#so not quite so bleh@adulting

[dreamlogic]

...

[zephsomething]

Shit I didn’t fold Any of the clothes I was supposed to fold while watching that

[maiko1]

Babysitting kid y/n

Platonic heizou + kazuha x child! Reader.

"whoa whoa lumine, I think you misunderstood, I am-"

"a detective and not a babysitter? Yea I know that but cmon! Only for 1 day. I need to do something important and they can't know and you know what I mean." lumine sigh drinking a tea heizou just made. "yes I know but today is a bad timing! I have a case in a few hour!" heizou feel panicked. This is lumine's little siblings and if anything happen to you he'll be 6 feet under!!

"you'll be fine. I'll leave y/n to you, thanks again heizou!!" lumine ran off leaving y/n in heizou care. This is gonna be bad, he doesn't know what to do with this kid. What if they start crying?? The hell is he supposed to do?? Give his milkie... No, he doesn't even have a milkie!??!!

"ah right. About the case... Hey there kiddo, will you be alright following me?" y/n nodded. "hey just because I'm short doesn't mean I can't be helpful!" heizou deadpan "I didnt say anything about you being short tho-" his word was cut off when y/n jump behind heizou. "no more talking, we got some case to do!" heizou was quite for a second and laugh. "alright buddy, if you say so!"

"are we there yet?"

"nope! The case is very far away as far as I can remember, if you need anything just call out my name kay?" y/n smile brightly at him. "okay!" heizou smile. Maybe taking care of a kid isn't that bad.

"hey Mr heizou I'm bored." heizou chuckle. "of course it is boring for now. Once you get into the best part it'll be awesome!" heizou said as y/n cheered. "then let's go to that place fast!!"

"Mr heizouuuuuuuu...."

"Mr heizou."

"Mr heizousududuududc"

"my name isn't heizoushfhdhfjdd!!"

"Mr zouuu"

"Mr zou ur taking so longngnggnfkfkkfndncnfjcj"

"stop speaking nonsense!" heizou sigh as y/n play with his hair making his hair messy. "detective heizou?" you two turn around and met with a guy. "Mr zuha!!!" you yelled as kazuha smiled. "hey there sunflower." kazuha waved at you. "oh thank god kazuha. Can hold them for me?! I think i might lose my mind." heizou said handing you to kazuha.

"i suppose sunflower did that to ur hair?" kazuha chuckle. "yes! And it almsot took me 29 minutes to fix this hair okay!" heizou huffed as y/n stick his tongue out. "well, wheres lumine?" kazuha looked around. Surely you didn't ran away from lumine and bumped into heizou.. Right?

"lumine ask me to babysit them when she knows I'm busy!" heizou fix his hair. "well since I am here, am I allowed to join u guys in your journey?"

"no you will stay at my place and babysit them-"

"YES YES! MR ZUHA WILL JOIN US!! RIGHT MR ZOU??" heizou mouth dropped "ugh fine! But you better behave or I'm telling lumine about this"

"bleh! Lumine isn't gonna be mad at me. Lumine never does" y/n said smirking while heizou sigh in defeated. After 20 minutes of walking y/n had fallen asleep in kazuha arm. "how can you take care of this devil??" heizou grumble. "you just deal with them, they are kids after all. Most kid are focus on playing more than caring about other stuff.

To them, playing is their first priority. Kids also need full attentions from an adult. Though, I'm not that well experienced well with kids, I'm trying my best to understand them." heizou sigh. "thats more sound like ur lying. Oh! We're here. We gotta wake y/n-"

Kazuha put a hand on his mouth. "shh. I think it is better for me to stay far behind watching over y/n than hearing those loud noise that will make y/n awake. Most of the time, kids will get grumpy over loud noise that kept them awake-" heizou took out his weapon and nodded.

"don't worry, you can continue that later when I'm done with this case." kazuha nodded and sit far away from any danger watching his friend solving cases. After a few minutes he look at y/n. Looking at you just made him looks like a brother. He felt happy just by watching you. It made him happy to see you happy, almost free from trauma. It's quite sad isn't it?

"mhmm aether let's go home now..."

Having a twin siblings who's one of them didn't want to go home with you two...must be stressful for a kid ur age. But kazuha is willing to take care of you well, giving all the attentions you deserve.

After awhile heizou came with a smile on his face, little blood from his mouth. "welcome back heizou" kazuha greeted him. "oh yeah, the case was solved. Though i might have accidentally choose violence on them today." heizou chuckle while kazuha hand him a tissue. "oh thanks!"

"mhm.. Are we there yet Mr zou..?" y/n yawned. "oh" kazuha chuckle letting heizou know he's gonna handle this one. "well, we were just finding the person but it turns out they had ran away.." y/n smile drop. "but its fine, even Mr heizou was disappointed. But that's okay, how about we grab some food. Aren't you hungry?"

"now that you said it.. I am hungry Mr zuha.." kazuha nodded and stand up. "alright, let's get moving. We dont want y/n to starve now do we?"

After a while you 3 ate some dango and strawberry milk. "oh Mr zou I hweards ywou lwike pzukle. I-" heizou hushed y/n. "don't eat with ur mouth full y/n.."

Y/n ate the dango and drink some strawberry milk. "Mr zou, I heard you like puzzle. I heard it from big sister lumine.. And I know a hard puzzle that lumine has been stressing out for!"

-

"whoa, this is... Heaven." heizou spoke looking at the place full with puzzle. Plus the prize has a luxurious chest! Heizou spend 30 minutes on a puzzle and after another 20 minutes he manage to solve it. "whoa! You really are good at solving puzzle Mr zou!" heizou smile when y/n praised him.

Suddenly an unnoticeable door open which catch the 3 eyes. You 3 went inside and found 3 luxurious chest. So that's mean, there's 4 luxurious chest. "whoa, this isn't what I expected but I'm loving it!"

You 3 collected the treasure and bring it back to heizou place waiting for lumine.

After an hour lumine came back. "hey heizou I'm back-" lumine was shocked to see alot of treasure. "hey Big sister lumine!" y/n greeted lumine as lumine hugged them. "hey lumine." lumine look confused.

"well, y/n told me that there's a puzzle you've been struggling and I thought I'd give it a try. Honestly it was hard but I managed to do it! So these treasure is basically yours!"

"wow guys I-awe thank you guys." lumine hugged you 3 as you smile brightly. After a while you waved at Mr kazuha and Mr heizou. "thank you Mr zou and Mr zuha! I had alot of fun today.." heizou smirk. "no problem kiddos. Looking foward to meeting you again."

Kazuha waved at you while you hold lumine hands walking out of heizou camp. "i cant wait to tell you all the cool things heizou did!" y/n smile brightly. "really? Well I can't wait to hear it!"

(I'm sorry if the character is ooc 🍁😞)

[only-by-the-stars]

so. I have. some thoughts about TotK.

they're not happy ones.

(behind a cut for spoilers and negativity)

to be clear, the gameplay is mostly fun. that's what's kept me going this far. but... I'm not sure anymore if it can keep carrying me. because this is, honest to god, one of the biggest stinkers of a story I've ever seen in a video game. and I DO NOT say that lightly!!! I have seen some SHIT, okay??? time travel and alternate dimension shenanigans that left me unsure of what the fuck the situation was after the ending, a reveal that the universe was one big MMO... those have stuck in my mind for well over a decade for being just that fucking bad.

and this story isn't just as stupid, no. it's as stupid as those, AND it's INCREDIBLY poorly told. like I cannot stress that enough!!! as of this writing, I have found every single glyph on the world map + the bonus tear that you get for seeing all those + the little bonus scene from getting the Master Sword. they're all numbered in more or less chronological order in the menu, 1-18.

so.

why in god's name am I still missing 11, 14, and 16????????

LIKE

AM I JUST GONNA GET THEM AFTER DOING PLOT-MANDATED EVENTS?

this is deeply fucking terrible!!! at least in those other bad stories I got to watch all the nonsense unfold in linear order, AND! AND AND AND!!! I WAS INVOLVED IN IT, IT WASN'T SOMEONE ELSE'S MEMORIES

and also the writing for Zelda herself is just atrocious and embarrassing, like I'm genuinely cringing here. in the flashbacks she does little aside from stand around and talk, her love for history/science only comes up in the intro, and functions as long-winded exposition, and she unfortunately was handed the Idiot Ball on top of it (not figuring out that Ganondorf was the the Basement Mummy till after he transformed? girl... Urbosa even SAID that CALAMITY GANON was said to have been born as a Gerudo man... why are Nintendo's writers determined to make her look stupid like this???). and in the present time, she's apparently good at everything and everyone loves her (even the unhinged flower lady), and she gets a super special gold horse, and it's just... she's barely a character. she's more like the overpowered OC everyone loves that kids just starting to write come up with.

which is fine at that stage! necessary, even! we all start somewhere, and I am NOT shaming anyone for doing that when they're just starting out. goodness knows I produced my share of embarrassing crap as a baby writer.

but this is a main installment of a major franchise by one of the biggest video game companies, made by paid adult professionals. that is. embarrassing.

and... as far as I've seen/heard from others who have seen more cutscenes than I have (again, this is bullshit, why are these apparently key scenes being withheld from me?), there's never an explanation for the Calamity/Calamity Ganon and he doesn't seem to be the same entity as Ganondorf. Zelda also never once considers trying to prevent the Calamity, either, and save all those lives, because Reasons, I guess. and the time travel magically doesn't affect anything but the current crisis???? calling BS on this too. plus, it doesn't help that there's so little flow/build-up/connective tissue between the cutscenes. next to nothing, in fact. it feels like I watched the isolated anime cutscenes of an older RPG whose story was told mainly through scenes in the game engine, and tried to understand the plot from there.

except that for this game, that's all I get.

also they managed to make the Silent Princess metaphor even more ham-fisted than in BOTW, which is quite the achievement. good lord. the way my eyes rolled seeing that, the incredulous laughter I burst into... sheesh.

at this point I just. don't know if I should try and power through and rush to the ending, take a break, or just drop it entirely. either way, it would never get a replay the way BOTW did. it's just. bleh.

and don't even get me started on how they fucked up the Poes and Gibdos, way to even disappoint my desire for the return of favorite creepy enemies, I didn't even get my ReDeads. I DIDN'T EVEN GET MY REDEADS

in closing, everyone who complained about the story/time travel in AOC owes me the cost of TotK. that game may have been silly, but at least it respected the Champions and I got to see more characters interacting and everything playing out as it happened and I didn't feel so distant/isolated from it all. ugh. I need to replay THAT game!

[reflections-of-mobius]

@familylightfox asked:

It was time to start decorating the Inn. Something that many of the residents helped with as much as they could around decorating their own homes and shops. So it wasn’t all that surprising when Royce was hanging things in entryways with how tall they were. And it just so happened they finished the mistletoe hanging just in time for Node to enter the room. Volt turned at the jovial snickers and smirked himself before giving a whistle to get Bless’ attention. “Rules are rules, Liebe.” As if he would pass a chance to close the space between them and place a lingering, and promising, kiss on his partner’s lip. “Your turn Bless.” From the porch a sound of ‘bleh’ came from Harmony. Followed by snickering from two of her teammates. A certain canine might have worked up the courage to put a nose to the teen’s cheek in affection when Royce had held up another over her head.

[Unprompted. | Accepting!]

Node had been helping about with decorations, as had Bless. The hedgehog's speed usually would have made it all a breeze, but he took his time- not even a hint of tearing winds appearing as he put up each decoration with care. Winter was nice- but the holidays were what Bless personally enjoyed about the dark, cold months...that, and all the excuses to cuddle his two partners to 'keep them warm'. No other reason, none at all...

Node had also been helping, though they were mostly doing the 'running'- so teleporting about to get what anyone needed throughout. They'd gone to the kitchen to sneak a quick treat (sue them, their sweet tooth was eternal)- and hadn't quite realized that Royce was setting up the mistletoe. They blinked as they heard Volt's voice, tilting their head slightly before the thought struck them.

"Huh?--" Bless' attention turned to the two mobians. In a moment, emerald hues had snapped to the mistletoe, then Volt's smirk, then Node. He couldn't help the bit of a smirk that began to cross his own face, realizing what was coming a moment sooner than the fox.

Winter. Mistletoe. They looked up for a moment, hazel hues catching on the specific plant that hung up high. That was when Volt had captured their lips, with a small tilt of the chin and a lingering kiss that had Node's heart skipping a beat in their chest. They'd only just begun to return the kiss when Volt pulled away. It took every bit of willpower they had not to release a quiet whine, for want of the kiss to be prolonged.

"....I..." They'd need to be more careful going under doorways all winter, it would seem. Or less.- But they weren't about to say that little tidbit aloud. A nice, light blush had come to rest on their face, causing Node to try to hide their cheeks with their hands.

"Doooon't mind if I do~." The mobian sauntered over, an arm slinging around Node's waist- before drawing them in for a kiss, lips momentarily locking on the already-flustered fox's. There was a faint, high-pitched squeak from them as Bless hummed, his kiss lasting far shorter than he'd like...but not before turning his attention to Volt. "Now, I think someone else's under the mistletoe, too~." He ensnared Volt with a chuckle, before planting another smooch, this time on the hybrid. It lasted just as long, with the hedgehog relaxing by the faintest visible margin as he tasted one partner's lips after the other. Only when he'd had his fill (for the moment) did he pull away with a grin.

"Heh...make fun of it all you like, but you're just as bad as we are~." Bless teased Harmony with a grin. The teen was still younger and hadn't done quite as much as the adults had...but he was no less certain that her love for Buddy was just as strong as his love for Volt and Node. That held especially true in his eyes when the mobian nuzzled his girlfriend's cheek. "Camera-!" He almost shattered the sound barrier, taking off in the split-second Buddy was nuzzling Harmony- and coming back with a (semi-literal) flash.

Now that was perfect.

Node's head had bumped Volt's arm. It would seem they were now slightly hiding behind the hybrid- far too flustered from back-to-back kisses from both their partners.

"Bless-!" Harmony yelped.

"You want this camera, you'll have to take it~...!" And he was already bolting off with a gleeful cackle.

"....love you..." It was a very faint whisper, meant for two sets of ears only. The holidays were still being prepared for...but there was no doubt the festivities and joy that the season brought was alive and well in the Inn.

[depizan]

Being an adult is fucking exhausting.

My workplace is a shambles. I think the infrastructure is beginning to reflect the management.

I don't even want to look at the news.

I have to get a medical test done tomorrow. (It will probably be fine, but ugh.)

I need to get the bookclub book read before Sunday, but I could only get it on audio and I just can't focus.

I have a media training for the union in fifteen minutes. And my brain quit for the day hours ago.

(I'm so tired I had to double check before sending a happy birthday text to my dad. It's not like I've known him my whole life or anything.)

I kinda want to turn into a bucket of goo like Odo. That feels like it would help.

But no, I've got to make sure my camera is working and plug in a microphone and be a fucking adult. Bleh.

[rappaccini]

arachnophobia ch 7 notes

chapter title

from 'vortex' by nova twins

initial quote

from catherynne m valente's refrigerator monologues, a series of short stories inspired by famous fridged women in comics. valente was inspired to write them after watching gwen die in the amazing spider-man 2, and the story this quote's from is the gwen stacy expy.

used here because gwen's finally making moves to establish herself and find her purpose.

summer

ghost-spider is gwen's current comics codename. they changed it to distinguish her from the dozens of other spider-women. it's lovely, i love that it isn't gendered (suits gwen's feminist ideology), and that it calls attention to gwen's status as a resurrected version of a famous dead girlfriend. (granted the movies started before she was called this, and kept calling her sw, so... confusion.)

gwen a doesn't use that name yet because she only thinks of it because of excursions in the multiverse. she will, though.

this fic always begins a chapter with a different name gwen goes by. spider-woman, spider-woman-in-name-only, spider-something, spider-gwen, gwen, gwen stacy, now ghost spider; each chapter involves gwen examining that aspect of her identity in some way, building towards a gradual detachment from the spider-woman identity and embrace of something wholly her own.

lost girl: peter pan ref. wendy's back from neverland, ready to grow up. she's not a lost girl anymore.

george quitting: still happens in this fic, but it's more a solution he comes to himself gradually rather than one he decides during their argument. gwen doesn't ask him to quit as one of her caveats bc asking your single dad to give up his career would feel like a stiff ask. the most gwen probably hoped for was him not hunting her anymore.

since gwen in the movies didn't kill her peter, there's technically a way for the manhunt to be called off and dismissed as captain stacy using taxpayer money to fuel his grief, and for gwen to be exonerated. i'm going with that, to do something a little different.

gwen's transformation into ghost-spider is tied in with puberty/coming of age and transition. she's finally ready to let go of all those traditional trappings of being a girl, and take her first steps as an adult woman, being fully honest to her family about who she is, without caring about fitting into any societal standards.

in terms of the seven stages of grief, we're at acceptance.

'you should be angry/you should do something' -- a little echo of 138

carnage is red. however mjarnage is a gorgeous mixture of reds, blacks, purples, oranges and yellows. i think gwarnage (bleh at that name) is a mix of the two: mjarnage's color palate, but with gwenom's silhouette and maybe a few small differences, like more armoring along the calves and forearms to nod to her ballet slipper ribbons and gloves.

symbiotes reflect the personalities of their most prominent hosts. 616-carnage's was a schizophrenic serial killer, so of course it's Like That. carnage-65b, in this fic, would be bonding with only gwen, so it'll be more of an embodiment of gwen's anger, vengeful streak and drive to survive, like comics-gwenom's.

comics-gwen mostly keeps her suit shifted to the classic spider-woman costume. gwenom only pops up when she's mad or stressed. to keep her distinct, gwen b mostly wears carnage on her sleeve.

social media reactions: meta. people think gwenom is less sexy than the spider-gwen costume, and they would absolutely pitch a fit about their daughters' precious role model being too problematic.

hobie-65 is a preteen who tags buildings and hates gentrifiers. he is so much more like young miles than hobie-138.

ock-65b is wildly different than comics-65 ock. i think this is kind of endearing, that movie gwen gets her own unique bad guy. especially since most of her rogues seem to be missing.

gwen's identity is preserved because there's no hand to pressure her into revealing it. and, with the new look, people assume gs is an alien. works for her!

if you wanna be technical, gwen b got her hand arc: after exposing herself to her dad, she was conscripted into a sinister society led by a creepy man (whose name starts with m) who wants to possess her, and holds a power she needs to survive at arm's length unless she obeys him; which she does out of fear for her dad's life. and then she found a way to get away from him, through embracing a symbiote, and makes up with her dad.

so in a sense, gwen's wrapped up her latour arc. she's made peace with her dad, secured her symbiote, and is no longer actively hunted by law enforcement. she's enjoying that quiet lull before the mcguire run begins, where man-wolf, the storms and jackal turn up. (if they ever do.)

"gwen watches her father doze..." callback to ch 2. all the things gwen missed about her world, back and current.

fall

the nyc kindergarten cutoff is 5yo by sept 1. gwen's got a mid-to-late aug b-day here, so she's one of the youngest kids in her class. ergo, she was in eighth grade when she got bit, peter either died at the end of ninth grade or the start of tenth, she was a sophomore when she met miles, a junior when she ran away from home (which would've had to have happened around january since she's in the ss for about five months by the time atsv picks up around may). so she's a senior now.

gwen doesn't have to repeat a year of high school despite having basically skipped half her junior year, because she and her dad lied about her staying with family due to peter trauma and his manhunt causing him to neglect her.

plus she rocketed through a placement test. she's a spider-person, she's smart under pressure.

(in the comics, gwen has family in london. that's who she's visiting when she goes there to get away from her dad's death.) thought it'd be funny if gwen gets to half-lie about going to london.

in the comics, 616 gwen went to standard high. 65 gwen goes to midtown, peter parker's high school. in the movie it looks like she's going to a version of visions, probably another, sigh, ~parallel to miles~. gonna twist canon here and say: fine, she went to visions for a while, but it was a case of her school busing half the student body there for classes while it repaired the building after the lizard battle.

again my issue is not with the movie canon diverging from gwen's comics backstory/world in and of itself. it's that all these changes seem to exist to water her world down and remove the people gwen loves to make it impossible for her to find belonging with anyone but miles.

and given all gwen's paranoia about her world spitting her out to force her to live in miles's, she WOULD assume that's what determined her assignment to visions.

em jay's slightly older here bc her character design just looks like it. in the comics, all the girls are the same age. here, i think of gwen and glory as 17, betty as 16, and em as 18.

gwen and her dad's caveats were: gwen will live at home again, but he can't stop her from visiting other dimensions. she will make an effort to meet people in her dimension, but she'll keep the friends she has in other ones too (... at this time, just hobie and gwen a). she will finish high school, but she will still be a spider-hero. she'll tell him what she's up to and who she's fighting, and let him give her advice and support, but he will not fight her battles for her.

basically, gwen's not an adult, but her experience away from home matured her a lot. she was homeless for months, she's been in danger constantly, she contemplated death, she lived with an intimate partner. she can never go back to being george's teenage daughter again. her emotional maturity's more that of a college sophomore than a high school senior: still a teen, but able to function independently and ready for more mature relationships. they're in that state aged parents and their near-adult children reach where there's far more negotiation of agency.

in the comics, the mjs are gwen's closest friends. in the movie, they're just bandmates, and given that gwen 'starts her own band' at the end of the movie, it seems like the vibe is that she doesn't feel like she belongs with the mjs at all.

fuck that! in this fic, the girls start out that way, but they work it out after gwen runs away. they just had trouble warming up to each other because of gwen's peter grief. they're not 65a-levels of friendship, but they're getting closer.

(+setup for gwen and miles in the end: both parties are in the wrong, with trauma keeping them from bonding, that they both have to deal with if the friendship's ever going to work. and both are finally ready to do that.)

the mary janes put up posters for gwen in the comics. i like to think they do here, and they can eventually be friends with gwen a. they're taking their first steps here.

gwen a doesn't have a watch, so b has to pick her up every time she visits. comics-gwen has a big sister vibe with all her variants, so i'm translating that here. and since gwen a in the fic's dad is dead, i figure she'd really want to be close to george b.

they're talking job apps because both of them are out of work. and playing chess because in the comics, gwen plays a few rounds with her reed when they need to talk; i figure a picked the game up from him.

hobie's watch: progress on it's slower in the fic than in movie canon; he had to rush to get gwen's done before she glitched out, and since he's out of the ss, it took even longer to get his operational.

the symbiote amplifies all emotions. yes, including the horny ones. your honor, they got nasty on that billboard. and in many other places too.

in the comics, the symbiote feeds off her calories, so she loses a lot of weight and starts getting migraines before she changes her diet. i figure the same applies here

the falling joke's just because i thought it'd be funny. another side effect of malnutrition is lightheadedness after all.

flash thompson is the midtown high gym teacher in the comics.

since gwenom needs cellulose, i figure carnage does too. cue the most miserable after-dinner snack imaginable: a raw head of cabbage.

the symbiote is sensitive to sound. given that gwen's a drummer in a rock band, it's gonna need time to get used to that. which should lead to some funny mishaps.

and all those teeth sticking out of gwenom's design have gotta be cumbersome sometimes.

great, okay, fine callback.

winter

howard the duck's president in comics-65.

jameson's the mayor of nyc in the comics. he isn't in the movies, but i think it's funny and sadly plausible, so we'll assume gwen's world is in an election year and jameson won. and gwen's dad is a christian cop so she is very worried that he voted for him.

gwen's new go-to foods: tea, because of all her time on 138; samosas, because of mumbattan; corn dogs because of gwen a.

idk if harry and reed exist in 65b. i hope they do. chalking this up to gwen deciding to let her people find her.

polaroids: continuity error between itsv and atsv: gwen's pic with miles shifts from a phone selfie to a polaroid selfie with no explanation. my guess is a polaroid just looks more aesthetically pleasing. gonna just go with it, and say that gwen likes analog cameras.

the b in english is gwen's worst grade in atsv. here, it's her best one, because girl's got other priorities than school.

i get the sense that gwen b won't go to college.

re college: comics-gwen takes a gap year after high school to figure out what major, then goes to prison. she tries enrolling at community college (i love that it's not ivy league), but bc of marvel editorial wanting her in 616 with the big spider-heroes, she has to commute to empire state in 616, before eventually going there for good after her solo's cancelled.

'not empire' is a dig at that. let gwen live in her damn world please. it's a good thing if she's not going to the exact same school as her 616 counterpart. and not every hero needs to go to a fancy college on a full ride. it was really refreshing that gwen wasn't a star student and was settling for community and she lost a lot of charm when she got handed that stark scholarship.

regrettable hookup: the gwenom vs carnage comic is so queercoded it's insane. they have an angsty guitar-drum battle over their feelings and it felt very much like one of the plans for mcguire's ghost-spider run was to make gwenjay happen. in this fic mj never becomes carnage, but in my heart that battle still happens because they had a fling and it didn't end well.

gwen's over ballet and finally ready to quit it formally.

she's over her replacement complex too. she doesn't mind if she's replaced at the barre, at the drums, if she's interacting with em or mindy. her confidence is hard to shake now.

movie betty joined the band to vent her feelings, so i figure she's a good person for gwen to do that with.

i like to think that gwen's trying to get more involved in the band creatively as her friendship with the girls improves, so she starts showing em and glory old punk and new wave records she'd have listened to on 138. in the comics, the mj's sound starts off as 'pixies x blondie' during latour and takes on a pop punk/p!atd sound during the mcguire run. in the movies, i assume they were more pop-rock during itsv (the elliphant song playing over gwen's intro), and will be headed into punk for their second round of songs.

spider-mutt is real! hobie's carnage is a little goopdog. i love it, and i wanted to include it. i figure fic-hobie probably took note of gwen's symbiote and thought, fuck it, i'll give it a spin. so now he has a goopdog.

a's uncomfortable with mattea bc of her history with matt murdock. b never met her murdock so never had that issue.

a's reactions are from the comics: comics-gwen thinks hobie's a bad singer, but still likes his music. she thinks 138 gwen's death is cool.

in the film, hobie's why gwen and her father reconcile. he's the one who told george she was coming home, left the watch with him to give her, and yelled at him until he saw sense. here, he's not so involved in the reconciliation, but they still meet and he still yells at him.

so their dynamic is: hobie has bad history with his world's captain stacy, and george doesn't like that this guy's sleeping with his daughter. they mutually hate each other's politics and life choices, but recognize that they both love and care about gwen. so they will try to get along... mostly by ignoring each other. the vibe's basically 'if hobie never leaves through her bedroom door george will ignore him climbing in through her window'

(... though 100% i think hobie pointed to his bootlaces and was like 'that's you. if you fuck up i'll do it again.' and george begrudgingly respects that)

gwen's dad's giving her The Look because he's put it together that gwen and hobie are sleeping together and that he can do nothing about it.

now that gwen has her independence, powers, support system, and world under control, she's ready for a relationship. that's the thing: gwen has to get those things FIRST.

in the comics, pav is a scholarship student who's bullied for his village background.

if pav's a variant of peter, and peter's biggest hobbies are photography and science, i figured pav would be the same. to switch it up, he's a photo nerd. (plus, it gives him and gayatri, a model, more to bond over)

the crazy thing miles did will be discussed soon.

hobie and miles are not friends at this point in this fic. they were for that first month of miles's membership, but when the unbreakup hit and miles assumed the ghostpunk vibe was to blame he stopped wanting to associate with him. and hobie had no desire to wade into teen breakup drama, so he didn't set him straight (... plus, his sympathies are more with gwen in the situation. miles, he gets that the situation's fucked up, but you're more in the wrong here and she has more to lose. plus he and gwen are much closer). so after the initial anger cooled off, they simply didn't reconnect because they spent more time being frosty to each other than being friendly.

gwen's Miles Thoughts are to set up their confrontation later in this chapter.

hobie gets away with his watch because the society thinks he isn't capable of that level of subterfuge, and that gwen came back to 65b after she quit.

more refs to gwen breaking hearts.

gwen's now classified as an anomaly, as a symbiote from another dimension bonded with a gwen who was never meant to have one, in the wrong way. i assume miguel slapped some caution tape over her and a's dimensions, like he did with miles and 42 in canon. i guess the logic goes that anomalies can be allowed to remain in the wild, as long as they stay put. and as far as he can tell because hobie's watches are undetectable, she isn't crossing over.

gwen still expects a confrontation. she wants one. setup for later.

the river-smell sweater’s hobie’s. small implication that he sleeps over at hers sometimes.

timeline update: it's been a few months since gwen returned. needed some time for her changes to set in and to get some practice with her symbiote. it's about january, so roughly the time of the guggenheim fight (... even if the animation makes it look like it took place in spring or fall, if you do the math, it would've taken place in winter).

comic gwen-8 just wears the generic spider-gwen costume. i'm dealing with so many gwens at this point that i literally have a cheat sheet with all their costumes drawn out to distinguish them and needed them to look different. so this woman's wearing something like the madame web gwen costume. it looks suitably dramatic for a seemingly perfect celebrity hero. white and pristine, with a big flowy cape to remind of miguel.

that rip spider-woman mural was still thrown up by hobie65 because after eight months of absence he assumed she was dead.

earth-8 notes

earth-8, for all it's built up as ~one of the best possible futures~ for gwen and miles, sure does have a lot of bad implications.

1) gwen and miles willingly abandoned their respective families, friends, communities and worlds forever, presumably leaving them to their rogues, so they could run off and be famous. which is insanely ooc for both. and deeply selfish besides.

2) the marriage age: according to the watcher's earth 8 timeline, gwen leaves her world after murdock's defeat (~age 20) and the wedding comes halfway between then and the birth of charlotte, when gwen's 26. so she was most likely 23 and he was 20. which is Insanely Fucking Young to get married for anyone and does not feel in character for them. (my best guess is that the dudewriters didn't want their ideal gwen over 40, so they made her 38 and didn't think through the butterfly effect implications for the ages they were at marriage/childbirth.)

3) this wedding of this supposedly perfect couple was televised to 300 billion people, and they did it unmasked. that's multiple royal weddings in one. that wasn't about love, that was about attention.

4) they have public identities on earth-8, and were already known to the public when they married. they literally monetized being superheroes, being a supercouple.... and being super-parents.

5) their kids are only 10 and 12 and are already super-celebrities with codenames, costumes and seats in an otherwise all-adult hero team. what parents let their kids go into battle with grown adults? not good ones.

6) every time we go to earth-8, the kids are just... unparented. sitting around the house, miles and gwen nowhere in sight and it's treated as standard. the kids are always with a babysitter/nanny who they have no trouble getting away from. gwiles sure are hands-off with those perfect powerful photogenic kids they supposedly love so much.

i'm pretty sure that out of universe, marvel editorial or at the minimum the spider-man writers wanted gwen out of her world after her initial solo ended so she could become miles's love interest/the vessel for his spider-babies, and earth8 was their vision of what they wanted for her future. gross!

anyway for this fic i'm gonna say Fuck That to the surface level earth 8 interpretation and try to write a version of this relationship that acknowledges all the bad implications, without villainizing them or turning gwen into a victim/passive bystander/superbaby vessel in her relationship with miles. while also trying to preserve gwen8 as the most palatable dude-friendly vision of spider-gwen. because that's what she was created to be.

so 1a) gwen-65 leaving her world after murdock's defeat can make sense easily: this is a gwen who was facing exposure, incarceration and abuse from her rogues behind bars. borrowing from 65b, her rel with her dad was on the rocks... and since gwen only seeks miles romantically when she's trying to avoid her problems, she did the same here. gwen-8 broke up the hand, then fled worlds before she could be arrested while she was presumably powerless. she met miles and they left for 8 together.

(how'd she get her powers back and leave the symbiote? idk. but she's a male writer's perfect gwen, and a male writer's perfect gwen would only have graceful spider-powers, not a scary messy alien blob monster clinging to her. my best guess is gwen 8 left venom with her dad and got her powers back on earth 8.)

(... ergo, she and miles probably tracked down earth-8's spider and made sure it'd bite her instead of whoever it was meant for. so they pulled an earth-42 switcheroo, but with gwen instead of miles and on purpose. i imagine that's why they chose earth-8 to settle in: take someone's power, take their responsibility.)

1b) miles i had more trouble with. atsv had the perfect answer: here's a miles1610 who doesn't encounter a spider from the wrong dimension, who starts out as the prowler, gets a bite from a dimensional-native spider after being the prowler for a while (not vigilante prowler; henchman prowler), tries to make his own way as spider-man (i assume ripeter's dead at this point), but no one will let him redefine himself as a hero. so he goes somewhere where he can.

i imagine his father still dies (earlier, bc a city without spider-man is even more dangerous), which leads him to burn out of visions and embrace his uncle and get sucked into prowlering (he wants to protect aaron); aaron's killed by kingpin (aaron wants to protect miles), who sees miles as a replacement. miles is stuck as the sole prowler until he gets his powers, his mom finds out and their relationship gets bad/distant enough that he feels the need to leave forever.

i figure he meets gwen because she's got no resources except her hand training and is pragmatic enough to return to crime to get by. she figures out he has spider-powers and gives him tips, they start learning about each other, develop trust, and decide to leave together.

2) they're 17ish and 20 when they meet under desperate circumstances and flee to earth-8. so they're young, impulsive, isolated, and under a lot of pressure. i figure they end up in that kind of ambiguous intimate partnership that gwen and hobie have-- not overtly romantic, but definitely not platonic. but everyone on earth-8 thinks they're a couple. and responds accordingly.

4) when gwen and miles arrived on 8, a futuristic world, they had no identification or support system. they had trouble assimilating, and decided revealing their identities on their own terms was the best way to be accepted and get enough power/money/respect to live safely. but that's a slippery slope: once you monetize your relationship, people demand a wedding.

3) the wedding was america's favorite supercouple inviting the public to invest in that parasocial relationship, so they'd be more willing to defend and support them. they were 20 and 23, of course they thought being influencers would be a good idea. (and, meta: the general audience and fandom like gwen better when she's on miles's arm, and they think miles is more impressive when gwen's his love interest.) 'america's favorite superlove story' was more a political marriage between partners in crime who did shady shit to start over, but nonetheless have an intimate bond, than a love story.

5) they probably got pregnant with charlotte by mistake but decided to go through with it to secure their image. once you're married, people expect kids. the 8 are formed after charlotte's birth, so presumably that's when they're established and powerful enough to have their own team. they gave the kids codenames because their identities are already public, so fuck it.

6) because of all their trauma, becoming parents too young and public pressure, miles and gwen just aren't emotionally available as parents. gwen especially, since gwen stacy (especially spider-gwen) just isn't maternal. of the two, miles is the more affectionate one, and gwen's the disciplinarian. they're like a miguel and jess who do care about their kids and just don't know how to express it, so they treat them like apprentices. (gwen's the miguel, miles is the jess.)

=gwen and miles 8 are image-conscious, calculating pragmatists. they're heroes, sure, but they're doing it to secure their positions. they'll get their hands dirty (including killing) to get what they want, gwen especially. they'll cut and run, and are out for their survival above all else. they're a couple, but they're more partners-in-crime than they are romantic or heartwarming.

the simplest analog i can come up with is if gwen and hobie's dynamic gave way to miguel and jess's: two unhoused kids in a bad situation who find support in each other as they do what it takes to escape that situation becoming a power couple who are a dangerously effective but emotionally stunted unit, who aren't sure if what they've become was worth it.

perfect gwen

gwen-8 going to brunch is a thing she does in the comics, with gwen-617. already had her doing it with jess, now it's the 65gwens' turn.

the light on pg settles over her like she's born to it, because she was. she's a 65variant, as we learn in this section. also, the light in gwen's world behaves like it's underwater.

miguel wants a new gwendaughter.

unfortunately all the ones currently in existence are either too old, too willful, or don't have a dad-shaped void he can fill. so far.

gotta drop 17628 and 8311/guin, plus 457 early. they'll be here soon.

specifically, the info that 457's exploring the multiverse is gonna come back.

anytime the text is in bold, that's the symbiote speaking.

we need to burst the bubble on perfect gwen. she is not perfect, she is a person.

the most definitive way to ruin gwen's reputation, as we know, is by having her do something shitty to her spider-man. or something 'shitty' like rejecting his advances, getting with another guy, prioritizing herself over him... you know. gwen b was 'shitty' to her spider-man. gwen-8's gonna be shitty to him.

ergo, gwen-8 intentionally killed her peter parker.

(+i wanted gwen b, gwen a, and gwen 8 to exist on a spectrum: peter's death is an accident and she liked him back / she wasn't into peter but didn't realize he was the lizard until after she manslaughtered him / she wasn't into him, knew he was the lizard and murdered him specifically to stop him from hurting her later)

further underlines gwen 8 as an extreme pragmatist who'll do whatever she has to to ensure her own survival, who WOULD leave her world behind. if she was willing to kill her own best friend to protect herself from a perceived future threat, she'd be willing to abandon her world to do the same.

there's no canon age for gwen8's power onset, though it's implied it's the same as gwen65 (age 17). i went with gwen b bc i thought (1) being sw for 25 years is a sexier number than 21, (2) it's a good way to contextualize her more regrettable actions and her stronger desire to leave home: she was thirteen when she got started, of course she fucked up. and her dad was hunting her for far longer and at a far younger age. (3) since gwen8 was sw for seven years before abandoning earth-8, all those canon events lasted longer. the manhunt lasted years instead of months, and so was her time with her abusive overlords.

more gwen b pulls: gwen8's dad tried to arrest her and she ran away from home for months, instead of gwen a's dad covering for her= more stress + a weaker bond to her dad that'd be easier to leave behind.

i imagine gwen8, instead of being scooped up by the society, was taken up by the hand after she ran away (on the spectrum, the event falls between gwen a's reluctant temporary hand membership to protect her dad, and gwen b's full-time induction into the society). so she both received their training, and put up with murdock's abuse full time (which means he had time to start extorting her sexually— a thing he’s implied to intend to do in the comics, but she ditched him before he could)— and all at a younger age than in canon. more context to her hypercompetency, and to her desire to ditch her world.

... but still. gwen8 abandoned her world. she didn't want to face the consequences.

also i imagine gwen8's subletter of 65 (65c?) is a world where george stacy got to live his dadcop dreams by being that world's venom. and that given how she's 38 and he's in his 50s when she's a teen, he's probably dead by now.

she's a science-inclined gwen instead of a music-inclined gwen (the two Big Types, so far), to further her palatability, and make it possible for her to devise that portal to miles's dimension.

age gap: gwen and miles were 16ish and 20ish when they had that terrible date in the comics. presumably gwiles8 have that same gap. ergo, they'd have met at that age too! yikes!

gwen8's defensive because she and miles8 were definitely doing shit when he was 17 and she was 20. yikes!

another reason for murdock's abuse progressing to a sexual extent: to make 20yo gwen's decision to hook up with a 17yo miles less gross and ooc. don't get me wrong, its still bad, but more understandable if she's trying to get some amount of power back and thinks someone younger than her wouldn't be able to manipulate her like murdock did. yikes!, but the best thing her traumatized ass could think of.

do things different: an atsv motif.

meta: gwiles are a massively popular fancouple. they move merch.

gwendolyn

charlotte probably was named after charlotte's web in the comics.

ficgwen's deadname is max. the alternate son people keep trying to convince her to have being named that felt... appropriate.

once pg's done recounting her backstory, gwen stops seeing her as perfect. thus, she's now gwendolyn.

it's batshit to me that gwiles8 got married at 20 and 23 and literally never had any other relationships than with each other.

happy vs content: another fic motif.

gwen8 is a gwen. she can only be happy, alive and empowered in a relationship removed from heteropatriarchy. once they brought people in, she and miles's relationship was poisoned. but those early years, where they were on the run together, where they first developed that bond, were real.

gwiles8's early dynamic, as stated before, is much more like gwen and hobie's. gwen's making that connection here (intentional parallel to hobie presenting her with the watch, and that i'll-save-you-look motif reappears here). and catching on that she and hobie fit into that labelless zone that gwenships need.

gwendolyn's sensitive about her kids, so she lapses into pr friendly humor to deflect. but i also think she does not know spanish.

gwen-8 is a ballerina because i want to maintain that spectrum of 65gwen palatability: a's a drummer, b's a ballerina only to get the girlhood cred and ditches it for the drums when she gets it, 8's unironically a dancer and liked it and had no musicianship interests). and a perfect palatable gwen would absolutely be a dancer instead of a drummer in a rock band. (and if she never has the mary janes to begin with, she can't give those drummer ambitions up. better alternative to surrendering her dreams to be a superwife)

'i bet you're straight too' -- you KNOW the most palatable dudefriendly gwen wouldn't be queer.

giselle is a tragic ballet about a woman who's betrayed by her lover, dies, and enters a coven of ghosts, all women who died young and tragically due to love, but spares her lover by forgiving him. gwen stacy fits right into that kind of story.

the royal ballet's in london. another gwen stacy nearly makes it there, but something stops her.

truly movie-65 looks like a dead wife flashback.

gwen8 in the comics is heavily implied to be a version of gwen65. playing with that here. fic gwen8 is from another 65 offshoot.

in the comics, a version of ham is part of the amazing 8, and often babysits the kids. here, gwen-8 is talking to the peter porker of itsv. great way to ref canon while also building into the realization that she's going behind the society's back by hanging out with undesirables.

gwiles-8 joined the society because they were sincerely seeking a connection with other spider-people, and did think it would be helpful for their kids. and also because they're so much like miguel and jess that i think they got along right away.

'calling us partners without treating us like it' -- all salt at the writers and fandom. if gwen and miles are equals, that means miles needs to care about advancing gwen's plot as much as she does his. and that gwen's individual world and story should receive as much emphasis. that doesn't happen though. so they're not partners, now are they? he's the hero, and she's the hero's girlfriend.

gwen a is totally uninterested in miles bc he's just some dude she's heard things about. gwen b still needs closure with hers.

gwendolyn plays along with the societal categories... and also pays the price: no one actually fits into these boxes ('perfect' gwen is technically an anomaly, and did some extremely questionable things). and while playing along might get you what you want materially and keep you personally safe, it furthers the idea that those boxes are necessary, and makes it impossible for people who seek a way out of it to realize you could or need help as well.

and you pass it on to your kids, who don't know you're playing the game against itself and internalize those behaviors unironically.

supposedly, comics-charlotte morales-stacy has a mystical connection to the web. the fandom keeps insisting that gwen hurry up and get with miles already so they can produce her, and i hate that more than life itself. you're not done when you marry that boy, now you are obligated to produce offspring and fuck what you want, gwen, your daughter in one dimension is special enough to totally overshadow your wants and needs. vomits.

that's going in the fic as stakes for any gwen who joins the spider-society. bc the next step in the patriarchy machine after marriage is babies ever after. and if the babies have powers that can be of use to the society, they're gonna want them.

gwiles8 aren't natives to earth8, so they should probably be wearing some kind of transdimensional stabilizer tech to not glitch out. ergo, they had a variation on the portal watch decades before miguel invented his.

i imagine their kids are earth 8 natives bc they were born there.

the kids: get into transdimensional mischief in the comics. something tells me they'd cause chaos in the society.

another reason for gwendolyn to get her powers at 13: so she can have a crisis thinking about charlotte being that age and going into battle.

re the kids: i like to think that the society mess made gwiles8 rethink how they're raising them, and they're going to try to let them be children more than junior spider-heroes now.

lego gwen is real, also from some unknown variant of lego peter's world. i know nothing about her, so she's just a cameo in the fic for that reason.

spider-witch is also real. from some marvel fighting game. also has zero characterization other than a vague reference to her having scarlet witch powers. so she's gonna be another cameo.

spider-woman-617 is an amalgamation of gwen 617, and what if...? dark's spider-woman, who has no numbered universe so i lumped her in to use the 617 title. essentially: taking 617's middle aged detective and giving her the backstory of gwen outliving peter, taking his mask and her dad's gun and going looking for vengeance.

and 617 gwen's universe collapses in the comics too. taking that and using the spot now to justify it, and solidifying the society as an enemy by having them pick and choose which universes are worth protecting. they'll never protect the ones where gwen gets to be the hero on her own terms.

we'll meet all these gwens next time.

the spot: a small way to imply that whatever showdown he and miles will have is still going to happen, even if out of this fic. again, i didn't want to rob miles of his atsv arc, just stretch it over months instead of hours and let gwen have one of her own beside it. the movies did miles right, so i'm doing gwen's side.

gwen 8 is a pragmatist and an opportunist. she would stay as long as possible to extract information.

and she'd get her hands dirty, but not in public... which is why she's talking to the irreputible gwens and asking them to do it for her.

earth 73

earth-73 isn't actually canon. made up for the purpose of this fic. she's the only spider-gwen variant who was entirely made up.

the gist is this is a world where gwen dies the night peter's bitten by the spider, but instead of dying, she's bitten too. so now there are two spider-people where there 'should' be one, and no dead gwen.

she's a gwendolyne-with-an-e to distinguish her from gwendolyn, spider-woman-8. and also to bookend gwen's story on being finally able to encounter a living gwen-with-an-e in a snowy alternate world.

it's 1973 and she's a woman in stem. gwendolyne's dealing with some insane sexism.

another cindy moon ref! sorry cindy, gwen snatched your destiny again!

gwendolyne's never gonna make it to london. again.

being out of reach: a motif for this section

this peter's only just gotten his spider-powers, so all his insecurities are still amped up to 11.

gwendy. the nickname only ever given to gwen by peter, occasionally mj, and hobie in the movies.

here, gwen's the uncle ben, so her death is the one that makes peter take responsibility and stop being reckless and attention seeking. meaning, he's gotta be reckless and attention-seeking when she dies. bad decisions ensue.

he's different, he's special, he's spider-man: bringing this back.

having to try: another motif brought in.

the rooftop flirtation/websling grabbing: got the idea from gwen and peter's first kiss in the amazing spider-man.

so. in this world, gwendolyne gets bitten by the spider when she crushes it. that's the moment of divergence from Canon.

so when she falls, she catches herself.

and so the world is changed: section motif.

issue 121 is gwen 616's death.

gummy spiders being used as tracking/surveillance devices are a thing!

in this world, gwendolyne's dad still dies. it just happens before spider-anyone is around to fight ock. that's her moment of inspiration.

and instead of being inspired by gwen's death, peter73 decides to accompany her.

this is a story where gwen and peter both get bitten, and both get to be heroes together. (it's the strongest way for a and b to witness how possible it is for things to turn out differently, if an og gwen and peter can fall in love, subvert the death, and gwen's powerlessness-- in agency and superpower. because why not?)

the Outfit gwen dies in: purple skirt, green coat. it's repeated in the amazing spider-man movies. you can see gayatri in a purple flannel. and gwen's wearing a green shirt in the film. (... they're so gonna do gwen's death in btsv)

it's a trigger point for gwen: from 'don't you dare interrupt the creation of this new story' to 'oh shit, someone's gonna do that.' it's what makes her want to give gwendolyne some options.

gwendolyne's a nerd. she's gonna think alternate dimensions are cool as hell.

she also doesn't want to leave her peter. she's bluffing to get the gwens to follow her back to him so they can talk this out together.

and the society's just shown up too. they've been talking to peter73, trying to gaslight the fuck out of him into thinking of the gwens as the enemy.

the society's gonna snip gwen73 out of the narrative.

the original plan was that they were going to kill her to force a gwen death canon event. i've since revised it to 'gwen doesn't know, but it's either that or miguel's found his gwen replacement goldfish and wants to retrieve her for that purpose' -- regardless, gwen's here to save herself and miguel's here to shut down a possibility of a new path for a spider-gwen.

jess isn't here because she's taken some of gwen's words in ch4 to heart. she doesn't want to be involved in gwen issues anymore, but she's still in the society.

lady spider's here because i wanted gwen to punch the victorian.

and ben because he's an edgelord.

and miguel, because he's miguel, and he wants a new gwendaughter.

peter73's looking for miles, who came in with the rest of the crew and turned invisible right before gwen73 hits the panic button.

the second miguel sees gwen he goes into rage mode.

look that symbiote tongue's gotta be so fun to use in combat. and the tooth hood. somebody's gotta get bitten by it.

tiger: tiny ref to em (of 'face it tiger' fame) being the original carnage host.

the lab needed to be mirrored so miles could see miguel coming behind him. the reflection motif was a happy accident discovered during drafting.

gwen and her symbiote are generally in agreement-- but it still feeds off her anger and fear. she needs to struggle with it sometimes-- and so an invisible miles can see her doing that, and assume the worst.

also i needed to explain how the society turned up early. makes sense that they'd be surveilling 73, and see the gwens, and decide to move up their mission.

and that gwen would instantly be paranoid of gwen8 selling them out.

funnel webs are the super messy ones. befitting of a portal watch made by a punk. as opposed to the structured orb weaver build of the one designed by a control freak.

miles:

miles and gwen's final confrontation was one of the first things i wanted to write in this fic.

the shoulder touch/"hey" is a ref to itsv.

comic and movie gwen fight different. comic gwen's a clumsy brawler. movie gwen uses her feet and moves like a dancer. miles, who's a smart guy who fought alongside gwen (... and paid a lot attention to her looks as an artist and a guy crushing on her), would clock those kicks and be able to tell the symbiotes apart.

the body running past them isn't maybelle or ben.

miles's temporary suspension was made permanent after earth-42.

miguel gave him this assignment as an opportunity to prove his loyalty and get back in. he wanted someone to handle gwen for him... but then went on a miguel rage, and forgot all about the plan.

miles is here for two reasons: 1) he can't help wanting to ~save gwen from herself~. you know that's how it'd go if gwen got a symbiote and started tapping into her rougher emotions.

and 2) he genuinely wants to talk to her again, but can't until this moment. taking miguel's offer was also tactical, and an indication that miles isn't as naive or as desperate to belong as he was the last time we saw him.

re: saving her: the last time miles saw gwen, she was having an emotional breakdown in front of him. since then he's only ever heard of her, mostly from pav and now peter b. pav last saw her when she attacked him and tried to die in his girlfriend's place, and pete saw her right before something violent went down with miguel and she left the society. and now here she is, months later, possessed by a symbiote in the wrong world, attacking the society. it is totally plausible to think that she needs help.

(and since he's definitely spoken to pete b about her, he does have more perspective about why she rejected him)

saving her 2: it is also very much that he's still stuck in that hero-saves-the-girl mindset. his first impulse is still 'the girl needs me to save her' and not 'maybe the girl is doing this on purpose'

~saving her~: one of the most predictable things you can do with gwenom is make her a victim who needs to be saved by the power of love or a monster who needs to be put down. by the male main character. all the more extraordinary that the actual gwenom arc totally blows those ideas out of the water.

it's an old story, and gwen hates it, so that makes her antagonize him.

miles at this point is getting over his feelings for gwen. he spent 6-8 months not interacting with her at all, after all (and getting closer to margo). he's genuinely not thrilled about the idea of kissing her better, but he still cares about her, and if that does it, he'll do it. (hence the 'i'll-save-you' facial language. you can see it in pav and hobie in 3 and 5 too.)

gwen clocks that hesitation, and it makes her settle down and want to engage with him.

miles is older too. puberty acts fast. he's not gonna look like how she remembers him.

miles's secret weapon is the venom blast (+invisibility). gwen's is the venom symbiote, which can turn her invisible.

his plan was: show up for the mission, get the symbiote off gwen, get gwen back to her homeworld safely. he had no interest in going back to hq or rejoining the society.

(which tips the favor in this being a kidnap-gwendolyne mission instead of a kill-her one. miles wouldn't help out if it were the latter, and the former could be construed by him as For The Best.)

gwen's finally capable of understanding that miles changes over time too. in ch2, she was convinced he couldn't understand her but totally neglected that she's the same.

miles is still a 16yo boy who doesn't totally get what relationship anarchy is.

gwen wants to patch up the miles-hobie friendship. it broke over her, so she has to be the one to fix it. i think he'll actually take her up on it this time.

one of my goals for this fic was making sure miles still gets his canon arc. i think it's exactly what his character needs, and i don't want to flatten him or assassinate his character and throw him away after shooting gwiles dead. so he's still getting all his atsv development, just at a much slower rate and offpage. and without gwen at his side.

ergo: after his big society blowup, here recontextualized as a suspension, he heads to 42. differences being: he goes there intentionally, knowing what he'll find, and he brings his friends (here, peni and margo). it goes less to shit than in canon.

miles peni and margo are a trio because if gwen's had her female friend group removed and is now a guys' girl, at least make miles a girls' guy.

yes, background margo/miles. flowerbyte is cute, margo's a great match for him and i love this ship! i like to think they have a sweet friends to lovers slowburn in the background while gwen's running around punching walls for six months.

so at this point miles is into margo, but still hung up on gwen. he's getting ready to transition from teenage infatuation into a more mature kind of love, but needs closure with gwen before he can move on.

one of my btsv theories is that we'll meet one of the alternate gwens the creators teased in earth-42, and she'll be the gwenom.

which, at least we'd get to see gwenom. but the whole point of gwenom is that she isn't an evil or sad worst-case-scenario version of gwen. she's just gwen. the main gwen.

hence gwen's symbiote calling that out. excuse me bitch, we are not a side character or a sad ending, we're the main event.

symbiote body horror is fun! and carnage 65 is covered in tooth barbs.

(... miles facing off against carnage is a recent comics arc of his. got to pay homage to it here, in a way)

miles was talking to miles8 about prowler stuff all along.

gwen and miles in this fic each have a perfect earth-8 variant who was much more shady behind the scenes, and a villified variant they're supposedly destined to be, who's actually a great influence on them. they are indeed the same in the ways that count.

gwiles8 set up the gwen-and-miles reconciliation. gwen8 was going to send gwen to get gwendolyne anyway, but miles8 sent miles along to make this happen.

dream girl gwen's been a motif throughout this fic. the thing about dreams is you have to wake up from them if you want to get on with your life. miles is about to do that.

miles ii

chapter 2 parallels: gwen contemplating becoming the palatable miles-gf. "they're not us." the gripping of the shoulder. the invisibility. this is an inversion of that scene; they've grown enough to be able to fix what went wrong there.

it's batshit that miles8 got married when he was 20. what the fuck.

the thing about gwen65 is that she can't end up with miles or peter, ever. she has too much history with peter (and he has too much with her), and if they get together all their development since that trauma goes out the window. and that future with miles poisons a present relationship, because that's what it's leading to. one destroy's gwen's physical life, the other destroys her ability to be a protagonist.

movie gwen, at least, could've had something with movie miles. if they'd stayed in touch after itsv, i buy that gwen's feelings for him would've developed and they'd have gotten together and been sweet. but not after a year and a half of no contact; with that much distance and stronger connections to other options (hobie, even pav to an extent), she's moved on.

(even if they joined the ss at the same time, their dynamic would be poisoned by canon and societal expectations. same result as in-fic, but even messier because then they actually WOULD be a couple imploding, instead of an almost-couple averting getting together by having the implosion first.)

and even if they'd gotten together, i still don't think they'd have lasted. they'd be a high school relationship, and those tend not to work out for a reason: adolescent love and adult love are SO different, and adolescence is a phase to grow out of. we desperately need more stories about teen love that take that approach.

and since spider-man can't let gwen stacy go, he wouldn't have let them grow apart. he'd have held on and "time would've made it worse" -- reversal of miles in ch 2. he's going step by step here, confronting all his misconceptions and letting go of them. and it would've made it worse. they have a dynamic that can only work temporarily, and the longer they're together the more that would show.

gwen's a step ahead of miles developmentally. either she has to regress or stay put in order to stay on his level, or he has to grow up too quickly. neither is good.

miles can't grow up and seek a more mature, deep relationship if he gets his dream girl. and gwen can't go home if she's trailing after this boy, fighting his battles for him.

more miles growth: he's not the exception. he's another spider-man who'd cannibalize gwen's story. meta: because that's what'll happen if they get together. the fandom, the audience, and the writers will all make their relationship about him and the longer they're together, the more gwen will be written to vanish into it, and the more miles will be written to enforce that. he'll be turned into that boyfriend who doesn't encourage his girlfriend to have her own life. being with her will make him a worse person.

gwen and miles don't need to form a romantic relationship. what they're seeking in each other they can only find in themselves.

now that gwen's met gwen a, and miles has met miles g, they've outgrown that fixation on each other.

miles woke up. now he sees his dream girl for who she really is: a person, who wants control over her own life.

and gwen finally sees past that shining light of inspiration for the person miles is: a boy who cares and doesn't always know how to help. (+half in love motif paying off)

miles is no longer a lost boy. he decided to grow up, just like she did.

(... to the people excited about the peter-pan-and-wendy nicknames hobie gives miles and gwen, please remember how that story ends. wendy gets over peter and goes home because if she stays with peter, she can never grow up. if she stayed with him, then the story would've been a tragedy, because refusing to grow up is not a good thing. the same is true for miles and gwen.)

and the only way they could ever have grown up is if they did it apart. together, they stagnate each other. fine for a temporary high school flirtation, but bad for a relationship intended to last.

not all not-good relationships are toxic or abusive. sometimes it's simply that you and your partner don't let each other grow or change for the better, or that your wants and needs are incompatible in the long-term. and just because you and someone are into each other doesn't mean you'd be a good couple.

another added bonus of the portal in this scene is: miles gets to face the light, and gwen's face is in shadow. it all ties in!

part of gwen's anger at miles has been that subconsciously, she wanted him to fix things for her because she believed she couldn't do it herself (and at the time he joined the ss, she couldn't; she had no support system, no confidence, was purely in survival mode and was totally dependent on them for her portal watch). now she knows she can.

they fixed their shit. now, can the other spider-men and gwens do the same, and even stay together?

miles and gwendolyn had it... before they sold out.

peter and gwendolyne have it. if the ss never showed up at all, they'd have debuted as a hero partnership. maybe they wouldn't have lasted as a couple, but they'd both be alive, powerful and equals in the narrative.

pav and gayatri seem like they could. she may not have powers, but she already knows who he is. and now that he's aware of the narrative, he could attempt to subvert it.

(gwen and hobie have it.)

gwen can't end up with just anybody, in just any scenario. but it IS possible for her and a spider-man to work out. the key's agency and equality... which can only exist, in a world dictated by canon, (or, meta: by writers and fans caught up in heteropatriarchal storytelling,) in the dark, in the margins, out of sight, to keep it safe from the people who'd demand the traditional arrangement. and it can only be with someone who'd never be tempted by said arrangement (in universe) and (out of universe:) can't overshadow her.

[cough hobie brown is that someone cough]

so, any canon version of gwen65 can't end up with miles. or peter, for that matter. (in fanfic, the sky's the limit. but in canon? nope. miles and peter are too big in comparison to her, and the baggage is too much)

miles iii

gwen and miles individually have what it takes to break canon.

they are both marginalized by it and constricted by the limitations of their narratives, though to very different extents-- especially since they're set up to view the other as an obstacle (to gwen, miles is yet another spider-man who's here to swallow up her story) or an object (to miles, gwen is the reward for being the hero and completing the character arc), instead of an ally.

both are denied complexity and given strict rules to play by in order to be tolerated.

both are punished for breaking, failing or not wanting to live up to those expectations.

both are ideally positioned to recognize the limitations of canon and have all the motivation to want to break it.

and both are needed to break canon all the way...

but they cannot do it if they're a couple. all that would do is break miles's canon, while gwen's stays intact. miles would be settling for a designated love interest instead of discovering his own, and gwen wouldn't get her own story. the hero getting the girl can never challenge canon because it's one of the oldest most fundamental parts of the canon. changing up which hero gets the girl doesn't change anything because he's still getting the girl. and if you're gonna break it, break it all the way.

the ultimate culmination of miles's arc (fuck canon, i'll do it my way) isn't actually him doing it his way-- it's encouraging others to do the same even at the cost of him getting what he wants from them. the best way to do that is for him to give gwen that opportunity, because it shows he's grown enough to recognize that her ability to lead her own story matters more than his desire to make her a supporting role in his. fic-miles has reached this conclusion. i hope (and doubt) movie miles will too.

the ultimate act of love is acknowledging that your feelings are less important than their freedom safety and happiness. hobie gets that right away. it took miles a while, but he's here now. albeit, after gwen's feelings already evolved away from him. still important that he got there. now he's ready to be that person for someone else (in this fic, margo).

gwen and miles kick miguel in the face because it was fun to write. also, they're a functional team again.

miles can't come with gwen because she needs to get on with her story, and her story isn't about him.

(intentional parallel to hobie: yeah, she could stay with miles, but doing that defeats the purpose of her emancipation. she has to follow through with it before they can have the relationship they've just admitted to wanting; with hobie, something romantic; with miles, something platonic)

gwen and miles' parting words/gesture are intended to mimic the ones they had at the end of itsv. they are friends, and actually get to stay friends this time.

miles isn't dying here fyi. he's quitting the society and heading back to his world. he's fine. he’s just waiting for gwen to back out of the metaphorical parking lot first.

end quote

from seanan mcguire's gwen stacy: ghost-spider. this is when gwen returns to her universe after a spiderverse event, finally free from prison and ready to redefine herself.

[justapixelthing]

Some Oot Zelink ideas for Remnants of the Past

So I'm feeling bleh today, so I wanted to to share some cute ideas for Oot Zelink in TLOZ: Remnants of the Past. So ROTP is a sequel to Ocarina of Time in the same way that TP and WW are in their respective timelines, with ROTP also being on its own timeline. I simply name it the 4th timeline, though separate from my official 4th Timeline theory. But yes, the main Link and Zelda are new ones. The hero of hope and the princess of the present. None the less, their world was shaped by Ocarina of Time Link and Zelda.

Oot Zelink are people of the past. Think of Rauru and Sonia. Something similar (but way less tragic) is their role here. We do see them in visions of the past (Hint hint: Title of the story!)

People always assume that the 4th timeline, one where Link is not sent back in time, but instead stays as an adult, will be easy mode for Zelink. But I actually don't think so. I think Link has to learn a lot, to be able to figure out how to fit into society. So Zelda, while she does have feelings for him, doesn't want to immediately thrust him into a relationship. Instead she wants him to find himself first.

So Link goes off and spends time all over Hyrue and actually learns new hobbies. It takes time but he learns to do things he loves doing. Playing music that isnt about magic. Cooking. He actually ends up cooking for Zelda, which she learns to absolutely love. Of course he helps rebuilding Hyrule but always makes sure to make a nice meal for her anyway.

It takes a long time until Link has properly adjusted mentally. But once that happens, Zelda finally lets him have the responsibility of being her husband and thus King of Hyrule. Yes, she had to reject him a few times, but always as a "not now, but later" thing. They both knew they would be together eventually and that made Link feel less anxious. The love was there, they just had to work on themselves. Zelda too.

And then they became King and Queen of Hyrule and lived a long and happy life. As the plot description says, they knew Ganon would return some day and left clues for their successors. Those would eventually be ROTP Princess Zelda and the hero of hope, also named Link. Oot Zelink walked so ROTP Link and Zelda could run.

A lot of this will show itself in ROTP, even if oot Zelink are not the main Zelink. This is effectively a story of two people who got reincarnated and found each other again. Two Links, Two Zeldas, but only two spirits.

Side fact: Since Zelda, the princess of the present is a descendent of Oot Zelink (but ROTP Link is not), I like to think she has features of both, including quite a pointy nose like the hero of time had. Pretty girl that can poke your eye out in a kiss.

[dont-offend-the-bees]

Tagged by @firstaudrina ! 💛

3 ships god i have way more than 3 but off the top of my head i guess:

Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling (current main)

Dirk Gently/Todd Brotzman (fondly revisiting)

Nigel/Alex (absolute messy evil trashfire I speak about with One other person)

1st Ever Ship:

Like honestly, probably a self insert thing of me + one of the book characters or anthropomorphic cartoon animals I liked. Me and Robin Hood probably. Me and David Rain from that series with the clay dragons. Me and Flynn from obscure CGI animated kid's series Insektors. I think before I discovered The Internet I wasn't consciously aware of shipping characters who weren't together in canon -- I'm sure I DID on occasion, but it defo registered less before I started fanficcing and freaking out with other people about it.

Last Song:

Brown of Gold by The Altogether. If I'd answered this earlier it would have undoubtedly been something emo from the Dream playlist lmao.

Currently Reading:

Vagabonds! by Eloghosa Osunde. I'm actually having a good time for reading rn, hasn't been the case for a few years. I also just finished Under the Whispering Door, and Cemetary Boys, and the Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue. I'm bouncing back and forth between stuff aimed at adults and stuff aimed at teens, sometimes when my attention is bad or I'm really sad teen stuff is just easier to latch onto/more likely to have happy-ish endings. Defo finding it easier to get through books when i know there's queerness afoot. Vagabonds! is the most difficult one I've sunk my teeth into lately, it's very good but I'm getting through it a little at a time, interspersed with a re-read of ultimate gay comfort book the House in the Cerulean Sea.

Last Movie:

I don't think I've actually watched a movie since new year's eve, so um. Titanic. Which the three of us unanimously decided to watch at new year for some reason.

Currently Consuming:

Nothing, I am HONGRY. Will go down and forage something soon I imagine, I'm keeping myself well fed enough but not deriving much pleasure from it atm. Sadly I need to cut down my salt intake a bit (nothing diet fad-y, just sincere concerns about my blood pressure lmao), and salty foods are the only ones I sincerely enjoy so bleh.

Currently Watching:

Struggling to get into new shows atm, for the first time in ages I'm actually a bit more interested in reading! I have a couple of eps of Cabinet of Curiosities left. And I'm rewatching OFMD with the family, DGHDA with a friend, and Shadow and Bone in preparation for season 2.

Currently craving:

For my brain to happily focus on something a bit and quit it with this restless 'there's other stuff you could be doing' feeling? That and a packet of crisps.

Tagging:

@kieren-fucking-walker @backatthebein @evilphrog @girl-bateman @ilikedthewayhegaveback if ya wanna do it

[lovemesomesurveys]

Have you ever gotten lost while on a road trip? Wait, this is going to sound really stupid but I just had a thought after reading this question: what exactly constitutes a road trip? You know what I mean, like I’ve been on long car rides, some were like 12 hours, but were those road trips or just long car rides? I feel like a road trip is specific thing. lmao, this is dumb but I’ve really never thought of it before now and I’m curious.

When did you last have some lemonade? I honestly have no idea. It’s been a very, very long time.

Who is your celebrity crush? Alexander Skarsgard.

If you had to choose a random color to dye your hair, what would you choose? I’d love to dye my hair red again. I really miss it.

What do you do when you feel restless? Well, that’s the hard part isn’t it? Feeling restless and trying to figure out what to do.

Do you take a lot of pictures of sunrises/sunsets? No.

Do you like the color orange? Sure.

Are you currently wearing a watch? No. I have no idea when the last time I wore a watch was.

When did you last have cereal? It’s been several years. Cereal does sound good.

What last made you anxious? My anxiety disorder.

What is something you were surprised to learn? I never knew until recently that Hawaii is actually pronounced like “Ha-va-ee.” Like, their “W” sounds like a “V.” I thought that was interesting.

Do you get flu vaccinations every year? No. I’ve never gotten one, actually.

Have you ever been on a doubledate? Yes.

What radio station do you listen to most? I haven’t listened to the radio in years.

Have you ever shunned a family member or vice versa? Not that extreme, but I’ve become very distant from certain family members and don’t have a relationship with them.

Favorite shade of blue? I love various shades of blue.

Favorite soup? French onion soup.

Do you like mangoes? No.

Do you prefer pancakes or waffles? Waffles, for sure.

If you create music playlists, what is the title of the last one you made? I don’t recall. I really just add all my songs to my main “Starred” playlist.

Would you or have you ever traveled to China? I haven’t, but I wouldn’t turn down a trip.

What's your height? Like 5′4.

What color do you wear most often? Black.

When taking a shower, do you turn on the water before getting in? Yes. I’m not trying to freeze my ass off.

What do you want most? To get better. Like to the point where I’m able to do things and more sense of independence. I miss traveling so much. Hell, I miss just going to the fucking grocery store.

What is an overused word you hear a lot? “Like.”

What do you currently hear? “Candy Rain” by Soul For Real.

What were the last 3 things you ate? Cream of Wheat, a couple pieces of toast, and a mini Reese’s shaped egg.

When did you last take a selfie? Gahhh, it’s been quite awhile. Too scary.

How is your mental health? It kicks my ass.

How much water do you drink in a day? I get pretty close to 8 glasses.

What are you thankful for currently? My family.

What animal do you think is the ugliest? Well, that’s mean.

If applicable, would you quit your job if you won the lottery? I don’t have a job, so see ya suckas! ha.

What is your favorite sleeping position? I sleep slightly turned to my left.

What are 3 scents you like? Patchouli, sandalwood, and cedar wood.

Have you ever thrown someone a surprise party? No.

What's an unpopular opinion you have politically? Bleh.

What's a type of cheese or cheese alternative that you enjoy? Oooh, I love various types of cheeses.

What is a kid activity that you would still do now as an adult? I love to color. In an adult coloring book, thank you very much. Haha. I’d still color in a kid’s one, too, let’s be real.

Do you like the scent of fresh cut grass? Meh.

If you were to go to a Disney themed costume party, what would you dress up as? Probably Alice. I actually already have the dress.

What is an ability you believe everyone should have? Uhhh.

What is the first thing you do after coming home from a trip? I’m someone who likes to unpack right away and not let shit sit in suitcases forever.

Name a song that's fun to sing along to. There’s a lot of those.

Do you know how your parents met? I do. They worked together at the time.

Do you believe love is blind? Sometimes. I think we can overlook certain things and be in denial.

Have you ever made a bet and lost? Yeah. Nothing serious, though.

If you owned a restaurant, what would you serve? *shrug* I’d want like a cozy cafe style vibe.

What's the fanciest event you've ever attended? I haven’t been to any fancy events.

What food tastes better than its appearance? I know meat can look off putting. I’m a picky meat eater (and eater in general) and yeah some of it might not be the best appearance wise.

Do you actively post on social media? On my main Tumblr I do. I’ve slowed down a lot on this survey blog, sadly. It feels like everyone has. I want to get it goin again

Do you believe in horoscopes? Nope.

What's a hobby you would like to get into? I think diamond art looks cool. I just know I don’t have the patience or focus ability for it.

Would you take the opportunity to become immortal? I don’t want to see all my loved ones die.

Do you experience intrusive thoughts? Sometimes. I think we all do.

What is a movie that makes you laugh? I think the last movie I watched was Meghan, ha. It had some chuckle moments.

What is the best name you've heard an animal named? I mean, my doggo, Princess Leia, is pretty dope.

Do you keep track of how many steps you take? No.

What's something that isn't really needed that you would not want to live without? Internet.

What would you name a yacht if you had one? I have no idea.

Morbid, I apologize. How do you think you'll die? Something health related.

What's something embarrassing you've said to someone? Gah, who knowsssss.

If you could have anything in a store for free, which store would you choose? I’d love to get a new MacBook.

For 1 day, what animal would you choose to be? A doggo.  They seem so happy and just like to like chill.

What woke you up this morning? My body naturally woke itself up.

Would you rather have many hobbies or 1 true passion? Hm. That’s actually a tough one. Many hobbies sounds fun, I like the variety. However, if I have my true passionate I’m like pretty much set, ya know? I found the thing I love and want to do and I imagine it would keep me busy.

I feel like every school has one. What was a school scandal your town's school had? Meh.

Do you save or spend more money? I’ve gotten a lot better with saving. I gotta give my hospital stay last year and the continued bedrest at home since then the credit for that. I’m not going anywhere and I’m kinda just cycling through a few of my shirts cause of comfortability and convenience factors. So, I’m not wearing much of my wardrobe at all right now, which sucks and also means I certainly don’t need any new clothes. It’s hard to get into looking at accessories and shoes as well cause again--not going anywhere. I miss shopping. :(

Do you listen to podcasts? I only watch this one, called, “Foolish Mortals”, and it’s Disney related stuff. I just really enjoy two cohosts and their own YouTube channels as well. They seem like cool dudes.

What is your favorite dish to cook? I don’t cook. I don’t even make ramen anymore.

If you have pets, what would you ask them if they could speak? Oh my goodness, soooo many things.

How do you deal with stress? Not well.

What compliment did you last receive? *shrug*

If you were president, what's one thing you'd change about your country? I absolutely would never like to be president. Ever.

Would you rather get a facial or massage? Maybe a facial.

If you were offered a super bowl ad, would you create a commercial and what would it be like? --

When did you last feel an adrenaline rush? It’s been a very long time since I’ve felt that.

Who is tallest in your family? My dad and brother.

What's the oldest article of clothing you own look like? They’re my high school class shirts.

When did you last mess something up? Oh buddy, I’ve been messing shit up for a very long time.

Do you write in a journal? This is it.

What's something you're confident in? Nothing...

Have you ever received a strange gift? Nah.

Do you currently have a headache? Not at the moment.

What's something you have on your bucket list? I want to travelllllllll.

[kriskalutz]

28 Bloody Nights CAS Challenge - Angelic

Maria: And then he was like "Do you know what I'd do with a girl like you?" Can you believe that Alice?

Alice: Gosh!

Maria: Just glad the bite threat worked on him. Once I tried that threat and if anything, it made the moron even more interested in me.

Alice: Ugh some people are weird. They think Vampires'll just chomp down on any willing neck they can get their hands on.

Maria: I mean some Vampires will but we're not like them. Sim plasma doesn't even taste that good.

Alice: 'Blehhh I'm a Vampire!!! I only think with my teeth! Bleh bleh bleh!!! I'mma bite your neck!'

Maria: *snorts* You're so silly.

Alice MacCaffrey was the only biological child of her parents (they had fertility issues), but she had many foster siblings growing up. She helped her parents in taking care of them, and she's managed to keep her Childish nature even as an adult.

She's a pacifist who prefers to try and be nice and respectful to everyone. She's completely sworn off of draining sims of their plasma and prefers Plasmafruit over anything else. She's quite the comedian and anyone who spends time with her leaves with a good mood.

While she's good at making friends, she's struggled with dating. Lots of people are weird about the Vampire thing (don't want to associate with Vampires, are Vampires with a superiority complex, are sims who just really, really want to get bitten, etc.). Lots of people are also weird about her Childish Trait, either demanding that she 'grow up' or assuming she's into... stuff she's definitely not.

By pure luck she met Maria during a trip to Henford-on-Bagley and they hit it off. Maria wasn't weird about the whole Childish thing and Alice cared about more than Maria's looks. They're now engaged.

Alice MacCaffrey - Young Adult, She/They, Download Here

Childish, Loves Outdoors, Proper - Outdoor Enthusiast Aspiration

Likes: Green Color / Purple Color / Comedy Skill / Gardening Skill / Kids Radio Music / Latin Music / Latin Pop Music / Lullabies Radio Music / Comedy Skill / Cross-Stitch Skill / Dancing Skill / Gardening Skill / Knitting Skill / Painting Skill / Singing Skill /

Hates: Fishing Skill / Programming Skill / Robotics Skill / Rock Climbing Skill / Rocket Science Skill / Skiing Skill / Snowboarding Skill /

Alice is a demigirl who uses she/they pronouns. She has two outfits per catergory (one with a skirt and one with shorts/pants for most of them). She tends to prefer more feminine attire.

If you want Alice and Maria together, use this download. They are labelled as engaged. Despite her appearance, Alice is the older one by 5 years (Maria is 36 and Alice is 41).

Was I thinking of Jessica Rabbit and Roger Rabbit when I was making these two characters? Absolutely.

I even gave Maria this Jessica style look for one of her outfits but then forgot to snap pics for her freaking day. Least I can show it off now right? ='D

[pesterloglog]

Aranea Serket, Meenah Peixes

Act 6, page 5398

ARANEA: The Witch of Time was not always the party's 8iggest trou8lemaker. If you recall, you wore that tiara for a long time. ::::)

MEENAH: yeah yeah

ARANEA: Once she was as meek as can 8e. Hailing from the eastern provinces, she migrated across the seas and settled near the forest concealing Rufioh's guild. The two of them 8ecame quite fond of each other, and shared many interests!

ARANEA: He secretly 8egan seeing someone else, 8elieving she knew nothing. 8ut she always suspected his infidelity, and over time grew quite distraught. 8ut her sadness never quite turned to rage and malevolence. Not until you... involved yourself.

MEENAH: ugh do we really have to go through this

ARANEA: If you'd like to earn your money, then yes!

MEENAH: bleh fine

ARANEA: After we 8egan our game, you quickly determined that winning was going to 8e an uphill 8attle with our team. Everyone was so preoccupied with their interpersonal issues, and no one seemed in any shape to 8e fighting major 8attles. Sound familiar?

MEENAH: deja vus a bitch serk

ARANEA: So you did your 8est to rile up the crew any way you could. Appealing to peoples insecurities, 8uried hostilities, 8rewing rivalries... needling anyone you could into confrontation with others. Your theory was that increasing everyone's state of aggression would make them 8etter equipped to play the game. And you were sort of right a8out that! 8ut the Alternians would prove it. Not our group, sadly.

ARANEA: The poor girl who took the 8runt of your 8ullying tactics was Damara Megido. You talked up her matesprit's 8etrayal making her feel even more dreadful, while pushing him further into the arms of her rival, until she simply snapped. She attacked him, paralyzing him from the neck down. You finally got the aggressive confrontation you were looking for. Unfortunately, you unleashed something even you weren't prepared for, and you had to deal with her yourself. After a long 8loody duel, she killed you. And you would have stayed dead if not for me!

ARANEA: You never listened to me. You just kept needling and fussing and meddling until eventually you paid the price, and I had to 8ail you out.

MEENAH: (arg how bad do i even want this stupid money...)

ARANEA: Damara has 8een unhinged ever since. 8y increasing her violent tendencies, instead of 8eing an asset in the game, she 8ecame a loose canon, ar8itrarily showing up at key moments throughout the timeline to sa8otage us.

ARANEA: So radical was her shift in personality, I've had a hard time 8elieving your incitement was solely to 8lame. It always seemed like other forces were in play, as if her acts, though apparently haphazard, were in keeping with some inscruta8le agenda. Of course it doesn't help that it's so hard to understand her even on a good day.

ARANEA: Strangely, the only time she was eager to help us was when we were preparing to initiate the Scratch. And it's a good thing she was, since I'm not sure anyone else would have had the a8ility to do that kind of damage to the Cardinal Movement and release its energy.

ARANEA: It was almost a little eerie how happily she complied with our plan. What did Rufioh say she said? Something a8out how we would all finally get what we deserved...

ARANEA: Which at the time, I thought sounded chilling. 8ut there's really two ways of looking at it. One is how the Scratch re8ooted our world into a state of pure chaos, culminating in the annihilation of our universe. 8ut on the other hand, we all got the chance to live out our wildest fantasies as adults on Alternia!

ARANEA: At least you and I sure did. And I wouldn't dou8t she feels the same way.

MEENAH: so

MEENAH: we done?

ARANEA: That's it!

MEENAH: toughest 5 bucks i ever made

[violet-amet]

as im going through persona 4 golden for the first time myself, i began to realize how good it is, despite how backwards some of the parts can be. but like. im going to ramble again. and p4g spoilers as well.

all of these kids are just teenagers who are solving a murder, and boi, thats funny, but also traumatic and sad, and they all rely on the protag, who just moved in. even the adults have problems.

but you know, now i understand why naoto is a favorite. she is p interesting as a character, who has to struggle with trying to reach her goals, because of her identity. and like, i gotta give the writers kudos for going in like that. esp with how society is nowadays, with trans people being more known.

same goes for kanji and his own identity, of what makes a man a man, despite his skills as a tailor and maker of adorable things.

i quite like a lot of these little bits and pieces you get to know about the cast, and how charming they tend to be throughout the story. teddie has grown on me, despite being such an annoyance when i first watched a playthrough of the og p4.

but god, god god, some of the slinks do hit close to home. one of the sun routes, the hiero and justice arcana make me want to cry.

but i still dont like adachi, tho thats sorta the point. i just dont like him. bleh. esp his s links feels a bit creepy at points, but that could just be me. he does seem genuinely kind at times, but the choices you make as the protag is a bit weird.

anyway, im still not finished, but this game really makes me think sometimes. its so colorful too, with all the yellow, despite being a game about muurrrders~! lol.

[x-rambles]

06.27.2022 @ 7:07 PM

Gratitude:

1. You made it to 25🥳

2. You have the ability to control your own life. (home, finance, etc.)

3. It is another day, another chance.

So of course, first thing’s first! Happy Happy Birthday baby💛 I truly am wishing the best for you. I hope it’s not the manic depressive, but you are feeling so many emotions. It’s important that you keep up the search for a therapist!! I am happy at your wellness progress; I’m so glad to see you listening to your body! It’s great that you eat lunch, eat when you feel hungry, it’s great that you take intentional rest & take a step back. It is becoming clear that you are quite tired sometimes. That’s part of your procrastination to your doctors appts. Yes, you are a mess so you procrastinate from time to time but you are also tired sometimes!

I am glad my sister & I prayed over my birthday & this upcoming year! That was such a beautiful moment.

You are feeling a bit down & sad. And Yes-you are feeling that way in your birthday☹️ life is not happy & rainbows at all times, that’s unrealistic. But….these things with your relationship are becoming😕 and it’s not good that your entire mood can be connected to that relationship! I will also add, you’ve been feeling a bit ): about work also! Ugh—things are just quite bleh. What is the solution??

I am a bit tired of the constant “growth” within this relationship. It is getting to a point where I am questioning; am I growing as adults do, or are we simply not compatible? The cultural conversation is upsetting. In the end, I’m glad he seemed to see my point—and I do truly believe my point was correct. Using I statements is useful, using I statements is productive. He couldn’t articulate the goal or use of going the other route, and I don’t seem to be understanding it either.

And now, of course there are concerns about the two different places we’re coming from in our relationship. So I did a gesture to make him feel “cared for.” The gesture itself, was fine. It was from a genuine place on my part! And he seemed receptive to it. I would say, time will have to tell of how different gestures might look & zooming more in on my wants. His gifts were quite, eh. I most likely would return them, and I figure things are still new so he’s not wrong that he didn’t know exactly what I wanted. The gifts themselves were not a bother..I’ll most likely return them & that will be good.

Our conversation earlier about Unconditional love was a bit problematic for me. It got me thinking, and feeling concerned about a lot of what I read in Communion! These books, a lot of what I’ve learned IS teaching women to navigate relationships with sexist men. For me, its difficult that’s why a lot of my questions focus on what does the person want? I believe that during my level up I have given up trying to revolutionize society or revolutionizing myself and my life. There wasn’t really a win there. Women can win in individualized relationships! And you know, I don’t think women ~have~ to be with sexist men either. I don’t believe that I am with a sexist man. Because of our societal context, I do believe patriarchy impacts us & impacts our relationship..

I feel exhausted. He wants a wife, that works—has independence that can help support kids. He wants a wife that shows she is caring through gestures and actions. And maybe this is not a lot to ask for…it just feels awkward because I am not this man’s wife. Right now, I feel a bit suffocated in his house. Right now, I do not feel cared for. It’s my birthday but I am constantly reminded of the work of relationships. Everyone says the right love would feel Easy, but transparently I am exhausted, and I could be feeling that way because of me.

I am beginning to remember why I liked to smoke weed. *just got a brilliant idea to have an edible* I think doing this will help me mellow out & calm down. It is my birthday. I want to feel light, I want to feel at peace. I know that I have a lot going on, my mind is always moving-which is a blessing!! But sometimes I just want to relax…

I am now journalling live, and this is drama😂😂😂 I may not be able to have the edible?? I’m going home. Transparently😂 this whole thing is a mistake. I’m not upset that he said he has to think about it, or whatever. But unfortunately, on my birthday I have to have things my way. No shade, nothing to him. But it’s my way or the highway, truly today is my day. If it cannot be my way, I have to go elsewhere. Honestly, that’s the end of it.

I can’t keep being this way & going back and forth. I feel so inclined to shower, get dressed, pack my bag, & just leave. It isn’t fair to move to such extremes so consistently, but it does not feel authentic to blend our lives together like this so much. It feels I am making most of the sacrifice & I am not benefiting as much as I could and as much as I should. The benefit (or feeling of benefit) is quite up & down which may also be connected to my erratic responses and my constant extremes. It is my responsibility to pace the relationship & to pace out how things are happening. I’ve been leaning back, doing things his way but I am not very satisfied. My last journal entry was raving about how in love & happy I am and today I am the opposite. The one notable change between the two was his conversation about wanting to feel loved & reciprocated. I also do struggle with a mood disorder which often results in ups & downs.

I have another win to note, listening to affirmations & sermons have been extremely helpful lately! This is yet another testament to your growth and to your self love and your journey. You are feeling a bit down, you are having a hard time, but you are seeing that you’ve been reading, you’ve been listening, you are continuing to do the work. YOU are continuing to do the work. Baby YOU are 25 today, you are journalling, you are reading, you are listening to affirmations, you are listening to your sermons. Baby sometimes things are difficult. Sometimes you feel sad, EXTREMELY sad. Sometimes you feel unsettled from the inside! Sometimes you feel you are in a RAGE! You make mistakes, you do things wrong, but baby girl you are doing the work. You are doing the work & I am so happy about that.

Feel your feelings. Baby feel them, and take care of yourself. You are unbelievably blessed. Blessed beyond measure all because of God’s glory, and I am sososo thankful for that! Even in the dark times, in the weird times, when you’re confused, When you’re upset, when you are sad & you fear you’re making mistakes keep putting your foot forward. Keep trying. Keep waking up & just do the work.

Take care of yourself baby girl. You deserve tender, special, sacred care. You deserve all the effort you’ve been giving to yourself and I am so happy that you are continuing to do that.

**so you had some edible, he’s ordered you food, & is being the caring boyf you know him to be. Keep thinking, keep taking care of you, & keep doing the work, love! Embrace growth but take the necessary breaks & rest you need so it doesn’t burden you.

I love you & I am so excited to see what this year will bring to us.

XoXo,

C.

[chronicbatfictioner]

A Real Boy - Chapter 13

"So how does this Lazarus Pit work?" Bruce wanted to know. Actually, every adult in the room - Clark, Diana, Arthur, Zatanna, and a guy named Hal Jordan who glowed green that Tim has only seen from a distance during the Battle of Metropolis, all converged at the Wayne Manor's meeting room.

"Simply speaking, it activates cells with no exemption. Oracle and I have researched, and we found out that Luthor supposedly had a bit of this Pit's liquid that he'd obtained from an antiquity seller. My conclusion is that he might have tried to analyze the remaining liquid and maybe synthesized it to create the clones." Tim explained.

Right after Jason told him of this thing called Lazarus Pit that supposedly could bring the dead back to life, Tim had told Bruce. Bruce had assigned somebody that Tim didn't know to find it, and they found one right away - just right outside Gotham City. Further exploration showed that there were a number of them in the East Coast alone. At the moment, Bruce has assigned his JL colleagues to find all of them. It was quite fortunate that the Pits were not located out in the open.

"It still won't stop Luthor's curiosity from either finding more of the liquid, or - like Tim said - synthesizing it. There was a lot of vials of unknown substances in the evidence list." Clark replied quietly, and Tim had to grit his teeth. Clark was physically older by at least 10 years than Conner, but sounded similar, anyway. It didn't help that his aura was like Conner, too.

Not that Clark knew anything or could change anything about it. After all, Conner was a slightly diluted version of Clark.

"Right, presuming he has actually synthesized it, rather than finding a source; why did his other attempts not work as well as Conner?" Bruce asked.

"Because Conner has - had - a soul," Rachel replied quietly from the corner of the room. Tim exhaled a breath he didn't even know he was holding. Rachel's change of tenses felt like a sharp poke to his sternum.

The adults were quiet for a tad too long before Bruce turned toward Rachel and asked directly, "I shall take your words for it and not insist on explanation; but the question remained, how is it that Conner got a soul whilst the others - specifically the humanoid ones who physically looked like him and presumably has his biological structure - did not."

This time, it was Diana who answered, "because a soul is not included in a 'life' package, Bruce. Not all sentient beings have souls. My people's legend said that souls are granted by the gods, otherwise a sentient being or creature can have one that has either not arrived at or escaped from Hades."

"That's... about almost right," Jason chimed in. "I mean, not sure about the escaping part, but yes. Like familiars. Someone who was not born to have one can obtain one through a number of rituals."

"Alright... still doesn't answer my question of how come Luthor's efforts didn't work." Bruce pointed out.

"He didn't have or do the magick." Jason continued. "Luthor may have the best brain for science; but without the magick of the actual Pit..." he looked at Tim.

"People... like you, Bruce, think that magick is unexplained science, which is right in a sense. But to replicate something that originated in magick, there are things..." Tim hesitated. "Like-- I don't know-- if you cook, maybe? One can follow a recipe to the last T but still the bread won't rise or something like that. The 'gift', I think. I mean, I don't know what else to call it. That something in you that is manifested outward as magick." Tim stopped, realizing that everyone's eyes were on him and that he was rambling incoherently.

"I see," Bruce's glare made Tim want to go and hide or something. Everything Tim has just said insinuated that Bruce, the only one among them who did not have magick by birth, was somewhat un-gifted. Bruce, however, didn't even seem to notice the insinuation. "This is one of the reasons why I would rather have your team be present among us, Tim."

"'We', or 'you'?" Tim wanted to know.

Bruce, Clark, and Diana - Tim knew that they are often dubbed as the 'Trinity' due to their ability to complete each other - smiled enigmatically. He still was not sure whether to feel blessed or cursed.

"Bruce brought in the idea of having and allowing young people to be trained in protection, so I thought my skills couls be put to good use." Clark started.

"Since 'protection' may--" Diana paused and smirked, "--will also include offensive and not just defensive activities, I offered my expertise to train you and your friends."

"So it's us, not just me." Bruce clarified. "Hal will be coaching on the subject of space magicks, Arthur of ocean magicks, Zatanna on the ancients - to make it more tangible rather than if Jason was the one doing the coaching."

"Because Jason is 'just' a familiar." Tim remarked.

"Because Jason is also a young person, not because he's a familiar." Zatanna replied. In other times, Tim might fanboy a little at her. This time, he felt a slight bitterness in his heart and had to assess whether the bitterness was his or Jason's.

"We would listen more to those our age - even an ancient being who merely looks our age." Tim pursed his lips stubbornly.

"Yes, I am well aware of that. That is the reason why I would like to request the use of your island as a base." Bruce replied. "Your presence here is valuable, yet is more valuable there with the site belonging to you. Your peers will be more comfortable, as well."

"Largely because your place will not be 'related' - so to speak - to any of us. Their parents or guardians will also be more comfortable, I'd say..." Clark chimed in. "That was Diana's suggestion, by the way," he added belatedly, as if he didn't want Bruce to take the credit.

Tim wondered if Bruce was as manipulative as that; having Diana claimed the idea he'd suggested or insinuated.

"What are the conditions?" he wanted to know, anyway. It's not like he could say no if the adult magis decided to lump all teen-aged magis at his Island. It's not like he would say no - he knew well how those kids would feel, being a teen that no adults would trust and having a kind of power or another that they could not control.

"I was expecting you to give us conditions." Bruce admitted. If it wasn't for a very small uptick of confusion of his eyebrow, Tim's suspicion would probably flared up more and bigger.

"Do I get to send back the..." he paused, wondered just what category an 'unwanted' magi-kid would be in. Unruly? Unfriendly? Disobedient? --all terms could be applied to himself, after all. "...the ones who didn't want to be there?" he settled for a broader term. "I don't want to force anyone to stay if they don't want to. My island is not a playground or a daycare. And I definitely don't want them to feel like they're in a playground or a daycare." he explained, scowling a little.

The adults grinned and/or smirked. The guy called Hal quipped, "yeeeah, whenever more than two magis of any sources come together, it's gonna be a playground and/or daycare, I tell you."

"Hal," Diana warned quietly. "I can't fault Hal's observation, really, as he's gotten more experience with magis in groups. But no, we do not see or plan your place to be a magi daycare. But maybe one day, it will be a center where the young can find their own voice - proverbially speaking - without constant interruptions from the adults, yet while being safe."

"It sounds overly optimistic." Tim pointed out. "But I know what it's like to be... restrained from my nature. So," he shrugged. "it's not like I'd have many points of objections. Just... I may be a kid, but I know some things will require adult supervision..."

Bruce's smile was kind of all-knowing. "Yes, that's what Dick said, too. He will help you - he and his friends - to mitigate any issues that you might face that would require adult assistance. For the sake of... legal matters, I hope you will allow Dick access to your island. This will be fully at your discretion, and none of us..."

Clark interjected, "...we managed to make Bruce promise not to meddle too much. The point is, Tim, you'll be the metaphorical adult there. I trust you'll be able to manage them all."

Tim blinked and glared at Clark. The man might be the epitome of hope and all that is good in the world - magi or not. But he was more of a stranger to Tim compared to Diana Prince, even. Conner might have been Tim's best friend. But unlike Diana, who has had her times to visibly meddled with Cassie's life - in spite the fact that Cassie still has a mother; Clark has never gotten involved with Conner or anything that he had done. It was Bart's guardian, Max Mercury, who'd brought Conner along with Bart and introduced him to Tim. Max, formerly a foreman in one of Tim dad's archaeological site, noticed that Tim was 'different', and had had no qualm in promptly introducing Tim to Bart, and then Conner, and then Cassie.

Clark, as much as Tim knew that he was a part of Conner by DNA, remained just as 'Clark Kent', and that was it. Conner's life eventually crossed path with Clark's - again, courtesy of Max. Yet Tim could never see him as Conner's guardian of any kind.

To have him commenting that he trusted Tim with a lot of other magi kids was... a lot more unnerving to Tim than if it had been Bruce who said that. Or even Diana.

Bruce's quiet addition, however, steeled Tim's resolve. "I know you can, Tim. You have showed remarkable initiative by forming your group on the first hand."

"Yeah," Tim sighed, tamping down his doubts and fears. "we'll see how it goes in the next few weeks, huh? Let 'em come and hope we don't destroy the island or San Francisco while we're at it."

Note: You know what adulting does to an incomplete story? That's right. It darned near killed it. I haven't posted in the past few weeks thanks to adulting and life-based dramu. All I would exchange gladly for a few weeks of quiet to write.Anyway. Thank you if you all are still reading this. This, IMO, is a crappy filler. But it'll be clearer - I hope - by the next chapters.

[dirt-grub]

wha the hecc did i doooooo lol how did i mess up my schedule......