#when I first watched those ceremonies and got chills

[mezerin]

And I Will Kiss - Underworld. 2012 Olympic opening ceremonies.

If you can find an actual video of the ceremonies i would suggest watching.

[eldritch-thrumming]

and i wouldn’t marry me either, pt. 1

have u guys seen that movie plus one on hulu with jack quaid and maya erskine? ok well here’s this thing. also, tw for steve puking.

Steve is drunk. Like, really, embarrassingly drunk.

And that would be fine, really, if he wasn’t at someone’s actual, real-life wedding.

Somewhere between the ceremony and the cocktail hour, the father-of-the-bride speech that had made him cry and the cutting of the cake, he’d started thinking about Nancy Wheeler and thinking about Nancy Wheeler had led to him practically funding the open bar with the spare change he’d been sure to bring in his pockets for tips.

And the thing about it is, Steve normally loves weddings. He loves the flowers and the vows and watching the bride walk down the aisle. He loves the DJ announcing the new couple, loves throwing confetti outside the church, loves the look on the groom’s face when he sees his almost-wife in her dress for the first time. But—

“Harrington!” Tommy Hagan yells from across the room, gesturing for Steve to make his way over. Steve racks his brain for an explanation as to why Tommy H would be at this wedding; he doesn’t remember Gareth and Tommy being particularly close back in their college days. Steve stumbles his way over to Tommy’s table, keeping a secure hand around his gin & tonic, trying his best not to spill.

“Stevie!” Tommy’s fiancée, Carol, practically crows as she leans over Tommy’s lap. “Where’s Nancy?”

“Yeah, man, kinda thought you’d be the first one marching down the aisle,” Tommy laughs and Carol swats him on the arm.

Steve downs his practically full drink before slamming the heavy glass back down on the table.

“We broke up actually,” Steve grimaces. “Last week.”

Carol gives him an exaggerated pout while Tommy cringes. “Aw, baby, I’m so sorry,” Carol slurs. Steve has to hold himself back from rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, well.” Steve runs a hand through his hair. “We wanted different things.”

They offer him a few more words of sympathy before Steve finally flees, making excuses about finding the bathroom. He’s too drunk for this.

He leaves the table in search of another drink.

~*~

Eddie’s just outside the reception hall, out on the venue’s terrace, sparkling with fairy lights. He’s got a stack of index cards in his hands, trying to make out his own scrawled handwriting, when someone stumbles directly into his back. He feels something wet through the fabric of his dress shirt.

“Fuck, shit, sorry, fuck,” someone says, their hands patting at the wetness.

Eddie finally turns to see a disheveled Steve Harrington, a half-empty glass clutched in his fist. His hair’s a mess, his tie’s undone, and he’s clearly drunk. Eddie had seen him stumbling around the dance floor earlier.

“Dude, you good?” Eddie asks, genuinely concerned. He can’t remember the last time he’d seen Harrington drunk. It had to be way back in college, when he’d only known Steve as that annoying frat dude that Gareth and Dustin always brought around. He’d spent a full year trying to figure out what those two saw in him and doing everything in his power to avoid group hang outs.

They’d gotten closer over the years, once they’d graduated and become, like, real, fully-formed human beings. Harrington was actually a pretty chill dude, funny and sweet and able to give as good as he got whenever Eddie was in a particularly teasing mood. Eddie’s ego wasn’t so big that he couldn’t admit he’d been wrong about Harrington, at least in the privacy of his own head.

“Yeah, man, all good,” Steve slurs, barely coherent. He raises his empty hand limply in an attempt at a thumbs up.

“Man, you don’t look so good.” Steve’s eyes are practically vacant and Eddie is feeling genuinely concerned. And he’s proven right when Steve stumbles over to one of the concrete planters lining the terrace and pukes his guts out. It’s loud and disgusting and Eddie can feel the grimace on his own face. But Steve is his friend, so he reaches his hand out to rub Steve’s back, even as he keeps his distance.

“Hey, Eddie,” he hears Jeff call from the French doors that lead into the reception hall.

“Yeah?” Eddie spares a quick glance over his shoulder before returning his attention to where Steve is groaning into the dirt of some exotic-looking tree.

“‘Bout ready to cut the cake,” Jeff tells him. “Need you in a few.”

Right. Eddie’s best man speech. The reason he was out here in the first place. He’s not nervous or anything. He’s a natural showman and entertainer, loves being in front of a crowd. And he loves Gareth and Chrissy. He has plenty of good things to say about them, plenty of embarrassing stories from when he and Gareth were kids, and plenty of sweet ones from when they’d finally met Chrissy in college. Nah, Eddie’s pretty much got this in the bag. He’s just not used to the idea of his friends being actually, real-life married. They’re only 27; Chrissy’s practically a child bride for god’s sake!

Eddie glances down at Steve, whose face is red and sweaty. Eddie’s not blind or stupid; he knows Steve’s an attractive dude. He’s a little too preppy and heterosexual (even though Eddie knows on a theoretical level that Steve does sometimes sleep with other guys) for Eddie’s tastes, but the man is hot. Except for right now. He actually looks pretty bad, possibly the worst Eddie’s ever seen him. And that’s really saying something, considering Steve had actually had his stomach pumped during Greek Week their senior year. At least Steve seems to have cleared the contents of his stomach, at this point.

“Hey, man, you good?” Eddie asks him, his hand still rubbing slow circles on Steve’s back.

Steve groans before looking up at him. “Eddie?” Steve squint. “You’re pretty. Like Nancy.” And Steve sounds so sad when he says it that even Eddie’s heart gives a little squeeze.

“Uh, thank you,” Eddie glances toward the open doors again. The cake is being wheeled out into the middle of the dance floor. “Listen, I don’t wanna leave you out here, but I gotta go give a speech. Can you, uh, stand up for me?”

“Yeah, man, totally,” Steve slurs out, barely comprehensible. He drags the back of his hand over his lips and chin, which should be kind of disgusting, but Eddie just feels sorry for him. Steve makes it one step before he’s slouching into Eddie’s shoulder, all his weight falling into Eddie’s chest. Eddie grunts and fits his hands around Steve’s waist.

“Fuck, dude, how much do you weigh?” Eddie’s voice comes out a little breathless.

“175, baby. Pure muscle,” Steve slurs back.

“Yeah, I believe it,” Eddie mutters, fingertips digging hard into the firmness of Steve’s lower back. “Okay, come on, let’s get you a chair.”

It takes some maneuvering but Eddie finally gets Steve inside and seats him at the closest table. It’s empty, since most people had been dancing and are currently crowded around the cake. Chrissy’s sister, the maid of honor, is holding a microphone, finishing her speech.

“We love you, Chrissy,” she’s saying, looking at the bride with tears in her eyes. “We know that Gareth will do everything in his power to make you happy. To Gareth and Chrissy!” She raises her glass of champagne, smiling, and everyone around her does the same, echoing her toast. “Okay, now where’s the best man?” She says, scanning the crowd.

Eddie smiles and makes his way over, taking the microphone from her.

“When I met Gareth, we were five years old. We’ve been through a lot together, from Gareth’s bug eating phase, to his wetting the bed phase, to that phase he had where he used to Naruto run to class in middle school, to his Hitchcock phase where he tried to talk in that transatlantic accent for literal months, to his bleach blonde phase, to his—”

“Alright, alright, we get it,” Gareth cuts in, rolling his eyes with an easy smile. The crowd laughs.

“Okay, okay. All I’m saying is I’ve seen a lot of versions of my best friend. But the best Gareth by far is the one he is with Chrissy. I remember when Gareth first met her, in their art history seminar. He came back to the dorm after that first week and told me he��d met an angel. ‘I’m in love, dude,’ he told me. ‘I’m marrying this girl.’ I, of course, was skeptical, especially when he pointed her out later that month in the dining hall. ‘Sorry, man, but no way. She’s way outta your league,’ I told him. But to my surprise, Chrissy Cunningham came marching up to us right then and there and asked Gareth if he’d started studying for their midterm. Gareth stumbled through that whole interaction making an absolute fool of himself. I’m pretty sure he put his elbow in my mashed potatoes,” Gareth and Chrissy laugh, “but that didn’t stop Chrissy from asking him to study that weekend. And the rest is, as they say, history.” Eddie raises his own glass of champagne in the direction of the happy couple. “When Gareth told me he was marrying Chrissy, all I could say was ‘it’s about fucking time.’ Chrissy is the smartest, sweetest woman I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet and she somehow makes my best friend an even better dude. So thank you, Chrissy, and congratulations to you both.” Everyone raises their glasses. Over the sounds of the room toasting, Eddie can hear Steve at his table in the back corner drunkenly cheering.

“Woo-hoo!” Steve claps. “Yeah!” Thankfully, no else really seems to notice and Eddie watches over Chrissy’s shoulder as Steve tries to stand from his seat but falls back into it on his ass, looking dazed.

“Thanks, Eddie,” Chrissy whispers as they pull away from their hug. “I love you.”

“Love you, too, babe,” Eddie tells her, squeezing her hands in his. He glances back over at Steve. “I’m gonna take Harrington up to my room, let him sleep some of the alcohol off.”

Chrissy’s eyes widen. “Oh, good idea. I was a little worried about him when I saw him stumbling around the dance floor before.” Eddie gives her hands one final squeeze before wandering off to collect Steve.

~*~

Getting Steve into the elevator is a struggle. He doesn’t want to leave, keeps saying he didn’t even get to eat a piece of cake yet. He only lets Eddie shove him through the metal doors when Eddie promises to bring him a piece when he comes back up later.

They make it to Eddie’s room without further incident and once they’re safely inside, Steve starts ripping off his suit without a care in the world. His hands and arms are flying everywhere. He almost takes Eddie out with an elbow to the temple.

“Dude, calm down,” Eddie tells him, hands on Steve’s arms. “Let me help you.” He unbuttons what’s left of Steve’s shirt and hangs it over the closet doorknob before reaching for Steve’s waistband and undoing his fly. His suit pants fall around his ankles. “Okay, step out.”

Steve braces his hands on Eddie’s shoulders and lifts one leg and then the other, until he’s standing there in only his briefs and his dress socks.

“Thought about this a lot in college,” Steve mutters, still slurring his words.

And that—huh? What? Thought about what a lot? Eddie undressing him?

Eddie does his best not to react. Steve’s drunk. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.

Eddie brings his own hands up to curl around Steve’s wrists and pull his hands away from his shoulders. He bends down and picks up Steve’s pants, folding them and placing them on the dresser. He folds back the bed’s comforter.

“Okay, big boy, in ya go.” He gestures toward the bed, encouraging Steve to lay down. Steve suddenly looks exhausted as he slides under the covers.

His eyes are half-closed before his head even hits the pillow.

Before Eddie shuts off the light and leaves to head back downstairs, he hears Steve call out softly, “sorry if I ruined it.” He shifts sleepily on the bed. “I always ruin it.”

Eddie feels like he’s swallowed glass as he slowly shuts the door behind him.

~*~

Steve wakes up to sunshine streaming in through the curtains of an unfamiliar bedroom. His head is killing him and his mouth feels like he’s swallowed 87 cotton balls. He groans, rolling away from the window, only to be met with the image of Eddie Munson’s shirtless, sleeping form.

Fuck. How drunk had he been last night? He vaguely remembers puking outside somewhere and Eddie rubbing his back, but he definitely doesn’t remember leaving the wedding. He doesn’t remember leaving the wedding with Eddie.

Steve spares a quick glance under the covers and is relieved to see that he’s still wearing his underwear and Eddie’s got on a pair of pajama pants. Surely he wouldn’t have sex and then put his underwear back on; that seems like something only a serial killer would do.

It’s not like he hasn’t thought about it. There was that one year, just after they’d graduated, that Steve had thought maybe there was something between them, something a little more than friendship.

But then he’d met Nancy Wheeler at his new job and she’d asked him out and he’d started imagining their lives together and thoughts of anyone else had just floated away.

So, yeah, Steve’s thought about it. Eddie’s gorgeous and funny and smart. It’s not like Steve would regret it. He could certainly do a lot worse.

But if he’s gonna sleep with one of his closest friends, he’d like to actually remember it.

In between Steve’s spiraling thoughts, Eddie must have woken up, because when Steve spares another glance toward his face, Eddie’s staring right back at him, making him jump slightly.

“Fuck, dude, make a noise,” Steve breathes out before running a hand through his sleep-tousled hair. “We didn’t—uh, nothing like… happened or whatever, right? We didn’t, like… you know… did we?”

Eddie stares at him for a long moment before putting Steve out of his misery. “No offense, Stevie, but I’m not really into guys that can barely string together a coherent thought.”

“Oh, thank god,” Steve sighs with relief, body sagging against the mattress. He sees Eddie’s mouth twitch. “Not that I… you know, you’re hot or whatever, but like…”

“Dude, relax,” Eddie laughs, moving to sit on the edge of the mattress. “You were black out drunk. I just brought you up here so you didn’t hurt yourself.”

Steve winces. “I didn’t, like, embarrass myself, did I? Or, like, ruin the wedding?”

Eddie looks at him with something like pity and Steve has to swallow nervously.

“No, Steve, you were fine. I just found you throwing up outside and though you’d had enough.”

Steve stares down at his hands. “Thanks, man,” he says softly.

“No worries, you’d do the same for me.” He sounds so totally sure that Steve would. “Weddings are tough. Can you believe I have, like, four more to go to, just this summer? I’ll probably black out at at least one of them. Anyway, I’m gonna take a shower and then you should probably also shower. You stink.” Eddie stands from the bed and claps his hands together. “And then we’re taking full advantage of the free hotel breakfast bar.”

~*~

After they’ve showered and Eddie’s gone back to the breakfast buffet for seconds and thirds, he offers to drive Steve home and Steve gratefully accepts. He’s really not in the mood for an Uber or, even worse, the subway.

Steve keeps thinking about what Eddie had said back in the hotel room. That he had four more weddings to go to this summer alone. Steve has five of his own and the thought of going through all that alone makes his stomach clench and his throat tighten. He knows he’s going to see Nancy at at least one of them and that thought alone has Steve desperate.

“Hey, you know how you said you have four more weddings to go to this summer?” Steve asks from the passengers seat. Eddie hums an affirmative response. “I have five.”

“No shit, that sucks, man. I actually fuckin’ hate weddings, to tell you the truth.” Eddie doesn’t take his eyes off the road.

“I used to love them, actually. But, I don’t know. They’ve kind of lost their charm,” Steve doesn’t mean to sound super mega fucking depressed about it, but he knows he does.

“Fuck, dude. Sorry,” Eddie glances at him, a worried look in his eye.

“But, uh, I was thinking,” Steve powers on. “Maybe we should, like, help each other out?”

Eddie’s brow furrows in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Like, you know.” Steve gestures vaguely with his hand. “Make it less unbearable. Like, we could go together or something.”

“You want to be each other’s plus ones?” Eddie asks incredulously.

“Yeah, man, think about it. You’d always have someone to chill with, even if the party’s fucking lame. We could make fun of the bridesmaids’ dresses together and shit. It wouldn’t be as god fucking awful if we were together.”

They’re stopped at a red light and Eddie has turned to stare directly at him.

“You do realize that would mean we’d be going to ten weddings, like, collectively, right? Why would I want to go to more weddings then I actually have to?”

“Well, nine, since Chrissy and Gareth’s is over,” Steve tells him, matter-of-factly. “Come on, Eddie, this summer is fucking torture for me. You know Nancy, like, crushed me or whatever. It would really help me out, to have you there. Just think about it.”

And, Steve thinks, that’s kind of what does it. Eddie has a savior complex about a mile wide and Steve has never been above using that to his advantage.

Eddie sighs and shifts his gaze back to the road as the light turns green.

“Fine, Harrington,” he finally says. “But you are paying for all my suit rentals and buying all the gifts.”

Steve smiles. “Deal.”

[georgiapeach30513]

I know you’re past your post limit tonight but you are an unwavering ray of strength and sunshine on here. So calm so chill. That cookie jar though…😏

That being said…are yall not entertained????

For those of you who screamed PR for months (I’m talking about the crazy ones who freak out every five minutes about something new even though they claim they know PR and they know people and have sources (in their own heads LOLOL)) - you want it? YOU GOT IT. It’s been in your face for months and yall still can’t see it?

An article comes out every time ramen breathes. And soba must be inserted. Soba gets articles for IG posts…when does that happen to a third rate noodle brand who can’t even hit 1 million followers after buying bots for two years and marrying the sexiest noodle brand alive? (Just to be extra petty, Jenna Ortega got ten million new followers in a week after Wednesday launched on Netflix (same month someone’s else season two show launched and then got canceled but whoops) and she didn’t marry anybody famous. Soba isn’t even a notable brand in their home country. Soba’s name gets misspelled even in her own movie promo posts. Yet she’s getting us weekly and people articles written about her every movement now? Oh and she’s getting a square on us weekly about celebs who adopted pets - with ramen’s dog even though she didn’t adopt the dog? LOLOLOLOL ok!!

Nobody thinks that’s odd?

I’ll have to admit, I didn’t really want to believe in conspiracy theories for a long time. It felt too delusional and too qanon for me. But after ramen returned to IG and made a post about dogs - a people mag article pops up and inserts a line to make it about soba, unprovoked. Why? Almost like it was intentional to shoehorn soba in. Almost like that’s basically been the MO since this all started. The tabloids have changed but the narrative has not. The rumors turned to confirmation turned to more rumors to more confirmation but never really really by the horse’s mouth except kinda two ceremonies maybe yeah go physical therapy!!

The way that “wedding” announcement launched as an unconfirmed source from page six. Then went immediately viral. After a weekend of extreme social media breadcrumbing…it was almost like watching a puppeteer orchestrate a show in real time. I can’t be the only one…right?

They have continuously gone the route of most resistance repeatedly, for two years - and nobody thinks this is just inane? They are doing this on purpose and the more you overthink it, the more crazy and unsense it will make.

Like you mentioned many times before, people just have to wait and see. And be patient. Try not to overreact over every little thing. (Hard for some, but seriously!)

Fact is: ramen has publicly endorsed soba (well maybe not the name) and they are linked. So until this changes, why wouldn’t you expect soba to be around lurking? Ramen can’t be an investor in a brand and then not show up with it.

Though it would be funny if he was caught eating banza pasta while toting the soba brand, like Britney getting caught ordering a coke while she was a Pepsi girl. 😆

I’m totally half kidding about most of this. But I think you get what I’m trying to put down. Nobody has to agree with me. But the longer this goes, the easier it’s been to look back on how it all started and string the pieces together.

First off are the same anon who has been doing amazing with the pasta analogies?? Because if so can I call you, Mrs. Pasta??

This is what PR looks like. Articles upon articles over nothing. Pushing a name out there for what? You make some excellent points, completely. Now, I’m not confirming or denying anything. Just that this is pointed. The timing is interesting and the entertainment is amazing.

Banza past is an amazing option. Top ramen needs to add a little spice and change. Soba noodles on the regular isn’t good for everyone.

I’m just here ready for the show. I told y’all to keep your eyes open 😉

[gassyloves]

Best Bros

Collin and Jace are roommates in their first year at BLANK University. Collin is openly gay and studies theatre while Jace is your stereotypical straight dude. He’s 6′4″ with curly brown hair and brown eyes- very, very dreamy. He loves to workout and play sports with his friends, can get any girl (or guy for that matter) he wants, and just overall exudes charisma and confidence. The semester is only about two weeks in, but the two guys have bonded quite well. All it took was a fart.

Collin was cooking something to eat in their shared kitchenette when Jace came home.

“Smells good. What are you cooking?”

“Just some rice and beans. Want some?”

“If you have some left after you’ve had all you want, sure!”

“I’m making plenty, so please help yourself.”

“Awesome, man, thanks!”

Jace sets his bag down and plops face down on the living room couch.

“You okay?” Collin says with a laugh.

“Yeah it’s just been a long morning.”

“Well, it’s Friday! You can chill out all you want.”

“That’s true. Hmm.”

“What?”

“I just remembered I was gonna play basketball with the boys tonight, but I honestly don’t really want to.”

“Girl’s night!”

Jace laughs. “Hell yeah, man!”

“The rice and beans are done for whenever you want it!”

“Bet.”

They both grab a bowl and fill it with food and sit down. The two talk, eat, and watch tv when Collin says,

“Ah shit!”

“What?”

“I spilt on my pants. Ugh and all my laundry is in the wash.

It’s not that big of a deal. We’re inside and it’s just us.”

“I guess. I just feel gross haha”

“Want a pair of shorts or something?”

“Sure, actually. Thank you!”

Jace smiles and goes into his room and comes back with a pair of black basketball shorts. He hands them to Collin in a ceremonial manner, with a bow.

Collin laughs and takes the shorts.

“Thanks bae.”

Jace smooches at Collin. “No problem buddy.”

Collin doesn’t usually wear athletic clothing like that, but it’s a chance for him to feel like one of his “bros”, so he takes his dirty pants off and slides the shorts on. Once they’re done eating, they put their bowls in the sink and go to the couch to watch more tv. Jace leans over to Collin and asks,

“Wait wait dude... do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

PPPPBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTT

A monstrous 8 second fart fires out of Jace’s basketball short cladded ass.

“Excuse me” he said with a grin.

“That was huge oh my God”

“Eh, it was alright.”

“I am afraid of you.”

“I’m harmless.” He gives a wink. “My brother on the other hand, his farts are fucking insane. He once sat on me and farted until I passed out.”

Collin laughs. “I can’t imagine you never fought back.”

“He’s a few years older than me so I never had the chance until I was like 16. But once I got strong enough to, you bet I pinned him down and gave him a taste of what he had been giving me my whole life. Also, sorry I didn’t warn you.”

“Warn me for what?”

BBBBBBBRRR

“That.”

Suddenly, Collin feels something in his stomach. He has never been much of a farter, but he felt one coming and wanted to bond with his new friend.

“That’s okay. Because I didn’t warn you about this.” BRRBRRRRTBBT.

“DUDE! I never thought I’d hear you fart.” 

“I’m usually embarrassed by it so I only do it while I’m alone.”

“That was awesome though!”

“You’re too much.”

They go back to watching.

Collin feels something again. He turns to Jace and with a grin hikes his leg up.

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.      BRRRRPP

“Two in a row?”

BRP. “Three.”

Jace sees what’s happening. The friendly competition is about to begin.

Jace, without losing focus, leans with his ass towards Collin.

“Hey no aimin-”

PPPPPPRRRRBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRR

“Beat that. Wait wait wait-” BBBBBBBRBRBRBRBR BRBRBRBRBR RBBRBRBR BR

“And those.”

Collin tries to push. “Fuck, I don’t have any more.”

“Cool dude, I do.” GRGBBBBFFFBBBBBRRBRTRBTRBTRBTRpppppbbttBRAP

He then lets out an exaggerated sigh.

A few moments go by without any farts, and Collin thinks it’s his time to shine. Like Jace did before, he leans with his ass toward Jace. Without realizing though, Jace was doing the same. The two dudes let out an explosive fart at the exact same time.

BBBBBBRBRBRRBBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBR

BRBRBRBRBBBPPPPPPPPPPBBBBBBBRRRRRPPPPPPPPFFFFFGGBRBR

Collin’s fart lasted longer, but the guys were too amazed at the synchronicity of their gas to give it much attention.

“Dude!” Jace said as he and Collin high five.

“If only mine wasn’t longer and more powerful than yours, our souls would be like intertwined but with farts.”

“Okay showoff.” Jace says with a laugh and a punch to Collin’s arm.

“Why’d you wait so long to fart in front of me?”

“You waited to fart in front of me too, dude.”

“Well yeah because I’m self conscious. You fart loud and proud.”

“I didn’t want to gross you out before we became friends. “

They laugh.

But now that we are...

Jace turns his head to Collin and gives him a mischievous grin. He stands up in a squat and seemingly without any effort at all releases one of the biggest farts Collin has ever heard.

PPPPPPPPRRRRBRBRBRBRBBBBBBBBBAAAAABABABABPPPPERRRRRRGRBGRBGRBRGBRGBRGRBGRBGRBGRBGRBGRBRGBRGBRGBRGRBGRBRGBRG

“Holy fuck, dude. That even shocked me.”

“Yeah holy shit. Did you shit?”

“Psh. Nah bro, I’m all air.” He then swiftly pushes his ass towards Collin and lets out a cute little poot. Collin slaps Jace’s ass away and he laughs.

“Collin I have a favor to ask you.”

“What could it possibly be?”

Jace extends his pointer finger to Collin. “Pull this please.”

He does so and Jace releases another rancid fart.

“Is the contest still going on? You have a lot to catch up-”

BBUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRP

Collin releases a huge, nasty sounding burp that ends in a cute grin.

“Oh we’re getting into another territory now. Watch this.”

Jace stands up and breathes in a big gulp of air. At the same time, he sucks in some more air through his ass, which is loud enough for Collin to hear.

“Wait, you can do this shit on command?”-

BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAHBHBHBHBHBHBHBHBHBH

PPRRRRRBBBBBBTTBTBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRBBBBBBBB

He lets out a massive burp and fart at the same time.

“You win.”

“I know. But it was fun getting you out of your shell.” He smiles and rustles Collin’s hair. “I’m gonna go take a nap.”

“Okay!”

Jace lets something else out, although it’s not gas.

“Hey, um, would you want to take one with me?”

“Sure! but why”

“I’m in the mood to cuddle.”

Collin stares at Jace. “Sure, why not. But can it be in my room? Yours is kind of hot.”

“Whatever you want.”

“Cool cool cool. Oh, and don’t dutch oven me or I’ll bite your dick off.”

“Oh don’t worry. I absolutely will be doing that.”

Collin rolls his eyes and Jace laughs. As they get to the bedroom door, Jace walks into the back of Collin, who immediately takes the moment to rip a nasty sounding fart on Jace’s crotch.

“Dude, I’m so sorry it just slipped out.” Collin says as he opens his door.

“Oh, it’s really on now.”

Jace goes into Collin’s room and closes the door behind him, interested to see what comes of his friendship.

[ohbutwheresyourheart]

I have far too many half-written things in my google docs that have never seen the light of day, so I've decided to start buffing up the best ones and posting them unfinished. Maybe I'll come back to them later, or if not at least someone will hopefully enjoy reading them as they are.

First up: fragments from a WIP based on the concept that Eva did not actually die when the twins were children; instead, she got caught in the magic field of a Geryon and sling-shotted to the middle of Devil May Cry 5. What I wrote revolved more around the aftermath, and Eva trying to come to terms with the modern world, her losses, and not knowing what happened to her sons.

The building is echoing once the buffer of trash is removed. High ceilings dissipating into shadowy un-shapes. Dark corners shifting like predators turning and twisting. It’s too like the manor in those early days before she tamed it as Sparda had; made it respect her for all she was a mortal woman.

Made it respect her because she was a mortal woman.

She feels so tired, though; too tired to start a fresh war. So Eva lives with the shadows and whatever they may hide. At least it’s not outwardly hostile. Even if it was, by rights she shouldn’t be comfortable here.

This domain, this world, empty of her sons.

----

Swollen and fragile all at once, like a wine glass held too long in hot water - ripe for shattering with a single thoughtless move.

Midmorning is an inauspicious time for any demon to appear; Eva uses the reprieve to walk the city streets. Capulet is smaller than Red Grave but still a decent-sized city in its own right, checking off all the requirements: university, libraries, museums, churches, arts district, cheerful cafes dotting the sidewalk…

A few months ago -- no, thirty years ago -- she would have delighted in browsing the art supplies store, or checking the museum events for child-friendly exhibitions (but boys you must behave), or laughing into her coffee as two eight year olds descended into extensive debate on the merits of chocolate cake over strawberry tarts.

Now she buys peppermint tea in a to-go cup and takes it to the park.

Capulet is unexpectedly windswept in August, errant breezes stirring up the parched over-long grass around her ankles and pulling her hair, strand by strand, out of the confines of her ponytail.

The park is quietish; the younger children are out in force but a university city never really feels alive during the summer while the students are away. She follows the winding gravel path towards the duck pond at the centre and circles it once, twice. Watches other mothers with children tossing breadcrumbs to the ducks; running; playing.

“Why don’t you go and play, boys? Just--”

“Be careful, I know.” Vergil’s eyes, already so much older than they should be. “Why even try when we have to pretend?”

She’d never come up with a good enough answer for him.

Trish finds her on a bench. She sits down without ceremony or preamble, sunglasses her one concession to the summer day but otherwise as unaffected by the August sun as she no doubt will be by the coming autumn chill.

(Eva is rapidly coming to dislike Trish. Not because she is a demon, per se, but because it’s so fucking demoralising to constantly see the perfect version of herself; an Eva who will never succumb to sagging tits or a bloated stomach or even messy hair.)

“Are you all right? You’re sitting there like a ghost.”

Eva sips her tea to save herself from an immediate response. The cup is almost empty and the dregs are cold; she doesn’t remember drinking it.

“I’m fine.”

“Mm.” Trish doesn’t look as though she believes Eva in the slightest, but thankfully doesn’t push the issue. “Well, in that case, I have a favour to ask.”

“Oh?” Eva becomes instantly wary. Even as despondent as she feels, she knows better than to thoughtlessly promise a demon anything.

Something flashes in Trish’s eyes, gone too quickly for Eva to define it. The slow smile that curls the corners of her lips is equally inscrutable.

“Don’t worry, it’s not a favour for me, exactly,” she assures her, waving a perfectly manicured hand (again that familiar burst of jealousy towards a creature that could control their human physical appearance at will; Sparda had never had a bad hair day in his life--). “Lady heard you’re quite the dab hand with magic and she wanted to know if there were any goodies you could make for her, or teach her, or… whatever, really.”

“Last I saw, Lady has a tongue in her head,” Eva replies coolly.

Trish’s smile widens. “Oh, she does, but she’s out of town this week and when I saw you I thought I might as well ask now as later.”

“Mm.” Now it’s Eva’s turn to give Trish a searching look. She taps her nails (not perfectly manicured by any definition of the term) against her empty cup, wishing there was some left; she could make use of a timely pause to sip her tea and give herself a moment to think. “Well, I’m happy to talk to Lady about what she needs when she’s back in Capulet.”

“I’ll pass the message on.” With one flowing, elegant movement, Trish gets to her feet and stretches like a languid cat. “I’d better get going. See you around, Eva.”

“Yes, see you,” Eva mutters to her back; Trish is already going, sashaying through the park like she owns the place.

Something about this doesn’t smell right and Eva has sense enough to be cautious.

And yet… When she returns to Devil May Cry, she spends time going through the cupboards she’s restocked and checking her herbs. She uses the laptop Nero and Nico set her up with and finds websites that sell the supplies she needs -- whether advertised for witchcraft or otherwise -- and prepares lists of useful tricks; things that used to give her the edge she needed to survive another night.

It might not be useful for Lady -- if, indeed, Lady even asked the question -- but it’s useful for Eva. Practically, because she can’t be too careful even now, and in the abstract;  when she goes to bed that night, Eva sleeps better than she has in weeks. Her hands might be dry and her nails might be broken, but with her fingertips stained and smelling of herbs once again she almost begins to recognise herself.

----

To Eva’s palpable surprise, Lady does actually swing by Devil May Cry the following week.

“Trish told me she saw you,” Lady explains as she unholsters Kaline Ann and sets her down on the desk. “Did she tell you the kind of thing I was looking for?”

Because there is truth in this cover story that Lady and Trish have concocted between themselves. Yes, mainly they want to check on Eva, but it also never hurts for an old bitch to learn some new tricks.

And how does Eva look? Less like Trish than she used to; Eva has taken to shoving her hair up in a loose bun at the back of her head (the better, Lady assumes, to keep it out of her face now she was no longer playing lady of the manor) and has swapped her elegant black gown for a serviceable sweater and jeans. On her feet, Doc Martens. On her hands, broken nails and stained fingertips. In her eyes - fire.

“In passing.” Eva is - suspicious? Well, Lady can’t entirely blame her for still finding her feet with all of them, particularly Trish - though Trish herself had taken it as a compliment that Eva considered her enough potential trouble to be wary of.

“You’re welcome to anything I can teach you, although…” Eva’s gaze slides across and down to Kalina Ann. There is something distinctly hungry (covetous?) in her eyes. “You seem to have the offensive side pretty well covered.”

Lady grins, one firearms aficionado to another. “Give Nico a call if you want anything - you can’t beat the Goldsteins for guns and for you she’ll probably do it for free.”

That does it: the reserve cracks and Eva grins back. It is not the kind, motherly smile that Dante probably remembers. This is the smile that a tiger would give you if it could.

“Noted.” Eva pulls out a stack of books from one of the desk drawers. “Now, where do you want to start?”

It does not take long for Lady to be very, very glad she arranged this meeting. Eva is an absolute trove of knowledge. Much of it Lady already knows, and some of it is interesting but not strictly relevant -- Lady’s fighting style being much more full-on than Eva’s tactics lend themselves to -- but she still picks up plenty.

----

Nero is a dutiful, darling boy. He checks in with her, regular as clockwork, trying to disguise the anxiety in his voice. He doesn’t know how to be with her, but he tries nonetheless.

He asks her, often, to visit him in Fortuna; to meet his girlfriend and the children they have adopted. Eva demurs and lets him think she’s still putting off the inevitable label of grandmother. It’s not a total lie, but it’s far from the primary reason. Maybe, perceptive as he is (and he is; Sparda’s eyes staring at her, seeing straight through her despite the un-Sparda-ish mouthing off), he knows that, too, and is giving her time.

It’s just… what if they come back, and she isn’t here to greet them? What if they think she’s truly gone again? She can’t hurt her boys like that a second time. She can’t let them down again when they look for her, reach for her. God knows she was worth fuck-all to them then and even less now, as much protection as a paper cut-out, but if they know she’s willing to put herself between the two of them and danger, then… that’s something, isn’t it? However little, it’s something.

The latest attempt comes on a late autumn evening. October is slipping away, each dark evening bringing them a little closer to Halloween. The most enterprising of the local children have already ventured out trick-or-treating with the excuse that the 31st is a school night, and Eva watches troupes of ghosties and ghoulies and long-legged beasties parade past the windows with a bittersweet smile. She bought a bag of candy but doesn’t really expect any trick-or-treaters; Dante, with good reason, didn’t take pains to encourage the local kids to come calling.

Nero and Nico pull up, a welcome interruption to her descent into melancholy, out of breath but radiant from their latest skirmish. They stop by Devil May Cry on the pretence of leaving word for Morrison that payment is due, but Nero could do that himself on the little computer phone he carries around with him. In reality, they’re checking on her.

Eva doesn’t mind, really. She likes the company, and the kids (God, she calls them kids, they’re not that much younger than she is) are energetic; it’s hard to be actively maudlin when refereeing a shouting match. Nico especially is nosy and almost impossible to brush off or offend. On every visit, she wheedles a few more secrets out of Eva’s recipe books. Lately, Eva has been amusing herself by giving her tidbits and letting Nico reverse-engineer either the process or the product. Usually, she gets it right. Occasionally, she comes up with something better.

Tonight, though, Eva feels even harder to cheer than normal. Nico is put off by a wad of cash to get takeout -- Sparda laid the bounty of the world at her feet, but Nero and Nico are giving her a world tour laden with grease -- leaving Eva and Nero alone for half an hour. Nero has unchecked notebook privileges, as long as he’s careful with them, and he flicks through the entries thoughtfully.

“How did you learn all this stuff in the first place?”

“It depends which stuff we’re talking about.” Eva leans over his shoulder, pointing to the pages. “Sparda gave me a lot of them; things he’d picked up over the years, I don’t even know where from. But this one -- here -- that was from a hunter I partnered up with a lot in the early days. These tisanes were from my aunt. I used to say she should have been born a mediaeval herb-woman, except they’d have hung her for a witch.”

But Nero has stopped looking at the pages. He’s looking at her instead; thoughtful, in a way that is so Vergil it makes her heart skip a beat.

“What were they like, your family?”

“My family...” How long has it been since family wasn’t Sparda and the boys? How much longer since it meant the house she grew up in, and the people who populated it? “Oh, they -- they’re long gone. Better not to dwell. I have the boys,” Except she doesn’t. “And you, of course.”

Nero isn’t diverted, not for a moment, and the tilt of his eyebrows is pure Vergil. But he lets it go for now.

They taper off into silence. It lasts for a few minutes, Eva turning over possibilities in her mind. The words, when they come, are nevertheless a surprise; something she hadn’t meant to let loose.

“My father was a twin,” she says abruptly. “He and my uncle were thick as thieves. I always used to hope I’d have twins -- they say it skips a generation, so I thought it was likely I would -- and then they’d both always have a friend.”

She lets out a hollow little laugh. A friend. What a fucking fairytale.

Where did she go so wrong? Yes, the boys had always had their spats, but Eva had chalked that up to a mixture of their demonic blood and the marked differences in their personalities, watchful but not truly worried. She tried to encourage them to get along, to talk out their problems, but had also comforted herself that it was something they would grow out of as they got older and developed a bit more emotional maturity. Siblings fought; it was perfectly normal. Even she and Elijah--

Eva squeezes her eyes closed. She can’t think about Elijah right now.

A warm, calloused hand covers her own and Eva opens her eyes to see Nero watching her, his expression unusually serious.

“It’s not your fault,” he tells her, quietly but with a forceful conviction behind his words that reminds her of Sparda. “Yeah, they’re idiots, and they’re both kind of fucked up in their own ways, but it’s not your fault. They’d be a lot worse if it hadn’t been for you.”

Is that true? Eva isn’t sure which is worse; that she has ruined her boys, or that they would somehow be even worse without her.

But none of this is Nero’s problem. Grandson, she reminds herself once again. Grandson. Not a peer, not a comrade to lean on. A young man she needs to protect.

Pull yourself together, Eva.

----

Eventually, Eva gets sick of sitting around Devil May Cry waiting for something to happen.

She has never been a passive person. Eva makes things happen. Ever since Lady asked for some tricks to help her on hunts, Eva has been building up her supplies again. Restocking her herbs, potions, and powders. Dusting off Dante’s collection of magic books (a surprisingly comprehensive collection; Vergil had always been the bookworm, while Dante was too much of a fidget-bottom to sit still for five minutes)  and reminding herself of her favourite cantrips. Eventually, she contracts Nico to make her a pair of guns like her old ones.

The last time Eva felt so lost, she was drowning in grief for her husband and it ended in tragedy for her sons. She will not make the same mistake twice. Reaching back through the years, breaking down the walls she had so carefully built up, she remembers how it felt to be fifteen and alone; fifteen and desperate; fifteen and unstoppable.

Then she asks Morrison for some work.

As a young woman trying to break into this line of work, Eva had gotten used to the looks she elicited from these “brokers”. The initial amusement, thinking she’s joking. The surprise when they realise she isn’t. The patronising shake of the head as they assure her this is no work for a pretty little lady like her. Finally, the shock and anger as they hastily reconsidered their position with a gun jammed up against their throats.

Over time, she’d gotten a reputation for being an infernal bitch who was extremely good at what she did, which meant the work came easier. Eventually, by the time she met Sparda, she’d been running her own jobs without a broker at all - unless they were coming to her for a favour.

But that was then. Now she’s back to square one. Unproved. Untried. Untested. It’s aggravating but Eva knows she’ll have to just deal with it if she wants an in.

Because Eva is pretty sure she can talk Morrison into kicking a few jobs her way. Asking Lady, or Nero, or Trish to share, though? It will all be there - amusement, surprise, disbelief - and the worst thing of all is that they will be speaking not from baseless stereotyping but all too real knowledge.

Dante told us all about it, Eva. You barely lasted a minute when the demons attacked, isn’t that right? This is way too much for you.

No. She will work until she has beaten the softness out of herself. Until she can go back to them on an even footing. Until it’s second nature once again to have gunpowder on her clothes and the spark of magic at her fingertips. Until the Underworld has learned to fear Sparda’s whore again.

Then she will get their respect, rather than their pity.

Morrison drops by periodically for coffee and a chat. There hasn’t been any money-grubbing yet; Dante owns the office outright - Eva has seen the deed and it’s real enough - and the bills are being paid out of his last earnings. It won’t last forever, but it’s been enough to take one worry off Eva’s mind so far.

Instead, Morrison seems to simply enjoy her company, or maybe he just can’t kick the habit of showing up at Devil May Cry to see Dante. Whatever the reason, Eva enjoys his visits and his dry humour. What Morrison makes of her, she’s not sure; Eva had told him, in a tone that made it clear she was lying, that she was Trish’s long-lost sister. Morrison had simply chuckled and refrained from asking any questions.

That’s one thing Eva always did like about brokers; they’re the kind of people who don’t ask difficult, unnecessary questions.

“You’ve got this place looking real good, Eva.” Morrison looks around with genuine admiration and gestures with his lit cigarette to the spider plant growing ever larger in the corner. “Way better than Dante ever did. Mother of God, the state I’ve seen this office in… well. Maybe best not to elaborate too much there.”

Eva laughs, remembering how Dante always tried his best to weasel out of his chores. Even getting him to make his bed was a challenge. It seems he hasn’t improved with age.

“It’s certainly been quite the project. But, now that it’s done, I’ve been thinking I need something else to do.” Eva watches Morrison carefully, waiting for his reaction. “Do you have any work for me?”

Morrison smirks. “Getting bored already? Yeah, I got a few things on the back burner - the kind of stuff the other ladies think they’re too good for, if you catch my drift, and the kid really has got his hands full.”

...Okay, that was absurdly easy. Eva narrows her eyes, but Morrison doesn’t look like he’s trying to mock her. On the contrary, when he sees her expression, he holds his hands up in mock surrender.

“Hey, I don’t control the work that comes in! Besides, pay is pay, am I right?”

“I’m looking for hunting work,” Eva says pointedly, wondering if he’s mistaken her meaning.

“Yeah, yeah, I got you.” Morrison chuckles as he takes a drag on his cigarette. “What, were you expecting me to say no? If nobody will do the work, I won't get paid either.”

“I…” Eva is floored. All of her preparation, all that time spent rehearsing her arguments, and it turns out she doesn’t need any of them. “I was expecting, uh…”

“Pushback?” Morrison gives her a knowing look. “Do you really think I’d have lasted this long with those ladies if I trotted out that kind of line? As far as I’m concerned, if you hang around with Dante, Lady, and Trish, then you know what you’re doing and you can take care of yourself.”

Morrison pulls a notebook out of his pocket and rifles through it, humming under his breath. He tears out a page and walks over to lay it on Eva’s desk.

“Here are the details. Just give me a call when you’re done with them and I’ll arrange your payment. Damages come out of your cut, mind you. If everything goes well, I’ll see what else I have for you.”

----

It really is grunt work, but Eva doesn’t mind; she’s not arrogant enough to think she could jump single-handedly into something like Red Grave, guns blazing.

The job also isn't urgent - hence Morrison being lackadaisical about bullying someone into taking it - which gives her the leisure of reconnaissance and planning time.

An empusa nest out on some waste ground that a local developer bought before noticing his unexpected squatters. Straightforward enough, although Eva takes more precautions than she thinks are necessary just in case. After all, she’s seen her judgement is far from perfect.

But in the end, all goes smoothly. No nasty surprises. Just some nasty stains on the concrete from empusas blown to kingdom come. Eva grimaces at them, hoping they don’t count as “damages”. The land is being developed anyway, right? Surely they’ll be putting down fresh tarmac?

In the end, Morrison does take a cut from her pay, but it’s less than she feared and so Eva swallows it with as much good grace as she can muster. The stack of notes is a reassuring weight in her hand. Ballast, though for (or against) what, she’s not entirely sure. The important thing is that she’s done a competent enough job that Morrison leaves her with the details of another couple of jobs. In this way a reputation is built.

“Morrison,” Eva calls out just before he leaves.

Morrison pauses on the threshold. There’s a beat before he looks back at her over his shoulder and Eva gets the impression he knows exactly what she’s about to ask.

“Do you think he’s coming back?”

Because Morrison is not Trish, or Lady, or Nero. He does not know her connection to these people. To Dante. So he has no reason to lie to her or spare her feelings.

He sucks in a breath, considering. “You know, I’d gotten to the point where I never thought I’d see anything Dante didn’t come back from. So many times I thought he was in way over his head, only for him to walk away laughing. But this job… this felt different from the start. Gave me a sort of -- premonition, you might say.”

A soft hum; something that might have been a laugh, if there was any humour in it, and Morrison shook his head.

“The truth is, Eva, I don’t know. I really don’t. He could come waltzing back in here tomorrow, carrying a pizza and laughing at us all for ever doubting him. Or we might never see him again.”

Eva sinks slowly into the desk chair, feeling the truth of it in her bones. A tidal wave of exhaustion crashes over her, threatening to drown her in one clean swoop. Tired of worry. Tired of uncertainty. Tired of never even having the cold comfort of a body to bury. Tired of that tiny speck of hope that even now refused to be snuffed out completely because, however ridiculous it was to expect it, there was still the chance--

“I knew someone else like that, once,” she hears herself say. “He never did come back.”

Morrison gives her a searching look. He seems, for a moment, to be on the verge of saying something more, but in the end refrains. Instead, he tips his hat to her.

“You take care, Eva.”

“Yeah,” Eva replies distantly. “You too, Morrison.”

----

The work is important for more than Eva’s ego.

Her blood sings in her veins once again. The hum of power at her fingertips, like the whine of electricity. A promise, maybe even a vow if you were so inclined to call it such, that one day in the none-too-distant future a small slice of the world would once again turn at Eva’s call and beckoning. She has known this once before when playing lady of the manor. Now, the power is both weaker, for lack of Sparda’s force bolstering her, and sweeter, for knowing it is all of her own clawing and devising.

Her blood sings and Eva tastes iron and lightning on her tongue. Her fingers smell of metal and herbs and something no mortal can rightly put words to; the tang of the Underworld and the burning sulphur of demons.

When Eva looks at her reflection in the chipped bathroom mirror and sees an old, familiar light in her eyes, she knows it is time.

Very little magic needs to be complicated. The point is will, and the directing of it. For those unfamiliar with the craft then the trimmings of rituals and candles can go a long way in finding that direction.

For those who live long enough to become old hands, just the thinking, coupled with the right runes, is enough. Eva takes a sharp knife, a handful of herbs, and a silver-backed mirror (in this, old ways are better; a mercury mirror would work better still, but this will do for now)... and she searches.

Blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh, soul of my soul, I seek thee now. Come to me, come to me, come to me…

It is a powerful spell. Kinfinding may not be enough to physically draw her boys forth from the Underworld, but it should at least show them to her in the scrying mirror.

Eva seeks until her blood runs dangerously thin and her head pounds and her vision begins to darken. She seeks further still until she knows herself at the very precipice of what she can safely come back from… and only then, with great reluctance, does she let the spell go.

She has not seen them, either of them, even once.

----

Eventually, it feels meaningless to even keep up the pretence she thinks the boys are coming back.

What has happened to them is almost immaterial. The nightmare scenarios are so numerous that eventually they blur together into one long snuff film that leaves her numb. Like Sparda, they were there and then they were not. Like Sparda, she will never know what exactly happened.

Devil May Cry becomes part tomb, part cocoon. She has saved enough money to keep Morrison at bay for a while even after Dante’s funds run out, and she continues to take work for the sake of it, though she doesn’t keep track of her income versus expenditures. If or when the money runs out, she’s not sure. It’s pointless to think so far ahead. Perhaps she’ll just die, like she should have before.

A wife without a husband. A mother without sons. Once, she would have vomited at the thought of a woman identifying herself by the men in her life, but somehow it crept up on her over the years and now she’s left with gaping, bloody holes that gung-ho feminist rhetoric does nothing to paste over.

Nobody seems to notice the change in her philosophy. Though, she gets precious few visitors anyway. Trish and Lady leave her to her own devices, having apparently satisfied their curiosity about her. Morrison has tapered off their tete-a-tetes and only shows up when he wants money. Nero is a busy boy these days.

One night she dreams about them. The dream is very similar to the ones she used to have about Sparda; lifelike, almost lucid dreaming, where everything was the same - she is in bed, having just awoken - except he is there, smiling gently, brushing her hair out of her eyes.

Sleeping in, Eva?

Dreaming about the boys is very similar. She dreams she awakens in the night to a sound downstairs. There is no panic of a break-in; nobody bothers her these days. Voices, muffled, from the floor below. Eva calmly gets out of bed, registering even the rustle of the sheets and the cold, bare wooden boards under her feet. She pads slowly out of the bedroom to the top of the stairs.

There they are, standing in the centre of the office, illuminated perfectly by a strip of moonlight through the window. It is like a picture. It is too perfect and too easy. This is how she knows she is dreaming.

Still, for the first time in months, her heart eases.

They are talking softly to each other, too softly for her to catch the words (there is a limit, she concedes, to just how much even her vivid imagination can conjure). Eva doesn’t mind. She stands at the mezzanine and soaks them in.

Dante gestures to the stairs and looks up. He freezes as their eyes meet. Vergil, a half-heartbeat behind his twin, mirrors him.

“...Hey,” Dante croaks, the gesturing hand that had fallen still now awkwardly waving. “We’re home!”

This is more than she expected. Eva’s throat constricts. Even her dreams of Sparda were not so vivid or so long.

“You’re late, boys,” she manages after a moment. “Dinner was hours ago.”

She is trying for levity, trying to play her part in this scene, trying to piece together something happy for when she wakes up, but her voice cracks halfway through the sentence and she finds herself choking on a sob.

Dante is halfway up the stairs in a moment, hand outstretched to her. Eva, too, is reaching out to her little boy and she cries out when she finally has her arms around him again.

She does not get even a heartbeat of joy before the world collapses into shadows and flames. Dante dissolves, her arms closing around thin air, and the staircase morphs into an endless corridor to hell. Her boys are nowhere to be seen, but she can hear them screaming.

Or maybe she just hears her own voice, screaming herself awake.

There are more dreams, afterwards; more recognisable for what they are. Her life runs before her eyes in reverse. Searching for the boys. Watching Sparda walk away for the last time. The face of every person she never saved. Then, at last, the denouement: Elijah, torn open. Her father and uncle staring sightless into an abyss. Her mother reduced to so many scattered chunks of meat.

Eventually, because Eva is someone who makes things happen, not someone things simply happen to, she makes the decision to go back. She has faced Red Grave; faced the ruined manor. It is time to face much older ghosts.

It is a private matter, and so Eva tells nobody of her intentions. She lets Morrison know she will be out of town on personal business, timeline uncertain; she will give him a call when she’s back. He is free, in the interim, to pass her usual work on to other sources.

For anyone else (because she still hopes, deep down, that her boys will one day come home), she leaves a note on her desk.

Out of town for a while.

Eva re-reads the brief scribble and wonders what else to add before realising there really is nothing more to add. No forwarding address or contact number, because she does not want anyone to find her. Anyone who wants her, can wait until she comes back.

She makes it ten minutes out from the city before she turns back to scribble an address at the bottom of her note.

Just in case.

----

Plane tickets are cheap these days, and she has a passport courtesy of Morrison, but Eva elects to drive. Call her old-fashioned, or even just plain curmudgeonly in her old age (ha), but Eva likes the hum of a good motor much better than the press of noisy crowds.

Besides, she’d need a car at the other end of the flight anyway, where she’s going. She can even call it a vacation if she finds a motel to spend each night in. If not -- she’s slept in a car before and it won’t kill her to do it again, especially when the rental is much more comfortable than any old banger she’s passed a night in before.

Highways turn to country lanes as she veers further and further off the beaten track. The temperature drops, too; winter in the shadow of the Appalachian mountains is nothing to sneeze at. Eva has forgotten a lot of things over the years (too many things), but she remembers that. Funny how events and people slide slowly but surely from her mind but sensory impressions remain: the icy, pinesap-tinged tang of morning air in winter; the crackle of a fire; the warm doughy smell and pillowy softness of homemade dinner rolls.

Become someone else, she’d told her younger son as their world burned around them. Change your name, change yourself, and hide. Not easy, no, nothing like easy -- but possible, for the right price. For the price of giving up who you were before.

Except no bargain is ever so neat and no transaction ever so complete.

[twistedwonderlandsimps]

Benrey!Yuu

I'm just here to mix-and-match different kinds of Yuus with different kinds of personalities to see what monstrosity I can make. That being said,,, Benrey!Yuu brainrot! 

For those who don’t know, Benrey is a character in a roleplay called Half-Life VR but the AI is Sentient (aka HLVRAI) by wayneradiotv and his friends. You should definitely check it out on Youtube, it’s hilarious!

Also there are some spoilers here about the characters so I suggest you go watch it first.

Yuu’s dialogues is intentionally lowercase-d, by the way.

So… an eldritch creechur obsessed with Pl*ystation Plus, dissociated and lives in an absolutely different reality in their head, and completely delusional.

Even the most patient people go insane in Benrey!Yuu’s presence. No one is safe from Benrey!Yuu. They’ve practically made it their mission to make everyone question their own sanity.

And since Benrey!Yuu is the way they are, they most probably arrived late in the opening ceremony, looking completely confused and dazed.

Crowley: “Who are you?”

Yuu: “huh? wha? did you say something?”

Crowley: “You-”

Yuu: “do you have Pl*ystation Plus, uh, voucher?”

Crowley: “I don’t know what–”

Yuu: “i just– i’m waiting– i wanna- i wanna get another month but i want, like, a free trial.”

They’re completely chill and unbothered by anything.

Even when the blot monster in the Dwarfs’ Mine chased after them, they just stood there and stared at it with that infuriating smirk of theirs as the monster spontaneously burst out in flames.

Ace: “Holy– What was that?!”

Yuu: “that was, uh– that was a passport.”

Also when Riddle overblotted:

Yuu: *standing in the middle of the Rose Maze with overblot!Riddle making his way towards them in anger*

“Yuu! Get out of there! You’ll get hurt!”

Yuu: “it’s okay, i’m– i’m–  i’m not human.”

Yuu, when meeting Leona for the first time in the botanical garden:

Leona: “I was having such a lovely nap, and now I’m just pissed. Hope you’re ready to leave behind a tooth–”

Yuu: “do you have– you have credentials? can I see your– passport?”

Leona: “...What.”

Yuu, turning to Grim and whispering loudly: “he doesn’t have his passport.”

Grim, equally whispering just as loud: “What’s a passport?”

Yuu, @ the overblot bois after they calmed down:

“you– you a lil’– you’re a lil’ clumsy boy, aren’t you? lost your lil’ temper there, did ya?”

Can you imagining Benrey!Yuu’s and Malleus’ first meeting?

Benrey!Yuu probably straight up asks if Malleus has Pl*ystation Plus or something. That, or ask for his passport. Their greetings always consist of either of those two options.

Benrey!Yuu would probably be the type to unironically call Malleus ‘Horn-y’ as a nickname.

Malleus just rolls with it. He probably assumes that it’s some quirky human thing. Just imagine him telling how his day went to Lilia.

“And then they called me ‘Horn-y’, for I indeed have horns.”

“They what–”

Okay, now imagine Yuu meeting Jamil for the first time.

Hypnosis? Pffft, like that’ll work on an eldritch creature from the void. Jamil’s gonna have to try harder than–

Jamil: “We have Pl*ystation Plus in Scarabia.”

They did not, in fact, have Pl*ystation Plus in Scarabia but Yuu got scammed into going and staying anyway.

Yuu maybe calls Kalim ‘Tommy’.

Yuu @ Jamil: “Tommy… likes mean people. that’s why he talked to you.”

Jamil: “Who’s Tommy?”

Also, Yuu’s going to have a villain moment in the future along with Grim and their villain monologue is just going to be like:

“i didn’t have a big plan! i was s’posed to be nice but you forced me to be BAAAAD so i gonna be baaad. friend.”

“What are you even saying, Yuu?!”

“i dunno. hey, you have Pl*ystation Plus, one month?”

Also also, we can’t forget about the Black Mesa Sweet Voice.

Yuu uses these orbs/balls things to express their emotions. Just them blowing blue bubbles at their friends when their friends are sad. Not a lot of dark blue since that apparently means ‘i hate you’. Just enough to comfort them.

The braincell group probably has a color coding chart to see what the colored orb Yuu spews out means.

Imagine Yuu spewing out teal orbs after fighting an overblot and their friends look at the chart and see that it can either mean ‘surprise’ or ‘needs meal’.

Yuu, getting closer to an ink puddle: *audible lip smacking*

Ace, softly: “No.”

Like Yuu, like Grim, I guess. Picking up food from the ground like feral gremlins they are.

Okay but like, Yuu terrorizing Idia by showing up out of nowhere in his room and constantly asks him for Pl*ystation Plus and if they can add him on it. Idia doesn’t even know what Pl*ystation Plus is. He’s tried introducing them to other consoles in hopes that they’d leave him alone but it doesn’t work.

Idia can do nothing as Yuu routinely break into his room. Even reinforcing the security and changing locks everyday doesn’t stop them.

Well anyway, I know this post is about Benrey!Yuu but imagine if it was also the rest of the Science Team!

Anyway, Tommy!Yuu, Bubby!Yuu, Coomer!Yuu. All the possibilities! 

Gordon!Yuu mayhaps doesn’t exist ‘cause that’s honestly just default Yuu.

Anyway, just imagine the braincell group running away from the blot monster in the mines and Coomer!Yuu just goes:

“Hello, Gordon! For three PlayCoins™, I can get us out of this dilemma!”

“Who the hell’s Gordon?!”

“Yuu, this isn’t the time to be introducing us to your shady products! Keep running!”

Coomer!Yuu just calls everyone ‘Gordon’ and gives expositions on random things as if they were a tutorial guide.

Tommy!Yuu may have a child-like personality but for some reason, they know things that should generally be a secret like the reasons for why the overblot boys overblot.

Also they have a dog but the dog’s 2D and Tommy!Yuu doesn’t understand when the others try to explain to them that their dog shouldn’t be 2D flat.

Bubby!Yuu has more than enough ability to bring the overblot boys and monsters out by themselves but chooses not to and instead runs around screaming as if their life was in peril.

Bubby!Yuu: “If you think I’m a pain in the ass, wait ‘til you meet my prototypes.”

Jack: “Your… prototypes?”

Bubby!Yuu: “Yes.”

They don’t explain any further and just leaves Jack with more questions than before.

All these Yuus are chaotic and thrive off of said chaos.

[rippleclan]

RippleClan: Moon 4

Downstar takes Carnationpaw as an apprentice to eventually become a caretaker.

[Image ID: Downstar and Carnationpaw face each other. Underneath Downstar, it says + PLATONIC LIKE: CARNATIONPAW. Under Carnationpaw, it says + PLATONIC LIKE: DOWNSTAR. Above Carnationpaw, it says LEVEL UP! CARNATIONKIT -> CARNATIONPAW, SWEET -> COMPASSIONATE.]

---

“Okay, we got your feathers in the apprentice’s den, and you’re all groomed,” Oilpaw huffed, smoothing Carnationkit’s head. “Sorry you don’t have a parent to help you with this stuff.”

“It’s alright,” Carnationkit sighed. “I’m just worried. I don’t know what to train as!”

“You’ll be fine,” Oilpaw scoffed. “The Clans have a plan for that. Downstar will put you somewhere she thinks you would like. You can always change roles as you train.” The small Clan stirred as their youngest members chatted in the center of camp. The autumn chill had properly arrived, turning the ocean gray and the leaves of the eastern forest into a mimicry of the sunrise. Scrubmask entered camp from her shift guarding her sleeping Clanmates and noticed the two young cats.

“How long have you two been awake?” Scrubmask yawned.

“I wanted to get my nest set up before my ceremony!” Carnationkit chirped. “That way I can get right into training!”

“Oh, right,” Scrubmask grumbled. “That’s today.” Sure enough, Downstar trotted out of her den and climbed the rock in the heart of the shipwreck (which Oilpaw had named the Shiprock, much to Downstar’s excitement). 

“All cats old enough to catch their own prey,” Downstar yowled, “gather below the Shiprock for a Clan meeting!” Scrubmask sighed and settled down for the meeting. Weedfoot left the warrior’s den and sat next to her apprentice.

“Where’s my dad?” Oilpaw asked, glancing back at the warrior’s den.

“I’m not sure,” Weedfoot sighed. “He left when the sun set, and he hasn’t come back. He was always a fan of night-time hunts, so I’m not too worried.”

“He’ll miss the ceremony,” Oilpaw groaned.

“Hello, everyone,” Downstar called, drawing the small group’s attention. “We all know what today is, I believe. When we first discovered our shipwreck home and found Carnationkit tucked within, we knew our first mission as RippleClan would be to raise her as one of our own. And now it is time to make her an apprentice of our Clan. Carnationkit, have you decided where your paws are taking you?” 

Weedfoot nudged Carnationkit forward. The soon-to-be apprentice stared into Downstar’s deep amber eyes. What would she think of Carnationkit’s decision? Would she see her as an irresponsible kit, as she’d made clear so many times before?

“I don’t know, Downstar,” Carnationkit muttered. She stared at her sandy paws. “Everything seems amazing to me, but I don’t know what I’d be good at.”

“I see,” Downstar hummed. “Will you look at me, Carnationkit?” Carnationkit steadied herself for more disappointment and looked up. Downstar hopped off the Shiprock and approached her. Every muscle in Carnationkit’s body tensed.

“A few moons ago,” Downstar said, “I received a dream from StarClan. They put me in a field of flowers that protected me from wild dogs. I didn’t recognize the flowers at the time, but now their species is clear to me. They were carnations. Those carnations took care of me, and I believe that you will take care of this Clan, Carnationkit. Would you like to train to be RippleClan’s first caretaker? You will watch over future kits of this Clan and maintain our camp and territory. You had no mother to shelter you in our nursery, but now you can shelter cats yourself. What do you say?”

“I’ll do it, Downstar,” Carnationkit said with a lump in her throat. Pride swelled through her and a purr escaped her lips.

“Well then, Carnationkit,” Downstar purred, standing tall, “you’ve reached the age of six moons, and it is time for you to be apprenticed. From this day on, until you receive your caretaker name, you will be known as Carnationpaw. I will be your mentor.”

“Really?” Carnationpaw gasped.

“I was a caretaker back in SlugClan,” Downstar chuckled. “I’m the only one who could do it. It will be an adventure for both of us.” Downstar touched her nose to Carnationpaw’s. Had she ever gotten this close to her before?

“Carnationpaw!” Oilpaw and Weedfoot cheered. “Carnationpaw!” Though the celebration was tiny, in Carnationpaw’s heart, there might as well have been a hundred Clanmates cheering her name.

(Carnationpaw: 6, female, compassionate, splashes in puddles)

(Oilpaw: 8, female, charismatic, morbidly curious)

(Scrubmask: 21, female, gloomy, fast runner, good hunter)

(Weedfoot: 53, female, charismatic, very clever, steady paws)

(Downstar: 63, female, adventurous, valuable insight, very clever)

Puddlespeckle challenges Weedfoot to a sparring match.

[Image ID: Puddlespeckle and Weedfoot face each other. Underneath Puddlespeckle, it says + DISLIKE: WEEDFOOT. Above Weedfoot, it reads LEVEL UP! STEADY PAWS -> FORMIDABLE FIGHTER.]

---

“I know some of the Clans will consider this a dirty move,” Weedfoot sighed, “but this is a staple trick in AshClan. All you have to do is get some dust or sand under your paw and…” Weedfoot whipped her paw through the sand covering camp. The sand flew in Oilpaw and Carnationpaw’s faces.

“Ow, that stings!” Carnationpaw whined, rubbing her eyes on her shoulder.

“Did you have to demonstrate like that?” Oilpaw laughed. She shook out her bright ginger pelt and rubbed a paw over her face.

“Effective, right?” Weedfoot chuckled. It had been about a quarter moon since Carnationpaw joined the apprentice’s den and the camp was covered in fallen leaves blowing in from the east. Downstar had a lot to do as leader, leaving her with not as much time as she wanted to train Carnationpaw in skills that required long training sessions, such as combat. Luckily, Weedfoot had her own apprentice who just so happened to need someone more her size to practice on.

“Now that your enemy is distracted,” Weedfoot continued, “you can tackle them.”

“But we aren’t going to kill them,” Oilpaw proudly declared, “even though Fennelspot told me, apparently, there’s this long branch in your neck that’s full of blood and if you hit it just right—”

“The Code of Thorn & Ivy may support that move,” Weedfoot interrupted, putting a tail over Oilpaw’s mouth as horror filled Carnationpaw’s eyes, “but RippleClan will never intentionally kill another Clan cat like that. Your goal is to beat your opponent enough that they run away or are no longer able to fight back. Now, Carnationpaw, try to flick sand into Oilpaw’s eyes. Oilpaw, make sure to close your eyes.”

“I’m no mouse-brain, I know,” Oilpaw chuckled, obeying her mentor. Weedfoot stepped back. She swiped her paw in the air to show Carnationpaw what to do. Carnationpaw nodded. She slipped a paw into the sand and flicked it up. The sand fell back in a clump.

“It’s okay, keep practicing,” Weedfoot said. She made the motion again.

“You’re teaching AshClan fighting techniques now?” Puddlespeckle strolled out of the elder’s den, eyes following Carnationpaw’s swipes.

“Hi, Father,” Weedfoot said with a low nod (an AshClan custom for greeting parents that Weedfoot couldn’t stop using). “They aren’t strictly AshClan techniques. All the Clans use them.”

“My father was famous for the dust swipe technique,” Puddlespeckle huffed. “If anyone should be teaching these kits how to fight, it’s me.”

“I’m sorry, Father,” Weedfoot sighed, “but I’m running this training session. If you want to help, why don’t you see if Fennelspot needs anything?”

“Bleh,” Puddlespeckle spat. “There’s nothing I can do there. If you want these apprentices to learn how to defend themselves, they should see a real AshClan warrior in action.” Puddlespeckle lifted his chin. “Come on then. Attack me. Show these little mollies what’s expected of them when they go toe-to-toe with another Clan.”

“Father, most fighting moves would go over Carnationpaw’s head,” Weedfoot groaned. “She’s only just begun training.”

“I want to see you spar!” Oilpaw chirped. 

“Of course,” Weedfoot sighed with a soft chuckle and a shake of her head. She stretched out her legs and steadied her paws on the shifting sand. “Alright, Father. Let’s see what we can teach them.” Weedfoot barely finished speaking before Puddlespeckle lunged at her.

The two were identical blurs of rosetted silver dancing through the sand. Puddlespeckle had a hunter’s grace, lunging for Weedfoot’s neck and dragging her down. However, Weedfoot would not be moved. Even as the sand shifted underneath her, her paws stayed firm. Each blow held the same grace as her father’s attacks, but with a precision Puddlespeckle could not match.

When the sand began to settle and the apprentices could see clearly, Weedfoot had a paw on Puddlespeckle’s neck. The old tom hissed and shoved her off.

“Guess you’re better than I thought,” he growled. He glared at the apprentices and added, “I hope you got something out of that. Now I gotta clean sand out of my pelt.” Puddlespeckle trudged back into the elder’s den as abruptly as he arrived

“You need to teach me all of that,” Oilpaw said. Weedfoot didn’t hear her. As Weedfoot’s heart settled down, her eyes lingered on the elder’s den and the shadow huddled inside.

(Weedfoot: 53, female, charismatic, very clever, formidable fighter)

(Carnationpaw: 6, female, compassionate, splashes in puddles)

(Oilpaw: 8, female, charismatic, morbidly curious)

(Puddlespeckle: 130, male, strict, good hunter, good kitsitter)

[alavestineneas]

King's will

pairing: Aegon II Targaryen x OFC

summary: In the game of chess, the queen has more freedom on the chessboard. In that sense, the queen is the most powerful piece. On the other hand, the king has more value. Because if you lose the king, you lose the game. 

warnings: arranged marriage, medieval violence, slow burn

chapter 1-> chapter 2-> chapter 3 -> chapter 4 -> chapter 5

Winter of the year 123 AC,

King's Landing

Lord Tyrell sat on the established stool, trying not to portray any signs of worry. He was playing a dangerous game that could cost him his head. He glanced around, meeting the stare of the King's Hand. Tyrell nodded at him, diverting his gaze to the entrance. A few moments later, the door opened, revealing King Viserys. Filis quickly stood up, followed by Otto and Prince Aegon.

''King Viserys the First,'' the guards announced, closing the door behind the royal figure. The room fell silent as King Viserys walked towards his seat, his regal presence commanding respect from all those present. Lord Tyrell's heart raced, knowing that the fate of his family and his allegiance hung in the balance of this meeting.

''You may be seated.'' King Viserys gestured towards the chairs, indicating that everyone should take their seats. ''Lord Tyrell, what a pleasure having you back at court. Got tired of the flowers, eh?"

Lord Tyrell forced a smile, concealing his nerves. "Your Grace, it is an honour to be in your presence once again. I assure you, my return is solely driven by my unwavering loyalty to the crown."

''Sure, sure. But let's not waste any more time with pleasantries. What is the matter demanding my attention?" The king's tone grew serious.

Lord Hand coughed before starting. ''Your Majesty. As a Hand of the King, my duties include creating alliances to strengthen the Crown. And now, when Prince Aegon is a man grown, I am glad to propose the marriage of Prince Aegon and Lady Marcella Tyrell. This union would not only solidify our alliance with House Tyrell but also bring together two powerful houses, ensuring a prosperous future for the realm.''

The king leaned back on his stool, considering Lord Hand's proposal. "Does your House approve of the offer, Lord Tyrell?"

''It will be a tremendous honour to my House, Your Majesty.'' Lord Tyrell replied with a respectful bow.

''Aegon?" The king asked, turning his attention to the Prince. His son's face portrayed nothing but boredom.

"Of course, Father," Prince Aegon said with a wry face. "I am willing to fulfil my duty to the realm," he added, though his lack of enthusiasm was evident.

The king sighed. "It is settled then. House Tyrell and House Targaryen shall unite for the betterment of the realm." He glanced at Lord Tyrell. "Prepare for the betrothal ceremony, and let us solidify this alliance."

Lord Tyrell nodded, a slight smile playing on his lips. "It shall be done, Your Grace. It shall be done."

-

Marcella's carriage was nearing the Grand Sept. The building stood proudly, surrounded by immense crowds of cheering people. Royal weddings were rare here; the last one was almost ten summers ago. As she gazed at the grandeur of the Grand Sept, Marcella couldn't help but wonder how her mother felt on her wedding day. Was she happy or frightened? Lonely? They didn't get the chance to talk about it. The Gods were cruel sometimes.

Elize will not attend the wedding; she is staying in Highgarden and watching little Edwin. Marcella did not know if she wanted to see her. Although Marcella had always wanted the best for her sister, she couldn't help but feel a tinge of envy. She was to be wed to a prince, sure, but Elize got to marry whomever she chose. Marcella couldn't help but feel a pang of longing for the freedom Elize possessed. It was a bittersweet reminder of the choices Marcella herself had never been able to make. To stay home, in Highgarden, by her father's side.

As Marcella gazed out the window, she shivered, unsure if the chill in her bones was a result of her thoughts or the icy gusts that swept through the open air. Despite the discomfort, she couldn't tear her eyes away from the distant horizon, where hundreds of common folk gathered to catch a glimpse of the royal bride. The gown was rich but did not retain the warmth of her body. It was white and gold—nothing like her favourite ones. Marcella longed for the familiar comfort of her dresses, adorned with vibrant colours and intricate patterns. She yearned to feel the soft fabric against her skin, a stark contrast to the stiff and unfamiliar garment she was currently wearing.

The carriage stopped. Marcella's heart raced as she took a deep breath, preparing herself for the momentous occasion that awaited her. The door opened, revealing her father's smiling face. Marcella jumped to hug him. She fought the tears with all her might, but a couple managed to get on his green doublet.

''Oh, it is all good, Cella. I am so proud of you, darling," her father said, wiping away the tears from his daughter's cheeks. "Or should I call you Your Majesty now?'', he joked.

Marcella laughed, feeling a mix of excitement and nervousness. "Not just yet, Father," she replied with a playful smile. "But soon enough, I hope." She glanced back at the carriage.

''Well, we have to hurry, do we? Those dragons are a hell of beasts.'' Her father stretched out a hand for her to grab. They were entering the Grand Sept.

There he stood, in white and gold, matching her. It suited her spouse better, however. Their eyes met, the light from the stained glass windows reflecting in his. A Targaryen Prince. Now, her husband.

Marcella let go of her father's hand, squishing it lightly. She took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves. As she approached the altar, she couldn't help but feel anxious. This was the moment she had been preparing for her entire life—to become a princess and join one of the most powerful families in Westeros.

"You may now cloak the bride and bring her under your protection," a creaky voice of the Grand Septon announced.

The velvet cloth hit her bare shoulders, sending shivers down her spine. She closed her eyes, savouring the weight of the cloak as it settled around her, allowing the Septon to tie her hand with a ceremonial ribbon.

"In the sight of the Seven, I hereby seal these two souls, binding them as one for eternity. Look upon one another and say the words."

"Father, Smith, Warrior, Mother, Maiden, Crone, Stranger, I am his, and he is mine from this day until the end of my days,’’ Marcella uttered, Aegon's deeper voice echoing hers. The words hung in the air, their vows sealing their fates together. The congregation erupted in applause and cheers, their union celebrated by all who witnessed it. Marcella closed her eyes when she felt the savoury smell of sea and wine nearing. Suddenly, Tyrell felt tired, as if the world had drained her of every feeling she had with lips brushing against hers. Relief waved through Marcella's body—she did everything right.

-

The feast was lavish, although Marcella doesn't remember much. Everything was bleak in her mind, crumbling under the weight of worry. As she sat at the table, surrounded by opulent decorations and delectable dishes, Marcella's thoughts were consumed by the nearing bedding. It was the most significant part—to appease her husband. The bed is where canny women get their power. Marcella was afraid. No one will be there to aid her, not even guards. Was he violent? Marcella had heard stories of women who had suffered at the hands of their husbands. As she glanced around the lavish room, she couldn't help but wonder if this opulence was merely a facade hiding a darker reality.

A few drunken cheers interrupted her thoughts. In the middle of the hall now stood a massive cake. It was adorned with intricate designs. A palm brushed her forearm, burning it with heat.

''The honor of cutting the cake is my wife's!'' Aegon exclaimed, slightly forcing her forward. She reluctantly stepped toward the cake, her heart pounding with unease. The guests erupted into applause, their cheers masking the underlying tension in the room. The bedding started.

The court plunged into the mess. Nobles jostled for position, eager to witness the spectacle. The raucous atmosphere grew even more chaotic as wine spilled and laughter filled the air. She lost sight of her husband, whose face was now replaced by that of mostly unfamiliar men. Their shouts blended with the sound of tearing clothes. The crowd carried her to the chambers, singing obscene ditties. When her feet finally hit the floor, the door closed with a loud thud. She stood alone in the dimly lit room, her heart pounding with fear and confusion. The silence that followed the chaos outside was deafening, and she could feel the weight of uncertainty settle upon her.

A few moments later, the door opened once more, revealing a handful of laughing ladies and the Prince himself. ''I am afraid I have to go, madams. Duty calls. It was pleasant seeing you here.'' He waved them off and chuckled to himself. ''Wife!'' he called out, stretching the letters in tune with some song. ''Why aren't you naked yet?''

Marcella didn't answer; instead, she hurried to the mirror. She took off her earrings and other jewelry before gently removing pins and ribbons from her hair. Her now husband didn't add anything else. She heard him make his way to the bed, with the sound of clothes hitting the floor. Marcella glanced at her reflection one last time, ensuring that every strand of hair was in place. She took a deep breath and turned to face Prince Aegon.

Instead of meeting his drunken gaze, she saw his naked back. Confusion washed over her as she realized he had passed out on the bed. Marcella felt relief wash over her body; she didn't have to share the bed with him today. She quietly tiptoed towards the bed, careful not to disturb his slumber. As she slipped under the covers, Marcella remembered. The servants are going to examine each inch of the sheets for confirmation of their union.

She looked around the room, scanning for something, anything, to save her from the need to wake her now husband. And here it was—a simple butter knife near the plates of fruit. With a quick glance towards her husband, Marcella carefully picked up the butter knife, her heart pounding in her chest.

Taking a deep breath, she slowly pressed the knife against her skin, praying that her plan would work without waking her husband. A small stream of blood trickled down her leg as Marcella winced at the sharp sting. She hurriedly dabbed the blood onto the sheets, staining them just enough to give the appearance of authenticity. With a sigh of relief, she carefully wiped away any evidence and placed the butter knife back in its original spot, hoping that her desperate act would go unnoticed.

Marcella smiled to herself. Her husband would be too hungover to concern himself whether their marriage was consummated, and even if the thought occurred in his mind, he would be too embarrassed to admit that a famous womanizer like himself couldn't perform in bed. For now, she was free to rest.

[martianbugsbunny]

We Are Mandalorians: Our Love Must Be Forged (An AxePaz Fic)—Chapter 10

Alright, assorted AxePaz fans, this is the chapter where they’re finally out of mortal danger! YAY! It’s the second-to-last chapter (the last one is also one of my favorite chapters) and it’s recuperating and fluff. Almost forgot to post it bc the chapter was already in my drafts but untagged, and I’m allergic to tagging, but I got it done, if a bit later than usual, so read on and enjoy!

It was warm. Axe was so used to the chill of the underground he didn’t understand for a moment.

Then he opened his eyes and realized he was on board the main cruiser, in the medical bay. His helmet was on a table beside the bed, and a monitor was tracking his heartbeat. He had no clue what it should be, but it was steady, and that seemed like a good sign.

He sat up, groggy, his stomach growling. It had been a while since the last time he ate (although there was a thin tube feeding water directly into his veins) and he couldn’t tell whether he was ravenously hungry or drop-dead nauseous.

Paz was on the bed next to his, helmet still in place, apparently still sleeping. His monitor was going at about the same pace as Axe’s.

Bo-Katan entered the med bay alongside a medic. He went to check on Paz first, while Bo-Katan sat down on the foot of Axe’s bed. “Maybe it was your delirium, but I could swear you said down there—”

“I did.” Axe knew his face was flushed and hoped Bo-Katan would write it off on his illness. “We spoke the vows down there.”

“And you meant them?”

“Would I have told you if I didn’t?”

She smiled at him, a spark of vicarious happiness in her hazel eyes. “It is binding as it stands, but you should repeat the ceremony in the presence of the Mandalorian people. You’re the first Nite Owl and Child of the Watch to marry in history, it’ll be good for morale.” Bo-Katan glanced backwards to the doorway, then at Paz. “You have a son now, Axe,” she said. “When you repeat your wedding vows, you will also speak the adoption vows.”

He nodded. He couldn’t say that he had spared many thoughts for Ragnar while below the surface, but those he had were bitter ones about a child who was about to lose his father. The realization that Ragnar now had two fathers was...to be honest, it gave Axe no end of joy, despite the worry that was already beginning to grow in him. He had never been the best with children, and he didn’t want to do wrong by Paz’s son.

“Ragnar is waiting outside. Do you want me to keep him out until Paz wakes up, or do you want to speak with him?”

Axe squared his shoulders, trying to ignore the slight increase in his heart rate that the monitor betrayed. “He’s going to be my son. I should start acting as his father now.”

Bo-Katan uncrossed her arms, pride in her eyes. The two of them hadn’t always gotten along, but as much as it annoyed them they were something like family. She left the room, and in her place sent in Ragnar.

He went to Paz’s bed immediately, and Axe saw in the way his small hands clenched that he wanted to shake his father until he woke up.

“Ragnar,” he said gently. “Ragnar, there’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

[yandere-wishes]

Back story about those two friends who got married!

So I got close to the mother back when we started going to college together and the three of us (the intp libra and myself ofc) would often go to class together. One day one of our friends told us that he had a crush on her we'll call him A. He started getting really kind of pushy with her and she always thought it was a little weird but she's kind of the quiet and shy type so we didn't know what her thoughts were. But, we were sure that she liked him back because she would often tease him and whatnot. She would often send him silly Snapchats too, his crush got really intense. She sent him a pic for two movie tickets (it was spiderman lol) and literally everyone thought she was trying to make him jealous or she was toying with him.

Turns out, the one watching the movie with her was her future hubby.

When we found that out, A blamed all of us for hyping him up. We all apologized because we really thought she liked him back but I tore into him because he was being a massive jerk and even started sending her dumb texts via Instagram and Whatsapp. Weird dude.

Those two dated and last summer they had a mini island 2 week vacation in Croatia. Few months later though, my INTP friend is sending me panicked messages that the entp girl, bride, whatever lol, wants to talk to her and it has to be face to face. She never does stuff like that so it was intense!

Next day, those two pulled me inside the bathroom and guess what - she was pregnant! I saw the ultrasound lmao.

They got engaged are got married. I did not attend that ceremony because they kept it very private, immediate family ONLY which I can respect.

Also, fun fact - one of our professors got married the exact same day!! He was literally outside room with his own bride, waiting for those two to be done LMAOOO that was funny. The professors bride was a former student of his. But that is a different can of worms ;)

okay, this is when you know you have succeeded in life. When your people start thinking your love life is straight from a 90's romance flick!! Girlie is out there living the best life IMO!!

Also, love that she and her future husband decided to go see Spiderman as their first movie together. Mad respect!! But honestly, A is super creepy and totally a Jerk. You can't blame anyone just cause someone you have a crush on likes someone else. Good Job tearing him a new one, that guy definitely needed to be put back in his place!! Like seriously dude chill!!

I'm laughing so hard at the image of a college professor waiting for one of his students to finish their ceremony so he can get married. 🤣🤣

Was the professor at least close in age with the student?? Regardless still feels very wrong 💀💀

[weaversong]

I just watched Nimona last night and I absolutely adored it so I'm just listing everything I loved because I can't make a formal thought post rn. It's a lot so click the magic button to see it

- The scene where the Director pulled out that thousand year old scroll to justify her murderous intent towards Nimona. And the way my first thought was "wait is this like the Bible or the Constitution?" because damn bigots have a habit of using centuries-outdated documents to persecute people

- The flashback with Gloreth and Nimona. Oh my god bro. I think there's a lot of ways you can see that scene but I saw it the lesbian way. And if you're lesbian you get what I'm saying. When you love a girl so much and you're like two peas in a pod with each other but then realize they never saw you the same way and you were never more than just a friend...

- The way Nimona never transformed into the monster depicted in all that art. The way that the village burned not because of her but the villagers surrounding her with torches. And this same thing happens later during Nimona's attempt; almost none of the damage to the city was caused by her but by everyone hurting her and destroying everything just to destroy her. Fuck bro

- Speaking of the attempt sequence, Nimona's shadowy form sounding completely and utterly human got me. How all the knights kept shooting at her is beyond me. Because you wouldn't expect to strike a giant shadow "monster" and its scream to be a little girl's scream. Her final scream in that scene right as she was at the sword's tip made me burst into tears

- There's a lot of things I like about Ballister but I need to make the joke about his big brown eyes real quick... great addition. Can't imagine looking at him and seeing queen-murdering thoughts behind those eyes

- The way Ballister was ready to pack it up and go the moment Nimona admitted how scared she was of the kingdom hurting her. The way he was ready to leave everything he ever knew behind just to protect this girl. Oh my god

- Ambrosius immediately deducing that the Ballister on the cameras was an imposter because he knows Bal hates freestyle jazz. Choked on my own spit

- Fucking RUPAUL voicing one of the commentators of the knighting ceremony

- Nimona herself being incredibly trans in every way possible is already made clear but I ADORE how she doesn't bend to make anyone comfortable. There's a real message here about cis queer people trying to be "the good ones" by putting down trans people who "make the community look bad", when at the end of the day, they hate us all and it doesn't stop at trans people. The way Nimona makes it clear that the kingdom doesn't hate her any more than they hate Ballister. Bal's desperate "be discreet" attitude eventually developing into "let's break stuff". No point in trying to appeal to bigots and he learned that lesson. A lot of y'all could learn from his development all I'm saying

- I really love all of Nimona's different forms but the ostrich made me laugh when I first saw it because I remembered the WikiHow article on how to survive an ostrich encounter and one of the strategies is just "dive into a thorn bush". I can't draw like that but artists if you need a silly prompt that's mine

- The propaganda. Oh my god the propaganda. Already kinda talked about this with Gloreth but Nimona's short monologue about how impressionable little kids think they're righteous for wiping out anyone "other" was chilling. Because she's right

- In the scene where Ballister and Nimona check their upload of the Director's confession, it's brief but you can see a comment that questions if it's some sort of deepfake. Now I know this movie was in development quite some years ago (hence the dancing shark scene) but that's a little too accurate to how common deepfakes have become since the rise of AI recently. Made me wonder how common deepfakes must be in this kingdom and who exactly utilizes them (definitely not the Institute for their propaganda...)

- The queen. She was cool and all for the 5 minutes she was alive onscreen and was genuinely trying to make progress but she just reminds me of real lawmakers. The "good ones" never stick around for long, unfortunately, and the ones who you think are on your side will ditch you if they need votes. How it's all a problem with the system itself, and one good person inside the system isn't going to change anything

- When Nimona said "metallllll" and she threw up the horns I got so happy. I'm a huge metalhead so anytime I see the horns done right I get happy. Remember it's WITHOUT the thumb sticking out!!!

- There's a certain song inclusion that really tugged at my metal heartstrings... but I wanna make a full post on that. Gonna do that right after I post this

- Lastly, this movie is BOLD. It's unflinching. Like its titular character, it doesn't CARE to make you comfortable. You WILL see these queer men express their love for each other in the opening scene. You WILL watch them kiss. You WILL watch Nimona act loud and defiant no matter how much stealth (pun NOT intended) a mission calls for. Truly some amazing stuff

That's all I got go watch this movie rn

[lampmanliveblogs]

Uncle Belos is unhappy with Hunter.

Hunter is surprisingly chill with Kikimora considering she did try to kill him. Then again his Unca Belo nearly stabbed him in the face and he barely moved, so maybe he’s used to it. I am now picturing Hunter constantly dodging Belos’ outbursts and Kikimora’s increasingly convoluted assassination attempts and find myself slightly amused by it.

Anyways, here’s Hunter’s room.

We see several thick books, papers, notes and maps. On the left, leaning against the corkboard are at least two wooden staffs. On the wall next to the bed there’s what looks like some newspaper clippings, a flask of some yellow liquid, a shelf with some wooden carvings. Notably, there’s what looks a bit like a giraffe and… some doll. Above the bed, there’s some kind of diploma from the Emperor’s Coven. On the bed under his pillow we find… another Amphibia reference?

Huh.

I swear, the theories I’m gonna be able to make linking these two shows once I get around to watching Amphibia are gonna be wild.

His window is open, so the bird palisman can fly in and leave us with a somewhat happy ending.

Called it

Well, ”happy” is maybe a too strong word to use, but, uh… it wasn’t all bad. There’s hope, as Hunter looks out through the window, perhaps glimpsing freedom lying there on the horizon. Be it that one day he can be that free, free as a bird.

And with the conclusion of episode six we now have a bit more context for this image in the ending, showing the Golden Guard beginning to remove his mask.

As per usual, here are some things I missed or didn’t talk about initially:

•First off, and I can’t believe I forgot to mention this but Amity’s new hair is in the opening. It is honestly baffling to me that I forgot to check for that specific detail considering how big a deal it was in the previous episode. Similarly, I also forgot to mention Eda’s new dress that she got in episode four showing up in the opening. Whoops. •During the palisman adoption ceremony, the little red bird tries to escape through a hole in the enclosure, but Principal Bump puts it back. This shows the little rascal has a rebellious nature and that it craves freedom. And then it decided to bond with Hunter. Hmmmm…. •One of the kids at the palisman adoption ceremony is Viney from The First Day. In that episode, she wanted to study Healing and Beast Keeping. In this episode, she says she wants to open a veterinary clinic for mystical pets, a combination of the two magics. •I really like Luz pajama pants. They’re cute. •In past episodes, Luz has carried with her a seemingly endless pile of glyph cards already drawn and ready to go. But in this episode, she left those at home, which forced her to use the environment, like drawing glyphs in dirt or on a leaf. It’s an interesting twist and shows off just how clever and resourceful Luz can be. •I didn’t acknowledge GG licking Luz’ hand because I couldn’t think of a funny joke to make. •Speaking of which, I don’t think I mentioned just how funny I thought some of Golden Guard and Luz’ interactions were before Hunter decided he had Feelings to talk about. •Some of the animation on the… hand dragon thing when Kikimora is riding it looks a bit… rough. I point this out mainly because this show has very good animation in general so I’m wondering what happened for those few seconds. •Hunter has a scar on the cheek and a chunk missing from one ear. Considering the way Belos lashed out towards him at the end… it might be his fault. •Hunter also has these really dark bags under his eyes. He look more sleep deprived than Alador.

Overall, this was a very enjoyable episode! It helped set up some internal emotional conflict for Luz and it gave some supporting characters their palismen. We got to learn more about the Golden Guard, even learning his name and seeing glimpses of the conflict underneath the mask. We got see some intrigue within the castle, with conflict among the ones closest to Emperor Belos, ensuring that his plans do not go smoothly. We learned what the Day of Unity will entail and that the Coven Heads are in on it (and will likely be important later on). We learned Belos is suffering from some form of condition that transforms him into an uncontrollable beast unless he consumes palismen. We got some nice action and problem solving by Luz and that she will eventually get a palisman all her own.

A lot happened in this episode, is what I’m trying to say.

I wanna talk a little bit about masks. Masks are a reoccurring motif with characters associated with the Empire.

Regular goons, the guards and foot soldiers of the Emperor’s Coven are always seen wearing their masks, showing the Emperor have complete control over them. Lilith in season one sometimes wore a mask, but would more often than not abandon it, showing that while she was under the influence of the Emperor, she was not completely under his control. Kikimora doesn’t wear a mask, but keeps part of her face covered, perhaps indicating that while she works for the Emperor, she is not under his total control; as we see in this episode, she takes initiative and even tries to kill the Golden Guard. And the Golden Guard himself appeared to be the perfect obedient servant of the Emperor. In episode one we saw him follow his orders without hesitation or question. However, once his mask is knocked off in this episode, we start seeing the real him, the person beneath the mask. We see the golden Guard open up and talk as Hunter.

Just a thing I thought about.

One last thing: I mentioned that i already knew Hunter’s name. I didn’t know this was the episode it was revealed or how though, so that still came as surprise. One interesting thing I noticed though. As I watched the episode, I referred to him as Golden Guard, GG or Brass Watchman. But once he started opening up to Luz, I nearly slipped up a few times and almost called him Hunter (even though I wasn’t supposed to know that yet). That really does say it all, doesn’t it? The Golden Guard is a persona, a front, mask. The real person, the one we got to meet today was Hunter.

There’s a whole bunch of other stuff i could talk about, like Hunter and Belos relationship with each other and whether they’re actually blood related. But i’m afraid that if I start going down that path, I won’t be able to stop and it’ll just result in an incomprehensible wall of text. So this is where I’ll leave it off for now.

Until next time, take care of the planet Earth and remember that anything can happen in space!

<--Previous Episode: Through the Looking Glass Ruins

Masterlist

Next Episode: Eda's Requiem-->

[jordanianprincesses]

Good night😇 I watched footage of Princess Rajwa at the baseball event and she was looking lovely as usual! I noticed she acted a bit "odd", there were moments were Hussein and the lady sitting next to her got clearly excited, they were shouting and even stood up from their seats, just normal game-watching behavior, but I noticed Rajwa was "froze" 😌, only smiles and claps. She became my favorite royal because she seems so natural and fun, but after today's videos, I realize she is too worried about looking pretty. 🤔 I mean this respectfully but her perfect behavior was like a caricature version of a princess, if that makes sense?🫠

She must feel a lot of pressure and having cameras around is probably not easy, but I wish nobody is asking for a "demure and perfect lady" behavior from her. 🙁 Hope we have a body language around that can give me a clue!🤭

Have a great week!

Good morning 🥰 hahah

I became Rajwa's fan when I've first seen her at Iman's henna , she was so authentic and cheerful and I liked her for that ( I was one of those who noticed how different and stressed she was at Iman's wedding ceremony though)

I honestly didn't watch Rajwa at the game, but I think there was so much pressure on her, she must indeed behave as a perfect lady now 🥲 She's supposed to pass under the radar , and not to grab any attention! Hopefully she's still that chill and fun girl behind closed doors ( am sure she is )

[lunar-insanity]

HOKAY

I ended up... spending a lot of time just making a ref for this new OC while continuing to flesh things out for him and his story.

So! Backstory behind this guy. A friend of mine is streaming Marvel’s Spiderman Remastered for me to watch him play. And I am loving it so far, it’s great, it’s gonna make me cry when we get to Otto xD

Anyway so for some reason, clips of No Way Home have been popping up in my youtube dash, and some time ago I remember a gifset featuring Otto and OG!Peter. And I wanted to find more bits of the scene and stuff...

So then I was inspired xD

I’d like to introduce you to

Wes Wheeler! Your friendly neighborhood, wheelchair bound, Spiderman! He’s best friends with Peter Parker, a journalist, and Harry Osborn, local rich boy trying to make Oscorp better than it is.

He also works with Anna Maria aaaaand //drum roooooooll//

Doctor Otto Octavius.

Y’all ready for more under the cut? Cause settle in, I got a lot to try and write cohesively.

Now I’m drawing from the game, and said friend’s suggestions, here since that is the... most amount of knowledge I have rn so bear with me as I stitch together different scenes that I liked and a character.

Also I liked Into The Spiderverse and multiverse stories in general.

So Wes! He’s a new computer engineer specializing in AI and programming, and works with Doc Otto after having started as an intern while still studying. It was Otto that first made the wheelchair for Wes!

He’s a chill, focused boi who loves his work with Otto. Good person (trust me, I am just... bad at describing his personality other than vibes)

One day he’s invited by Peter and Harry to some special event Peter is going to be covering, which has our wayward radioactive spider. Peter narrowly dodges getting bit, and instead Wes gets bit instead.

And bing bong bang

We have Spooderman

So Wes does his best to adapt to his new abilities and responsibilities as Spiderman. It first started out with him helping people out because he happened across them, and wanted to help since he could. Which then progressed into fighting villains. So he accidentally took on that responsibility.

And then the incident with Otto happens.

When Doc turns, it hits Wes hard, because those two were actually pretty close ever since Wes started interning for him. Otto wanted to help people like Wes and Anna in a world that wasn’t built for them. In this world, the arms were actually meant for WES.

But when the Doc’s funding was pulled by Norman Osborne, he got desperate. He needed SOMETHING to work so that they could get the funding to continue their work. So he tested the arms on himself... and things went haywire

(I have spent a long time coming up with my own explanation for what went wrong, believe me when I say I accidentally got really attached to Otto)

This is when responsibility REALLY clocks Wes in the head.

... At a very bad time because now is the starting point for a depressive spiral.

He’s the AI guy. He programmed the AI in those arms (He didn’t know it was for the arms, but it was AI for the prosthetics in general to connect to the brain). What happened?

He wants to figure out what happened, and fix it and help Doc, BUT! He can’t do it exactly without the current AI in those arms. He can make simulations and run those (and he has) and try to use those on Doc Ock (and he has) but they could never work (as they haven’t)

Harry and Peter do their best, with Harry recovering several chunks of tech his dad took from their lab (Harry is VERY pissed off with his dad, and blames him for what happened to Doc Otto), while Peter (and Anna, who discovers Wes is Spiderman after catching him passed out one late night in the now abandoned lab) provides emotional support.

But it then goes to hell in a hand basket.

(Shamelessly taking THIS from the video game because it is an excellent plot point)

Wes is with Peter again, attending some outdoor ceremony when spidey sense kicks in that there’s danger. But Wes is trapped in a crowd. He can’t move, he can’t quite see being so low compared to all the standing people, he’s stuck there as Wes.

He only has enough time to get Peter to the ground before the attack and he blacks out.

He wakes up at hospital, having to hear the news of what happened from Peter, who also (unfortunately) tells him that the readers have been flooding the line with questions as to where Spiderman was.

He was there. But he couldn’t do anything.

This just hits him harder. He can’t do everything alone. He’s only one person. What is he supposed to do?

So here is where he starts making the Drones and Spiderbot

So prior to the attack, Wes had been job hunting for a higher paying job because he kinda needs the money to continue his work to try and help Doc and also LIVE.

After the attack, ironically enough, he does get a job! It’s an emergency acceptance as they need another AI programmer for a game they’re behind on. But this added work just stresses Wes out even more!

He can’t help the city, work on a cure for Otto, and his day job all at once!

So he repurposes an armored suit (I will explain later trust me) and makes the Drones at first who can keep an eye on the city and handle smaller scale stuff, equipped with web bombs and their tiny size (and wings sometimes)

Then when the work gets harder, he makes Spiderbot. Spiderbot does the bigger stuff, like fighting villians n’stuff.

The workload gets lighter and the city is still safe. Win win! Right?

Well.. for everything EXCEPT Wes’ mind. Because when things finally ease up, he tries (admittedly half-heartedly cause depression) to get back into it with Spiderbot, He just... can’t.

The bot is better at this.

Better than him.

So Wes steps away from being Spiderman.

(I would like to add that Anna AND the Bot do not approve of this? But the Bot does what he’s told and Anna does her best)

6 months pass (from the Attack, a year after Otto becomes Ock) (note I have a poor sense of time and have no idea how long a time gap should be), life has gone on, when suddenly SHENANIGANS

MULTIVERSE SHENANIGANS (yes here’s the spiderverse shenanigans)

(Idk if it’ll be the actual spiderverse crew or other ones but basically-)

So at the back of all this, Norman has had a team working on a big ... dimension opening collider (probs not a collider but I just started calling it that) and the first few tests go... Not as planned? The targeting system is off so it accidentally pulls in other Spiders and sends them scattered around the city.

They all manage to get together by running into Peter, who then introduces them to Wes! They end up hanging around Wes and start to rekindle the fire in him (even though he’s still really reluctant, thinking the bot can do better)

Until a good chunk of his villains come out in full force, headed by Wes’ main villain (Other than Ock) (Said villain I have dubbed Mirror cause they’re... not quite a mirror character? more like a foil? but basically they’re similar to Wes) and are aiming for the Collider! The spiders try to fight, but then get hit with the celular decay which throws them off just long enough to get beaten and caught

And Wes, who is at this point desperately working with Spiderbot from afar to try and win, is not having a good time! Not at all. Because the bot gets defeated from, ironically, being the only one there. The bot tried but got beat bad.

So now it’s only him.

His phone buzzes with messages from Harry that SOMETHING is going down at some facility he just found out was there, and is basically calling for Wes, Peter, and Anna to come back him up on the grilling he’s gonna give his dad when he gets there.

Anna calls him about what’s going on and Wes panics cause there’s no way he can do this, he can’t do it on his own. To which Anna verbally smacks him and says he had Spiderbot, he had the other Spidermen, and he HAS them. Even if Harry and Pete don’t know, he’s always had them to fall back on. It’s Wes who now has to properly believe in himself, cause everyone else does.

He’s mulling this over after the call when the drones drag in the half busted Spiderbot and Wes helps the poor thing in all the way, trying to find all the repair tools he can. Finally the bot itself tells him that he can do this, he did all this after all, don’t give up now.

This finally kicks Wes in the ass and he gears up to head out, the Bot hanging onto the back of the wheel chair as the drones try to repair it.

And here he rediscovers the joy of being Spiderman. Because of all things, he missed swinging around the city, seeing the view from so high up. Because up here, not even the wheelchair is a burden.

And he’s honestly missed helping people, even if it was the small mundane things.

So Wes as Spiderman shows up to the Collider and the whole group that’s there (Harry, Peter, Anna, and now him) get the run down from Norman and the scientists about shit, and they find out that both the CONTROL PANEL and the EMERGENCY PANEL are INSIDE the open portal to the multiverse (because it’s open to the space between all the dimensions and not one specifically)

Harry gets Spiderbot up and running with some magical nanites (to his father’s chagrin) and Wes goes in to A: Find the other Spiders, B: Subdue the villains inside, and C: Shut the thing down cause it’s ripping up the world bit by bit.

Wes heads inside and finds that in this middle space, several things from other universes are being pulled out from their dimensions by Mirror at the very end of this strange train of buildings n shit with that control panel.

So Wes goes through, trying to stay unknown to the villians for as long as he can. He sends the Bot after the other Spiders while he makes his way to Mirror.

Things go as plan until the Spiders get caught up by 2 villians and Wes ends up facing Ock in a building above them. Wes manages to hold his own against Ock and pins his arms to the large glass window behind them with the spider bombs he had created, and all the other gear he had made when he went MIA from the city.

So he pins the arms and pulls Ock back away, driving back up this floor-now-wall to stretch the arms to the limit and hold Doc in place, right up to him. (the reason is to keep the arms from thrashing just long enough because now, he has a chance to try and extract the AI in those arms, which is what a drone is doing at that moment.)

He ends up having a (one-sided, but Wes needed to say this) talk with Ock about maybe feeling abandoned, he sure abandoned being Spiderman, but he hadn’t stopped trying to save Doc Otto. Because this really isn’t him, they-he were going to make things better dammit. So he isn’t going to stop trying to help Otto.

And, once the Drone is done, he releases Ock in order to send him crashing through the glass and into the battle that was GOING ON BELOW THEM and buy the spiders there some time to get the upper hand while Wes keeps going for Mirror.

More fight shenanigans, the other Spiders do get the upper hand and Bot sacrifices parts of himself to send the webbed up villains back towards the portal entrance and out of the space. The whole group then joins up with Wes, who is in battle with mirror, trying to get to the Control Panel.

They get the upper hand again with Wes’ different fighting style and actually break the control panel, which starts reversing all the stuff that Mirror did, and send Mirror ricocheting back towards the entrance.

The spiders find they’re also being called back home (along with all the stuff and buildings in this space) and bid Wes farewell as he takes on the task of shutting down the machine with the emergency panel cause THINGS HAVE BEEN GETTING KINDA CRAZY BACK HOME.

So they all head home, Wes reaches the emergency panel, hits shut off, and slingshots himself back through the portal in time before the machine shuts down and the portal closes.

Portal closed, day saved, Wes has renewed life in him, and the thing he’s been trying to get his hands on since Day 1: An extracted copy of the arms’ current AI.

Harry declares that he’s taking on this part of Oscorp (After all, he’s probably going to run this place someday, he might as well start learning now) but he swears to god if his dad has more dangerous world ending projects he is going to flip (spoilers, he does)

And this post is getting very long so I will.. summarize the rambling xDD

Wes starts work on the AI, goes to Harry with Anna to reveal himself and ask for help, they start work together, Peter’s work place gets infiltrated by a Spy, Mirror persuades Ock to work with them, at some point there’s a miscommunication and Mirror thinks that Spiderman and Harry have the thing she’s after

They break in, Wes has to choose between saving their prototype (big clunky thing rn) or saving Harry and Anna, chooses to save his friends, He and the bot branch off, saves the friends, villains get away, Harry absolutely lays into his father about what the hell was it that he was nearly KILLED over this time (Because the villains went to gloat at Norman)

Mirror opens the box, finds the prototype instead of the thing she was after, smashes it, shards get stuck in Ock (which actually help)

More shenanigans, Wes gets the shards out and they make a cure proper, Mirror gets the mcguffin, final fight, Spiderbot handles Mirror while Wes goes for Ock, manages to subdue him, gets the fix on //points to No Way Home// and THEN goes to deal with Mirror as Doc Otto reveals he actually was working on a counter mcguffin because no way do you trust Mirror completely. They go get the mcguffin counter as Wes fights, they get it to him, Wes gets crafty with a mannequin, wins the fight, day is saved- HOORAY WE WIN

...

Here you can read my more incoherent ramblings about this here, and you can see all the bits that influenced this.

I mixed up the two constants a bit actually. The two constants are that Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive spider, and they lost someone close to them.

In this case, the 2nd followed the first way later in the form of losing Doc Otto.

Anyway Imma put the rest of the art I got here (it’s just the suit and other bits) and talk about THOSE NOW

Wes’ suit! + Optional armor. The armor used to be part of a suit that was given to Wes (the origin and explanation for the suit is in that google doc) that was eventually turned into the drone, braces, and the arm guards. They all click and snap together and to him in different configurations. Like if Wes needed, he could potentially turn the hip armor into full on gloves (this is thanks to the tech already in the armor, he just reprogrammed them.)

And now, for Wes’ powers, some other stuff about Spiderbot, and the wheelchair.

The bite did biological changes to dear ol Wes. He can still climb stuff, he’s got more strength, and the Spideysense.

But also doesn’t need webshooters. Wes can generate his own silk, and a lot of it (He needs to use a lot of web). He just needs to drink more water a lot more often to keep it up. So he keeps water bottles on hand.

His freckles also ended up mimicking spider eyes, somewhat. They still look like three big spots under each eye, but they can function. So if he’s ever blinded, he can still SOMEWHAT see. It’s not perfect but can still do it.

The web he shoots also is very stretchy, allowing for Wes to use it like a slingshot ooooor make a battle yo-yo to hit with.

And of course, THE CHAIR

Wes’ wheelchair was at first made by Doc Otto sometime after Wes started working for him. When Wes became spiderman,  this thing needed a LOT of modifications, most of it coming from lab materials or Harry. He can now also use it to whack people around with it if he needs to, but more importantly, this thing can handle impacts, landings, and can drive up walls.

ANYWAY SO THAT’S WES PLEASE ENJOY SPOODER BOI I WORKED SO LONG ON HIM ;W;

[archangelmacaron]

NTMF College AU Chapter 2/3?

I will definitely neaten this up a bit with better separations once I post on Ao3, but I'm still trying to think of a good title, but hopefully soon!

-

It had taken nearly all of her willpower for Noel to not open the bottle of vodka she'd chosen on the way home in order to drink it hidden in the paper bag like some of the more dedicated alcoholics on campus. She almost wished she had when she heard heavy metal music blasting from the small second floor flat she rented with Jillian. She sighed, opening the door—unlocked again—and walked up the stairs to the second floor, opening that door—also unlocked, again—to greet her other roommate, Spica.

“Can you please turn that down—“ She was startled as the other woman actually did, turning to her with a wide eyed, wicked grin. “I heard you were caught threatening Professor Becker!” Spica looked absolutely delighted at the prospect. “A goody two shoes like you and a stony bitch like her? You gotta give me the deets.”

Noel frowned. She hadn't thought the news would have spread this quickly, but Spica did seem to have an uncanny way of knowing things that she shouldn't have.

She set her bags on the wobbly side table, careful to balance the alcohol in the center. “I did not threaten anyone. Professor Becker switched my finals recording with your boyfriend's, and I confronted her over it.”

“Oh? Why would she do a thing like that?” Spica fluttered her long eyelashes a moment.

Noel's eyes narrowed. She had a strange feeling that Spica knew exactly why she'd 'do a thing like that.' “Clearly, she wants him to be the ceremonial pianist this year, not me. Do you have any ideas as to why that might be?”

The shorter, tattooed woman shrugged. “Hmm, hard to say... but more importantly, what are you gonna do about it, Noel?”

Noel frowned. It was phrased more as a challenge than a question. Spica irritated her at best, but creeped her out deeply at worst—especially the way her eyes sometimes appeared to be pure black. Those eyes were currently watching her with an expression she couldn't quite read. “I'm not sure.”

“You should do something really unexpected,” Spica said encouragingly. “Like... I dunno, summoning a devil for revenge or something.”

She laughed, but Noel had a strange feeling the other woman wasn't joking.

“I'll keep that in mind,” she said dryly, turning to head towards her room. Spica caught her arm.

“Hey, I'm goin' out to Ribby's tonight, so you'll have the place all to yourself, especially if Jill has a really nice date.” Spica smiled, and it gave Noel chills again. “We just got more wood delivered for the fireplace, too, so feel free to light that up. Oh, and also feel free to step on my art project in the living room, it's all dry now. I'll clean it up tomorrow after I get some final photos, of course.”

“Sure,” Noel agreed, feeling a bit pleased that the messy red paint Spica had sworn was washable would finally be gone from their living room floor, although she had a suspicion that she was going to be the one to actually remove it. She headed into her room.

-

It was nearly midnight, and Noel Cerquetti was finally drunk—and drunk on a level she never had been before; not when she and Jillian had snuck a bottle of wine from her parents' basement in their last year of high school, and not at her first college party where she'd eaten several jello shots before realizing they were not simply cute snacks. This was a different kind of drunk—not a tipsy, giggly kind, but a gloomy, miserable kind.

She slumped into the old sofa glumly, taking another sip directly from the vodka bottle—she'd chosen not to wash a glass. It was Spica's turn for dishes, and she was stubbornly refusing to give in and do them herself this time—although she knew she begrudgingly would if she saw Jillian heading towards the pile. The only clean cups were the wine glasses, and she felt that if she were to pour vodka in one, her mother would magically teleport through time and space to appear before her and berate her endlessly for the crime.

So straight from the bottle it was. She felt a little satisfied with the minor, unseen rebellion as she sipped from it without a trace of class or her prestigious upbringing. The satisfaction quickly faded as she stared into the gently flickering fireplace, wondering what exactly she had expected to happen.

“I thought being drunk was supposed to be fun,” she said out loud to absolutely nobody. “This ish—ahem, is boring, and certainly not worth the pounds I spent on it. It does not even taste good...”

She yawned, setting the bottle on the wobbly side table and stretching. She could have done so many other things tonight—smarter things, like planning a strategy to deal with the mess she'd been shoved into, but she'd truly been counting on the alcohol to put her in a better mood, not a worse one. It was a harsh lesson that it had been Jillian's pleasant company that made the previous times joyful rather than anything she'd been drinking.

Something on the floor caught her eye, and she pulled a piece of paper out from underneath the couch—the couch that was partially on top of Spica's 'art project.' It had been cheap, but still heavy, and now that she had difficultly moving large objects by herself, she wasn't looking forward to moving it to clean. She'd already come to accept that it was definitely going to be her who removed the paint. Spica would conveniently forget, be busy, throw out her back, develop a soap allergy, et cetera, and Noel would be damned before she let Jillian suffer because of Spica's laziness.

She squinted at the paper. She couldn't read most of the writing. It seemed to be runes written in red ink. But there was a note in a different hand in English at the top of it. “Devil... summoning... circle...”

She looked down at the floor, then back at the paper, then down again. The art on the paper looked exactly like the art on her floor. A trace of fear passed through her—gone very quickly. She crumpled the paper up.

“Clearly, this is bullshit,” she said, delighting in allowing herself to actually curse out loud as she threw the paper towards the fire—missing direly. “Otherwise, I might have accidentally summoned something by merely sitting on this sofa. How does she keep getting away with such transgressive art? Devils are quite a touchy subject in Lhaplus...”

They were a personally touchy subject for her, now, too, seeing as she'd lost her chance at being the pianist cleansing devils from the city by playing the ritual music, and was instead being expelled from the music program entirely—which was what she had been drinking to forget. She sighed deeply at the reminder, pouting a bit.

How did things get so messed up? I didn't do anything wrong... I didn't cause this through being stubborn, or headstrong, or arrogant, or otherwise 'not what a noble lady should be'... I did nothing at all, and I'm still finding myself cursed!

I cannot imagine what motivations they could have for this. Professor Becker did not seem particularly fond of Ribellio—she does not seem fond of anyone except for Dean Burrows, and even that is more obsession than affection. And giving him a prestigious appointment that he is absolutely certain to mess up is hardly a kind action!

She looked back into the fire as she thought about the serious young man. He was rather aloof, but she suspected it had more to do with Spica's possessiveness than his own personality. She didn't like to think about it, but part of her also suspected that the scar on his forehead had been caused by her roommate. But he was a decent student, and didn't cause problems. She couldn't think of any reason the professors and Dean would want to humiliate him. She wrinkled her nose as she thought harder.

Could it have to do with the ceremony itself? Could they want it to go poorly? Why?

I don't know that we have many devils that need to be removed from Lhaplus, so I can't see its failure being particularly problematic. I would think the biggest issue would be the shame that would befall Dean Burrows and the College if the ceremony was not perfect.

“Well, it matters not.” She spoke aloud again as she gave up on contemplating the reasons why. She had told herself she'd decide what to do tomorrow, so there was no use pondering any more on it. She took another sip of vodka and glared up at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was almost midnight, and the worst day of her life (so far, she told herself cynically) was almost over. She yawned. “I believe it's recommended to throw up before going to sleep when one is so inebriated... how vulgar...”

She was preparing to stand up and walk to the bathroom when something unexpected happened.

Without any hint of warning, the speakers across the room began blaring Spica's favorite heavy metal music, causing Noel to immediately panic. They'd recently gotten their second noise violation, the third would be followed by a fine.

She shrieked in alarm, diving across the sofa to grab the remote from the wobbly side table. She needed to stand up to reach it; after a moment of struggling, she finally grabbed a plastic corner and slid it into her hand. As she lifted the remote, something rolled off the table and shattered on the floor. She hit the power button, silencing the music. Instead of letting out a sigh of relief she stopped, perfectly frozen.

She had a feeling like ice water had been thrown over her.

She knew she wasn't alone in the room anymore.

Noel looked at the table and realized whatever had shattered had not been the vodka bottle. It was still standing there neatly. She had no idea what it could have been.

She looked down, and realized Spica's art was glowing under her feet. “What on...”

She heard something—a footstep? and spun around, her jaw dropping at the tall, dark figure standing before her, backlit by the fire. It swept one arm across itself in an elegant bow.

“The Great Devil Caron, at your service.”

[decembermoonskz]

9, 11, 13, 17, 19 for seventeen :D! bc they are my favourite group after skz too so sjjsjsj

omg fellow stay carat!! 🤝👀✨ thanks for coming to play as well!! this got pretty long so i’ll throw it under the cut

9. Have they ever made you cry?

yes, several times actually HAHA the main instance i can think of is when i saw them in person for the first time at kcon 2019 in LA. before they even came on the performance unit did a special stage of highlight (which is one of my favorite songs fun fact) and i just broke down into tears. (my mom literally had to tell me to pull it together bc they weren’t even out yet and neither had skz yet so i was like crying and nodding saying i’d pull it together lol) the other two things i can think of are when i listen to smile flower or thanks, those two songs make me really emotional and i have such a deep connection to them but idr if i’ve cried bc of them or just got really emotional. 

11. What do you love about this group?

what’s not to love? i think i really love the chaotic family vibes they have tbh HAHA going seventeen is one of my go-to things to watch when i’m sad, it cheers me up immediately. i love that they all just know each other so well like wow thirteen people who have been with each other so long is wild to think about actually. i think i also love their promise rings as well and how they have ring changing ceremonies, it’s so intimate and such a great way to express their friendship and bond. i love them overall, they used to be my top group before skz and i’ve just loved watching them grow from when i began to stan them. that got deep real quick but yeah i love them.

13. Who would be your best friend and why?

woozi tbh or vernon or minghao. they’re all lowkey and it works with me being a little louder but then i can also be lowkey too so we’d just chill haha

17. Favorite look from your bias?

*evil laughter* words cannot express how much black hair looks good on both of my biases ehe. the short undercut woozi had during home era really is my favorite also the coat in the mv *chef’s kiss* also curly gyu kinda wins for me i always want them to do this with his hair HAHA

19. Favorite choreo?

omg the hardest question for seventeen HAHA that’s honestly almost impossible for me i love all of their choreo so i’ll just list a few that i can think of immediately

don’t wanna cry

boomboom

getting closer

good to me

home

our dawn is hotter than day

left & right

lilili yabbay

highlight

send me a kpop group and a number from this list here