#Anyhow just explore

[teaboot]

Can you recommend some rap for someone who's never really listened to it before??

I personally lean towards a lot of black metal/alternative/industrial/emo rap type stuff, and that *may* not be your cup of tea, but I can try to give you a range of new stuff to start with?

These are some good rap songs across 3-4 genres- I'm gonna try to get different sounds mixed in so if you don't like one, try another.

(Blanket warning for adult language and subject matter. Tried to stay tame but it happens.)

[greenerteacups]

Hi GT,

Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but I absolutely love the recs you've given (you've introduced me to tomione, and I love it!) and I was wondering if it's possible to give you some recs in return? There are some books and fics that definitely have dramione / got vibes, and I was wondering if I could share them with you!

So glad you've enjoyed them! Feel free to rec me anything you want. I've read most of the classic recs in terms of fic and adjacent content (Cruel Prince et al), but I'll try anything that's well-written. My tastes run towards weird and/or audaciously creative stuff, and I can forgive a lot of weaknesses in plot on the grounds of (1) ambition or (2) character work. My turnoffs are instalove, protagonists who can't fail, and most Y/A (I'm not a hater, I swear, I just need characters who can say "fuck" when their leg gets chopped off.)

I'm also a fan of weird and fucked-up dynamics.(Wuthering Heights was my favorite book for a while, and as a teenager I wrote an AU in which the book ends on a long sex scene where Heathcliff fucks Cathy's ghost and then immediately gets murdered by Catherine 2.) Obviously, I am very normal.

[clowningaroundmars]

previously:

Here, the Doctor leaps over to the side, narrowly avoiding a fist to the jaw and swinging 42’s still unconscious body into the air… letting him tumble over the ledge.

"Catch!" He announces brazenly.

42 falls down, down, down.

Gwen watches in horror.

here we are you guys!!! the final chapter! are you guys ready? :)

don't worry, i won't play with your guys' hearts for too long! well. i mean

oh yeah, and remember that death tw on chapter 1? well yeah. no gory details ofc but just mind the warning

anyways, enjoy! :D it's the final stretch

<< part 4 of 4

Doc Ock cackles gleefully as he watches 42’s body tumble into the air and down onto the concrete parking lot several stories below.

With one last burst of rage-filled strength, Gwen football-tackles him over the ledge while his guard is down, sending all three of them sailing through the cool night air.

Doc Ock clearly doesn’t expect this, if his screaming was anything to go by.

But Gwen wasn’t concerned at all with his idiotic cries, she was a woman on a mission and by god if she wasn’t going to complete it!

If she failed two of her friends and directly lead to both of their demises, then what the hell was she wearing the mask for?

No, this ends now.

She quickly grabs Doc Ock by the back of his neck and grips onto another one of his tentacles as they fall through the air, ripping it straight out of the node on his spinal cord with all of her might.

“N-no-- don’t!! AAAAAAAAAUGHH!!”

The Doctor’s soul-wrenching yowl of pain might’ve made Gwen feel a little bad… under normal circumstances. But at the moment, her every bit of focus was pointed towards Miles-42 like a compass pointing True North, and she wasn’t letting him out of her sight now.

Making split-second calculations, she kicked the Doctor’s body off of her and used the tentacle’s technological properties as a last-ditch effort to hook herself onto a nearby streetlamp, swinging her entire body’s weight with a loud grunt of effort.

She intercepted Miles’ flailing body in mid-air and succeeded in grabbing a hold of him, swinging down onto the ground safely and falling onto the concrete. She crashed onto her knees and rolled over a few times, clutching 42's head protectively all the way down.

The Doctor… didn’t make it.

With a sickening crunch and splatter, he was a disgusting mess of red, wet garbage on the concrete. His tentacles weren't long enough to reach back up to ledge of the building and his slower reflexes caused him to miss the streetlamp entirely.

His remaining tentacles laid next to him just as limp and as dead as he was.

Well, shit. That was gonna be a nasty surprise for the paramedics to find later on, huh.

Gwen sighed with relief as she laid her head back down and took a minute to catch her breath.

What a day. She wanted this to be completely over now, but… she knew that despite this small moment of relief, she wasn’t quite out of the woods yet. Literally.

But also…

“Miles,” she grunts with effort, every muscle in her body crying out as she pushes herself off of her elbows to sit up.

Miles-42 is laid across her lap now and showing zero signs of waking up anytime soon. Gwen’s heart started kicking into overdrive again, and she held him in her hands…

Just like you held Peter… after killing him, an evil little voice sneered at her from the back of her mind.

“Peter? Peter, oh god. What did you do?!” Gwen sobbed, excavating her beloved friend from the rubble of her school’s gymnasium.

He wasn’t gonna make it… oh god, he really wasn’t going to make it. The poor boy could barely open his eyes, and his bloody, beaten face was something that was going to haunt her in her nightmares forever.

It was etched into the back of her mind, the back of her damn eyelids, especially when to her delight-- or horror, it was hard to tell in the moment-- he managed to crack open his swollen eyes and look directly into hers.

“Gw-- Gwen…” he coughed, weakly.

Gwen continued to cry. “No no no no no, no, no! What did you do!? Why?!” She pleaded, wanting any answer, anything to hold onto.

“I… I wanted to be special. Like you,” he managed, even weaker than before.

Gwen knew it. She could feel the thready pulse of his heartbeat growing weaker and weaker with every passing second, and time was running out.

But she still held on.

“… Peter?” She sucked in a breath.

“Peter?”

“Peter?!”

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“Miles?!”

Gwen sobbed once more, clutching yet another beloved friend in her arms, in a position eerily similar to that fateful night. “Miles!”

All of the feelings she felt the night that her best friend had died came crashing back down and flooding into her chest like a tsunami.

She sniffled angrily, ripping her mask off of her face and working to pry Miles’ mask off of his own face, too.

... Damn it! What the hell was this stupid thing made out of?!

She didn’t want to break his tech, as complicated and extremely well-made as it was. She knew it was valuable and expensive to make, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

She needed to see if he was still possibly alive, if he could give her a sign or something, and she wasn’t going to be able to do it with this stupid mask in the way!

She didn’t trust her shaking hands to be able to read his pulse in this state… she needed to see his face.

After a couple of minutes of careful jabbing and prying, Gwen was finally frustrated enough to just slide Miles right off of her lap and pry the whole thing off of his face with one firm pull.

She managed to do so without injuring him even more, and immediately got to checking the color of his lips in the low lighting of the near-empty parking lot. She fussed over him, sniffling and wiping her tears all the while.

It seemed like his bleeding stopped for now at least, but that was without even knowing how much he had lost in the first place.

“Miles… Miles?! Please,” she begged as she held him in her arms once more. “Answer me, please! Let me know you’re still alive, anything! Wiggle your eyebrows or…” she sniffled, “I… I don’t know but god, please, anything!”

What the hell did Doc Ock even do to this kid anyways?

She examined his face once more through the tears in her eyes and noticed a new injury that looked relatively fresh, still bleeding somewhere from his temple.

Maybe he knocked Miles out for a longer time in his mad dash to the roof… and if that was true… he really, really could be dead.

Miles-42 wasn’t a superpowered being like the rest of the Spider Band, he was a regular kid with cool gadgets and intense at-home training, but a regular kid nonetheless. Gwen could recover from a hard head injury herself just fine, all she would have to do is just sleep the pain off.

But Miles…

Miserably, Gwen sunk down even lower to the ground and sobbed her eyes out, tears wetting her face and staining the spray-painted Prowler logo on Miles’ shirt.

She stays like this, clutching onto the limp body of someone she would’ve been happy to call her friend-- especially after all they’ve been through today-- and now he won’t even live to see the fruits of his labor.

Fuck.

Gwen’s wandering thoughts takes her over to his uncle Aaron’s face, how he was going to react to the news of his nephew’s untimely and unfortunate death.

Gwen thought about Rio and… well, she cried even harder.

But she didn’t get to finish because… Miles then stirred a bit, his breathing speeding up a bit before he laid his head back and sighed softly.

Gwen stopped crying. She was shocked, staring back into his blank face with wide, teary eyes.

… Was it her imagination, then? Did she want Miles to be alive so badly that she convinced herself that he moved a bit while she wept?

No. No, she’s got to suck it up, stop letting her emotions get the best of her and give it a real try this time.

Steadying her breathing and wiping the snot from her nose, she brushes her hair back from her face and turns Miles’ face towards a nearby streetlamp that casts down a cold, white light onto the scene.

With gentle fingers, she lifts up one of his eyelids, then his other eyelid, and then finally bends down to listen to his chest as closely as she can.

She hears a heartbeat, though not so loudly underneath all of the gear he wears, but a heartbeat nonetheless.

Miles really stirs this time, groaning and sucking in a breath as he slowly comes back online.

Gwen laughs wetly, wiping more of her tears and boogers and sadness away, only tears of joy left brimming in her eyes.

“Miles! Oh my god, you’re alive… you’re alive! You made it!” She announces gleefully, giving him a happy little squeeze.

“Ow,” Miles answers hoarsely, squinting in the harsh, cold light of the streetlamp overhead and coughing a bit.

“S-sorry, sorry. I’m just. Well, y’know pretty excited that you’re alive. I thought that you were actually dead for a minute there, bud! You really gave me a scare!” She laughs and sniffles.

Miles finally cracks an eye open long enough to exhale a bit and lay his head back down.

“Uhhh… who are you again?” He mumbles, and Gwen’s heart sinks.

Oh no.

“What? Uh, i-it’s me, Gwen! Y’know, the girl who you’ve been fighting to escape this horrible building with this whole night? Oh no… is your head injury that bad?” She frets.

Miles then cracks a smile, not quite being able to laugh but getting pretty damn close to doing so.

“Gwendy, relax. I know who you are. Joke,” he explained, and it earned him another head bump from being promptly dropped right back onto the hard ground.

“Ow,” he complained.

“You are a dick,” Gwen replied, folding her arms over her chest. She didn’t stop smiling through her tears, though.

“Were you crying over me? Oh my god, you were totally crying,” Miles says with a smile, not making any movements to get up at all.

Gwen unfolds her aching legs from underneath her and stands up on her knees. “Shut up. Stop talking. You’ve sustained a critical brain injury and you need to not make stupid decisions before we get you out of here, alright?”

Miles chuckles quietly. “Mmnyeah, true. Lemme keep my mouth shut.”

He wasn’t slurring his speech or confusing her for another person, so that was a good sign.

He wasn’t moving any of his limbs, though. So… that was possibly a bad sign.

“Can you, uh,” Gwen starts, glancing all around her as she fully stands up, “can you walk? Or sit up? I can carry you, but I need to know that you’re not paralyzed from the neck down first. I don’t wanna risk any more injuries, y’know?”

Miles wiggles his feet and flexes his hands inside of his gauntlets for a bit before laying back down and sighing again.

“Yeah, I can move my limbs. I don’t think anything’s broken… except for this massive fuckin’ migraine I got goin’ on right now. Just, uhm. Just gimme a minute.”

Gwen continues looking over her shoulder. The blades of a chopper are vibrating through the air several miles away but it’s gaining speed quickly, and steadily getting closer.

“Okay, you might wanna hurry up on that, because we’ve got company coming and we still need to get the hell out of here,”

Miles blinks on the ground for a few more seconds, gears very obviously turning in his head as he does.

After a few seconds, he says, “okay. Help me up, then. Slowly,”

It takes them several more minutes of pained grunting and a slow ascent up to get Miles standing again, but once they’re both steady on their feet, they get a move on.

Gwen has one of his arms over her shoulder, steadying him and carrying some of his weight.

“Wait,” Miles says suddenly, just as they’re rounding a corner of the building where several guards and scientists are still milling around. There are a few big white buses parked close by, most likely hired to transport the personnel away from the facility. Some are already sat inside.

Gwen ducks back around the corner and takes a peek at the scene before turning her attention back to her friend.

“Shit, you’re right. There’s a lot of people out there, most likely waiting for Octavius or something. We’ve gotta find a way too book it out of here undetected, though…”

“Mh, yep,” Miles grunts, sucking in air through his teeth for a second. “Ow, sorry. My head’s killin’ me… which kinda sucks, ‘cause my escape plan was to just hot-wire a car and hightail it outta here.”

Gwen laughed incredulously. “Oh my god. That was your grand escape plan this whole time?” She shakes her head. “In every single universe… Miles Morales is the exact same dork I always hate to love,”

“Psshhyeah right, hate to love. You’re not foolin’ me,” Miles smirks at her exasperated expression.

Gwen rolls her eyes and instructs Miles to lean against the wall and stay put while she goes to search for a viable vehicle they could steal.

“Cool. Good luck. I definitely won’t die,” Miles informs her, which just makes her roll her eyes again before bounding away.

Time for some espionage, Gwen thinks to herself as she skirts the outer edges of the parking lot and tries to avoid being seen by the several other armed personnel still waiting around to receive confirmation that they can now depart.

After a little bit, a few ambulance trucks pull up with flashing red lights and the paramedics jump out, which actually gives her some relief. The professionals were on the job now, everything was taken care of; they also served as a perfect distraction from what she was doing…

Which was looping around the entire building’s perimeter and seeing which car was left unattended and unlocked.

She really didn’t want to have to break any windows, especially because she needed to keep as quiet as possible since she still needed to go back and fetch Miles… but if all options were exhausted…

Bingo!

She eventually came across a parked Ford F-250 near a line of trees located just behind all of the ambulances and the commotion. It was unlocked (haha, sucker!) and was perfectly empty, ready for the taking.

Gwen couldn’t believe that despite failure after failure plaguing her on this day, her luck finally turned around at the last minute… what a relief!

Overhead, the chopper finally reached its destination, drowning out every sound around them with its spinning blades as it slowly lowered itself down onto the helipad located at the top of the building. Leaves were whipped violently into the air, trees swayed and shook with the force of the winds.

Gwen rejoiced again at the added distraction that would surely help with her sweet escape.

The helicopter crew wouldn't find much waiting for them up there, save for the unconscious bodies of several brutally-beaten henchmen, of course.

She fetched her friend who was now sitting with his knees tucked up under his chin against the wall, and together they limped their way back to the truck and climbed in.

Once inside, they successfully hot-wired it using Miles’ gadgets. Then Miles went to climb out of the driver’s seat.

“Uhh wait, huh. Where’re you going?” Gwen asks from the passenger seat.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you? You’re driving. Hop in.” Miles groans as he lowers himself from the high-as-hell cab, clutching at his side.

Gwen titters nervously. “Ohhh, no, no I’m not! I don’t even have my license yet, I can’t drive!”

Miles takes his sweet time painstakingly climbing into the back seat of the truck. He shirks his pack off, throws it onto the floor of the cab, and stretches himself out over the seats to lay down.

“Yep, I don’t have my license either, girl, you don’t see me chickening out when I’m picked to be the getaway driver!” He remarks, once comfortable.

Gwen huffs in annoyance, leaping over to the driver’s side and locking all of the doors once she makes sure they’re shut tight.

“Dude, forreal! I have no clue how to operate a truck like this! The gear shift isn’t even in the right place,” she complains.

Miles cracks one eye open. “Please tell me your dimension doesn’t have y’all driving on the left side of the road…”

Gwen huffs again. “No, I'm not British, Miles. I meant… this looks pretty high-tech for me and… what do all of these buttons even do? …Is this a touch screen?”

“Gwen, seriously, I get that this is a brand new experience for you but listen: there are like, no laws in this dimension. Literally not even kidding. Just pull up the GPS on that touch screen, punch in my address and we can get going. Left pedal’s gas, right pedal’s the brakes.”

She hesitated, but... there was no arguing with that! Who was Gwen to make decisions in a dimension she wasn’t even a part of, really? If Miles told her that his dimension ignored all traffic laws, well… then, when in Rome, right?

And besides, who else was getting them both to safety if not her? She needed to suck it up before they were noticed by any personnel sweeping the area, or before any cops showed up.

She took a deep breath and steeled herself.

“Well,” Gwen said nervously, both hands on the wheel and her eyes directly on the road in front of her, “bon voyage, then! Let’s pray I don’t get the both of us killed,”

“Vamos con dios,” Miles mumbled, an arm draped over his eyes. He quickly lost consciousness once again.

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About half an hour into their drive (which-- aside from terrible braking every now and then-- was admittedly pretty smooth, all things considered), Gwen pulls over to a greasy 24-hour fast food place that seemed to serve all of the shittiest, unhealthiest food ever invented under the sun.

She woke Miles up and asked him what his order would be, borrowed his jacket to cover up her unique costume’s design, and ducked inside.

She was surprised to see Miles up and sitting in the truck bed when she returned with their food, legs swinging like he hadn’t just gotten injured helping her fight a menacing four-armed madman not even an hour and a half ago.

He looked the worse for wear, braids frizzed out as they hung right over his shoulders like they usually did, but he was more alert now than he had been before. He looked fine, given the circumstances.

They sat side-by-side, gazing up at what scarce stars there were out in the early morning sky, the edges of the horizon peeking a slight blush of pink through the trees.

Gwen scarfed down her triple bacon burger and inhaled her large fries, only stopping every once in a while to take a sip of her extra-large milkshake.

A mildly amused Miles enjoyed his own fries and meatball sub in companionable silence.

“Feelin’ better?” Gwen asks, still munching on the last bit of her burger, which has now thoroughly stained the lap of her costume with grease.

Miles laughs, wrapping up the second half of his sandwich for later. “Yeah, a quick nap and a good meal helps a lot,”

Gwen hums in thought. “You were out for… a while. Like, back at the parking lot. I was getting real worried there, actually,” she admits.

Miles glances at her, studying her face for a second. “… How long? I mean, you were crying, so I guess it was a while,”

Gwen rolls her eyes. “Can you stop bringing the crying back up again? I just… I got scared, okay? You didn’t tell me what your grand escape plan was before you… uh, passed out, so I mean...”

Miles is skeptical. “Uh huh, the escape plan. That’s what you were worried about that whole time, right?” He ribbed her a bit, intending for it to come off light-heartedly.

The tense silence that fell in that moment made him a bit nervous, though.

Gwen looked… upset.

He backpedaled. “Uhhh, I mean. Yeah, yeah, the escape plan! The escape plan... woulda been a real shame if I croaked back there before telling you what it was. Of course.” He clears his throat awkwardly.

Gwen offers him a small smile and starts clearing the wrappings and the trash around her folded legs.

“I… uh. I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone this before. Well, not all of the details but. I don’t really do the whole friend thing anymore because of… I mean, I lost a friend before. And you’re Miles and-- I mean, not my Miles but the other Miles is-- was my friend, and I think we’re cool now, but when I saw you falling I just…”

Gwen sighs. “Sorry. I’m rambling. This is awkward.”

Miles leans back against the side of the truck bed, positioned in the same way that they were sitting back when they were having a bit of a heart-to-heart in the vents of Octavius’ compound. Funny how little moments like this seemed so serendipitous like that.

He studied her face again in the yellowing lights of the restaurant’s signs, thinking for a bit.

“Miles… the other Miles kind of told me some stuff. Not too many details, sure, but. Yeah,” he offered, trying to signal to her that he was down for a chat, no matter how depressing the topic got.

Not very many people in his world got to understand him on a deeper level, not even his own girlfriend. It was nice sitting next to someone who dealt with just as much trauma as him, if not more. It was... an opportunity for connection. Why not take it?

Gwen looked up at him. “Oh, you two talk about me?”

“Yeah, you’re all we talk about, your highness,” he laughs, then sobers up again. “Nah. I mean, y’know like, we talk about everybody. And he likes you, you know. So, yeah... sometimes you get brought up.”

Gwen sighs, leaning her head back against the truck bed and looking up at the stars above. “He shouldn’t, honestly. I think he can find someone from his dimension that… that’s gonna actually appreciate him, you know?” She looks back down into Miles’ eyes. “Not a self-deprecating thing, by the way. Don’t worry,”

Miles holds his hands up with an easy smile. “Not worrying,”

“Well good!” Gwen smirks. Then she shrugs. "I'm not sure it'd work out between us. That's all."

“... So about that back there… I took a look in the side mirror and uh,” he gestures to his shirt, the Prowler insignia now slightly messed up and blurred in some spots thanks to Gwen’s salty tears. "Yeah."

Gwen looks away, ashamed. “Yeah,” is all she says.

“Was your friend… a good friend?” Miles prodded a bit, trying to seem nonchalant about it.

Gwen saw right through it, even when she was purposefully avoiding looking at him. “Yeah. He was. My best friend,”

“Damn,” Miles replies. “I reminded you of him that much?”

Gwen laughs bitterly. “Don’t flatter yourself. I mean… I thought of you as my friend, which… y’know, you are, until we get to go our separate ways and forget all of this even happened. And I uh… I don’t like seeing friends get hurt. That’s all.”

Miles bobbed his head slowly, digesting this bit of information and taking a sip of his own milkshake.

"He, uhm." Gwen swallowed. "He died in my arms."

It was all she could say.

Miles winced because he understood. He really, really did.

After a few moments of silence, he cleared his throat. “Listen. I, uh. I wouldn’t mind calling you a friend after all of this, if you don’t mind. Like, even after we go home,” He strategically avoided eye contact with her. "We been through too much tonight to call each other strangers, right?"

Gwen smiled at him again. It was a sad smile. “Why don’t you have any friends, by the way? You seem cool. Well. When you’re not in work mode, that is.”

Miles chuckled. “Wow. Do I seem that lonely?”

Gwen shrugs. “The other Miles also tells me some things… sometimes. You just happen to come up every now and then, that’s all,” she manages as playfully as possible. She throws him a wink over her shoulder.

Miles' upper lip quirked up. “That little traitor. I’m giving him a wedgie the next time I see ‘im.”

Gwen barks out a laugh. “Good luck! He’s ten times stronger than you and he can go invisible,”

“Yep,” Miles nods to himself. “You definitely still have a crush on him.”

Gwen throws a fry at him and then they decide to finally dump their trash and continue their journey back into the city before the sun really started waking up and blinding poor Gwen, who was already learning how to drive on the fly and probably didn’t need the relentless sun rays beaming directly into her eyes while she was still at it.

They rode the rest of the way in much better spirits.

They drive past Newark, New Jersey and before Gwen knows it, they’re driving through Manhattan and reaching the Brooklyn Bridge.

“Okay okay, okay, okay okay okayokayokay,” she mutters to herself, hands firmly gripping the steering wheel and leaving slight indentations in the material. “I got this, I got this,”

Miles is now seated in the passenger seat, seatbelt firmly clicked in place. He’s leaned forward, ready to stop Gwen at any moment and pull the emergency brakes.

“Yeah, yeah, you got this, you got this! Don’t be intimidated by all the other cars around you, this ain’t our truck, remember? Everyone else is gonna be doing whatever the hell they wanna do, but don’t do anything stupid on the bridge, right? Otherwise, just keep your foot hovering over the brakes, like I told you before. Let this truck coast,”

Gwen tries her best to internalize all of his rapid-fire advice and not accidentally find herself flooring the gas by accident at the same time. She’s pretty sure her finger marks are going to be sunk into the polyurethane foam and possibly even the metal underneath forever.

She didn’t know who in the world owned this truck, but whoever he was, he was going to be real pissed off when he discovered it in the future.

Which, actually, speaking of…

“Sooo, how uh… where are we going to put this truck once we’re done with it? Should we… pull over soon, leave it in a parking lot somewhere and take the train the rest of the way?”

Miles chuckled. “Leave it? You kiddin’? This truck is basically brand new, pristine. We’re taking this straight to my uncle’s chop shop, we’re gonna take this stuff apart, sell a part here and there, keep the rest for our own gear.”

Gwen gave him a cursory glance. “Uh, your uncle has an auto shop? Huh. Dunno why that surprises me.”

“It’s not a legit business, that’s why. He only runs it as a front. We use it mostly to bring in abandoned cars, use the metals, wires and glass for our gear, other weapons we make to sell. Sometimes Aaron fixes other people’s cars and bikes for some money, though… and bribes.”

Gwen chuckles a bit. “Sounds about right. But I guess I don’t blame you guys. Gotta do what you can to… survive… right?”

She trails off as they get closer to Brooklyn's residential areas and see a rampant spike in crimes. Gwen’s Spider Sense goes off as she sees crime after crime being committed in the brand new hours of the dawn, when the sky hasn’t even finished lightening up to a nice baby blue yet.

“… I see that you guys, uhm… these New Yorkers here in this dimension are a… lively bunch, huh?” Gwen comments distractedly as she drives past someone actively committing grand theft auto.

“Yyyyep,” Miles sighs. “Home, sweet home.”

“You ever wonder what it’s like to live anywhere else in the world sometimes?”

“Only everyday. But us Morales never run from anything. So,” Miles shrugs.

Gwen gives him a fond look.

"Sure do wish I could stop some of these people, though-- wait. Is that man mugging that other guy over there?" She cranes her neck over the wheel to get a better look.

Miles grabs the wheel to keep them from veering into a line of parked cars. "How about we just keep driving, okay? Eyes on the road, girl."

Gwen laughs sheepishly. "Right! Sorry. Spiderwoman instincts."

"Yeah, trust me, I get it." Miles replies flatly. "Don't get distracted. This crime's ours to fight, not yours. Just get us home, like, alive please?"

After finally rolling up to Aaron’s garage at five in the morning, bright and early, Miles lowers himself down from the cab once again and limps over to ring the doorbell.

He presses it in a series of patterns that Gwen only vaguely recognizes before the metal garage door eventually starts rumbling open, revealing a slightly disheveled Aaron still in his PJs, but with a fly coat on as per usual, and some nice-looking Timbs. He was casually leaning against a vintage Cadillac.

He held a mug of coffee in one hand that read “WORLD’S WORST UNCLE” in bold lettering on one side.

Gwen bit her lip to keep from laughing.

“About damn time,” Aaron grumbles, scratching at his beard and pushing off of the Cadillac. “What took y’all so long?”

Miles only gives him a cursory glance before going around the front of the truck to help Gwen down from the cab and dive into the backseat to retrieve his stuff.

Aaron raises an eyebrow at her.

“Uh, hello… sir. I’m Gwen!” She responds, mostly to dispel the awkwardness that hung in the air.

Aaron eyes the truck as he paces casually towards the two teens, gaze occasionally flicking down to the purple jacket that Gwen still sported... that very clearly belonged to his nephew.

"What, uh," Aaron starts, "what... happened to you two?"

"Ah, you know. High risk life-threatening mission, the usual!" Gwen quips on auto-pilot. Her mouth moves faster than her brain does sometimes.

Miles followed Aaron’s gaze and quickly stepped in front of her, holding his pack out for him to take.

“I got it,” he informed Aaron. “All of it.”

Aaron made a noise of approval, taking the pack and examining it.

It still had a few cobwebs dangling off of it. He hummed in thought, eyeing his nephew once more.

“Sooo, we’re gonna go upstairs now, cool? I gotta clean this super awful and deep wound I got from… uh, saving Gwen here. Yeah, she was gonna be sushi if I didn’t jump in front of her. It was Doc Ock, by the way,” Miles continued, as they both made their way into the garage and towards the door in the back. “Doc Ock, that we killed, too. By the way. Mostly me, of course. But, y’know. No need to thank me or anything!”

Aaron laughs and shakes his head. "I'm tellin' Rio, kid. I am! I'm snitchin', I don't care."

"What!" Miles exclaims indignantly. "About what?!"

Aaron's shoulders are shaking. "I'm tellin' her you got another girl around now,"

Gwen laughed loudly, grabbing Miles by the back of his shirt and yanking him towards the back exit door.

“I do not! Do not call her! Bye!” Miles called out before stumbling into the landing that lead up to the elevator of his uncle’s building.

Miles apologized about his uncle in the elevator ride up, and when he opened the door to Aaron's spacious apartment, he kicked his shoes off and sighed with relief.

“Make yourself at home, by the way… mi casa es su casa, and all that,” he says nonchalantly as he peels his shirt off of his body, shedding gear on the floor all the way to the couch.

Gwen only stands by the door, jacket in hand, fiddling nervously with the material.

“I should… I should go.” She finally says after a moment of hesitation. Guilt weighed heavily on her shoulders. “I shouldn’t stick around if I really don’t need to--”

“Why, ‘cause of Spider Society rules?” Miles scoffs, pulling a first aid kit from under the couch and inspecting his wound. “Am I still bleeding on the side of my face, by the way?”

Gwen sighs. “No. And, no. You’ve stopped bleeding a while ago. Look…” she dumps his jacket onto the back of a computer chair and looks down at her watch. “This little adventure was very fun and all… but you got hurt because of me, and I should--”

She stops when she sees Miles’ wound. It looked nothing like she’d ever seen before on a person... and she’s seen her fair share of wounds.

The gaping… thing that Miles was inflicted with didn’t look like any wound she’d even experienced before.

It was green, still had a slight glow to it from the weird snake-like marks winding out from the center. The dried blood scabbing over didn’t bother her at all, she knew how ugly a stab wound could look most days, but the green glow…

It looked a lot like the glowing green circuits back in that power box that she destroyed at Octavius’ compound…

She gasped.

Miles looked up from his inspection and they locked eyes.

“Uhhh,” his pupils bounce around for a bit, trying to think of something to say. “It’s… it’s not as bad as it looks?”

Gwen winces and then swiftly turns around, immediately punching in her own dimension into the watchface. “I’d love to stick around… but I gotta go. Don’t die on me, okay?” She tells him, speaking quickly.

Miles is caught by surprise, but eventually concedes. He places a hand over his wound and nods in her direction. “Uhm. Yeah, cool. Will do. You uh, you take it easy, too. Yeah?”

Gwen only offers him a sad smile in return and her own watercolor-bright portal is immediately opened. Then, she’s stepping through it like she’s being chased down.

After the portal closes, everything that was in the vicinity settles down after floating in the air a bit.

Miles is left alone blinking in the place it used to be, unsure as to why Gwen just dipped on him like that out of nowhere.

He looks back down to his wound, only maybe slightly infected, but still very sure that the poison most likely worked itself through his body by now. Especially after that meatball sub and the fries...

Maybe seeing poisoned wounds upset her or something, he figured, shrugging and going back into the open kit laid next to him.

He starts cleaning his wound with isopropyl alcohol, wincing every now and then when the chemical stung a little harder as he peeled away dried blood.

It isn’t until after he’s done that he remembers their conversation about her best friend, back in the truck at the fast food joint.

He shuts the kit closed, tucks it back underneath the couch, and picks his phone up off of the counter where he usually leaves it before heading out to dangerous missions.

He selects and copies Gwen’s number from the Spider Band groupchat that he never sends messages in, opens a new message box, and sends only one text.

Thanks, btw. For everything.

[loregoddess]

okay hands down the best new mechanic for LoZ:EoW is the ability to warp around the dungeon, if I get stuck on a puzzle I can just warp away and try to solve a different part of the dungeon, if I get stuck on that puzzle I can go back to the first one with a slightly different mindset bc I'm now avoiding a different puzzle, it's great

[magistralucis]

lost in translation [Zultanekh/Djoseras Snippet]

(Last snippet before fic starts publishing on AO3. Should be in the next day or two. What I thought would be a nice lengthy oneshot is now going to be a three-parter filled with various pains, why am I like this 😭

It will be titled we live on archipelagos. I'll update tags on previous snippets too)

-----------------

An aside about languages. While Zultanekh never doubted his new body was for the better, he was disappointed to find it came pre-installed with translingual modules. Another of the Silent King's cosmopolitan projects, the move towards universal intelligibility, and an extension of his linguistic reforms: they left the furnaces knowing not only Szarekh's language, but everybody else's, and they'd never understood each other before as well as they did in those newborn moments. Even so, Zultanekh was let down, because he had been planning to learn the Ithakan language for himself.

An odd choice, even for his standards. An unfashionable language, neglected even by Ithakans. He'd wanted it, all the same, in the hopes it would help him understand Djoseras better. And no, he hadn't wished to blink and know it - he'd wanted to learn it, go through the grammar and the rote memorization as any schoolboy might have done. He was never the one to seek intellectual labour, and has no illusions that he'd have been fluent. But he knows the effort would have mattered, that the struggle made it real.

It felt like the least he could do to nurture their peace.

But surplus or deficit, they must work with what they have. The necrons' shared purpose drained away after Szarekh's war, and many dynasties have started using their own languages again, which the modules have proved invaluable in decoding. They update in real time, even, despite their innumerable losses - a culture-mad archaeovist is behind them, Zultanekh supposes, eager to share his research for the betterment of his kin. Fairly sure no one asked, but it's not like Trazyn to ask permission for anything.

And Zultanekh's theory was correct, he can apply Ithakan to their conversations now, and it does help him understand Djoseras better. He knows the same applies to him. When he bows down to Anathrosis and whispers ne moja volja no tvoja da bodet', he is laying down at her feet something greater than not mine but my phaeron's will be done, even though the invocation is the same. When Djoseras looks up from the nomarch's latest reports and exclaims he is well, my philos brother, he is not merely saying Oltyx is dear to him. A lot of things are philos to him, actually, even the things to which he is dispassionate. Those modules are what Zultanekh used to tease Djoseras about the Ithakan ships, not on account of their quality but their spirits, which are of course autonomos. "The heka of Ithakas is so bound up in justice, it seems, that it cannot abide anything with a law unto itself. I'd like to see a ship getting uppity with you sometime."

(Djoseras had thought this a very bad joke, but it did not stop his nodes glimmering with amusement, all the same.)

[tacagen]

man do i love green goblin and do i HATE how he's usually handled

[gonguji]

when ships 👏 find each other 👏 in another universe!!

[vogelmeister]

common act 2 L

[stackslip]

Ok speaking of Viserys and Daemon, I cannot remember were he said it, but the lead writer suggested that part of Daemon's deal is that he wishes he'd been born a woman so he could marry Viserys.... That's such a good window into Targaryen relationships for me lmao

HELLO HI????? I NEED A SOURCE FOR THIS RIGHT NOW IM OBSESSED WITH THIS...... I SAW THIS CONCEPT IN A FEW FICS AND LOVED IT BUT I HAD NO IDEA THE WRITERS INTENDED IT...... i mean it makes complete sense, daemon is utterly devoted to viserys and constantly seeks his approval and attention even if he's being an absolute shithead about it. even his pursuit of rhaenyra seems to be in part bc he wants to get under viserys's skin, or be as close as he can to viserys's own blood......... i love targaryens they're so fucked up lol

[poptartmochi]

however.. it's not just blorbo thoughts that haunt me with that song... it's teacher thoughts too! 🤯

[trollbreak]

Btw um. I think dari needs someone to be not normal abt her ‘healing’ again :P like she’s very not secretive abt Not being a troll she doesn’t even try to hide and also. She very much does get ripped apart in an arena like weekly. I think it’d be silly if someone like. Took a piece and watched it struggle to get back home :3

[todayisafridaynight]

SORRY TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE GREAT INBOX IMPLOSION OF 6/11 </3 it will happen again </3 I just feel pretty comfortable coming in here and rambling...

RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT... Mine is a little older too, so the alternative of Aoki having to call Mine senpai is. It's Something. It tickles me. And if we combine the two ideas, there's another way to get Mine and Jo in the same room I guess LMAO

CRYING THOUGH I can't wait to watch more First Penguin😭😭😭I was reminded of these two dramas where Tsutsumi's characters spend some time in America and do speak English. I don't remember what one of them was but for the One English Line he spoke in that, his accent was so good I was kind of shook... and God of Risk has one ep featuring Gratuitous English. I think that was one of my first Tsutsumi shows, and the only one I know Yokoyama's seen too lol, but naturally I don't remember anything else about it

BUT THAT'S EXACTLY THE VISION he's been conditioned to feel Threatened and On Edge when he doesn't know what's going on, but he can't exactly go full yakuza on every random guy who tries to start up small talk or holds eye contact for too long... but he'll think about it... just in case...

This is why Jo should be in 8. For my entertainment. Imagine this dude who's supposed to be serving a life sentence washing up in Hawaii (Preferably Clothed) a la Saejima or Hamazaki...

oh my god im dumb as hell for some reason in my head mine was flat 30 y/o and not 33 fuck me ☠️ all the same it does make his and aokis Hypothetical circumstances funnier LMAO

NEW DRAMA FOR ME TO WATCH I SEE i already have the first episode opened in another tab 😏 ive had the chance to hear nakai speak in english from Hit Me Anyone One More Time, its only right its tsutsumi's turn.....

it'd be funny as hell if rgg finished the Rules Of Three rule by having jo wash up on an american beach too ☠️☠️☠️ sir how did you get out. hed look like such a sad dog left out in the rain with his prison fit and shaggy hair wandering around wonderin what the fucks going on 😭😭😭

[razzle-zazzle]

Whumptober Day 17: Nowhere Else to Go

Shipwrecked (kind of) + "We had a good run"

2265 Words; Pearl & Seaglass

TW for brief implied nonsexual nudity

AO3 ver

Heat bore down against his face, uncomfortable and unfamiliar.

Raz shifted. His scales felt weird, and there was sand against his back—but it didn’t feel right. He couldn’t feel his fins, either, and when he tried to move his tail—

Raz’ eyes snapped open with a speed that could rival a frogfish. Bright sunlight assaulted his eyes, making him wince and close them again, blinking rapidly as he tried to get his arms under him.

Slowly, his vision returned, and he found himself—the word humans used was sitting, wasn’t it? Raz glanced down—yes! In place of his tail were two gangly, scaleless legs.

“It wasn’t a dream!” Ohhhhh, okay, that was weird, talking without flashing his stripes. “Ohh. Ahh. Ouwaeghhhhh.” The sounds vibrated weirdly in his throat, different from the clicks and whistles he was used to. Cool!

Raz reached up—okay, yeah, his helmet was still there. His bag was at his side, but that was it—which Raz was pretty sure was less than humans tended to wear. He needed to fit in, to be so super stealthy if he wanted to return to the ocean safely in… Gisu had said seven days, right? So Raz had seven whole days to poke around, which meant he couldn’t mess it up!

Raz looked around the beach. There was a cliff face sheltering it, and in the shadow of the rock was an old, heavy-looking chest, half-hidden under dried kelp. Raz got up fully, the sand warm beneath his feet, and moved to start walking—

He stumbled, arms windmilling as he tumbled forwards. He spat out sand, pushed himself up, and tried again. One foot in front of the other, he was pretty sure—

“Yes!” Raz was walking! Like a human! He whooped, surprised by the sudden sound, then pushed forward, the sand shifting under him. He tilted, almost fell, and then spun around until he was dizzy. This was real! He was a human!

Eventually, Raz made his way over to the chest. He swept the kelp away, prying it open. A bunch of fabric sat inside, smelling slightly musty, slightly salty. Clothes, he presumed.

“Bingo.” Raz fiddled around, picking through the clothes until he was wearing what he was pretty sure was normal human wear. He’d seen some woodcarvings before they rotted, and the rare metal engraving if it wasn’t rusted, so he had a pretty good idea of what went where, even if he wasn’t sure as to the exact names of things. But his torso and legs were covered, and he was pulling his feet into what he thought were called shoes. There was a bit of sand grating against his skin inside his clothes, but Raz did his best to shake the feeling off—there was no way he wasn’t gonna get sand where he didn’t want it. So he pulled his goggles down instead, the world shifting to warmer hues through the lenses. Now he was a proper explorer, just like the Explorer Corps!

Raz bounced in place. If he still had fins, they’d be fluttering, and he’d be swimming loops. But he wasn’t in the water, and he didn’t have fins, because he had become human and made it onto land.

There was a small path up the cliff, hard to catch from up above. Raz dashed for it, excitement filling his chest. He was so ready for this, he was going to learn so much—

He couldn’t wait to be where the people were.

+=+=+=+=+

The human city was crowded.

Raz supposed it made sense; it looked like they could only build their dwellings up so high, and all of the people were groundbound, unable to just swim over or under each other. Raz’ small size put him at something of a disadvantage; he kept getting bumped into and pushed around in the crowd, and couldn’t see over any of the much bigger humans. It was loud, crowded, hot, and a little smelly thanks to all the humans crammed together in the same space all buying and selling, and Raz was glad he had his helmet and goggles on because otherwise all the noise and motion might make him combust—

In short, it was awesome.

They were all talking, too, and Raz could understand what they were saying—except for where the voices all meshed together into an aural paste. How did he understa—oh it was probably magic, wasn’t it. Neat!

Raz still couldn’t quite believe it—surely, any moment now, he would wake up in his room to realize it had all been a dream—

“Young man!” A hand grabbed at Raz’ arm, whirling him around. A lady with her hair tied up tight and glass in front of her eyes was glaring down at him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Uh.” Raz tried to pull his arm away, but her grip didn’t budge. “Exploring?”

The lady huffed. “Skipping school, are we?” She stood, taking Raz’ wrist up with her, and started walking.

“What—” Raz dug his heels into the ground, but he was benign swept up by her anyway.

“No wonder things are going to hell,” She was saying, “Kids running about in the street instead of going to school!” She shook her head, dragging Raz away from the market—

“Let go!” Raz yanked his arm free, stumbling back. The lady whirled around, but Raz was already stumble-dashing away, struggling not to trip over his own feet. His boots being slightly oversized didn’t help, but he kept going going going—

The lady shouted somewhere behind him, and Raz jumped onto a box set next to a wall of wood. He jumped, grabbing at the top of the wall, struggling to haul himself up—why did everything have to be so much heavier out of the water? Footsteps pounded the stone behind him as he got his body over the top—shit, what was he going to land on on the other side?

Too late! Raz flung himself over the edge, hitting the crate below hard. Whatever was in the crate broke underneath him with several cracking sounds, yellow slime leaking out and staining Raz’ clothes. It kind of reminded him of eggs, but way smaller than mer eggs, and with harder shells than Raz had ever seen.

Raz groaned, rolling off the maybe-eggs. He rubbed at the fabric on his legs, but that only served to get the goop on his hands, ewww—

“Hey!” Raz looked up to see another human staring him down angrily, leaning in an opening in the stone wall of their dwelling. “You better pay for those—”

Whatever else they were saying was lost to the wind as Raz ran.

+=+=+=+=+

Raz breathed hard, his chest heaving. Which was weird, his gills didn’t work like that at all; did humans have to deal with this all the time?

He was leaning against a wooden wall, a ways away from where he had started. The stone path he was on was wide, bordering the sea to one side, with a series of wooden platforms extending out to the sea a ways down the stone path. It was too smooth to be a natural cliff, Raz felt—humans must have cut it up to look like this. Probably. There was a stone basin full of water to Raz’ side, and he had pushed his goggles up to see more clearly.

The burn in his legs was… well, it was unfamiliar, because Raz had never had legs before, but it was just like any other burn in his muscles otherwise. And while the running itself was different from swimming, Raz was no stranger to having to flee bigger, stronger adults he had pissed off; it seemed that was something the ocean and the land had in common. And even in the ocean, being an Aquato could only get him so far—

But he wouldn’t have any of that status here, did he? He was just a kid nobody knew, which was half the reason he came up here in the first place.

(The other being that humans were just cool.)

But that wasn’t an advantage, was it? Raz had no safety net up here, nobody to look out for him. No older siblings to come and flash their fins at whatever giant octopus he had managed to piss off now, then complain for hours about Raz’ recklessness.

That… hm. Raz had sort of vaguely known this would be dangerous—explorers had to go into danger to confront the unknown!—but he hadn’t really thought about how dangerous.

“Hey, kid.” Raz looked up at the third voice to address him in the same day, not sure how he’d find the energy but ready to run—

Oh.

Oh.

Raz’ knees wobbled, which he did not like—and his chest did a funny little lurch that he didn’t know how to explain. If he had fins, they might have fluttered—it wasn’t like Raz had ever

A girl about his height stood before him, red hair pulled back into two dangling tails. Raz didn’t exactly know how to describe it, just that something about her was really wow.

Raz became acutely aware that he was still covered in maybe-egg slime. His face heated up as he took in her clothes, brightly colored layers of fabric that fit her in a way that Raz’ own borrowed clothes didn’t. And the way she held herself carried with it a strong confidence, a sharp familiarity with her body that Raz didn’t have. In mer logic, that made her dangerous. By all rights, Raz should be wary—and he was!

But he also very much did not want to run away.

“What’s wrong with you?” She asked, and Raz was suddenly hyperaware of the way he was leaning against the wall, breath caught in his throat. “You look like a mess.” Her nose wrinkled, one end of her mouth pulling back in a frown—

“What’s wrong with you?” Raz shot back before his brain caught up with his mouth. “You look like an anemone that’s trying too hard.” He wanted to bite her twintails, and he didn’t know why.

Her eyes widened, then narrowed. “Bold words from the weirdo covered in eggs.” She stepped back. “You smell.”

Raz sniffed. He did smell like eggs, and a bit like salt. He couldn’t smell anything else, though. He huffed, looking her up and down again. “You don’t look so tough.” Oh, for the love of the abyss, what was he even saying? When was he going to learn how to stop picking fights he couldn’t win?

Her lip curled, and she glared at him. “Oh, I’ll show you tough.” She threatened, and then she was grabbing Raz’ hand and yanking him forwards as he yelped—

Splash! went the water in the basin as Raz was shoved into it. He sputtered, flailing to get his limbs under him and sit up, memories of being unable to breathe beneath the waves making his chest surge with panic.

The girl was laughing, hand over her mouth. “You look ridiculous!” She proclaimed, and Raz’ stomach did a weird twisty thing.

“Oh, I’ll show you ridiculous—” and then she was falling into the water with him as he pulled her in, yelling as she splashed and her dress got soaked. She kicked him, and Raz shoved back, and the two of them started shoving and pushing and yelling until they had knocked themselves out of the basin entirely, dripping water onto the stones beneath them as they rolled.

Raz acked as her fist hit his chest, and he grabbed at her twintails. She yelled, kicked between his legs—which hurt, ow ow ow—and Raz found himself shoved to the ground as her blunt human claws dug into his shoulder where the fabric of his clothes had fallen loose.

He shoved her off, sitting up and scooting back—and she was yelling but it sounded a lot like her earlier laughter, and Raz was laughing himself—

She had really pretty eyes.

“Now we’re both ridiculous!” Raz declared, victorious. One of her twintails had come loose, water dripping from her soaked clothes.

She laughed, bright and loud. Raz’ stomach did that twisty thing again, his chest lurching. After a moment she stood, holding out her hand. Raz stared at it, not sure what she wanted—

“Just grab it, idiot.” She instructed, so Raz did. She pulled, and Raz slowly stood. Ohhhh.

(Humans were so weird, in all the best ways.)

“I’m Lili.” She introduced herself. “You?”

“Razputin, but my friends call me Raz.” Raz said.

Lili snorted, and the sound made Raz’ chest do that funny little lurch again. “What are you even doing covered in eggs, anyway?” She asked.

Raz thought back to that lady that had tried to drag him off to places unknown. “Uh… not skipping ‘school’?” He tried, not sure how convincing it was. “Exploring, mostly.” He added.

Lili looked him up and down for a long moment. “You remind me of my uncle Helmut.” She decided, still holding Raz’ hand. After another moment, she nodded, clearly having made up her mind about something. “Right, you’re coming with me.” She said, holding Raz’ hand and starting to walk away.

“Wait—” But Lili wasn’t waiting, and Raz had no choice but to get swept up in her grasp as she ran along. And yet, he wasn’t quite bothered—Raz didn’t know why, but he really wanted to follow her, wherever she led.

Everything on the surface was so much more confusing than Raz was expecting.

But maybe, as he watched Lili’s twintails bounce behind her as she ran, that wasn’t a bad thing.

[varricscrossbowbianca]

people asking me '' how come you didn't find this thing in your bg3 playthrough?'' i can just say

i bought the game for the purple wizard wdym i only have eyes for him

[prayersfromaerith]

     I went away for a little while; am trying again going forward. We’re all in a rough place right now and it hasn’t been easy. So... I just want to put forth a big “thank you” to anyone caught up in this. Folks I’ve talked to.

     You’ve all been really lovely. I hope times get better for everyone soon. ♡

     ...And that, soon, I can show you all my lop-eared deertaur idea~  Some others have been helping me with this, and I love where it’s ended up! Now to get that idea to paper!

[typinggently]

I’m so fascinated by fics where one of the boys kills John. Like what a way to ignore the premise and heart of the core seasons.