#500 choices

[fieriframes]

[And the menu is also amped up with over 500 choices from all over the world. The queen smiled as she lay her head upon the pillow. How many people's this feed? Nobody leaves hungry in this place.]

[cyberpunkboytoy]

One thing I love about Alien Stage is how they're utilizing having two head animators, specifically their art styles.

Vivinos has a very youthful style, with characters generally looking very rounded with small, circular heads (for example). The team leans more into Vivinos's style during flashbacks of everyone as kids, but also notably in the videos for My Clematis, Unknown Til The End, and Black Sorrow.

When Mizi, Till, and Ivan all first debut on Alien Stage, they look youthful...but in subsequent rounds, the project shifts more into QMENG'S art style. That means longer, more angular faces, sharper features... and in combination with everything else, that more mature style makes the characters look like they have aged.

The events of participating in Alien Stage have changed them, and that is reinforced through the art Direction. Mizi in ROMH looks different than she did in My Clematis. Ivan and Till look different in Cure than they did in their initial rounds. They are different. Alien Stage has done that to them.

[smokestarrules]

it's been literal years since either of these episodes aired so I can't possibly be the only person to notice but like. this is an intentional parallel, right. it has to be.

[cillsmurph]

Cillian Murphy arriving at the Critics Choice Awards (Jan. 14th, 2024)

[kanjichris]

"why don't you want him to know how much you love him?" "that's a little personal. he knows." "uh-huh."

[skygenders]

Been through shit this year but you know what? At least I don’t have kids depending on me

[insufferablemod]

Kinda insane realizing that a lot of my favorite homestuck art that influenced me the most has like.. Way less notes then I thought... And these are from back when the fandom was Active which makes it even weirder

[batfambrainrotbeloved]

VERY LATE BUT HERE IT IS!!

As a celebration for 500 followers (now 665 jesus christ) im doing a ONE SHOT fic-since this is in celebration of my followers YOU get to pick which fic gets made (though if your pick doesnt win, some might be reused for a future milstone!!)

Related links!!

Drakes Spoiled Brat (my main fic)

Dick & Jason inspo

Bruce mentor post

Anyways now for the rambling

Seriously thank you all so so much- I started this summer already bored out of my mind being out of classes and away from home. But then I got into this fandom. I dont even remember HOW I got into it really- but I had never watched any of the series or anything.

The most experience I had w/ Batman was my grandpas figurine collection and the comics he would let me read as a kid though I never really understood what was going on.

But I learned through fanfiction first and foremost- i picked up on wtf the tower scene was, who was "Oracle" and Ra, and everyone else- and as I wanted to learn more I got into the series and comics themselves.

Ive been writing for years but never considered my stuff GOOD- I could put together a story but I struggled to connect you know?

Drakes spoiled brat?? I had never even heard of the trash count thing it was apparently based on- I stopped reading webtoon as soon as they started locking old finished series, let alone Manhwa.

But I went "Oh that sounds funny-" and the intro?? The champagne glass thing was actually written for a completely DIFFERENT one shot- but I reused it and just went ham. Now im almost 60k in with at least 100k more to go- and on top of that its something im PROUD to have written

I would have been thrilled having just a handful of people who read my shit- but for the outpouring love an support, seriously means the world so thank you <33

[tyresdeg]

pato o'ward | indy 500 open test 2024

[pearlcaddy]

lockwood & co appreciation week 💀 favorite minor character

Montagu Barnes

[dailybuffysummers]

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1997-2003) “Choices”

[imminent-danger-came]

Sun Wukong: "Enough! I've never let anyone dictate my destiny in the past, and I'm not about to start now! None of us are! We can't change who we were yesterday or in a past life or a hundred lifetimes ago! We live with the choices we've made, for what matters is the choices we make right now! Only we decide who we are and what we do with the power we have!" Curse MK: "Nice hero speech bud! But I know better—deep in your hearts, you don't believe a word of that."

(4x07 Pitiful Creatures)

-

Sandy: "There's parts of all of us we don't like! But it's always still us! You choose to be who you are, and then you work at it every day. The only one who can control you is you!"

(5x04 The Storm Within)

-

[smokestarrules]

babe wake up they’re soulmates 

(Original post here.)

[pcktknife]

it's not crazy of me to think that paimon n the traveler r absolutely insane for suggesting furina take part in a musical right

[visions--of--collisions]

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

EXCERPT: untitled vampire!hobie sequel fic • hobie/miles, drama, romance, angst, friendship, established relationship; rated: m

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Y’got it!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[TO BE CONTINUED]

[northern-passage]

i wrote a 500 word dynamic poem for neo-twiny jam :-)

i rewrote this in a few different ways with a handful of different drafts before settling on just doing a poem; this originally came from a full branching narrative i've had stewing for a while, and i might come back to it one day. but for now i enjoyed channeling that into this poem, which has also been very influenced by the fact that i've been writing hungry vampires for almost 2 months now.... it was also my first time messing with audio in twine, which ended up being way easier than i expected (i'm sure it helped that i only used one audio sample tho)

faith does contain sexual content, and while not super explicit, it is the main theme of the poem.

anyways hope you enjoy and check out the other entries here!