed your eyes when a herd of angry elephants trampled down the stairs to the basement making you jump and sit up in a daze of confusion. Your heart was pounding as a group of teenagers made their way down the stairs all staring at you expectantly. 

You tried to reorient yourself, blinking hard a few times as the new faces became more clear. The basement. You were in the Wheeler house basement and had been transported into this dimension. Your stomach churned slightly but you swallowed down the feeling, not wanting to hurl whatever was left of last night's dinner on the carpet. 

“Oh good, you’re awake!” said Dustin with a wide smile. Seeing him was even more startling in the daylight, more real. You could make out more details in his curls and his braces glinted slightly. 

“Yeah, you guys aren’t exactly stealthy are you?” you asked, rubbing your eyes. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost noon. It took a while to get everyone over here.” Mike explained, motioning to the gaggle of young teens. “That’s Max, El, Lucas, and Will” He pointed to each of his friends in turn. 

You were thankful for the introduction because you could not have remembered their name for the life of you otherwise. 

They all looked troubled, but different flavors of troubled. Max was doing her best to look disinterested, as if you being here was causing more harm than good, which, fair enough honestly. Poor girl was already going through it. Lucas also seemed less than thrilled about this situation. Actually, you’d be surprised if anyone was actually happy or interested in seeing you. Though Lucas seemed more concerned with looking at Dustin and Mike as though your appearance was somehow their fault. 

Will stared at you and then back to the others and shook his head slightly, which Mike seemed to take as a good sign. El looked the least upset with your presence in the group outside of Dustin. 

“Alright, tell them everything you told us last night.” instructed Dustin. 

“Hi, yes. Nice to meet you all, too. Good morning. I am mildly traumatized thanks for asking. Lovely weather we’re having. Of course I can tell you my name.” you grumbled, pushing on your nose. You were trying to push up your glasses. ....Did you wear glasses? You looked up at the group again, and could see everyone fine. That was weird. 

Your sarcasm didn’t lighten the mood, but you weren’t quite trying to. There was a pounding in your head but they all continued to look at you expectantly. 

There was no getting out of this, so you laid it all out on the table again. You told them every detail that you could remember of last night from coming home, to the cold of your apartment to the word seeming to flip around you when you entered the Upside Down. You spared the detail of how truly terrified you were, that had to go without saying. By the end of it, everyone was staring at you. 

“So, what?” you asked after no one spoke for a while. 

“2023? Really?” Lucas was the first to speak. “We’ve dealt with some weird stuff with the Upside Down but time travel-”

“I’m sorry that my appearance jumped the shark on what’s considered normal in this situation.” you said dryly. “No one’s filled me in on the rules for this yet.”

“How can you even prove you’re from the future?” Will said, looking troubled. That’s when Dustin handed over  your D&D books that he had been flipping through the whole night.  

“It’s not exactly from 2023.” you said. “I bought it a few years ago, but 5E is standard in my time.”

“I’ve looked over these and it’s real.” Dustin said. “There’s too much here to say that part’s fake.”

“None of it is fake.” you said. “I have no idea how I got here, or even really where I am. I mean, you’ve told me that I’m in Hawkins, Indiana in 1985 but that’s kind of hard to accept.” 

“El, what do you think?” Mike asked, looking over at her. 

“I... don’t know.” she admitted. “I do not have my powers anymore.” El’s face fell, looking at you as if she was trying to read a book in a different language. You were more than just someone who had touched the Upside Down, you were an anomaly. 

No one knew what to say for a while before Lucas spoke again. “So where is she staying?” he asked. “It’s not like we have a good place for her now.” 

Shit. 

Tumblr User ==> Send a Prompt

[just-jordie-things]

spiderman fan anon here again who yapped abt how i think ur spideygumi fic is the literal greatest spidey au of all time.. sry i hope ur not tired of hearing abt it but i just reread the fic (again) and i cant stop thinking abt what mc and megumis development would be like from here… megumi is definitely not the typical peter-parker-type with his sense of justice (as one of his figures’ packaging hilariously summarizes “i save people unequally”) which has SOO much potential for a Good fucking hero story AND new relationship dynamic. like maybe megumi tries to become kind of a more “moral” hero on his own, but shit happens, maybe the govt or police are too corrupt and he realizes he can only trust himself to bring justice to the city, a more batman-like mentality. would mc have a problem with his morality and pull away? would she agree with it and help him as a journalist? would she disagree and give him the With great power Comes great responsibility spiel, leading to him growing into a more “true” spiderman-like hero? Idfk i do not write at all but i cant turn off my comics-loving brain with all this potential!!! i also dont mean to push u to write any of this but i had to talk abt it before i Exploded

the way i wanna make this fic a 5 movie franchise now becuz OMG THE AVENUES THIS OPENS UPPP

i am a marvel girl (sorry battinson baby even u aren't my fav) so i see spiderman!gumi having a deadpool mentality but without the mouth lolol

ok here's some very small thoughts i have about what a continuation in the story would've looked like:

he tries to find a mix between the public eyes' idea of the right thing and his version of the right thing but... dammit some people just gotta suffer a bit don't they?

he sees someone get a lil too harsh with a dog and he can't just give em a lil scare. next thing he knows they're beaten beyond recognition and webbed up to a wall for the police to deal with. fuck that guy, who hurts dogs??

when the news starts to call him things like menace and people start to wonder if he's not the altruistic hero they thought he was, megumi tries to balance between the different schools of thought of justice. he has you by his side, supporting him and wishing him all the best with being the best he can be...

so when some perp he's apprehending starts spouting off some real nasty shit, megumi tries to tell himself that prison will bring him to justice. over and over in his head he tells himself that he has to let some things go...

but damnit this bigoted asshole won't shut up and megumi just doesn't see how society could possibly function with pieces of shit like this roaming around. and no, when the guy's body goes limp after a swift ninety-degree head-spinning snap to the neck, megumi doesn't feel any regret. only relief that there's one less bastard in his city.

as for you, you've always trusted in spiderman. so you're learning to place your trust in megumi, too. you hate the rare occasion when he visits you bloodied and bruised, but you hate the idea of a city without spiderman's protection even more. you've been a fan of spiderman since the first day you'd heard of the sightings. a ride or die doesn't walk away just because things are getting a little nastier out there.

a career in journalism will prove to be difficult. the truth about megumi's double life is a secret that you both understand must stay contained no matter the price. you probably bounce around a few firms, trying to find just the right place to land where you can write the truth without revealing too much. however most outlets just want to report on the crimes spiderman himself has committed, and you struggle with badmouthing your hero (and your boyfriend)

i like to think megumi laughs at the papers trying to paint him as a villain. it doesn't stress him out, it's nothing to him really. just a source of entertainment for him to read to you over dinner. between the two of you, you handle the ugly headlines far worse. but megumi likes to rile you up by reading all the worst ones to you, just to make you fuss over it all. some nights it's like you're rivals again- megumi taunting you with the latest edition of the spider-menace storytelling, chuckling when you start to crinkle your brows and spout off about how some writers are uneducated phonies or how they're ungrateful for what he's done. you never fail to go on a long winded rant followed by some chugged down water. and as always, megumi will just smirk and shake his head as he throws away said latest edition.

___

i lost wind here but i would love to hear if anyone has other thoughts too!!

[magicaldogtoto]

I think a reason why a lot of "post-Madoka" magical girl shows don't appeal to me isn't just the usual answers you get (they're darker, they have gore/rape, etc.). All of those are alarming and things I find gratuitous, but thinking about it, there's another thing that resonates with me specifically: They focus/take inspiration from aspects of Madoka that I don't particularly think much about/find interesting.

This isn't a universal thing, but a lot of post-Madoka shows I watch really like to play up the fighting between magical girls. That was a component of the original 12-episode PMMM--and for this post, I'm thinking specifically about those original twelve episodes, not the spin-offs or anything--but a lot of later shows I watch (Magical Girl Raising Project, Granbelm, etc.) really lean into that aspect. And it's... not really the aspect of Madoka I liked. Like yes, we are told that Magical Girls in PMMM fight each other, but look at the actually events of the original show: it's just Sayaka and Kyouko, and their beef lasts only an episode and a half. They never become friends, but they do stop fighting once they learn that Kyubey has played them both.

If you talk to me long enough, read any of the things I write, any of the RPs I write with other people, you'll know that I really like folkloric/occult/mythical tropes and ideas. I've been reading a lot of Norse mythology lately (partly out of interest, partly for research for something...) and I liked all the vague fairy tale imagery in Madoka. All the Faust stuff in the background, and the Hans Christian Andersen parallels to Sayaka's arc, that's what I'm into. The action/scenes and fighting... those are fun, but they aren't enough to get me interested. I kind of need to also like the context surrounding those actions scenes to get into things. You can see this is other magical girl works that I'm really into--I liked all the fairy tale lore in Sailor Moon, the opera/ballet/fairy tale stuff in Princess Tutu, and others like that.

(The fact that all these ideas are most likely Inu Curry just messing around and not original to Urobuchi's writing also makes this funny in hindsight. My favorite element of the show and it isn't even intended to be there. This might also be partly why pointing out that Madoka takes cues from Kamen Rider Ryuki kind of falls flat to me, though I did like Ryuki--every person who points this out just likes bringing up the "people with powers fighting each other" aspect and like, that's not really something I get excited about.)

It took a while for me to figure this out. I never really noticed it, but I think my brain kind of did. I guess if I ever write an original magical girl story, it would lean more into that kind of imagery than the action (though there would still be action, don't get me wrong), or even the "dark" tone.

[lorelune]

hey lore !!!!! I'm a big fan of your works <3 they honestly amaze me so much. i especially adore your world building it's just so ?? scrumptious ?! no seriously it's so good like i want to eat it up along with your characterization. i love how you enhance already existing world's as well as create new ones — not just world's but ways things work and intricacies within intricacies.. you provide such a clear idea that makes picturising it all so much easier and interesting

ive never written before other than some blurbs here and there on my notes app but recently hsr brainrot has been Hitting it lately and i've had way too many thoughts 💭 i was planning on maybe writing a fic.. but it requires insane amount of world building (and ik that's definitely not the right thing to start off on, as a new writer/for your first work but then again ig there is no right and wrong way to do it (?) it's more like my brain power might not support me and i’ll abandon it half way or something 🥲 haha) anyway i was wondering if you have any tips on how to worldbuild or build further on the existing ideas of certain organisations and all that sort.. there's just so many ideas haywiring and i would really love some advice if you don't mind. but no pressure !! sorry if this was too long,,

omg hello anon!! not too long at ALL hehe i'm gonna answer this below the cut hehe

first off THANK YOU 🥺!!! i appreciate your kind words so much <3 i really enjoy worldbuilding in my own writing and i'm very glad the ideas i bungle up translate well when actually in a story :'^) in my own little brainworld where i daydream, i tend to add details and layers to the original story that i do like... question if i can execute. so it is always nice to hear that they do in fact make it through 😭💓

as for advice!!

anon. so transparently. so REAL-y. if you have the brainworms for a story, even if its big and complicated and a lot to chew on it, just start!!! it is so intimidating truly but there is no better writing fuel than the muse of a story that has captured you. and!! if it does not end up finished, that is totally okay!! i have personally learned some of most valuable lessons writing while working on large pieces that ultimately ended up unfinished.

for more material advice:

when working on fic, i keep a lot of notes in a personal discord server. i have a wip channel and threads for certain fic ideas where i compile plot details, world details, fanart and inspo photos. it's super helpful!!!

one thing that helps me when i have big grand worlds in my head and i need to get them down and written is, instead of choosing to take a bite out of the whole world itself, i try to choose just a snippet or event and build around that. for example, in cicatrix, you get LOTS of lore abt calibrators and their relationship to the luofu, but plenty of what i had spinning around in my noggin didn't make it down. it wasn't relevant to the immediate story, event, or conflict, so it stayed unspoken. however, i think having really rich background going INTO writing these snippets of a larger universe helps fill things out and seem more like... lived in.

i will say. so indispensable. BETA READERS. the first few drafts of cicatrix where so ROUGH when it came to world building. i had the whole lore of calibrators and the luofu in my head, but getting it down clearly and in a way that made enough sense to an unknowing audience took a few read throughs and feedback by some lovely friends of mine. i highly recommend tracking down someone to read over your pieces and provide feedback on the things you're worried about!!!

and like... perhaps a little corny. but. believe in yourself. we are our own greatest critics, and the best attitude to cultivate toward the craft is that you can... do it. you just can. innately anon, regardless of experience, you can create the story and world you want to. bolstering a sense of confidence goes FAR esp if you end up writing a longer piece!!!

anon i got quite rambly asldkf. i hope this is in some way helpful!!! if you have any other questions, i am happy to answer!! i truly think writing immersive worlds is SO fun and engaging, and sometimes you just gotta. throw your hat in the ring. start the run and see where it takes you. i wish you such like and good tidings anon <3

[silvereyedzoroark]

Latimas AU - Losing Control

Its host was resisting, the Dragon Pulse it just fired only had half the energy output it should have had, as the possessed Eon Pokémon made another attempt to down the White Latios that was preventing it from carrying out its Master's plan.

Said menace was continuing to outmaneuver it, rapidly switching directions or just suddenly dropping like a lead balloon to dodge attacks. All the while it wore a consistent smile that annoyed the spirit greatly.

I'm going to wipe that stupid smile off its face!

As it fired another Dragon Breath, which frustratingly missed as the White Latios somersaulted around the attack before launching its own attack Luster Purge. A bright ball of light shot out of its body like a small sun before exploding into a flash of white light, temporarily blinding the spirit as it took damage from the attack. As it tried to blink away the stars in its eyes, it was not prepared for the second attack which was getting punched in the jaw.

I thought Latios didn't know the move Sucker Punch!

It was thrown backwards, almost doing a barrel-roll, before righting itself. It growled, fury building in its body, it was a Tear of Giratina, while a mere fragment of the Distortion God, power and soul, it was still 10x more powerful than this creature!

~You should give up, my brother loves winning more than anything, also-~

Suddenly the right wing jolted at an odd angle and the Distortion parasite found its host body spiraling downwards towards the ground at a breakneck speed.

~This is a multibattle, your fighting me too~

The world was spinning and the spirit tried not to let itself get dizzy as it struggled to regain control. It felt like fighting over a steering wheel, its host body holding tightly onto the other half as they continued to fall.

Idiot, we are going to crash!

~That's the idea~

"Ingo!!!!!"

The white Latios shouted behind them, startling its host enough that the spirit felt its mental grip loosen, giving it the opportunity to take back control and just managing to only hit a couple of tree tops as it ascended back into the sky towards the white Latios.

Building the energy up in its throat for a point blank Dragon Pulse, the spirit was caught off guard again as it was suddenly punched in the face with its own claw, knocking it to the side and sending the attack way off target.

Why? WHY! Are you doing this!? Why are you resisting! you should be thankful to have been made a vessel of Giratina's Wrath!

The spirit mentally screamed as frustrated tears started to pour. It was a fragment of a God and these Latios were making a mockery of it!.

----------------

Didn’t know how to end the short story prompt but it also just felt right to just end it their…but yeah I’m attempting to do some art/word prompts, while I am recovering from being ill I really want to do some creative stuff for myself, but I don't know how long I'll be able to keep it up, but it's good to practice more of my writing/story skill I guess.

I know the word prompt for this meant to be for a more angsty story, but my brain just went in the opposite direction and was like, what if the evil spirit possessing someone was losing control of their host instead? 

So in my Latimas Au, there's a thing called the Tears of Giratina, fragments of Giratina’s soul that will attempt to possess other Pokemon, and for this writing prompt Lati-Ingo is unfortunately got one of these soul parasites.  

Those under its control experience their physical features changing. First it's slow, like what Lati-Ingo has got going in this pic, but eventually the possessed Pokemon will become a Giratina fusion unless they are able to break free from the possession.   

These Tear's of Giratina seem to have a bit of their own individuality, but still act out the will of their master Giratina. 

Tear's of Giratina are used to help Giratina interact in the physical world, as Giratina can't leave the Distortion World at the moment thanks to Arceus. But It found a way around the Arceus blockade by splitting up bits of its soul that are small enough to leave the Distortion World.

But they need to find a host quickly after as they can’t survive in the psychical plain for long, also they can’t just pick any host, if the Pokemon is too weak to handle the power of the fragment, the Tear and host will just die. So it needs to find a strong Pokemon that can handle a piece of Giratina’s soul, hence poor Lati-Ingo was targeted as a host.

[fromshu]

save your tears

☁️ ꒰ secret relationship! taehyung x fem!reader

🍃 "i'm leaving" + "you'll never find someone better"

I. There were times you beat yourself thinking, if dating Taehyung was worth it.

In the beginning, the thought of being his secret riled you up. Meeting late at night, sneaking out of your house, and lying to your parents and friends of your whereabouts– it was exciting.

Was.

You couldn't pinpoint exactly when you had your doubts dating Taehyung. Most of the times, you convinced yourself or gave your relationship an afterthought.

You'd always end up beating yourself over for having insulted Taehyung in your head. Though he doesn't know– what he doesn't know will be better for him.

Or so you thought.

In your relationship, there was a boundary, there was an invisible line and you knew Taehyung was in charge. And it took you too long to realize, once you removed the rose colored glasses, you began to see through all the bullshit– for the lack of better word– he's been feeding you.

Soon then, you trusted your gut, and slowly began becoming detatched from the idea of being his secret.

It's always Taehyung, Taehyung and his ducking secret girlfriend.

You we're over it.

"I'm leaving." Despite your voice hushed, it was firm, enough for Taehyung to raise a brow in confusion.

"Yeah? It's summer break isn't it, so you're leaving to go home in your tiny province–" Taehyung scoffs, looking sideways, secretly smirking– which you definitely saw.

"Why don't you spend the summer with me in my mother's summer house? You know the one in an island over the States, I've always wanted to bring you–"

"I said I'm leaving." Cutting him off, Taehyung whips his face towards you. His face scrunching, thoughts bouncing of his brain– clearly unfamiliar with the hostility of your words.

Shaking his head with a small laugh he raised his hands agreeing with you, "Okay, I'm sorry. I won't joke anymore– Does that mean we won't see eachother for the remainder of summer?"

Taking a deep breath, using it as an opportunity to gather your thoughts. Staring directly at Taehyung–

"Not just for the summer, but for the remainder of the school year, and the next, and forever."

"Huh? And where will you go? You're only a scholar student, they don't accept students transferring midterm."

You scoff at his words– the same words he used when he called you for the first time "scholar student"

It was always "scholar student", you were no more than your efforts, the achievements and awards you recieved– often overlooked due to your status.

"For someone so smart you know you're stupid. I'm leaving Taehyung, I'm breaking up with you."

Taehyung's eyes widened, disbelief, shocked, and lost for words, as he stuttered over the looming silence.

"You're- you're nothing without me. I'm– you! You– you will never find someone better!" Face reddening, Taehyung points his fingers in your face.

A year ago you'd be intimidated– the power Taehyung's family over the academy was too much. Their influence and status could easily cost you your scholarship.

"I was nothing to you Taehyung, sure a secret. At first it was cute, I was fawning over how of all the girl I managed to catch that attention of yours. It did get the better of me I'll admit that much, but don't think I'm only worth something because of you."

With each step, you walk closer and closer to Taehyung.

"I was never yours, I was your little secret aren't I? Now, I'm done, I'm leaving." Spinning your shoes, you turn around, slowly walking away from him.

There were times you beat yourself thinking, if dating Taehyung was worth it.

And it turns out, none of it was.