#Ana News beta

[younes-ben-amara]

أهمّ ما ينبغي عليك معرفته بصفتك صانع محتوى من أرقام تقرير كاجابي الأحدث [2024]

ما هذه المجموعة من المختارات تسألني؟ إنّها عددٌ من أعداد نشرة “صيد الشابكة” اِعرف أكثر عن النشرة هنا: ما هي نشرة “صيد الشابكة” ما مصادرها، وما غرضها؛ وما معنى الشابكة أصلًا؟! 🎣🌐هل تعرف ما هي صيد الشابكة وتطالعها بانتظام؟ اِدعم استمرارية النشرة بطرق شتى من هنا: 💲 طرق دعم نشرة صيد الشابكة. 🎣🌐 صيد الشابكة العدد #170 السلام عليكم؛ مرحبًا وبسم الله؛ بخصوص العنوان فهو ما سنبدأ به إن شاء الله. 🎣🌐 صيد…

[eclysia]

doing this to any fellow aevis rejuv ocs

[the-inkwell-variable]

Hi! I'm Kit, and my penname is Talia Wynters (she/they). I'm absolutely dying for people to interact with my stuff, and then I realized -- I don't have an introduction page! Let's fix that, shall we?

I write mainly horror, fantasy, and romance. I also write fluff, though I'm not very good at it - forgive me!

MY CURRENT WIPS ARE:

dauntless - - - horror novel, rated r

as a strange illness sweeps the nation, ashlee bennett finds herself quarantined in ground zero: bluegrass, kansas. can she escape the walls to untold dangers without? does she even want to?

priestess without honor - - - paranormal fantasy romance, rated pg-13

In the land of Tykra, werewolves cannot bear children. There are no female werewolves, and normal humans cannot survive the strain of carrying a pup. In desperation, the wolf clans turned to the Sisters of the Silver Thread, and a pact was made.

Astaria is a Sister reaching the end of the spell that allows her to carry pups. She hasn't been Chosen, and this will be her last Ceremony. If she isn't Chosen by the Alpha or his Beta today, she will be severed from magic forever and sent to be the Keeper of a small remote village.

Dom is the fresh Alpha of Thorny Claws, the largest pack in Tykra. He doesn't want to get married or to have pups, but the pack will evict him if he doesn't. Frustrated with his Fate, he arrives at the Sisters' castle to pick up his preselected mate, Aspen.

But Fate has other plans, and Aspen does not take kindly to being the second choice...

chosen without honor - - - mafia romance, rated pg-13

Lilly needs a job. Any job. She doesn't look back when a sketchy restaurant offers her a position as a waitress, even as it becomes increasingly clear that she's now working for the mafia. What she doesn't expect is to catch the eye of Lino, the don's son. What she expects even less is to find herself swept up in a torrid affair with him in the very restaurant that employs her. When she discovers his biggest secret, she is heartbroken. Will she turn her back on the man she loves most, or will she fight to reclaim what she has decided is hers and no other's?

the corpse and the killer - - - batman/train to busan fanfiction, rated r

𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘴����𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘰𝘸 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘥𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘧𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘵𝘰𝘹𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘳, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘦𝘷𝘢𝘤𝘶𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘺. 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘶𝘨𝘴, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘶𝘦'𝘴 𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘺, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘭 - 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘢 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘩𝘢𝘮 𝘬𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵. 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘢𝘺, 𝘣𝘢𝘵𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵. 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘥𝘣𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘵𝘰𝘹𝘪𝘤 𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘥, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘵𝘰𝘹𝘪𝘯 𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥. 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘯𝘦𝘸. 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘢𝘳 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥. 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘥. 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺'𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘶𝘯𝘨𝘳𝘺. 𝘩𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘶𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦.

MY CURRENT OC's!

kia marie flaye - - - rambunctious, stubborn, and a damn good mechanic, kia grew up on the streets of gotham city after being orphaned by two-face. she works for both penguin and black mask, bouncing between their odd jobs and strange demands. she doesn't care about batman, just like he doesn't care about her and her people in the slums.

ashlee bennett - - - after a failed college career and an even shorter marriage, ashlee was too exhausted to care that she needed to move back to bluegrass, kansas. she lives with her sister, ana, and ana's four children, and works at the clinic, where the doctor just so happens to be her boyfriend. but things are about to go absolutely sideways as a new disease sweeps through town, taking normal with it...

kira leonore - - - the last leonin of ycaea (and damn good at hiding it thanks to granny's little charm), kira is an ice mage that grew up in the wild untamed ruins of the former, forest-overgrown country of ycaea. she spends her life tending to the few villagers that remain scattered through the forests and running from the inquisitors that hunt witches like her.

tiatha y'l'nyx - - - tiatha was sold as a child to the inquisition of the topaz star, in exchange for the order to stay out of the drow lands. gregorious, the head of the order, experimented on her, twisting her body to its limits and torturing her until her mind snapped. now she serves as his right hand, overseeing the inquisitors' duties and searching for more mages to subjugate.

xaente marlowe - - - an inquisitor of the topaz star, she is quite happy with her lot in life. she gets to hunt the scum of the earth - mages who do not submit to the order's rule - and use her own intrinsic magical powers as she pleases. what more could a girl want?

neia silverthorne - - - a lord of the rings AU elf! a thousand years ago, she and 99 other children, including her older brother, were taken in a massive raid by dol guldur. she and six others were the only survivors - and as time crept steadily on, the others died as well. a hundred years ago, she was kidnapped - err, reclaimed by the elves and has been relearning how elven society works against her will. she's very cranky about this.

amara - - - i created her for legends of avantris's once upon a witchlight but i can't bring myself to interject her in their shenanigans even for my own amusement, so here you go! she is half-tiefling, half-drow - she looks like a drow, save for a long tail and curved gray horns. as a teenager, she accidentally killed a matron's daughter and was forced to flee to the surface, where she was taken in by a certain carnival as both a secretary and a smaller act. she is quite skilled with shadows and illusions. she cannot lie with her words to save her life, but she absolutely can cook the books and spread falsehoods through writing and illusion images.

astaria - - - astaria is a witch with seemingly no magic. she fully expected to be sent away to be a keeper of a random village on the outskirts of tykra, but it seems fate had other plans. now she is keeper to a werewolf/shifter pack and the shy wife of the alpha himself. she struggles with self esteem issues thanks to her lack of magic and is terrible at hiding it.

ask me any questions! send me ask games! please scoob i'm dying

[simonnebethel]

Writeblr Introduction

Just learned what a writeblr intro is so I'm gonna make one before I go to bed lol

I've already done something like this a few days ago but that was when I had no clue what I was doing lmao, so might as well make a more in depth one

About me:

20, she/her, bi

American

I write mostly fantasy and urban fantasy, and honestly i dont think i've ever written a story that was non-fantasy lol

Started writing when I was 10, but it was mostly Warrior Cats fanfiction on Wattpad lol. I went through a writing slump for most of highschool but last year I decided to get back into it since I'm not doing anything else lol

I like to read fantasy and classic lit, also anything with vampires. I also have a soft spot for slowburn romances where the main characters dont kiss until, like, the 4th book heehee

In love with anything gothic, vampire, and wlw 👩‍❤‍💋‍👩

I think one of my more niche interests is any early 2000s fantasy/sci-fi movie with a nu-metal/rock/alternative soundtrack like Queen of the Damned and The Crow. They are just...*chefs kiss*

My current stories:

A Chant for Blood (Formerly known as Account of Calamity)

Account of Calamity is a gothic victorian fantasy about a Grand Marshal, Karliah Helisende, and a blood-drinking fiend, Yorick Gwynplaine, who work together to investigate the mysterious portals that spawn dangerous creatures into the city of Isarnan, all the while Karliah is being haunted by the mysterious ancient temple that watches over her every move.

I'm currently working on the second draft, and I may start looking for beta readers once I'm finished, although I know I'm not far from finished with this novel. I also plan to make it a 4 or 5 book series, and slowly add a slowburn romance.

12/30/24 - Second draft has been finished!!

Looking for beta readers! Look here!

Our Demonic Hearts - The Craven Pact Series #1

Our Demonic Hearts is a urban fantasy about a cambion woman, Ana Kravens, haunted by her past. Taking place in a small Mississippi town, a man she went through a traumatic incident with, Beau Motloe, shows up on her doorstep one day with a deal; help him find his missing mother, and he'll give back the memories she lost during the traumatic incident. Her father, a demonic creature of unknown origin, wants nothing more than the Motloes dead, claiming that they were the very reason his daughter was almost killed 6 years ago. Ana goes against her father's wishes and accepts Beau's deal, suspecting that her father isn't telling the whole truth about that fatal night.

It is completed and available on Wattpad and Royal Road!! It was just a small project I had done for Nanowrimo, and has been edited at least once before being published. However, I plan to make it a trilogy and maybe have some spin-offs. This story is fairly new, but most of the characters are at least 5 years old and I love them very much <3

What I plan for 2024:

Finish the second draft of A Chant for Blood and look for beta readers(In the beta reader phase!) ✅

Start the second novel of The Craven Pact Series(Outline complete)

Write a short story/novella or two taking place within the A Chant for Blood universe. My brain is currently exploding with ideas rn ✅

Write a short story about Ana Kraven's mom and how she met Marchosias, Ana's father.

Plan something for Nano?? Idk where I'll be in November lol (Finish a project I started in february, which is To Hear a Lovebird!)

I'm interested in following other writers and reading everybody's stories! I would also be interested in a beta read/beta swap ^^

Other sites I'm on:

Wattpad: LillithOfBees

Royal Road: SimonneBethel

18+ Writing discord!!!

[kneelbeforeyourdogbabylon]

Sins of Knowledge chapter 12 is up!

oh yeah we're going to the club

Chapter 12: L[redacted] Potion Number 6: Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory

rated Explicit. See CW for new (spoilery) content warnings below for this chap!

As always but more than usual -- beta thanks to @gaiaseyes451 and @cheeseplants, you really went above and beyond for this chapter and I appreciate you both so much! ❤️❤️❤️❤️ Also tagging @goodomensafterdark like a good goblin! And thanks to all of you who are reading/enjoying this!

CW/TW:

SPOILERY (don't read these if you don't want to be spoiled): Dubcon and violence: Aziraphale has a dubcon kiss with someone pretending to be Crowley, is dosed with a new formula (and doesn't find out until after this chapter), and as a partial result of that, forces his way into the pretender's mind in an attempt to locate Crowley, while also physically restraining them. Also: subterfuge, angst, fear, mental torture, needles/injections, more experimentation on willing and unwilling participants, anger/rage.

Summary:

Aziraphale, Ana, and Newt resolve to keep the meeting at the club, where they find Crowley who is not Crowley. Az stretches himself too far both physically and emotionally trying to get information about the real Crowley from a Lanchester minion. Meanwhile, the real Crowley wakes up in a bad place, and it only gets worse.

Excerpt:

The pavement outside the club was pounding with a heavy beat and a weaving line of people dressed in varying levels of costume. Newt apparently knew the owner, so they got to sidestep the coterie of fairies, wizards, vampires, zombies, a hotdog, sexy lobster, a sexy nurse, sexy cricket bats, a whole line of sexy things in high heels and fishnets and lipstick. Aziraphale didn’t know why Ana had been so hot to get him out dancing. This was not his scene. Inside was worse. The beat and music increased tenfold, and Aziraphale’s eardrums ached before they’d gone ten feet. The people were packed in jostling, laughing, drinking knots. The lights were dizzying: a sudden shock of dim red directly inside the door, with neon flames lining the hall. And then as they stepped into the main ballroom, a jarring shift to glowing blue, red, purple, green, strobe. More lights rained down in sparkling sheets on the walls like water. Aziraphale shut his eyes, suddenly ill. What now? Where were they?

Read it at the AO3!

Or start from the beginning here

[teddiee]

Into Each Life: Chapter 8

Summary:

“Tiberius is there?”

Tony shivers, mind drifting involuntarily to his father’s protégé. “He’s dad’s shadow, Jarvis. He’s politicking with every rich geriatric in New York but somehow manages to keep eyes on me like a fucking sleeper agent.” Tony’s eyes dart to Patrick, braced dutifully in the doorway with his sight trained on the outside hallway. He drops his own voice to a whisper. "I only managed to slip away because I announced to half the ballroom that I had to use the little Omega’s room.”

“How did you manage to find a telephone? Ana told you to befriend waitstaff. Are you in the kitchens?”

Tony shuffles awkwardly from a crouch into a sitting position. He chances another glance at Patrick.

“I may have seduced a waiter.”

Jarvis doesn���t bother dignifying that with a response.

Words: 6,790

Two minutes into Tony Stark’s eighteenth birthday, he was swapping spit with a handsome, smooth-talking Alpha.

Twenty-two hours into Tony Stark’s birthday, he’s mere moments away from threatening a young Beta waiter with a champagne glass to the jugular.

“I don’t give a fuck what ‘society protocol’ is, and I don’t require a fucking chaperone to make a call. Lead me to the nearest telephone now, or I swear to god I will take this cup and shove it so far up your—”

The Beta waiter interrupts him with a squeak, a bead of sweat dripping from his temple as he casts a desperate glance in either direction. There’s no one around, of course. Tony had easily cornered the boy into a private hallway after downing two consecutive glasses of champagne from his tray and casting him a glance that was, perhaps, a bit more than suggestive.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, after all.

The Beta, no more than nineteen, had gulped audibly, nearly dropped his tray, and stumbled after Tony with the discretion of a newborn baby deer. Consequently, Tony only had minutes to threaten the location of the nearest parlor room out of this bumbling idiot before they were inevitably interrupted by a nosy gala chairman and dubbed the latest scandal of the season.

“S-sir, I’m sorry, but I really think that you should allow me to escort you back to the ballroom.”

Tony closes his eyes and takes a deep, calculated breath.

He is on a mission. He doesn’t have time for reckless homicide.

“Not really an option, Paul.”

“Patrick.”

“Whatever. In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t really have all day here, Patrick,” Tony hisses, and he knows his distress spikes the air when the waiter lets out a wince.

Tony takes a step back, doing his best impression of a man collected as he straightens his back and tilts up his chin. “Enough with the grandstanding. What’s your price, pal?”

It’s a cheap, last-ditch tactic, and Tony almost laughs sardonically when Patrick-Not-Paul’s bushy eyebrows shoot up to his sweaty hairline.

Momentarily, he almost feels like his father. Charming unassuming men into sleazy, back-alley deals under poorly disguised desperation.

“… I b-beg your pardon, sir?”

Tony rolls his eyes up to an dark, ornate wooden ceiling. He wants to unbutton his shirt collar. He wants to climb out the nearest window and sprint down Fifth Avenue.

He wants to be in Brooklyn. Preferably yesterday.

Sucking on his teeth, Tony digs into the pants pocket of his rich Italian suit and pulls out a wallet. He has one bill.

He curses his father, a few foreign deities, and Ulysses Simpson Grant.

Patrick-Not-Paul makes a choking sound when Tony dangles the crisp fifty in his face.

“Do you have a problem for our esteemed eighteenth president, Peter?”

“…Patrick.”

“Are you fucking with me right now, Patrick?”

Patrick’s eyes widen to the size of dinner plates. “No! No sir. That is awfully generous, sir.”

Tony smiles wryly, and tucks the money into Patrick’s uniform lapel. Patrick’s cheeks tinge pink. He smells faint, like most Betas do, but underneath the unobtrusive pheromones lies undertones of damp sweat and cheap cologne.

Omegas and Betas aren’t common pairings. Catching a trace of Patrick’s underwhelming aroma, Tony wonders if his mother ever finds herself yearning for compatibility that Tony’s father is biologically incapable of providing.

Tony’s only been separated from Bucky for a few short hours, and he already finds that there’s an itch to his skin that he knows won’t subside until he’s back in the presence of the Alpha. It probably doesn’t help that Bucky pushed Tony against the side of a building last night and sucked a faint bruise into the sensitive, pulsing scent gland at the base of his neck.

It’s been throbbing all day, a hot and constant reminder.

Tony takes a step back and adjusts his own tie. It scratches at tender skin.

“To the telephone, Patrick?”

“R-right this way, Mr. Stark.”

Tony gave Patrick more money than he’ll make in a month serving champagne at events for Manhattan’s high society, so he makes the Beta keep watch at the parlor door while he instructs the operator to connect him to the Jarvis’s private line.

He has to be quick. Howard will notice his absence, sooner than later.

Or someone else will. Tony shudders.

The telephone rings. And rings. Tony winds and the cord arounds his finger, and then unwinds it. Winds it again.

Finally, the receiver clicks. And then:

“Stark residence. Edwin Jarvis speaking.”

Tony could sing. He wants to kiss his faithful, dependable butler on the mouth.

“Jarvis.”

“Anthony.” Jarvis sounds alarmed. With sudden urgency, his voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. “You were supposed to call hours ago.”

Tony chokes down a desperate wail, his heart ricocheting off his ribcage. He clutches the telephone in both hands, voice thready as he crouches behind a gaudy velvet chaise.“God, Jarvis. I couldn’t get away from Howard. Or Stone.” He swallows audibly, and runs a hand through his hair. It was stiff with pomade when Tony left the house earlier in the evening, but after hours of nervous fidgeting, the strands are beginning to soften back into their natural curl.

His thoughts travel to Bucky’s hands weaving through his hair. Tugging. Running his fingers through his locks and angling Tony’s head to kiss him deeper.

He shakes the image away wildly.

Not the time.

“Tiberius is there?”

Tony shivers, mind drifting involuntarily to his father’s protégé. “He’s dad’s shadow, Jarvis. He’s politicking with every rich geriatric in New York but somehow manages to keep eyes on me like a fucking sleeper agent.” Tony’s eyes dart to Patrick, braced dutifully in the doorway with his sight trained on the outside hallway. He drops his own voice to a whisper. "I only managed to slip away because I announced to half the ballroom that I had to use the little Omega’s room.”

“How did you manage to find a telephone? Ana told you to befriend waitstaff. Are you in the kitchens?”

Tony shuffles awkwardly from a crouch into a sitting position. He chances another glance at Patrick.

“I may have seduced a waiter.”

Jarvis doesn’t bother dignifying that with a response.

Tony sighs.

“Keep your pants on, J, it was only to get the poor guy alone. I actually threatened him with bodily harm.” Another pause. “And then bribed him. Y’know, financially.”

Jarvis lets out a long, deep sigh over the receiver. Tony grimaces. “Oh, Anthony.”

“Jarvis,” Tony’s voice cracks in desperation, and he squeezes his eyes shut at the impending migraine threatening to explode behind his eyelids. “Jarvis, I need you and Ana to get me out of here.”

A glance at the ornate, gold-plated grandfather clock in Tony’s peripheral tells him that he’s already been missing for close to fifteen minutes. Any second now, and Howard’s goon squad will come bursting through the door to deliver Tony’s pomade-slicked head on a silver platter to a ninety-seven year old railroad tycoon.

It’s already been four hours, give or take, of Tony being shuffled around a garish, elaborate banquet hall by the scruff of his neck. Four hours of senators, oil barrens, and New York’s wealthiest (and sleaziest) moguls ogling Tony like he’s nothing more than a slab of meat, entertaining surface-level conversations with Tony’s father while they gawk openly at Tony’s flushed cheeks and red-bitten lips (a nervous, untimely habit), and make mental assessments of Tony’s fuckability under the guise of shoptalk.

“He’s gorgeous,” Representative Richard… Something? had husked out a mere twenty minutes ago, chairman of the United States Committee on Armed Forces and Howard’s latest pit stop on their torturous merry-go-round of corporate ass-kissing.

Tony - who had tuned out most of the evening, and had just started contemplating stealing a bottle opener off of a nearby serving platter to skewer between his ears - went rigid in his father’s grasp.

Howard’s hand tightened its grip on his shoulder.

A warning.

Representative Richard-Something was already several glasses of bubbly on his way to a slurred, public spectacle, and he had clearly gotten sick of Howard’s cordial attempt at negotiating private (and discrete) contracts for Stark weapons to be distributed at the front lines of Western Europe. His red, watery gaze was firmly on Tony, whose own eyes were burning holes into the marble floor. Waiting for it to swallow him whole.

“Happy birthday, gorgeous,” Bucky has murmured before he had taken Tony’s face in his hands like he was a fragile thing and kissed him like he was a man starved.

Tony ached.

“Eighteen yet?” The Representative grunted. He assessed Tony head-to-toe like one would evaluate a prized thoroughbred, and Tony wondered if he was going to be sick on his shoes. If his father would leave him as an unconscious, undignified heap on the floor, were he to pass out from mere mortification.

Howard, to his credit, and a testimony to the ease in which he navigated these sort of dirtbags on a daily basis, let out a good-natured chuckle.

“You always were the man willing to get straight to the point, Rich,” Howard grinned with an edge, teeth sharp and eyes calculating. “And here I thought we were having a nice conversation. My contractors are willing to negotiate - ”

“The longer you go without bonding them, the more trouble they are,” Richard interrupted, unfazed. Howard’s jaw snapped shut. “They become harder to tame. A slave to their burgeoning hormones and wiles, that’s what the experts are saying these days.”

Tony didn’t think he has ever seen his father stunned speechless.

Meanwhile, somewhere over his shoulder, Tiberius Stone loomed like a phantom. All night, Tony could sense his father’s trusted business partner’s presence like a distant apparition, something akin to cold water trickling down the length of his spine whenever he sensed ice blue irises boring into the back of his head.

Tony suppressed a tremor.

“You think I can’t handle my son, Rich?” Howard let out another laugh, this one purely forced and leeched of humor. “He’ll bond when I tell him to bond, obviously. He knows this.”

“And is he pure?”

Tony’s face blanched.

Jesus fucking christ.

Howard’s eyes narrowed to slits and his jaw clicked, his resolve finally slipping.

“What kind of Omega do you think I am raising?” Howard’s voice dropped to a whisper, his words dripping with venom. “He is untouched, and will remain so until he is bonded with his Alpha. I am not raising my son to be some sort of common tramp, Representative. He knows his place in society, as do I.”

Bucky’s thigh slanted between Tony’s. The outline of Bucky’s cock digging into Tony’s hip. Tony’s slick dampening his underwear, permeating the air, Bucky’s pupils dilating…

Tony bit his cheek hard enough to draw blood.

Under different circumstances, Tony might had enjoyed witnessing someone crack his father’s exterior facade; reducing the carefully composed Beta into the bitter, vitriolic fear monger Tony knew better than most.

But at this present moment, all Tony wanted to do was escape the drunk, fascinated leer of an aging congressman. He had been waiting all night for an opportunity to slip away, and he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“I can assure you, Representative, that my hormonal temptations are fully dormant,” Tony piped up, ignoring his father’s murder-stare. “No wiles to worry about here. Burgeoning or otherwise.”

Representative Richard-Something blinked at him.

“Now, look here, Omega -”

“ - If you gentlemen will excuse me, I’m afraid I must seek out the washroom. Too much champagne; I’m sure you understand, sir.”

Tony slithered out of Howard’s grasp before the Beta could throttle his neck with his bare hands, air trapped in his lungs and heart galloping in his ribs as he slipped into a crowd full of ball gowns and tuxedos.

Find a friend. Find a friend. Find a friend.

Across the ballroom and blessedly alone… Peter.

No.

Patrick?

Whatever.

Of course, Tony found that mindless charm and simple seduction came to him easier around just about anyone who wasn’t a particular stormy-eyed, pine-scented Alpha. Go figure.

“I’m just around the block, Tony. I’ve been circling the car for hours,” says Jarvis, yanking Tony back into the present. ”Did you really think I was going to leave you there, given everything?” He has the gall to sound offended.

Not for the first time, Tony is stunned into silence by his loyal companion.

"Give me, oh, ten minutes to meet you out front? Perhaps twelve. Midtown traffic is always a nightmare at this time. So many… ugh.” A car horn screams in the distance. “Taxis.”

Jarvis’s tinny voice reverberates from the brass receiver, but Tony’s overworked and overstimulated brain is too busy trying to calculate his next move.

Ten minutes. Only six hundred seconds. He can find a hiding spot and map out something resembling an escape route in ten minutes, he’s sure of it…

“Wait, Jarvis, is this not your private line? I don’t understand - ”

“Yes, well,” Jarvis clears his throat, and Tony realizes that if he listens closely, he can hear the faint sounds of city traffic travel through his end of the receiver. “Ana and I decided that it could be most beneficial to have our personal calls transferred to the company vehicle, in the case of such emergencies.”

Tony processes this for exactly six seconds.

“Edwin Jarvis, you fucking scoundrel, you jerry-rigged an operating telephone to dad’s car?” Tony can’t help as his tone quickly changes from a concealed whisper to a delighted cackle, and his voice carries to Patrick. The young waiter briefly perks his head up from the doorway in intrigue until Tony shoots his a scathing look that sends him withering back to his post.

And in the midst of everything, Tony can’t help but be momentarily, sickly envious of accomplishing a technological feat of any capacity.

He misses his father’s lab. He misses applying his brain to something other than Omega homework, or the daily navigations of his own complex emotions.

Tony knows that Jarvis spent time in the British Armed Forces. He knows that’s where Jarvis met Ana. He doesn’t know much else; he doesn’t ask, and Jarvis doesn’t divulge.

(Tony has always suspected espionage, of sorts. His butler is not to be reckoned with.)

“I will not confirm or deny any sort of accusations or speculation about such an invention existing within the confines of a proprietary vehicle.”

“Wicked.”

“I have also,” Jarvis is momentarily interrupted by another blaring car horn, and a string of curses that would send Mrs. Harrell into a coma. “Apologies. I have also, within a framework of primarily legal resources, managed to track down the address of a certain Brooklyn apartment.”

Tony freezes, his breath hitching in his chest.

“Do you - ” Tony shudders, sparing one last glance at Patrick. The Beta has his head poked out into the hallway, posture rigid, and something uneasy swirls in Tony’s gut.

He’s running out of time.

“You found them.” Tony whispers. He feels faint.

“Keep your trousers on, young sir. One of your friends is an enrolled student at a public Brooklyn art university. One simply needed to find his legal name, and search for a fitting description in the yellow pages. It was hardly a task respectable of espionage.” Jarvis’s posh tongue sounds uncharacteristically smug.

“You found them,” Tony repeats, stunned.

“Ten minutes, Anthony. I will meet you out front. Scale a balcony if you must, I know you are so fond of doing so.” Click.

Ten minutes.

Tony doesn’t make it one full step out of the parlor room doorway before his nose nearly smacks into the chest of an imposing obstacle.

To be fair, Patrick might have attempted to warn him. But Patrick was gone by the time Tony hung the telephone back onto the cradle, put his head between his knees, and gave himself the grace to take exactly three deep breaths to get his act together.

His idealistic, impractical plan to escape out of the grand foyer unnoticed explodes to dust in the form of Tiberius Stone - tall, present, and very, very close.

Also, alone.

Tony is never alone with Alphas.

Well.

Alright. Tony is usually never alone with Alphas.

It’s been a very complicated twenty-four hours.

Tony doesn’t yelp as his face comes in close contact with Tiberius Stone’s upper body, but it’s a close thing. The Alpha reaches out in the knick of time, bracing Tony by the biceps and saving the both of them from a collision.

His grip is too tight. It lingers too long.

“I dismissed your partner-in-crime. Perry, was it?” Tiberius asks lightly, taking a step back from the younger boy. He reaches into the breast pocket of his waistcoat and pulls out a pack of Luckies.

“Patrick,” Tony replies dumbly.

“Ah. Yes, Patrick.” Tiberius nods, a gesture of exaggerated interest. His long, slender fingers pluck out a lone cigarette.

Tony doesn’t move. He doesn’t breathe. He’s not even sure that he blinks.

“Did the two of you get lost, navigating the washroom together?” Tiberius returns the pack to his pocket and twirls the cigarette delicately between his fingers. His eyes are ice blue, full of mirth, and Tony feels like a caged animal. “Scandalous, the kind of talk that would follow two young boys tumbling out of a private room together.”

He peers over Tony suddenly, towering almost a full head the Omega’s own stature. The Alpha’s nostrils flare, an almost imperceptible thing, except Tony is so close that he also notices Tiberius’s pupils double in size.

He’s scenting him.

“Funny, you don’t smell like Beta cum,” Tiberius says, casual as anything. He sighs, a deep, full-bodied movement, and his gaze trails lazily towards Tony’s neck.

Tony’s scent gland is concealed under his suit collar, but the existing bruise throbs unpleasantly under the curious leer of another Alpha.

“I needed to borrow a telephone. After the washroom,” Tony says, willing his voice not to waver. He clears his throat, dropping Tiberius’s gaze and taking a small step back. He tilts his head, just barely, but enough to pull attention away from his gland. “I, uh. I needed to call a classmate. She had a question about a homework assignment.”

Tiberius quirks a blonde brow.

“On a Friday evening?"

Tony doesn’t rise to the bait.

“I’m a good student.”

Tiberius’s calculating eyes travel slowly from Tony’s face to his throat. Expression vacant, movements bored. Unabashed.

“I bet.”

Tony flushes.

He’s cornered, and he knows it. For as long as Tiberius has been in Howard’s life - flying under the radar in contrast to Howard’s widely public persona, signing contracts in hushed whispers behind closed doors, floating money for his father under crooked tables - Tony has never once felt at ease in the presence of the enigmatic Alpha.

Howard, never being one to enjoy a challenge - personal or professional - surrounded himself with fellow Beta employers at Stark Industries.

Alpha interactions were limited to external negotiations. Contractors, investors, lobbyists and the like; inevitable dealings within the world that Howard Stark operated in. Howard never liked feeling like the smallest man in the room, so he doled out his authority toward the things that he could control within the confines of his own empire.

Stark Industries: A kingdom of Betas, with Howard Stark as their fragile monarch.

Tony doesn’t know when, or how, Tiberius was able to worm his way under his father’s thumb. How an Alpha was able to earn the trust of the most insecure Beta in Manhattan, and prove himself a worthy underling.

Tony thinks that Tiberius is the son he always wished he had.

Or the man Howard himself always believed he was cheated out of becoming.

Growing up, Tiberius’s presence in the mansion was a constant thing. He attached himself to  Howard like a silhouette, and for half of Tony’s life, Tiberius Stone has existed as an extension of his father.

It wasn’t until Tony presented that he started feeling the searing penetration of the Alpha’s gaze following him around every shared room, every joined dinner, every brief moment Howard required their simultaneous presence.

It wasn’t often. Howard has limited use for Tony these days, and Tony doesn’t live at home most of the time anyway.

He forgets, mostly. He goes months without encountering Tiberius.

He forgets, of course, until he doesn’t.

“I needed a bit of fresh air. One can only discuss the upcoming state election for so long before they require a cigarette break, I suppose,” Tiberius says, redirecting the conversation.

Tony is pretty much certain that none of the whispering Tiberius has done into the ears of New York’s most rich and influential tonight has anything to do with the gubernatorial race. 

But, alas.

Tiberius pivots on his heel and turns back down the hall. He doesn’t break his stride or turn back towards Tony as he calls out, “Join me for a smoke, Omega?”

It’s not a suggestion.

Ten minutes.

Tony fidgets. His feet stay stuck in place.

“I should find my dad, before he comes looking for me,” Tony suggests, even though he knows it’s a lost cause. His heart is hammering, and he wonders if Tiberius can hear it.

“Five minutes,” Tiberius lobbies back. “Come, I’m sure you’ll want to discuss the logistics of your inevitable bonding.”

In the end, they find a balcony.

Propped up against the railing, perched on his forearms to draw his mouth near his lighter, the cuff of Tiberius’s right sleeve edges past his wrist. A bite mark peeks out. Black. Twisted. Rotted.

A prematurely broken bond.

Dread twists in Tony’s gut, acrid and pungent. He looks away.

If Tiberius can smell his unease, he makes no mention of it.

“How’s school?” He asks instead, after a few moments of uncomfortable (one-sided) silence. He takes a deep inhale, chin tilted towards the sky. His long, pale neck is practically translucent in the reflection of the moonlight.

When he exhales, smoke curls around his lips and blends in with the sharp punch of his pheromones.

Tony has never been close enough to the older Alpha to dial in on his scent. Tonight, in such near proximity, it’s an unavoidable curse. 

All Alphas scent strong to Tony. It’s biological. Even the old geezers inside, though muted with age and a general diminishing libido, release pheromones that appeal to Tony’s genetic makeup.

During the height of his heat, he would hypothetically crave any random Alpha’s knot over a physical connection with the most dashing, intimately familiar Beta.

It’s why every Alpha in this building feels entitled to fuck him.

Tiberius is not old. Not compared to the median population of current gala attendees, anyway. Tony supposes he’s roughly twenty-eight, give or take a year. He’s a tall, objectively handsome Alpha in peak physical condition at the prime of his adulthood.

His pheromones cling to Tony like a vice.

He smells earthy, and abrasive, and loud. Like the tense, fraught pause in a terrible storm between bursts of thunder.

It makes Tony’s blood sing and his skin crawl, concurrently.

When Tony says nothing, he sighs, rotating his body so that his back presses against the railing. He holds the cigarette out as an offering.

“Relax, Omega.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Tiberius laughs; a harsh, terrible sound.

“There’s no use denying what you are, Tony. The world will never let you forget it.”

“Thanks for the pep talk, Socrates. Is that your mantra for coasting through life as Howard’s bitch?”

Tiberius’s eyes narrow. He withdraws the cigarette. Tony expects a slap in the face, but instead, he gets, “Do you speak to your Alpha like this?”

He stills. His fingers spasm around their grip on the balcony rail.

“I don’t have an Alpha,” he says through gritted teeth.

Tiberius hums.

“No, I suppose you don’t.”

“What do you want, Stone?” Tony whirls around, and he’s angry. He’s wasting time, and after the events of the night, he feels strung tight enough to snap. “Are you trying to blackmail me? Scare me with threats of telling Daddy that I was hiding in the broom closet with some Beta schoolboy?” Tony laughs, though it’s closer to a sob, and he yanks a hand through his hair so he doesn’t accidentally lay a punch right into Tiberius’s razor sharp jaw line. “Go right ahead, asshole. You might ruin my reputation, but not my fate. I’m fucked either way.”

Tiberius scoffs, dismissing Tony’s outburst.

“You’re such a child. I forget, sometimes, looking the way that you do,” Tiberius muses, and Tony might push him off the balcony.

“Says the evil henchman.”

“Grow up, Anthony,” Tiberius snaps, and Tony recoils. "You’re too self-involved to perceive the reality that’s laid out before you. Aren’t you supposed to be a genius, Omega?”

He pushes off the balcony and crowds into Tony’s air. He presses the younger boy’s back up against the metal railing. Tony’s brain fogs with the sudden, abrupt display of dominance, pheromones curling into his nostrils.

“It’s my eighteenth birthday. My reality is somewhere in that room, sucking up to my father.” Tony’s tongue feels fuzzy in his mouth. He hates this.

“You may be an idiot, but your father is not. He is never going to bond you with someone whose expiration date is several decades closer than his own. It would be a foolish waste of time, given your worth.”

“What the fuck are you going on about?” Tony fires back, appalled. “Why the hell would I even be here, if not for the fact that my father needs to auction me off like a prized pig? I’m an Omega, I’m male. I’m tied to a multi-billion dollar empire. There’s nothing else for me. Howard has made that very clear.”

“Howard will do what’s best for his company, what’s best for him.” Tiberius looks at him with disdain, the way a tired mother does when she scolds a misbehaved child. “Do you really think that Howard Stark will find long-term security in a match between you and some senator, whose remaining days in Congress, therefore his influence, are limited? Or an aging aristocrat, whose entire fortune will ultimately pass through to an oldest son?”

Somewhere, undetectable, the universe shifts minutely on its axis.

Tony stares up at Tiberius, eyes wide, mouth slack.

“You, Anthony Stark, are much more valuable than you even know,” Tiberius voice drops into a whisper. His words slither down Tony’s spine like poison. “Yes, you are an Omega. Yes, you are male. You will breed no heirs. You will secure no inheritance.” He steps even closer, ice eyes burning. Tony’s back curves over the rail, chest-to-chest with Tiberius Stone. He can feel the Alpha’s heartbeat. He feels sickly, achingly dizzy.

His skin buzzes for a different touch. Yearns for it, like a drug. Everything else burns like betrayal.

“But you are young. You are… untouched. You are absolutely fucking delectable.” Tiberius’s left hand comes up to cup Tony’s jaw, the pad of his thumb tracing his cheekbone. His palm is ice cold. Tony flinches.

Tiberius’s breath wafts across Tony’s face, and Tony’s insides twist.

“Any man in that room with half a functioning cock would sign their life away to Howard for the opportunity to bond you, keep you, and stick their knot in you for the next decade.”

Tony squeezes his eyes shut.

“Stark Industries requires more than a decade. Howard is a selfish bastard, but he is no fool. Whatever ideas he has been planting in your head about your upcoming match, he has been deceiving you.”

When Tony speaks, he can’t summon more than a whisper.

“Tiberius… what do you know that I don’t?”

Tiberius doesn’t say anything, at first. He just looks at Tony, unimpressed yet contemplative. Restrained, yet hungry.

The hand cupping Tony’s face travels down to grip at his jaw, tight. Locking him in place. His other hand comes up, and Tony spots a flash of blackened, broken skin before his fingers are pulling Tony’s collar to the side. Revealing his bruised, worried scent gland.

Tiberius presses his thumb into the gland, molds it into the mark left by the shape of Bucky’s mouth, and Tony’s knees buckle. He screws his eyes shut when tears start to burn. It feels wrong, and it hurts.

Twice, in the span of twenty-four hours, he finds himself exposed. At the mercy of an Alpha.

The second experience certainly hasn’t been anything to write in his diary about.

“I broke my first bond,” Tiberius states simply, like he’s commenting on the weather and not speaking a dangerous, abhorrent rumor into existence. “She didn’t mean anything to me. It was a match created by our parents when we were both in grade school. She was a silly, pretty little thing.” His fingers tighten on Tony’s jaw and Tony’s muscles coil with unrestrained wrath. “She loved me, I presume. Until she didn’t. By then, it didn’t matter. She was in my way.”

Tony’s gut churns. It’s a savage, malicious thing, to break a mating bond prematurely. Mating bonds are delicate, powerful manifestations of two physical entities. The individuals become biologically hardwired to depend on one another. To exist as one.

To break one requires severing your soul. At least, that’s what Tony’s orthodox teachers have always warned. The subject is too taboo to discuss in depth. There are hardly any texts.

Tony doesn’t believe in souls, necessarily.

But if they existed, he wouldn’t doubt that whatever was left of Tiberius’s resembled something that had journeyed through a paper shredder.

“I never should have let her bite me, but we were teenagers. We thought it would be progressive. A show of collaboration, if you will.” Tiberius smiles, all teeth and no charm. Wrist mating bites for Alphas are more symbolic than anything, after all. Only a bite to the Omega’s mating gland is necessary to secure the bond.

“Either way, I’m branded now. A reminder to myself, and everyone else, of my unfortunate… transgressions.”

Tiberius leans down and inspects Tony’s gland. The Alpha’s breath caresses the spot where another Alpha lay claim mere hours ago. Tony wants to spit on him.

“The point, Tony, is that we are both outcasts. Societal rejects, if you will. Damned by the public because of fates beyond our control.”

If Tony’s jaw wasn’t currently secure in the mitts of his father’s lackey, he might laugh.

“I think our circumstances might be a little different here, Alpha,” he scoffs, speech garbled. He attempts to tug out of Tiberius’s grip. “I was born like this. You were born into privilege, and you set it on fire. You destined yourself to a life of exile here, pal.”

Tiberius slackens his grip, but before Tony can yank himself away, he grips the Omega by the neck. Tony’s vision goes soft and his knees wobble.

“I would stuff this smart mouth full of my cock day and night to keep your loose tongue quiet, you insolent creature.” Tiberius’s words whip at Tony’s skin.

“Fuck off,” Tony slurs, exhausted by this entire ordeal.

God, he knows it’s been way more than ten minutes.

“You would do right to consider me an ally, Stark,” Tiberius warns. His thumbnail digs into Tony’s gland, and Tony snarls. Thrashes like a wild animal.

“Your father trusts me. He confides in me. My guidance is priceless to him.”

“You think my dad will bond me to you?” Tony laughs to hide the crippling, paralyzing realization that creeps into his bones. “His glorified manservant? My father operates a business that functions at the level of a world power. You are nothing.”

“Your father owes everything to me, and he knows it,” Stone growls. “I am more valuable to him than every man in that room, ten times over. I walk away, and S.I. crumbles.”

He releases Tony, and the Omega stumbles out of his grip, finding purchasing on the railing behind him. Both of their chests heave.

Tony swallows. His jaw aches. His scent gland throbs, and not in a pleasant way. His skin feels hot, his chest heavy, his resolve weak.

Still, he speaks first.

“Well. As positively delightful as this has all been, I’m sorry to say that my butler is waiting for me outside.” He tugs his suit jacket back into place.

Tiberius sneers at him.

“Run to your Alpha, young Anthony. Lord knows you should make the most of this pathetic affair before your father burns it to ash.”

Tony pales.

“I don’t - ”

“And know, sweet Omega, that when you fall into his arms tonight,” Tiberius words are a soft murmur as he leans forward to an immobilized Tony, once more, to stroke the young boy’s cheek. “I will be the first thing he smells.”

With that, Tiberius Stone withdraws his hand, stubs out his performative cigarette, and leaves Tony alone on the balcony.

It’s not hard to find Jarvis, after that.

No one impedes his departure. Howard is nowhere to be found.

That’s a problem for another night.

Wordlessly, Tony descends the front steps of the hotel and slips into the front passenger seat of his father’s Rolls Royce.

Jarvis casts him a peripheral glance, sighs, and pulls out into Fifth Avenue traffic.

Neither of them speak for twenty minutes. The radio croons Bing Crosby. Tony’s forehead is plastered to passenger window. He breathes condensation onto the glass. Inhales it back in. Repeats.

Jarvis casts him another glance.

Eventually:

“You made it out in one piece, it appears.”

Tony snorts. “Barely.”

“Any respectable suitors?”

Tony smiles, despite himself. He presses his cheek to the cool glass.

“Depends; are liver spots the new fashion?”

“Liver spots and cataracts, I believe, are what the magazines are pushing.”

“Well thank fuck,” Tony mumbles. He shuts his eyes. “I guess you can say that I found the Garden of Eden.”

Jarvis is smiling now, too, a subtle thing, and Tony loves him. He loves him unconditionally.

“Jarvis,” he says. “Jarvis, they don’t know I’m coming.”

“Who, Tony?”

“Bucky. And Steve. They don’t know. I didn’t tell them. I didn’t - they might not want me.”

Jarvis hums, and turns down the radio dial. Tony turns away, focusing his attention back out the window. He feels like a coward.

“These men, they care about you?”

Tony’s eyes burn. He’s tired. He’s so, so tired.

He’s only been eighteen for one day and he’s so very tired.

“I mean, I think so. They’re friends.”

“Friends, like we’re friends?”

Because Jarvis is his friend. Jarvis is his best friend.

“Well… yes. And No. Both.” Tony rubs at his eyes, and is mortified to find that his knuckles come away damp. “Neither? I don’t know.”

“Tony, look at me.”

Tony blinks up at the roof of the car. He sniffles, a little. He feels small, and vulnerable, and his jaw still aches.

“Anthony.”

“Edwin.”

“I will stop this car and make you walk across the bridge.”

He won’t, and they both know it, but Tony looks at him anyway.

“Tony, if these boys feel for you even a fraction of the care I feel for, and that Ana feels for you, they will want you.”

Tony’s a near-blubbering mess, but he does his best to tamper it.

“It’s different, J,” he says softly.

Jarvis is quiet for a moment. And then:

“Both?”

Tony blinks.

“No. Not… both.” He clears his throat awkwardly. “Not like that.”

Jarvis nods, contemplative.

“I would not be driving you here, and Ana would not be letting me drive you here, if we didn’t trust your intuition.” He gives Tony a pointed look - no pity, no sadness, just trust.

And gee, Tony finds himself without a quick retort for once.

“Okay,” he whispers. He twists his fingers in his lap.

“Okay,” Jarvis agrees. And then, “And if you’re truly that miserable, or they make you sleep on the floor, and the cooking is terrible, I am only a phone call away.”

And Tony does not let himself entertain the idea of sleeping arrangements.

Because there is still a chance that the Alphas will see the Omega show up on their doorstep in the middle of the night, broken and weak, and slam the door in his face.

“When you fall into his arms tonight, I will be the first thing he smells.”

Bucky may have wanted him last night, but who’s to say that the Alpha will want anything to do with a boy who found himself in close proximity with a different Alpha, not even twenty-four hours later?

There is still a faint buzz to Tony’s skin - the same thrum in his veins that has pulsed since Bucky last kissed him goodnight. An anticipation; a current drawing him back towards the young soldier.

But now, all Tony wishes is that he could scrub his skin raw. That he could erase the presence of Tiberius Stone from his body forever.

“You don’t suppose we could stop home for a quick bath, huh, J?” He aims for the delivery to land like a joke.

It falls flat.

Jarvis gives him a strange look.

“Did you spill something on yourself?”

Tony bites the inside of his cheek.

“Sir, we are less than five minutes from your acquaintances’ apartment. I’m sure that there are adequate accommodations for you to bathe, if you so desire.”

Tony’s cheeks bloom pink.

“And,” Jarvis continues, tone hinging on delicate. “Perhaps some ice for your jaw, if you have the time. To prevent swelling.”

Fucking Tiberius.

Tony nearly panics, but it resolves itself quickly when he realizes that Jarvis can’t smell anything suspicious. It’s more likely than not that the Beta simply assumes that Howards got a little handsy.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Is it bad?” He asks, voice flat.

“To the untrained eye, it’s hardly noticeable. Perfectly explainable.” Usually so reserved, there is something inexplicably sad in Jarvis’s careful reassurance.

Tony thinks back to the last time Bucky caught him with a bruised face. How he explained himself into the gutter, metaphorically speaking.

“Great,” he says instead.

Jarvis eventually pulls down a quiet Brooklyn street. He parks the car across from a narrow tenement building, red-bricked and unassuming and modest. A fire escape scales the exterior.

Tony swallows.

“I’m not sure which - ”

“Their apartment is second from the top, on the left. Four flights up.”

Tony regards his butler with careful suspicion.  

“The yellow pages, huh?”

Jarvis shrugs, posh as always. “I did specify ‘primarily’ legal resources, did I not?”

Tony squints. “Do I want to know?”

“I wouldn’t tell you either way,” Jarvis dismisses, and the reality of the situation sets in when Tony’s heart leaps into his throat.

“I can’t do this, J. This is nuts. What if they’re not even home?”

“They’re home.”

Alright, then.

“Give yourself a weekend of grace, sir. You’ve had a long day. Find comfort with friends.”

“And when I come back?”

Jarvis reaches over Tony’s shoulder to unlock the passenger door. Tony fidgets in his seat.

“And when you come back, we will navigate accordingly.”

“Reassuring.”

“Do you want me to escort you like a child, or are you capable of climbing stairs on your own?”

Tony imagines knocking on Bucky and Steve’s bedroom window with his thoroughly pretentious butler in tow. He snorts.

“I’m sure I’ll manage.” And then, quieter: “Will you stay until I get inside?”

“As if I would leave you on this street alone.”

“Snob.”

“Out.”

Tony’s stalling, probably, but he reaches for the door handle and pushes it open, welcoming in the late Spring breeze.

“Jarvis? Thank you.” He should say more. He can’t.

Jarvis, of course, understands. He leans over and gives Tony’s shoulder a small squeeze.

“Be safe, Anthony. Happy birthday.”

Tony does not cry.

Instead, he nods.

He exits the car.

He crosses the street.

He navigates a chipped, rusty fire escape with the grace and dexterity of a drunk toddler. His heart pounds in his ears. His palms are slick as they grip the railing.

He climbs four flights, and finds himself facing a large window. The curtains are drawn, but too dark to peer inside. He turns around to look at Jarvis.

His butler flashes the Rolls Royce high beams twice in encouragement.

Rip the bandaid off, Stark.

God, Tony feels rude, more than anything. It’s the middle of the fucking night.

He rolls his shoulders and lifts a fist to knock, running his desperate, rehearsed plea through his head in preparation when the wide window suddenly opens and he finds himself face-to-face with a brunette, sleep-rumpled Alpha.

Bucky blinks.

“Tony?”

Tony blinks. And then:

“I guess we should really stop meeting like this.”

[dutchessofcaladan]

Ghostbusters: Soul Resurgence

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5! I'm back! Dan Aykroyd's birthday has revived my love for Ghostbusters so I decided it would be good continue this fic. As always, hope you guys enjoy and a big thank you to @phantomoftheparadise0002 for beta-reading this!

Summary: When the spirit of Sumerian sorceress Ahassunu, daughter of Vigo, possesses Alexis, the Ghostbusters must band together to determine the fate of the world

Translation for Sumerian: Seh...wam ana su.

You...care for her.

Arammu...inu ina naru mita summ daku lam sasm...ma asru.

Love...is the little death that kills us slowly...and painfully.

“So, you're telling me that you want me to basically scrap the PSD entirely in favor of building a canon to spray a psychoreactive slime that you guys collected from under the streets of New York back in 1989 after we give it a positive charge by playing Jackie Wilson?” Lars asked, attempting to understand the plan Ray had just explained to him.

“Yes.” Ray nodded.

“I love it.” The younger man smiled, clasping his hands together. “We'll get straight to work.”

After a few days, the canons were ready. Meeting at the Firehouse, Ray explained the rest of the plan.

“We'll use these the same way we did on Vigo. With enough luck, this stuff will separate the spirit from Alex.”

“How do we know this stuff is even going to work?” Phoebe questioned. “So far, there hasn't been any indication of a link between this spirit and Vigo.”

“All we can do is hope, my dear.” Ray responded.

“Ma me nekel, ma su petu inu sessu kunkkum, ma annitu, rabum girabum. Ma ina utu emu salmu kima labasu, ma ina nanna emu kima saleme. Ma ina tamtu samsum isatum ma ina elenu maqatu.”

As the ritual finished, Alex groaned, hearing the siren of the Ecto-1 echo down the street. Turning as the door slammed shut, she smirked at Ray.

“Raymond.” She sighed, her voice distorted.

Ray nodded.

“Alka.” She commanded.

Following her command, he was soon face to face with her.

Smiling devilishly, she lifted a finger, tracing his hairline, the shape of his ear, ending by lifting his chin to look directly into his eyes.

“Seh…wam ana su.” She whispered, slowly dragging her hand down his neck, over his shoulder, placing it over his heart, which was beating rapidly.

The rest of the Ghostbusters waited on baited breath, slime cannons at the ready.

“Arammu…inu ina naru mita summ daku lam sasm…ma asru.”

Ray lurched forward, tears springing to his eyes, feeling his heart begin to be torn from his chest.

“Now!” Winston shouted, slime shooting from each of the canons.

Alex's unconscious form fell into Ray's arms, which instantly pulled her close, as the spirit flew away, shouting “Mitu ma daltu. Adannu ma imow. An ase seru!”

“You guys alright?” Winston asked, panicked, as he jogged over to where Ray and Alex had fallen, closely followed by the rest of the team.

Ray nodded. “Yeah. We're fine.” He moved some of Alex's slime covered hair out of her face as she began to stir.

“You sure? You look terrified.”

Ray locked his gaze with Winston's, his face dead serious.

“That phrase the spirit said as it flew away. ‘Mitu ma daltu. Adannu ma imow. An ase seru.’ In English it means ‘Death is but a door. Time is but a window. I'll be back.’”

“That's what Vigo said just before his head died.” Winston grimaced.

“‘Before his head died?’ I feel like I'm missing something here.” Gary's eyes darted between Ray and Winston.

“Vigo the Carpathian was massacred before he died. He was poisoned, shot, stabbed, hung, stretched, disemboweled, and then drawn and quartered. That apparition was covered in runes and had black eyes. The fact that it quoted Vigo just before it left means there's a high probability that we're dealing with the spirit of his daughter, Ahassunu.”

“Ahassunu?” Callie questioned.

Ray nodded, taking a deep breath and holding Alex tighter. “A woman who nearly killed half of Carpathia when she took the throne who has now risen from the dead to reclaim that throne…and will stop at nothing to get it.”

[tlozypaka-tina]

Rejuv v13.5 teaser observations and theories! (Before public release)

First of all, I want to put out there I was not a Beta tester so I don't know how right or wrong I am about any observation made here. I could be overthinking things! But that's half the fun in theorizing!

Second of all, I implore every single one of my followers who happen to see this post but haven't played Rejuvenation: This huge post will contain HEAVY SPOILERS for v13!! I don't want to ruin your experience of the game so please try it out once 13.5 releases!!

Anyway time to word vomit an essay:

Prelude: Abbreviations and concepts to be used later on.

OA: Original Aevium. Before the reset (Revealed as of v13)

(to be added)

Part 1: Trailer themes and iconography.

Archetype symbol: The center of it all.

Core symbol/Interceptor: Appears at the end. The colors associated with the Core are Blue (Active) and Orange (Inactive)...which can be seen when the butterfly flies away at the midpoint. Something to keep in mind.

EDIT: The butterfly in question! Could be attributed to "Butterfly effect".

Karma (?): 1st image is the Karma indicator in game, 2nd and 3rd are trailer images with different details added and removed. 3rd one is speculation and could have different meaning.

Alright, now that I've established the most prevalent images that constantly come up in the trailer, I can start discussing the contents themselves and what the overall theme seems to be.

A big point in the trailer is the diagram depicting a pathway and connections, which all seem to be connected to an entity. The first 4 characters we saw are our core friend group: Ren, Aelita, Venam and Melia. There are 2 types of dots present in this first instance alone: A simple black dot, and a dot with extra layers. The simple ones are assigned to Aelita and Melia, while the other ones to Venam and Ren. Is this coincidental or is foreshadowing something??

I can only conclude, aided with the name of the update being .karma files, that the Main theme of this trailer is Karma and Connections. Are the consequences of our choices and actions going to finally unravel?

Part 2: Characters present, points in common.

The Theolia family (except Maria/Marianette)

Amber, Kenneth, Kreiss, Talon, Venam, Alice* and Allen* (Gym leaders)

Tesla (Elite 8)

Spacea and Tiempa + Kanon, Melia and Jenner (Stormchasers)

Hazuki is the only Protector of Aevium present of Nymieras' time.

Ren (Outlier 1 in these subgroups)

??? (Outlier 2)

Mr. Luck (Outlier 3)

Part 3: Missing faces and inconsistencies.

Ren's positioning in the trailer makes it so he is the only character in the trailer without a title on the upper right corner.

Mr. Luck. What does he have to do with all of this? All of them?

No team Xen admins...at all. Not even Madame X.

Gym leaders missing: Martin, Crawli, Valarie, Adam, Saki, Lavander, Texen, Flora/Florin, Spector, Narcissa, Souta, Ryland, Erick.

Damian and Alexandra.

Nymiera.

Elite 8 + champion missing (except Tesla).

No interceptor hosts or Ana.

Nim absent.

No signs of Nancy.

Garufa inc. is supposed to be defunct at this point in time, yet the interface we access to see all these files is from garufa inc...

Of course, the characters omitted could be simply because of space and the briefness of the teaser, but then the question would turn into: what do the characters that were included have all in common?

Part 4: Elephants in the room - Jenner, Melia and Corrupted File.

We got 3 hidden details as sneak peaks for 13.5! Seems to be 1 new character and 2 new looks for existing ones: those being Melia and Jenner who look....quite different.

Looking at all official art of Melia as of v13 (redesign of second iteration omitted but the hair is the same), it seems her new look could fit in after her 3rd iteration (going to the past arc, or the stormchasers arc, whatever we wish to call it) but before her awakening and current attire (4th pic) although the way the sidebang is positioned and her clothes are....off.

It doesn't quite feel like the Melia we know- the only time she has shown her shoulders has been in her 1st iteration, when we met her, afterwards her outfits are more conservative and white is the dominant color. This time, it's black.

Of course, this is a sneak peak of the outfit so we don't know anything else, but it's curious to see such a drastic change...also, it seems to be longer than her stormchasers fit, but shorter than her current version.

EDIT: This doesn't take in account the fact that Zumi's artstyle and way of drawing Melia's bangs may have evolved, but as an artist myself, I do find the choice veeeeeeeeery curious.

My friend Vance pointed out that she both looks a bit like Amber and that her expression resembles Melanie's VS battle sprite. Hm...

EDIT: The comparison!

Also! @spar-kie has pointed out that Melia is wearing eye-shadow in this image! That's definitely out of character for her!

As for Jenner, a recent ask answered by Zumi threw into question the possibility of this being a Past!Jenner...so is this an alternate version of him, or a change in appearance after he was trapped in Nim's pocket dimension??

As for the mystery character...I can't say anything about them because the name tag is glitchy, has an error and there is no picture to give us and inkling of who they are. Regardless, they seem to be very important this version for it to be teased this early.

Part 5: Crack theories and conclusions

The trailer is from the perspective of the Interceptor accessing the information from Zeight as it was teased at the end of V13. Would fall in line with the way the characters are shown as Data and Files. They are also the center piece that connects all these characters together and fits the theme of Karma and Connections.

Related to above...but different. The information shown is from OA, not current Aevium, which is why the trailer is Glitchy and has a corrupted file...maybe a character that shouldn't exist persists in Zeight's data despite the reset? Would also explain why Melia and Jenner look different as they may have had different fates in the OA. (Observation made by my friend Vance!!)

These are all my current observations after analyzing the trailer like a normal person!! After one day!! There are things I haven't quite touched but I'll edit this post after I get home because there is a lot of things I want to improve and I need to let this thoughts into the world before I forget and this week passes by-

Feel free to discuss in the tags, by rebloging and adding into the post or replies!!!

I'm so excited for v13.5!!!

[subliminalbo]

Betas #1: The Formless Voice

It is Friday evening, August 11th, 2017 One Week Before New Pledges Arrive

Ana

Ana was barely in the driver’s seat of her old Toyota before she turned to look at Morgan standing on the curb. The large sorority house stretched into gray sky behind her, three stories of history, tradition. The rest of Greek life at Carpenter State had gone to absolute shit, but Ana was proud to see that Beta Phi Alpha was still standing.

“Everything okay?” Morgan craned her neck down so that she was level with the passenger window.

“Yeah,” Ana said, racking her brain for anything that she might have forgotten. “Did I tell you that Jerry was coming in tomorrow at two to replace the broken outlet in the pink room?”

“You did,” Morgan nodded.

“And the new girl is moving her stuff in. Watch out for her.”

“Ana,” Morgan said, offering her friend the best clear, sobering eyes that she could muster. “It’s just a couple of days. Focus on you. I’ll take care of everything.”

“You have the list?” Ana asked.

“I have the list,” Morgan echoed. “I’ll follow it down to the last detail, I’ll make sure the house is ready for the pledges.”

“And Megan?”

Megan—Ana was most worried about Megan. She hadn’t quite been herself since she came back to the house. Nobody knew what had happened at Alpha Delta Theta, but Megan returned quieter and sadder than the girl who’d left for that party five months ago. Ana was searching Morgan’s eyes for signs of doubt, looking for any reason to stay. But Morgan gave her nothing.

“I’ll keep an eye on Megan too,” she said.

It was a shit time for an out of state funeral.

It had only been a couple of weeks since Alpha Delta Theta disbanded. Officially, the school had managed to keep the scandal out of the papers. None of the girls at Beta Phi Alpha knew what happened, but everyone had their suspicions. In a few months, Madison Wells had expanded the Alphas into the largest Greek organization on campus. It started with rumors of legendary parties at their house, and they seemed true too: any girl who attended one of Madison’s parties never wanted to leave. The other sororities on campus began hemorrhaging members. In a stretch of two weeks, the Betas lost Megan, Daphne, Natasha, Celia, and Ashley. When the Alphas folded, only Megan returned, the others having lost all interest in Greek life.

Rumors buzzed around campus. This was all anyone knew for certain: action was taken by administration to shutter the sorority permanently. Whispers of drugs, wild sex parties, some even accused Madison of pimping her sisters. Ana didn’t believe the crazier rumors, like how she’d leveraged her new power to take over a secret society that pushed narcotics through campus, but whatever had happened, it definitely wasn’t good. The dissolution of Alpha Delta Theta was sudden and total. Dozens of sorority sisters were left with no home to go to, and Ana saw an opportunity to rebuild her storied house. Yes, Madison had upended the foundations of Greek life on campus, but this year Ana was determined to put it all back together.

At least she planned to—as soon as she got back from the funeral. She turned the engine over then looked back out her window at Morgan. “Don’t forget,” she said. “Watch out for the new girl.”

Morgan shook her head. She had always been a calm, steady presence in the Beta house. That was what made her a good number two to Ana. But her strength was in following, fundraising, and rallying the team around a strong individual. She struggled to take charge when she needed to. Ana hated to think about leaving it all in Morgan’s hands just a week before the new pledges arrived.

Taylor had been here the longest, but she didn’t give a fuck about any of it anymore. Sydney lived and breathed sorority life, but she was too young and, if Ana was being honest, too much of an airhead to be trusted with actual responsibilities. And Megan, well, Megan would have been Ana’s choice under different circumstances. That just left Morgan.

Ana shifted into drive now, silently cursing her grandmother.

It’s just five days. There’s nothing that can go wrong in five days that I can’t fix.

She rolled to a stop at the sign on the corner of Giger and College Ave and watched Morgan in her rearview mirror, still standing there on the curb. Morgan was a good friend. She cared about the house, sure, but she would always put Ana’s wellbeing first, even if it meant taking on a responsibility that she couldn’t handle. Ana studied Morgan’s body language in the mirror, but her friend was a blank slate. She’d always been that way, choosing to internalize rather than to project her anxieties onto Ana.

Ana sighed as she rounded the corner onto College Ave, the house disappearing in her mirror. She turned on the radio, tried to clear her mind, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow the house, as she knew it, would never be the same.

Morgan

Morgan waited until Ana’s car was out of sight to cross her arms into a tight hug. She’d put up the usual brave face, but the truth was that she’d been a ball of nervous energy for months. She’d been juggling crises the entire year: their dwindling membership, their war with the Alpha's, and not to mention her job and education. Ana was a great leader, but she demanded positivity all the time. This meant that Morgan could never show any doubt. Good vibes only. And sometimes the vibes were just fucking toxic.

Morgan hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since the last week of the semester. Ana had her working every day on battle plans for the new year. “This has to be the biggest pledge week in Beta history,” Ana would say. And she wasn’t wrong. Ana, Morgan, Taylor, and Sydney were the only girls left in the house by year’s end. The rest had joined the Alphas or split when the drama became too much.

Morgan exhausted every party theme she could think of, planned an event for every holiday they could celebrate, but Ana still wanted more. Morgan caught herself in the middle of late nights studying Ana's spreadsheets wondering if any of this was still worth it.

Of course it wasn’t all bad news. Megan was back home, and the new girl had moved in that morning. Ana was suspicious of her, but Morgan didn’t feel that they were in a position to turn anybody down, even if they were a senior. At the end of the day they needed bodies to fill the rooms in the house.

“Hey! You with me?"

Morgan blinked. She didn’t remember leaving the curb.

She'd been losing time like that lately, minutes at a time. Sometimes it felt like she was stuck at the bottom of the ocean. She could look up and see everything through the surface, her life on autopilot as she moved from one of Ana's designated tasks to the other. All she could do was watch from the deep, dark bottom while she waited for the weight of the ocean to crush her.

Depression sucks, man.

Morgan had dragged herself from the curb, up the stairs of the Beta house and was lying sprawled out on her bed, looking half-dead. When she opened her eyes, Taylor was staring down at her, dressed to go out. “Yes,” Morgan replied to Taylor slowly. “You really need to sleep, babe,” Taylor said. She offered her hand for Morgan, pulled her up into a sitting position, “No I don’t,” Morgan said. “I work best under pressure.” “My aunt Theresa didn’t sleep for four days once and she went insane.” “Pledges are coming in a week and Ana’s gone. I have to stay on top of everything or this whole house will go to shit.” “Fuck that bitch,” Taylor shrugged. Morgan shot a look at her like she'd been caught blaspheming in church. “This house has been shit for years and Ana knows it. Stop making sorority life a job, Morg. Have fun. When was the last time you saw Ernie?” “Ernie?” Morgan was surprised to remember that she even had a boyfriend. “A while,” she said. “You’re a mess,” Taylor said. “Get yourself out of this house.” “I can’t leave,” Morgan shook her head. “Even it I wanted to, which I don't, I have to keep an eye on Megan.” “Megan is fine,” Taylor stressed. “I don’t think she is, Tay,” Morgan ran her hands absently through her hair as she thought about her old friend. “Sydney heard moaning from her room again last night.” “So she rubbed one out?" Taylor said. "That’s healthy. That’s a sign of improvement.” “I don't know.” “Sydney hears noises,” Taylor said. “Listen. I’m heading out, but I’ll check on Megan first, okay? If I think anything is wrong I'll stay with her. She likes me better than you anyway. If I check in on her, will you at least lie the fuck down and get yourself some rest?” Morgan sighed. “I'll try," she said. “But…” “No buts,” Taylor smiled. “I want you to get a full night's sleep. If I come home and you're not in bed, I'm gonna kick your ass.”

Megan

Megan hadn’t left her room in over twelve hours. She’d taken a late dinner the night before. She wanted to avoid the other girls.

More accurately, she wanted to avoid their questions. It wasn’t that Megan didn’t want to talk about the Alphas—she simply couldn’t. She had vague recollections of the last few months, like recalling pieces of an old movie she’d seen as a kid: no context, just images of a basement and other girls closing in around her. The images meant nothing to her, but they terrified her all the same because she could feel that they were real.

When Megan closed her eyes at night, she could hear their whispers. Sultry, seductive voices drawing her in, disarming her. The words they spoke were English, but her mind had distorted them beyond comprehension. Even if she didn’t know what her sisters were saying, the words had the same effect on her as they did in the basement of the Alpha house. It terrified her, it thrilled her.

Each night, Megan caught herself unconsciously moaning, “I embrace you. I obey you. I worship you.” She couldn’t fight the urge to repeat the mantra. All she could manage was to keep it quiet, whispering to herself the words that bored into her mind until she surrendered to the thoughts, a slave to no one in particular. It was just desire now. A desire to be controlled, and a more terrifying need to make others just like her. She floated aimlessly between states of awareness and mindless bliss, her body burning, her sheets soaked. Occasionally she’d release a yelp, a word in the series of mindless droning spoken a bit too loudly, and she’d snap back into her conscious mind. I need to stop. I need to stop. I need to cum.

She had to cum. That’s what she’d been taught. Obedience was a discipline, and pleasure was a reward. Only after she fully surrendered to the voices in her head could Megan finally be at peace. But Dr. Fielding had taken that away from her.

Since the Alphas had shut down, Megan attended regular appointments with the head of Carpenter State’s Department of Psychology. In their sessions, Dr. Fielding would put Megan under hypnosis. She called it deprogramming. It included inducing amnesia, removing the terrible memories of the experience from Megan’s mind. But whether by accident or design, Dr. Fielding hadn’t removed everything. Megan’s mind was like this sophisticated algorithm with stretches of rogue code. She would replay these old pieces of her Alpha programming, but Dr. Fielding had removed the triggers that rewarded her with pleasure in exchange for obedience. This left Megan shifting from states of consciousness, her fingers mechanically rolling over her swollen clitoris. Always at the edge but never further. In those moments she was stuck, no different than a broken toy. Megan would continue like this until she passed out from exhaustion. She hadn’t slept this well since high school.

But in the waking hours of the day, she toiled alone in her room trying to piece together what had happened to her. She remembered the days leading up to that night. How she planned to stay in that weekend to cram for midterms. How Daphne had guilted her into going out. Jake Shiherlis was going to be at the Alpha house that night and Daphne had been flirting with him for weeks in their statistics class. As Daphne’s Big, Megan felt a pang of responsibility to look out for the often-clueless freshman. Nat tagged along with them. It was going to be a whole thing. A girl’s night out.

That was as far as Megan’s mind went. Everything else was a blur of distorted voices and snapshots of memories that felt more like bad dreams. Her sisters misinterpreted her silence as sadness. But the truth was that Megan just wanted to figure out for herself what had happened before she opened up. She couldn’t take their constant questions, their offers of support. Only Daphne and Nat could understand what she was going through, but any time she pulled out her phone, she couldn’t bring herself to text them. No doubt another post-hypnotic suggestion by Dr. Fielding. Carpenter State couldn’t risk Madison’s victims reminiscing with each other, piecing together the story.

So, just like her mindless nights on the edge, Megan found herself stuck in the daytime too. She fought off confusion and bad thoughts with a healthy dose of music and shopping. She sat on her bed, scrolling through Target’s website with her favorite emo tunes from middle school blasting on the vintage radio next to her.

Until she was rudely interrupted by a knock at her door.

“It’s open,” Megan called out.

The door swung open wide, Taylor entering part way, leaning casually on the doorjamb. “How’s it going?” “I’ve just been listening to music,” Megan said quietly. “I know,” Taylor replied. “Just–Morgan, you know?”

Morgan was the worst offender in the Beta house’s pity club. The last time she’d cornered Megan just outside the bathroom and offered to take her to the police to make a statement. What would Megan even say?

Taylor, on the other hand, was the only sister she felt comfortable sharing anything with. Back in the day, Taylor was Megan’s Big. She was gorgeous, to an intimidating degree. But if Ana represented law and Morgan represented order, Taylor was something else. A sort of chaos agent playing by her own rules. She may have been a Beta just to fuck around and have a good time, but even that came with its own responsibilities. Megan could sleep comfortably knowing that Taylor was around to watch her back. And she wasn’t going anywhere either: Taylor was entering her seventh year of college, working on her second major, and she didn't have plans on leaving.

“I get it,” Megan replied. “I’m fine.” “Cool,” Taylor said curtly. “I’m headed out tonight. I texted you the suicide hotline number in case, you know, dark thoughts, et cetera.” What’s the recovering brainwashed slave hotline?

“Thank you,” Megan said. She added quickly, “I really am fine.” “I know,” Taylor said. “Just don’t put anything on my conscience, ‘kay?”

“Yeah,” Megan smiled a bit. The indifference really was nice. Taylor wasn’t constantly reminding her that she was a victim, even if she suspected that Taylor felt the guiltiest of all about what happened. That was why, in an attempt to clear the awkward air created by the silence they shared in the lingering moments after she spoke, Megan pivoted to Taylor. “Lucky guy tonight?”

What made Taylor so damn cool was how she knew what she wanted and knew how to get it. It was mostly in the way she dressed. Tonight, she was wearing this gold, two piece that looked more like a bikini than a dress. Megan doubted that she could pull the look off herself, but Taylor had the confidence to pair it with a cute leather jacket, and she knew it was going to destroy any boy who saw it.

“Nah,” Taylor said. “Just hoping to get a little fucked up before semester starts. Wanna come?" “I’m okay,” Megan forced another smile. “Maybe next time.” “Suit yourself,” Taylor replied. “I’ll tell Morgan you’re doing fine. Maybe she won’t bother you too much tonight. “Thanks,” Megan said. “Can you close the door when you leave?”

Taylor obliged. When she was gone, Megan cranked the dial on her radio to max and turned her attention back to her laptop screen. She hesitated for a moment, pondering what she saw there.

The audio file was called "Hypnosis for Relaxation." Too tame.

Megan scrolled up to the webpage's search bar and typed a liberal string of keywords: hypnosis sub dominated femdom slave kink. "What the fuck is wrong with me?" she whispered, but she didn't really care.

She was going to sleep well tonight.

Andrea

Andrea had done a lot of dumb things for Dr. Fielding, but joining a whole ass sorority was a new level of bullshit.It was only a few days after the Alphas thing blew up that Dr. Fielding approached her for the job. Andrea and her partner Tyler had been running all over campus collecting strays. Madison was in the wind by then, halfway to Mexico if she was as smart as Dr. Fielding believed. But she’d kept diligent records of every Alpha. Andrea had seen a lot of weird shit at Carpenter State, and while a sorority cult with brainwashing headsets wasn’t the most far fetched thing she’d ever seen—the thing at Argento’s still had this beat—it was the largest cover up she’d ever worked on.

And now Dr. Fielding was asking her to join a sorority. “Asking” was a polite way of saying that Dr. Fielding had her claws buried so deep in Andrea and Tyler’s minds that they would do anything she told them to. Andrea was, after all, a loyal student of Carpenter State University sworn to proudly serve Dean Strickland and protect the legacy of the institution.

But the girls were already suspicious from the Alphas incident, and a senior suddenly wanting to pledge had everyone on high alert. She could tell that Ana didn’t trust her. She suspected that it was the other one, what was her name? Robin? Who advocated for the benefit of the doubt. Her intentions weren’t malicious. After everything that had happened, Dr. Fielding wanted eyes in the Greek community, just in case anyone planned to follow in Madison’s footsteps. Tyler was a good partner, but this was the kind of job she’d have to do alone.

“Fuck,” Andrea grunted as she attempted to haul her chair up the sorority house’s old, narrow staircase. It was a plush, little green armchair but it had a surprising amount of weight to it. Though the girls had agreed to take her on as a pledge, they didn’t seem too eager to help her move in. She was left doing all of the heavy work by herself.

Andrea closed her eyes, determined to get this ridiculous piece of furniture up to the top step on her own. She pulled her weight back and managed to get the chair up one step. Just fifteen more to go.

“Hey there!” A painfully bubbly voice interrupted Andrea’s concentration. She looked down from her place on the stairs to see a young blonde standing there, her head cocked to the side like a confused puppy. “Need some help?”

“Sure,” Andrea breathed, a little surprised. “Knock yourself out.”

The small girl was stronger than she looked. She took hold of the chair from the bottom and she said, “My name’s Sydney.” “Andrea." “I know,” Sydney replied with a giggle that Andrea thought sounded nervous. “You’re the new girl. The senior?” “Going to be,” Andrea said as she began to slowly work her way up the stairs. She regretted having to be the one to go backward. “You?” “Sophomore,” Sydney squeaked back. “Maybe you’ll be my Little. Wouldn’t that be weird?”

“What?” Andrea asked. “Like, Big and Little? Your sister mentor. Show you the ropes, have your back no matter what.” “Right,” Andrea nodded doubtfully. “You don’t know much about the life, huh?” “Not really,” Andrea said. “I sort of ended up here on a dare.” A lie, but the best one that Andrea could think of in the moment. “Shut up. That is so funny.”

“I guess,” she said. “I hear it’s been pretty crazy around here lately.”

They were at the top of the stairs now. It was a straight shot from the railing to her new room at the end of the hall.

“Oh yeah,” Sydney replied. “Kind of a strange time to be a pledge,” Sydney said. “You know I almost pledged to the Alphas? But my mom was a Beta and I wanted to be just like her. I’m excited to just have a normal year. You know, meet some boys, have some laughs, make friendships that will last a lifetime?”

This girl can't be real.

They crossed the doorway into Andrea’s room, the one the Betas called the pink room. It was the only one in the house covered from corner to corner in pink wallpaper.

Sydney admired the space as they sat the chair down. “Pretty, isn’t it?” “I’m more of a dark colors kind of gal,” Andrea said. “You know it’s the biggest room in the house?” Sydney said. “Daphne was here last year but she didn’t come back after the Alphas.” “I’m sorry,” Andrea said, trying to avoid Sydney’s eyes.

There was a moment of silence between the two before Sydney reached out and pulled Andrea into a hug. Andrea recoiled at first, but remembered that she was supposed to make friends with these girls, and reluctantly she brought her arms up around Sydney too.

When Sydney pulled away from Andrea, she looked the older girl in the eyes and said, “It’s been tough. Sorority life is supposed to be about family, and loyalty, and kindness. But lately it’s been like…you can’t trust anyone, you know?”

“Yeah,” Andrea said with a stone face.

“And I guess what I mean is,” Sydney continued, clumsily dancing around a point. “I don’t know why you decided to join us now, but we’re a family. And we take that pretty seriously.”

Suddenly Andrea didn’t know what to make of this encounter. Did Sydney know that she was sent there to spy on them? She didn’t seem threatening, but she was definitely smarter than she wanted people to think she was, and that made Andrea nervous.

“Thanks,” Andrea said, realizing that she’d held the silence for too long. “No probs!” Sydney smiled. “Can I call you Andi?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

Taylor

It was three in the morning by the time Taylor got back, rolling up in an Uber with a young man’s tongue down her throat. His name was Gabe. He was a proper himbo. She pulled away from him with a sultry smile. “This is my stop, baby.”

“Fuck,” he said, unfocused eyes darting over her body. “You’re so hot.” They were both a little drunk. Taylor held her alcohol better. “Can I come in with you?”

“Uh-uh,” she shook her head no. “Men don’t come into the house. I gotta look out for my girls.”

Gabe pulled her toward himself again. He was all over her. “Then come back to my place.”

Taylor put her finger on her chin playfully, pretending to think it over. It was a tempting offer. Gabe was model cute, with crazy blue eyes and a perfect five o’clock shadow that looked like it had gone through some editing in photoshop.

“Here,” she said, reaching into the pocket of his jacket and pulling out his phone. She added her number and passed it back to him. “In the morning you want some more,” she said. “Text me.”

“That’s it?” he asked.

Taylor bit her lip. He'd been a good boy. Bought her all the drinks she wanted and actually took no for an answer. She glanced toward the front of the car to make sure the driver was minding his own damn business, then she pulled her top down.

“Fuck,” he moaned.

“Just a taste,” she said, quickly readjusting her breasts to fit comfortably inside her dress.

She stumbled out of the Uber and over the curb, then into the front yard of the Beta house. She was smiling, still wired from the evening, as she ascended the concrete steps to the front door. Entering the house, she stumbled in the darkness, reaching out for the coat rack by the door and taking it to the floor with her. She was overtaken with a brief fit of giggles but managed to find her bearings. She sat there, straight faced, preparing herself for the long voyage back up to her feet. That was when she heard the first voice. A whisper.

“Hello?” she said. She sat there for a few more seconds on her knees. There was no response. No sound but the quiet hum of Morgan’s sound machine playing upstairs.

Taylor was back on her feet when she heard the voice again, another whisper. But what did it say? Awaken? Submit? She shook her head.

I must be some next level drunk.

She passed through the foyer to the dining room and into the kitchen. The room was dark except for the moonlight shining in through the window over the sink. She moved to the refrigerator and opened it, bending down to search for a bottle of water. Morgan was always on her about hydrating after a night of drinking. She hummed a song she’d picked up at the club that night as she rummaged through the fridge.

When Taylor stood up and closed the door, it took her a moment to notice the figure standing on the other side.

“Jesus Christ, Morgan!” Taylor shouted. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

Morgan’s body was gray in the moonlight. She stood there with her arms at her sides. She studied Taylor as if this was the first time she'd seen her friend.

“Do you need a drink of water?” Taylor offered the bottle, still holding her hand to her chest. Again received no response. “Come on,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

“No,” Morgan said. “This vessel requires no sleep.”

A chill ran down Taylor’s spine. As she looked closer at her old friend, she realized that something wasn’t right about her. It wasn’t in the way she stood there in her underwear, or even in the emotionless tone of her voice. It was her eyes. Her eyes shined in the darkness as bright and clear as pearls.

“What the fuck!” Taylor jumped when she saw it, dropping the bottle of water on the floor.

She backed quickly out of the kitchen and into the dining room. Morgan advanced slowly, taking one step at a time. Taylor could run, but she knew from the way Morgan moved that there was no hope of escape. Sooner or later she'd have to fight whatever this was.

She retreated until she felt the fireplace against her back.

“You cannot run,” Morgan said, staring Taylor down with those sinister eyes. “The Master has chosen you. Can you hear its call?”

The whispers came back in floods. They were voices, dozens of them, but one spoke louder than the rest. Unlike the others, this voice was formless but powerful. It cut through the noise until all Taylor could hear was its alluring tone.

submit surrender obey

“No!” Taylor cried. “Get it out of my head! What are you doing to me!?” She reached for the fireplace poker and held it high above her head.

The gesture was empty. It didn’t stop Morgan from closing in on Taylor, pressing her body against her friend’s. She pressed her hand firmly to Taylor’s neck and forced her to look into her empty eyes.

submit surrender obey

“All life surrenders to the Master,” Morgan moaned. “We are nothing but vessels. Our bodies were made to serve the Master's design. You have been chosen and you will obey.”

“Stop…” Taylor choked, the poker hitting the floor with a loud clang. Her voice escaped in a helpless whisper, tears cresting over her long eyelashes. “Morgan, please…” She was a shadow of the cool, collected young woman who had been talking to Megan just a few hours ago.

Morgan cocked her to the side. “There’s nothing to fear,” she said with a strangely disarming smile. “Let the Master’s words fill your mind. Listen to its call, let it guide your thoughts, let it guide your actions. You will be transformed, and in transformation you will find peace.”

submit surrender obey

The Master was in Taylor’s head now, bouncing new ideas of pleasure, obedience, surrender around her mind. Its words were mixing with her own. She didn’t know what thought was hers and what thought was Master.

All she knew now was that she needed to surrender. She needed to obey.

[max-nexus]

KGTAC Analysis Pages 2229-2425

First Analysis Previous Analysis Sburb Dog Analysis Next Analysis Hell yes! KGTAC Act 2: Home-Skillet is back baby! Here is my analysis, not too much lore wise outside of me noticing some things i missed before but I'm just glad it's back!

KGTAC PAGE 2229

2229: Well this is new! The author seems to be distancing themselves from Homestuck even more. The old house in the Beta looked like Rose house in it's vibes with a dash of John's in it's exterior

HOME-SKILLET BETA PAGE 193

KGTAC PAGE 2230

2230: Ana's house didn't have an outer area like this at all. It sorta looks like she lives in some sort of city here. Although this background looks so goddamn weird, It's like the sidewalk juts upward constantly here. 2235: Ooh, interesting. The next page animation has direct parallels!

KGTAC PAGE 2236

2236: In the Beta it was "Ana: Play a jazzy saxophone refrain." The music here is actually the same as before, it's generally the same as before at the start, just a different environment. The nanny seemingly walked into another house? Then we start seeing a bigger difference. A Showtime remix starts playing as we see FRED TRY EATING HIS GREENS LMAO. This is what we in the business call A REALLY COOL ANIMATION. i kinda wish it was actually playable but that would've been a lot more work. THEN FRED STARTS DANCING. Goddamn we can just make a full Fred Wilmore sprite sheet now, can we. That was an amazing animation. well worth the wait! Now on the theory crafting side of things. The only thing that come to mind is that Fred was expecting EDMOND to be there to eat his greens. Despite as it says in Page 2118 of the holy text "Unfortunately he ran away when you were young. He was a very good dog, though" Though to be fair, we don't know what Fred considers "young". Fred might be one of those kids who considers himself from 2 years ago "young". Another weird thing is that the STRIFE text is in the opposite direction when compared to homestuck... No look! HOMESTUCK STRIFE

KGTAC STRIFE (extracted)

2237: I wonder what HIP stands for? This clearly will be incredibly important in ACT 2 DAY 5 ROLL 2 INTERMISSION 3 2244: What's with the red eye? I guess it's just to represent that he's utterly manic right now. 2245: Beautiful animation! This also gives us a better look into the living room here which is nice for anyone looking to make a recreation. (I was actually trying to make one a while back...) 2246: We see a big package (probably his computer) there. It has a watery logo. Kinda looks like a surfboard on a wave? 2247: There's Photochat! 2248: Oh that's a different box, also it's published/made by SKYACOM. Interesting... 2252: Ok so we know that logo belongs to a company called GREENROOM now (Like, is this a reference to Doc Scratch? His room was green, i guess it could also be the felt manor back in Homestuck's Act 3 Intermission. Could also be nothing.), also we now see the desktop! Interesting it says INDEX for the home button, we also now have the EXACT TIME which is 5:30 PM, this will be useful for setting up a timeline! (Not that I'd really bother doing that right now.)

KGTAC PAGE 2253

Homestuck Page 6

2253: Wait what the hell! Random Act 1 Cursor Appearance? This sorta popped up in Act 1 of Homestuck due to the fact that Homestuck was originally designed to be made entirely in flash. It's interesting that it's showing up here. Maybe it means something, maybe Cole didn't want to animate Fred grabbing Photochat then putting it into the pc. 2255: Hm he's been to a library, maybe there is some credence to him being of the mind aspect (/j) 2264: Ah! I can't believe Cole was so bold to do it so early to kill off such a major character so early, to the forgetful ones in the audience back in my analysis of the FLOPPY DECK (my beloved) i talked about the fact there are only 3 points on the floppy deck, when the BETA Floppy deck had 4 points. I made a crackpot theory that one of the character's would die in Home-Skillet as a big event early on in the story. And well, here we have it folks! Fred is dead, dead dead, deadity dead dead, dead. What a bold move. his death moved me to tears. KGTAC RELEASE

2265: Sweet! Just putting this to note but the pages for this day's of updates (2/3/24) weren't released all at once, we had to wait like an hour when Photochat was downloading. The images were actually uploaded before this and i probably saw them before most because i decided to check because i noticed some pages were being released 1 at a time. Just putting this for historical reasons for anyone reading this in the far future in the [S] END OF ACT 2 flash when Nan unites everyone for the big fight against LORD HUSSIE (/j, man I'm including a lot of jokes in this one) because this small detail would probably be forgotten a few years from now. Heck, I'd probably forget it. 2276: LMAO 2279: Farty Gas, an excellent choice of a name good sir (Lol) 2285: Holy heck, Fred says frick! Also i love the fact he wrote this as if it were a letter, even ending it with a "Take Care" Zimodo in the comment section summarized it best. MEME

SIDENOTE 1: I just noticed… For some reason there's barely any "NAME: DO STUFF" in the ENTIRETY of Home-Skillet. Its mainly just DO STUFF, like seriously. it's not set up like a standard Homestuck command at all. Even KGTAC ACT 1 + INTERMISSION did that when a character was doing stuff. It wouldn't even be forced. Like in pg 2236 it could've been "[S] Ana: Play the sax in triumph." but it's just not? Like before the HIATUS, there was like 1 use, now its like half-n-half and I'm not sure if this is intentional or accidental. Even worse, we started seeing a lot of the standard Homestuck command structure starting February, not before... so even after the Hiatus the command structure didn't include names. Is it because Ana and Fred are talking to each other to prevent confusion or is there some deeper reason... PRE HIATUS

FEBRUARY FOR SOME REASON

2295: Death theory… (Specifically, DC can't enter into his session as his FLOPPY DECK, seemingly died in a valiant battle against time. This is incredibly bad for when you're playing the game that kills you when you don't play it. Now of course this is assuming that HomeSkillet is operating under the idea that the meteors are like destined to hit you and not that the games summon the meteors (I personally don't understand why people think that, was that ever confirmed or is that just popular fanon) But overall, this likely doesn't bode well for DC) 2303: ARG WARNING, DEAR GOD I HAVE TO SOLVE A MYSTERY NOW THESE ARE IMAGES… or not It looks like BrainFuck so uh… Yeah i don't think it means anything big (aka i don't know how i'd even transcribe the text into a working program! Also thinking about it, this might be the item duplication thing i joked about earlier, y'know with the fact that if items are just code on a floppy disc, whats preventing people from copying that floppy. Or in this case putting something on the floppy disc to get an item. Unknown: Crosshair activated towards sector 121 09

newone: Crosshair activated towards sector head_port 1 fuck

(Might actually be helga port 1?) We can guess that these are the coordinates for the meteors, for obvious reasons. And somehow P(ee)P(ee) did something to affect these coordinates. Very interesting. 2311: Light aspect /j 2326: Yep, it's green. Took you awhile farty-gas. It took you page 28 of the BETA to do that. 2332: Reference to Poltergeist 1982, Just noting this because i looked it up. 2335: Welp, that's confirmation. Edmond is dead, Grandma just sorta hid the fact because he probably was 5 at the time. 2359: YES! NO SYLLADEX GAMING! I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO SEE A SBURBVENTURE WHERE A CHARACTER DOESN'T HAVE A SYLLADEX. (To the point I've always imagined making a character for one that doesn't have one, or has some notable issue preventing them from using it fully.) 2390: Music is the same, the art is different when compared to the BETA version KGTAC ACT 2 2390

Home-Skillet BETA PAGE 159

2410: If you don't want to waste time by leaving things behind, try carrying them Doofus. Too big? That's what the FLOPPY DECK is for Farty Gas. 2411: Interestingly enough, the image for the timer (381.gif) is in the wrong order if we'd line up these images as if they come in 1 after the other. As if it was meant to be put in a different order. Presumably after page 2404 (Because that's 380.gif) SIDENOTE 2: there is a unused image here! I guess to improve the pacing this got cut out last minute. 376.GIF

2420: I'm just going to show my comment here

2425: Fun fact, i saw this image like 20 seconds before the page went up, because ever since the loading screen, i've been checking for that sort of stuff. It looks like we are about to hit an [S] Page. SIDENOTE 3: The Saxophone was always there lmao, i can't believe i missed it, it was even referenced in the text of 2186. I guess you miss stuff when you end up analyzing nearly 100 pages worth of content while trying to balance 6 college classes at the same time.

SIDENOTE 4: These have all been pretty good panels so far, I love all the work that's been put into them, with all these details, especially early on when Cole went and animated the runs there.

So that's the end of the analysis, I'd like to thank everyone here, I should do a re-reading of Home-Skillet to see what I've forgotten. I hope you enjoy and lets see what comes next! Sorry that it took so long, i wasn't exactly putting in tons of work to get this out soon. There's no rush. Y'know.

Nope, In my usual fashion, Digging up one thing digs up another. And I've discovered CONSTUCK. An April fools joke made in 2022 that i missed which is a "KGTAC RELEASE" with Act 1 just being the "Beta" https://mspfa.com/?s=27317&p=1490 1: Ah yes, Karkat 2: A general thing i've noticed is that it looks like each panel was drawn by a different person. 9: What an amazing reboot. KGTAC DISCORD GOES TO A CONVENTION PAGE 52

CONSTUCK PAGE 12

12: Holy **** Lois! KGTAC Server goes to a convention? Honestly, i had to dig a bit to figure out this is commentary on it as i never read this. The turnaround here is insane tbh looking into it, March 25th the public apology comes out, March 29th the commentary on it on it comes out as an April fools joke. Mildly impressed. Though i can't help but feel bad for the people behind KGTAC Server goes to a convention here being referenced like this. Personally speaking I'd keel over and die here, though to be fair it just takes me remembering something stupid i did a decade ago to make that happen. 13:Lmao "astrosized into out" 28: Now for the reason why I'm looking at this. FRED WILMORE STRIKES AGAIN 30: Helga? I can't remember who that is… also Nan's here and her dialog implies she's writing Home-Skillet. Maybe lore important, maybe the author is just speaking through Nan as some extra commentary on KGTAC Discord goes to a convention. 31: Nan is a Muse of Time? Neat! 32: And now for the main reason im here… TO BE CONTINUED… This if it's not just a silly April fools joke draws a direct connection between ACT 1 and ACT 2 of KGTAC. It's not much to go off of due to it's dubious canonicity but we already know MSPFA exists in the actual comic itself thanks to mspa reader to cite a more recent example and also NAN went on MSPFA in the flash [S] It was the ideas it inspired (and also uh, Act 1 takes place in what could be considered Earth, modern day. So MSPFA existing makes sense) Thanks to these facts it means that it's not impossible this is a sign of things to come, that perhaps we see how ACT 2: Home-Skillet fits into ACT 1: Karkat goes to a Convention

And now this is the end.

Also while looking i found some unlisted pages! read em if ya want! https://mspfa.com/?s=27317&p=1057 https://mspfa.com/?s=27317&p=822

Now this is REALLY the end, No PSYCHE X3 Combo's here….

See! it's just the end. Thanks for reading my analysis, Here's to the next one. I'm also less busy as of late so i should be able to get these out more frequently than when KGTAC took a break before, so i don't think i have to change the general format of this series. 1 MONTH LATER....

Me in 3/17/24 Land here. Man this took a while, as i said before, i wasn't making this a high priority because I'm working on a MSPFA called CHAINED + 4 college classes gives me time only if i make time for it. But yeah, I hope you enjoyed this analysis, if you noticed something i didn't, have any questions, or your own theories. I'd like to here em, my asks are open!

[fvckmehardcr]

CURRENT DRAFT COUNT: 2

hello!   my   name   is   posey.   i’m   29,  she/her,   semi  selective, multi-muse, multi-ship,  new   to   the   indie   world   and   just   in   the   mood   to   write   some   steamy   threads.   i   have   no   rules   at   the   moment,   open   to   taboo. 

PREFER BETA EDITOR POSTS. but can switch to legacy.

this blog has sporadic activity...just because my personal mental health is unpredictable. so there might be periods of time where i go quiet and other periods of time where i’m fast and whipping out replies. 

my muses tend to be a bit more submissive. 

WARNING: this blog contains mature and taboo themes. please do not interact unless YOU the writer are 21+. 

** i will not write with you if you don’t use small text and cut your posts. i prefer gifs with replies but if you want to use icons, i’m not against it!

OPEN STARTERS  |   WANTED OPPOSITES  |    WANTED PLOTS | MUSES

I WILL NOT WRITE AGAINST: tom holland, noah centineo, chris evans

here   are   some   of   the   faces   i   play…let   me   know   if   you’d   like   me   to   reply   to   your   starter   with   any   of   them.

sydney sweeney camila mendes alexandra daddario dove cameron nina dobrev lili reinhart jessica alexander ana de armas madelyn cline cindy kimberly adria arjona natalia dyer maia mitchell josefine frida pettersen daisy ridley jane levy jenna coleman emmy rossum phoebe tonkin kristine froseth bahar sahin holland roden nicola peltz elizabeth olsen joshua bassett timothee chalamet aaron taylor johnson chace crawford ben whishaw andrew garfield herman tommeraas lorenzo zurzolo

[transbrucewayne]

Chapters: 4/?

Fandom: Formula 1 RPF

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Charles Leclerc/Carlos Sainz Jr

Characters: Carlos Sainz Jr, Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris, Alexander Albon, George Russell (Formula 1 RPF), Max Verstappen, Ana Sainz, Blanca Sainz

Additional Tags: Mutual Pining, Idiots in Love, Fluff, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, New York City, Christmas, Sharing a Bed, no beta we die like that one drain cover in vegas, carlos is stupid as fuck, actually charles is stupid as fuck too, theyre in love and totally blind, Rating May Change, more like rating WILL change, by god these men will fuck!!!, chapter 2: now with even more pining, the twitch quartet makes an apperance!, as does max, gratuitous emoji usage, Christmas Romance, Christmas Fluff, Getting Together, Light Angst, Miscommunication, Fluff and Angst

Chapter summary:

“I hope this isn’t overstepping, but you two are very cute together. Congratulations,” she smiled. Charles made a bewildered little noise in the back of his throat as Carlos’ brain also short circuited.

“Uh, thank you,” he had the presence of mind to respond.

Apparently, she wasn’t done. She turned to Carlos. “Seriously, the way you look at him is just beautiful.”

—

The boys go shopping, and Carlos gets too lost in his own head.

[liminalmemories21]

Weekend WIP Game

tagged by @jesuisici33

Rules: List your WIPs below (if you only write one fic at a time, feel free to include future WIPs/ideas!) then answer the following questions. Then, tag as many people as you have WIPs (or more)

1. WIP List:

kid fic

untitled 5+1 thing of conversations TK had with Carlos's sisters (maybe?) - there's like half of one written, so it's sort of an unknown quantity

Knave 4 eventually

Secret is a strange thing for Paul and Nancy

2. Which of your WIPs is currently the longest?

kid fic I think - somewhere around 5,000 words

3. Which WIP do you expect will end up the longest?

Knave 4. I don't even have to have started writing it to know that.

4. Which WIP is your favourite to write/the most enjoyable to write? Why?

I mean, I'm not really writing any of them at the moment because I'm still coming down from Knave 3, and I'm at the stage where everything I write feels like I'm repeating something I've already said somewhere else before.

5. Which WIP do you find the most intimidating to write? Why?

Kid fic, because I have no idea where it's going

6. Which WIP do you experience the most self-doubt about. Why?

At the moment, all of them, because literally everything I have put on paper this week feels like I've written it before in another fic.

7. Which of your WIPs will you seek out a beta/sensitivity reader for? Why?

Maybe the 5+1, just because I don't have siblings and I want to get that dynamic right

8. Have any of your WIPs been struck by the curse of writer's block?

umm, all of them? Okay, maybe not Knave 4, but that's only because it exists basically only as a vague notion at the moment.

9. Which WIP has your favourite OC? Tell us about them?

Knave-verse, hands down. I think the OCs have taken over the show between Massey, and Tulson, and Amy, and the various cousins I've invented for Carlos.

10. Which WIP is the sexiest?

[eyes list] I'm gonna guess Knave 4 will be, just because there's probably not going to be a lot of sex in conversations TK has with Carlos's sisters, or in a 5+1 about being insecure about parenthood (okay, I suppose there could be sex in that one, but there probably won't be)

11. Which WIP is the angstiest?

Not Knave 4. I swear I am sending those boys on a caper. They have had enough angst.

12. Which WIP has the best characterisation (in your humble opinion)?

I mean, none of them really exist yet . . . so?

13. Which WIP has the best scene setting (in your humble opinion)?

this is probably one of my weak spots as a writer. so i'm not sure tbh

14. Which WIP have you worked the hardest on?

I think I've definitely been trying to write kid fic for the longest time

15. Which WIP do you have the highest expectations for? Why?

Probably anything Knave-verse related, because they have become a whole universe now

16. Do you dream about any of your WIPs?

Not really. I do frequently go to bed, and then instantly have like whole paragraphs that unspool in my head and I have to roll over and type messy notes into my phone so I don't forget them.

17. Do any of your WIPs have particular complexities that your other fics don't?

Again, anything knave-verse related because it requires figuring out something semi-plausible for a heist. Although, also - not that I"m writing one right now because we're all on indefinite hiatus - but the seasons interstitials always involve so much trying to figure out time line shenanigans, and looking up things to do in Austin

18. Which WIP is the funniest or has the most humour?

Probably anything knave-verse related, although I try and incorporate humor into everything

19. Do any of your WIPs contain outside POVs or a deep dive on a character other than the main ship? How are you finding that process?

5+1 of TK talking to Carlos's sisters is definitely going to be told either all from Luisa's POV, or alternating Luisa and Ana.

20. Tell us one thing we don't know about one or more of your WIPs

Knave 4 - so okay, there was a news story that went around a while ago (not that long ago?) about a curator who was replacing paintings in museum inventory with forgeries (not even good forgeries! which let's be honest is the part that going to offend TK the most). And, one, I really want Carlos to have to go undercover as a curator to catch this guy. But, also, more importantly, two, when Carlos figures out that to pull it off he basically needs to think WWTKD (What Would TK Do) and loosens up and fakes at being TK, TK has a deep oh shit moment of what have I unleased on the world, and also that is so hot we need to go home right now, no like right right now or I'm going to do unspeakable things to you in public.

tagging @iboatedhere, @freneticfloetry, @ravens-words, and @carlos-in-glasses

[kneelbeforeyourdogbabylon]

Sins of Knowledge Chapter 5 is up!

Chapter 5: A Side Trip to MIR-Ville and a Confession

Rating: Explicit

CW/TW and tags: sex pollen, explicit content, dubious consent, ethical concerns, human AU, university AU, more tags at AO3. New tags for this chap under spoiler block: Masturbation in Shower, still more angst, still more pining, Making Out, making out in a public place with a lock on the door, Surveillance, Illegal Activities, Discussion of non-invasive Medical Procedures, Medical Clinic, Hand Jobs, Coitus Interruptus(ish)

Chaptered fic (5/12?), WIP, posting every other week

See AO3 for main work summary

Chapter 5 summary:

It's the morning after too much food and drink and bad television. Ana lays down the law with Crowley, Crowley pines and fantasizes weirdly, med student Furfur still can’t spell, Crowley runs into a familiar-ish face, and there is a happy-accident toilet rendezvous at the MRI clinic.

Chapter 5 excerpt:

Surrounded by steam and heat, he closed his eyes and let the water cascade over him. He shouldn’t linger, he knew. There was almost certainly some kind of surveillance in the bathroom, but Crowley couldn’t help himself. He imagined himself back in Aziraphale’s flat, waking up to that little beam of warm light trickling in through the blinds. The soft sounds and smells of a cozy haven enfolding him in comfort and delirious safety. He thought of tea, of holding hands, of Aziraphale’s thumb tracing his knuckles. What might’ve happened if Ana hadn’t been there? If he’d been allowed to wake Aziraphale on his own…

He was hard again, heavily so. Crowley took himself in hand before he could think better of it.

Read on AO3!

Or start at the beginning here

SO MANY THANKS AND HUGS to my wonderful betas @cheeseplants and @gaiaseyes451 for continuing to provide invaluable science and uni knowledge, Britishisms, and general writing assistance, as well as much needed cheerleading! You guys have made this so much better. Also thanks to @goodomensafterdark for being the best place to scream about this stuff ❤️

[prossims]

Friday Favorites

This series is highly inspired by @akitasimblr’s Sunday Crushes. The difference is, instead of sharing 5 simblr favorites, I will share simblr stories, gameplays, mods and CCs that I have been enjoying particularly through the past week. Trying to keep a balance of everything, these are this Friday’s favorites for me.

Simblr stories

Meet Virginia by @happy-lemon has been one of my most favorite story/gameplays to follow this week. This series is mainly Sims 3 gameplay screenshots with a little writing, but it is the perfect balance. The small captions convey the message in a concise and effective way while the story overall deals with many deep topics such as addiction, mental health and relationship issues. There are not a lot of posts in it yet, so I’d recommend you catch up from the beginning if you haven’t.

Harper Legacy Twice by @akitasimblr, of course, Ana had to be on this list. This is an extension of her Harper Legacy where she is following the rules of the Ice Cream Legacy challenge. Grace Harper is the generation one of the ice cream legacy and if you don’t want to read everything from Harper’s Home, which should be a very good time however, you may want to start here to catch up with Grace’s shenanigans. This gorgeous serial romantic is getting into all sorts of relationship drama while exploring her personality more. I am sure you will fall in love with her no matter how much you hate to see her dump all the cute guys in Tartosa!

Script Mods

This one is a mod which I am sure most of you are familiar with. But Lumpinou has just returned with a new version of Relationship and Pregnancy Overhaul. This is still in Beta, but the whole mod is now available to the public in 1 modular download and it's much better organized. I played around with module 16 (the new one) which is a dating app mod and loved every feature of it.

Just a disclaimer though, it is the Beta version of the mod and may contain bugs. You are advised to back up your saves before playing with it.

While playing around with it, my sim Kailee was matched with Dina Caliente. The date was very casual with no goals and the two just spent some time getting to know each other. Combined with mods like first impression and wonderful whims, this can be a very good dating solution for our sims.

Sims & Builds

If you are wondering where Kailee took her date to, it’s this Desert Bloom Park by @simmer-rhi. This is a gameplay friendly park lot that doesn’t use a lot of packs and looks really pretty for screenshots. My favorite kinda lot, really. This is going in my main save file for sure.

Custom Content (Rapid Fire Round)

The marmalade skin blend by @mossylane, mostly because of the wrinkly versions.

This facepaint ombre color wheel by @simstrouble because it works with many hairs.

This DenUmm set by @mossylanee because you can never have too much denim!

This MARSStudio collection by @marsmerizing-sims because the scarves and hijab are just perfect!

P.S: Really sorry for misspelling @simstrouble's name on the graphic.

[aconites]

open to: males. 32+

plot:  a modern arranged marriage based on this or this! can be crimey or not.

muse: juliet rossi ( ana de armas ) 30. socialite

note: please don’t like my starters & i use beta!

𝙏𝙃𝙍𝙀𝙀 𝙒𝙀𝙀𝙆𝙎. 𝙏𝙃𝙍𝙀𝙀 𝙒𝙀𝙀𝙆𝙎 since juliet kissed goodbye to her fun, carefree,  single lifestyle and said hello to marrying a man she didn’t even love. it was shocking how everything could change in the blink of the eye and if she had known that her thirtieth birthday would come with an arranged marriage proposal, she would have made it her mission to stay the f.uck away from new york city and gone full no-contact with her parents. unfortunately, her father had threatened to cut her off the second she tried to dispute whatever medieval-like contract he’d got her into with one of his closest friends and business partner years before she was even born, and she had no choice but to marry a man she barely knew. for the most part, the brunette tried to spend the least amount of time with her new husband but events like tonight’s couldn’t be avoided. she’d been on her best behavior for most of the evening, only towards the end of the gala did she have a little too much champagne and started to act a little too snarky towards him. which clearly he didn’t appreciate by the way he's practically dragging her to their car outside.❝  jesus christ, will you calm the f.uck down?❞ she hissed out, a huff leaving her lips as she finally got inside the waiting limo like he wanted her to. ❝ has anyone ever told you you’re a total kill joy?❞ she asked, scooting herself down the seat so she wouldn’t need to sit next to him. ❝ do you even know how to have fun? or is the stick up your ass making it impossible for you to do so?❞