#LISTEN brevity is not my strong point

[thecodeveronica]

"this is just gonna be short, shorter than the last one" I said

"it was SUPPOSED TO BE SHORT" I scream, descending into madness as I'm still not done but want this done by Tuesday

[cerealxperimentslain]

i am sick to bastard fucking death of shofarsogood (tw for anti arabism and islamophobia) (& a guest appearance of a klansman for some fucking reason)

i think this post is a little funny, and i will give you the context to see why

ID: A post by @xclowniex, reblogged by @shofarsogood:

“I really need goyim to listen to the whole "if 9 people sit at a table and then one nazi sits at that table and no one tried to remove the nazi, then there are 10 nazis at the table"

I have lost my entire irl friend group due to antisemitism, and whilst correlation doesn't equal causation, so im not saying anything as 100% fact, however there is mad correlation between levels of being antisemitic and closeness with a specific person.

I can't be bothered to turn it into a physcial graph but in my head, oo babie is it a strong graph”

End ID

(first of all lol. lmao.)

ID: @xclowniex reblogged @the-catboy-minyan:

@goatfactsofficial:

A screenshot of a 4chan comment saying “I see you've fall for the old Jewish trick of using evidence to make a point”

@goatfactsofficial:

“literally the pro-pal crowd for the last 298 days”

End ID

let’s be clear, @shofarsogood is mutuals with @prismatic-bell

ID: @shofarsogood reblogged @prismatic-bell

@badjokesbyjeff:

(the post has been cut off for brevity)

End ID

(badjokesbyjeff cameo, naturally)

(I could insert screenshots of prismatic-bell reblogging from shofarsogood but that feels redundant. go scroll both their blogs for a single minute you’ll find more than enough proof)

we should all be familiar with prismatic-bell at this point, but here’s a quick reminder

ID: Post by @prismatic-bell, dated 13 may 2021:

"Free Palestine" IS an antisemitic statement.

It comes with the idea that Palestinians are the only people who have an ancient homeland here, and that Jews are to blame for "taking it over." When they destroyed our temple and put a mosque right on top of it! And then they claim we don't belong there!

"Free Palestine" is a shorthand way of saying you hate Jews. Because it ignores history and, almost without variation, is used as an excuse for antisemitic crimes.”

End ID

(google dot com what were muslims doing in the year 70CE) (also i have endless examples of prismatic bell saying the most fucked up shit. xe has never-stop-posting disease and it would be literally impossible to miss what kind of person xe is)

ID: post by @prismatic-bell:

“You know what?

Fuck Ramadan.

Sorry. We were attacked, raped, murdered, beaten, and kidnapped on a major Jewish holiday, and our Chanukkah was spent in misery. I was threatened for playing Chanukkah music IN MY OWN CAR.

So FUCK Ramadan. If this is how our holidays are treated, y'all can feel the same.”

End ID

like. there are so many “don’t call me zionist” people who follow and interact with shofarsogood. i don’t think you get to find yourself offended by people calling you a zionist if this is who you are mutuals with, & therefore mutuals-in-law with @prismatic-bell and @spot-the-antisemitism.

also second cameo of @the-catboy-minyan

ID: @shofarsogood reblogged @spot-the-antisemitism:

@the-catboy-minyan:

“dude I should have replied to every donation ask I got while having "proud Israeli Jew" on my blog to show people how these are bots that send asks randomly. you think Gazans are gonna come to a (((zionist))) for money? Imao.”

End ID

ID: @spot-the-antisemitism reblogged @shofarsogood. End ID

let me introduce @spot-the-antisemitism

ID: @spot-the-antisemitism reblogged a post by @the-garbanzo-annex-jr:

A badly cropped image. On the left is a photo of protesters protecting their identities with Palestinian keffiyeh and masks. On the right is a photo of a klansman in a hood. The text on the image reads:

“If your ideology requires that you cover your face… …maybe you need a new ideology.”

End ID

these guys’ whole entire deal is cherry picking examples of people being antisemitic and using that to try and delegitimise the whole antizionist & pro Palestine movement through some attempt of “guilt by association”. all while freely and guiltlessly associating with people like @some-israeli-guy

ID: @spot-the-antisemitism reblogged from @some-israeli-guy. End ID

this fucking guy

ID: @some-israeli-guy:

“They started a war to wipe out the Jews, they spread lies of rape and torture to demonize the Jews, and when their people ran away in fear and their militaries lost, they had the nerve to call is "the disaster" and act like innocent victims.”

#israel #palestine #no peace with nazis #palestine is a death cult #palestinian hypocrisy #antisemitism

End ID

like what do you even say to that.

a lot of this checking blog stuff i learned to do when it was much more common for cryptoterfs to be prowling around these parts. cryptoterfs won’t say transphobic slurs and they won’t openly advocate for the death of all transfems and forceful detransition of all transmascs, but they have no qualms about following people who do, while they avoid reblogging anything hateful enough that will get them easily clocked as radfems or terfs. hell, maybe they don’t even personally believe those things, maybe they’re trying to “see both sides of things”. maybe they don’t care at all and follow those blogs for entirely unrelated things and that’s why they won’t reblog any of the hate speech.

does it matter?

at the end of the day, whatever their internal motivations may be, they don’t disagree enough with the absolutely horrendous levels of transmisogyny and transphobia to see it as a dealbreaker

parallels parallels parallels

speaking of which, the way these people blog also mirrors the way that many radfems will blog. we all know the style, the “dig up some fucking joe nobody transgender person saying something stupid or lesbophobic/misogynistic & use that to paint the whole movement in a bad light”

“oh but isn’t that what you’re doing right now?” prismatic-bell hasn’t been the bane of tumblr for years just for you to call xir a joe nobody. i could pull up a joe nobody with 3 followers who says things about palestine that i wouldn’t repeat with a gun to my head, but that’s not what this is about

this is about some incredibly popular blogs on here that are either violently hateful towards palestinians, or they are mutuals with those people and don’t see that as enough of a problem to even unfollow let alone block & denounce them.

anyway i can’t link links in the original post but i have a lot of receipts reblogged to @disgustingechoes feel free to have a peruse if you are unconvinced

[kitcat992]

Identity Within︱Moments That Matter: Chapter 12, Wedding Crashers

As Identity Within progresses, I'm finding that each chapter gets more dense and packed with fanficy goodness; and at this point there's not an single soul in the world who can tell me I need brevity in my writing — because for years this saga has played out in my head like movies without a screen to watch them on. And I refuse to shorten things now for the sake of brevity.

That said, with the wild ride that life is taking me on — and with my free time to write killing my speed for updates, I understand there can be a bit of a memory gap for the average reader who doesn't spend every waking moment of her day thinking about this fic like I do 😅

So I decided that as I go about writing, it'd be fun to refer back moments that matter in the next chapter to come.

This story finally has its foundation to stand on, and getting to develop all the plots that were planted as seeds many chapters ago brings me so much excitement. I wanted to share that excitement with you as I write the most recent chapter, "Wedding Crashers."

#Brevity is for the weak.

─────── Identity Theft︱Chapter 8: Afterparty ───────

Before Wanda could say anything, Tony’s voice cut through their conversation — everyone's conversations, all the way from the entrance of the lounge.

“Just got a phone call from the lovely folks over at SHIELD," he announced, his tone betraying the kindness of his words.

As if that weren't enough, Peter couldn't help but notice the grumpy look on his face. He immediately straightened himself on the sofa, his curiosity getting the better of him as the group huddled together across the lounge.

Peter didn't follow them, but he couldn't help listening from where he sat.

“Something tells me they weren’t just checking in," Rhodey mentioned, looking up from his laptop with a frown.

Tony sighed — it was one of the few sighs he gave that could be felt across the compound. If he hadn't caught everyone's attention before, he certainly did now.

"Reports came back on the Awesome Android," he started to say, gesturing his phone in the air before pocketing it away in his back pocket.

“Hey!” Peter never did know when to keep his mouth shut. “You used his name!"

Tony's eye-roll could be seen across the lounge.

"Yeah, kid, well — creature 151963-2861988.27 was a bit of a mouthful.”

“What’d they have to say?” Clint hit this cue stick on the pool table, the echo of balls knocking around overtaken by his voice.

The look Tony proceeded to give Peter was strong enough to burn through steal. His eyes said it all — 'go find something else to do, kid' and Peter didn't waste a minute before turning back to his phone — what he could, anyhow, given that Wanda was now holding it and scrolling through the playlist with a sense of giddiness not even he could match.

Tony purposefully waited until Peter wasn't paying attention before turning back to the group.

“Property of OsCorp," he said, his voice lower than before — but tense, all the same.

Clint's billiard balls rattled against one another as he hit his cue stick again, this time no words following the sound.

Rhodey immediately turned away from his laptop, lowering the screen a tad bit to get a better look at Tony.

“OsCorp?” he repeated, locking eyes dead set on Tony.

“They’re claiming it was an experiment of theirs gone haywire," Tony explained, working his jaw before continuing. "They accepted responsibility, promised to pay the fines — the whole nine yards."

“You buy that?" Bruce hesitatingly put his drink down on the kitchen counter, his brows knitting tightly in the middle. "That — that it was an experiment gone haywire?”

Tony's scoff was hard enough to cause an earthquake. Even Clint hesitated on the next hit of billiard balls, his cue stick pulled back but his arm holding in place as he waited for Tony's answer.

“With OsCorp?” Tony shook his head, firmly. “Hell no. I wouldn’t buy their shit even if it was manure.”

Vision — who had otherwise kept to himself without Wanda around — approached the kitchen with slow, steady steps.

“It is interesting,” he spoke up, his calm demeanor breaking through. The group turned to look at him — sans Clint, who smacked his pool stick with an accuracy that had all balls sliding into the corner pockets. “A creature who has the ability to absorb superhuman powers appears not long after your new device, The Chameleon helmet, has gone missing. Presumably at the hands of a man who could, possibly, teleport.”

When summarized like that, Tony had no choice but to consider the possibility.

A long, low whistle sounded from Sam.

“That’s a lot of coincidences to string together," he said, popping open the cap to a cold beer bottle and tossing the lid into the trash.

Natasha folded her arms across her chest as she stared at Vision, though she looked to be deep in thought more than anything else.

“You think OsCorp is at fault for stealing the helmet, Vis?” she finally asked, quietly — not the only one to ensure Peter didn't hear the conversation.

Vision simply shook his head.

“I do not think so." A long pause followed his next words. "I simply think it is odd. It does not…sit right with me.”

Tony watched from the corner of his eye as Peter sat up from the couch — he was about to say something about him trying to eavesdrop when he realized the kid was taking a phone call, pacing nervously as his hands waved about and he talked frantically to the person on the other line.

“Well, join the club there, buddy," Tony finally said, matching Natasha's own stance with his arms folding across his chest. He turned his head away, forcing his jaw to unclench so he could speak again. “Nothing OsCorp does sits right with me.”

─────── Identity Theft︱Chapter 16: Smoke and Mirrors ───────

Between the fog, dust, and dim lights, Tony almost didn’t notice the open door on his right. He had initially jogged past it, focused straight ahead on the nauseating stream of scarlet.

The faint shimmering glint that reflected in the corner of his eyes ultimately caught his attention. He back-tracked his steps, first looking inside the room before immediately walking to the source, his heavy boots echoing in the vacant space.

"What in the living hell..." his breath lodged in his throat. "Chitauri heads?"

Before Tony had even finished the thought, he was picking up one of the skulls. His eyes narrowed in confusion and disbelief.

It felt as heavy in his hands as it did the day in Brooklyn.

Turning it around, he noticed the dismembered alien head had large gaps on each side. Looking back down on the table he'd retrieved it from, he saw many mechanical wings scattered about.

“What the hell,” Tony cursed out loud, dropping the offensive thing back on the table. The heavy metal landed with a thud, a cloud of dust rising up to his face from the impact.

There were many of them, more than he wanted to count. Most were disassembled from how he originally saw them, the metal wings laying discarded and unused.

Which meant the ones they fought a few days ago…

‘Un-fucking-believeable...they were behind it all,' Tony realized. 'The lured us straight into their trap, and we fell right for it.’

Peter’s encounter in Times Square, the stolen chameleon helmet, the attack on the Brooklyn bridge with the reassembled Chitauri heads — that was them. All of it.

They had this plan in the works long before Spider-Man went into that warehouse.

That damn Russian had been scheming this for months, and what really had Tony’s blood boiling — Dmitri had been doing from inside his business, from inside Stark Industries and the Avengers compound.

Right under his nose.

For all he knew, that was how they got the alien tech. Assuming OsCorp hadn’t already been sitting on it. He could barely keep his hands from shaking, quivering, barely containing the mounting rage as he looked around for any more evidence. His helmet illuminated a large stack of documents, some having fallen on the floor, most cluttered about.

Tony reached for the top stack, straining to read the papers through the flickering lights.

OsCorp Industries: Subject AA 1963 Artificial Intelligence Conducted by: Dr. Julius REDACTED Archives: Subject AA1963 created under the supervision and expertise of Dr. Julius REDACTED. Objective: Create and obtain an artificial life-form. With the use of synthesis ape DNA and REDACTED molecules, SubjectAA1963 was incorporated into an almost indestructible body with a microcomputer and a solar-power source on date REDACTED. Further enhancements successful, SubjectAA1963 has shown to be able to absorb additional abilities such as musical traits and animalistic traits. SubjectAA1963 has been exposed to mutated abilities and mimicked the powers almost precisely. Will emit close-range gale-force wind blasts from its mouth. Portrays signs of superhuman strength and durability. Little to know comprehensions of human life. A collection of nerve ganglia has been installed underneath SubjectAA1963’s left underarm as a fail-safe, where weakness is indisputable in situations of unmanageable temperament.

If the document wasn’t enough proof for him, the pictures behind the pages did the trick. Tony pulled apart the paperclip that attached the numerous, glossy photos to the file folder. 

He shook his head. While OsCorp had taken responsibility for Awesome Android’s attack on the Collar City Bridge, they never had the gumption to say he had been created here. In fact, they all but shrugged the incident away with a wad of cash to the city.

Looking through the rest of the project file, Tony determined they must have taken the creature with them when the government shut down the bunker's operations.

‘Which means OsCorp let the damn rock-monster loose, not Dmitri and Klum.’ Tony tossed the papers aside and hastily skimmed through the next stack with curiosity. ‘What kind of shady shit is Norman Osborn up to.’

Despite his hesitation, Tony flipped through each paper, skimming the crucial words to catch the gist of the reports. Things like clone technology stood out to him, the details horrifying in how they achieved their results.

However, weaponry like flying gliders that contained heat-seeking smart missiles, grenade’s under the code-name Pumpkin Bomb — they, unfortunately, didn’t catch his interest too much. Stark Industries had built their name off of much worse things.

Tony settled on the last bundle of reports.

OsCorp Industries: Adamantium Metal Chemical Element Genesis Conducted by: Dr. Myron MacClain, Metallurgist Materials Science and Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering The department of Materials Science and Engineering and Metallurgical Engineering of OsCorp Industries has been striving for roughly two and a half decades in creating a replica of Vibranium, a metal alloy found only in the North East Africa country Wakanda. Note: All Wakandian’s have been uncooperative in aiding with this research, both under the rule of King Azzuri and King T'Chaka. At the instruction of Norman Osborn, we are to move forward without seeking the approval of King T'Challa. Research first conducted in the attempts to recreate the vibration absorbing effect that Vibranium, further noted as Element Vb, had obtained. Lacking Element Vb to analysis, the genesis of Adamantium, further noted as Element Ad, was conducted without research correlation. Objective: Create a stable molecular structure that is virtually impossible to destroy. Original attempts used the components REDACTED, REDACTED, REDACTED, REDACTED, REDACTED, REDACTED. Final and successful components originate from the metal derived from meteor debris obtained during failed flight trip to Planet Zero. It is hypothesized that the cosmic rays the meteor debris had been exposed to created unbindable ions and metallic polymers. Scientist and provider of the debris Reed Richards has refused to contribute any further to the experiment. Successful completion of Adamantium, Element Ad: Research conducted on Test1838, ie: Final and successful test of Element Ad, proved to be prospering. In its solid form, Element Ad can be described as a dark, shiny gray like high-grade steel or titanium. It is almost impossible to destroy or fracture in this state, and when molded to a sharp edge, it can penetrate most lesser materials with minimal force. Against most objects and force, it has proven to be unbreakable. At current stage of testing, Element Ad has not been trialed against Element Vb. As such, it cannot be labeled as completely unbreakable. Hypothesis: Element Vb will still shatter the metal.

Tony didn’t like what he was seeing, unable to deny the bout of nerves that came fluttering up at the concept of a metal similar to Vibranium. He huffed, tossing the document aside for another one.

‘Adamantium...so, the word adamant. How original.’ There was no way OsCorp was creating a competitor to Vibranium and planning on using it for the good of mankind.

Pushing a couple of Chitauri heads aside, he obtained the last stack of files, brushing off the dust with his metal-gloved hand to better read the information.

OsCorp Industries: Experiment X Program Genetic Research Conducted by: Professor Andre Thorton. Assisting, Dr. Abraham Cornelius, Dr. Carol Hines, and Dr. Dale Rice. Subjects Participating: • Subject James Howlett. • Subject Victor Creed. • Subject Wade Wilson. • Subject Christoph Nord. Program under operation of Department K, location Ontario, Canada. Experiments conducted within REDACTED. Transfer of program to OsCorp Industries, Manhattan, NY : Denied. OsCorp Industries sought approval to assist in program with team of scientist onsite. Awaiting approval from Bio-med and Board of Directors. Archives Adamantium-skeletal bonding: Subject James Howlett, code name: Wolverine. Subject has shown signs of natural mutated physiology in regenerative abilities. Experiment in genetic enhancement of biological skeleton. Process of experiment involving liquidation of Adamantium metal and injection into bone marrow of subject. Methods used: REDACTED. Analysis: Adamantium metal has bonded to organic material. Result: Success. ATTN: Subject Wolverine MIA. Whereabouts: Unknown. Chemically created regenerative abilities: Subject Wade Wilson. Mercenary and assassin, naturally fast reflexes, no known natural mutated physiology. Subject victim to terminal cancer of unknown origin. Experiment in genetic enhancement of regenerative abilities. Objective: Allow neutrophil cells and leukocytes cells to rapidly heal and/or disregard cancerous cells in attempt to achieve longer lifespan. Methods used: REDACTED. Result: In Process. Adamantium-skeletal bonding: Subject Victor Creed, code name: Sabertooth. Subject has shown signs of natural mutated physiology in regenerative abilities, enhanced hearing and sight with primal instincts similar to wild animals. Physical attributes are beyond human levels. Experiment in genetic enhancement of biological skeleton. Process of experiment involving artificial improvements to subject’s physiology, liquidation of Adamantium metal and injection into bone marrow. Methods used: REDACTED. Analysis: Adamantium metal has bonded to organic material. Subject has shown increased strength and accelerated healing factor. Result: Success.

“What the fuck.”

Tony had seen enough. He dropped the documents like they'd caught on fire.

He knew for years now that OsCorp was into some shady shit, they had always been on his radar of competitors to keep an eye on. But this? Aggressive AI’s, generic Vibranium,  inhumane experiments?

It was light years far beyond his expectation —that comprehension didn’t even exist.

If the building wasn’t making Tony's skin crawl before, it certainly was now. But he’d take the information and deal with it later.

Right now, he needed to get Peter, his team and himself the hell out of here. Before anything worse happened.

─────── Identity Theft︱Chapter 29: Breaking the Cycle of Shame ───────

“Hold up.” Tony stopped him, his hand outstretched before he could go any further. “You might want to look a little further in that box first.”

Bent over with the box between both hands, Peter craned his head up at Tony, his brows furrowed. Tony had gone back to staring at the stairway banister, the attempt at managing his discomfort more than obvious.

Slowly and cautiously, Peter sat up straight, letting the box rest against his thighs. The two lapsed into silence as he rummaged around the bundles of red and blue tissue paper, his fingers scraping the bottom of the cardboard. He froze when he finally gripped onto the additional item inside, carefully and slowly bringing it out to see.

It was a sleek, thin black watch — or at least, it looked that way. But there was no case to the band, no circular or even square window where a clock could be displayed and time could be shown.

Peter tilted his head to the side, turning the bracelet over in his hands. “What's this?”

Tony cleared his throat, sniffed his nose in a way that sounded painful, drummed his fingers against the armrest of the sofa — all the things he normally did when uncomfortable. He even went to push up the sunglasses he hadn’t been wearing, his hand smoothing back his hair to cover for the mistake.

“I was inspired by that little Starkbits illusion you had going on,” he eventually explained.

Peter frowned, glancing up at Tony before looking back down at the thin, metal bracelet. He vaguely recalled the memory, most of the details having come second-hand from sources like Mr. Stark and Bruce, the two sharing the story with a hearty chuckle.

Still, those had been high-tech casts for his broken wrists. Bone stabilizing devices, Tony had called them. What could this possibly be —?

“It’s a panic watch, directly connected to me,” Tony answered, as if reading his thoughts. He lifted his arm, showing off the same sleek, black bracelet strapped around his wrist. “So if anything happens to you — earth, wind, rain or shine, you can reach out to me.”

The information floored Peter, his throat tightening in a way that made it hard to speak.

“Wow, this is...I-I don’t know what to say...” his voice cracked, forcing him to swallow hard before looking up at Tony. “Why?”

“Why?” Tony echoed.

Peter quickly shook his head.

“Not that I’m not flattered! Or-or appreciative, ‘cause I am. Like, this is awesome, really. I’m just...confused,” his tone swirled in the same pattern that his head spun. “You can monitor the suit, right? Or is this about that nanite mist in the base? Would this even work with that nanite mist? Or is this —”

Tony held a hand in the air, desperate to stop the rapid-fire onslaught of words.

“I’m going to give this to you straight, Pete. No chaser. You good, you able to handle that?” Tony didn’t even let the kid respond before jumping right back in. “Good, that’s what I thought.”

With one fluid motion, he lifted his arm in the air again, his other hand tapping on his own wrist bracelet.

“This works both ways,” he diligently explained. “It’s not just about me keeping tabs on you — you hit a dead ringer, we got the suit for that. This is for non-Spider-Man business. If you’re in trouble, it reaches out to me. And if I’m in trouble, it’ll reach out to you. I want you to feel a part of the team, to feel safe. And I don’t mean that solely to the physical concern.”

The recognition seemed to hit Peter long before Tony had finished, his eyes clouding over in a way Tony could really only describe as shame. He almost wanted to hit the metaphorical back button, undo what he had said and go back to laughing at stupid bunny ear photos.

And yet Wilson, the naggy little shit he was, pestered relentlessness in his ear that this needed to be done, these things needed to be said.

Peter seemed to take it a like a champ, and exactly how Tony expected him to — by deflecting.

“Oh! That’s — I’m-I’m good, Mr. Stark,” he insisted, still twirling the bracelet in his hands. “I’m fine, really. Everyone’s been, ya know...checkin’ up on me. I’m fine, really.”

Tony nodded, firmly. He pretended not to notice the bob in Peter’s throat, or the way he fidgeted with the bracelet as he fidgeted with anything else he could get his hands on during times of high anxiety.

There was no point in calling him out on it right now — it was his birthday, or so they celebrated the day as such.

Wilson was right, the kid needed to go at this on his own pace. Tony searched Peter’s eyes, those wide, absurdly trusting eyes that stared back at him as if he could solve all the problems in the world.

“That’s okay, that’s great. If you’re fine today, that’s great. But on the days you’re not, I’m here to help. We all are.” Tony dipped his chin low, hand braced against Peter’s arm to gain his attention. “And I’m not the best listener, Peter. But I’m here. I understand.”

The words came out with more ease than Tony ever could have anticipated, much smoother than the numerous practice talks he had with FRIDAY in his lab. He distantly wondered if it was premature to declare how natural this felt for him now, this whole mentor nonsense he took on finally gaining the right trajectory it had needed.

For the sake of not jinxing things, Tony decided to push the thought away. He was just happy the bout of nerves he'd itially felt when beginning the conversation seemed to vanish, or at the very most transfer over to Peter.

The kid nodded with a sense of insecurity pouring through every fiber of his begin.

“Thanks. Really, thanks, that...it means a lot.” Peter’s mouth upturned slightly, his gaze fixed on Tony. “I just...I kinda just want things to go back to normal though. Ya know?”

Tony nodded, patting his arm before pulling away. “Well, that’s going to be kinda hard. What with your training and you staying here on the weekends —”

“Wait, what?” Peter nearly dropped the panic watch, fumbling to gather it back into his hands. “What – what are you talking about?”

“Training,” Tony repeated with a pop of his lips, leaning casually back onto the sofa. “We got to get you up to par with the others. Plus you’re pretty useful in the lab and mentoring you from upstate is just exhausting.”

Peter let out a nervous chuckle, waving him off. “Ah that’s – that’s okay Mr. Stark, you don’t need to do that.”

“I’m sorry, did you think this was up for negotiation?” Tony crossed his arms over his chest and his leg over his other knee. “‘Cause it’s not. You know why? It was all Aunt Hotties idea.”

Peter gaped. He had been home with May for weeks, they had talked about all sorts of things together – he couldn’t believe she hadn’t mentioned this of all things to him yet.

Of course, she was the better of the two of them at keeping secrets.

He rubbed at the nape of his neck, tucking that memory away in his ‘do not access embarrassing moments’ folder.

“I still don’t know if I’m...” his voice oscillated somewhere enthused and uncertain, muttered under his breath while he gnawed on his lip. “Ya know, ready. To be an Avenger.”

Tony patted the back of his hand playfully against his arm.

“Good thing you’re PRN, then. As needed, remember?” He fiddled with the functions to his own watch, scrolling through a couple holographic menus while he spoke. “Plus, you’ve got your quarters here. Can’t let that space go to waste.”

Before Peter could respond, the panic watch in his hands lit up, syncing simultaneously with Tony’s. Both devices chirped, beeped, and blinked a red light before dimming away with soft blue, eventually returning to their sleek black state altogether.

Peter grinned, eagerly strapping it around his own wrist. It fit perfectly, snug yet comfortable. He couldn’t help but think about how much Ned was going to flip when he saw this.

“Consider it partial custody, kid,” Tony said, hand clasping on his shoulder. “You’re ours now.”

Peter looked up at him, all smiles.

Tony smiled back, at least until his eyes focused away from Peter and to the doorway behind him. Despite his best efforts, the grin fell off his face when Rhodey came walking into the common room, dressed in his military blues with his cap tucked underneath his arm.

“Hey,” Tony said, never once looking away from the doorway, “you mind grabbing me a piece of cake before Hawkeye over there becomes an endangered species at the hands of diabetes?”

Peter nodded, still fascinated with his new wrist device to notice anything was amiss. He departed for the kitchen and Tony shot up from the sofa, quick to cross the path of the room where Rhodey stood.

“Looking handsome as ever, Honey Bear,” Tony complimented, motioning with a casual wave to the crisp, iron-pressed military blues Rhodey wore. His demeanor, however, grew serious. “What’d you find out?”

Rhodey loosened his black tie a smidgen, shaking his head. “C’mon, Tones. Not here, not in front of the kid.”

Still staring at Rhodey, Tony lifted his hand and snapped his fingers to the side, right as Wanda walked by. The girl was carrying a plate overloaded with food, surely for Peter.

“Wanda,” he turned to look at her, “do us a favor?”

His eyes did the talking for him. He looked from Wanda to the kitchen where Peter stood, busy talking with Vision.

She opened her mouth in protest, but got the hint rather quickly. Though less than pleased, she nodded and retreated towards the kitchen to keep Peter distracted.

Rhodey’s eye twitched in a way only Tony’s incessant annoyance could cause. “You have the patience of a toddler.”

“While I don’t disagree with you on that particular observation,” Natasha approached them, her expression solemn. “I have to admit I’m eager myself to hear what the bastards had to say.”

Rhodey and Tony looked to their left, Natasha taking long strides in her walk with the entire group hot on her tail, even Steve having rejoined. They converged together towards the room’s entrance in a clearly unconspicuous way.

Steve shot a look into the kitchen, eyebrows dipping in worry. Though Wanda seemed to be doing a decent job at distracting Peter, he knew the whole enhanced-hearing deal made it difficult for private conversations. Plus, even he could feel the strung-out, high electricity tension building between them all.

Peter was a smart kid, there was no keeping him in the dark for long.

“Guys, we should discuss this at a later time,” Steve pressed.

“You’re right,” Tony said, arms crossed over his chest. “You’re absolutely right, we should definitely discuss the nitty gritty details at a later time. But for now — and please pardon my impatience building on the anticipation of the United States Air Force weapons procurement liaison division filing a subpoena against OsCorp industries so that they could explain, on the record, how their increasingly dangerous experiments are justified under research standards — I’d like to hear what the court had to say.”

Rhodey bit back his response, all the eyes staring his way putting him at a brief loss. Even Bruce was seemingly curious for an answer.

Though he wanted to say something about Tony expending all the air that inflated his ego down to his lungs for such a ramble, Rhodey instead let out a long, drawn-out sigh.

“The case was thrown out. It’s in their favor.”

Tony physically balked, his body practically jolting forward. “What do you mean it’s in their favor?”

“That’s messed up,” Clint muttered.

Tony shook his head. “You’re telling me I get grade-a shit for building the Iron Man armor and yet these ass-wipes are free to create sentient beings like the damn rock android, no repercussions whatsoever? Not to mention SHIELD knew they were performing highly illegal experimentation’s like Klum’s teleportation abilities and the flying Chitauri heads. How —”

Rhodey held two hands in the air. “The judge declared that the indictment we sought out doesn’t have grounds for reason. OsCorp claims they’ve reconstructed their projects into a more educational stand-point.”

Bruce scoffed. “Gotta give them points for thinking on their feet,” he said, removing his glasses to clean the lenses with the bottom hem of his shirt.

“That’s horse shit,” Tony hissed. “You can’t just slap an ‘educational’ sticker on something and call it a day.”

Rhodey nodded. “I don’t disagree. But they have a valid point, we don’t have ground to stand on. Everything we have against them is mostly hearsay, those documents you found are word of mouth. No solid evidence.”

“Tony has a point,” Natasha chimed in, ignoring Tony’s exaggerated look of shock towards her agreement. “What about the rock android nearly destroying the Collar City Bridge, or the reassembled Chitauri heads that blew a hole near Main Street Park? That should be enough cause for concern.”

Clint winced, half-shrugging. “Think about it, though. The most damage those freaky flying Chitauri heads managed to do was blow up St. Annes, which was already an abandoned building.”

“Yeah, thanks to us,” Sam reminded them, his tone indignant. “We contained that catastrophe before it blew up all of Brooklyn Heights.”

Bruce slid his glasses back onto his face. “And OsCorp proceeded to pay the damages and fines caused by Awesome Android. Not to mention, SHIELD still hasn’t come out and said one way or the other who stole and reassembled the Chitauri heads.”

“Rhodey and Bruce are right.” Steve sighed, his chin low to his chest. “According to Doctor Strange, Francis Klum was sent to another dimension. And we all know what happened to Dmitri. They’re getting away with this on the same grounds we got away with lying to SHIELD about the undersea bunker rescue mission. There’s no proof.”

Rhodey pessimistically nodded, no happier than the others at what he had to say. “Scientific research. That’s what they’re calling it. Nothing they’re doing right now can be deemed illegal.”

“But risky,” Peter spoke up.

Everyone turned to look at him, all seemingly at once.

Peter had stepped forward, Wanda not far behind. Her expression fell guilty, silently speaking an apology to Tony for not being able to hold him back.

Even if he wanted to, Tony didn’t have time to berate her. Steve was already crossing the path to the kitchen, failing stupendously at acting nonchalant.

“Hey, champ, why don’t you —”

“My class went on a field trip there. To OsCorp.” Peter came closer to the threshold, fingers fidgeting together. “They uh, they are actually...pretty educational. Showed us a whole bunch of stuff. Regenerative cloning of animal limbs, unlimited solar energy, bio-cable mechanisms…radioactive spiders.”

Tony shot his head over fast enough to give himself whiplash.

Steve froze in his steps, head cocking to the side at the realization. “That’s how you got your abilities.”

Peter nodded, the small movement timid and jerky. “One of them got loose. Bit me.”

Tony’s jaw clenched painfully tight, the words giving him pause.

“OsCorp gave you these powers?”

The unwelcome bitter edge that coated his question had Peter suddenly feeling uncomfortable. Even from the distance they stood, Tony’s barely contained anger emitted a heat only matched by his sharp glare.

Peter knew he wasn’t directly mad at him, yet he couldn’t help but feel guilty nonetheless.

“The spider they were experimenting on did, anyway,” he explained shyly, head down low. “It’s uh...it’s dead now.”

The conversation died out briefly, a blanket of tense silence piercing through the room.

─────── Identity Within︱Chapter 3: R.S.V.P ───────

“Oh my, my, yes, it’s been…it’s been quite the few months, for sure. A lot of preparation has gone into this, many things occurring behind the scenes — and now that OsCorp has reached the point of publicizing this announcement, well…I won’t lie, it’s a bit of a burden off the back.”

As Peter threw open the front door to the apartment, the first thing he heard was the distant voices coming from the living room television. It was at a volume that told him May wasn’t really paying attention, just using it for background noise. Yet it was loud enough that it reached over her struggle with pots and pans all the way inside the kitchen, and certainly quick to grab his attention.

Anything OsCorp related had a tendency to do that these days.

Peter hadn’t even crossed the threshold of the front door to living room when he looked over at the TV, frowning deeply.

“But of course, things are just beginning. We have a long future to look forward to, one that’ll far exceed my time on this earth.” The voice of the man sounded professional, each word said with a sharp precision and clarity to his statements. “It’s all about legacy, after all. And the Osborn dynasty has yet to untap their full potential in what lays ahead. I’m excited to be apart of these unfolding developments with them.”

Whatever channel was playing, Peter quickly deduced it was a news station. Something where someone was being interviewed — an old man, that much was obvious. He wore a business suit that Peter was sure cost five times May’s rent, and his grayish white hair matched perfectly with the deep wrinkles that dug harsh lines into his skin.

And yet, despite talking about OsCorp, the man was most definitely not Norman Osborn. Peter wasn’t sure he’d actually ever seen him before. Granted, he never paid much attention to these things until recently, but still.

He approached the back of the sofa, watching the TV and moving almost in a trance. So much so that he completely forgot his laundry detergent soaked socks were still gripped in his hand, and his bare feet still sticky with the residue they’d encountered.

“You sound quite optimistic about the longevity in OsCorp’s future, Mr. Symthe,” the interviewer said, his tone as serious and straitlaced as the much older man sitting across from him. “Does this mean you’re not worried about the dissolution of partnership with Bio-Labs? Their upstate, New York facility alone brought in OsCorp over thirty percent of their shares and profits last year.”

The man being interviewed gave a light chuckle — Spencer Symthe, Peter discovered, right as the lower third graphic appeared on the screen, displaying his name in whole.

It also gave him a title. Peter furrowed his brows as he quickly read it. Right next to his full name were the words, Co-chairman.

The man may have not been Norman, but there was no doubt that he was right up there in hierarchy.

“Last year is behind us, OsCorp looks only to the future,” Spencer simply answered, as smoothly as the words that came before him. “Bio-Labs served us well in the past, but OsCorp is moving forward with their endeavors in other ways. We have something quite exciting happening here very soon. I’m not at liberty to discuss the details just yet, but our separation with Bio-Labs has made way for something far better. Both for us and for mankind.”

The interviewer looked down at his lap and the sleek notepad in his hands. “Is it true OsCorp purchased that facility from Bio-Labs?” he read off his notes.

“We did, yes,” Spencer answered so quickly, the camera didn’t cut to him until mid-sentence. “We came to an agreement with Bio-Labs on a price, and OsCorp is hoping to utilize the facility for further expanding their research studies across the east coast.”

Peter suddenly looked left and right, and then down to the sofa — finding the TV remote stuck in-between the armrest of the cushions. Discarding his socks, he grabbed the remote and hit the first button his thumb could get a hold of. It displayed the title of the show over the screen — ‘Executive Insights with Mark Mitchell.’

“There’s been…quite the controversy regarding those research facilities, Mr. Symthe,” Mark Mitchell, Peter correctly assumed, went on to say. “I’m sure you’re more than aware of the legal trial that took place this afternoon — any comment?”

Slowly, Peter dropped the remote down onto the end table next to the couch. All the while, he never looked away from the TV.

“Ridiculous claims made by ridiculous people.” Spencer waved his hand right alongside his answer. “Despite his rank in the air force, I assure you that Colonel Rhodes has no interest in the safety of this country. He sides with his interest and his team alone — that is, the Avengers. The only people we seem to allow to live above the law.” For a man who had kept his tone even and unwavering, there was a slight hitch in words that heated them up, something Peter couldn’t ignore. He suddenly sounded frustrated, angry. To the point where a pause followed, and he noticeably cleared his throat. “These claims made by him and subsequently, the team he participates with, are as foolish as they are deranged.”

Mark simply nodded. “It’s been no secret that Stark Industries very own Tony Stark has been pushing this case, advocating for the entire revocation of OsCorp’s funding and participation with the Institutional Review Board. He states that compliance with regulatory requirements have been, in his words, the biggest disgrace to not only the field of science but to humanity as a whole.”

“And yet Judge Whittaker has made it very clear today that he disagrees with those claims,” Spencer answered the question that had yet to be asked. “Tony Stark’s efforts to shut down OsCorp have been nothing but a blip on our radar. The court system sided with us on that today, making it very clear that there’s no grounds to the absurd accusations put forth by rumors and heresay.”

Mark cocked his eyebrow high, and so did Peter. Both of them for different reasons. “Is that your way of saying OsCorp’s research studies haven ’t been neglecting proper codes and regulations, and remain to demonstrate due diligence in maintaining public safety standards for both their participate and employees? ”

“By all means, yes,” Spencer easily answered. So easily, Peter went to fold both arms over his chest, the look that pulled at his face causing lines he was far too young to be dealt with. “If all goes well, the former Bio-Labs facility will be up and running within a few months, once converted into one of OsCorp’s technological facilities. And it’ll foster not only the community and development of science careers, but also expand the boundaries of research to pave the way for a brighter tomorrow.”

─────── Identity Crisis︱Chapter 6: Devil in the Details ───────

Norman neatly stacked the documents aside. “You’ve been Harrison's friend for a while, Mr…?”

“Parker. Peter Parker, sir.” Peter set his hands low into his lap. “And...yeah, sort of. But not really. We —”

“Were you that disabled boy Harrison would bring to the house?” Norman never looked up from the papers as he spoke. “The one in the wheelchair who drooled a lot?”

Peter blinked, digesting the question.

“No sir, I’m...I’m pretty sure that was David Kemp,” he paused, fingers tight in their cupped hold. “I’m also pretty sure that kid is...dead now.”

Norman made a noncommittal sound, his one and only response to the short-lived conversation. His eyes never broke away from the surface of his desk, staring intently at stacks of papers while simultaneously sorting through others.

Peter briefly wondered – if he’d got up and left this very second, would the man even notice? Considering he had already tested his luck once already, he decided to stay seated.

As it was, he was really pushing his Parker luck today.

Restless and nervous, Peter began looking around the comfortably sized room, taking in details of things he hadn’t first observed. It was interesting how much less modern the office was designed. While all of OsCorp remained contemporary, Norman’s office was...well, not.

Peter wasn’t quite sure what to call it, what the word would be. ‘Old’ came to mind, though he supposed it could be called ‘traditional’ as well. There was a lot of wood — covering the walls, his desk, and bookcases. While every other room in OsCorp was bright, contemporary silver and sleek, Norman’s office was the opposite. It was full of deep, rich colored tones that were barely highlighted under the dim yellow lights, what in all terms should have created a cozy environment, elegant and relaxed.

Yet the heavy smell of cedarwood and leather had Peter on edge, tying knots tightly in his gut. There was also some cologne heavy in the air, one he’d never encountered before. It was strong, oily. A stuffy, musky aroma that coated his nostrils — too strong, bordering on overwhelming. Peter didn’t like it.

He also couldn’t help but notice that the walls were covered in diplomas, certificates; flaunting his PhD, his CEO credentials — everything formal, everything professional.

Not one family photo was in sight.

“You into journalism?”

Norman’s voice brought him back to the present moment. Peter snapped his head over, realizing that the man was talking to him. An uneven breath momentarily stole his response. He wasn’t too sure why — he wasn’t typically this awkward, this uncomfortable. But there was something odd about the way Norman would look at him. Straight in the eyes, unfaltering, unrelenting.

Peter didn’t like that, either.

When he didn’t answer right away, Norman nodded towards the camera hanging at his hip.

“Uh, not really, no,” Peter stammered out. “I...more like photography.”

Norman leaned back in his chair, the slightest creak resonating in the room. “I don’t often see children of your age casually carrying around the highest tech on the market for their...selfies. You must really have a passion, Mr. Parker.”

“I suppose,” he managed. “I’m, uh, I’m more into science, though. Chemistry and stuff.”

Norman hummed. “So you’re an intern here at OsCorp.”

Peter’s eyes widened. “No! No, I’m —”

“Stark caught you first.”

A humorless smile crept on his lips, the kind that showed no teeth, no genuine contentment. Peter’s eyebrows furrowed with confusion, and Norman nodded again, this time to the watch wrapped around Peter’s wrist.

“If you don’t want people to know, I would recommend not wearing his tech.”

Peter did a quick glance down, immediately going to stuff his hand inside his jean pockets.

“Right,” Peter muttered, cursing under his breath. For being so noticeable, the stupid nanotech felt like a second skin — one he kept forgetting he was even wearing. “I’m uh, I have an internship there. With Stark Industries.”

Norman titled his head to the side, indulging himself in interest.

“What is it that you do?”

Peter bit his bottom lip, suddenly wishing for the uncomfortable silence to return.

“I’m a, uh...I assist in their Science and Technology division,” he scrambled to think on top of his feet. “Mainly in, uhm...engineering and uh...chemistry.”

Peter held back his grin, proud of how quickly he had come up with that one. And hey, it wasn’t totally a lie. Using Mr. Stark’s labs for the tech in his suit was totally engineering, and he was constantly working new chemistry equations with reinventing the chemicals in his web-fluids.

But, still. He made a mental note to talk with Tony about doing something to make this internship look real. Especially now that Norman OsCorp of all people was calling him out on it. Hell, even a photo would do. Something.

“Well, that’s a shame,” Norman carried on, his hands folding methodically on the top of his desk. “A boy as smart as yourself could do some impressive work with us here at OsCorp. You should consider attending open house, see what we have to offer.”

“I have, sir.” The words were out of Peter’s mouth before he realized it. His eyes shot wide, his brain quickly working to backtrack. “Something similar, anyway. My class went on a field trip here a few years back.”

Norman perked up, his eyebrows dangerously close to disappearing into his hairline.

“Field trip, you say? We haven’t opened doors to one of those in quite some time now. The company stopped after an...unfortunate loss of research.” Norman cleared his throat, sitting up straighter in the high back, executive styled chair. “The public relations department decided it’d be best not to increase any likelihood of students getting hurt because of our inventions.”

The room fell so quiet that Peter was sure he could hear a pin drop, without his enhanced hearing. His spine stiffened, his face failing to conceal his rising panic.

“What-what research was lost?”

Norman’s eyes flittered up to his, a moment of deliberation etching across his features in the beat that followed. It seemed he was debating on whether or not he should provide an answer, if it was in his best interest to start such a discussion over what Peter knew had to be sensitive information.

With or without an explanation, Peter had the answer.

He knew it sat directly in his DNA.

“Our one and only success with genetic modification,” Norman finally explained. “All the testing was performed on one solitary spider.”

Peter didn’t break eye contact with him, not even as his foot taped incessantly on the floor — tap tap tap tap taptaptaptaptaptap growing more and more unremitting.

“Oh, uh, nothing...nothing like that happened on my field trip.” His throat spasmed, his nerves getting the best of him. “It was smooth sailing. Actually, it was kind of boring.” Peter realized a second too late what he had said. If it were possible, his eyes grew even wider. “Not-not that this place is boring! Not at all, no, it was just...that day was boring. I think. I was tired? It was a long day and you know, I actually wasn’t here for most of it, I got in trouble and had to stay on the bus and —”

“It’s just interesting to me,” Norman interrupted. His face was pinched in thought, clearly paying little to no attention to Peter’s rambling. “We lost that spider and...not even six months later there’s a new vigilante on the streets of New York. Calling himself...low and behold — Spider-Man.”

Suddenly, every hair on Peter’s body stood up straight, in a way he knew was most certainly not his spider-sense. They felt like knives across his skin, sharp-edged goosebumps that ran deep into his muscles.

“That’s a...big coincidence, sir.”

The way Norman smiled at him — all lip, no teeth — it had Peter’s breath quickening in his chest. He didn’t understand what it was; there was nothing inherently threatening about the man, perhaps a bit intimidating, even unnerving. But certainly nothing threatening.

Yet there was a sense of anxiety Peter couldn’t shake, a feeling of unease threading deep into his core.

“Coincidences mean you're on the right path. Simon Van Booy.” Norman leaned back in his chair, settling his folded hands across his stomach. “My wife’s favorite book, and the last she would read.”

Peter’s eyes fluttered to the floor, memories of his childhood suddenly slowing down his racing heartbeat and hasty breathing. He remembered Harry’s mom — didn’t know for long, barely ever saw her to begin with, but he definitely saw her more than he ever saw Norman.

Norman had always been like a ghost in Harry’s life. Mentioned, never seen.

Mrs. Osborn though — Peter remembered her as being a very nice woman, sweet as ever, genuinely kind. It was without any doubt where Harry got most his personality from. Uncle Ben had been the one to take him to the funeral; May having been tied up with something else. He remembered hugging Harry tighter than ever that day. They ended up seeing each other again a few more times, casually, never outside of school. It wasn’t long after Harry was transferred upstate, right at the start of high-school.

A few months after that and Ben had been shot.

Harry didn’t attend that funeral.

Their own tragedies seemed to pull them apart instead of bring them together. Peter wished it had been different.

“You much on history, Mr. Parker?”

The question caught him off guard. Peter looked up, swallowing hard.

“Uh, no, sir. I’m actually...struggling a bit in that area. But Harry’s —”

“Did you know that the first recorded mention of cancer came around 1600 B.C. Egypt? A lot of people don’t know that,” Norman mused aloud, his tone cool, contemplative. Whether or not Peter showed interests in his discourse mattered not. Norman continued on, “They think cancer came along with cigarettes and food preservatives. They think we brought cancer on ourselves as a plague...a plague of modern society. But it’s always been there...since man first figured out how to poke and prod itself — it’s always been there.”

Peter felt frozen in his seat, muscles all but paralyzed, as if he was worried any movement would disturb the sudden conversation that had uprooted from Norman.

He listened intently, expression fixated.

“Then you skip ahead to Greece and Rome,” Norman waved a hand about, “Sure, doctors, Hippocrates and Galen lifted their ideas of medicine from magic and superstitious nonsensical suppositions. But it was the Hippocrates who named it. They named it cancer; karkinoma in Greek because a tumor looked like a crab. Karkinoma.”

The words floated in the air like an afternoon lecture, practiced and perfected, studied to a tee.

“And slowly but surely we got a better understanding of human anatomy. Then better technology. Better microscopes...then comes better understanding of cell structure.” Norman's fingers played idly across the armrest of his chair as he explained, “Chemical carcinogens, diagnostic techniques, chemotherapy...and before we know it, oncology is a science. You like science, don’t you, Mr. Parker?”

Peter felt a chill work down his spine as he stared at the man, so casually going on about something that felt incredibly out of the blue. He frowned, his eyebrows tugging down.

“Yes, sir,” he managed, distantly but acutely wondering where exactly is this going?

Norman met his eyes for the first time since he began speaking.

“Our understanding and treatment of cancer has evolved greatly in the last few decades thanks to science, massively in the past era. But we’re still not there yet, are we?” He shook his head, answering his own question, “No, we’re not. And that’s where OsCorp comes in, where we try to bridge the gap between society’s apathy and failure to push onward to greater achievement.”

Norman adjusted himself stiffly in the chair, sitting up straight and leaning closer to the desk that separated him and Peter.

“I’m not sure what Stark Industries is doing these days, outside of designing the most outlandish, sensationalist costumes for their above-the-law vigilantes. But I can, and will, speak for myself and for this company.” Two fingers tapped firmly on the wooden desk. “We’re one step away from creating a cure for cancer, one for all of mankind to revel in.”

It took a moment of pause for Peter to register what Norman had said, for the words to truly sink in. When they did, his eyes widened, his jaw slowly un-working from the tense hold it had been locked in.

“Really?” Peter gaped. “A-a cure for can —”

“The theory isn’t a new one,” Norman went on to say. “The human body carries within itself the ability to create everything it needs to function. Everything it needs to fight off any disease, to starve off any cancer. You see, this treatment...it’s better, wiser. A genetic bodysuit that would temporarily take hold of a patients biology, find out what their body needs, and then find a natural solution. If a cancer has spread — a tumor — the suit would search the body for the right natural toxins, find solutions on the patients own body chemistry, and put them to work. No radiation, no poison, no destruction of your own immune system. This would find cancer, diagnose it, and kill it. The ultimate natural medical treatment.”

Norman’s timing was precise, as if he wanted just a mere split second to pass before speaking again, just enough time to let the awe and wonderment spread across Peter’s features.

“It’s a shame, though,” he leaned back in his chair, hands settling into his lap once more. “Many people will die before we can get it off the ground.”

Peter blinked, eyelashes fluttering as he failed to veneer his confusion. “Why?”

Something odd crossed along Norman’s face. Not quite hesitance, not quite distrust. Yet the difference wrought was noticeable, tangible.

For a brief second, Peter wondered if it could possibly be desperation.

It was gone before he could even question it.

“That spider we spoke of contained the genetic material needed to go any further. And unfortunately it, along with all its data, is lost to us.”

With a rushing gravity that didn’t exist, Peter felt his stomach drop five feet below where it was supposed to be. The feeling was so intense that breathing suddenly became a task he didn’t have the coordination for.

Especially not as Norman stood up from his chair, walking the distance between them to sit on the edge of his desk.

The smell of musky cologne became stronger, overpowering, coating his nostrils in the scent that shot his nerves. Norman sat directly across from him, looking down. And Peter gulped as he looked up, watching the man adjust the tie hanging around his neck. Two wrinkles on his white button-down, nothing more.

“With all that said, Mr. Parker, I must ask...” Norman stared sat him, unblinking, for a long time. “If that spider was lost on the day of your tour, would you have any clues as to...what may have transpired?”

It was a subconscious instinct to grab his hand, unintended, one that neither of them noticed until it was too late. Peter rubbed the skin near his wrist before promptly letting go.

“I’m sorry, sir. I was...” Peter timidly shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Norman arched one an eyebrow high on his forehead, the other staying low as he stared at Peter. Slowly but surely, he forced a tug at his lips, a weak endeavor at a grin.

“That’s quite alright. My bio-organic chemistry department is already working hard on replicating the genetic material,” Norman said in a carefully measured voice, his eyes looking beyond Peter, seemingly far off. “It’ll simply take...time.”

Peter swallowed again, his throat tight from the heavy aroma whiffing off Norman’s blazer jacket. He opened his mouth to speak before closing it immediately, unsure of what he would even say. Besides, what more was there to say? ‘Sorry for being the thing that put a stop to your cure for cancer. Try and keep your spiders in better cages next time.’

Suddenly full of guilt, or shame — or a combination of both — Peter looked away, unable to handle the expression on Norman’s face. He couldn’t lock down what it was; worry maybe, or something more akin to frustration. Whatever it was, it wore heavy on his face, etching deep into the tired lines around his eyes and lips.

Around the same time, Norman stood up straight, putting distance between himself and the desk, and subsequently Peter.

“On that note, please, think twice about where you’d like to spend your free time. OsCorp has a lot it could offer you, and even more the other way around.” He neared back around to his chair, gesturing his open palm out towards Peter. “Tony Stark, well...he’s a careerist, son. Everything he says and does is in a way to advance only himself. You’re getting paid, correct? Perhaps we could discuss wages to try and sway your opinion.”

“Uh, no, sir. I’m...” Peter shook his head with jerky movements, the bob in his throat working up a storm as he choked out, “I’m not getting paid at all. Just...happy for the experience.”

Half-way into sitting back down in his chair and Norman paused, his eyes latching onto Peter’s for a brief moment. An audible ‘hm’ bounced between them, gone once the creak of leather took its place.

“Well...regardless, the offer remains to stand.” Norman leaned back, hands folding neatly into his lap. “Know your worth, Mr. Parker.”

Peter wasn’t sure if he nodded. He wasn’t sure if he even managed something remotely close to a nod, the muscles in his neck stiff and hard, the tension in the room thicker than the awful smell of rich cologne and furnished wood. His focus remained taunt, noticing how something seemed to dripped in Norman’s tone — insidious, sticking to Peter like glue.

Five knocks was all it took to tear him away from that one thought.

“Dad?” A door slowly creaked open. “Cindy said that you called for me —”

Harry stood in the doorway, polite caution thrown out the window at the sight of Peter sitting across from his father. His eyebrows flew up, his eyes widening twice their size.

“Pete! Jeeze, there you are. Where the hell did you go? How’d you —” He quickly looked to Norman, his face all but paling at the realization of what he had walked in on. “How’d you end up in my father’s office?”

─────── Identity Theft︱Chapter 19: When the Bad Things Happen ───────

Sitting next to him, Natasha had locked her gaze on Bruce, never taking her eyes off him throughout the discussion. If she hadn’t been looking directly at him, she would have sworn that she heard the man talk.

‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ rang in her ears, words that he never actually spoke, a personality normally so predictable faded underneath the stress of the situation.

It disturbed her how quiet Bruce had been. It disturbed them all. He was usually one to pitch in with giddy enthusiasm about how this type of technology functioned, proceeding to bore the team with details that they never asked for and could never understand.

Instead, he sat quietly, chin in the palm of his hands and elbows on his knees.

Natasha’s brows pulled together, concerned. “Bruce?”

His head snapped up, as if he now suddenly remembered where he was. Bruce looked at her, the deep lines across his face echoing her exhaustion.

Almost immediately he bowed his head again, taking his glasses off and pinching the bridge of his nose tightly.

“I’m sorry, it’s just...” Bruce heavily sighed, “this is bad.”

Wanda leaned forward, wrapping the blanket tighter around herself. “How bad?”

“His blood is...well, it’s mutated,” Bruce said. “Beyond what’s compatible with any other cross-match. On the surface he still has a normal B positive blood type, but beneath that it...it’s more. The antigens and protein markers have been so abnormally altered by that spider bite that he’s...he’s essentially developed an ABO incompatibility.”

Sam was the first to catch on. “He can’t receive blood.”

Bruce nodded. Clint audibly cursed under his breath, and Rhodey scoffed, shaking his head in disbelief.

“It’s...incredibly unfortunate in the current situation, but yes. We had to stop transfusing the universal O negative to prevent a hemolytic reaction,” Bruce explained.

Natasha stayed neutral. “So what now?”

Steve sat up a little straighter. “Doesn’t he have accelerated healing?”

“Yes,” Helen simply answered. “And that healing factor has certainly kept him alive this long.”

“Where’s the but?” Clint asked, arms crossed and all but rolling his eyes.

Bruce didn’t seem to have the willpower to answer the question. The tension grew twice as thick between them, and Steve was silently appreciative when Helen finally took over.

“He can only regenerate so fast. With his injuries, with the hypovolemia...he spent days dehydrated, malnourished — his body needs twice as much intake as that of a normal individual, and consequently he loses it twice as fast,” she explained. “It’s not as if he’s been stripped of his healing factor. It’s that his body is simply too weak and injured to utilize it.”

Rhodey leaned into the side of the couch, his temple resting between two fingers that rubbed at his forehead. He appeared to be able to keep up with the medical details up until now. It was typically the case for him though, superpowers always had a tendency to complicate things.

“So what does all that mean?” he asked.

Bruce put his glasses back on. “Think of it like a muscle. It takes energy to use. The hematology department has a theory — one I’m inclined to agree with — Peter used a lot of strength in just trying to stay alive. It’s not a...pleasant thing to think about, but his body more than likely went into hypovolemic shock multiple times. A normal person loses a certain amount of blood, they go into shock and if not treated, their heart gives out. Peter's body lost a certain amount of blood, fell into shock and began to regenerate the blood that was lost, until it couldn’t anymore. And then the process repeated.”

His hands spun and twisted around each other, mimicking a moving wheel.

Natasha frowned. “Until now.”

Steve didn’t need to see Bruce nodding to know the answer. He felt the cushions of the sofa lighten as Natasha stood up, her only response being that she walked away from the group. By the time Steve looked up, she was standing across the room and over the stairway banister.

They all knew her well enough to leave her be.

“I would like to reiterate what I said before,” Helen cut in. “By all accounts, he should be dead. He’s hanging on by the skin of his teeth but...he’s hanging on.”

Steve really didn’t know what to say to that. Of course the kid was hanging on. He was a hell of a fighter, a soldier beyond what they could have ever expected.

He was also just a kid.

“We’re not soldiers,” Tony had once told him, the words resonating in his ears. 

Steve was starting to agree with that sentiment.

─────── Identity Crisis︱Chapter 30: All In the Family ───────

“Even the whole time I was at Mr. Osborn’s place, something felt...off,” he said instead, turning his eyes down to the metal floor of the jet. His tennis shoes squeaked as he readjusted himself on the bench. “It was weird.”

“How so?”

The voice didn’t come from Tony.

Peter looked up, straightening his back the moment he saw Natasha walking towards them both. The rest of the conversations taking place in the jet must’ve not been interesting enough for her, because she approached the two quietly, her feet making no sounds as she stepped forward.

Peter was caught between being surprised that she was suddenly in his face, and learning how not to be surprised when she was suddenly in his face.

Spies. What a weird thing.

“I dunno,” he answered, honestly, sitting up until his back pressed against Tony’s arm. “It wasn't weird at first. At least not until Mr. Osborn came home.”

It was Tony’s turn to pull away from Peter, and he didn’t waste an ounce of strength doing it.

“You saw him?” Tony’s eyes were wide enough to replace the turbofan’s of the Quinjet. “Norman? You saw him — again?”

Peter made a very distinct sound that contained absolutely no words and all sass.

Tony threw him a look that said no words and was all exasperation.

“Well, yeah, Mr. Stark,” Peter started to say, that sass leaking right into his defense. “It was his place, why wouldn’t —”

Tony rolled his eyes. “That doesn’t mean I assumed you —”

“It was only for like, a minute. Two, maybe. Three! Tops!” Peter adjusted himself on the bench, turning to better face Tony. “I was about to leave — seriously, I left right after he came home. We said a few things —”

“What things?” Natasha’s words came with a few steps forward, hard pressed against the floor. Peter didn’t like how he could hear them this time around. “What things were said?”

Both set of eyes from both adults bored into him like a hot laser beam — it could’ve been Iron Man’s repulsors and Peter wouldn’t have questioned it. He almost shied away, because — ‘damn, third-degree much?’

As it was, Peter was too busy trying to remember the encounter for any tongue-in-cheek remark. It wasn’t his fault that the last few weeks — months — felt like years. Decades. Many, many eventful decades.

Through it all, talking to Harry’s dad felt like a blip on his radar.

“He wanted to...go eat steak,” Peter remembered, slowly. His forehead creased in the middle as he tried to recall the night. “He talked about our grades and — and studying. That’s it. We shook hands and I left.”

Natasha cocked her head to the side, her forehead equally as creased as Peter, yet obviously for a very different reason.

“But it felt strange?” she repeated, and slowly at that.

Peter nodded.

“Really strange,” he reaffirmed.

The sound from Tony’s throat was deep enough to catch both their attention. He ran his thumb across his chin, looking somewhere with no interest as his mind processed the information.

"Maybe the symbiote was having its effect on you by then,” Tony pondered. The expression that fell across his face seemed conflicted at his own speculation. “This would’ve been...almost six days since you snuck into that lab.”

Peter shook his head hard enough for his hair to fall into his eyes.

“Yeah, but I’m telling you Mr. Stark, I didn’t touch anything in that lab —”

Just like that, Peter shot his one arm out, sitting up so tall on the bench that his head could’ve hit the Quinjet’s roof.

“Oh, my god.”

“Oh my god what?” Tony watched, with high-arched eyebrows, as Peter immediately reached down for his backpack with haste. He was positive at this point his heart wouldn’t survive anymore shock. “Oh my god what?”

Peter didn’t answer him. Rather, he clutched his backpack against his chest, immediately emptying its contents as he flipped it around in all directions. Books fell to his feet and papers flew Natasha’s way as he frantically looked at it — examined it, running his fingers all across it.

“It’s gone,” he breathed out, his eyes growing wide with realization. “That means—”

"What, Parker?” Tony stressed, his hands hovering over the backpack as if he wanted to snatch it right out of Peter’s grasp. “That means what?”

Peter immediately shot his head over towards him.

"I didn’t get the symbiote from that lab,” he insisted, shaking his head the whole time. "I'm telling you, I didn't touch anything in that lab, nothing touched me."

Of everything he had said in the last few weeks, of all the lies stacked ontop of more lies and half truths and hidden secrets, Peter spoke with the most certainty he’d ever felt before.

Still, Tony furrowed his brow. “Then where else could you have gotten it from, Pete?”

The answer felt heavy leaving his mouth.

"Mr. Osborn.”

Natasha was immediately closer — practically hovering over Peter now, and Tony looked at him in a way that made Peter worried he might have a stroke.

Or two.

“I — I shook his hand. Right before I left.” Peter swallowed, hard, exchanging quick glances between both Natasha and Tony. “It felt...it felt wrong. It felt...it felt bad. And – and I went to the bathroom to fix my strap,” he lifted the broken strap for display. “And there was this grease or something right here, right on my backpack.”

The spot Peter pointed to was clean as a whistle. So the look of confusion from both adults was justified.

“It’s gone,” Peter repeated, clearly still trying to comprehend the revelation as much as the others. “It was the symbiote, the grease — it was the symbiote. It – it came from Mr. Osborn. And that night — that night in the workshop,” Peter immediately turned to Tony. “That wasn’t an anxiety attack, Mr. Stark. That was my spider-sense. That had to be the night the symbiote infected me!”

Peter looked at Tony and realized that stroke was right around the corner.

“Why would Norman have it?” Natasha quickly asked, though it sounded more like pondering than anything else.

Quiet footsteps came from nearby — silent type like hers, just enough force that the presence wanted to be known.

“He created it, right?” Bucky’s voice was hoarse at the edges, somewhat unsure in the center. Though he felt uncertain about joining the conversation, his mouth got the better of him. “Why wouldn’t he have it?”

Natasha craned her head around to look at him.

“But why would he have it?” she stressed, folding both arms tightly over her chest. “At his home?”

Bucky made a face, something between deep consideration and obliviousness. He stood next to Natasha, and though Tony was too occupied warding off a heart attack to do anything other than stare at Peter, Bucky ensured he rooted his feet on the opposite side of the man.

“Didn’t you say this guy does mad scientist experiments?” he asked, toneless, leaning firmly against the nearest wall. “Those type of men don’t typically make a lot of sense.”

Silence took the place of any answers.

Natasha turned to Tony, noting that his silence was far different than theirs.

“What is it, Tony?” she asked, slowly, with her head cocked to the side.

Tony blinked, craning his head up to look at her.

“You’re right,” he easily said.

Natasha quirked an eyebrow high. “Don’t hear that often.”

“Why would Norman have the symbiote on him?” Tony ignored her remark in favor of his own question. “This man built a bunker under the ocean in the Bermuda Triangle just to avoid anyone discovering his experiments. Now he’s taking his work home with him?”

Bucky made a face of apperception, looking somewhat taken aback along the way. Peter noted that all the adults had different expressions on their face — Natasha confused, and Tony...well, that would simply take too long to figure out.

“It doesn’t add up,” Tony concluded, too quietly for Peter’s liking.

From across the way, Bruce cleared his throat, his one finger gestured aimlessly ahead.

“If Oz is a...cure for cancer, or – or disease immunity, something that would help the sick...” he started to say, his finger wagging with his words as his footsteps led him forward. “And the symbiote was a way to protect cell destruction…and Norman’s behind all of that…”

Tony snapped his fingers.

Just once.

“He’s sick.” The two words were forceful enough to stop time. “Performing the test trials on himself. He didn’t bring his work home, the work tried to come home with him.”

Bruce’s scoff only got louder as he approached the group.

“No, that’s – that’s insanity,” Bruce insisted, a firm shake of his head rattling his voice. “Only a somebody truly desperate would test something on themse—oh.”

Tony’s face fell flat as he gestured his hand forward.

“Pot. Kettle.” His head tilted to the side. “Black.”

Bruce had the grace to look embarrassed.

“So the man might be dying,” Bucky interjected, a hard shrug shaking his shoulders. “Let him die.”

Natasha shook her head, a grim expression casting over her face. “Nature might not happen soon enough.”

Looking back down at his backpack, Peter settled his hand over the spot he knew was once stained. His fingers grazed the fabric as those around him exchanged fierce glances, the tension he didn’t want existing quickly finding its way inside.

Peter could’ve been miles away from that tension and he still would’ve felt it — would’ve felt his own tension, wrapping tight around his core.

That night in Tony’s lab — the panic attack he had in his bedroom. It was when he grabbed his backpack.

It was his spider-sense, it had to be.

“Venom was just one of the symbiote’s they bred,” Bruce’s quiet voice was dangerously loud breaking the silence. “With all we saw in those pictures Peter took...there’s no telling what the next trial will do. And if the symbiote is derived from Oz...I don’t wanna know what kind of monster the Oz Formula would breed.”

Peter looked up from his backpack, his head rocketing up like someone controlled his puppet strings. The fact that everyone looked as unsettled as he felt didn’t leave him feeling too optimistic about the situation.

He’d quickly learned that when they looked worried, shit had already hit the fans.

“But it can’t come to life without me, right?” Peter tried to find a silver lining. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. “It needs my DNA to even...you know...stick.”

Natasha quirked an eyebrow. “Was that a pun?”

“Parker’s right,” Tony said, almost automatically. His fingers had already begun tapping across his knee. “They’ll give up. Without the spider DNA, the symbiote’s won’t ever work. Norman won’t keep focusing on the Symbiote Project, not with knowing what it’ll take to get it started — and not having it.”

Tony absolutely, positively, without a certain of a doubt hated that ‘it’ was sitting right next to him.

From the way Peter had noticeably clenched up — it was impossible not to notice, they were pressed against one another — Tony figured the kid felt the same way.

“Then we’re in the clear,” Bucky unwittingly concluded, his one and only hand gesturing in a floppy manner towards Peter. “Punk hides under a mask. No one knows who he is.”

“He’s got a point.” Sam let himself approach the group, already standing halfway to the back of the jet and listening in on the conversation. It was only a few steps to get him to the others. “Norman’s got no idea who Pete is, outside of some...old friend of his kid, right? Just don’t make anymore trips to his house and it’s all said and done.”

The resolution seemed as clear and bright as the sun that swelled through the clouds outside the jet. A simple answer, an easy conclusion to a growing problem.

“Uh-oh,” Peter felt the words tumble right out of his mouth.

Sam immediately arched an eyebrow. “Uh-oh?”

Peter nodded, stiffly. “Uh-oh.”

Slowly, with the speed that even a turtle would’ve laughed at, Peter turned his head around to Tony. Their expressions were eerily similar now — not a single person failed to notice it.

“Mr. Stark…” Peter trailed off, drawing out the two words with a stress that lined each additional syllable.

Tony’s response was to shake his head — fervently.

“We don’t know for sure that he knows —” he tried to say.

Peter kept going right over him. “But you said —”

“I know what I said.”

“And if he does —”

“We don’t know that he does, kid —”

“But if he does —”

Tony grabbed Peter’s arm, holding it firmly.

“We protect you.”

Peter looked down at Tony’s grip, shocked at how white the mans knuckles were, his fingers pressing so hard into his bicep that an average person would be in pain. When he looked back up at Tony, the fierce determination in his grasp reflected back in his eyes.

“Osborn’s not coming near you, Peter,” Tony said — swore. His voice firm throughout. “Not so long as we’re around.”

─────── Identity Crisis︱Chapter 15: Slithered Here From Hell ───────

Norman met his gaze with a straight face, unamused and impassive.

“What do you want?”

Tony could have laughed; had honesty been something he intended to rely on, there still wouldn’t be enough time in his day to go down that road. Not even the riches in both their bank accounts could buy what he wanted, their pockets deep in stocks and market exchanges not nearing close enough to provide the peace of mind and security he desperately fought for.

Leaning back casually in the chair, Tony lifted both his hands in an open gesture, plastering a press-winning smile over his face.

“A lot of things,” he started. “World peace would be a great. End to all poverty. No kid hungry, no kid left behind, that sorta thing.” Tony’s face fell flat, the facade beginning to weaken at the fringes. “A tête-à-tête works, too. Heart-to-heart, one-on-one. You, me — none of those pesky lawyers we keep overpaying to do our dirty work. Just a good old conversation between like minded individual’s.”

Norman arched an eyebrow high into his hairline, his hardened gaze unwavering on the man sitting across from him.

The beat that followed felt toxic, inundated with palpable tension. If Tony didn’t know better, he’d say the air in the room had gone stale, stiff and thick from the negative energy stemming between them.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss ongoing lawsuits with you,” Norman finally responded, every bit as calm as Tony expected. “If that’s the only reason you came here, I hate to disappoint.”

“No lawsuits, last I checked,” Tony countered innocently. “No convictions that I’m even aware of. I mean, hell, you know how the Senate Armed Services Committee can be — always keeping themselves busy, soaking up those taxpayer dollars. They go after my Iron Man suits, they go after you with those experiments —”

“This isn’t about my experiments,” Norman cut in, professionally laced tone sharper than a knife. “It’s about your ridiculous claims, ones that you keep taking my company to court for. And you’ll have to pardon my forbearance when it comes to accusations that I can’t entertain. I have much more important things to do in my day than defend myself against such absurd allegations.”

Tony gave an exaggerated shrug. “Are they absurd, though? Can anything be considered absurd now that aliens have attacked New York and Gods have roamed the streets of New Mexico?”

Norman cocked his head to the side, failing to emulate the same grin that twitched at Tony’s mouth.

“Your case on OsCorp continues to be dismissed by the courts based on the grounds that you don’t have proof. It will never be upheld by a judge based solely on your conspiracy theories.” His words were seamless, practiced. Downright methodical. “Quite frankly, the longer you extend this feud, the sooner the public will begin to speculate that OsCorp is a threat to Stark Industries. Is that really a look you want for your company?”

“I have proof,” Tony forced through his teeth. The sting that he’d been keeping at bay started to burn in his chest, germinating with each passing second. “I just can’t use it.”

“Then that isn’t proof,” Norman rebutted, managing to pull of the most contrite look Tony had possibly ever seen. It didn’t look well on him, stretching the crows-feet over his eyes and adding years to his face. “It’s heresay.”

Tony shouldn’t have been surprised by his blatant denial. In a way, he wasn’t. But it didn’t stop his jaw from tightening, or his hand from clenching tightly into a fist.

Despite everything, Tony hadn’t been prepared for just how difficult it’d be to bench the searing hate that congealed in his veins. How challenging it was to sit quietly, play dumb despite all he knew. All he experienced first-hand.

“You know,” he cleared his throat, feigning casual conversation. “There’s a lot about the inner workings of my career you could never familiarize yourself with. SHIELD, the company I'm contracted out to work for —”

“Work for?” Norman tsked, reclining against his plush chair and staring over the expanse of the mahogany desk at Tony. “Is that what you call your vigilantism?”

Tony chose to ignore that statement.

“They have strict security clearance,” he continued on as if uninterrupted. “Information I know doesn’t get shared with the public, not unless I want to wake up in bed with a horses head next to my pillow. Doesn’t mean I don’t know things. Who they’ve gone after, who they’ve shut down in the past…”

As Norman reclined back, Tony leaned forward, his elbows pressing firmly on his knees.

“What sort of...surreptitious buildings floated in the pacific ocean…”

An uninvited friction washed across the room, belligerent in spite of the silence that fell between the two.

Tony savored the whisper of surprise that crossed over Norman’s face. It was almost nonexistent — a twitch of his cheekbones, a look in his eyes — blink and it was gone.

But Tony saw it.

He relished in it.

“Six months ago one of your experiments got loose and nearly destroyed the Collar City Bridge,” Tony reminded him. He mimicked Norman’s position, leaning back in his chair, flexing and then folding his hands into his lap. “You paid the city hush money to pretend it never happened. I know it did. I was there, I cleaned up your mess. And I know you’ve been doing worse than that rock android.”

As much as it pained him to admit, Tony and Norman had one thing in common — they were born in the corporate world, taught how to bullshit the same day they were taught how to walk.

So it was no surprise to see Norman appear indifferent, turning a blind eye as if he knew nothing more.

“How so?” he casually asked, reaching for his glass of whiskey.

A mirthless laugh almost broke free of Tony’s throat, managing instead to stay tightly restricted between two pursed lips — clamped shut with brewing anger. He watched wordlessly as Norman took a sip of the amber drink, his eyes never leaving Tony’s, not even as the glass returned to the surface of his desk.

Tony popped his lips, the sound echoing throughout the office. “No one finds it coincidental that a teleporting magician appeared in the same week?”

Norman smirked. Just a little. Just enough.

“And gone the next,” he regarded Tony evenly. “There were no ties with that incident and OsCorp.”

It was the tone of deceptive innocence that got to Tony, so immaculately perfected that it could fool anyone’s ears — surely pass any lie detector, win over any judge. Tony imagined that had it not been for the hell they’d been through earlier in the year, Norman’s act of virtue might have even instilled some doubt in his accusations.

But there weren’t accusations to have. Not anymore. They knew the truth — Tony knew the truth. The truth was nightmares that woke him up at three a.m. Panic attacks he could barely stave off at the smell of salt water and ocean life. The endless reminders of sleepless nights in his compound’s medical bay, praying relentlessly to a God he didn’t believe in at the bedside of a kid too young to experience the trauma he’d been put through.

He didn’t need to hear the truth directly from the fool’s mouth to feel vindicated.

He just needed to buy the time until they had their proof.

“Hm. So you claim,” Tony said, his voice still calm, still leveled. They could both play the game of bullshitting some professional nonsense. “Just as you claimed that your numerous east-coast research facilities were all up to code and legally abiding. Yet the case of one Max Dillon, circa 2008, might see things differently.”

Norman hadn’t looked away from Tony, not even as his fingers began to dance across the plush leather armrest of his chair.

Tony stared right back into his eyes, refusing to be intimidated.

“Remember him?” Tony flippantly waved a hand, dismissing a response. “Of course you don't. He was just another college student, Montclair State University, too desperate for a couple bucks to know what participating in your underpaid studies would do to him.”

Tony leaned in, just an inch, the soft tapping of Norman’s fingers audible in the quiet space between them.

“Amazing how an incident that put a nineteen-year-old boy into a coma brought on by high-voltage electrical shock could just be...tossed out of court like some suburban soccer mom suing their neighbor for leaving Christmas decorations up past New Years.” Tony's voice grew harder, his need to remain reserved slipping between the cracks where his emotion began to surface. “But you claimed — sorry, let me rephrase that — you ‘claimed’ that your study participants were subjected to the highest level of care and consideration in your faculties. Just as you claim now that you’ve had nothing to do with the Collar City Bridge incident. Or the magician in Times Square. Or the revived, modified Chitarui remains that attacked Brooklyn.”

Tony said nothing for a moment; he wasn’t sure if it was to add suspense to his lingering words, or to control the growing pit that started to claw its way into his throat. He could feel his lip twitch, the memories all too vivid, too personal. Close enough to his chest that he was sure each hammering beat of his heart kept them alive and present in his mind.

Norman stared at him, face so expressionless it was as if he knew nothing of the pain he’d cause Tony.

Or worse, simply didn’t care.

“Among other events I can’t list, of course,” Tony finally added, managing a nonchalant shrug that took more effort than it appeared. “But like I said...security clearance. Not sure if I’d be able to get horses blood out of Egyptian Cotton bedsheets. And I would rather not have to try.”

The false image of calm and collected pervading every fiber of Norman’s persona hadn’t taken a hit. His fingers finally stopped moving across the armrest, his hands settling on the smooth surface of his desk not far from where the mountain glass sat, condensation still leaking onto the wood below it.

“And it would be ill-advised to discuss anything further without a lawyer present,” Norman pressed. “That is, so long as you continue to throw subpoenas on my desk every other week.”

A full blown grin pulled tightly at Tony’s cheeks, the phony act coming back just as quickly as it left.

“Hey, it’d stop if I got my answers.”

The laugh that came from Norman was downright unsettling, surprising at the very least. Tony arched an eyebrow high, watching with disturbed interest as Norman picked up the glass from his desk and shook his head, little laughs rattling his chest.

Tony narrowed his eyes, noticing how his muscles tensed at every low chuckle that escaped Norman’s mouth. He’d heard a lot of sinister sounds in his life. Somehow, this one felt the worse.

Norman took a sip of scotch, and for a moment, neither of them said anything.

“You know who does have a tie to those incidents you speak of, Stark?” He returned his gaze to Tony, openly gesturing the glass in his direction. “Queens local Spider-Man.”

Norman eyed Tony intently. There was no missing the glint in his eye, not even in the dim lighting of the darkened office.

“He was there for them all,” Norman spoke casually, as if their conversation hadn’t took a coarse, abrupt turn. Like they were still throwing banter back and forth on political arguments and legal proceeding disagreements, like the mention of the red and blue clad vigilante was nothing more than an insouciant comment in an otherwise petty discussion.

Tony fought to appear as if that was the case, forcing himself to hide any shred of emotion that would say otherwise.

“I’m not here to discuss Avengers business with you,” Tony curtly said, his pulse quickly beginning to thump erratically under his skin.

Norman arched a brow. “I wasn’t aware that Spider-Man was an Avenger now.”

Just like that, a burning feeling settled deep in Tony’s chest — a sharp needle that dug deep into his core. It wasn’t until the sensation became overpowering that he realized he’d stopped breathing all together, his test of patience pushed to the absolute limits.

He flexed his hands, his mouth setting in grim line.

“He’s not.”

Norman moved to raise both his eyebrows, and the glass of whiskey to the tips of his lips.

“But I do see Iron Man with him...often.” A sip. A swallow. Norman swirled the liquid in the glass, watching it swish around the edges. “An enigma, if I do say so myself.”

Tony should have expected such a low blow. The public wasn’t oblivious to the connection he had with Spider-Man, after all. Not since spring, not since the rock-android incident on the Collar City Bridge. In that moment, he had unintentionally outed Spider-Man as an ally of his, more than an acquaintance — the frequent visits Iron Man made to Queens were too coincidental to brush aside. Tony knew that. He wasn’t naive, he knew full well how the media ate up his superhero business like there was no tomorrow.

But still. To bring him up now, to drag Spider-Man into their conversation unwarranted, with no cause, no reason —

The implications were clear as day.

Tony’s eyes hardened. The rest of him managed to look flawlessly oblivious.

“What can I say?” He spread his arms out wide, slapping on a smile that went ear-to-ear. “Hard to turn down a friendly face who just wants to help his neighborhood.”

Norman leaned back in his chair, hand still holding his glass, resting it somewhere beneath his chest where the dark emerald tie laid against the harsh contrast of his white button down.

“Neighborhoods have always been beneath you, Stark,” he said, searching Tony’s eyes for something that neither of them could distinguish. “What changed?”

Tony was sure the words were meant as a challenge. A goading, leading question designed to trick him — trip him up, admit something that would only serve Norman’s interest and no one else’s.

“I started giving a damn,” Tony ground the words from his lips. “You should try doing the same.”

If Norman was disappointed by the answer, he surely didn’t let it show. Head dipped low, chin on his chest, he again swirled the liquid in the mountain glass. Only the thin slivers of sunlight peeking through the heavy drawn curtains gave way to the expression on his face, and Tony had to squint to notice if there had even been a change that took place.

He remained impassive, imperturbable through it all.

“You’ve always relied on contingencies in your business. A destined trait from someone who took over a corporation at such a young age, I suppose,” Norman went on to say, infuriatingly stoic. “But chance won’t help you with whatever you’re trying to put OsCorp through. Whatever information you think you have in that intellect of yours...it won’t do you any good at the end of the day. You’ve become nothing more than the boy who cried wolf, the thorn in the side of our judicial system, wasting time of those who could be serving our public better.”

Leaning forward, Norman set the glass back on the desk, far off to the corner where he couldn’t easily grab ahold of it again. Tony’s eyes briefly glanced in the direction; the amber liquid was all but gone, a mere trace of residue left in the bottom.

“So, I ask again…” Norman furrowed his brows, hesitating before reclining back in the chair. “Why are you here?”

Tony raised his eyes to meet Norman’s burrowing stare, a smirk curling at the edges of his mouth.

“For the kids,” he boasted simply. “Who are we without them, am I right?”

Norman huffed a slight, dry chuckle, giving the smallest nods along the way.

“Ah, yes, the OsCorp Internship Program,” he preened, a crease between his eyes telling Tony he hadn’t fully fallen for the set-up. Still, he continued on. “You know, my son Harrison is second lead to running that program.”

Tony adjusted himself in his seat, hoping the movement hid the eye-roll he was unable to stop himself from giving.

“I’m sure you’re very proud,” he acknowledged flatly.

Norman nodded, eyes settling, skin pulling tight in a few places.

“I recently became acquainted with an old friend of his,” he began to say, the pause that followed heavier than the stare he proceeded to give. “I think you know him — Peter Parker?”

The sound of the name assaulted Tony like a thousand pounds of shrapnel blasting through his chest cavity, hitting him harder than a bomb blowing through the fragile windows of an undersea bunker. He could feel the blood rush out from his face, his skin growing cold, his heart losing rhythm.

It was too much not to let Norman on, to not shoot glaring daggers his way — let him know that even speaking that name was a cardinal sin that could never be forgiven.

If his facade faltered in the second that passed, it wasn’t for lack of trying.

“The name is familiar, yes.” Tony's jaw tightened threateningly, a sound akin to a growl nearly escaping his throat.

Norman’s lips twisted into a small smile. Tony fought the urge to punch it right off his face.

“Very intelligent young man. Guided by the right hands, he could do wonders. Take this company right underneath me some day, assuming my son doesn’t do it first.” Norman’s tone was enough to have Tony grinding his teeth — lighthearted, interested, fascinated. Thrilled. He looked at Tony, really looked at him, hiding nothing beneath his features. “I tried getting him enrolled in the OsCorp Internship, but he unfortunately declined.”

“Sorry to break your heart,” Tony’s voice dipped dangerously low, raw and strained despite his best efforts. “He’s already in one.”

Tony made a face, something he was sure looked less impressionable than what he wanted. It was hard to stay neutral in the conversation. Less than six hours ago he discovered Peter’s impromptu, unapproved trip to OsCorp had resulted in something happening that could very well be poisoning him — or worse.

Now, in the same day, he managed to find out that Norman himself had made contact with the kid.

His kid.

Who, when all this was said and done with, would be getting a long lecture about hiding things from others. Like having a powwow with the man responsible for nearly killing them both, on multiple occasions.

Tony’s eyes briefly flitted away, a curse sitting on the tip of his tongue. He should’ve done more when he got that alert of Peter’s location in OsCorp. He knew then that trouble was afoot — he should’ve listened to his instincts.

“Mhm-hm.” Norman’s hum cut through the stifling silence. “I’m aware of his extra curricular activities. I looked into it — the Stark Internship.” He raised a single eyebrow. “Doesn’t exist.”

The words rang through the office like reverberating steel; harsh, frigid, striking a cord where it wasn’t wanted.

Things that had previously not added up in his calculations were suddenly growing crystal clear to Tony. Shinier than the near-empty glass of alcohol that sat discarded across from him.

“But other people…”

Peter hadn’t meant the Thompson kid at school.

He didn’t want that proof for himself.

Tony felt a sinking pit grow deep in his gut. Realization combined with hopeless understanding tore into his skin like a ravenous, feral beast, and his spine stiffened; a steel knife cutting straight into his windpipe.

Whatever Peter was keeping from him, whatever he was keeping secret — it was beyond them all at this point.

Tony could only hope that there wasn’t more he was hiding.

Norman fiddled with the cuffs to his white button down, pushing them up his forearms. “Now, I don’t take Mr. Parker for a liar, seems like an honest young boy, has the straps on his boots up well. But you, on the other hand —”

“It exists,” Tony bit back vehemently, the words coming without his bidding.

Norman leaned forward, his elbows resting on the desk between them, moving himself as close into Tony’s space as he possibly could.

“Then the question remains to be…” His head cocked to the side, and his eyes narrowed sharply. “In what capacity?”

Tony met his eyes head-on, not by choice, rather by sheer force of will. He refused to look away, refused to plant any validation to the implication laid out in front of him.

Yet it was blunt. Unequivocal, unmistakable.

Suddenly, Tony felt like he was drowning — caught under water, trapped in a wave he couldn’t escape. His ears rushed and popped, his head screamed under the tightening pressure. It was hard to even breathe, a simple inhale catching in his chest and staying there.

Right where Norman sat, leaning over his desk, the first expression he’d seen on the man all afternoon finally catching the little bit of sunlight creeping in through the curtains.

He was smug.

And Tony had a gut-wrenching feeling on why.

─────── Identity Within︱Chapter 5: Something Borrowed ───────

Norman reached forward, grabbing the nearest item in the large, contaminated pile.

A photo frame laid amongst the mess; covered in white, tacky fluid. Norman grabbed the smallest part of its upper hand corner, barely free of any white goop. With his finger and thumb, he tugged it away from the wreckage.

It drew along a sinuous string of fluid, like bubble gum freshly plucked from a child’s mouth — stretching onward, resistant and unending. Norman couldn’t help but eye it, curiously — the unhinged pit in his stomach too deep to give it his fascination, but the oddity of it all still captivating his attention.

He almost didn’t notice the picture sitting behind the glass; so engrossed staring at the intricate, silky cobwebs pulled from the splatter across the floor. To the point where the image sealed away was the last thing he found focus on; the faces confined inside the frame catching his attention, forever frozen in time.

Behind the thick layers of white, two men posed side-by-side. Norman squinted his eyes and then returned them to size, struggling to make out the details beneath the mess. The white covered nearly all of the glass, but the threads of gummy fiber thinned out with detailed latticework making each strand unique and nearly translucent.

Instinctively, he went to brush the tacky fluid away, stopping short of his fingers grazing the substance.

It was there he could see the picture wasn’t of two men — no, Norman studied the image more intently.

It was a man, and a young boy.

A teenager.

They were familiar, both of them. Both holding a framed document no different than Norman held the framed photo. Both faces etched deep into the tapestry of Norman’s memory.

Though partially obscured by the large splatter of white goop, the man in particular struck a chord of recognition. The trademark goatee, the impish twinkle in the eyes, even the assured tilt of his head —

Standing next to a neatly kept tuft of hair, wide innocent eyes, and a familiar, awkward smile of adolescence —

Norman’s eyes flittered left to right, back and forth, lingering only to pause on the center where he could scarcely make out the Stark Industries logo within the frame — free of any tacky fluid that would keep it indistinguishable.

h̷̶̷̸̶̶̶̡̨̧̧̢̥̗̦̫̩͍̥͕͈̭̩̬̩̜͓̗̙̥̔͒͌̓͌̅ͪ̃͒͗̅̽́̋͂̏͆̋̀̚̕͠͝͠ͅẽ̵̱͕̞̎̓ ̷̸̶̲͕̥̻̣̹͔͖͇̊͆͆̌͑͌̌̒̍̚ͅӺͫ̐ͥīꞥ̎ͤͩđ Īͪⱦͯ

ƒ̵̘̑ι̵̫͆χ̴̞̏ ̴͍̓ῖ̸̺т̷̲͂

Ħēɍē

He went to drop the framed photo back onto the floor — slowly at first, suddenly when the open envelope off to the side caught his gaze. Norman quickly reached for it, picking up the letter in one fell sweep.

The wax imprint that once sealed the parcel had since cracked and dried over, torn off at the top from when the letter was initially opened; but still fresh enough that even in the haze of his madness, he could tell it was fairly recent. The card inside was made of material far heavier than the other scattered papers that fell off the desk, holding a weight of significance that prompted him to pull it out from its resting place.

Norman paid it no care, even as the tacky substance covering the photo frame stuck to his fingers and caked into the callouses on his palms. It didn’t bother him — not as he struggled to get the card out from inside, and not as he struggled to read the contents with eyes dry as the desert and stinging with a prickly heat.

Those same eyes flickered to the framed photo beneath him, the hand holding the letter moving away just sightly so he could see the picture without any obscuration.

He looked back to the letter, all while spreading his fingers wide — creating a spiderweb between the spaces of all four of his fingers.

ӺīꞥđӺ̧̢̼͉͖̪̙̥̝͓͑͛̃̅ͫͮͫ̋́͘ͅī͈̻͔ͫͥ͆ꞥ͂͂̈̾̑̃̃̓̑̋̌đ̨͘͡

p̑̿̾ͯ̑̑ͬ̈ͤ͆̍͒ͭ̑̓u͍͚̤̖̓ͥ͆̉́n̷̨͞o̴̡ͧ̕ɟ̛̕͡ Ғ͕͕̟̈́ͮ͐θμπδ̆̾

Ħēɍē

H̰̞̗̄̔ͭίϻ͖͊̀ͅ

H̰̞̗̄̔ͭίϻ͖͊̀ͅ

ƒ̵̘̑ι̵̫͆χ̴̞̏ ̴͍̓ῖ̸̺т̷̲͂

ꓕʜ͆ͅE ̻̮̯ͮͧ̎Ƚ̈́ͭɪ̈́ͫX͓̙̮ʰ̵̦̈́ᵉ̷̲̈'̷̦̔ˢ̴̯̊ ̴͖͛ᵗ̴̢͗ʰ̵̬̋ᵉ̴͇̚ ̸̭̅ᶠ̵̣͑ᶦ̸̓͜ˣ̸̥̐

      ｔＨ𝐄 xᴉɟʰ̵̦̈́ᵉ̷̲̈'̷̦̔ˢ̴̯̊ ̴͖͛ᵗ̴̢͗ʰ̵̬̋ᵉ̴͇̚ ̸̭̅ᶠ̵̣͑ᶦ̸̓͜ˣ̸̥̐

          T͕̘͐̆h̬̩̗̓ͪ͗e ͔͆Fix͕ʰ̵̦̈́ᵉ̷̲̈'̷̦̔ˢ̴̯̊ ̴͖͛ᵗ̴̢͗ʰ̵̬̋ᵉ̴͇̚ ̸̭̅ᶠ̵̣͑ᶦ̸̓͜ˣ̸̥̐

ʰᵉ'ˢ ᵗʰᵉ ᶠᶦˣ

xᴉɟ ǝɥʇ s'ǝɥ

нє'ϛ τнє ƒίx̛̳̮̊̾͗̓̏ͪ͡ᵉ̴͇̚ ̸̭̅ᶠ̵̣͑ᶦ̸̓͜ˣ̸̥̐

For the first time in weeks, Norman felt a frigid chill — one that ran down the length of his spine, overtaking the scorching heat of an inescapable inferno. Coursing through his body and freezing him in a state of realization.

With that realization, he smiled.

And with a surge of energy that wasn’t his, he climbed off his knees and staggered out of the office. Discarding the letter in the pile left on the floor, with the card slipping out of the envelope for any onlookers to see.

Through the splatters of sticky silk, the printed text against the card caught the final highlight from the cracked door, only to fade away into darkness once that door closed shut.

𝓨𝓸𝓾 𝓪𝓻𝓮 𝓬𝓸𝓻𝓭𝓲𝓪𝓵𝓵𝔂 𝓲𝓷𝓿𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓽𝓸 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝔀𝓮𝓭𝓭𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓸𝓯 𝓜𝓼. 𝓥𝓲𝓻𝓰𝓲𝓷𝓲𝓪 𝓟𝓸𝓽𝓽𝓼 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓜𝓻. 𝓐𝓷𝓽𝓱𝓸𝓷𝔂 𝓔. 𝓢𝓽𝓪𝓻𝓴.

[autistic-autumn]

Music Rambling #4

I figured it was probably best for everyone if I learnt how to use paragraph breaks this time. Previously avoided because didn't want to type out more than a paragraph per piece but it turns out I suck at brevity. Enjoying having readable paragraphs before every one of these turns into a 400 page essay. Turns out it's actually hard to try condense my thoughts on a 40 minute long 5-part symphony. I've also added lengths to all the pieces because there is a such a wide range here.

Iesu/虻瀬とテナテル by abuse-ken ~5 minutes This was a recommendation by @aroace-poly-show. There are three versions of this apparently, the original, a remix, and a cover by vflower. I particularly like the piano motif in the original, and the point comes back in with the bass is particularly cool. There are a few very nice cutoff points, one of which the vocals are dropped 2(?) octaves. The remix has a more dense and rich texture but does loss some of the nice rhythms of the original. The final chorus in the remix is particularity powerful, although the original still has it very strong. They are both strong in different aspects and I'm not entirely sure which one I prefer. I don't really know vocaloid enough to comment on the differences with the vflower cover. It sounds a little less shrill to me and generally articulates better, although sounds a bit odd in the higher register (?). The better articulation does give a bit more color I think but I really don't know enough about all of it. I don't particularly understand japanese at all, or the lyrics even after reading the translation but I think I gathered enough to understand and it's sort of what I expected. From the pieces I've heard by Abuse-ken I get the feeling they quite like the repetitive almost circular melodies, something that can get fairly repetitive and dull if done wrong. They however do it very effectively and seem to lean into it a lot with the rest of the arrangement. This style fits very well with the themes of what I can gather from the lyrics and is something they pull of well.

Ralph Vaughan Williams - Symphony no. 7 - Sinfonia Antartica ~42 minutes I saw this one on the shelf and decided the name seemed to cool not to take it. Definitely worth giving a listen to as a piece and glad I found. Apparently it's spelt like that because it's the Italian spelling, although I have no idea why Vaughan Williams put the title in Italian. Maybe just to sound kind of fancy. It's a large 42 minute orchestral piece broken into five movements. It's a fairly large orchestra and happens to have an additional SSA choir, with each movement having unique text in the program notes. The texts are from various different place, such as plays, poems, the bible and Captain Scott's last journal, the captain who lead multiple voyages to Antarctic. If you aren't familiar with the second trip Captain Scott made to Antarctica then all you really need to know is it didn't go well due to bad weather and failing to be retrieved by the ship that was to pick them up.

The first movement is very nice and there is some really nice use of celeste, glock and xylophone to create some nice textures. Additionally the use of the choir and soprano soloist to simply add texture by only singing 'ahh' rather than any distinctive words really adds to the effect here. The second movement is a scherzo, and once again uses the extended orchestra and percussion instruments to great effect, particularly with some nice polyrhythms in there to get the texture nice and thick. The third movement is wild. The title itself, 'Landscape: Lento (slow)' is already very evocative of the harsh environment of Antarctica. All the slow moving lines that slowly go in different directions in some of the more dense choral sections are very cool, and the organ solo towards the end is phenomenal, something that would be far more power in person with the full effect of an organ. There is no break between the third and fourth movement. Nothing really unique to comment on this one but it's very good and plenty of nice melodies and textures here. The final movement was far more explosive than I was anticipating, particularly knowing how Scott's story ends and reading the text that goes along with this movement. The return of the choir singing without words is a very nice touch. The choir and the wind machine in combination is such a fascinating sound and not one I've ever seen written into music like this.

Overall an incredible piece really. It so vividly paints the harrowing and frigid scene of Antarctica. Would recommend sitting down with headphones and listening, perhaps reading up on the text that goes with the pieces and some of the history behind it because it really adds an extra layer of the depth to the music.

Tolga Yayalar - Nell'estate un paradiso, nell'inverno un INFERNO (after Vivaldi) ~ 11 minutes Following the previous symphony, I was reminded of this piece I remember hearing a while back. The title translates to "In summer a paradise, in winter a hell". It's fairly recently and is arranged for four string quartets in different locations around a room, for extra spacial sound details that are unfortunately lost somewhat on a computer. This piece is to describe the harsh and cruel landscape of Antarctica in the winter. The piece uses motifs from Vivaldi's famous four seasons, specifically the winter movement. However instead of the luscious harmonies and generally more bright atmosphere Vivaldi brings, the piece here quickly deteriorates. All sorts of extended techniques are used to pull Vivaldi apart into this harrowing soundscape, that at many points is barely more than white noise. The intro I think is one of the most hard hitting parts of this piece really but there is some nice other stuff towards the end. The piece has really fallen apart so much by then that it almost looses the strong effect the start had I think. A very strange piece however and a good example of the stark difference between Vivaldi and contemporary classical music.

Samuel Barber - Piano Concerto Op Op.38 ~26 minutes Very excited for this one. Been big on Samuel Barber binge recently and was very excited to learn that he wrote a piano concerto. Immediately some odd things on the score. Trumpets are above the horns and the horns are written in alto clef? The score I have is in C, yet still uses the traditional notation of not giving the horns a key signature, despite being written in the 60's. I believe this is the original publisher, and I assume first edition so no idea what is up with that. The english horn is also written in alto clef which is odd by not entirely unusual, less than the french horn anyways.

The first movement is fine really. Didn't particularly grab me and I thought starting off with a mini-cadenza is odd. Some of the phrasing just didn't feel right and at one point I just forgot it was a piano concerto with how long it had been without the piano doing anything notable. I know part of that is just the style of the piece but didn't care for it regardless. The second movement is great. The slower pace and sparse texture was extremely well managed and it's very nice to listen to. The second is easily the best movement of the three here. The final movement is also very strong, although didn't capture me as much as the second. Manages texture and colors very well and the 5/8 rhythm was very cool. The section with xylophone and clarinet was particularly interesting.

Overall was a nice concerto but not one I would be desperate to see in person, particularly not with the huge amount of piano concerto repertoire from the era that I believe is far stronger. As a side note the book smells extremely old, much older than 60ish year it claims to be. Oldest stamp I can find in the book is from 1965 and piece was only published in 1962. Very interesting though.

[saymoretv]

As a young person getting into punk I can best describe my early encounters with The Minutemen as confusing. I found the more groove orientated bass and almost disco-esque style guitar work to be more Funk than Punk. The only discernible punk-trait that I could identify in their music was brevity, but there was none of that obvious expression of aggression, anger or angst that teenage me was craving.

I knew theoretically at that point in musical journey that 'Punkness' was about frustrating and loosening the notions of genre, musicianship and creativity; that it was about reforming and either resetting the boundaries or doing away with them all together, and whilst this revolutionist tendency or ideology certainly resonated (and still does), it also rubbed up against a more conservative tendency; that being, the very teenage desire to identify your style, sound and social scene.

So whilst I knew that philosophically speaking punk was about dismantling fixed ideas around the very ideas of culture, style and music, at same time I was searching for a specific culture, style and music to identify with. And in early 2000's I felt more affinity and association with the types of young US bands that you could stage-dive and mosh to. It was a time when I can say I was definitely more interested in what New Era or Nike's a band wore on stage, as opposed to how far out of the box their music or ideas were. Back tot he present day and although my wardrobe still contains too many trainers and baseball caps appropriate for a man approaching his late 30s, I am relieved to say that when it comes to music, I don't think my tastes and judgements on bands aren't as shallow as they once were, and I think my newfound appreciation for the Minutemen is testament to this.

My re-connection with the band wasn't through the algo throwing up an album to listen to, but was stumbling onto and watching their documentary 'We Jam Econo'. As a band with very strong philosophical and political underpinnings the documentary not only provides context on who Mike Watt and D.Boon are / were as people, but it also helps you understand The Minutemen ideology, musically speaking yes, but also more philosophically. And it was their philosophy on the importance of the democracy musical creativity that most resonated with me. Mike Watt says something along the lines of that 'there should be a venue on every block and a place selling instruments on every other one', his point being that there is a universal value in the act of musical creation, not an economic or cultural value but simply the joy, fulfilment and liberaton of the of collective creative act. And it's this collective act that he thinks all people should have access to and one that needn't be predicated on class, talent or virtue.

Watching We Jam Econo, it's clear how serious The Minutemen were as a band, and how much care and thought they put into the song writing and performances. But what mattered for them, and the joy that came from being in a band who lived and toured 'Econo' was the creative act itself more so than the satisfaction of the artistic outputs or benefits. And so, after almost a lifetime of listening to punk music, I am finally moved to really understand the true liberating power of the ethos of punk - Do it (for) Yourself, and don't worry about how good something is because the joy is in the doing rather than the having done.

Enjoy this music video (FFO: Marx and Troma Films) but do yourself a favour and go watch We Jam Econo.

[breakingarrows]

Paratopic

Thursday, March 15, 2018 (Windows PC) Arbitrary Metric, LLC Jessica Harvey GB Burford Lazzie Brown

Paratopic is 41 minutes of unease. It accomplishes this through many small and simple touches. Firstly, is the retro look of the game. Eschewing fidelity for something more akin to a game running on the original PlayStation console, the game allows the lack of detail to give over more to the player’s mind to fill in the blanks and interpret what is on display instead of rendering it in utter minutiae. There is a section in a gas station convenience store where you can browse snacks, potato chip bags, various boxed items, and can even pick them up and spin them around as fully 3D objects to observe. The lack of high-resolution texture is intentional, as is the ability to pick up this low-detailed cluster of polygons as if it was an impressive display. It flies in the face of expensive modern games that flaunt their technical rendering of realistic details, always chasing that razor’s edge of “best-looking game ever" which is ever being shunted forward by the next big budget game until eventually the record you’ve left behind is one of embarrassing cringe at, what once was, impressive graphics. Due to the lack of detail things such as a shadowy corner of a bathroom can look like either its covered in rust or blood but you’re never quite sure which it is. You jump around different perspectives and can never be too sure about the chronological sequence of events as there is very little to anchor a point in time in relation to another.

A strong opening spins you around in different perspectives. One scene you’re loading a gun at one end of a diner, the next cut you’re on the opposite end of the diner talking to a handler and the camera will jarringly cut to a close up of his face as it rotates in and out of detail and is rigged to his head to keep it steady in the frame as he bobs and looks around. It’s very effectively unsettling. Driving a car can last for an uncomfortable amount of time to the point that you question whether there is something you ought to have been doing in order to progress only to suddenly cut to you standing in a forested area with a camera. The only activity to engage with during the driving sections are a radio with two stations, one of which is a talk show with distorted speech with just enough perceptible words or phrases that just makes the rest of the gibberish more unnerving to listen to as it drones on. You’ll talk to an attendant about aliens, local drinks, and local attractions. While taking photos of birds you can stumble into an underground bunker of sorts with strange machines and an inaccessible ladder that descends even further down.

There is only one “jump scare” and its quickly over, planting you back into a car drive scene where the nighttime setting, lack of light, and constant onrush of the road made me question whether that same creature that had just attacked whoever I was playing as in the previous scene would appear again. This fear reached its zenith when descending down a hill and during the ascent as well, as the crest of the hill continually made me fearful of what might appear along it. While filling up the vehicle again I can see a figure standing in the shadow just beside the rear of the car. I’m thankful for the brevity of Paratopic as horror has always been a weakness of mine, my mind too quickly conjures up images of terrible things in the dark. Due to this I rarely engage with horror media outside of specific instances such as Alien or Halloween and the like. Paratopic is an effective expression of horror, and smartly limits its visibility and length to never blunt its sharp imagery and sharper cuts in space, time, and perspective.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

So, I’d actually heard this one before. This is from a 25-episode thing with stand-up from the late 90s/early 00s, and two of the episodes are specials they recorded at the 2003 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I’d heard those ones before, as part of a different collection of radio episodes, recorded in various years at the Fringe. But I was happy to listen to them again.

This Andy Zaltzman routine is from one of those specials, in August 2003. I’d heard it before, and had really enjoyed that, but some reason hadn’t cut out and saved the clip, so I’m happy I did that now. This is by far the earliest recording I’ve heard of Andy Zaltzman doing stand-up, and one of the few scraps I’ve found from any of his pre-Bugle (meaning pre-2007) days.

So most of what I know about Zaltzman’s pre-2007 comedy comes from stuff I’ve read about it, and this set would have been taken from his 2003 Fring show, which was this one, his “great conspiracy” show. First of all, I’d like to quote from that Chortle review of the show, because I love this opening paragraph:

If brevity is the soul of wit, Andy Zaltzman must be the unfunniest man alive. He never uses one word when 27 will do and his heaps parentheses inside subsidiary clauses like grammatical Russian dolls.

Excellent. If I weren’t already a massive Andy Zaltzman fan, if I’d never before listened to anything he’d ever done, that paragraph alone would convince me that I’d like him. I realize saying things like this makes me sound about 90 years old, but fuck brevity, fuck a world with expectations that have been shaped by the limits of what can be expressed in a Tweet, language is meant to be used.

Andy Zaltzman remained so committed to this principle that about ten years later, in a Bugle episode from around 2013, a listener emailed that podcast to say: “I have been repeatedly told by professors that “brevity is the soul of wit”. I have become concerned that The Bugle might not have a soul. Please discuss.” Andy replied: “Well, in response to that, I’d say, you’re a cunt. Moving on…” And then actually moved on, in defiance of my assumption that he’d say that as a joke but then go back and add to it. Brilliant. I love the way his entire career came together to make that joke funnier, the way just dropping the word “cunt” should be a cheap laugh, but in fact he earned that one with every fancy language-ridden rant that preceded it.

Anyway, that’s not really what this post is about, it’s just that that very strong review makes me very much want to hear Andy’s 2003 show, and in absence of a full recording, I’ll accept this clip. I’ve heard Andy say before that when he first started out in comedy, he did purely surreal stuff, and didn’t have the guts to try to be more political as he didn’t know if audiences would like it. I know he’d started going political by 2003, because that’s when he set up his Political Animal comedy night, which was meant to let other comedians do that sort of thing in front of an audience that was expecting it. It sounds like this clip caught him in the transition, when he was blending the two. He never fully dropped either of them – he's always liked his weird, surreal stories that also make some sort of satirical point. But in this clip, it sounds like he was leaning a little more to the surreal side than he would in later years. Having said that, a lot of it is absolutely classic Zaltzman.

There are more celebrities now than ever before, in the world. There are also more facts in the world than ever before, and that’s just one of them. There are more celebrities now, and if the current rate of the increase in celebrities now continues, then by the year 2052, celebrities will outnumber ordinary people. And if that continues then by 2142, 99% of the world’s population will be celebrities. At which point the market will implode, and all celebrities will be merged into one giant celebrity, known as God. And the process will start again from scratch. Only this time, God will make the differences between men and women even funnier, and comedians will be the most powerful race on Earth. And after a savage and brutal war between the observationalists and the surrealists, into the power vacuum will come the singing comedians, and the world’s only currency will be amusingly altered pop lyrics. So please, be careful.

I liked this bit enough to type it out and post it the first time I heard this clip, but I think I appreciate it more now, as I hear it after listening to a bunch of hours of other Radio Four comedians from the five years that preceded it (1998-2003). From listening to those, I’ve noticed a lot more musical comedians that I hear from a selection of Radio Four these days, and specifically a lot of them doing pop music parodies. Also, he is not kidding about the “differences between men and women” thing. I mean, I knew that, I know that “men are like this and women are like this” is what you say if you want to make fun of how 90s comedy sounded, and I have heard 90s comedy before so I’ve heard straightforward examples of it. But listening to this many hours of that stuff in a row really drives home just how common that specific topic was in comedy at the time. So I have a better idea now of just how accurately Zaltzman was referencing his own industry.

I can also hear very early versions of things that would turn into his classic jokes. He was clearly so close to have developed the one he’d keep telling for years, in which he’d ask the crowd who likes democracy, and then point out that only half the audience could be bothered to respond to that question, so clearly apathy levels are high enough for it to make sense that voter turnout is so low.

You can also hear an early version of one his favourite bits, which is to report on some political thing, usually some type of violent conflict, as though it’s a sporting event. Sandwiched right between a fairly cheap joke about George Bush’s inability to read and a completely nonsensical thing about a magic foal, and a satirical description of TV news networks that was a lot more hyperbolic in 2003 than it is today.

Andy Zaltzman also absolutely loves taking a figure of speech and then exaggerating it to extreme lengths, ie. when he said News International in 2011 “Did not so much scrape the bottom of the barrel of investigative journalism as detonate a land mine in the barrel, then use industrial mining equipment to dig down several hundred metres underneath the barrel just to make sure they hadn’t missed anything”. Here we have an early version of that too:

It was a moment of truth, said George W. Bush, when the war started, a moment of truth. And I thought how great, that in that whole protracted saga, truth was allowed at least a moment, out in the open, before being smashed on the head with a baseball bat, kicked in the nadgers, and thrown down a disused mineshaft, out of everyone’s way.

And then, in classic Zaltzman fashion, he ends on a joke that does not quite work, structuring the whole set in a way to minimize the self-promotional potential. Brilliant. I’m so glad I dug this clip up.

[un-nonymous]

So I started seeing an ADHD coach about a month ago. She’s the second one I’ve seen in 3 months and the first who doesn’t take insurance, but I really like her.

She said I’m an overachiever today, or that I have those tendencies anyway, and she’s the second person who’s said that to me in the past week. Legitimately, I’ve never seen myself that way. Never. I feel like I’m always behind, always catching up, everyone is doing more than me. Always.

It’s an interesting experience, being in this type of coaching, because (stay with me on this) I feel like I’m paying someone a lot of money to essentially read me things I’ve already read on the internet. And that’s because I think she’s really good at her job.

In sessions, I feel amazing. Heard, understood, validated. And then I digest a little and I’m like, damn. I could’ve googled that. I have googled that. What’s the difference now?

The difference is the immediate responses and thoughtful compassion I (we) don’t get from words on a screen written to an anonymous audience. I wish I had done this a long time ago.

I’m grateful to have a supportive presence in my life finally who sees me AND will call me out from a place of awareness. She gently preaches and encourages radical self acceptance and I’m finally listening and taking the babiest of steps. Googling it for 15 years hasn’t worked and I can admit that now. Figuring it out on my own hasn’t worked, therapy hasn’t worked (because we’ve focused on all the other hard shit I’ve grappled with in the past 3 years instead) and I need something specific, and I’m ready to do something about it.

This has been a really fucking hard month because I’m facing shit I’ve been masking and things about me that I’ve gotten really good at keeping hidden from most everyone in my life. A lot of it deals with work, but not all of it. I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to fit into a neurotypical professional world and being shamed and feeling awful for it.

My best friend says I’m the best storyteller she’s ever met while I’m wishing I could be more concise and regularly qualifying what I’m about to say by starting with “brevity isn’t my strong suit” and using “long story long” to signal when I’m finally about to land the plane. I think, often, that it drives people nuts and the impact of the one piece of negative feedback I’ve gotten about this (when I was interviewing for the job I have now, by someone who regularly gets chastised for taking forever to get to the point) is far heavier than all the compliments I’ve gotten about it, because brains are jerks.

I don’t think I’m in the right job to truly flourish and one day I need to figure that out because I LOVE my current job a whole fucking lot. It’s more that I’m struggling keeping this Big Thing About Me™️ hidden, but I’m actively choosing that. If you ask me why, I’ll tell you construction is a tough industry for “overhead” (support) roles like mine that I can do anywhere else for probably lots more money at this point, but I still choose it because I really like being a big fish in a small pond. I really, really like that. And then I’ll say I have enough stacked against me: I’m a woman, I’m “young” (I’m not, but people don’t think I’m as old as I am which is not a humblebrag), I have tattoos and bleached hair and a nose ring and a fancy degree and my job is to teach crusty superintendents how to feel their feelings at work, why are the youths so sensitive these days anyway, etc., — so in my mind, I don’t need to be known for having an attention disorder on top of everything else.

That’s what I’ll tell you, at least. In reality, I don’t think it matters what industry I’m in because I’ve had both great and fucking terrible bosses in all of them. I’ve doubted myself in all of them at some point and I could draw up a litany of reasons why I’d want to keep this to myself in all of them, when really I want to be acknowledged for it and more than that I want to be able to relate to others, and help others from a place of “I get it, I actually do”, but I can’t do that where I am right now. I am terrified of going off on my own is the truth, but I want to, and it’s just a matter of when at this point.

Today was a good session. I see her every Monday afternoon and honestly, I can’t wait to see how things are going 6 months from now.

[stellocchia]

I just wanted to analize the conversation between Foolish and Tommy for a bit because I’m still thinking about it

I did technically intend for this to be a short little thing with just a couple of my thoughts on it but... brevity is NOT my strong suit!

So I put everything under the cut and obviously it’s all about the characters.

You can find the conversation here at 02:52:55 and onwards

What is extremely interesting about this whole conversation is that Foolish is mostly unaware of what happened prior to him joining and about most things that happened afterwards, meaning he has as detached and objective of an opinion as you can get. For example Foolish doesn’t know almost anything about L’Manburg, as it was destroyed before he joined and he also didn’t know that Tommy went in the prison to kill Dream (which is why he asks how that went when Tommy mentions it). That paired together with the fact that Foolish has proven to be quite a good listener is probably the reason why Tommy felt so comfortable opening up with him.

“No what do you mean you fought Dream?” “Well you know... you’ve seen Wilbur haven’t you?” “No, no actually” (as I said, completely unaware, though he did seem a bit worried at the idea of Tommy fighting Dream)

“Ghostbur’s uhm... Ghostbur’s not here anymore” “Oh did he pack up? Move out? Got bored? He seems like a free spirit” “Yeah he moved out to this little train station far far away. There’s a little train station, you know? Right near the world border. There’s a little train station” “Oh that’s cool! I wanna see that sometimes" (...) “There’s a little train station out near the world border and Ghostbur went but he left Friend” “He left Friend?!” “But we’ll get Friend to him soon, ‘cause then they’ll all be happy”

Tommy’s way of explaining things to others is always so fascinating to me. It’s childish and charged with emotions, but I don’t mean this negatively, because it gets the point across better then any grand and eloquent speaches really could in my opinion. How attached he was to Ghostbur is also extremely sweet and this is simply his way of dealing with grief: trying to find a practical solution (he was suggested to Tubbo to wash up and now his solution is bringing Friend to Ghostbur), trying to find something he can do to make things better.

“How much can you take Foolish? Blood! Blood! Does that upset you?” (it’s nice seeing Tommy being mindful of other people’s triggers since not many people are mindful with his)

“All I know is I’m proving that bitch [Wilbur] wrong! Because he told me- he told me I’m weak” (another example that the manipulation did work to some extent)

“I don’t feel comfortable talking about that [his revival] with you Foolish if I’m honest” “No, fair enough!” (and Foolish repaying the favour right after)

“I don’t really se how this solves the problem” “Well it doesn’t ‘solve’ the problem, it’s preventing the problem Foolish, alright? Have you noticed that all the problems come they don’t get solved, do they? Ends up with some madman screaming ‘I solved it’ alright? And now- and then look at him, alright, now he’s taken away everyone’s favourite man: Ghostbur, alright? Problems don’t really get solved in this server”

So, for context Foolish was commenting on how gathering stone didn’t seem like a good solution for Tommy to prove to Wilbur that he wasn’t weak, but Tommy’s answer is about more then that. There isn’t much he can do at the moment, not knowing what Wilbur is planning, so the only thing he CAN do for now is what he was asked and, hopefully, prove himself to Wilbur so that he may be able to stop Wilbur from committing atrocities before he starts. Also the “madman” he’s talking about could be Dream (the one who thinks he is a God and actually killed Ghostbur) as well as Sam (the one who thought the prison was gonna be a solution to the Dream problem and who let Ghostbur die) or it could be Wilbur (who seems so self assured about being right on everything and is now the one who replaced Ghostbur), any of them fits. It is also true that, so far, every problem that seemed to have been “solved” turned out to be far from it every single time. That said, of course it should not be Tommy’s responsability to get Wilbur on the “right path” nor should he bear sole responsability for avoiding disaster once more, but, by now, he’s convinced that that’s not the truth, probably because he sees himself as far more sacrificable then those around him.

“Well, how do we go about changing that [problems not getting solved]?” “That’s what I’m doing” “By gathering stone?” “No what I’m doing my friend is preventing the problem before it gets out of hand like it did before, alright?” (again, it’s all about prevention now through getting Wilburs trust and maybe steering him in the correct path)

“L’manburg! This was mine and Wilbur’s na- it was Wilbur’s nation! It was Wilbur’s which makes it all the more heart wrenching, alright?” (referring to his talk with Wilbur about L’Manburg, which does make it more heart wrenching)

“Now we were okay- I was okay when we were banished and I knew that we’d get it back and we’d talk about it, right? As you said: ‘peace is the option’. But here’s the thing Foolish, Wilbur didn’t wanna do anymore talking, he’d given up with that, because some people aren’t strong enough, alright, some people stop talking. You know the phrase ‘treat others how you wanna be treated’ Foolish? That’s a very important phrase (...) Wilbur disregarded that rule. He decided that he wanted to be treated poorly so he’d treat everyone else poorly” “Why do you think that?” “Honestly sometimes I don’t really know myself”

So a very interesting thing that emerged from this conversation is that Tommy has a much better understanding of Wilbur then most people originally assumed and he is possibly the only person (in universe) who has picked up on the fact that all of Wilburs “villain speaches” and behaviours were nothing more then him treating others like he thought he himself deserved to be treated, like sh*t. It’s also interesting that Tommy relates the concept of strenght here once again both with the ability to stay peaceful and, this time, also the ability to communicate properly with those you care about (probably because this are both things he himself lacked when he considered himself to be at his worst, meaning in exile and later with Techno). It is also to be noted though that, while Tommy is undoubtedly the one person who understand Wilbur best, he is still not aware of how bad his spiral had gotten because Wilbur never communicated it.

“Now Wilbur, he was a good man- he IS a good man, deep inside him, alright?” “So you’re saying that there’s still redemption for him?” “Well he’s been a good man deep inside him, but he’s been a bad guy for a very very long time” (Short introduction to Tommy’s concept of “good” or “bad” in season 3. He has gotten a lot more nuanced over time realizing that the world isn’t simply black or white)

“You believe in second chances?” “No I don’t. I don’t really believe- I- that’s not a thing for me Foolish, is just that... *sigh* I believe that everyone has got a little bit of good in them. And I know that Wilbur had good in him” (A little bit more about his concept of morality, this time explaining that he doesn’t really believe in giving people a quantifiable number of “chances”, but more so in the fact that everyone has capacity for good, which also implies that everyone has capacity for bad, but he chooses to hang onto the first one for those he cares about)

“Now I just think Wilbur’s being a bad guy, and that’s okay! We’re all bad guys, everyone messes up. You learn the most from your mistakes” (he also moved on from the fear of becoming a “bad guy” now it seems by noticing that your mistakes don’t define you as a person and that they are opportunities to better yourself)

“He’s made sooo many mistakes, so many that have hurt so many people, but, what this is gonna be about isn’t giving him a second chance, isn’t giving him a third chance, is not about chances! Foolish, it’s about not giving up on the people you care about”

And this is the culmination of all the previous point. The idea of chances implies that you’re gonna give up at some point if the person doesn’t changes (which is a healthy thing to do, by the way, sometimes it’s better to cut people off when they aren’t good for you) and Tommy doesn’t believe in that. He believes that everyone has some good in them and perhaps, if you stick by them long enough, that good may shine threough. Now this is a nice concept in theory, but in reality if people wanna change it has to start from themselves (wether that be changing an opinion or needing to reach out for help) and it’s especially not a good idea to stick by someone if they are harmful to you. I’m sure no one likes Wilbur being in this example, so think what would happen if Tommy applied the same mentality to, say, Dream, someone who has hurt him more then anyone else and who considers him less then human (more like his propriety) and who’s most probably never gonna change since he never regretted anything he did: would you still think that the idea of “never give up on people if you care about them” would be a positive one? This sadly is an example of excessive selflessness on Tommy’s part that ends up being self-destructive.

“You consider yourself to be the ‘good guy’ or the ‘bad guy’?” “That really depends who you ask, doesn’t it? You know? You ask Dream he’s say I’m- he’d say I’m his little- I’m his little play- his little toy that he plays with, you know, it doesn’t- Foolish honestly I used to consider myself the ‘good guy’, the fucking second in command going around going ‘yeah let’s do this!’ but I- recently- this past- this past like six months or so Foolish everything got so much harder then it was before, but because before it was us fighting the bad guys and everything was so clear, it was all so clear! But it’s not been clear for so long”

A few things to unpack here: Tommy once again demonstrating quite a bit of awareness that he didn’t always have about Dream and how he now views him (this has been a gradual and difficult realization for him and it is still clearly hard for him to talk about it) and then explaining that things simply got more complicated then they once were (which is an important thing to keep in mind, because Wilbur missed all of that, he missed the world becoming shades of gray) and that he really doesn’t believe in ‘bad guys’ or ‘good guys’ any longer.

“It seems like you’ve been the hero, you’ve been the viallian, the conquerer, the saviour and, even now, I still have no idea of what you exactly are” “It’s up to you to decide, isn’t it?”

Now this can be interpreted in a few different ways. It could be that Tommy has simply given up in tring to define himself since others keep insisting in putting him into small little boxes that don’t fit him. It could be that he simply refuses the labels and leaves it up to others to decide what he is in relation to them. Or it could be something else entirely and I’m leaving it up to you to decide.

“Unlike you I don’t really have a choice. I have to try and be who I want to be, ‘cause if I don’t... very bad things are gonna happen on this server. Now Wilbur’s back Foolish I can’t- quite frankly no one can risk that, so I don’t really have a choice”

And this is how it ends on a quite hopeless note actually. By this point the responsability to solve problems has been put on his shoulders so many times that he doesn’t really think he has a choice any longer and he also recognizes Wilbur as a genuine threat to the server as a whole if left alone.

[anonthenullifier]

Alright, my headcanon/prompt that's been living in my mind rent free is the idea that Vision doesn't buy Wanda flowers, he buys her vases with sprouts on them, new life ready to grow. When he first heard of people gifting each other flowers he didn't fully understand why you would kill something, and make your loved one watch it slowly wilt away, when you could get them something they'd help survive. After watching so many loved ones die, I just think Wanda would be really touched to help something live and grow (just like her love for him blossoming)

I love this head canon so much. So damn much! I’ve written a story before (It’s About Thyme) that has them planting a garden and nurturing it as a way to mirror their relationship so to say I like to think about them with plants is an understatement. And then your gorgeous head canon looks at it in a way I never thought about and it’s perfect. Thank you for sharing it!

Here’s a little fic that came to mind as I was reading your ask. I hope you like it!

—

To say Vision is perplexed would be an understatement. Which is itself surprising because he has come to a tentative theory that to be human is to be irrational, and yet this, this crosses a line of reasoning he cannot begin to fathom. Typically he would have Wanda here to volley his concerns towards and to then explain in however many examples and phrasings that it takes for him to understand. Except he is here covertly, under the expert opinion of Sam, to procure a token of affection for all that Wanda provides him. Which brings him to a standstill of indecision waltzing along with a niggling horror at all the implications.

Luckily for him, he hopes, there is a sales associate close by. “Pardon me?” The man turns towards him, brown apron emblazoned with stitched on daisies and a name tag that reads Samuel, a fitting name since the other Samuel in Vision’s life suggested this course of questionable action. “I was advised that purchasing and gifting flowers is a socially appropriate way to convey affection.”

Samuel’s eyes squint for half a second, a common reaction whenever Vision goes out in public. “Uh, yeah. What does your special um,” this scanning over of Vision’s body is also common, uncomfortable, but he does his best to act unperturbed otherwise it might stoke potential fear into ire from his observer, “individual like? We’ve got roses, carnations, lilies, daisies, asters. Anything float your boat?”

If this decision were a boat it would be taking on waves at the moment. “But all of these have been removed from their roots.”

“Yeah, kinda the whole point of making a bouquet.”

The sass is not appreciated but Vision believes in remaining polite because the attitude of the man could be compounded with mistreatment from other customers or negative life events and not solely due to Vision’s inquiry. “Does that not mean they will wilt and die?”

Samuel does not share the distaste for this thought, a simple shrug and a rather unhelpful piece of advice given, “They all come with flower food, helps them stay fresh a bit longer.”

“I see.” Vision determines this issue may be best cogitated alone, so he sends a polite, tight lipped smile towards the man, “Thank you, Samuel.”

“Yep.”

The man leaves and Vision continues his stare down with the beautifully variegated display case in front of him. The differing colors and petal shapes form a kaleidoscope of awe, one that feels romantic and wispy and desirable. Except they will all wilt, the petals will curl up and fall to the ground, and within a week it will be in the trash. His love is not so brief, so fragile and he is perplexed as to why he would present Wanda with a token that cannot survive. Would it not imply his love will fade? That he will, even if fed her own love and passion and attention, eventually fall away from her? Even if she were to dry them out, like he has seen Laura do at the Barton farmhouse, it would require her to keep them someplace safe and to never touch them, the lifeless remnants too delicate and brittle for anything other than distant observation—a poor metaphor for his intended message.

Wanda has endured so much already, the memories as vivid as the Tiger Lily in front of him, days of listlessness and tears, evenings brimming over with invasive memories of all the deaths and all the pain, the only salves he could offer were strong arms and gentle reassurances. Why would he gift her something that will also die? Provide a further suggestion that her life must always be dictated by loss? Why would anyone, rational or not, believe temporal brevity a better show of love than something lasting?

Vision turns away from the bouquets, prepared to leave the store and find somewhere quiet to reassess his gift. It is this defeated swivel that brings a small display into his view, one tucked away as if it was an afterthought. On it are simple clay pots of various sizes, bags of potting soil heaped on the ground next to it, and a little table top rotating kiosk of seed packets awaiting to be planted and nurtured into a long and beautiful life. Vision’s lips curl up at the new idea in his head.

————

There is a subtle chime to her left, in the general vicinity of her door. It is the closest he ever gets to a knock. Wanda puts her book down and waits for the unmistakable gleam of vibranium and the glow of Vision’s phasing to come through the wall located mere inches from her fully functioning door. “Hey Vizh.”

He pauses, irises twisting rapidly to the left and lips puckered as if he’s been caught doing something wrong. Which would be not using her door and yet he still persists and still always makes this face, and it’s a welcome joy in her day. “Good afternoon, Wanda.” Unlike usual, his hands remain behind his back, pulling the threads of his synthetic sweater into a tension similar to his body. “I, um, brought you something.”

Hoping to ease his nerves, she shuffles to the side a bit and then pats the mattress, inviting him to come over and haltingly lower himself to the bed, body remaining twisted to hide whatever it is. “What is it?”

Slowly he brings his arms into view and in his right hand is a clay pot with a little seed packet inside, all wrapped up in a red bow, and in his left is clenched a small bag of soil. Wanda shares her gratitude with a smile, scarlet twining around the gifts and bringing them to her hands to inspect them closer. “I had been informed by a trusted associate that flowers are considered the socially acceptable gift for conveying affection.”

Gently, soothingly she offers a minor correction, knowing he doesn't like to be embarrassed by misinterpreting social advice. “Usually they mean a bouquet.”

A grave nod accompanies his, “I am aware.” Vision lifts his hand, waving it around to help usher out the full story, “But it seemed incongruous to provide you a fleeting gift for a sentiment that is not so,” he hesitates, maybe because he realizes the implication himself or because he can see it in the growing smile on her face, either way he’s committed to the admission of how long he sees this new relationship going and she’s hoping he won’t back down now. And he doesn’t, even if he stammers through it. “brief. I would rather my affections be shown in an appropriately long lasting form.”

Experiencing the fascinating way his mind works is always a pleasure and, due to listening to him and learning the way he thinks and feels, she understands it perfectly, feels a deep, warming thankfulness at this chance to play a hand in allowing something to live and grow, a chance she’s been denied so much before. Wanda ropes him closer with her powers and firmly plants a kiss to his nervous smile. “Thank you.” She unwraps the bow and studies the picture of a happy sunflower, a little confused. “I didn’t think these were indoor plants.”

“Oh well,” now that an explanation that is not tied to emotions is needed, he loosens up, “they are meant to be started and nurtured indoors and then, once large enough, can be moved outside or to a greenhouse.”

“Do we have a greenhouse here?”

Vision considers this, lips parted as his thoughts tick away. “Well no, but it could be enjoyable to convert one of the older equipment sheds into such a structure so we could have a year round garden.”

This simple gift blossoms into something bigger, something rooted in a hope for a future together. “I think it would be fun.”

“Yes,” Vision slips back into a slight, carefully paced cadence, “I selected this particular flower because it is often symbolic of adoration, loyalty and um,” he acts as if his actions have not already made it clear, as if his words should be a surprise, one he isn’t certain she’ll like, “longevity.”

Wanda offers a sunny smile, hoping to sear away any question as to her appreciation and reciprocal feelings, “I love it.” An equally exuberant curve forms on his lips. “Want to help me plant it?”

His instantaneous and joyful, “Of course,” is all it takes to settle them into a path towards a life and love they’ll nurture together.

[sir-adamus]

Why Hero Needs a Response Song

So I listened to Hero again. And I actively need a second song debunking it because oh my. The only way that song hasn’t been disproven to hell and back by Ironwood himself is if the “You” talked about is literally Atlas itself, as in the floating city. 

As it is - one can make a game in counting the ways Ironwood proved this song wrong. 

Thankfully the song starts with the chorus so this will be short. 

Take my hand

I’m here to protect you

So let’s count the ways that Ironwood hadn’t protected people. 

1. Abandoned Mantle to die - ending the evacuation the first time. 

2. Attempted to blow up Mantle

3. Murdered a councilor - Slate

4. Attempted to murder Marrow

5. Shot Oscar in attempted murder 

6. Murdered Jaque 

7. Shot down the Mantle evacuation fleet - aka evacuation attempt 2.

I shall call this the “Save people… Right.” List. It’ll make things a hell of a lot shorter. So two lines in, and we have seven points. And I’m probably forgetting something. Oh yeah. 

8. Trying to stop the evacuation a third time.

Nothing will stop me Understand There’s no sacrifice that I won’t make I’ll risk it all to keep you safe

So grammar note it’s I’ll - or I will. Future tense. 

So Irony points - Nothing will stop me. Completely accurate in the worst way possible. +1

No sacrifice - none besides his ego, pride, his plans and the actual floating city. +4 possible extra point depending on how he handles dying. 

And again - insert the List for brevity. +8 

And we’re at 20 points. 

Trust me to be strong I’ll be your hero, just hold on

And the thing is - Ironwood broke. That’s what happened here. He broke. +1

Total: 21

I would die Without regret, I’d offer up my life With zero reservations I would fly Into the sun, if that would keep our dream alive

I’ll wait to see on this one. But I really doubt Ironwood is going to be nearly so noble when it comes to his death. 

Deliver you from harm Shelter in my arms The fear will surely fade

Again see the list. +8 

Know right now the plan I made will guide us home We’ll survive this storm

So let’s see 

1. Fly from Salem - great plan. See Whale landing

2. Make Atlas fly again… When Spear is in active use. And Salem is regenerating on the city. Wonderful plan. +2

We’re up to 30. 

I will fight For you no matter how I am despised

Again - see list. Because Ironwood typically turns to kill people when they call him out. +8 

Portrayed as cruel and heartless, I am might I am power, I’m due process, I will smite

Accurate.

Our enemies destroy Mettle I’ll deploy

As I recall the Atlas military only started fighting when Salem made it onto Atlas. And the only reason I’m not ripping into how Ironwood was the one threatening to kill everyone is that the waves of Grimm did happen.

No chance that I won’t take My oath to you, I won’t forsake Hope’s not gone, just hold on

Again - List. And not thinking of other options is what Ironwood’s done all season. This is actually one of the parts where Winter matches a lot more. Taking Jaune’s offer. Protecting Marrow - while crossing the firing line. Throwing herself at Cinder sans aura. 

CHORUS 

What if it’s true as they say That I don’t have a heart That I’m more a machine than a man? What would that change Would it matter at all? I’ve made my plan Hearts and minds may not agree Emotions topple strategy

Emotions do topple strategy don’t they Ironwood he who is driving everyone away. +1

You can’t believe in honesty That your children can win a war

Who blew up the whale and is saving the kingom? +2

CHORUS

So I’m counting 50 ways that Ironwood in some way or another proved this song a lie. Less if you don’t use the list as a multiplicative thing but only count each infraction once. But it’s not much better. 

But yeah I want a rebuttal in musical form. I’ll happily take Winter as a PoV. She actually does hold up to the standards of taking chances and risking her life in comparison. Especially as I think her fight with Cinder happened after this song. 

Post Scriptum: My Oath to you I won’t forsake - just fits much better with Winter “I’ve never backed down when facing enemies of the Kingdom” Schnee.

i would love for the Hero response song to be from Winter’s perspective, especially given the similarities Hero has with Lionized - it needs a Nevermore-esque response

give me a Hero response to score Winter fighting Ironwood, and then for the credits a big angsty Bees ballad

[sweetestlamb]

Hands On

Summary: Dalmi appreciates the majestic wonders that are Nam Dosan’s hands. 

Author's note: I’ve never seen a ship war before in kdrama land so I was completely unprepared for some of the things I saw in this tag lol but I mean I guess it’s cool that this show is making everyone feel so much. I think Dodal is absolutely adorable as a couple and every time they hug or do anything domestic I swoon like a maiden in an erotica novel. Enjoy whatever pairing you want but I will be writing Dodal strictly as I don’t see any romance between the other pairing. I am many thoughts but not time sadly, I wrote this during my daily commute so excuse any typos and the brevity. 

Those wide palms wrap around her simultaneously comforting and overwhelming her, there are moments when those hands are mesmerizing; clicking at keys and making miracles become a reality. His brilliant mind is the catalyst but those fingers are the agents and she longs to cling to them, thank them and worship them.

Then, there other moments when they grip her face and dismantle her calm systemically taking her apart like a machine, then putting her back together effortlessly with a disarming nervous smile. His eyes squinting the way they always do when his heart is fluttering.

The first time she kisses his hand the blush that blazes across his high cheekbones is adorable, too pure. She feels dirty for imagining wrapping her lips around them and seeing how they taste.

Until she finally swallows them and he looks absolutely dazed and destroyed by the simple act, she knows in that moment she wants to be the one to do everything with him.

She wants him, Nam Dosan.

But she's never had this with anyone before, never had a shoulder to lay her head on or someone to lift her off the ground when she was so happy she thought her cheeks might crack. As much as she puts up a strong front and pushes into any space that he occupies, in the deep crevice of her mind she's just as terrified as he visibly is.

So she takes small steps, takes Dosan's advice and tests her hypothesis that he wants her as much as she wants him.

It starts with a brush of fingers, his sizeable hand is merely inches from her own and stagnant for once. He'd paused into the middle of a fit of genius, worrying his cuticle between sharp teeth. And her response is instantaneous, she snatches his hand away before peering at the skin to ensure it's not bleeding. His hands are beautiful. Strong and capable of making the impossible plausible, they should be protected at all cost.

"Don't do that, you'll make yourself bleed." She lightly chastises, twisting the digit left and right and sighing when she sees there is no permanent damage.

His eyes are bright and frantic, ping ponging between her face and her firm grasp on his hand. Soon his cheeks turn rosy and she almost laughs, even without the E.T she's able to read him like a book; they've kissed until their lips were sore but this is still enough to get his heart racing.

"I'm sorry." He softly replies, making no move to escape from her hold and looking reprimanded as if he's actually done something to her.

She wraps her empty hand around the hand she confiscated, sandwiching his hands between hers.

"Don't abuse these. I like them. A lot." She squeezes his hands tightly, stroking at the smooth skin before bringing them up to her lips and placing two smacking kisses on his wrist.

His silence is deafening but his face provides all the answers she needs, pupils dilated and his teeth now leaving indents in his bottom lip.

She vaguely wonders if he knows the indecent picture he makes, but he frequently does this unknowingly seduces her with this actions.

"You do realize that the rest of us are also in this room right? " Saha's voice cuts through the haze sounding affronted, sneering at them over her phone.

It's only then that she shifts her eyes from Dosan's pretty blush and gazes around the room, the other two members of Samsan tech are pointedly looking at the ground, Chul-san even going as far as whistling and pointing out patterns in the floor regaling about how wonderful the office is as if they haven't been here for weeks now.

She supposes she should feel embarrassed but she can't muster up any shame.

She opts to tease instead. 

Smirking at the other girl she grabs at her perfectly manicured hand across the table, "Are you jealous? Do you want some attention too hmm?"

The prissy designer squawks loudly as Dalmi puckers up and then Chul-san leaps up pushing his chair in a haste to defend the designer, bodily blocking her from Dalmi's gaze and she can't contain that giggle that bubbles up in her chest.

"I'll protect you!"

A glance over reveals that Chul-san is the one who needs protection with the glacial glare being sent his way, Saha stands in a huff leaving without any explanation. No one reacts except the goofy coder who watches her departure with forlorn eyes.

Throughout the commotion, Dalmi never releases the hand in her possession. Stroking him in light brushes that drag from wrist to knuckle.

She knows she should give him back his hand, he's trying his best to type with one hand and honestly still moving quicker than most but still she prepares to free him.

But suddenly the hand is yanked from her capture and she jolts at the sudden movement, turning to him with wide eyes.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" He hastily apologizes, even going as far pressing his previously snatched hand back into hers, wriggling his long fingers into her much smaller hand.

Once again his ridiculous antics disarm her and she can't help but smile at him, shaking her head before squeezing his hand and returning to her own abandoned keyboard.

"It's okay you can have your hand back, that's what makes all the magic happen." She teases him internally delighted at the more carnal thoughts that come to mind at her own words.

He's wearing his patented squinty blush™️ face now version 2.0 which includes flushed cheeks and lip biting, but he stutters out a reply after a few minutes of avoiding her eyes.

"Sorry, it's just...I was stuck on something. I couldn't make the right connection but after you....." He trails off but his eyes are fixed on her hands now, still on the table as she listens to him.

After she what? She peers back at him waiting the rest of the sentence that doesn't appear to be coming.

"After I?" She eggs him on staring up at him expectantly, even sitting he looms over her.

"Ummm...your hand. And my hand. It helped me put the pieces together."

Fondness rolls over her like a blanket as she watches this brilliant coder stutter his way through a simple explanation.

After she held his hand.

He starts to spin his chair in little half circles now, before turning back completely to his work space. Then his fingers are moving at a rapid pace, tap tap tap echoing in the room as he solves another issue as easily as he blinks.

"Thank you."

She almost misses the whispered words but she's always listening to him. She begins to shake her head, not doing anything that warrants gratitude but the smile he shoots her way leaves no room for argument.

She can do nothing but beam back at him, heart hitching when he reaches out to squeeze her hand before his friends start grumbling, she sticks her tongue out at them before skipping off to get them all coffee already memorizing all of their orders. If she stays the temptation to touch Dosan will be too much.

Her fingers are still tingling, his magic rubbing off on her.

When she makes her way back to the room Saha is back and as prickly as they're all used to. With a sigh they all throw themselves back into work.

It's been a long day, their app has crashed and no amount of tapping away at the computers is enough to fix it, she can see the way it weighs on Dosan's shoulders as if ever failure is all his fault.

After a prolonged minute he stills, his head falling onto his hands in defeat. Those broad shoulders collapsing like pillars constructed from sand. His fellow coders try to cheer him up, telling him that they will stay late with him but they all know that he doesn't need help. He so often is their lone hero.

"I'm going for walk." His voice is barely above a whisper, as he heaves himself from his chair and lifelessly stalks out the door.

Dalmi feels all eyes turn to her as she watches his exit, she wars with herself wondering if it would be better to give him space. But a voice pushes her to follow him, knowing how hard Dosan can be on himself. He's incapable of cruelty unless the one being stabbed is himself.

"I'm going to the bathroom." She lies, meaninglessly as no one believes her and Chul-san even calls out that Dosan probably went to the roof. She rolls her eyes, she already knew that. Roofs held a very special place in their relationship.

She sprints up the stairs, loose hair swinging wildly behind as she pushes the door open.

Immediately she finds her Dosan, trying to make his large body smaller sitting hunched on a metal bench, taking a minute to smooth down her flyaways she marches over to him. Pep talk on the tip of her tongue.

But she's intercepted as a new figure enters her field of vision, long amber brown hair blowing in the wind. The unknown woman stalks over to Dosan, Dalmi bristles as she watches the woman reapply lipstick before closing the gap.

She can't hear the words but she instantly knows that Dosan is being flirted with and has no idea of the occurrence, he had jumped when first approached and then after a puppy-esque head tilt started to explain something, hands in motion.

Fire simmers in her veins the longer the conversation drags on, soon the woman has taken a seat and she is all easy smiles and constant hair tucks. Then she starts to lean into his space and Dalmi brightens when he scoots away, maintaining the distance between them.

Dalmi reaches for her scrunchie, slipping it from her wrist and catching her hair up in a loose ponytail.

Marching over she walks until she's right in front of the coder, for once looking down at him before reaching out and taking his hand. Using all her strength she pulls him, at first he's rigid and immoveable and then he's standing and allowing himself to be yanked into her orbit.

The woman glares at her before raising an eyebrow, "Who are you? We were having a conversation." Annoyance drips off every word that falls from her lips.

Dalmi steps forward, as Dosan steps behind her dwarfed by her despite their laughable difference in height.

"I'm his CEO."

She glares harder at Dalmi. Now standing as well, arms crossed petulantly.

"You're just his CEO. Why are you interrupting?"

Dosan's breath hitches in the background and Dalmi wonders if he finally realized what was happening just now.

"He can't fraternize with the enemy. We're going now."

A part of her wonders if she's overstepping her boundaries but when she turns to face Dosan he's squinting into the distance and she knows that her jealousy is not unwelcomed.

When she has Dosan safely away from the poacher, she peers up at him his hand still curled around her own.

"I'm sorry."

His unwarranted apology snaps her back to reality, she almost groans at herself. She wasn't normally a possessive person but Dosan made her act stupid sometimes.

Instead of acknowledging his apology she replies, "Do you know why she was talking to you?"

He stares at her blankly before it morphs to confusion and then realization.

His eyes widen.

He nods solemnly.

"Yeah I know why."

She watches his face avidly as he opens his lips to speak once more.

"She wanted...my coding secrets. That's why she was asking me about myself and for my number. She was probably trying to become my friend to sabotage us. I promise I didn't tell her anything."

Her brain careens as she processes the new information, teeth clenching at the thought of Dosan giving another woman his number.

Then his words sink in and her stomach unclenches minutely, she believes him. But a little voice in the back of her head offers some doubt and she braces herself.

"What if she wasn't trying to use you? Would you give her your number?"

She barely as to wait a full second for a response.

"No. Why would I do that?"

"Maybe you need someone to talk to."

He looks at her as if she's grown another head, "I have Chul-san and Yong-san."

Her hold loosens.

"And I have you." He grabs the point of her chin, drawing her head up until their eyes lock once more. The warmth from his hand sinks into her skin and she nuzzles into his palm before drawing him into a hug, standing on her tip toes to wrap her arms around his neck.

After a pregnant pause he melts into her embrace, deep breaths landing on her shoulder.

"You'll figure it out. I know you will."

He nods slowly, buckled over as he tightens his hold on her waist.

"Thanks for coming for me."

She mentally makes a note to pray the next time she's in church, thank the Lord for putting him in her life perhaps he was her guardian angel sent to make heathens like her believers.

She's drunk. She can feel the alcohol singing her in blood as she sways on the sidewalk. They'd all agreed to go out for drinks to celebrate, they were in the final two for Sandbox. It was surreal and before she knew it she had stumbled from giggly and tipsy into sloshed and incoherent.

Dosan looms beside her, her shoulder bag strung across his wide chest as he watches her in the corner of his eye. The others had bulldozed into Saha's car despite the designer threatening to dump their bodies on the highway.

So here they were alone.

When the bus finally arrived, strong arms lift her taking all her weight before caroling her into a back seat of the bus. She hums happily, fuzzy memory resurfacing of them holding hands on the bus. Without thought she reaches out and catches his hand, needing to feel his skin.

His hands are slightly damp but she doesn't care, she wants all of him sweat included.

She blinks awake at his whispers of her name and soft shoves, groggy she stands up letting him guide her like she's a young child. Her nap has sobered her up some and she's thankful she decided to forgo heels today, instead donning simple flats with a gold buckle.

"Do you need a piggyback?"

She turns at his offer, considering it but that means she would have to let go of his hands and that's simply not an option. She wants to enjoy every second she has remaining with those hands.

She shakes her head in decline, squeezing his hand as they trek up the incline to her house. The moon shines big and bright in the sky, washing them with its rays.

"You're home." He announces, looking down at her fondly before she starts to swing their arms between them.

He starts to pull her bag over his head, and the words tumble out of her mouth, her tongue loosened by all the alcohol she's consumed.

"What do you like about me?"

He stills at her question, eyes widening before his lips shift open. He looks lost for a minute and her patience wears thin as she awaits his response, when none arrives she huffs stomping her feet and repeating louder, "What do you like about me?"

Still he stares wordlessly and she drags her hand away, snatching her bag and turning to enter her house. She takes three and a half steps before he catches her wrist, she doesn't turn around but she pauses her escape.

A deep winded breaths swooshes past her ear and then he replies, "I...I like a lot."

She glares over her shoulder, and he withers under her stare. Large hands reaching out to caress her jaw as he looks at her with liquid eyes.

"Umm your smile, you have a great smile."

Said smile makes a guest appearance and she hums, "What else?" He smiles at her, the juxtaposition not lost on him.

"Your confidence, you believe in yourself." The and me is silent but still there. That brings a sad smile to her face, his own confidence is a work in progress. Suddenly dehydrated she swipes her tongue across the surface of her upper lip, pulling the bottom in and releasing it with a wet smack.

The act lasts all of three seconds but Dosan freezes, eyes fixated on her mouth although nothing is happening now.

His fingers inch towards her mouth until she can feel the heat and she waits for his next move.

When he makes none, she steps closer tugging him to meet her halfway.

Then finally as if that were his cue, he presses his thumb into her bottom lip, running across the plump moist flesh utterly entranced and red faced.

"I like your lips."

His actions are speaking loud enough but his words scorch her up and before she can consider the fact that they are outside her house, she swivels her head and pops his thumb into her mouth, his salty flavor exploding on her tongue. His hand feels even larger inside of her and she moans at the sensation.

His eyes are blown out and he's so still she doubts he's breathing, he looks helpless as he watches her sink further down the wide digit.

She swirls her tongue around the pad of this thumb and she swears Dosan melts into her. All of his bones seeming to liquefy.

When she slides off his thumb he's still dazed and dumbfounded, lips opening and closing like a fish sputtering on land.

She's nothing if not an opportunist and she crashes into him, tugging him down to meet her as she sucks the soju off his tongue. He groans into the kiss but lets her lead, bending when she grapples with his shoulder.

They kiss like that for a few seconds, twisting and turning to devour each other before she feels him drifting away and before she can whine at the loss of his lips, her feet leave the ground and they are eye level.

His hands are vices on her lower back, pressing her immeasurably close to his solid torso.

She wraps her legs around him like a koala and before he can combust from their provocative position she's already licking into his mouth, gripping his hair tightly as she moves him as she pleases.

One of his hands creep up and cup the back of her head, and then she's being moved backwards until her back slams into something solid. He tries to pull away, concern contorting his features but she dives into his neck nipping at the hot skin there. She suckles roughly, knowing that she'll leave a mark and anticipating the pretty mark on his blemish free skin.

Then as quickly as his fingers typically move on his keyboard he backs away from her.

She's unprepared for her legs to crash back onto the ground and she looks up at him disgruntled, question forming before her door bursts open.

Then the sweet familiar voice of her grandmother cuts through the tension that has settled between them.

"Dalmi is that you?"

Dosan grabs her bag swinging it back  over his shoulder again, standing ramrod straight like he’s rehearsing for a role in the army. 

Tipsy now from his kiss, she turns around meeting her grandmother's eyes. Trying her damnest not to look as ravished as she feels, her lips are tender in a the right ways.

"Oh goodness look at you. You look a mess, you stuck your head out the window again didn't you? Look at how red and sore your lips are!"

She pointedly doesn't react to the exclamation but Dosan shuffles in her peripheral. Guilty and nervous. 

Thankfully grandmother hasn't yet learned his many tells.

"Thank you for bringing her home." She thanks Dosan sending an indulgent smile his way, before guiding Dalmi into the house. She twists around to wave good bye to Dosan and notices her bag still over his shoulder. She opens her mouth to call out and get it back before she notices how red Dosan is, his cheeks look painfully tinged but that's nothing compared to his white knuckled grip on her bag which is strategically placed in front of his groin.

Oh.

She's makes a show of looking him up and down before licking her mouth, ever so slowly and puckering at him. The last thing she sees before her door closes is Dosan wringing his hand, looking devastated.

She can't wait to get her hands on him.

[im-the-punk-who]

Can you explain how a slave revolt in the Bahamas could have changed the history of America?

HELLO ANON FROM LIKE FOUR MONTHS AGO! I kept meaning to go back to this and then uhhh forgetting to do that. (Also thank you for indulging me and sending this sort-of-directly-asked-for-question lmao)

So. Here’s a brief overview of how a successful slave revolt like in Black Sails could have changed the history of not just America, but the entire world. And quite, well - easily - had the circumstances in Black Sails presented themselves. 

First off, standard disclaimer that this is all conjecture based on my own research and knowledge of both history and Black Sails. It isn’t meant as a takedown of anyone else’s views, or the character’s actions. The strongest I would call this is a wishful critique of the choices the writers made to include the things they did in the way they were included, and the way those same writers chose to end the story they chose to tell. And maybe, a little bit, a frustration of how the inevitability of american history is used as a given in fandom to defend certain character’s actions - but it is not meant to invalidate the reasons behind those actions. Just to point out that those reasons were more emotionally than factually driven (Which is cool! And very real to the kinds of tragedies that play out in real life revolutions! Vive le realismé!)

Also quite obviously I’m not a professional in any way. I was eating soup from a can as I wrote this. I am now eating cookies for dinner. I am writing this because it’s fun for me. It’s fun!! If deep thought-experiment type analysis of media isn’t your cuppa, that’s fine - you can keep scrolling.

I’ve included major historical events from 1700-1740 since that is the general time period that Black Sails draws its history from. In particular, most of the later seasons’ historical references come from the 1730s. While I’ve tried to be as thorough as possible...there are so many ways history could have been changed by a tiny action that it would be impossible to cover them all. For brevity, I’m focusing on the history of the Bahamas, the Caribbean, and Colonial America. I’ll touch on other places as is relevant but like......it’s world history for a reason.

Okay, here goes.

So first and foremost, to understand how it’s destruction could have changed America, you really need to understand just how much economic power chattel slavery gave colonial empires and England in particular. 

Slavery was the most important economic force in Colonial England, and not just in what the slaves produced. The slave trade itself was the most lucrative business in existence at the time. If you want to learn more about that, I highly recommend listening to this podcast, which does an excellent job of explaining how the economic buying and selling and bonding of slaves was of such value to colonial empires. This is important because the most powerful contemporary argument for the continuation of slavery was that it “could not be ended in the Americas until there was certainty that it wouldn’t create social or economic irritation.” (Thomas Jefferson, 1783.)

(Slavery in itself is not something that was unique to the british empire or even the Imperialist governments that created it. Most cultures have had some form of slavery. However, this was not the type of generational slavery that colonial empires employed. In most cases before the 1400s, slaves were not kept slaves solely based on the color of their skin - they were war prisoners, criminals, or debtors. In most cases, slaves could work to buy their freedom, and most importantly, slavery was not an inherited state that passed from parent to child. 

What we think of in terms of colonial slavery is chattel slavery - which is the kind of slavery Europeans imposed on Africans starting in the fifteenth century. These slaves could not buy their freedom. They were viewed as property instead of human beings based on their race and their children were automatically enslaved in the same way they were. They were mistreated, and viewed as subhuman, without any chance of escaping the bonds which had been forced upon them.

Because of this new type of slavery that started in the colonial era, Europeans needed to justify why they were entitled to own other people as slaves. They needed to convince themselves and other people that there was some moral justification for chattel slavery. This is what led to all the myths of ‘happy’ servitude, racial inferiority, and any ‘benefits’ slavery imparted to slaves. These were all lies created by philosophical thinkers and plantation owners and politicians that let settlers convince themselves they were not committing crimes of immense magnitude against other human beings. For much of the colonial era, these were the norm in thinking and their vestiges still linger today. But these were used to justify slavery because of how important it was economically.

And of course there were always dissenters. Since slavery was first introduced to the colonies there were people who knew that this sort of treatment was just not very gucci. These people argued that slavery went against the very nature of a ‘just’ society. That benefitting off the mistreatment of other human beings was akin to spiritual robbery, and that “European colonies should be destroyed rather than create so many unfortunates!” (Louis Jaucourt, 1754). With your goddamn motherfucking chest Jaucourt. The Quakers of Pennsylvania were strong proponents of abolition since the 1670’s! James Oglethorpe(yes, that Oglethorpe) himself was a staunch abolitionist who went as far as to make slavery illegal in Georgia when he formed the colony in 1733.

The economic power of slavery was used as a justification to keep it intact for hundreds of years and many colonists were happy with this, but it’s important to remember that not everyone was. England and the colonists were far from unanimously in support of the practice. This becomes important later! Like, this is the basis for the whole argument of how a drawn out war in the Bahamas could have ended slavery and changed colonial imperialism.)

OKAY NOW THAT WE’VE GOT THAT COVERED. 

Now let’s go to the people it affected. Enslaved black people have been fighting against their enslavement since they were taken from their homes and brought across the Atlantic in the 15th century. Starting in the 1700s, slave revolts started to see more and more success in these efforts, until in the late 1700s and early 1800s public opinion of slavery finally dropped enough that it was outlawed in the colonial empires of England and France. In the years of 1700-1740, there were several rebellions in the North American area including:

1712 New York Slave Revolt (British Province of New York)

1730 Chesapeake rebellion (British Chesapeake Colonies)

1733 St. John Slave Revolt (Danish Saint John)

1739 Stono Rebellion ((British Province of South Carolina)

1741 New York Conspiracy (British Province of New York)

And of course, 

1728-1739 First Maroon War (British Jamaica)

This is the war which the war in Black Sails is based on. The treaty that was offered by Woodes Rogers in Black Sails is almost word for word(minus the pirates bit) the treaty offered to the Leeward Maroons in this war. There are references to the factions in this war and even some of the historical people involved in it. The major difference? The Maroon war was successful. The Maroons were so good at warfare on their turf that the British were unable to sustain any major victories against them. After ten years they offered the Maroons a treaty granting them governmental agency(although not independence). In return, the Maroons agreed to return any escaped slaves back to the British, and to help the British fight off “invaders”. The Leeward maroons led by Cudjoe(Julius, in Black Sails) took this offer to avoid more fighting because he believed in an honorable peace with the enemy. Queen Nanny and her Windward Maroons(The Maroon Queen and Madi in Black Sails) refused because like....bruh those terms suck. After a year she was pressured into relenting by Cudjoe, but within thirty years the Maroons had started another war, dissatisfied with how the treaty was being carried out. 

(This is Queen Nanny. And yes, she is better than you.)

I also need to mention that Africans were not the only ones in North America hurt by British Colonialism, nor the only ones for whom abolition and an end to colonial empire was attractive. The Native Americans were also a constant frustration to the colonies, and, because it’s relevant to later things, I want to mention one incident in particular: 

The Yamasee War (1715-1717)

The Yamasee were a Lower Creek tribe that lived in what is today Georgia/Florida. The war was fought over a bunch of different things, including trading systems and colonists depleting the game in the area, but also because of the colonists’ nasty habit of trying to enslave Native American people. Bummer. So a bunch of tribes(and I mean a bunch - there were Shawnee and Cherokee factions, as well as about half a dozen other distinct nations that joined in the fight in sort of that loose ‘hey you hate these guys? we hate these guys!’ way.)

 Long story short, this war was a pretty significant factor in the colonists in the South not enslaving(outright) Native Americans anymore, and instead increasing the import of African slaves to the south. After this war the Yamasee split into two factions, one anti-colonist and one pro-colonist. The pro-colonist people called themselves the Yamacraw, and it was these people who granted Oglethorpe(yes, that Oglethorpe) the land which he used to found Georgia. Moral of the story, alliances between abolitionists and indigenous tribes were already in place in the colonies. Just waiting for a chance to be used.

(Tomochichi, the leader of the Yamacraw and very cool accessorizor)

(Yet ANOTHER thing to keep in mind is that before the end of the 18th century, both Haiti and Grenada would see major revolutions against their colonial empires. Slaves in all provinces and colonies were continually fighting for their freedom. What they lacked was a unifying force that supplied them enough power and cohesion to fight the empire man-to-man, so to speak.)

SO. INTO THIS SCENE, ENTER JAMES FLINT - ANGRIEST OF MLM SCALLYWAGS AND TACTICIAN EXTRAORDINAIRE.

(So cute.)

Anyway, the Golden Age of Piracy was largely over by the early 1720 - most of the pirates of Nassau took Rogers’ pardon and reintegrated as citizens of society. That or they like....died. A lot of them died. Gruesomely. Nasty business, piratry. So, if we assume that in Black Sails’ history that Flint and Silver managed to convince the Maroons to rebel ten years earlier, join with the pirates who did not want to assimilate, and start a revolution; now instead of two separate wars Britain is now fighting one much bigger, nastier, more expensive one. 

Backed by people with a good deal of money at their disposal. Cha-ching.

Keep in mind that Britain had already been at war for almost thirty years with first the Glorious Revolution and the Jacobite risings(1688-forever) and the War of Spanish Succession(1701-1714). Their resources had already been depleted. And this was why the American colonies(and India) had become so important to them. Remember what I said about the economic importance of slavery? It’s because Brtitain was using the slave trade to refill its coffers after an extensive and costly military campaign. 

So now, this new war is not only putting an additional drain on the empire’s resources before Britain has had a chance to replenish itself but it is also taking away the very source of income needed to replenish itself. (Since the war would target places heavy with slave trading.) In addition, the pirates handed a significant defeat to the British Navy that ended with the Navy retreating - turning tail and running from the island. This was actually a huge victory and one that was sort of downplayed in the show but would be incredibly significant in the event of a long campaign.

Rogers is not taking Nassau with the full support of Britain. He is only fighting with the traitors who did not return when the Navy withdrew. That is why he has to go to Spain in the first place. 

The show has also told us that this rebellion is already starting to be widely known - pirates and slaves from Barbados, the Bahamas, as far as Massachusetts are coming to aid the rebellion in the hopes of freedom. This is not a small thing. 

Even with the loss of the Walrus and most of the Walrus crew, there are still thousands of fighters on the Maroon Island. Slaves, mainland pirates - the defeat of the Walrus was a personal defeat but in the grand scheme of a larger war it was a small loss in what was ultimately a huge victory. 

Rogers has been squarely defeated. Because of that, they now have Nassau as a base. The war now has two strongholds - one protected by the forest and one protected by a fort - into which they can store supplies, retreat, and organize attacks from. If they can free the rest of the slaves on the island of Nassau and either oust or convert the puritans, all the better. 

The war at the point Rogers is defeated was far from a never-ending thing. In fact I would say that Flint is absolutely right - they are incredibly close to a decisive victory. England cannot afford to muster a large enough force to defeat two entrenched enemies working together - especially ones as well financed as we’re led to believe the chest would make the Maroons and Pirates. Even if Britain could somehow convince Spain and/or France to join them, both of those nations have also been severely depleted by wars of their own. And again, the more nations that Britain brings in, the more potentially disaffected people could be brought in to join the pirates(see, Haiti and Grenada specifically, both of which were French colonies at the time, and the Spanish colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, etc). 

So from here, the smartest thing for the rebellion to do would be to hit large plantations: to both free the slaves and cripple Britain’s economy. Make slavery more costly to enforce than it is profitable to sustain, and build their numbers for the war as well, as well as like, you know, freeing slaves. Make it so that Britain could not sustain the cost of trying to fight it - as James said all the way back in 1705. Force a surrender on economic grounds.

So now, the power behind the empire has been broken. Even assuming a modest victory, the course of the entire world - not just the Americas - has changed. In victory, let’s say the Bahama/Caribbean islands are freed from British rule. Slavery in the americas will also never be able to get the foothold it does, historically. 

With a free nation actively willing to target slave plantations and ships sitting between it and Africa, the colonial slave trade is finished. Now sure, they could use the existing slaves, but it would be oh-so-easy for the Pirates and Maroons, alongside their hopeful new Native and abolitionist allies, to target large plantations and cripple them. 

If slavery never gets a foothold in the south, northern colonies never build the banks and mills and economic powerhouses that profit from the cheap produce, and most find another way to survive. Perhaps, if we’re going really all out, they start working with the native americans - learning ways to cultivate and grow crops with the land and in balance, rather than clearing thousands of acres for damaging cash crops. 

I want to be really, really clear about this because it is incredibly important. Without slavery, the British empire would not have bee able to sustain itself. It would not have the power. And the more it tried to tax the colonists to recoup its losses, the angrier those people were likely to get, and perhaps join the Maroons and Pirates, or perhaps evens start the american revolution early - maybe even with the help of the newly independent Jamaican/Bahaman island nations. 

This break in the power of colonial empires would shift world history into something unrecognizable as we know it. The empires would still exist, of course, but they would be set on their heels - France and Spain would see what happened to Britain and be less inclined to keep slavery legal in their own colonies. Power is split more evenly among the world, and indigenous and black/African nations are not wiped out in genocidal bids for power. 

Which brings me to India. If the Indian rebellions learned of what happened in America and the Bahamas, or if america had drained enough of britain’s resources that the British East India Trading Company was not able to be as controlling of the area, this could have meant independence centuries earlier, as well as a much easier path to independence. Think about what could have been if the Indian people had been able to oust a struggling empire from its shores an entire century before it historically did. 

(This bad boy is Mangal Pandey, who led the first major Indian revolution in the mid 1800s. In the movie adaptation his boyfriend best friend is played by Toby Stephens so I’m connecting the dots.)

Once the colonies of America and India are gone, Britain loses almost the entirety of its colonial power. (And this isn’t even including all the smaller colonies which could cloak their own independence in these big revolutions and the lack of (as much) of an indigenous genocide in many of these places. The economic disparity that defines Black experience in places that the British colonial system touched never gets a hold, and they are able to build their own economies in ways that benefit them and the places they live. 

Think about the wealth of culture in ALL nations that would not have been destroyed, had Britain not been allowed to swallow whole swaths of land whole. 

And, look. I know this is fiction. I know that of course, none of this happened, and that Black Sails is a fictional landscape. I know that so many things could go differently than I imagine them. I know that to extrapolate like this relies heavily on actually caring about a world that is completely different from ours and envisioning how that could come about. 

I also know, that it is just as important to tell these sorts of stories as telling stories about how small acts could have changed things immensely, as it is to tell them about how society must stay the same. It is just as important to tell stories about ‘what if colonialism were able to be stopped’ as it is to tell dystopian stories about the end of the world. It may not be as much fun, but it is important to remember that our power doesn’t lie an indiscernible amount of time in the future, after the world has already gone to shit. It lies with us, right now. And that even if it is hard to see, our actions have the power to shape history.

[forever-rogue]

Disappear Here - 1/4

A/N: So, I’ve decided to turn this into a little series because I have no sense of brevity, and why not? So here’s part 1, which I hope you enjoy! As always, feedback is welcome! xx

Based on this blurb

Pairing: Javier Peña x reader

Word Count: 3.4k

Warnings: language

MASTERLIST

PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4

ALTERNATIVE ENDING

SEQUEL

»»————-　♡　————-«« 

One Year Ago

You felt your eyes growing heavy as you tried  to follow along to the late night rerun of a telenovela that was currently playing on one of the local channels. It was the only thing that was illuminating the small living room, everything else was bathed in darkness, much like your heart at the moment. You’d been sitting there for some time, ever since you’d gotten home from the embassy, in a vain attempt to keep your mind occupied. If you tried to focus all your energy into trying to keep up with the rapid Spanish, maybe no dark thoughts would impede the light buzz that was flowing through your veins . 

The empty wine bottle on the coffee table was supposed to help aid in your plan to chase away all the negative thoughts there were creeping in at the idea of Javier still being gone. He was supposed to be back today, supposed to be back in the office along with Steve, but neither of them had returned. It had been nothing but radio silence from their end.

Instead, you’d spent the day performing all sorts of menial tasks around the office, waiting for either of your partners to bursting in through the door and announcing their triumphant return. 

But it never came. 

Instead you were only met with silence, the only sounds that met your ears were those of people passing by in the hallway and someone occasionally popping their head in to say hello. Your face lit up every time, thinking maybe you’d get a glimpse of Peña’s smirk or Murphy’s soft smile; instead it was just another coworker whose name you didn’t know, or care to know. 

By midday, you’d gotten the entire shared office space clean and organized, going so far as to even clean the dingy windows, and caught up on paperwork that you’d been avoiding for weeks. 

But even after all that, you still had time to spare.

When you couldn’t take the deafening silence any longer, you stormed out of the much too quiet office and stormed into Ambassador’s Noonan’s office, not even bothering to knock, only throwing the door open as you walked to the front of her desk. She barely lifted her eyes from the papers splayed across her desk as you stood in front her, your arms crossed definitely over your chest. 

“Agent L/N,” it was almost mocking, cold, and you could see she really wasn’t too keen on listening to any problem that you were about to present her with. There were days when you hated her, wishing you could jump over the desk dividing you and wringing sense into her; other days you were glad that she was around, knowing that no matter how harsh and stern she was, she had your backs...more or less.

“Murphy and Peña aren’t back yet,” you didn’t bother to waste time with formalities, deciding to lay the facts on her instead, “they were supposed to be back in the office today. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of them.”

“I’m well aware that they were supposed to be back,” she flicked her eyes up to meet yours for a moment before turning back to her papers, “and just what is the issue?”

“They’re missing!”

“No one is considered missing for at least forty-eight hours,” she explained as you openly groaned. You knew that. But they weren’t just any sort of civilians, they were DEA agents, and more importantly, your partners, your friends, “and they technically still have several hours left in the work day to return before the clock starts ticking.”

“You don’t understand -”

“No, you don’t understand, L/N,” she barked and slammed the papers down on her desk, causing you to jump back in surprise, “this is how things work sometimes. This is a dangerous field, there are risks involved and sometimes you just have to accept that. You have to be all in to do this job, and I expect that even a rookie such as yourself understands that.”

“I-...”

“I get you want to do the right thing and you’re concerned with the welfare of your partners, but you have to learn to get over these types of things,” you were rendered speechless, taking a step back at her harsh words. You knew this was a dangerous job, that going after Escobar was an almost certain deathwish, but you had still agreed to do it, and you still wanted to hold onto some sense of humanity, not just be a cold shell that went through the motions every day. Maybe that was the rookie part of you after all, “perhaps you’d do well to remember that Murphy and Peña are just your partners. Especially Peña; I am not immune to the rumors and follies that float around in this office. And if you can’t remember that, maybe you’d best start looking for another job.”

“With all due respect, Ambassador-”

“This conversation is over,” she didn’t bother to spare a final glance before gathering her papers back together, “come back and see me in a few days if they still aren’t back, and then we’ll take the next steps. Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal,” you struggled to hold back your tears, feeling them prick at the back of your eyes as you rushed out of her office. You knew she was right, at least to a certain extent, but it didn’t make your current predicament any easier. 

At this point you were sure that you couldn’t handle staying in the office any longer, so you grabbed your stuff and headed home, stopping by a corner market to pick up cheap wine to keep you company for the evening. It was better than being stuck all alone with only your thoughts after all; having flashes of Pena and Murphy somehow getting killed was starting to drive you crazy. 

But despite your best efforts, nothing held your attention for long, which was precisely why you had resorted to watching programs in Spanish, trying your best to follow along with what they were saying. Spanish wasn’t your strong suit, you’d grasped the basics and then some, all the slang and curses of course (the latter part mostly thanks to Javier), and could hold a conversation well enough, but it was nothing compared to Javier’s natural fluency. Even if you looked like you might somehow actually belong in Columbia, your accent and lack of comprehension gave you away every time, as you stared at the person with your big wide doe eyes (that little comment was courtesy of Murphy). Javier enjoyed teasing you about it every time. You didn’t mind.

You sighed to yourself as you realized that you might never see him again. Your last interaction with him had hardly been a proper goodbye

“I can’t believe you told that witch to keep me away from this,” you glared at Javier as he started to gather supplies, Murphy closely following behind him. When he didn’t respond, you just shoved his chest, which quickly got his attention. He easily captured your wrists in his large hands and gave you a stern look, “you’re an asshole, Javi. Even Carrillo thinks I can handle myself just find out in the field.”

“I don’t give a shit what Carrillo thinks,” his voice was low, signaling the end of conversation as he released you from his strong grip. You looked over at Murphy, who was busy intently pretending not to be listening to your exchange. He was going to be of no help to you.

“Well I do,” you were just trying to get a rouse out of him; if he wasn’t going to let you come, you might as well annoy him, “Carrillo is a better everything than you could ever wish to be.”

“You think so, huh?” you’d gotten under skin, you could immediately tell by the way the muscles in his shoulders tensed, and the almost growl he adopted. You put your hands on your hips, eyebrow raised as you just nodded at him, “listen here, kid. This is dangerous. You think you know what to expect out there, you think you know what’s it like out there? You haven’t even seen a dead body, have you? You really think you could go out there and handle that?”

“This is my job-”

“You’re still green,” he insisted, “and this is not the time or place for you to suddenly decide to be the hero. I’m trying to protect you.”

“I don’t need you to protect me,” you insisted, the way his voice had softened with his last words not lost on you, “I can handle myself.”

“You’re insufferable, you know that?” he sighed heavily as he exchanged a look with Murphy, “you’re staying here and that is final. And if I hear even the slightest hint of you trying to weasel your way in from anyone else, I’ll have your ass on the first flight back to the States.”

“I’m insufferable?” you threw up your hands in exasperation at him. He was so thick skulled and stubborn sometimes, it drove you up the wall, “what about you, old man? Scared of what will happen if I get there and make you look bad?”

“I have it had it up to here-”

“Will the two of you just shut up already?” Murphy had finally had enough of the two bickering back and forth. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence by any means, no, the two of you were constantly up in arms. Sometimes it was over the who made the better shitty office coffee, his incessant chain smoking, your habit of wearing high heels, his use of informants. Everything. But the two of you were starting to get on his last nerve, which said enough considering that Murphy was a patient man.

“Steve-”

“Just stop arguing and fuck already,” he said and you immediately felt all the blood in your body flow to your face, sure you were just as flushed as you as deep red tomato. You didn’t dare look at Javier for fear of the expression on his face, “or do whatever you need to in order to stop getting at each other’s throats all the time. You’re worse than children.”

“Well, you’re both the worst,” it was the only thing retort you could come with after his little outburst. You kept your back turned to Javier as you stormed out of the storage locks without another word, “have fun or whatever. Don’t get shot, I guess.”

You cringed slightly at the memory, wishing it had gone slightly smoother than that. You seriously hoped that wasn’t the last interaction you’d have with either of them, especially Javier. You didn’t know what you would do if that was the last time you’d gotten to see him. 

But you pushed the memories to the back of your mind as you  felt the sweet lull of slumber finally start to win over, a loud, booming knock came at your door causing you to jump and almost fall off of the couch. You sighed heavily before collecting yourself and pausing to glance at the clock on the wall. It was nearing two in the morning - no one in their right mind should have been at your door. Your first thought was that it was someone coming after you, someone that had decided they had a vendetta against you, coming to make you pay for your sins. 

Instinctively, you moved to the kitchen and grabbed your gun, holding it in front of you as you headed towards the door, alarmed by another loud knock. Putting your hand on the knob, you swallowed the lump that had worked its way into your throat. You were suddenly wide awake as the adrenaline rushed through your veins. After mentally counting to five, you yanked the door open, gun cocked and aimed at whoever had decided to come after you, ready to pull the trigger and stand your ground. Maybe you were green, but you were confident in the fact that you could hold your own if you suddenly had to.

Instead of an enemy, you found yourself face to face with none other than Javier Peña.

“Javi,” his nickname rolled off your lips in a quiet whisper as you met his warm brown eyes, your own already stinging and on the verge of spilling over with tears. You felt like you could breathe again, waves of relief crashing down on you as you realized he was alive. But at a price. He looked tired, very tired, and worn out, his hair a mess and his clothes looking in need of a wash, much like the rest of his sweaty body. But he was alive, and that was the operative fact, and the only fact you cared about in that moment.

“Were you going to shoot me, kid?” he asked, his deep velvety voice reached your ears and causing your stomach to flutter slightly. He looked between you and your still outstretched hand before grabbing the gun, removing the cartridge of bullets, and tossing it to the side where it clanged to the ground with a loud metallic clang. He studied you silently, almost in a challenging way, trying to see which one of you would break down first. He was the one that had showed up on your doorstep after all.

But it wasn’t going to be you because you weren’t able to find any words. Instead you were frozen in time, your body humming with content as you realized that all of your worry had been for nothing. He was okay, he was alive, and he was currently mere inches away from you; you could feel his body heat radiating onto yours, his natural musk invading every bit of your senses. 

You had missed him more than you thought, for reasons that were known to you, but you would never speak out loud. You didn’t want to hear the words ever come out of your mouth because that would mean that they were true, that your feelings for Javi were more than just those of friends and partners. That your feelings were those that made it seem like he was the reason for all the glittering stars in the night sky, that he was your morning sunshine after a dark night of rain.

But Javier didn’t need you to say anything.

It all happened fast; so fast that you didn’t even have a chance to process what was going on before he put his hands on either side of your face and crashing his lips onto yours. It was needy, fast, bruising, and everything you hadn’t realized you’d been waiting for. After reality hit you like a train,  you responded by throwing your arms around his neck, carding a hand through the hair at the nape of his neck as  his rough hands found your waist, his fingers quickly finding their way under the hem of your shirt and brushing along the soft skin.

It was hard and fast, the two of you expressing your desires without the use of words, only pulling apart when you needed a breath of air. You looked up at him and found him staring back at you, his eyes expressing an emotion you couldn’t quite place. It was intense, frightening, and most of all hungry. He was the hunter and you were his prey. 

“Y/N,” Javi’s voice was barely above a whisper as he kissed you a few more times, eventually finding your jaw and working his way down your neck. It took everything in your power not to moan out loud at his touch, at the feel of his lips on your delicate flesh, and you bit your lip as you kept your arms around his neck. But before you could let it go any further, something snapped inside you and you came to your senses and put your hands on his chest, a silent plea for him to stop. As much as you wanted him to continue, to somehow have it end up in your bedroom, with you under him as he gave you what you had been desperately wanting, you knew you shouldn’t. He was your partner, your friend, and on top of all of that, he was older and he had a reputation. 

It was a reputation he had earned for a reason, and that was enough for you to stop whatever might transpire before it got any further. 

“Javi,” you said as he pulled back from you, looking at you with concern written all over his face. You shook your head and took a step back from him, already saddened by the loss of his body against yours, “we...we shouldn’t do this. We can’t do this.”

You pointed between your bodies, biting your lip in a way that drove him crazy, not that he would ever admit that, and sighed. Sometimes your rationalism got the best of you, and you wished you could just throw it out the window. How you wished you could just have him then and there, to feel him all over your body.

“Why?” he asked quietly as he put a hand on your cheek before ghosting his fingers over the contours of your face, and he wondered, momentarily, why he’d waited so long to touch your soft skin.  Part if you wished you had let him continue, but the rational part of your brain told you that you’d done the right thing, “I thought...we...that there was something there? Between us.”

“We can’t,” you just repeated softly, “we’re friends...partners...this can only end in two ways, and neither of them are good.”

“Give me a good reason. Just one good reason,” he insisted and you knew he had a valid point, but you also both knew what you were trying to say, “tell me you don’t want this. Tell me I’ve been wrong in thinking that there was something between us this whole time. Tell me I’m wrong. And if you don’t want this, it stops here and I’ll walk away.

You looked at him silently for a few moments, his eyes pleading with yours, rendering you  unable to form a coherent thought; you wanted to tell him that he was right, but all you could see was looming heartbreak on the horizon, and you weren’t about to willingly put yourself through torture for nothing. Not with him or anyone else. 

Every other relationship you had had blown up into a million pieces in front of your very eyes. You weren’t able to subject yourself to that again, no matter how much you longed for him, no matter how many nights you spent alone in bed, thinking of him, wishing he was there with you. You finally, painstakingly, met his eyes, giving him a small grimace before shrugging your shoulders, “I...I don’t want this.”

A lie. A bold lie you both could easily see through. 

“Okay,” he took a step back, shaking his head at you as he tried to keep himself in check. He wanted to yell, to scream, to cry, something - anything. But instead, he moved silently towards the door, stepping through it without so much as another look at you, slamming it shut behind him. You winced slightly at the loud sound before slumping back down onto the couch. You gave the wine bottle a pathetic look, wishing you had more so you could block the events that had just transpired. 

Either you had just made the wisest decision of all, or you had possibly made the biggest mistake. 

It was a fine line between the two. 

»»————-　♡　————-««

Permanent Taglist: @jamesbarnesappreciationsociety @yourealegendroger  @thesecondlastjedi  @bitemerog  @rogernroll  @secretsweetscollectionblog  @sheridans-dynamos  @dinkiplier @starrystarrybabe  @onexlittlespark  @benhardyseyes  @marvelstuck  @whenthe-smokeisinyoureyes  @wonderwich  @a-kind-of-magik  @lv7867  @itissnowingandimstuckinside  @dessert-hardy  @rogertaylors-lipgloss  @rogerfxckingtaylor  @queenbbarnes  @drowseoftaylor  @persephonesnebula  @mamaskillerqueen  @theimpossiblehologramtree  @loveandbeloved29 @meddows-rose @onceitbubbles @wonderwoman292 @moondustmemories @spacedustmazzello  @queenlover05​  @ah-callie​

DH Taglist: @thefuturelawyer​  @gothtechie​

[dusksmote]

What writing advice can you give? Like how do you stay motivated and how do you keep to plans?

Love, a horrendous creative writer🤣

I love your work! I can’t wait for the next chapter for ur fic

motivation is half the puzzle, the rest is discipline.

i try to write a little bit every day, even if i don’t feel like it. some days writing feels impossible. then i put on a song that vibes with the scene i’m going for and sit down at my computer and go “oh yeah i like writing again”. it should be pretty obvious, music influences what i write, and that’s because i’m always listening to something new to get new ideas. writing and drawing is also literally all i do when i’m not working or in class, and that’s because it’s fun for me. so motivation + discipline + fun.

also, i try not to plan everything out. the more i think about exactly how i want to structure a story the less i want to write it. i like going into a new project with an idea for a scene or a concept and seeing where it goes as i write. every big project i’ve done has started as something i thought would just be a oneshot but kept getting bigger and bigger as i wrote. i like the freedom of coming up with stuff on the fly and using it later. it makes for more interesting, unique plot points.

i also like to take small ideas and make them big, instead of coming up with big ideas and trying to tackle them. it’s a lot easier to write 10 pages and feel like you’re making progress on a 50 page fic than write 10 pages and feel like your wheels are spinning on what you already know is gonna be 200+ pages. i always aim to write in as few words as possible for this reason. “brevity is the soul of wit” and all that shit. if you have 1000 words that can be condensed down to 10, say it in 10 words. it comes out cleaner, it makes your story faster paced, and you’re not gonna be wasting your own time making no progress. when i wrote ETL i purposefully tried to make every scene as short as possible for this reason. no filler, no fat (haha). don’t be afraid of smaller word count. a 20k fanfic that’s airtight is always going to be better than a 100k bloated, over-written one. 

don’t be afraid to write stuff out of order. i’ll write just dialogue first then go back in later and add the dialogue tags and action, which is why a lot of my stuff is framed around the dialogue. going back to the part about not knowing where something’s going when i start: i usually figure out the plot of what i’m writing as i write it, and i’ll go back and change things later to fit the plot. WTSAU did not have a strong plot as i wrote it, i didn’t even know what was going to happen until i got to like, chapter 6. i took the rough draft and figured out how to make it fit a three act structure, then went back and rewrote stuff. i rewrote the party scene in ETL probably 3 separate times. i’ve rewritten chapter 9 of WTSAU probably 6 times now and it’s still not how i want it to be. never be afraid to rewrite stuff. if you feel your story is weak, go back and change it.

thanks!

[therappundit]

***BEST OF 2020: The Best Rap Albums From a Historically Horrible Year***

So much has been said about this year, so on the last day of 2020 I don’t need to dive any further into exploration of what made this year so challenging (both at a personal and global level), but on the bright side I will say that two unrelated forces saved this year for me: 1.) my amazing baby daughter, and 2.) the seemingly never ending cycle of new, interesting music releases.

Before we dive in, just two points on my criteria for this list:

- must be released within this calendar year (1/1 - 12/31/20)

- must consist of at least 7 tracks

- rankings are according to a combination of my own favorite albums, and other impressive pieces of work that might not be directly up my alley, but I still found truly impressive

So for my last post of 2020...here are the Top 100 Rap Albums/Projects of 2020 (and a more than worthy list of albums that belong on that same list, further down the page):

10. HOMME by Kipp Stone

Without a doubt the most under-the-radar project on this list, and technically a mixtape and not an "album"...but that doesn't matter much to me, because this effort contains every bit of passion, every bit of perspective, and every bit of sheer love for rapping as any of the the best rap albums of 2020. It's hard to say whether East Cleveland is headed towards similar territory that Detroit, Buffalo, and Rochester now occupy, but with HOMME Kipp Stone captures the hunger, anxiety and forever shoulder-chipped struggle of having big dreams that seem more like unlikely fantasies. Kipp was buzzing a few years back, but making his grand return with this project is confirmation that he is next level talent and is more than ready to make a big splash in 2021.

9. Reasonable Drought by Stove God Cook$ and Roc Marciano

Quotes, on top of quotes, on top of quotes. Not sure what else to say about Roc Marciano's protege at this point, who came out of nowhere to close out 2020 as one of the most sought after feature-verse assassins in the business today.  Yes, his bars are hilarious, but it's the outside-the-box references and unpredictable bar pairings that truly made this project such an impressive debut. Roc provided high quality instrumentals for Reasonable Drought, but it's clear that he was intentionally lurking in the background to allow the Stove God to stand on his own two. While the album is probably not at the level of Jigga's classic Reasonable Doubt debut that this project tips its' cap to, it's not hard to imagine that someday we will look back at Stove God Cook$' debut as the coming out party for one of New York City's finest MCs.

8. Àdá Irin by Navy Blue

I never imagined that one of the biggest challenges at this point would not be whether or not Navy Blue deserves to be recognized as having one of the top rap 10 albums of 2020, but rather which album to choose for the top 10!? From Earl Sweatshirt affiliate and Soundcloud producer to standout solo talent, the west coast born by east coast stationed MC/writer/producer/model/skateboarder (!?) had himself a banner year. Of his many gifts, his strongest is his ability to craft beautiful, soulful soundscapes that blend the best elements of the NYC lofi scene with shades of late 90's L.A. underground. Dealing with themes of love, loss, joy, and depression, Navy seems to possess wisdom well beyond his years, and it enabled him to craft not one, but two of the most inviting and accessible offerings from lofi circles that I have heard, and I mean that in the best way possible.  

7. From King To A God (Deluxe) by Conway The Machine

He did it. Griselda's top muscle came through to deliver his most well-rounded, and arguably strongest overall project yet. Everything from the bars, to the varied production, to the bleeding soul of this project exemplifies the difference between an album and a "tape". The Machine was a machine in 2020, blitzing an astronomical number of feature verses, but FKTG was the gem he needed in his crown to solidify himself as a contender for best MC in the game moving forward. While this is not his actual Shady Records label debut (who knows when that will arrive now), this certainly feels like his major league arrival.

6. Alfredo by Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist

Two hip-hop specialists getting together to drop a project just for fun in the middle of a pandemic...what could go wrong? Well, almost nothing, actually. Freddie arrived dripping with soul and Al slid a nice little package of beats his way, and what we ended up with was a strong partner-project to FETTI (their previous stellar collaboration alongside Curren$y), only packaged with little snippets of personal revelations and free-flowing opinions throughout. Gibbs is one of the masters of hooking you in with his voice and contagious flow, so much so that his skills as a talented writer are often overlooked. While not necessarily the incredible revelation that his collaborations with Madlib have been thus far, there's enough strong chemistry here between MC and producer to lock Alfredo down as easily one of the best rap projects of 2020. And the Grammy's would certainly agree.

5. Descendants of Cain by Ka

One of the genre's true master writers, Ka albums feel like audio literature placed over hard-nosed rap beats. Many rappers view themselves as true artists, but few can say they are capable of weaving the type of rhyme poetry that Ka seems to wield with casual ease. The truth is that it's not easy, we just aren't around to witness the care and editing that goes into Ka's work. Featuring too many stirring quotes to single out (and let us not forget an incredible surprise verse from fellow Metal Clergy-man, Roc Marcinao), Decendants of Cain is yet another impressive addition to Ka's catalogue, doing more to capture the paradoxical surroundings of environments that are equal parts harsh and loving - and often doing so through religious metaphors - than many MCs can do in a year. His lyrical paintings of the world may be bleak, but they are not without hope.

4. As God Intended by Che Noir & Apollo Brown

Apollo Brown has been one of the most revered - albeit not loudly proclaimed - underground hip-hop producers of the past decade. He has joined forces with many talented MCs to drop full partner projects, but perhaps none as under-the-radar as Buffalo's Che Noir. But what Che Noir lacked in household name status heading into 2020, she more than makes up for with conviction, writing ability, and the skills of an elite MC. The result of this collaboration is a beautiful, personal, at times painful, and at times just straight badass album, and one that deserves recognition from top rap circles. In my opinion, this is the greatest production work of Apollo Brown's career thus far, and it's hard to say where it will rank for Che Noir since she seems to be a fresh talent that is very much still on the rise - but as of right now, you have to call her one of the best in the biz today.

3. Pray for Paris by Westside Gunn

Westside Gunn is one of the masters of the volume game. That's not to say he - or anyone in camp Griselda - sacrifice quality over quantity, but it's safe to say that you know what you're gonna get with a Westside Gunn album. Welp, WSG rewrote the script with this one. What began as an art-inspired passion project between album releases ended up being the overall strongest Griselda project of 2020, and one of the year's most fascinating rap albums. Since his highly regarded Supreme Blientele album, Gunn has gradually been pulling his own lyrical content out of the spotlight, opting to play cook and curator, throwing a mixture of in-house producers and rappers in a pot with outside talent, to mirror the ambiance of a dark, gritty rap fashion show. His projects are less statements of content, than they are audio "scenes" that the listener is invited into, as if they’re Basquiat level exhibitions quantum-leaping forward in time to now live amongst a hungry, thriving rap scene in upstate New York. That's not to say that PFP isn't a lyrical feast as well, with everyone from Tyler, The Creator to Joey Bada$$ to Wale to professional dancer Cartier William having their turn in the spotlight. All thanks to Westside Gunn, the rare MC that enjoys being the host of his own party more than being the center of attention at one.

2. A Written Testimony by Jay Electronica (featuring JAY-Z)

While some are waving the Act II flag as Jay Electronica's "real" debut album, I am less interested in a cool collection of mostly-finished old songs, and much more interested in a polished,  brilliantly produced project with (again, mostly) new verses from both Electronica and JAY-Z. It's easily the shortest selection on this list, but I feel like the quality of each individual song makes up for the brevity. I couldn't care less whether anyone thinks this is more of a duo-album or a solo piece, because the themes are certainly coming from Electronica's wheel house, and the fact that Hov was able to tweak his content to meet him there, is one of the things that makes AWT so special to me. 

1. The Price of Tea in China (Deluxe) by Boldy James and The Alchemist

No, it doesn’t represent a seismic shift in the culture, and no it’s not *the album* that we heard blasting out of everyone’s (or anyone’s) car speakers this year, but when it came to sheer execution, and mastery over the style of music they were aiming to make, there just simply wasn’t one flaw in Boldy James and The Alchemist’s The Price of Tea in China. From the distinctly moody production, to the guest verses, to the steady hand of a wizened veteran of the street life, intent on sharing unfiltered tales of his underworld without any additional bells or whistles, it all clicks so well that I can’t picture taking the project out of my rotation. Uncle Al went deeeeeeep into his bag with this one, and Boldy seems to have returned from the industry grave to reach the highest level of recognition of his career. In a year stuffed with a plethora of high quality examples of every flavor of rap music imaginable, The Price of Tea in China is the ideal pick for album of the year, because it’s prestige is built upon it’s ability to simply be what it wanted to be without turning an ear to trends or reaching for broader recognition. TPOTIC’s broader recognition is made possible due to Boldy & Al’s artistic commitment to just making the type of music that a MC from Detroit and a legendary underground producer from Los Angeles love to make, and for that we should be very grateful.

Top 100  (all belong in the Top 25-50, but…there’s only 100 spots in the Top 100, so here we go):

11. FlySiifu by Fly Anakin & Pink Siifu

12. Song of Sage: Post Panic! by Navy Blue

13. Eastern Medicine, Western Illness by Preservation

14. Too Afraid To Dance EP by Chuck Strangers

15. Noise Kandy 4 by Rome Streetz

16. Mt. Marci by Roc Marciano

17. Burden of Proof by Benny The Butcher & Hit-Boy

18. Battle Scar Decorated by Monday Night & Henny L.O.

19. We Know the Truth (Deluxe) by Drakeo the Ruler

20. The Allegory by Royce Da 5′9″

21. Bag Talk by yungmorpheus & Pink Siifu

22. Innocent Country 2 by Quelle Chris

23. Weight of the World by MIKE

24. Kontraband by Rome Streetz & Farma Beats

25. BRASS by Moor Mother & billy woods

26. Try Again by ovrkast.

27. Shrines by Armand Hammer

28. The Smartest by Tee Grizzley

29. Good Energy by Grafh

30. Substance Abuse by Rigz & Futurewave

31. Cold Water by Medhane

32. King’s Disease by Nas & Hit-Boy

33. Milestones by Skyzoo

34. Young & Turnt 2 by 42 Dugg

35. My Turn by Lil Baby

36. Manger on McNichols by Boldy James and Sterling Toles

37. The OutRunners by Curren$y & Harry Fraud

38. Mach’s Hard Lemonade by Mach-Hommy

39. Sages by Henny L.O. & Ohbliv

40. E.L.E. (Extinction Level Event): The Final World Front by Busta Rhymes

41. Lake Water by SeKwence

42. At the End of the Day. by Fly Anakin

43. Sole Food by Deniro Farrar

44. The Oracle 3 by Grafh

45. The Blue Tape by Tree

46. lo&behold by lojii

47. Who Made The Sunshine by Westside Gunn

48. RTJ4 by Run The Jewels

49. Whitehouse Studio, Pt. 2 by Various Aritsts [Detroit]

50. Carpe Noctem by Big Ghost Ltd

51. Infinite Wisdom by Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon

52. The Throwaways by The Opioid Era

53. Anyways by Young Nudy

54. PTSD (Deluxe) by G Herbo

55. Holly Favored by Monday Night & Foisey

56. THE GOAT by Polo G

57. Dump YOD: Krutoy Edition by Your Old Droog

58. The Face of Jason by ANKHLEJOHN

59. Two4one by Jay Worthy

60. Poetic Substance by RIM & Vinyl Villain

61. ve·loc·i·ty by H31R (Maassai & JWords)

62. UNLOCKED by Denzel Curry & Kenny Beats

63. Slim E and Friends by CHASETHEMONEY

64. Alone Time by YL

65. FLYGOD Is An Awesome God 2 by Westside Gunn

66. OBLIVION by Black Noi$e

67. Sleeper Effect by Sleep Sinatra

68. Savage Mode 2 by 21 Savage & Metro Boomin

69. Thug Tear by Big Kashuna O.G. & Monday Night

70. II - The Next Wave by Quakers

71. Demon & Mufasa by Yhung T.O. & DaBoii

72. Eternal Atake by Lil Uzi Vert

73. Miles by Blu & Exile

74. IMMORTALKOMBAT by Al Divino & Estee Nack

75. The Baltimore Housing Project by Jay Royale

76. I’m Still Perfect by Baby Smoove

77. The Grotesque & Beautiful by Teller Bank$

78. Crime Scenes by Ransom & Nicholas Craven

79. Streams Of Thought, Vol. 3. by Black Thought

80. Ways and Means by Rasheed Chappell & 38 Spesh

89. Sacred Psalms by El Camino & 38 Spesh

90. As Above So Below by ANKHLEJOHN

91. Tomorrow Is Forgotten by Stik Figa & Conductor Williams

92. So Help Me God! by 2 Chainz

93. Sauce Monk Volume 3 by Sauce Heist & Camoflauge Monk

94. A Beautiful Drug by WTM Scoob

95. Don’t Play It Straight by Small Bills (ELUCID & The Lasso)

96. No More Humble Fashion by Flee Lord

97. Pharaoh Chain by Planet Asia & Tha Musalini

98. Numb by Sha Hef

99. Interstate 38 by 38 Spesh

100. Get Money Teach Babies by Heist Life & Spanish Ran

THE REST OF THE BEST (all belong in the Top 100 releases of 2020, blame 2020 for being such a stacked year for music) - in no particular order:

Assata by CV$ a.k.a. Con$piracy & Teller Bank$, Spencer for HIGHER 3 by Vic Spencer & sonnyjim, Big Bad Boldy by Boldy James & Real Bad Man, Da 5th Power by Mooch, Muthaland by BbyMutha, Act II: Patents of Nobility (The Turn) by Jay Electronica, Long Story Short by Heem, Eileen by 14 Trapdoors, Free Drakeo by Drakeo the Ruler, Da Fixtape by Da Cloth, The L.I.B.R.A. by T.I.,  Sinners & Saints by Rasheed Chappell & Buckwild, Black Schemata by yungmorpheus............... Polly by the Powder Keg by Chuck Chan & Pad Scientist, High Off Life by Future,  Memphis Massacre 2 by Duke Deuce, LSD by The Leonard Simpson Duo & Guilty Simpson, Funeral by Lil Wayne............ RAW UNKNOWN by Spectacular Diagnostics,  Nezzie’s Star by Eddie Kaine,  ShrapKnel (self-titled),  The Bluest Note by Skyzoo & Dumbo Station,  WUNNA by Gunna,  Meet The Woo 2 by Pop Smoke,  Fresh Air by UFO Fev & Statik Selektah,  Vito by Vince Ash, Avenues by Tony Seltzer & Adrian Lau, Spilligion by Spillage Village, GRIMM & EViL by GRiMM Doza, Closer Than They Appear by Lyric Jones, RUDEBWOY by CJ Fly, Wired Different by Ty Farris & Bozack Morris,  Rocket to Nebula by Killah Priest,  NO Blade of Grass by V Don,  I’m My Brother’s Keeper by Yella Beezy & Trapboy Freddy................. Carhartt Champions by Tree Mason, No Hook 3 by Dunbar,  Rowhouse Whispers by Ray West & Zilla Rocca,  Magneto Was Right #4 by Raz Fresco, DUMP LIFE by Tha God Fahim, Jay NiCE & Left Lane Didon,  FNTG: From Niggaz to Godz by Squeegie O,  PANAGNL4E, Vol. 2 by Los and Nutty,  Thank You For Using GTL by Drakeo & JoogSzn,  Adjust to the Game by Larry June, BETTER by Deante’ Hitchcock,  No Cosign Just Cocaine 3 by Ty Farris, Vangarde by Mr. Lif & Stu Bangas,  MSYKM by Tsu Surf,  Your Birthday’s Cancelled by Iron Wigs.................. LULU by Conway & The Alchemist, No One Mourns The Wicked by Conway & Big Ghost, Talk Soon by Nolan The Ninja, FULL CIRCLE by Medhane, Detroit 2 by Big Sean, Juno by Che Noir & 38 Spesh, Send Them To Coventry by Pa Salieu............... Marlowe 2 by Marlowe (L’Orange & Solemn Brigham), The Versace Tape by Boldy James & Jay Versace, The Balancing Act by Statik Selektah, Capital Gains by Willie The Kid, Deutsche Marks 2 by Willie The Kid & V Don, Keep Going by Larry June & Harry Fraud, The Sharecropper’s Daughter by Sa-Roc, Seven Times Down Eight Times Up by Elzhi & JR Swiftz.................... The Ghost of Fritz by Jamal Gasol, Don’t Feed the Monster by Homeboy Sandman & Quelle Chris, Anime, Trauma and Divorce by Open Mike Eagle, Brentwood by Poloboy Nunu, The Listening Session by Billy Danze & TooBusy, Midnight Sons by Zilla Rocca & Chong Wizard, A Piece of Mine by Bub Rock, The Rock Period by Bub Rock, WINTER by DJ Muggs, Bartier Bounty 2 by Sada Baby, Cincorginals by Tobe Nwigwe, Director’s Cut (Scene Three) by Ransom & Nicholas Craven, Rather Be A Real One by Vic Spencer.............. Exhibit Q by Deniro Farrar, After 12 by Che Noir, Blank Checc by Baby Money, Jesus Is My Homeboy by YL, The People’s Champ by Flee Lord, In The Name of Prodigy by Flee Lord & Havoc, Culture Over Corporate by Uptown X.O., Sell Sole 2 by Dej Loaf, Progress by Struggle Mike, Merry Wickmas by Shawny Binladen, Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From by Donsmith, Serene by VRN Hayes, In My Life by Dat Boi Vic,  Ho, Why Is You Here? by Flo Milli, Limbo by Aminé........................................thank you, and cheers to a happier, healthier New Year. 🙏