#kevins lore bore

[electraslight]

some lore pages ive made on abomination magic and hexside school respectively!

[byteing]

(ALSO Lestat needs to meet Kevin just because of the sheer contrast/clash in personalities alone W HE E Z E)

FUCK. FUCK. I’m trying to picture this and I can’t get past “Kevin hears his accent and immediately invents a new French-specific slur” before I start cracking up FKGKDJGJDG.

lestat: bonjour

kevin about to cast a terrible spell: SLIMY SPAGHETTI, YOUR DICK IS A BAGUETTE-Y

[hexedwinchester]

Early seasons of SPN are superior

so I'm re-watching Supernatural (I'm always re-watching SPN, don't mind me) and I realised why the early seasons are so freakin good whereas the laters ones are a complete mess...

Horror was the core theme of Supernatural (yes, I'm not discarding the brothers' drama, I'll get to it in a minute). These beautiful scare tactics that they employed were amazing: the crib mobile toy rotating, shadows moving out of the corner of the eyes, toys going off, subtle bloody Mary reflections in the mirror, creepy skulls dug from the ground, the ghosts flickering. Hell yea they nailed 'Scary just got sexy' with these.

Don't get me started on the background music. Whimsical music crescendo, building up the anticipation. The rock music blaring through the Impala. What happened to the cool ass music in the later seasons? They just played this weird, sad tune like someone's blowing raspberries to show grief and that's it!

Monster of the week theme and the lores/legends in early seasons were much, much better than S12's Foundry or the later season episode with bizarre tentacle porn thingy (you know which one I'm talking about). It just didn't feel the same. The stories were poorly written and even more poorly executed.

Early seasons used to be purely about Sam and Dean (as it should have been throughout) Them against the world, heaven and hell. No dumbass angel lurking in the background like a pathetic third wheel. No king of hell bitching about his sad childhood for two whole seasons. No Soccer mom half assing their way into hunting.

Foreshadowing was done so beautifully! Everytime I re-watch the early seasons I find a few bits that connects to something that happened initially in say S1-2. The parallels are done beautifully and writing is good, and I mean 'I wanna use this quote as a wallpaper' good.

The struggle for the boys was real. They had to do their own research, save their own asses, stitch their wounds, pop their dislocated shoulders back in the place. Later seasons? Bunker has answer to everything, angel healing wounds with a flash of light, Lucifer bringing Sam back from the dead without asking for anything (and no, taking him to Jack is not a good enough bargain), Jack healing wounds or whatever. Where is the damn struggle?! Where is the hero's journey?!

I miss the beautiful, colourful motel rooms that had its own personality. I HATE the bunker (yes I know a lot of people love it because Dean has a good shower, they have a home etc, etc) but no! Bunker is lame and boring and monotonous. There isn't a single thing I like about it. Gimme back my motel rooms with the sunburst mirror!

Story arc or lack thereof from S12 onwards. The main plot just got duller and duller from S12 onward and it felt like the writers got lazy and stopped putting efforts. There was no build up and the plot felt forced. The main arcs didn't feel exciting enough. BMoL and Kelly's pregnancy: the who and why? Jack: predictable. Other Micheal and Micheal Dean: meh, next! God as the big bad: interesting but I don't think they have it in them to execute this correctly.

Irrelevant/Unnecessary characters and their mini plots. S1-5 focuses purely on the brothers and that's what I'm here. I don't care how and why an idiot angel opened purgatory. It sounded more like a dull spin off plot than main story arc. I don't care about prophets and their lives (yeah Kevin is in Advance Placement, what am I to do with that?). I don't care about the different angel garrisons at war (again a plot for a lame spin off). I don't care about Crowley, his son or his relationship with Rowena. Tell me how this affects the boys. If it doesn't, please let's move on. Whatever was going on with Cole Trenton was pointless. I don't care about Mary and her hunting escapades with BMoL. I don't care about Kelly's pregnancy. The multi-universe and all characters they vomited back in the show with this. Not needed! Let Charlie, Gabriel and Bobby's memory rest in peace. Nick's killer storyline and wayward sisters. Enough said. Empty and the deal with Cas and Meg 2.0? Boring! Billy playing the bad cop, the whole death's library? Poorly executed and it turned into a bowl of cold spaghetti. In the end, the focus moved from the boys to useless characters and mini plots. Fuck that! Supernatural is about Sam and Dean and that's about it.

The direction. Later seasons lack the beauty of scenic shots of the landscape, close on up the boys' faces, the lights hitting their faces to show their beauty. Camera angles and slow panning shots. I miss the beauty that were the early seasons.

[shallowseeker]

THE LORE

I'm Shal.  I watched SPN off and on as a teen, but I didn’t join Tumblr or the fandom until late 2022, when I was bedridden due to a heart condition.

That’s when I started reading fics like american oracle by @handsliketruth & @whiskeyjuniper, The Black Dog Ache by @winchester-reload, and Redux by @valleydean... and I was hooked. Ficlets, meta, shitposts, the whole nine. (I'm still obsessed with all of these stories, if you care.)

I'm happy to say that my heart condition is much more stable now, and I’m no longer bedridden, but I’m still on Tumblr and still having an amazing time!

ao3 @ shallowseeker

blue.sky @ shallowseeker

pillowfort @ shallowseeker

pinterest @ shallowseeker

dreamwidth @ shallowseeker

discord @ shallowseeker

///

TAGGING / WARNINGS

I’m not anti-anything, but I have a real soft spot for imperfect characters. If they come across as too polished or boring, I love digging into their flaws and exploring their Achilles' heels. (For example, I’ve paralleled Lisa Braden’s struggle with understanding grief against Jody Mills’s deeper, lived understanding of it.)

Anything I think could be challenging or a bit of a downer, I tag with #complex at the beginning—#complex john, #complex sam, #complex dean, and so on.

///

META

The meta-organization will go here... eventually. (I'm working on a #shal spn rewatch.)

Over the past couple of years, I’ve written a lot of opinions, some of which people still request. My meta tends to focus on later SPN seasons, with deep dives into Jack Kline—aiming to add variety to the ecosystem by highlighting the real, complicated Jack over the "fanon (toddler) stereotype."

A few people have called me TFW-positive, and I genuinely love Team Free Will, even when I'm mentally wringing their necks. My core focus is on Sam, Dean, Castiel, Jack, Mary, and Rowena/the MacLeod family.

Side Goals: @spnwin-reader @wheretheloveisstored

///

FICS

I post my fics on Ao3 under shallowseeker, and the new Tumblr page for them is here. (I post a lot of rapid-fire ficlets and ideas in my Tumblr posts, too.)

I write to improve my cognitive dysfunction, and I’m fascinated by religion and natural phenomena (avalanches, sinkholes, etc). My writing style has been described as chaotic, random, and weird—"like one long manic episode."

PSA: My meta thoughts = / = my fic. Sometimes fic is just me goofing off, or horny drivel, or melt-in-your-mouth cotton candy. Don't expect that My Thoughts (TM) will align with it. I reserve the right to be lame and incomprehensible. TY~

= O N G O I N G =

For your crimes against the most high (5 of 14) 

= C O M P L E T E D =

Blackout on the eastern seaboard (2/2)

Truth & despair (15/15)

Mirror, mirror (1/1)

I will not be diminished (1/1)

///

OTHER STUFF

👬 pro-DeanCas (I have eyes) // 🤩 Mary stan //⭐ Jack stan // 📚 Sam / Donatello / Metatron-coded (and was told by a friend: Kevin Tran-coded)

My username @shallowseeker is a type of fishing lure, so I thought a Dean and Jack fishing theme would fit perfectly this time around!

[robins-s0ngbird]

Hello, I'm robins-s0ngbird, but call me Serenia/Sapphire! I go by both~

You most likely recognize the name 'Serenia' from somewhere~ It's most likely from my roleplay blog @intergalactic-singer (which is technically my main according to tumblr, but this will act as my main!) for Robin from Honkai Star Rail!

All follows and likes will come from the Robin account, simply because I had 0 idea what I was doing when I made the account..

DO NOT send me donation links or asks, please. i do care, i promise, but i am a minor, i do not have the means to help you, and since i'm a small blog, it won't reach a lot of people.

I'm a Hoyoverse girl, mostly playing Honkai Star Rail, Honkai Impact 3rd, and the occasional Genshin Impact when my friends bother me to play with them. I also play Wuthering Waves, Cooke Run Kingdom, Cookie Run Ovenbreak, Zenless Zone Zero, Dandy's World, Pressure, and Brawl Stars!

Even with my somewhat busy life, I tend to learn all the lore in each game I play~ I also currently run 26 RP blogs across 10 fandoms, but they'll soon increase with my new obsessions.

List of roleplay blogs are here!

I mostly write small stories or my OC lore with my mutuals, which we often tie their lore together. I usually write whenever I'm bored, or someone asks me to write them something. I also send mutuals a lot of random stuff, from music to art~

My current obsession is Shelly (DW), Ginger (DW), and ShellVision (DW Ship). They're my blorbos and just. aughh. heh. :3

（。＾▽＾） (robins-s0ngbird.carrd.co)

Heres my carrd if you need any extra info~! It has some of my mutuals on it, but a full list will be added later~!

Though my blog may mostly be tagless (because I tend to forget them-), heres a list just in case~!

General;

for friendship ~ For anything for my mutuals!

serenias snippets ~ Any random short stories/headcanons

serenias song queue ~ Any music/playlists I share

serenia shares art ~ Any art I reblog, regardless of fandom

Sole Shell AU ~ anything for my Dandy's World Shelly-Centric AU !

Fandom;

beloved gem ~ Anything Aventurine/Aventio related because im very not normal

beloved songbird ~ Anything Robin/Robinhill related

angelic siblings ~ Any Robin post with Sunday in it

elysian realmkeeper ~ Anything with Elysia in it

fontainian actress ~ Anything Furina related

feixiaoposting ~ Anything Feixiao related. I love her sm.

riding the stars ~ Anything Star Rail related

across the sea of quanta ~ Anything Honkai Impact related

all across teyvat ~ Anything Genshin related

Honkai Star Rail;

I fell in love with this game, simply because I saw that it was releasing, and I needed a new game. I never knew that it'd become my main game and fandom I'd be in. I loved the character designs, the lore, and the writing behind it all. I even appreciate the Honkai Impact references since I started playing that too~!

I play on NA, and my uid is 601916942 :>

(also, beware of my Aventurine. just saying.)

Current Main: Aventurine, with a bit of Dr Ratio and Welt on the side~

Current Main Team: Dr. Ratio, Silver Wolf, Aventurine, Lynx

My Favorite Characters: Aventurine, Robin + Sunday, Boothill, Silver Wolf, Dan Heng/Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae, Welt

Honkai Impact 3rd;

I decided to play this game because, I simply went 'I play Star Rail. I should play this too because its a honkai game!' and suddenly I love this game so much. I fell in love with the characters, the buildup, the worldbuilding, everything.

I still play on the American server, with my UID being 107786863 :3

Current Main: Senadina (sorry Elysia)

Current Team: Senadina, Helia, Coralie

My Favorite Characters: Elysia, Kiana Kaslana, Bronya Zaychik, Welt (again), Senadina, Griseo, Kevin Kaslana, Li Sushang, Shigure Kira

Thank you for reading~!

aventurine dividers at the beginning: @preydatory robin, boothill, and ratio dividers: @kaeyaphile

[asheurbanipal]

When it talks to you like you don't belong Ch. 1

on A03

Previous Episode | Next Chapter

Summary:

They've been through a lot in the last year and a half, even after saving the world. Giant robots in upstate New York. Saving babies from burning cars. Merc job gone wrong. Jealously. Kidnapping. Self-induced amnesia. Falling in love harder every day. The past few months have been quiet, though, allowing time for simple domestic bliss to settle in around their cottage on the X-Mansion property. When a new threat from outer space and out of time emerges, it opens both their worlds to new possibilities of danger...and uncertainty...

Deadpool/Wolverine with special guest: Venom!

Other important character: Morph/Kevin Sidney (mentioned)

Light Explicit

Words: ~8k

Chapter 1/3 in series

Content: possession, alien invasion multiverse shit, deep cut Venom lore because I'm an Advanced Comic Reader, a little couch hanky-panky, disassociation, canon-level violence

wade

Wade shot up in bed.

"Cable?" He hissed into the darkness, looking through the shadows of the room. 

That telepathic asshole hanging around? Not that I'm necessarily complaining. This close to getting that three-way, and that hot mutant ass would push anyone over.

No interlopers revealed themselves in any of the corners. 

"Calling out other men's names in your sleep?" Logan reached an arm over Wade's waist and cuddled into him. "He's not a bad choice for that, I guess."

Hah. Fucking knew it.

Wade rubbed his hand along Logan's shoulder. 

"Weird dream, I guess." Wade snuggled back down under the blanket, letting Logan's arm fall heavy on his chest. He didn't go back to sleep immediately, though. Something was…off… The night through the room was a little too dark, too black and scary. The slight nagging voice still rang at the back of his head like sickly tinnitus. He rolled over and Logan's hand dropped to his waist. 

Wade glanced up at the small black box on the nightstand. It had been six months since they temporarily wiped their own memories to resolve a bet, and it had been good. So good. Good enough that it made him nervous because guys like them weren't usually allowed to have good things like this. He loved him so much, it hurt, though, so that had to count for something.

They had also, in the aftermath of their self-enforced amnesia, scaled back on merc work and X-Men missions. It had started with a short vacation where they stayed home and tried to get a feel for what a lower-stress version of their life would be like. And it was great. A little boring, but holy shit? 

And we only fucked non-stop the first week.

Last week, Logan had brought out the rings. It wasn't a proposal. They weren't engagement rings.

No Sandra Bullocks to be seen.

They were just thin silicone bands that Logan said were to "think about it." There were a few hours during their memory wipe when they thought they were already married. Logan had seemed to enjoy the idea, but Wade never properly caught on. These conflicts suggested to Logan, apparently, that marriage was simply "too abstract." He wanted "something tangible to focus on." And a few other big words about manifestation and dreamboards he had gotten from his online PTSD group. 

And it was working. Wade had blown him off, at first, but looking at the ring box a couple of times a day drew his attention back to the idea and made him think about it in little bursts. When he tackled it that way it was easier to wrap his head around the idea. He wasn't sure how he quite felt about it, yet, but he was able to grasp it, at least.  

He pulled up closer to Logan to get into full little spoon mode. That finally settled him enough to start drifting off to sleep. As the soft blackness overtook him, the voice rattled in his head again. Something calling to him from the distance. 

"Honey badger," Wade called through the bathroom door, lifting his voice above the sound of running water. "Going to the Danger Room; I promised Laura some drills."

"Kay, babe. Fuck her up." 

What a great father-daughter relationship.

Wade moved to the special closet in the hall that held their suits. They had a handful each, now. A few basic models, then a few that had some added features, fine tuned for certain styles of mission.

"This one's new." He pulled out a black and white suit, cut to the same pattern as his base suit. He wasn't sure when it showed up, but that happened sometimes, Hank sneaking something new in the laundry.

He sat on the bench along the wall and started the stupid process of getting the skin tight suit on. The fabric flexed around the bulk of his legs easily, pulling all the way up to his thighs in a quarter of the time it usually took. When he stood, the suit started moving on its own, crawling up over his hips and stomach and chest. He slipped his arms inside the sleeves, and it sealed up the back on its own. 

"Oh, that is sick as fuck. This has Forge written all over it. Don't even care if it blows me up."

He had met the mutant in passing years and years ago, but not for long enough to have a conversation. A something something engineer who could make anything. When it trickled out to Forge that Wade was living at X-Mansion, he had shown a lot of interest. Mostly the "doesn't die super easy" part. He'd been sent a few experimental guns to play with as a consequence, and only lost his arm one time in the process. Usually there was a note, at least. Whatever! 

"That's an interesting color on you. It looks nice." Storm happened to meet him in the front hall as he wandered into the mansion.

"Your boyfriend made it for me," he winked. Storm gasped in offense.

"We are not good enough friends for that, Wade Wilson."

"We could be, Captain Planet. Say the word." 

She zapped him in the ass as he turned the corner down the hall to the Danger Room. He had reached a knife-edge balance with the denizens of the mansion. Living on property, they'd simply had to get used to him. Exposure therapy. Now most of them almost liked him sometimes. 

"Puppycat, are you ready?"

Laura was waiting outside the room with a gaggle of pre-teens. 

"Yeah, we've got an audience if that's cool." Laura's eyebrows raised at him and scanned his body up and down a few times. She leaned into him as he approached the door. "If red hides the blood, do I want to know what black and white hides?"

"Don't make dirty jokes with your step father. Swipe us in."

Still don't trust me enough to get my own keycard, but okay. Sure.

She ran her biometrics through the interface. 

"You're the one making it dirty," Laura replied. Their audience scattered up through the stairs that led to the observation deck, leaving them alone again. "Is uh…is that official?" 

"We're figuring that out, still," he said quietly. 

"Well, I better be the first to know when you do." 

"Yeah yeah," he waved her off to move to his side of the room. She found her spot and flicked her claws at him. 

She knows I'm blowing her off. She's gonna make me suffer. 

Let's kick her ass. 

"Warm up 1 v. 1, no items?" Wade asked. 

"Most points in five minutes?" she called back.

"Sounds good." 

She gave the hand signal to the biometrics, and the buzzer rang out. 

It had taken some time to work out a system that actually let them see changes in progress and technique. Wade had crafted some complex tactical scenarios for the whole team, but he had only ever seen those kinds of programs as pass or fail. You made it out alive or didn't. Scott and Storm both told him that training up new X-Men needed something more granular, at least at first. They needed to be able to see their progress improve for morale purposes.

So he came up with a point system based on how often you took an injury and how dangerous that injury was. In other programs, it was all digital readouts and light guns. When he helped Laura train, they drew blood and guts. 

He already had eight points on her before she got a three-pointer in his ribs. Normally that would transition quickly into him deflecting the next blow because she always left herself open when she came from this angle. Something was wrong, though. The suit was shuddering over his skin, reacting to the puncture. 

"Wade…I can't pull out," Laura said. 

"That's what your dad said," Wade replied. 

"I'm fucking serious, dude." The black of the suit was crawling up her arm, reaching all the way to her elbow. 

"Shit. Okay." Wade panicked, patting his hands down his chest. "It's the suit. Some kind of…nano-tech?"

Something jerked back from a spot between his shoulders. Above his head, a black arm reached over and stabbed Laura in the shoulder a few times. He felt the claws retract from inside his chest. Another arm whipped out and wrapped around her waist. It pulled her up and away and threw her hard against the far wall. 

Holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck. 

"LAURA!" He bolted across the room as the arms sunk back into the suit. She sat up, head swiveling a little, but she was smiling. 

"Give me a sec, but I'm fine. And HOLY FUCK." She pinched the fabric of the suit then withdrew her hand as though it had stung her. "Forge made this?" 

"I mean, yeah, I guess. It probably responded to you attacking me."

"Can you control it directly?" She was giddy, her shoulder wound already healed up. 

"Umh….yeah. Okay. Let me see." Wade closed his eyes, and tried to feel out every fiber of the suit. 

Arm.

One of the arms appeared again, reaching around his shoulder. He almost let out a little shriek, then calmed down, trying to concentrate. 

Touch Laura's face. Gently!

The arm curved down and brushed against Laura's face. 

"Okay. That's fucking cool." Wade let himself clap in delight. 

"So we just need to practice. Let's go."

Wade grabbed her around the wrist as she got up. 

"Now hold on, duckling, this is dangerous technology. I don't know what all it does. I think I need to spend some time with it myself in a safe, controlled environment. Maybe get Forge on the line to get some more information. No reason to put anyone else in danger, including you."

"You are so full of shit." 

"Yeah, let's set a new key on the camera footage so we can find it easier later. Go go." They both scrambled to their feet. He closed his eyes as he moved around the room a little. 

Okay, suit. This is just practice, okay? Laura is a friend, not a foe. You can put a lot of damage into her without a problem, but if I tell you to back off, you need to.

If I do accidentally kill her, somehow, that's a real fucking problem for both of us. 

Do we understand?

Yes, Wade. 

And he decided he was going to pretend he didn't actually hear that in his head, for now. 

#####

"Hey, babe," Logan called out from the kitchen table, a lesson-planning notebook in front of him. He hadn't really seen himself as a teacher, but apparently the Logan of this timeline had taught history between missions. That didn't really seem like the ideal subject for someone literally from an entirely different version of history. Field tactics and medicine he could do, though. He just had to learn how to plan before the semester started in a few weeks. 

Wade skittered into the kitchen with little pitter patting feet. 

"Oh, you have got to see the training footage with Laura, later. It is sick as fuck." He was practically jumping up and down, shifting between his feet quickly. 

"Hm," Logan said. He shifted up from his chair and pressed his body up against Wade's. "That's a sexy new suit. I like the red, but this looks good on you." He flicked up the bottom of Wade's mask and kissed him, lingering and deep. The suit against his skin vibrated and left a little tingling sensation behind. Something about it felt familiar, but he couldn't place it. He pulled away, then gently pushed Wade out to arms length to get a better look. 

"Nano-tech or something?" Logan asked. 

"Yeah yeah, check it out." He lifted his arm and shot something out of his hand all the way across the kitchen into the living room. Black goo landed with a dry splat on the hard wood. 

"I mean that's…cool. But what does it do?"

"Yeah, I didn't…I didn't do it, right." Wade moved through the doorway into the living room, and Logan followed close behind. He bent to the nano-goo and it absorbed back into the suit. 

"One more time," he said, turning to Logan. He did it again, but this time his aim was better. He caught one of Logan's wrists in the projectile, and the force yanked him back onto the couch behind him. 

"Okay. That's cool, I guess." He went to pull his hand away and found he couldn't. He was cemented to the back of the couch cushion. 

Another soft puff of sound, and now his other wrist was glued to the couch, arms open and body exposed. Wade stood in front of him, and pulled off his mask, the light in his eyes bouncing but dark. He dropped down into Logans's lap, knees around his thighs. 

"Well, I was gonna be mad, but…" Logan tilted his head up in invitation. Wade dropped forward and moved quickly into making out. The kind of kissing that absolutely led to them taking clothes off. "I can't undo your zipper like this."

"The suit stays on," Wade growled into his mouth. His fingers started undoing Logan's jeans.

Wait…

One of Wade's hands was on his jaw, the other on his chest. What the fuck was unzipping his pants? He broke from Wade's kiss to look down. A black tendril had crept out from the suit and hooked around the tab of his zipper. 

He wiggled away from Wade's touch. 

"Okay. No, that's a little…that's a bit much." 

Wade looked down, just as surprised. 

"Oh, no. I can control the suit. That was all me."

"Okay…yeah, just…I don't know how I feel about experimental nano-tech around my junk."

"Oh, but it would be so kinky." Wade licked and bit at Logan's neck. His hands moved into Logan's jeans and circled his dick. 

"Maybe we wait until we know more about it?"

"Logan, come on," Wade whined. His teeth met Logan's clavicle through the collar of his shirt. More than just Wade's fingers were spreading around the base of his dick and down around his balls. He couldn't break from the couch. 

"WADE. GRAYMALKIN." He lightly headbutted him. Wade gave his head a little shake, eyes wide with surprise. 

"Okay okay. Sorry. Safeword. I don't know…I don't know what that was." Wade leaned back and the suit simply melted backward off his body, leaving just that stupid padded thong he had started wearing behind. It fell back together as he caught it and draped it over his arm. He dropped it casually on the coffee table. 

"Can we still fuck?" Wade ground against him.

"Well, when you do that…." He reached up for another kiss. "You're leaving me stuck to the couch?" Logan tested. 

"Oh, absolutely," Wade said. 

Weight shifted in the bed next to him, and Logan opened his eyes. Bleary. Wade was standing next to the bed. He wasn't moving, his body hunched and strange. Instinct told him to wait to call out. To just watch for a minute. 

Wade's body started moving but it was weird and stiff, his shoulders and head flopping back as his legs walked in a weird, loping gate. He opened the window and suddenly Wade's body was slipping through it and shooting off into the darkness at top speed.

"Fuck." 

After the shit show in the desert, they decided to put GPS micro trackers under their skin. Just attaching them to their clothes wasn't enough, anymore, to keep track of each other. According to the receiver attached to his dash, Wade was moving ridiculously fast, toward the nearest urban center. The twenty minute headstart certainly didn't help. 

Logan only managed to catch up when Wade finally slowed down. He stepped on the gas harder, not knowing when he'd lose him again. 

He found him at a country club, blue lights diffusing over the empty greens of the golf course. Logan pulled up into a side road and watched from the car for a moment. Wade was perched on top of the chain link fence surrounding the property. His body was still floppy from the waist down, but his head was tracking something. With a weird fling of his body, he started moving, walking along the fence line. 

Wade was nimble. Real nimble. He could scramble across surprisingly narrow paths. Not like this, though. This was surreal. This was the suit.

Logan moved low as he got out of the car and followed far behind and down wind. When Wade stopped, he stopped. Wade's head did a weird twitching that was loose and uncontrolled, but still managed to hone in on…something. In the distance. Whatever it was, Logan couldn't hear it or smell it. That bothered him.

With a spring off the top of the fence, Wade's body flew through the air. It rolled across the grass in a big black blob before taking form again as a figure. Logan moved, slicing through the fence to give chase. Now he realized what was happening. It had been so long since he'd seen it in person, he hadn't connected the dots. 

Wade bounded off a tree, and his target finally came into view. A small cluster of white dudes in polo shirts had pulled a collection of golf carts around like covered wagons. The cocaine they were snorting wasn't really a concern. Putting the screws to some dudes partying wasn't really their style. Wade seemed focused on the two young women that were with them, and Logan sharpened in on them, too. They very much didn't want to be there.

If Logan was right, this was about to get majorly out of hand.

The black suit on Wade broke and expanded, growing out from his body into a monstrous form that drooled and slathered from a snapping jaw. A long tongue flicked out from giant, gnashing teeth. The men started running but not before Wade got to one. He held him up in a loop of goo, considering all the angles. 

"You. You smell like you're the worse of them." Monster Wade's voice was deep and gravelly, two interlocking tonalities creating an internal echo. Wade opened his mouth, testing his teeth against the man's face. 

"Wade!" Logan sliced through him hard. Wade screeched, dropping the man who bolted off into the darkness. 

The monster turned on him immediately, claws coming down on him, black mass covering his body. It was like fighting through layers of cotton held together with the thickest maple syrup. His claws sliced through viscous semi-liquid. When he punched, he met no resistance. All the while, claws ripped at his skin and mass pressed the air out of his chest.

"You're pulling your punches," said the monster. It was right. He was too focused on not hurting Wade when that's exactly the thing he needed to do.

He aimed for the head, searching for Wade's actual face underneath. One in, one out, right through the brain. The monster shrieked, collapsing back in on Wade's form. He flopped forward and Logan caught him on his shoulder. Wade shook his head, blood pouring from the wound. He flicked back to life with a couple of confused soft sounds, pulling back.

"Uhhhh. What the fuck?" Wade pushed back his mask and looked around quickly. "I…ran…here? I feel like I ran here." He spun around. "I'm gonna go back to 'what the fuck?'"

"You've got a fucking symbiote."

#####

"Space? It came from fucking space. That would be cool as fuck if it wasn't happening to me." Wade picked at the black suit as he sat in the passenger seat. It hadn't been to eager to come off this time. When he tried to do it manually, it just reformed around him. There was a low buzzing in the inside of his ears, like a subvocalized episode of Gilmore Girls. 

If you're trying to talk to me, bud, I can't hear you.

And he almost felt like he got a response, but nothing materialized that he could use. 

"When I didn't get a whiff of any serious alien issues in this timeline, I let it go. I didn't want to have to think about them." Logan looked more harried than usual. Worried. "There're a lot of things this timeline has that mine didn't and vice versa. Never seemed worth talking about it."

Now that was true. 

Wade had only found out exactly what Logan's world looked like in fits and starts. He never talked about it, leaving these large gaps in his history that Wade didn't know how to touch. 

"So these guys are…like…a problem?" Wade pressed his fingers to the suit. 

"I think that's pretty goddamn obvious, by now. It took you while you were asleep."

"It was trying to fight crimes," Wade said. 

How the fuck do I know, that?

"Okay…well…that's actually encouraging…" Logan's fists tightened on the steering wheel. "Feeling any other…weird urges?" 

"Umh…" Wade sunk into himself a moment. "No? I don't think so. Feel kinda…pumped, though? Ready to bash some heads." 

"Okay, well let's find a way to focus that until we can get it off." 

The suit didn't like the idea of being taken off. 

"Can you ask it what its name is?" Logan asked. 

"Uh…I mean I think it can hear you."

"Then is it saying anything important?"

"No…not that I can tell, yet." 

"The symbiotes I know are chatty as fuck. Honestly you'd probably get along with some of them." 

"I mean, we could just try to get along with this one…"

Logan stopped the car hard. If there had been anyone else on the road, they would have caused a mile long pile up. He turned in the driver's seat. 

"You need to fucking trust me on this. I don't have specific beef with the concept, okay? I get it. Can't help it if you're a black goo alien that needs a host to survive." Logan's eyes had drifted to Wade's chest like he was talking to the suit directly. Now they moved back up to Wade's face. "But you need to understand just how much these guys can completely fuck up your life. No offense." He looked at the suit again then plucked it with his fingers. "And I know your weaknesses. You fuck with my boyfriend, again, I will destroy you. No hesitation." 

Logan turned and settled into his seat again. The car lurched forward when it came off the break, and they were clipping down the highway again. 

Don't be upset, symbiote-dude. He's just very intense. I'm not gonna let him hurt you for no reason. 

But, like, you do need to not attack him again.

He will absolutely fuck you up.

….You know him don't you? Knew you couldn't actually hurt him when you attacked him at the golf course. 

It was like the information had been laid gently across his brain. 

Still. 

I'm trying to marry this guy someday, maybe, so like…chill out…

This suit seemed to understand with a sort of melancholy acceptance. A tendril emerged from the arm of the suit, then crossed Wade's lap, searching the dash. Logan took quick, darting glances out of the corner of his eyes. It stopped on top of Logan's knee. A tense moment passed while Logan visibly decided what to do. Then the tendril gave a little patting motion, and slid back into the arm. 

"See, it's trying to be friends," Wade said. 

"That's almost worse," Logan grumbled. 

Yeah, maybe don't do that again, just yet. We'll turn him around, though.

Okay, Wade.

And as much as he wanted to talk to it, something in his brain pushed the voice away.

Okay, Mx. Symbiote. We're going to need to come to some kind of agreement at some point. 

Logan, by force, booked out the entire danger room for Wade to figure out how the symbiote worked the next morning. So far, they had simply decided to swing lazily from point to point across the room, legs swaying gently through the air. 

He had been able to sense a few things:

He wasn't the symbiote's preferred host. It was unsettled in his body and making the best of it. 

The symbiote knew Wade, specifically.

It was phenomenally depressed about its current state.

I don't actually mind being your host. I think you're extremely fucking cool.

I can't be out here eating people, though. Not without a little more discretion. 

You also can't be taking my body out on its own. 

If I'm a threat, everyone on this property will be willing to kill me. Even if it doesn't stick, I can't imagine that's very comfortable for you. Let's not test it. Understood?

The symbiote did. 

Okay…so how do we get you to actually talk in words to someone other than me?

#####

"So…nothing? You've never seen these before?" Logan splayed out on a wheeled stool in Hank's tech lab. Something being fucked with Wade's suit had spread through the mansion quickly, so Storm and Scott had shown up to join the conversation.

It almost felt like his old life. 

Hank, perched on his own stool, then swiveled away from his microscope until he could drop his elbow on the counter. A piece of symbiote matter had ended up stuck behind the couch cushion without it noticing, and Logan had been able to hand it off to Hank. 

"Personally, no," Hank sighed. "That's not to say they've never been here. I'm sure if we had access to super secret military information, we'd find something."

"We don't have access to super secret military information?" Logan chuffed. 

"Nah, just the secret military information," Scott replied. 

"What kind of danger are we actually in here?" Storm asked. "You said these were all over your world."

"Yes and no. It's….complicated. I thought we had brought the first one back when we went to Battleworld."

"Excuse me, Battleworld?" Scott said. 

"I never told you guys about Battleworld, fuck. I'll come back to that later." He pinched his nose. "So I always thought we brought the first one back from there, but looking back…I think they might have always been around. There was this one platoon in 'nam that for years that I always assumed was just mutants. Thinking back? Not so sure. Anyway, the symbiotes I knew specifically were just…" Logan swiveled his chair with his heels. "The symbiotes aren't all evil…they're just…hungry. They don't think the same way we do. But also there's a person under the goo. Human host. So it really depends on who's wearing it. I've known of a couple of really good guys who had symbiotes and did good shit with them. But they're still…unstable."

"So how worried should we be that it's hitching a ride on Wade?" Scott asked. 

"What are you implying, Scott?" Logan sat up on his stool, arrowing in on him. 

"Look, I get it. He's the love of your life. But let's not pretend he's not completely unhinged." Scott mirrored Logan's indignity. "If you had one of these, I'd be asking the same question."

"Why? Because I'm also 'unhinged?'" 

"Logan, we're all adults here. I've known you…a version of you, at least, for years. You cannot pretend that you don't have a temper and a problem with violent impulsivity."

"Have you been walking around afraid of me this whole time?"

"No, I'm just saying that considering what happened on your home timeline, adding an alien monster-"

"You don't get to talk about my fucking timeline-" Logan burst up from his chair. It was Storm's hand on his chest that stopped him. 

"Any of us powered up with an extraterrestrial force would be more dangerous than the average person. We should probably get it off-grounds as fast as possible before it decides one of the students is a better host." She dropped her hand. "If all else fails, though, how do we kill it?"

Logan revisited himself with a deep breath. 

"Kill it permanently? Thermite. White phosphorus. Fuckin…napalm. But any kind of fire and loud sound fucks it up enough to break from the host." Logan propped his hands on his hips. "If you don't think I'm too dangerous to let me into the weapons cache--" he shot a look at Scott "--I might have an idea to expedite this."

#####

"Hey, beanie baby, coming to escort me home?" Wade caught Logan out of the corner of his eye but didn't realize what he had brought with him until he had dropped back down to the floor of the Danger Room. "What a….watcha got there?"

Logan pulled out a gun with a large canister attached. He pumped the trigger just once, and a little tongue of flame came out. 

The symbiote very much didn't like that, the suit disappearing from his feet to crawl further up his back to get as far as possible from the flamethrower. 

"Logan, you're freaking out the alien." Wade patted the suit in consolation. 

"Yeah, that's sort of the idea." Logan hitched the gun up on his shoulder. "Look, symbiote, I know that Wade will survive a direct hit from this. It'll suck. I don't want to do it. But I know he'll make it through. Will you?"

The symbiote tugged at Wade's skin and muscle, trying to knock at his brain. Intention rolled through him. 

"It wants to know what you want…" Wade concentrated on what the suit was trying to tell him. "Be specific."

"Start talking. What is your name? Where did you come from? Why are you here?"

The symbiote rumbled inside Wade's body.

Wade. I have to do a weird thing. Tell your lover not to kill me.

Uh…yeah…okay. Okay I can do that. 

"Uh…peanut…symbiote says not to freak out." 

Then the suit started peeling away. Not all of it, black still strapped to his calves. The rest of the mass formed in the body of a person. Large head with ragged, C-shaped white eyes and a wide gaping mouth filled with sharp teeth. Its torso and limbs were only sort of half-formed, but it had the general shape of a little dude sitting on the floor. 

It was almost…cute?

It almost made me eat a guy. I should maybe contextualize all that.

"You know how hard it is to share a brain with this fucking guy?" The voice the symbiote used was his own, but lower, rougher, with overlapping tones and chords. "I've been trying to talk to you this whole time, but your brain is fucked, dude." 

"You know what, that's fair," Wade replied. "Why couldn't you do this little trick?" He twirled his fingers. 

"Tired. I needed to recharge. Also needed to get a feel for my surroundings." The symbiote turned up to Logan. "You could have been nicer about it, 'Wolvie.' Especially after all we've been through."

"Oh it is you, you piece of shit." Logan dropped down to sit even with him.

"Wha-what? What's happening here?" Wade looked between them quickly and also dropped to the floor. Logan gestured to the symbiote. 

"This is Venom. And they're…not the worst possible option as far as symbiotes are concerned." Logan sighed. "Where did you come from? You weren't here already, were you?"

"No. There was some kind of…shift in the hivemind…A few of us were knocked loose through time, and I ended up here." 

"Fuck, are there more of you?"

"No no. I promise you. It's just me. I'm all alone." 

"Oh, I'm sorry, bud." Wade went to pat Venom on the back then paused, not knowing where his hand should go. He just sort of played at it, hoping the intent was clear. 

"So you're not the Venom from my dimension," Logan said, "or I'd be having this conversation with Flash Thompson, right now."

"And if you were from my timeline, you'd be cheating on your husband, right now." 

"Wait, excuse me?" Wade said. 

"Yeah, actually what?" Logan added. 

"Yeah. Kevin."

"Kevin Sidney?!" Logan said

"Hah, a version of you is married to a guy named 'Kevin.' What a white dude name."

"Okay, Wade," Logan said. "Shut up a minute. Please." He tapped his fingers to Wade's face, pressing his lips shut. 

Oh, he's serious. 

Logan focused on Venom.

"Morph. In your timeline…I married Morph." 

"You are very very surprised by this," Venom said, tilting its head. 

"Because they apparently… lived …in your timeline."

"Ah…I see. Yeah. I get it." Venom nodded its head knowingly. 

"I'd like to go back to the married part, actually," Wade said. 

Why does this feel so…weird?

We aren't even talking about my specific Logan. It's some other version of Logan that neither of us know. 

But his face when he said the guy's name….

"Feel like I've opened something," Venom said with a sneer. "I don't want to get into this."

"No, I want to hear about Kevin!" Wade insisted. 

"Wade…later…please…" Logan begged. 

Honey, let it go, for now. I'll tell you everything I know later.

For real? Okay. Okay.

Yeah, that's the advantage of the telepathy, now that it's working a little smoother.

Wade nodded that he would drop it. Logan lifted his eyebrow at Wade suspiciously, but let him have it. 

"So why Wade?" Logan asked. 

"When I popped up in this version of New York, I tried to sense out anyone who had hosted me before. Deadpool was the only one, so I worked my way toward him. I didn't realize he didn't know me until he put me on."

"Okay, but…like…I've never even met a symbiote before. I've never been a host." Wade fluttered his fingers against his bare thighs, only just now realizing he was half naked. 

"But on my world you have. Right I before I met Eddie." 

"Eeedddddiiiie," Logan groaned. "Shit we need to get you to Eddie Brock. He knows how to handle you."

"Don't you fucking dare," Venom threatened. 

"Oh, you're on the outs again. Alright." Logan blink at it slowly. "So who are we taking you to, because you can't stay on Wade."

"Whoa whoa," Wade said. "Making a lot of choices for me here, peanut."

No, I never intended to stay with you for very long.

Oh, well, that's a little wounding, but okay.

"Okay, if not Eddie, who?" Logan asked.

"Peter is who I was hoping to find, honestly."

"Wait, my Peter?"

"No, Peter Parker," Logan said with a sigh.

"Who?" Wade asked.

"Did he not reveal his identity in this timeline?" Venom asked. 

"Yeah, you're not gonna like this," Logan said. 

"Spider-Man," Venom said. "Take me to Spider-Man."

Wade looked between the alien and his boyfriend again, processing all the words that were being said in his vicinity. 

"Oh, no, we don't have one of those here," he said.

[parrotwatcher]

What movie genres do some of the ROs like and dislike?

The One Chosen:

Ædmund: Likes: Feel good family movies. Dislikes: Anything that seems overly cruel.

Helena: Likes: Adventure fantasy or sci fi movies. Dislikes: Disaster movies.

Teri: Likes: Romance, especially if it’s very awkward. Dislikes: Anything with too many fight scenes.

Charlie: Likes: Martial arts movies. (He also likes ballet and dance, but won’t admit it.) Dislikes: Political drama.

Xiulan: Likes: Superhero movies. Dislikes: Anything she considers boring (so pretty much anything without fight scenes or jokes).

Max: Likes: Horror movies. Dislikes: Comedies (horror comedies are okay, though).

Dahlia: Likes: Classic movies are her favourites, but she’ll watch anything. She’s even made it a life goal to watch all of the Wikipedia list of worst movies of all time. She claims to have found something to like in every movie she’s ever seen.

Kevin: Likes: Animated movies about animals. Dislikes: Any movie in which an animal is hurt.

Lovecraft Academy (using period-accurate movies):

Veera: Is just fascinated by the idea of moving pictures, and has watched as many as he can.

Fothy: Conversely, Fothy’s just not really a fan of movies at all. He’ll watch them with his friends, but he’d never choose to see a movie. (He does appreciate Tarzan movies, though…)

Robin: Adventure movies. His favourite is the 1922 Robin Hood (not just because of the shared name, but that doesn’t hurt).

Will: Comedies. He’s a big fan of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.

Jasper: Doesn’t really like the movies, but is a fan of cartoon shorts, especially Felix the Cat.

Bignell: Another fan of adventure movies, but he’s more into Westerns specifically.

Unearth your Gays:

Toby: Likes movies set in and around the sea; dislikes zombie movies.

Seth: Likes sexy movies; dislikes anything too sincere.

Aiden: Likes harmless family movies; dislikes anything with blood.

Lan: Likes movies involving cats; dislikes movies in which cats are in peril.

Totem Force:

Kay: Likes romance and action movies, as long as they're not too clichéd. Dislikes mean-spirited and bigoted stuff, but has no real disliked genre.

Sammy: Likes movies with at least a decade's-worth of backstory and lore he can explain to anyone present; dislikes anything with contradictions and retcons.

Anara: Likes movies with high-quality special effects; dislikes movies with inaccurate science (although given how much she clearly likes complaining about them, maybe she actually likes them, too...)

Chi: Likes underdog stories; dislikes anything too chichéd.

Phil: Likes martial arts movies (or anything with good fight scenes); dislikes romance movies.

Ryu: He'll claim the same as Phil, but he actually really likes sappy, over-the-top family movies, and dislikes anything involving dead family members.

Akira: Likes almost anything exciting; dislikes anything that reminds them too much of Ryu.

Lani: Likes cute cartoons, especially those with a lot of pink; dislikes violent movies (now, real-life violence, on the other hand...)

Mirabelle: Seems to have no preferred genres; her likes and dislikes are seemingly entirely random.

[sammorallee]

coming back to tumblr with yet another au! sketch

this time — an au! in which Neil never been on the run and actually is an ordinary guy from Milport, who lives in an abusive family, who's obsessed w/ Exy and Kevin Day is literally his idol 🤌

yup, basically, i just took all the lore, all the information known about who Neil pretended to be, while living in Milport, and just made it... true.

yay, Kevin got what he took and wasn't traumatised by discovering that Neil-ordinary-talanted-guy-from-Milport-Josten is actually Nathaniel-the son-of-a-serial-killer-working-for-my-step- brother's-family-Wesninski 💀

also, there's no Butcher in this au! (i mean, in the form that we know from AFTG; the Butcher is still there, but he's not Neil's father for obvious reasons) so, yeah, basically, Nathan and Mary are just abusive Neil's parents

Mary is more like over-protecting + controlling over Neil, strict and prohibits a lot of things, but she's often gone to Tucson for her work; Nathan is not satisfied with his son's behaviour and attitude, his hobbies and interests, and tries to change him in every possible way — including violence.

when both parents are at home, they usually argue and Neil still gets involved in their fights. So, that's why he usually stays in school and the school's changing room for the night. While home alone, Neil sleeps in his room, as there are no risks.

Neil has scars — marks of domestic violence (mostly from hoses/slaps on his back, also from burns) — which he tries to hide because he doesn't want to get involved with the child welfare authorities and, after turning eighteen, the police. In Foxes, he'll adapt pretty fast as he sees — everyone is fucked up in here so they absolutely won't call the police on his parents, 'cause come on 💀 FOXES. 💀 CALLING THE POLICE. 💀

Neil is Raven's fan (read as "he's Kevin Day's fan and loves the team he plays for just for playing there") and is (before joining and getting along with them) biased against the Foxes because of their backgrounds — deep down thinking that people like them aren't worthy of playing in Class I Exy, or indeed having someone like Kevin in the team.

((but he, obviously, accepts the invitation from Wymack as he kinda wants to get rid of his parents and live a normal life))

apart from Exy, Neil also has other interests — he loves astronomy and space in general — to him, something as large-scale as open space with an infinite number of universes seems absolutely incredible, mesmerizing and inspiring.

in this au, Andrew won't be interested in Neil so much ('cause he's boring and basically he wasn't hiding anything from the beginning, he's like an open book), and Neil either won't be interested in Andrew ('cause he's obsessed w/ Kevin and wants him in any way imaginable, come on). So, yeah, in this au! Kevneils rule the world.

last, but not least, it's a literal fan-idol relationship with an from admiration to disappointment to hate to love trope and I'm fuckin' IN LOVE with this whole concept I've created.

yup i think that's all what i got for today folks

sorry for this tonne of text, hope you enjoyed

and I also hope I'll have enough endurance and patience to write a whole fanfiction based on this au!

[alias-mike]

hi guys work is boring so im yapping about a fic im working on

ok. im writing an absolutely unhinged hi3 fic right. and its planned to have 2 parts, each based on a movie (basically a "what would honkai characters do if they were in the situations of these movies) and ive run into some problems.

you see, ive decided to make otto the villain of the first part because it lines up with both the plot of the movie and also honkai lore pretty well. however, i have no idea what his motivation should be/why hes evil. like yeah sure i GUESS his motivation can just be "to get more powerful" and "to cause chaos" but thats boring and a bit of a cop out. it also lowkey misses the point of his character because the reason he was Like That in hi3 was because he became obsessed with the idea of kallen and bringing her back to life. like he was a pretty chill guy before all that.

OKAY I HAVE AN IDEA BUT IDK IF I WANT TO DO IT. basically the setting is the cold war and the characters are an age where they wouldve been children during ww2. so, theoretically, there are many ways i could make ottos motivation linked with kallens death. the thing is, i dont feel comfortable writing about a serious and tragic real life event like ww2 and i dont think id be able to do the proper amount of research required to portray it accurately and respectfully. so uhh this idea is a bit of a no-go

the other issue is that i dont have anyone to make the villain of the second part 😭 otto lowkey has to die at the end of part 1 and while outlining part 1 i kinda made world serpent characters be the american government so kevin is out of the question as the villain of part 2 as well. i also havent kept up with hi3 part 2 and i dont reaaallyyy want to read all that just to maybe have vita be a viable villain or something. maybe otto just doesnt die and comes back more evil than ever. or something. ill figure it out one way or another

[flynncorvus]

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Ao3 Account - FlynnWrites -A few random OC stories Youtube - Flynn Corvus -Like, nothing here lol Spotify - Flynn•PurpleChaos -If you ever want to explore my music tastes (idk why you would)

[shannendoherty-fans]

The Independent (UK) – Opinion

Shannen Doherty was irresistible, underrated, and permanently shackled to misogynistic speculation

The ‘Beverly Hills, 90210’ star, who has died of cancer, played women too interesting to be simplistically boxed in – and spent a large part of her career waiting for the respect she deserved, writes Adam White

Sunday 14 July 2024

Shannen Doherty, who has died at the age of 53 following years of living with cancer, was an actor famous for playing women to whom respect wasn’t immediately granted.

Her Nineties TV hits Beverly Hills, 90210 and Charmed – shows embraced by generations of young people growing up both then and now – cast her as characters who, to the unenlightened, could be read as bitches or mean girls, those annoying descriptors always levelled at women too complicated and interesting to be simplistically boxed in. But as a skilled if often underrated actor, she was deft at conveying pride and regret beneath the surface grumpiness; the feeling of women only being a certain way because the world has made them so.

Doherty was also one of the OG tabloid fixtures, a child star gone berserk (not really) whose club-hopping and on-set lateness apparently warranted round-the-clock coverage at the top of the Nineties. She experienced the kind of wrath that could only have existed back then – regular headlines in the National Enquirer that weren’t ignored at the supermarket checkout line but actually had an impact on her career; a popular newsletter for pre-internet teens who could come together every month to talk about how much they hated Doherty and Brenda Walsh, the mouthy teen she played in 90210.

She has since admitted to being incredibly hurt by all of this – it contributed to her firing from 90210 in 1994 – but it did at least add to the lore that surrounded her. Doherty was sharp and icy and a tiny bit dangerous – all the things despised by the boring among us, and oddly irresistible to those who secretly wanted to be like that themselves.

Doherty was also incredibly glamorous, stomping around with the force of a supermodel and with black hair so shiny that you can imagine millions of women over the decades bouncing between box dyes trying to emulate it just right. I adored watching her on screen, the sense that she was always just on the cusp of slapping someone – as part of a clique of cruel teens in the Winona Ryder classic Heathers, say, or as the pissed-off girlfriend in Kevin Smith’s Mallrats. She was brilliant in Charmed, as the eldest of a trio of sister witches, who understood the weight of her duty to protect the innocent. Prue Halliwell was cool, responsible, complex and always inappropriately dressed for battle, but pfft – who says you can’t kill a demon in a belly shirt and a miniskirt?

I loved how much Doherty gave to incredibly bad made-for-television movies, too. Friends ’Til the End, in 1997, saw her play an aspiring musician being stalked by her best friend (the tracks sound like Cranberries knock-offs and Doherty’s voice has an air of Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles). Satan’s School for Girls (2000) cast her as an undercover reporter investigating evil witches on a university campus. Blindfold: Acts of Obsession, from 1994, is the kind of erotic thriller so devoid of eroticism that it becomes almost hypnotic. But Doherty is good in all of them, always magnetic and spirited and salvaging whatever she can from dismal scripts.

From 2023, Doherty hosted her own podcast – Let’s Be Clear – a kind of audio autobiography that covered her work, her personal life and her health. Tales of her cancer journey – she was diagnosed in 2015 with breast cancer, which went into remission and then returned, latterly spreading to her brain and bones – were sobering and moving. Doherty was reluctant to pretty up what had been a life-affirming if undeniably painful time. But the most fascinating episodes were ones in which she conversed with Hollywood women equally hurt by an industry that has only ever celebrated female compliance, and only begrudgingly given positive attention to those who march to the beat of their own drum.

She had a natural kinship with the likes of Sarah Michelle Gellar, Katherine Heigl, Tori Spelling and Christina Ricci, all of whom appeared on her show. Like Doherty, they are actors who arrived in Hollywood as children, grew up in the spotlight, and found themselves permanently shackled to misogynist speculation about their character: they were too difficult, too unpredictable, too eager to have a voice on chaotic sets.

Doherty never claimed total innocence; she was happy to admit to sometimes reading the room wrong, or getting defensive rather than looking for a compromise during arguments. But her cancer also provided her with a sense of clarity about her past – the things she should apologise for, and the things she absolutely shouldn’t. She put to bed years of speculation about what had happened on the set of Charmed – she was fired after significant on-set tensions with her co-star Alyssa Milano, a feud inflamed by male producers – and spoke eloquently about the relationships she regretted and the domestic violence she experienced while working on 90210.

It was often quite beautiful – here was a woman who knew she was dying, but wouldn’t go quietly or with unfinished business. She was funny, sassy, a little intimidating. It was Doherty to a tee. What fool would expect any different?

[electraslight]

i love making minor design changes and then watching toh and being like wait they forgot their thingy. me watching thems the breaks kid: where is raines cowl. theyre going to get in trouble.

[ghostgirlvii-art]

As if I needed to make such a HUGE reference for him, yet... I love give him more personality than just a character created for simping lol. I suppose this can be a basic lore when I write xReader, but can be tweaked a little.

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MAIN INFORMATION/GENERAL INFORMATION

Name: Mathis Vermeulen Nicknames: Matt, Matty Nationality: Belgian Date of Birth: February 17th Birthplace: Antwerp, Belgium Affiliations: La Défense/Defensie, Special Forces Group Belgium Rank: Captain Gender: Male Sexuality: Bisexual Status: Alive Languages: French (Fluent), Dutch (Mothertongue), English (Fluent), German (basic)

APPEARANCE & PERSONALITY

Height: 1m75 Weight: 80kg Build: Fit, but not over muscled** Hair Color: Dark brown Eye Color: Brown

Others:

Two scars on his chest after a knife attack while on a op.

A burn scar on his back which he was lucky to only end up with this after been thrown a cocktail molotov at.

Tattoo on his left hip. The skulls at the root are an hommage to his brothers and sisters who fell during combat.

He wears his balaclava mainly during mission/deployment or some special occasion connected to the army. While he is civil, he doesn't really wear that much.

**: His body shape is non negociable. It is one of these 'stronger men in the world' shape. I don't know how to describe it but my best example, althought I have not see the series, is The Mountain from Game of Thrones. Give him a toned 36 packs and I'll find you >:(

Faceclaim inspiration: Kevin Janssens

Personality Type (MBTI):

ENTJ

Mathis often come of as emotionless, arrogant and impatient. On the fields he knows that every decision counts and can lead to either success or failure, so he has to be uncompromising on in some situation. But this is him at work. Outside he is friendly, goof around when the moment allows it. Quite charismatic, will always stike a conversation with anyone who seems interesting, happy to meet new people.

Despite his confident and charismatic nature, Mathis carries his own burdens; the weight of past decisions, the faces of those he couldn’t save. He doesn’t talk about it much, but in rare moments of vulnerability, he can open up about it to people he trust the most.

Personification of "looks like he could kill, is actually a cinnamon roll". Mathis can be a bit of flirt here and there.

TRIVIA

Dislike dogs. Like he is ok, from a distance, but get tense when they get to close.

Enjoy to play football and rugby. But because of the latter, he is often the goalkeeper while playing football.

He is a cuddler! Loves PDA and touch a lot.

To do whatever you want of this information, he is a switch leaning dominant though ;)

In public, he doesn't wear is mask (unless it's cold outside)

BACKSTORY/BIOGRAPHY

Early life; Mathis was born in Antwerp, the youngest of three siblings. His father was a former federal police, a man of strict discipline who believed that toughness and order were the keys to success. His mother was a history teacher who valued knowledge, culture, and empathy. Mathis inherited his father’s rigid sense of duty but also his mother’s curiosity about the world.

Young, he was always physically active, one of his favorite sport being football, later in his teen rugby, and running. His father trained him in self-defense, drilling into him that "hesitation is the enemy", a lesson that would stick with Mathis for the rest of his life. But unlike his father, who was more reserved, Mathis was naturally charismatic and energetic, making friends easily.

His teenage years were defined by two things: his growing restlessness and his need for challenge. School bored him, and he hated all the academics. He was smart, but he was also impatient; he wanted action, not endless theory. It wasn’t long before he set his sights on La Défense/Defensie, knowing that a desk job wasn't for him.

Army Life; At 18, Mathis enlisted, diving headfirst into the rigorous training regimen. He thrived in the structure and discipline, making good results in endurance drills/training, and marksmanship. But it was during his first deployment that he learned what war truly was. A routine patrol turned into an ambush, and his unit was pinned down. Their commanding officer was critically wounded. Mathis took charge in a heartbeat, almost natural to him. Giving orders, coordinating cover fire, and made sure his allies could retreat to safety. His actions not only saved lives but earned him recognition.

As an ambitious man, he looked for more challenged. He applied for the Special Forces Group (SFG) selection process. It was a brutal, months-long test. It pushed many past their physical and mental limits, stripping away ego and testing endurance, resilience, and ability to work under extreme pressure. Many candidates washed out. Mathis refused to. By the time he completed his training, he was an elite operator. Profecient in direct action, reconnaissance, counterterrorism, and hostage rescue.

Now in his early 30s, Mathis has built a reputation as one of the many operators you can truly count on in the SFG. He’s been deployed across multiple conflict zones, working alongside NATO forces, tackling counterterrorism operations, hostage rescues, and high-risk reconnaissance

[sunny6677]

Inspired by @mayisgoingnuts cuz of their own lil 'edit infodumps' with their Wicked Month AU jsjsns

TWS FOR NEGLECT, ABUSE, DARK STUFF IN GENERAL.

Haven't talked about The Saturated AU (basically like an opposite au, or my own takes on how the characters would be as opposites) in a bit so here's this!

The Saturated AU like I said is kind of an opposite AU, but there also might be slightly different lore (I mean the sky is literally red in this AU for crying out loud of course there's something going on/lh).

Skid in this AU is very bitter and low energy, and also somewhat rude. But despite acting all edgy—he is just a kid deep down and tries to force himself to act more mature because of Lila who is a total ass in this AU. Skid doesn't even like Halloween that much, but he only wears his costume because his dad used to absolutely love that holiday and he wants to remember him by something. Skid and Lila don't have a good relationship at all here, but I'll dive into that for another post. Skids dad also didn't die here, but he did vanish and no one knows if he's still alive or not. Either way, Lila only started to act like a REALLLL asshat to Skid once his dad died.

Pump on the other hand is purposefully neglected by his parents who want nothing to do with him or his sister. And his grandfather is also quite stern, but does care about his grandkids even if he has a bit of an odd way of showing it—and he also tends to smoke or read the news rather than sleep here. Pump is a little more edgy than Skid and is somewhat chaotic, and he also for some reason really hates fire here and gets hysterically frightened when he sees it.

Radford is very low energy and bored most of the time, and absolutely hates movies, which makes it more ironic that he works at a theater. He also just has the movie glasses on regardless because it's some 'stupid gift someone left him a long time ago' (It's a gift Hope left before she vanished and one he decided to keep regardless of how dumb he found it since it's the only thing left from her to remember her by). He's more like frenemies with Kevin in this AU and has a bit of a Spongebob-Squidward type dynamic with him. But even with how rude he kind of is to Kevin here, he does care for him even if he tries to act like he doesn't. He's also kind of frenemies with Rick here too?? But he gets more irritated with him than he does with Kevin. Radford also doesn't help Kevin at all during HS cuz he's a dick, but he does watch Kevin work and just kinda hangs out there since he 'has a break from having to babysit his brother and doesn't wanna waste it'. He and Robert also don't have the best relationship here either, but do care for one another in their own way—they just fight a lot and tend to not wanna be around eachother cuz of miscommunications on both ends.

Kevin is exactly like SpongeBob in this AU lmao. He's very energetic, seemingly always happy, very naive, and is eerily calm when it comes to situations where the kids bring him trouble. The dynamic he has with the kids is completely reversed here. And the kids are constantly irritated with Kevin (but don't hate him no matter how much they act like it) and bring him trouble—while he thinks the kids and him have a good relationship and unknowingly just brings whatever trouble they got into right back to them. He's easily impressed—but can also be kinda shallow without realizing and experiences more sympathy for other people than he does empathy. And he's also protected the kids or saved them from danger without meaning to plenty of times.

And finally—Gregor is.. a bit of a douche in this au if I'm being honest lol. He's less strict with the kids, but still tries to teach them things and is kinda more relaxed about stuff. He's less experienced in exorcisms and only manages to defeat Moloch out of sheer luck during HS. And he's amused very easily and is probably what a priest shouldn't be. He's kinda disconnected from other people as well. And struggles with empathy and other stuff. With Skid and Pump here however, he just decided to help them upon seeing how rude they were—but also just decided he'd follow them around to tell them a bunch of things and get them into trouble on purpose for his own amusement, and because he believed they deserved it for being so rude to him earlier. So yes, he is in fact beefing with children. And he also roasts the fuck out of Lila at the end of HS.

[solarsonicsoda]

Rating 500+ Theme Tunes - #11: Ben 10: Alien Force

Moving on through the Ben 10 franchise, we find ourselves at Ben 10: Alien Force. We once again join a now 15-year-old Ben Tennyson, once again alongside cousin Gwen, as well as a less-mutated former enemy in Kevin Levin (a name choice I demand you respect because that's awesome). Ben is putting the Omnitrix back on with 10 new alien forms to fight back against alien threats. This show expands a lot on the lore and story of the Ben 10 universe, introducing more aliens, exploring new factions and elements of the world, and increasing the focus on character relationships. This more mature take on the show proved to also be extremely popular as both new and old fans could enjoy the change in direction. 

Now, despite what I just said, I avoided this show as a kid. I did not care for the character redesigns, I thought they looked so much more boring and with far less style. Similarly, I found the new alien roster to be a downgrade, even with some great aliens. Humungousaur pisses me off to this day, he’s so bad. I also hate the car and I don't know why. However, I know this show is pretty damn good and episodes I saw like the one with Michael Morningstar would have pulled me in if I hadn't been so stubborn back then. My brother loved this iteration of the show and so I saw plenty of it, but never admitted defeat. Let’s call it 50% valid criticisms I still believe, 50% “change bad”. But how about that theme?

Ben 10: Alien Force Theme Song

Oh no, it’s boooooring!!! I don't know how you follow up one of the most awesome theme tunes going with such a run-of-the-mill action theme. I honestly don't know. I guess it's still got some of that sci-fi sound, but that's honestly just passable. My only thought is that this is all to aid the more serious tone, but I think that's pretty dumb because it is still Ben 10 and why does serious mean simple? It's like every modern theme being some ambient music. However, I must judge it on its own merit, and it is just fine. Like there's nothing annoying about it on its own, it's fundamentally sound, I just wouldn't be able to pick it out from a line-up. There are genuinely like 10 other shows with this exact theme, I swear, and I just don't think that's how to make a good theme. 

This is a difficult grade to assign, because it sits so neatly between two different tiers. On the one hand, it is a totally fine theme that does little right or wrong. On the other, it is highly generic and unoriginal, whilst also being a very clear downgrade from what came before. After much rumination, I’ll be nice: this one gets a C.

Stay tuned for more and be sure to send in any suggestions for other shows you'd like to see done (after the 500 already in the pipeline that is). Check out the intro to this series here, and check out the tier list.

[tavyliasin]

The Scent of Cinnamon 1 - The Cambion, The Gift, and The Contract

Raphael has a new home, but the halls are remarkably empty. Mephistopheles has seen fit to send him a gift, though as with all things in the Hells, nothing is ever quite so simple... Meanwhile, an incubus with no name stands in front of a portal, ready to take the first step in the only plan they have left. One that will either secure their future or seal their fate... 4,301 Words - AO3 Link Click Here

--- The Scent of Cinnamon is a prequel series focusing on Raphael and Haarlep from the moment they meet, continuing through various events up to the beginning of Baldur's Gate 3. Summary: Raphael and the incubus meet for the first time, and the specifics of a contract are worked out between the pair. Pairing: Raphael/Haarlep SPICE Rating: 0.5/5  Content Warnings: Mild power play. There's not a lot of spice in this one, it's the following chapters that will raise that bar~

Spoilers Vague House of Hope and Act 3, but most of this series is focused on what came before. Canon Compliance Most of this is being pulled together from scraps and hints in the game and from the lore of D&D in general. Haarlep's initial physical appearance is based on incubus/succubus lore in the sourcebooks - mostly human features on their bodies, human ranges of skin tones, but they still have wings and tails, and shorter horns than cambions or tieflings have. I also go with a personal HC that Haarlep can only shift into the body of someone they have a deal with. Other Notes An image of a concept for Haarlep's original appearance will be added at the end of the fic, so keep an eye out for that~

Song Pairing (Click the title to open spotify) Play Dirty by Kevin McAllister, [SEABELL] "Do you wanna put up a fight? Or do you wanna get out alive? Everybody is picking a side And this can only end one way

Would you get the Devil this dance? Would you be a part of his plans? Now you got some blood on your hands Well, this can only end one way

If you wanna go, this is how it goes If you wanna roll, heads are gonna roll If you wanna play, we can play all day But we play, play dirty, play dirty"

--- FULL CHAPTER BELOW THE CUT --- ---

The Cambion, The Gift, and The Contract

Fine leather boots paced across stone floors, the click of heels echoing around the halls of the largely empty mansion that floated through Avernus. It was a start. A place of his own, somewhere to work with his own contracts and plans. The owner of the boots was a cambion, son of Mephistopheles, and already a powerful fiend in his own right. Raphael, if you were to ask a mortal, looked like a human in his mid 20s. Chestnut hair was swept back neatly from his brow, the ends curling a little just below his shoulders. His brown eyes were deep set but sparkled with ideas, face clean shaven and expression darkening by the moment. Had he taken his other form, huge red wings would stretch above him, a long tail slapping the floor in irritation behind him, and soft brown eyes would instead blaze with hellfire. His whole form would be larger, and his skin would be a deep crimson, ridges across his well defined muscles more reminiscent of his demonic heritage than the human half. However, it was often easier to remain in the guise of a human man. Aside from not having to deal with the physical logistics of wings, horns, and a tail, potential clients found him to be more trustworthy, and the reveal of his demonic guise was often another powerful tool of intimidation and persuasion. Occasionally, some found him to be seductive, but he tired of trying to please people he had no interest in. There were no fiends in all the hells he could trust to be intimate with, and mortals were so terribly boring, weak, and short-lived. No, they were far better as tools, pawns in his grander designs, so sex was a last resort to seal a particularly irritating deal. This might have been seen as unusual in the hells, for any fiend to have no attraction or desire to act upon their libido, but Raphael did not care. He could satisfy himself should the need arise, and it was safer not to let anyone in to his abode. Not until he had built up his loyal following. 

Unfortunately, so far he only had a couple of apprenticed Warlocks, and one or two debtors scrubbing his floors. And now he had to greet a stranger. The letter had specified a “gift”. Knowing Mephistopheles, this would not be the kind of gift that came with a single catch, but more an entire shoal of red herrings to sift through to find which specific catch he needed to be concerned about.

—

A young fiend stood before a glimmering doorway, uncertain of when precisely they were meant to cross the threshold. They were dressed in a black silk outfit that gave them an appearance of masculine androgyny. Dark tan skin and bright green eyes might have looked human, if it weren’t for the 4 short horns protruding from their brow, slightly parting black hair that cascaded down their back and over their shoulders almost blending with the silks they wore. The other tells of their demonic nature were more obvious, however. Huge wings with blackened edges, claws at the tip, coloured in sunset hues of red and gold stretched out behind them, quivering with nervous anticipation. A long tail with an arrow-tip end pawed at the ground behind them, kicking up a little infernal ash. All they carried was the clothing they wore and the instructions they had been given. A simple enough task, and they were hardly inexperienced, but their first meetings were usually within a dream. Subtly watching their target, learning their desires and their fears, finding every intimate secret they hid in their subconscious before they would ever appear before them physically. They sighed. They didn’t even have a name to bring with them. Whatever it was had been taken, a simple exchange for a promised reward. “Let him name you,” the instructions had been clear, “let him do as he wishes. Get close, learn all you can, and deliver it back to me. You are no fool, incubus, and neither is he. But play the game well, and you will have the life of your dreams in the end. A home all of your own, whatever meals you desire delivered to your door, complete power over the domain I shall grant you.” It was tempting. It would be tempting to any incubus or succubus. They also couldn’t deny a small amount of pride at having been chosen. It sounded like the advances of succubi had already been rejected, so they relished the thought of a challenge. Besides, the son of Mephistopheles was hardly without any power of his own. They took a deep breath, steeling their nerves before they stepped through the portal. 

—

Raphael sat back on his chair, tilting it so the front legs were no longer on the floor, boots on the edge of his desk as he read through pages of another contract. Etiquette might demand he stand to greet the arrival, due any moment now, but Raphael was not one to heed any demands but his own.

He didn’t look up when the familiar electricity of the magic swirled in the air, nor did he pay attention to the polite cough from the guest.

“You’re late.” He lied, thumbing through the pages and moving one to the front, still not looking up from the paper.

“And you’re human.” The visitor stated, all too bluntly for Raphael’s liking. “I was told to expect a cambion, Raphael. Does the master of the house not see fit to handle his own household?”

The cambion bristled. His brow darkened a little, though only one watching very closely would notice the subtle change. “You would do well to remember at least a modicum of respect when addressing your new master, regardless what form he might appear in. Are all gifts supposed to be so rude when accepting hospitality?”

“Hah! What hospitality? There’s barely a thing here, and I am barefoot upon your floor. Gift, indeed, that you do not even look upon me let alone deign to unwrap me.” They were becoming no more humble. If anything, they were becoming more bold by the moment.

The attitude was finally reaching Raphael’s limit. He looked up from the papers to see who would have the audacity to address him so.

For a moment, his thumb slipped, one of the pages almost dropping from the stack as he took in the tall and slender form of the nameless incubus. He quickly regained his composure, but not before they had noticed.

The cambion put his feet on the floor and straightened up the papers, putting them in a neat stack on the table. He stood, walking towards the invited invader in his home, stalking around them to observe and assess them.

“I’m not a piece of meat, Raphael.” They stood still nonetheless, allowing him to pace and take in all of their form. They flexed their wings and tail to put on more of a show. “Do you like what you see?~”

“Passable.” The cambion grunted, the highest praise he had given any attempt yet. “And good you finally recognise your master’s name. So, why are you here?”

“You know that much. Your dear father sent me. You are well aware that many of your kind take ours as advisors, partners in pleasure, or allies for whatever purposes you might have for our abilities.” The incubus grinned, the hint of slightly sharpened teeth glinting in the light as they looked down on the smaller human form of their supposed master.

“You’re a spy.” Raphael said simply.

“Obviously.” They replied, pleased that they were not being expected to work for a complete fool. “Do you wish to refuse me? Send me back?”

“Honesty is a commodity that few of your kind trade in. You may stay. However, ground rules must be set.” He turned to walk away, beckoning for them to follow. “Come.”

“Already?” The incubus laughed at their own humour. “It takes more than that, Raphael.”

The cambion bristled at his name being used so casually, but remembered a key point. “Name. What is it?”

“I don’t have one, not until you choose one for me. Spiteful of your father to take my identity, but at least I kept my good looks.” The incubus brushed off the lingering insult of what they’d had to trade for the opportunity. It would be worth it, eventually.

“Then I should know you first, incubus. I shall choose a name befitting your station.” He continued to lead the way through the halls, keeping a few steps ahead of the honest spy who was taking note of every crack in the walls.  

—

The incubus watched Raphael carefully. Every movement, every time his gait shifted to avoid stepping on a looser stone. Their bare feet felt uncomfortable on the floor, but it mattered little.

They noticed the silence in the halls, only one terrified half elf dressed in rags scurried away as they passed by, busying themselves cleaning some furniture in a side room. There was a lingering scent of cherry that drifted from the cambion ahead, though that was the only note of perfume they detected. Somehow, something so simple hardly seemed fitting.

The door to the bedchamber was large, heavy, and sealed with a magical lock. A simple spell had it opening before the master of the house, who gestured for them to enter.

“There, take a seat.” He indicated a pair of chairs near the balcony on the far side of a huge four poster bed, heavy red velvet drapes skirting the floor, a deep contrast against ebony silk sheets.

They ignored the suggestion of the chairs entirely, and instead took a seat on the edge of the bed, their tail snaking out behind them to smooth over the sheets. “Not bad, I’ve been in softer.”

“That is not for your benefit.” Raphael stood a little taller, crossing his arms and glaring invisible flames towards defiant green eyes. 

“Then for yours? You are aware of my nature as an incubus, if you are to indulge in my many pleasures, I am not one to receive.” They watched his reaction, wings folding carefully inwards to soften the challenge of the statement.

“We shall see. I have yet to decide on that matter.” The incubus smirked at that reply, it was not a no . Raphael continued regardless. “What are your abilities?”

“Aside from near infinite pleasure? I can take the form of any who have made a contract with me.” They shifted now with a spell, appearing first as an elven woman with flowing ginger hair and freckles across her cheeks. The next moment the magical fire enveloped them they became a dwarven man with a long braided beard and dark eyes below a heavy set brow. The third form they took was a dragonborn with sparkling iridescent scales. “This one was a particular favourite, a beautiful rarity. So I may become anyone you wish me to be, so long as I have laid with them.”

“Any form? Including another fiend?” Raphael arched an eyebrow, fingertip tapping against his jaw as he considered the options.

“Another devil taken your fancy?” The incubus laughed, remaining in the guise of the dragonborn for now. “Of my many forms I have not added a fiend, yet…but were I to take yours, there would be some benefits.”

“Benefits? It seems more like a remarkably unpleasant experience from start to finish.” Despite his words, he appeared to be waiting to hear more.

“Any time I take on the body of someone I have slept with,” they ran a claw down their chest, hand drifting beneath their robes momentarily, “they feel it when their form is used. Echoes of pleasure even across planes, though more intense the closer they are. If they were in the room right now, they would feel the sensation of their own hand on their body.”

“So, enhanced pleasure, and a disguise?” Raphael took a longer moment to consider it. “I can see a use for this, incubus.”

“Wait, you actually wish to deal with me yourself?” Their bravado finally slipped away in surprise, transforming back to their original body. “You would give me access to your form, control over your pleasure?”

“Must you be so vulgar about it? This could work to our advantage. Depending…” Raphael stepped forwards. “Tell me, spy, what were you offered?” “Simple. My own domain, power over it, and whatever delicious specimens I wish to devour.” They held his gaze, even as he blocked the light behind him. “I enjoy sex as much as I am sustained by it as my meal. I have known hunger, Raphael, and I have known powerlessness. I have no desire to become intimate with either again.” “So you want power, pleasure, and a range of flavours to sample? That is as cheap as you are to trade your identity, your entire being, devoting centuries to espionage for such pittance?” He was treading a line in his voice between anger and disappointment. The incubus’s tail began to flick with annoyance. “There was hardly anything to trade. What’s in a name, anyway? And a few centuries in the span of immortality, that’s nothing. An easy job, made all the simpler by the particular subject. You don’t even object to my presence or motivations… What do you desire, Raphael?” They prodded back with their question, working out how the pieces would fit together.

“Perhaps not so different, incubus. Power would be a simplification, but an accurate one. First I will expand my influence here, then across the rest of Avernus.” He raised his hand, infernal fire wrapping around him in an instant, transforming him into his more devilish physique. His horns curved above him, crowning his chestnut hair, wings spreading like a wide and regal cloak behind him in the same deep red as his skin. He had grown taller, marginally more muscular, and his own tail swished behind him. Fiery eyes regarded his guest with a new intensity. “Quite simply, I shall become an Archduke. The Archduke. The nine hells are full of infighting and imbeciles, one hand should have a tight grip upon them all. And that hand will be mine.”

The incubus watched the display with interest, contemplating their options. “You’re very sure of yourself, perhaps I should call you Archduke already if that is your goal. Consider it forward payment, if you are to rise to such lofty heights. Are you certain you should be telling your father’s spy all of your plans?”

“That man would be far more than ignorant to not believe that this is my exact aim. I would imagine he would be thoroughly disappointed if his progeny lacked any ambition. You’re welcome to report that back to him if you so wish, but it has as much merit as telling him that rain makes things wet.” Raphael considered the rest of the statement, clawed finger rubbing along the line of his jaw. “As for the title… No. Not until I have what I want. Although names have power in themselves, and we do not yet have one for you.”

“Whatever identity I had is gone, all that remains is my body, and even that is more changeable than the weather in the material realm. So call me whatever you like, Archduke, it matters little. ” The smirked at seeing him bristle at the nickname, the implied insult. “Then you are willing to consider my deal? There are plenty of… benefits to a night with me~”

“You have been ill-informed to believe me easy to bed. I will not lay with any harlot to stroll into my bedchambers.”

It was the incubus’s turn to darken their expression, voice gaining the edge of a growl. “Oh I am well aware of your type, Archduke . Aren’t you tired of primming and posing? Of all this air of I’m so much better than you, listen to me, do this, do that, puny lesser beings .” They stood, rising to their full height, standing just a little taller than Raphael even though he had transformed. The tips of the cambion’s horns were higher, but their eyes were above his. The realisation widened their sinister smile. “You do not need to be above everyone all the time, that is why you didn’t turn me away when I told you I will not lie beneath you.”

“You think yourself more powerful, do you? Need I remind you that I am the Master of this house, I own you, incubus, you are a gift in a pretty bow.” He stood firm, unswayed as they moved closer, the strong scent of cinnamon drifting from their warm-toned skin.

“You feel nothing, even now?” Their bright green eyes glowed more intensely in the face of Raphael’s insults, paying his venom no mind. Their tail began to touch his lower leg as they stepped even closer, faces just inches away. “You do not, do you…but you feel that.”

—

Raphael certainly felt something. Irritation, the searing tip of white hot rage pressing forward like a knife at the front of his mind, and…curiosity. How could he not be curious about a fiend who dared to be so brazen with him? To stand before him without bowing even once, never offering a single thing to gain his favour. They were speaking to him as an equal - that should have been an immense insult, and yet… “You should have more care about where you touch, harlot.” The offensive nickname slipped quickly from his lips, just as his tail slapped away the one that had been threatening to tug him off balance. “I have given you no such permission.” 

“Then if you gave me permission, you would allow it? Very interesting, Archduke. Let me ask you this, if I may?” They kept from touching him again, for now, instead observing his features closer with a piercing gaze.

“Ask. There is little point in asking to ask, aside from wasting my time.” He remained unmoved, tail betraying a hint of his irritation still.

“Your clients, the mortals you deal with. They desire you, do they not? You are a handsome devil, in either of your forms. Your human guise perhaps more attractive to some than your true fiendish self, but I see the appeal in both.” They smiled more sweetly, bringing a hand towards his face, never touching but tracing a line above his cheekbone, his jawline… A mockery of a lover’s caress.

“I am not here to be eye candy to you.” He sneered, faint lines in his face appearing with the expression. “Seduction is merely another card in my deck, mortal beings are too easy to manipulate with desire. Something I am sure a harlot would be more than aware of. You do not need me to point that out.”

“Quite so,” they continued their touchless caress down his neck, along his shoulder, and close to the top edge of his wing. “But I would be more than willing to fill your pointy boots in that regard~”

“I see you do have at least a modicum of sense between your filthy ideas.” He summoned a scroll to his hand, a quill pen appearing in the other, tip glowing with infernal magic. “Rules, incubus, and they will be followed. Without fail. Or I will not hesitate to cast you out of here.”

They sighed, hand dropping back to their side from where it had been hovering above the thinner and more sensitive skin of the cambion’s wings. “ Fine, if you insist we shall have it all in writing. You are to ensure I do not go hungry. Either provide me with partners to satisfy my hunger, or satisfy me with your own body.”

“Agreed.” Lines appeared upon the page in infernal script, glowing on the parchment with the power they contained. “And you shall not lay so much as a finger upon a client without my permission.”

“Then make it simple. This room will be mine as much as it is yours. Those you allow to cross the threshold are by rights my own to take, should they agree to it.” They smirked, adding to the letters upon the page. “The house is your domain, but in this room I am the only Master.”

Raphael’s ego failed to pick up on the edge of their tone as he easily agreed to the term, and moved on to the next. “Then the illusion must be maintained. Once you have my form, you are to wear it until or unless I specify otherwise.”

This time the incubus wavered. “You are asking me to give up the last shred of my personhood, to become you?”

“No. You will retain your personality as you see fit. You are to be my mirror in appearance, I cannot have a stray client or debtor seeing through that. They must believe, at least to a degree, that it is me they are laying with, and not some brothel-hired -” He paused. His finger traced a few letters in the air, moving them around, reforming his own name into something new. “That’s it. Haarlep. A perfect anagram, the version of Raphael that is closer to the Harlot that you are.” “You scorn me even as you wish to use me to your own ends?” The incubus frowned, though the name…was not entirely objectionable.

“The name should be a fitting match for the wearer, should it not? Or do you have a better idea?” He raised an eyebrow, staring directly into the incubus’ eyes. “I suppose I can become accustomed to it, with time.” They looked at the page, filling with more rules as they talked.

—

Some time later the full document was drawn up and signed, befitting Raphael’s side of the deal. Haarlep, as they had reluctantly accepted the name, would require the consummation to finalise things yet.

Both cambion and incubus smirked, feeling as if they had outmanoeuvred the other, their own egos clouding their gaze from the space between the lines. Had they looked closer, they might have noticed the finer details they hid from each other between clever words and half-truths…but it mattered little. The signatures marked the parchment in clear and binding text.

Haarlep, as they were now named, watched the scroll disappear to whatever archive it would be stored in with a wide smile.

“And what is it precisely that you find so amusing?” Raphael’s voice drew their gaze back to his eyes.

“Oh, nothing, Archduke.” They leaned just a little closer to his face. His appearance was by no means distasteful, if they were being honest they found his form to be intensely attractive, their imagination already undressing him as they spoke. “Now, I want you to take a very good look at me. Memorise every pore in my skin, every hair on my head, every little details of me . If I am to give it up, to become you until such time as either we reach our common goal or Mephistopheles decides my work here is done, I would have at least one being remember me properly.”

“I can have a portrait made if you are so particular. And despite your glamour, you will have access to this form should it be permitted.” He pulled back by an almost imperceptible amount, small wrinkles forming on the bridge of his nose.

“No.” The incubus spoke with a growing air of authority. “I will burn every part of my image into your mind and body. Every time you close your eyes you will see me, every moment of silence you will hear my true voice in your ear, every moment your own hands touch your body the grip you will feel upon your throat will be mine.”

Raphael took an involuntary step back this time. The imposing figure of his supposed gift, the toy he was simply supposed to occupy the hours with, the being that was intended to be used for pleasure alone…it felt as if their shadow was about to swallow him whole. Haarlep could see it in his eyes, the way the sweat began to bead on his brow, the breath catching in his throat as they leaned closer again.

They had him cornered like prey, a meal they fully intended to devour, the promise of what the contract could deliver almost as enticing as the low scent of arousal rising from the cambion’s crimson skin. “You needn’t fear my touch, Raphael. I assure you, this can be a most pleasant experience. You feel it already, do you not? The anticipation rising within you, the heat of my body moving closer, that sweet cinnamon filling your senses already…” They grinned wickedly. “It is, of course, more potent from my tongue, but there are ways I can allow the aphrodisiac my body produces begin to affect you from this distance.”

“That…would be acceptable.” The usually proud cambion struggled to find the words, his presence shrinking back with the hint of power in the words he had already signed away.

“Then you accept my lips? You want to feel the kiss of an incubus, to taste my lust upon your tongue?” Their wings fluttered in anticipation.

“Stop talking already. Your master has granted you permission by the terms of the deal.”

“Oh, Raphael, you have forgotten so quickly…in this room, I am the Master now.”

--- --- ENDING NOTES --- ---

Well I did promise the images of Prequel Haarlep, so here they are~ This was made by someone who has a fair few mods for BG3, based on my description. In truth, I far prefer @littleprincepaladin's artwork

Original Work Notes (from the time this was first published)

Haarlep's original form is based on incubus/succubus lore. They are shown to have far smaller horns than cambions, a more human range of skin tones and not blues/reds/etc like cambions and tieflings have. They do, however, still have wings and tails.

The article is written a lot in binary gender terms but I prefer to see it like the original literal meanings of the words: Incubus - to lie on top of Succubus - to lie beneath Concubus - to lie beside

So there could be male succubi, female incubi, and in general they do not necessarily have a fixed gender unless they choose to.

My version of Haarlep here uses they/them pronouns, in the same way that the game does, and prefers a slightly masculine leaning body type. They would consider themselves genderfluid or gender neutral by our terms, though they really do not care for it at all unless it has something to do with pleasure or power.

I do not have an original name for them, and this is intentional too. They will, however, grow into their new role and title as the chapters progress.

CHAPTER 2 HERE