#anyway An finds out about these kids and making proper introductions

[glassrowboat]

Ale. Shaw.

Basically, it's just a small teaser introduction of my genshin OC. Please enjoy <3

Shaw found herself staring at the sailors before her, watching them slam their cups against each other so hard ale splashed out of the rims. Spots of alcohol markings the docks like polka dot fabric. It was a pattern she never cared for, but couldn't help but compare this sight to.

They were so unabashed, tipping their giant mugs back to gulp down every last drop. Licking their lips and wiping their mouths clean with dirty, sweaty sleeves rolled up to their elbows.

Is this what father meant when he said sailors are a rowdy bunch?

The thought had Shaw looking down at her own cup, staring down at the yellow liquid as it sloshed with every twitch of her hand, every turn of her wrist.

“Are you just going to stare at it all day or join in on the fun, Lady Prudence?”

A sigh as Shaw looked up at the pirate, her giant smile handed out without a hint of hesitance. Teeth peeking out of her lips, gums on show. It was obvious Beidou had never been told she needed to practice her smile in front of a mirror. To appear demure, lady-like, proper.

“You know I don't care for that title anymore, captain.”

Beyond cocked her head to the side, that same grin on her face all the while. “Well look at you, being brave enough to snap at someone without that redhead of yours around.”

Shaw placed the cup down, letting it teeter on the crate she found herself sitting on. Normally, she would prefer a chair, but the only one around was a three-legged stool that wobbled so much it was impressive it hadn't accidentally tipped someone off the dock before.

“I don't understand how you can stomach this foul brew.”

“You make do with what you got. Plus, it's cheap and gets the job done, even if it tastes like piss.”

Shaw found her nose wrinkling, skin scrunching up at the mental image that passed her by. “Don't put that image in my mind. Not when I didn't ask for such.”

“You're the one who joined the crew. Means you gotta get used to our ways.”

“Key word being: temporarily. I temporarily joined the crew.”

Until she finds something else to do with her time, with her life, but for now, mora was needed to get by.

That's just how it is.

Beidou picked up the mug Shaw had just been holding, looking down at it like she was about to swallow it down the same way the other members of the Crux have been doing, but instead she held it out to Shaw. Waiting for her to take it.

“Come now, kid. You gotta have some fun in life. If not, then wouldn't it be a waste to have run away from home the way you did?”

“I hope you know every time you mention that little fun fact about me, I start to flirt with the idea of tipping that boat of yours over.”

Beidou’s eye flicked down to Shaw’s hydro vision, hanging from her jacket with a single yellow ribbon attached. Bright, pure, and an innocent color compared to the black and red Shaw usually found herself adorned in. At least these days, anyway. “I'd prefer you not.”

“Then don't tempt me, captain.”

Taking the cup from Beidou, snatching it away, Shaw found herself looking back down at the murky drink the way she had only moments before, only to find herself taking in a sharp breath and tipping it back as it emptied down her gullet.

Beidou was right. This taste was rancid. Shaw wanted to wash it off her tongue with water, but all she did was try and keep her coughing down as Beidou gave her back a hearty slap.

“There you go, kid. I wouldn't even think for one second you were a lady if I saw you drinking like that.”

Glaring up at the boisterous woman as Beidou turned her back, walked back to the other sailors without a hint of worry to the way she carried herself, Shaw found herself trying to fight back the twitch of her lips curling upwards.

Wouldn't even think for a second she's a lady, huh? Maybe she can get used to ale, just for the sake of it then.

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

I have full executive authority to modify my text posts for another audience - to express the exact same sentiment but in words that the new audience will understand. To translate, if you will, from "broad and unknown Tumblr audience" who speak the Tumblr lingo and dialect and who could be literally anybody, to "close family with a humongous bunch of shared experience and similar language to talk about them," who share my worldview and understand what I'm saying without getting offended by a caveat I forgot to include or a specification or detail that I thought was unnecessary. (E.g. on Tumblr I might say "my friend X", but to family I'd just say "X")

Translation from one to the other, and vice versa, is necessary for both clarity and brevity. Different audiences require different approaches.

Tumblr audience might have sentences providing caveats or clarity or introduction to a concept that the family audience already knows or doesn't need. For brevity, I would cut those out, but I might also add sentences to help with transition or to aid in pacing of the ideas, concepts, or story. (This also goes for fic; is the fic for fans only or is it friendly to fandom-blind readers? Same story, told in slightly different words sometimes.)

But they are still my words and all those words remain as true as they were in the original form (assuming I didn't decide to lie to one group). In fact, if somebody had access to both versions (and understood both), they could see more of my mind, heart, and will than otherwise; for example, my willingness to even do such a thing as translating or providing two different versions. A family member who forgot my relation to X might be reassured by the label "friend" when describing her. (It might also mean a lot to the friend, if she read both accounts.) It always helps to see further caveats, examples, side notes, details, or even just different phrasing that I thought would help one group's perspective but wouldn't be too useful for the other unless they were doing a deeper study of my words, for whatever reason.

Now if I DID decide to lie, of course, you can't believe either version (or any new one I came up with), because now I'm a liar and you can't trust anything at all. But assuming I'm not a liar (and nobody has messed with my words, or it's not an outright faked screenshot or deep fake or whatever) - assuming I am truthful and you trust me (and/or my messenger), you can learn a lot from the differences of how I convey the same idea.

Between the two versions I might also do things like update typos or accidental occurrences of misgendering, clarify grammar, institute proper capitalization, and so on.

It makes me think of a post I saw once about the differences between Hunger Games books and movies; how the books tell a story of how awful war is to kids, and how awful the capitol is to make them have a love triangle to survive, and how awful it is for them to sit back and watch it as entertainment. And how the movies have us sit back and be entertained while children have a love triangle and fight each other. It seems like a classic case of "movies butchered the books," but the author was actually involved in and had quite some say in the production of the movie. Looking at them, they both together tell a more powerful story than otherwise. I'll see if I can find that post because it was a JOURNEY.

Anyway. The author has ultimate authority to translate their work to different audiences, with different emphases and details, whether the work is a Tumblr text post or an essay or verbally telling a friend what happened to me today.

Same goes for the Lord Jesus Christ, the word of God (John 1). (For one thing, translating God Himself into human form while preserving his divinity? Major translation skills there.)

The four gospels are an example of this; Matthew, for example, is addressed primarily to the Jews and includes many extra details, adding things like "BTW this was in fulfillment of XYZ prophecy" and including the genealogy through David and all like that. Luke is written by a Gentile to Gentiles, and tells similar stories but often with different details.

Only one gospel mentions that when Jesus fed the five thousand, it was at evening; only one mentions that it was a little boy who had the five loaves and two fishes; when Jesus asks a disciple what they're going to do, only one gospel mentions that Jesus said it "to try him."

John is far more focused on Jesus' divine nature, including many stories not included in the others. Different details, different emphases, different audiences, although ultimately, all four are available to us who have lived after the first century AD.

The gospels also show off another aspect of the author having final authority to translate while still being pure, truthful, and accurate: quotations from the Old Testament.

The OT was written in Hebrew. Jesus reads from a Greek translation and calls it Scripture. (I.e. equally as inspired as the original.) The apostles and writers of the New Testament often do likewise.

The same can be true of other translations as well. Translations into Latin, into German, into French, into Old English, into Early Modern English... God is the master of language. He created it, after all. Jesus is the word. All Scripture is inspired and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness...

But only the author has that authority. If I tell my sister one thing and she tells my friend something in anything other than my own words, it may still be true; but it's slightly less true than my own words. Hopefully, usually the difference is negligible, but in a contest, anything I've ever said or written on the topic is more accurate than what somebody else said.

Hence, if there's something strange about the story my sister tells, my friend would do well to take it with a grain of salt (or more than one, if she knows I have a bad relationship with my sister.) If not, this can pass from one to another like a game of telephone until it devolves into gossip that's wholly untrue, outright malicious, etc.

I and only I retain the right to point to two different versions of my words and say both are equally true. My sister can't say "her words and mine are equal" unless she was there, and even then, any differences would be down to her own different perspective (and level of honesty), not mine.

You never know when somebody might embellish a Bible translation. I hear Satan has quite the interest in perverting God's words (just see Genesis 3). Compare your translation carefully with both itself and others.

On that note, let me share some comparisons to get you started.

One of them has to be wrong. What do you think?

[dumb-phone-diaries]

So Friday morning my phone shit itself. I'd been considering moving to a dumb phone but wasn't really expecting to have to make a decision quite so quickly, but here we are. Since I'm still chronically online though, I've made this blog to document my experiences and see how I go and how long I hold out before I cave and just get another smartphone I guess.

I've just been becoming more and more tired of finding myself scrolling mindlessly down apps I don't care about, that are feeding me content I don't want to see, and more adverts than posts by people I care about. I've become tired of constant software updates, planned obsolescence, and my battery running flat by 3pm every day. And now the introduction of AI generated content. If no one can be bothered to create it why would I bother to look at it, y'know?

So yesterday I went and bought this beauty. She's a Nokia 325 4G in "Future Dusk" (that's dark purple) and she cost $89.

This was the most up-spec phone I could find that didn't run android (or ios). She has a 2mp camera! I'm thrilled with how grainy and creepy the photos look, but i am going to need to get a proper camera, which is not a bad thing. I've been sussing out some options and I think I've found a cool Canon compact on Marketplace.

I've gotta tell you though, this feels like it has less personalisation options than my old 3315. It probably doesn't though. although what ever happened to a little hook on the corner so i could attach a wrist strap or a little flashing hello kitty charm or whatever? rude.

The predictive text feels very clunky, there doesn't appear to be a way to save custom words in the dictionary, which i definitely feel like the old T9 did. There's no emojis so we're back to texting ascii art, which is fun tbh.

Ring tones are limited but you can set MP3's as ring tones so that's fine. The standard text tone I've set is actually very cute, it sounds very magical, and receiving text messages is suddenly very exciting. especially since I've become so used to messenger.

Oh wait! I've just figured out how to add words. Great. So like, even as someone who's used this kind of tech before, there's still a little bit of a learning curve as I reacquaint myself with it.

There's no way to move menu options around to suit my preference as far as I can tell but there aren't that many of them so it's not that much of an issue.

The big challenge I'm facing is how to listen to audiobooks. I've become rather reliant on listening to audiobooks in order to get tedious tasks done. It's honestly something I dreamed about as a kid and audible basically saved my life, I'm not even exaggerating (much). This little phone can play mp3s, and there are ways to convert audible files to mp3 but having a 30 hour long mp3 with no way to skip back and forth on the track is not especially useful, and there's also no way that i've found so far to change the play speed.

There are MP3 players capable of running audible, but that also means they're capable of running all the other apps that I don't want to be able to have access to. I don't feel that I'm addicted to my phone precisely but I also don't have a lot of self control as regards the bad habit I've developed of reaching for my phone any time my hands are not otherwise engaged. If anyone out there knows of some ways around that please let me know!

Anyway

Please appreciate these grainy-ass photos I took with the phone's camera of my dog Tillie, and some Daffodils growing in my garden.

[sophieswundergarten]

I really want to see Curtain and S. Q. incorporated into the Benedict household, but, like, in that kind of way that would happen if your weird uncle that you hardly ever see moved in.

He just shows up with all of his suitcases and conscripts Rhonda to help him carry them into the first bedroom he can find situated farthest from the main house. He rarely comes out, and if anyone knocks he will not answer until they have opened the door, at which point he will become very annoyed and ask what they want in an irate tone. One day (an indeterminate amount of time after he moves himself in) Kate drops down into his room via the air vent and S. Q. is just. There.

Kate, being Kate, just waves at him and then turns to ask Curtain her question (if he'll teach her how to do magic tricks). Curtain shoos her out immediately, avoiding comment on whether or not he knows magic, and she goes, passing Reynie in the hall.

"Oh hey, when did S. Q. move in?"

And Reynie's like "S. Q.??? What do you mean he's 'moved in'?? Since when???"

Kate shrugs "I don't know, that's why I was asking you. Anyways, do you know where Constance has been keeping the glitter?"

Reynie directs her to the appropriate place (a stash in the hallway linen cupboard, one in the bottom left section of the spice rack, and under Constance's bed), and runs off to find Mr. Benedict.

Now. You must understand, that for the purpose of this wildly contrived scenario, the kids all forgot to mention that S. Q. is legally Curtain's son. They barely even said his name, partly because Reynie felt so terrible about their whole relationship, and partly because there were so many things going on. So, when Reynie gets to Mr. Benedict's study, he's like "Mr. Benedict, why didn't you tell us S. Q. is living here too?"

Mr. Benedict: "S. Q.? Isn't that the boy from the Institute? What do you mean he's living here? Of course, he's welcome, but I would like to know why, before taking any more children into my home."

Reynie: "I don't know, Kate just passed me in the hall and said he's living here now. I think he's in Dr. Curtain's room."

This makes Mr. Benedict even more confused and a little bit worried, since he knows how little Curtain likes children in general, and hurries to his room.

Mr. Benedict, knocking: "Nathaniel, the children seem to think you have brought a child from the Institute with you. Could you please open the door so we can talk about this?"

Curtain, as Mr. Benedict is the only one he'll open the door for: "Of course I brought S. Q., he's my son. What about it?"

Mr. Benedict, clutching onto the doorframe with all his might and striving to stay in a standing position: "Oh, your son?"

Curtain: "Hm, yes. S. Q., come here, meet your uncle."

Mr. Benedict is on the floor before the poor boy even crossed the room.

Curtain, staring dispassionately down at his brother: Oh, drat. I guess we'll have to wait for him to wake up. [looks over at S. Q.] I hope you know you've made him very happy. Now lets see if he can stay awake through a proper introduction."

When Mr. Benedict wakes up, he is completely overjoyed and just vibrating on the spot about the whole situation and S. Q. kind of. Awkwardly smiles at him? And Mr. Benedict's down again.

Curtain, sighing and this time just nudging him with a shoe: "Honestly, S. Q., why did you do that? I mean, I know you can't help it, but could you, I don't know, maybe try not looking at him? If this keeps happening I'm never going to get anything done."

This time, when Mr. Benedict gets up, he takes a couple of slow, deep breaths and smiles at S. Q. as calmly as he can.

Mr. Benedict: "I'm sorry about that, my dear boy, I am just terribly excited to meet you. Would you be alright if I hugged you?"

And, of course, S. Q. says yes very shyly, and then Curtain has to catch him when Mr. Benedict nearly falls asleep again.

[en-scribed]

VEGA - Falling Eagle [short fantasy snippet]

A character introduction for a story co-created with @heirmyst about personified immortal Stars secretly living on Earth. Previous posts: [SUN] [ARCTURUS] Next posts: [POLARIS] [ABYSS] Word count: 1505

V could tell exactly when the rain began to fall, because suddenly, everything hurt like hell. 

Pulling their vest tighter over their own head, they cast envious glares at the other people walking around the park; surprised evening joggers speeding up as they scrambled toward shelter, relaxed couples with their well prepared umbrellas, kids jumping in puddles without a care, and… 

The resentment faded as quickly as it surfaced and V sat back with a pang of guilt. Wishing their own eternal Star woes on innocent humans should have been a worn out habit by now.

They returned their gaze to the scene with fresh eyes, this time with a smile. No matter what madness plagued the skies, humans would always find some way to stubbornly return to their day. 

As if to punish V for the scrap of happiness, the lamp posts flickered. Dark clouds invaded every free inch of the sky, escalating the drizzle to a proper storm. 

V scrambled to stand with a cry of surprise, keeping up the vest over her head even when it became useless. She searched their vicinity for cover, summoning forth the barest hint of a forcefield that would keep her safe in the meantime and still be out of onlookers’ sights. 

The rain cut through it like it was nothing. 

They willed themself to not scream as the frigid pinpricks splashed mercilessly across their face. “Giving me no choice, are you?” 

As they ran to take shelter beneath a closed ice cream stand, they kept thinking, Everything about this is wrong. Rain wasn’t supposed to sting this much. Why was it raining so much this close to summer anyway? Finally safe and catching their breath, they took a peak at their poor old vest, soaked beyond repair and… ever so slightly stained with an inky purple. 

The same color as whatever attacked the sun a few days ago. 

“Shit,” they said under their breath. “That’s… probably not normal.”

The train of thought ended there. V couldn’t think, after this long spent outside in night rain. They needed to go home. Everything would start making sense once they were back home.

If they could get there before the storm ended them. 

They steeled themself, watching the scene before them past the raindrops. People left the park in increments, knowing the weather was only going to get worse. Everyone set off toward home with such remarkable calm; V, the Star with the eternal flames at his disposal shouldn’t have blinked twice.

And yet… one glance toward the screaming, circling murk in the sky froze him in place, making him feel unfamiliarly, painfully small, because away from the shiny towering pillars of Isle Andromeda, that’s what they were. Did they really want to step out of this makeshift shell and face… whatever unforgivingly cold fury it would spear them with?

Unless they didn’t have to. 

V let the frankly insane idea settle and flashed a smile at the sky. “One way or another, I’m going home,” they said to themself, half convinced the storm would hear. “But first… this one’s for Sol.” 

They emerged from beneath the stand and tossed a single burst of flame into the clouds. It barely made a dent in the black clouds, but V didn’t care; it satisfied them either way. 

Wasting no time, they were a blue lightning bolt, off like a shot through the frantic, wide awake streets of Moldavite Bay.

I need to go home, they repeated to themself until it blocked out the deluge and the numbing pain. They knew it would be worse if they stopped. I need warmth. I need light. I—

A crash. Metallic weight pushed into her and screeched to a halt with a piercing horn, catching her at just the right moment to knock them off course. Too soon, V was on the ground, nestled within the glare of car headlights… back to appearing inoffensively human. They didn’t have to fake the gasps of pain; the freezing rain made that perfectly believable.

He lifted his head from the concrete and stared skyward, wishing for an early dawn to end the misery. “Why now?”

“I’m so sorry!” A young woman had rushed to their side, jolting their thoughts back to Earth. “I just got off duty and… I don’t know, I didn’t see you at all! Are you okay?”

V tried for a smile as she pulled them to their feet. They noted the woman’s white coat. A lit up sign reading Bukhari Bay Hospital flickered under the storm. As if that wasn’t enough, people nearby had stopped to stare. Just their luck. Couldn’t the universe give them a second to breathe lately? 

They took too long to answer. 

“It’s alright! Don’t panic!” the doctor instructed, clearly not encouraged by the lack of response. She promptly led them inside the hospital building.

“Wait!” they said quickly, regaining their senses as the dry roof above let them think again. Realizing how bad this looked, they didn’t dare to make any sudden moves to make it worse. They squinted at her name tag. “...Dr. Bukhari. It’s good! I’m all in one piece.” 

She raised an eyebrow. “Should I be worried about how firmly you insist on that?”

“Please,” V said with a laugh. It wasn’t as if a measly moving car could deal them even a scratch. “I think I’d be able to tell if I broke anything.”

She scanned them with a keen eye, leaving no stone unturned as she checked them for damage. V stood up straight and held their breath, hoping they hadn’t left any gaping holes in their body. V loved humans and their relentless instinct to take an interest in every passerby, but not when the scrutiny was directed toward them. 

“I can’t see anything too severe,” she conceded, disengaging and moving toward the reception. “Still. I feel awful. What’s your name again?”

“Victorin Oltak,” they answered, the nonsense cover name they picked for formal documents just because it shortened to V. Olt; a pun in plain sight that still carried a nice ring to it. Perfection.

Dr. Bukhari nodded toward the receptionist, who pulled out their file. V knew it was only more forged bullshit courtesy of the people on Isle Andromeda, meant to make their existence look less suspicious. She scanned their file quickly. “You have a brother?”

“Oh, him. Yeah, he’s great,” they said. The ‘brother’ in question, listed in their emergency contacts, was just Arc, a convenient person to pop into the city and cover their tracks in case anything happened. Despite his complaining, there was no one else V could think of to fill that role.

If the doctor called now, V didn’t know if Arc would be free to answer, but thankfully, she left it at that and put it aside. “Noted for next time. You’re sure you don’t need anything else?”

“I need to go home,” they said, and winked at the doctor. “I’ll try not to be hit by any cars on the way back.”

She nodded. “It’s honestly miraculous that you’re perfectly fine, but I won’t complain. Take care!”

The rest of the way, V had the dreaded task of walking home, because the lightning trick had proven too much of a gamble. Luckily, the raging downpour had subsided enough that the numbness was only a minor inconvenience, kept away by the subtle barrier of flame they were able to summon. It did an okay job of warding off the inexplicable pain until finally, finally, they reached home.

Smack in the middle of the city, the unremarkable little ground floor apartment greeted them. No Star of sound mind would call it a home, but fortunately enough, V had long since given up the pretense that he was a Star of sound mind. 

They switched the lights on, taking in the much needed sustenance as they sank into their living room couch. 

Her gaze shifted to the open window. Instantly, the sight of the settling storm filled them with such visceral revulsion; they wanted it far, far away from this cozy space they had carved out for themself. But they couldn’t find it in them to pull the blinds closed.

They needed to watch the sunrise first. 

Only a few days ago, the sun had been overtaken with dark tendrils, and V did not have any high hopes for what that meant for Sol. Even when it subsided, even when the sun rose the next day and the day after… the clouds remained, refusing to let it shine through the way it should have this time of year. It was easy to ignore most of the time, but now… there was no way to deny that V missed their best friend far too much.

Hours ticked by. The stormy, relentless night pushed on.

V took a page out of the humans’ book and ignored the disaster to go about their day, in silent wait for an unobstructed sun to tell them everything would be okay.

[usergreenpixel]

JACOBIN FICTION CONVENTION MEETING 29: NAPOLEON’S PYRAMIDS (2007)

1. The introduction

Well, hello again, dear Citizens! Welcome back to Jacobin Fiction Convention because it is now back in session!

Okay, first I will get one thing out of the way. I’m doing much better than I did in summer, hence the decision to resume my reviews. And what better way to make a comeback than to get the promised things out of the way first?!

On that note, I introduce to you the topic of today’s meeting: “Napoleon’s Pyramids”, a novel in the adventure genre set in the Egyptian campaign. Now, Directory years don’t have a good reputation in the Frev community, but technically those years are still officially Frev, hence my decision to include this book in the Jacobin Fiction Convention category.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure some people in my audience already know it, but I LOVE adventure stories, so when I stumbled across this book on a quest to find more Frev/Napoleonic media to review, you can bet your ass that I got excited!

Also, its resemblance to an Indiana Jones story initially drew me in, as I used to like the first Indiana Jones movie as a kid (not so much now) so there is some nostalgia involved here as well.

Luckily for me, I managed to find the book in pdf format here:

Then I did more research and it’s available in Russian too, mainly online and sometimes in paperback form, so my fellow Russian speakers who aren’t good at English can find the Russian version!

Is it worth looking for though? Well, let’s find out.

This review is dedicated to @mamelukeraza .

2. The Summary

Here’s the summary from Amazon and, apparently, the back cover of the book:

What mystical secrets lie beneath the Great Pyramids?

The world changes for Ethan Gage—one-time assistant to the renowned Ben Franklin—on a night in post-revolutionary Paris, when he wins a mysterious medallion in a card game. Framed soon after for the murder of a prostitute and facing the grim prospect of either prison or death, the young expatriate American barely escapes France with his life—choosing instead to accompany the new emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, on his glorious mission to conquer Egypt. With Lord Nelson's fleet following close behind, Gage sets out on the adventure of a lifetime. And in a land of ancient wonder and mystery, with the help of a beautiful Macedonian slave, he will come to realize that the unusual prize he won at the gaming table may be the key to solving one of history's greatest and most perilous riddles: who built the Great Pyramids . . . and why?

By all accounts, this book should have been right up my alley! I mean, we have adventures, ancient artifacts, mysteries and clues! What could possibly go wrong?!

(Spoiler alert: A LOT. More on that later.)

3. The Story

First of all, I didn’t really like the beginning of the book, mostly because the narrator (Ethan Gage) really takes his precious ass time to dive into his backstory and explain how he ended up at a table playing that fateful card game. I’m talking about two pages of backstory before finally getting to the fucking point!

Don’t get me wrong, a proper introduction is important to me personally, but maybe my problem is the fact that I prefer to receive a character’s backstory over time, bit by bit. Otherwise it gets a bit too distracting for me, especially when Gage stops narrating to crank out a few pages of his damn autobiography before returning to the actual events at hand.

Also, unfortunately for this book, the comparisons to Indiana Jones don’t imply anything good here. It simply reads like an extremely predictable adventure story that desperately tries and fails to be engaging and fun while treating really old orientalist tropes like a checklist (mysterious Egypt, hot slave girls…). Even the cliffhanger ending is predictable as shit.

Moreover, there is almost no suspense. Gage either conveniently shoots his target or gets conveniently rescued all the time. In short, he always wins, which is not what should happen in a good story because most people get bored with heroes who always win.

Last but not least, too many coincidences and everyone being connected to the point where my suspension of disbelief just went right out the window.

At one point Ethan Gage randomly encounters Sidney Smith, for example. Also he gets rescued by Nelson after a naval battle. And in a later chapter it turns out that the Romani with whom Gage had to hide at one point were the ones who alerted Gage’s future allies in Egypt about his arrival. Very fucking believable.

At this point, this book may as well be a soap opera where all the heroes are somehow connected!

Speaking of heroes…

4. The Characters

I don’t like Ethan Gage. He’s basically a knockoff Indiana Jones crossbred with a Mary Sue. Perfect sharpshooter, womanizer, spy, adventurer, apprentice of Benjamin Franklin. He has a lot of skills and connections and not enough justification for having them.

Trust me, even the fact that he’s a Freemason wasn’t enough for me to justify the fact that he just HAPPENS to know a bunch of important people.

Other than that, he starts out as a typical lone adventurer with no family who enjoys gambling and the company of sex workers. I was half expecting him to go full James Bond and be an alcoholic too, but luckily it wasn’t that cliché.

The Macedonian slave mentioned in the summary, Astiza, is a slightly more interesting character, even though she’s not free from clichés. Starting out as a beautiful mysterious slave girl, she is revealed to know more than she lets on and has a knack for practicing magic. Also she is later revealed to have known the villain of the book… Welcome to Santa Barbara, folks!

As for the villain, Count Alessandro Silano is presented as this master manipulator and a looming threat who wants to harness whatever secrets the ancient secrets and/or powers this medallion can potentially provide. In reality, however, he’s more of a hammy movie villain who likes to monologue, has no positive traits whatsoever has the same ability to survive the impossible as Gage does. Or maybe they both can just respawn, I dunno.

Unfortunately, “cliché” and “flat” are the best adjectives to describe most original characters in the story. Gage’s friend, Antoine Talma, is your typical intrepid reporter but at least he’s more relatable than Gage; Ashraf, a Mameluke Gage captures, is just a loyal servant who is there to conveniently swoop in and rescue Gage Deus ex machina style, etc.

It’s basically modern clichés served under the “sauce” of the Frev setting.

By the way, Napoleon is there as well and he gives me the same vibes as the Nazi villains in the first Indiana Jones movie. He only cares about people who are useful to him, doesn’t give a shit about his troops and also wants to harness the abilities that medallion potentially can provide so he can use those powers to CONQUER THE WORLD!

Most other historical figures only have minor roles, but I’m glad we got cameos of people like Kléber, Vivant Denon and other military men and scientists who were actually part of that campaign.

5. The Setting

Unfortunately, even the descriptions of settings leave a lot to be desired. They’re just blander than stale bread and I’m not even sure how accurate they are. Probably inaccurate as fuck though, if I’m being honest…

Paris is this city of vices like brothels and gambling houses and this setting is hyperbolic like we’re in a noir detective story.

Egypt is a treasure trove of orientalist clichés - a land of mysteries, cruel people, beautiful women and wise scholars who may or may not dabble in magic. That being said, I liked the fact that the book took a sledgehammer to clichés about harems.

6. The Writing

Ooh boy, I have some complaints here too. Aside from the distractingly long backstory tidbits I already ranted about, that is.

For example, basic French grammar and spelling have clearly left the chat because there are characters whose last names are spelled d’Liberté and d’Bonneville (de is only turned into d’ before vowels or the letter “h”) and at one point there’s a hotel called Le Cocq instead of Coq (rooster). The book was written in 2007 so it’s not like the author couldn’t look up the words and basic grammar that I learned in fifth grade!

These may seem like tiny mistakes, but if the author didn’t bother to look up the basics, then this makes me concerned about other mistakes in the novel that I probably missed. So yeah, take everything in this with a grain (or a barrel) of salt.

Last but not least, this:

This is where General Dumas and General Desaix make a cameo. Now, it seems fine… except there’s no prior mention of them being present in this scene at all before they speak their lines so… did these two just randomly poof into existence or something?

Also, these two suffer from Delayed Introduction Syndrome ™️, which means we don’t find out who the fuck these men are until a few chapters later and we don’t get any descriptions of them before that either.

Why is this an issue? Well, other minor characters in the book do get a proper introduction and a brief description IMMEDIATELY or SHORTLY after being mentioned, so there is an inconsistency here, especially since some minor characters get TOO MUCH time dedicated to their descriptions despite the fact that they are not part of the main cast (d’Liberté in particular gets too much attention).

Also, some descriptions in the book are unintentionally funny, like a part where Gage compares a woman’s nipples poking out of her cleavage to soldiers sticking heads out of a trench. Yes, this is the real comparison in the book and it fucking cracked me up.

One thing I appreciate, however, is the fact that the narrative doesn’t shy away from describing gruesome injuries like traumatic amputations and sometimes the author does have the balls to permanently kill off an important character (said characters has a really gruesome death btw). I don’t mind blood and gore like this, but trigger warning just in case you’re more squeamish than me.

7. The Conclusion

All in all, instead of being a cool swashbuckling adventure, “Napoleon’s Pyramids” comes off as an Indiana Jones ripoff with clichés stacked onto one another like Jenga blocks, a cast of bland characters, mistakes that could be easily corrected by a few Internet searches and inconsistent writing.

Do I recommend it? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Please don’t waste your time on this novel.

Okay, with that said, it’s time to conclude today’s meeting of the Jacobin Fiction Convention.

Please stay tuned for updates on future reviews and stay safe.

Love,

Citizen Green Pixel

[thompsborn]

found a post tasm2 parksborn fic i started last year,,, and will for sure be finishing because i love it. anyway here's a snippet.

-

Way back when—as in, before Norman Osborn died and Harry took over the company; as in, before Ben Parker died and Peter shouldered the blame, the guilt, and, of course, the responsibility that is being Spider-Man; as in, before Mary and Richard Parker’s plane went down, when Peter still had his parents around to teach him how to brush his teeth and make his bed—back before all that, Peter and Harry first met.

At the time, Richard was working with Norman, with Oscorp, on something that would one day lead to his own son stitching together a suit and creating a life as an unknown vigilante. At the time, Richard pretended to be friends with Norman, for the sake of having a stable work place where he could build his ideas with the proper interest, the proper funding—and maybe he wasn’t pretending at first, but as the years went on and Norman proved again and again how cruel a man he could be, often forgoing humane methods in the hopes of accelerating into the right results, it became more and more of an act.

Harry Osborn still had his mother, right around this time. He’d have her until he was nine.

Peter Parker had a lot of questions, but he never doubted the love his parents had for him. That wouldn’t happen until he was a teenager, and even then, he would know the answer—it would be hatred towards himself trying to paint positive memories in a negative light, just to convince him that he was never happy. Of course, it would take quite a bit more hardship to reach this point. Like the loss of Uncle Ben. Like Captain Stacy’s death—and the death of his daughter, the death of the girl he loved, as well.

(All his fault, if you asked him. No question about it. Who else could there be to blame?)

But that isn’t the point, if there ever was one to begin with.

Way back when, back before anything and everything went to absolute hell, Peter and Harry met.

They were practically still toddlers, not yet old enough for preschool but definitely old enough to know how to, in one way or another, communicate from person to person. Mary had taken Peter with her while taking Richard his lunch at Oscorp, and Emily must have been doing something along the same lines, because there were two young kids who, upon seeing each other, were instantly infatuated with one another. Once the introduction was made between them, there was no going back.

When one took a step, the other followed. When one ran, the other sprinted along with them.

“Well,” Mary Parker had said, laughing bright and beautiful and lively, alive, alive, alive, watching her son excitedly toddle around with, of all people, the heir to Oscorp. “I guess they found their best friend.”

-

-

-

Sometime after—as in, after Ben Parker’s death and Spider-Man’s creation; as in, after Norman Osborn succumbs to his illness and Harry shoulders the weight of it; as in, after Gwen dies and Peter can’t find it in himself to blame Harry for it because he let both of them down—the two of them meet again.

There was a pale shakiness to the way Harry stood, his chin held high but lower lip tucked between his teeth for him to gnaw on, only allowing himself to show his nerves in the smallest, most subtle of ways. Peter felt like he was on the edge of a cliff and Harry felt like he’d already fallen off and all that they could seem to do was stare, seeing it all while seeing absolutely nothing, waiting for the other to cave.

Eventually, Peter’s shoulders slumped—tension bled out, and he became weary, became tired. “It worked,” he commented, gesturing vaguely in Harry’s direction. “You’re not all… green, and goblin-like, and actively trying to kill me anymore.”

Harry brought up a hand, felt along the expanse of his neck on instinct, and let out a slow, somewhat uneven sigh. “Yeah,” he said. “I heard… I heard you had something to do with that, Spider-Man.”

“Don’t—” Peter flinched back so hard, someone might have thought he’d been hit. “Don’t call me… I—I didn’t do anything for you as him, alright? That’s not what—” And he stopped, closed his eyes and sucked in a sharp breath and seemed to struggle with letting it out, knowing that Harry was watching. Harry, who hovered mere feet away with a sinking feeling and a growing expanse of confusion mixed with shoved down concern that he was trying so hard to ignore. Eventually, after seconds, or hours, or thousands of years, neither of them could tell, Peter managed to finish with, “I didn’t do—anything—as him. Not for… not for this. So, please, Harry, just—do not call me that. Okay?”

Slowly, Harry shook his head and said, “I don’t think I understand what you’re saying.”

Maybe, this could have been a moment of opening up, trying to make sense of things, bring pain and hurt and sorrow into the light and have it turned into a moment of clarity, of mutual understanding. Maybe, this could have been so much more than it turned out to be—but, as it stands, Peter just shook his head, scrubbed a hand over his features, and said, “Nah, it’s—it doesn’t matter, don’t worry, just… keep it to my real name, will you? Unless I fucked something up and you can’t remember it all of a sudden.”

“If only I could be so lucky,” Harry said—a sarcastic drawl, painted over uncertainty and the urge to ask are you okay? It worked well enough, at least, made Peter offer the slightest pull at the ends of his lips, clearly trying for a smile, even if it didn’t quite reach. The moment would have to be enough.

-

-

-

It wasn’t the only moment they got, though.

Harry settled back into life outside of the simmering anger he had been stewing in for so long—a front, of course, to hide the fear beneath, the fear of his own death, the very same demise his father faced. He learned how to run Oscorp without the influence of his father, sifted through the employees and got rid of anyone who made him uneasy, hired younger and more ambitious minds that aligned with his own ideals.

A letter is sent to the Parker’s house, inviting him to apply. Peter stares at it for a long time, considers taking up the offer, showing up and saying yes, I’ll work here, I’ll do it, but he can’t bring himself to.

For a while, they avoided one another—for one reason or another, whether they be good reasons or bad.

Eventually, it becomes impossible to avoid the magnetism pulling them together—a life spent as best friends, from children to pre-teens to teenagers to young adults to this; how could they ignore something so significant, so vital to the very foundations of who they were?

-

-

-

The first attempt was a series of text messages. A somewhat blurry photo of a magazine cover, followed by, Your hair looks dumb in this picture. And then, a few minutes later, I’m not being serious. I mean, I am, it does look pretty stupid, but I’m saying that in a funny way, not in a trying to be a dick kind of way.

A few hours passed, but Harry responded with, You sure know how to flatter a guy, Parker.

I’m insulting you, Peter said.

I’m being sarcastic, Harry replied.

Oh. That makes sense. You busy?

Almost always, unfortunately. Don’t you have weird Rhino guys to fight?

There was a good lapse of nothing, and Harry, sitting in his office at Oscorp and staring at the screen of his phone instead of looking at the pile of paperwork stacked on his desk, felt himself start to deflate. Until, of course, his phone then began to ring—and right in front of his eyes was Peter’s contact picture.

(To this day, he’s never answered a call faster.)

-

-

-

Peter never liked to answer questions that had to do with Spider-Man, no matter how often or how insistently Harry asked them—even when they were lighthearted, when they were meant to be fun. Matter of fact, the mere mention of Spider-Man made by Harry seemed to visibly distress him, and Harry couldn’t help but wonder why that was. Did it have to do with… before? With what Harry did?

He thought about it a lot—could never shake it, actually, as it pressed into his mind from every possible direction, never letting him even try to forget. Not that he would allow himself to forget any of it, either. No, of course not—he could never deserve that kind of peace, not after all he did wrong.

It boiled over when they met up to get coffee one day, when Harry miraculously didn’t have any meetings on his schedule and Peter didn’t have any classes until far later in the day. The night before, Spider-Man had been on the news, and cameras had managed to get a few shots of him before he swung away from a fight he’d had against some guy being nicknamed as the Scorpion, and the images captured… had not been pretty. Harry had felt his heart drop when he saw them—when he thought of Peter, under that suit and burned, broken, bruised, limping away with a wave of his hand and telling EMT’s that he was fine.

Harry tried not to bring it up—really, he did, because he knew that Peter didn’t like Spidey being brought up, but he could only sit there and watch Peter discreetly flinch in pain so many times until—

“I’m sorry,” he started with, curled fingers tightening around his mug of coffee, wanting to move his eyes but feeling as though his gaze was stuck in place, watching for Peter’s every reaction—the way he froze, brows furrowing together just enough to create a crease between them, as he looked back at Harry in blatant confusion. “For what I’ve done,” he elaborated. “And for whatever else I potentially did to make it so you won’t let me talk about… him. And I’m sorry for bringing him up now, but… how hurt are you?”

For a long, drawn out moment, Peter offered no response, only stared at Harry in surprise and obvious discomfort. “Uh… I—” He stopped, shook his head, and tried again. “I’m… fine. And it’s—you’re fine.”

With a frown, Harry said, “I don’t believe you. I saw the news coverage, Peter—it looked bad. And it’s obviously not fine or else you wouldn’t look like I just punched you whenever I try to talk about it.”

“That has nothing to do with you,” Peter replied. “It’s—I mean, I don’t know how to—I can’t really—”

“I just wanna know if you’re okay,” Harry cut in. Peter could stammer over himself for hours. Used to do it as a kid, never seemed to grow out of it, and the familiarity was appreciated, but he needed an answer.

Peter wet his lower lip nervously, averted his gaze down to the table as he started fiddling with a napkin. “It’s not too bad,” he decided on, a few moments later, offering up a shrug—only to wince, just a bit, at the movement. His eyes flew up, and he winced again when he saw Harry’s eyes narrowing. “Look,” he said quickly, “I promise it’s—it isn’t… it wasn’t—great—but I heal fast, and it’s getting better as we speak, so that—it’s—there’s no need to worry about it, alright? Or, uh—him. It’s fine.”

For a moment, Harry didn’t respond to that, simply sipped at his coffee and tried to maintain slow and even breathing. “Well,” he eventually said, setting his mug down with a clenched jaw. “I didn’t realize I was friends with half of a person, but since everything is apparently fine, I think I’m going to head out.”

“Wh—What? Harry—”

But Harry was already gone.

[randomsloredrops]

Random's Lore Drops - Thee Who Munches Thy Chocolate

wow i'm writing this at 11:41 pm and NOT three in the fucking morning REAALALLLLAllALaL?!/1/ anyways yeah so basically this is the last MAJOR character, and i'll explain why I always refer to them as 'The First Fallen Human' instead of the name that's basically become canon at this point. yup, that's right, we're talking about a canon character whose name starts with C and has so much importance yet so little at the same time due to not being in the story for basically all of the neutral, until the end of Geno, and only in recordings in true lab in paci.

oh damn this image is a lot bigger than i thought it was. oh well idgaf. anyways this is uhhhh according to the wiki 'Chara', or according to the tarot cards, 'Fallen' but like REALLY distorted. anyways cue cut off

aw yeah this is happening. anyways, since i'm more awake, had a hot chocolate, and am now blaring a megalo strike back remix into my ears (and occasionally the recently released MOTI's lyrical cover of A Mother's Love just cause it's a banger). anyways, this is the first fallen. YES I WILL KEEP REFERRING TO THEM AS THE FALLEN HUMAN, THE FALLEN, OR THE FIRST FALLEN STFU I HAVE A REASON YOU'LL FIND OUT. anyways, i'm sure that yall know this one kid. if you only know them as the evil something something, uh... Cowabummer! Anyways, time to use proper capitalization. The Fallen Human is the human we see in the introduction sequence, who runs up the mountain and falls in. As it's probably known, they get adopted by King Asgore, Queen Toriel, and Asriel (it doesn't fit to call him Prince Asriel for me for some reason), and become the first human to ever fall into the underground. If you didn't play Undertale and you're reading this, uh... get spoiled lmao you came here you get this. The Fallen has a super similar style to the 'eighth fallen', Frisk, who ACTUALLY HAS A CANON NAME. Their SOUL is IDENTICAL to the player's, or rather, Frisk's, and their coffin (yes THEIR coffin, not Frisk's) is empty, seeing as the body was taken elsewhere (despite being taken back into the Underground by Asriel, leaving only one person to do so). The Fallen is, 'not exactly the greatest person', a misanthrope, my source being that Asriel literally confirms that they HATE humanity, canonically capable of making scary face, and, uhhhhh lemme see... right i have to make another paragraph, too many words. Anyways, apparently really secretive, and persuasive (wiki's words, not mines), never stating their plans on camera. There's SOME evidence that proves that the Fallen does occasionally narrate the story, but aren't always red (technically hinting to the narrachara (or rather, narrafallen) hypothesis (i dont say theory just yet)). I'm sure you know, but (uhhh tw ig??) the Fallen had poisoned themselves to die so that Asriel could take the SOUL, cross the barrier, and... well... kill a bunch of humans. Apparently control is split between the SOUL and the Monster (i assume the human has more control than the Monster when SOUL absorbed) and uhh Asriel went and nuh uh-ed Chara, leading to the double kill of Chara's SOUL and asri dremr. Now, before we continue, just to let you know, the Fallen only got the name Chara because of the fact that, all the files for the character sprites (including unused) are called Chara, with the Fallen's being called TrueChara, and the pick-a-name saying that Chara is the true name (as a supposed-to-be reference to the sprite names), and is also the replacement name when the files have the player name erased (once again proving it was just a placeholder name/name to the sprites, not the fallen's name) now then onto geno In Genocide, we actually get to MEET the Fallen in person, who takes the name that you typed in at the beginning of the game. They reveal that Frisk's SOUL and Determination are what brought them back from the dead (yes Frisk's SOUL not ours). They state that they are the 'embodiment' of the feeling gained when LV (read STATS) increases, before saying to just erase the world and move onto the next. You get the chance to say Yah or Nah, but either way, it leads to Chara going byebye to the world and you and decking you in the schnoz with a knife. Fun fact! There's code in the game that actually reveals that Toby Fox intended to make the application erase itself once the geno route finished, but it never worked, leading to just the application closing. Afterwards, opening the game and waiting TEN FUCKING MINUTES. TEN. GODDAMN. MINUTES. will lead to the Fallen getting the confusion and choosing to make a deal. Frisk's SOUL, for the world back. ya say nah? they dip. literally. you have to OPEN the game again and wait another 10 minutes. ya say yah? well, the world gets restored, but paci route changes.

[allylikethecat]

Hi hi. So I take the term equestrian quite loosely for myself because I live in a town and am not rich I’ve never had the chance to actually have my own horse. But I’ve been riding horses since I was like 4. My cousin owns a stables that is a couple of hours away from me so that was my introduction to riding.

I don’t compete due to the lack of my own horse but I practice English style riding with show and cross country jumping styles. I’ve also dabbled a little in western riding.

Even though none of them are actually mine bc I rode and helped out at one stables for such a long time it definitely felt like some of them were. Especially there’s this one mare Daisy who is a proper little asshole. She will bite and kick and buck and barely even moves for the lesson kids. But I hopped up on her when I was a kid and we just connected. She was like a different horse altogether.

Anyway I am very much so rambling and I had one other thing to say to you which is and the medicine vinyl. Ik you said it reminds you of the colour of US pill bottles and I find that so interesting bc originally it was made to be the colour of h.

Anyway yeah btw also I am LOVING the daily prompts! Hope ur having a nice day :)

-♥️

Hey! Doesn't matter if you own a horse, or how often you ride! If you've taken lessons you're an equestrian in my book! That's so cool that your cousin owns a stable!

But damn you are much braver than me! I do NOT have the nerve to ever go cross country schooling omg I love watching it but the jumps are so solid? I also prefer English style riding (show jumpers unite!) but Pop is a jack of all trades (re: I get an idea and he is forced to go along with it lol) and we've done a little bit of everything - jumping is what we both like best though. He's a little peanut of a QH that I never had any intentions of buying but is the absolute love of my life, and as a QH I'm so lucky he is so versatile and is game to do a little bit of everything, English and Western, as long as he doesn't have to go through any kind of water including puddles 😂

It's always so special when you meet a horse that you just ~vibe~ with and it's like oh you're my guy/gal. Daisy sounds like such a mare lol was she chestnut as well by chance? I know that they say once you become a mares person they will literally do anything for you.

I also used to have a chestnut Oldenburg mare that I did more upper level show jumping with but that ended in absolute flames and I sold her about a year ago (I'm not sure if I hated her more, or she hated me more by the end lol) 💀 I hope I can one day get another upper level horse especially with Pop getting older but currently I am still terrified to get on any horse that isn't him 😂 Also I am so sorry for rambling on about this I get so excited talking about horses 😬

Oooo you're so right! I'm not a vinyl person (I literally only bought the neon orange Medicine vinyl because i have a weird attachment to the song now after the A&E fic and wanted to frame the sleeve and hang it with all my other 1975 stuff) and completely forgot that was a thing... I feel like that makes it even more poetic that it's the color of medicine/pill bottles in the US now? Even though it probably wasn't on purpose? I have decided that I am going to read into the symbolism and pretend it was on purpose even though I fully made it up (Hey DH - you can steal my idea though and pretend it was on purpose if you want though!)

Thank you so much for following along with the daily prompts! It's been such a fun little exercise and I've really enjoyed working on them! I didn't expect anyone to even read them, and was only posting to hold myself accountable so to find out that other people are enjoying them as well is so special and cool!

Thank you so much for reading, your support and sending in these asks! I apologize for writing little rambling novels in response, just like horses man! They're the BEST!

❤️Ally

[foxlawed]

“I want you, I want you right now. I want you here. I want you in my bed, I want you tomorrow. And I want you the next day.” (Yup. Tonights mood is drunk af declarations of love. College era. After Nathan found out who Patrick was and Patrick had to win him over again)

@ofwings-andclaws

everything was great & life was a lie.

nathan had once again fallen victim to his own heart, had let it lure him into a trap of the worst kind. lies. he'd opened his heart, had bared his very soul to patrick, only to find out it had all been a lie. everything. all of it. it hadn't been fate - it hadn't been a coincidence, it ... wasn't anything special. just a rich little alpha kid's joke & nathan was the one paying the price for that.

that entire dinner to introduce the future of both the gray's and the ruthledge's.. had been terrible. nathan had to hold it together, had to sit & smile with a broken heart, because he was raised to be proper - to always be your best self. sit straight, write properly, enunciate properly... hell, they'd made him learn standard dance before he could walk. it was all about appearances & that was all nathan knew.

being a ghost moon.. being the only white fox in the entire history of gray's... being the only one a year late at law school due to his early struggles with the voices.. he'd pretty much accepted to stay on his own for the duration of his law degree, which .. was for the best. study, classes & sleep... some nights he'd still sneak out to get drunk, but that was about the worst he indulged in. enter patrick.

he should've known, though, because no guy - no alpha could be this sweet & love at first sight.. was a myth. his parents didn't love each other when they met & they ended up great together. patrick had charmed him, it'd been his own fault for letting him. he should've known it was a farce. nathan was not the type to be flirted with a lot. he usually never went anywhere without headphones, which was a first turn-off for most & then he didn't have the most outgoing personality to make up for that.

he wasn't shy per se, just ... used to being on his own - with only himself for company. he'd never really been allowed free time after school, so friends & experience were scarce. he hoped to change that at college, so... when he literally fell for patrick he thought that it was a sign & that someone was looking out for him. boy, was he wrong.

ever since that awkward dinner... nathan had been avoiding the alpha. he didn't want to see him, or speak with him. he didn't want to hear it. it didn't matter anyway, because they were bound to each other. it wasn't final or official yet, but nathan knew that he had zero influence on the decision, whether he liked patrick or not. the ruthledges & the gray's were looking for a unison. together they could do even worse better. no, he wouldn't be asked & no, he had no other choice, but to agree. it was bad enough he was the only white fox in the history of grays, the only gray who enrolled in law school a year late due to early struggles with the voices, ...there was no way out of this for him.

back on campus, nathan decided to go out at night, find a party & drink until he didn't remember his own name, but he didn't quite get as far, because patrick was way ahead of him. nathan was determined to ignore his existence, but patrick felt a little different about that & refused to piss off as nathan had put it kindly. he didn't want to hear what he had to say, he didn't want to hear the excuses, or an explanation. he'd lied. he'd deceived him.

"i want you, i want you right now. i want you here. i want you in my bed, i want you tomorrow. and i want you the next day."

admittedly, that was the most patrick had said about them since the introduction dinner & nathan - a lot less inebriated than he'd hoped to be... couldn't help but... but... listen. no. he was a liar, why shouldn't he lie now? he'd drunk, damnit. he's telling the truth.

"you lied to me. you lied. you hurt me and let me walk into that dinner knowing it'd be a disaster. you could've told me before." he was hurt, still & ...some would say pouting. but to him it felt like just punishment & besides, cute or not, promised to each other or not, nathan was determined not to let the other get away with what he did.

that said....

".... don't ever lie to me again."

[andpeanuts]

Imagine everyone in the magic community has a special phone with special apps for communicating with other magical people tbiendkwkf

Osama had no idea about it the whole community and found out himself thanks to jinn vfjdbfjhd (because Nana forgot to mention it and didn't bother introducing him to others...didn't even explaine magic theory because its too much of headache)

Aya and Hedwig knew there were others but others did not know about them because Nurry wanted to stay hidden, still he made sure they knew all they needed to know

[thewertsearch]

If you're using the collection I think you might have unlocked some stuff from the time period which Andy was interacting with the Fandom.

I did indeed!

Most of the news posts are pre-Homestuck, but interesting nonetheless. A lot of it's just housekeeping - announcements about donation commands, thank-you messages to contributors, short hiatuses from the comic, etc, but there's also a lot of interesting stuff to highlight.

Turns out Problem Sleuth really was bigger than I thought, enough for it to have millions of hits and a sold-out merch store.

I'd been assuming that Homestuck was Hussie's big breakout comic. Maybe it was, but they had a pretty sizeable following before it ever started.

Really everything that's happened so far [by the end of Act 1] probably serves as more of a prologue than a first chapter.

Hussie talks a bit about Act 1 after it ended, saying that the entire thing is essentially a prologue to the comic proper.

This is definitely the impression I got. The whole Act is just an elaborate tutorial sequence for John, after all.

Glancing backwards, I can't help but monitor my progress. 55 days, 247 pages (with 295 images). That's a little more than 5 images per day, which is almost the exact pace I set with Problem Sleuth over the course of a year.

Their pace at this point was an astounding five pages per day.

This is an average which includes time spent making gifs and Flash animations, so I'm kind of losing it over this. Webcomics are notorious for the exact opposite of this update speed, and there must have been a lot of optimization behind the scenes to make it work.

It's especially impressive considering that they were only updating a couple of times a week back in the Bard Quest days. They seem to have found their rhythm in early 2008, because this is a hell of a jump in productivity.

John's shirt, which of course appears to be Slimer from Ghostbusters, is actually a depiction of an Asian knock-off of Slimer called the GREEN SLIME GHOST. Rose's shirt was once a depiction of a character from a fake cute cartoon show which I totally made up called "Squiddles!". She then went about defacing this shirt to make it look mean!

We get a bit of flavor on the kids' symbol shirts. This newspost predates Jade's introduction by several months, so we finally have an answer for where the name originally came from, which I was wondering about earlier.

A familiar refrain with pages like this I have found is something like: "Is that all? Can I do anything else? Can I kill the imp? Is there an objective I'm missing?" The answer is, what you see is what you get! These are not really fully functional mini-games with the sort of objectives you would expect to see from such things. They are partially interactive pages in a story, leaning on certian traditional elements of gameplay to convey the story-purpose of the page.

Bit of commentary here about the 'playable' pages. They're intended to be interactive cutscenes, rather than actual games. There isn't going to be any 'hidden' content, just obvious beats that progress the story in a format that looks like a videogame.

We get a hint that there's a secret in Jaspers' flash, which apparently is no longer clickable on the website version of this animation. This pretty much immediately destroys my assumption above that these things won't have any hidden content in them.

It's not any secret lore or anything, though, just a cute little animation giving us a look into Rose's head. She really is an animal lover, isn't she?

This archive link to a poll on what items John should have alchemized no longer works, which breaks my heart :'( I'll see about finding it later, I guess...

Anyway, I'll be back here later, when there's more to read.

Someone remind me to check out the Blogspot later, too. It looks super wordy, and I wanna get back to the comic!

[fairytail-writing]

Dancing in the Rain

Summary: Evergreen’s family is hosting a party, and she invites the others. Freed doesn’t know how to dance, but Bixlow’s new friend does.

Notes: VAGUELY mentions ElfEver once! also, I pulled cards from my Oracle deck from this and... got these 2? which was perfect oh my gosh???

[ ORACLE DECK: The winter melts away ; the warmth of my love Spring is blooming. It’s beautiful ]

Dancing in the Rain

Winter is ending; with it, the flowers will come back into bloom, filling the world with colour and rainy weather once again. Freed doesn't mind the rain, the butterflies and fireflies that come out with it. He enjoys the season, actually - plus, his friend Evergreen kept telling him that spring was the season for romance. Maybe, this would be his season.

He wishes on the dandelions he passes, throwing his wishes away to the dandelion seeds, watching the wind carry them away. It’s a silly thing really, but he couldn’t help but to stop and stare at any dandelions he passed. He isn’t sure where he heard the stories, but he’d seen enough children make wishes on them to know how it goes. (Though, the kids often had strange wishes, full of robots or odd creatures. None of them were out here dreaming about romance, he’s sure.)

The winter melts away, and spring blooms in its place. Freed goes out more, hoping love will bloom within the flowers, hoping that the rain won’t drown out his wishes. He visits his friends more, even if Evergreen continues to tease him for struggling to find someone.

“Uuuugh,” Ever groans, laying across the table they sit at, “I have a dumb family event coming up, and I have to bring a partner. Obviously, I can drag along my friends, but - a partner?” She sits up fast, fixing her hair. “Do I invite Elfman?”

“Uh-” Freed stammers, thinking over the question, even though he doesn’t see the exact problem. “Yes?” He asks, uncertain, but Ever seems content with his answer. “Anyways, what about Bixlow?”

“Ah, he’s bringing a friend here. Wants him to join, I guess? They’ll be here…” She pauses, checking her phone. “...soon.” She settles on, and Freed quickly guesses they’re late. It’s not unusual for Bixlow to get lost or forget where they’re meeting, especially if he’s bringing someone along.

The two arrive in another minute, bringing along a bag and some drinks for the group - Freed doesn’t check to see what exactly they’re holding, too distracted by the man standing behind Bixlow. He’s tall. He has short blond hair, and a strange scar going over his face that resembles a lightning bolt. Bixlow introduces the man as Laxus, and the name immediately sticks in Freed’s head. Laxus. He’s kind of… pretty?

“Bixlow. New friend. You’re both invited to the party, of course.” Evergreen nods, adjusting her glasses, “You all have suits? Know how to dance?” She asks, squinting up at Laxus as he nods.

“Ever.” Freed sighs, putting his head in his hands, “I can’t dance.”

“Mhm, remember when Erza tried teachin him? Just spun him in circles!” Bix laughs at the memory, ignoring Freed’s flushed expression.

“Hm,” Laxus clears his throat, setting the bag of food down onto the table. “I could… teach you? I’m not an amazing teacher, but…” He frowns and scratches the back of his neck, avoiding the trio's stares. Freed blinks, wide-eyed, silent for a minute.

“Please do, or else he will step all over my feet.” Evergreen huffs, curiously looking through the bag. “That’s fine, yea? Freed?” She pulls out a muffin and looks back at the green-haired man, raising an eyebrow at him. Freed quickly looks away from Laxus and nods, thankful someone might be patient enough to teach him.

.

They meet again the next weekend, just the two of them, giving proper introductions and getting to know each other while sharing muffins and coffee. Evergreen was apparently easy to convince, and Laxus now knew Freed’s entire order at the group's favorite cafe - Freed wasn’t complaining though.

“So, you three have been friends for a long time then…” Laxus smiles fondly, and the expression surprises Freed. “It’s not weird with me here now, yea?”

Freed quickly shakes his head, eyes wide. “Not at all!” He grins, setting his iced coffee down, “You’re more than welcome to join us. Plus, if you can handle Bixlow, you can handle Ever.” The two laugh, falling into more conversation easily.

It’s not for another week that Laxus meets Freed at the park to practice dancing, finding him relaxing underneath a tree, eyes shut. He assumes Freed’s asleep at first and sits nearby, enjoying the bright sun. It is a nice enough day for this, only a few big clouds out.

“Really pretty, right?” Freed asks, watching Laxus. “It’s been raining for a while now. I'm glad it stopped for today." Laxus turns toward him, and their eyes meet. There's an expression Freed can't read, but it's quickly replaced with a nervous smile.

"Well, let's dance?" Laxus pushes himself to stand, brushing any dirt off of his pants. "If you're ready to, anyways. Just, watch my feet." He jokes, pulling Freed to stand also, and - Freed has to remind himself to breathe for a minute, not expecting Laxus to be so strong. They stand together, Laxus placing one hand on Freed's shoulder, the other sliding down to hold his hip, and Freed thinks he's really going to die now. There's no way he'll survive this dance.

They practice easy steps at first; forward, right, back, left, repeat. Spin slowly, watching where they’re moving, trying to avoid stepping on each others feet. It becomes easier over time, the stepping, the spinning. Time melts into quick steps and easy laughter, uncaring even when the clouds grow darker.

Thunder crackles, and the rain falls quick. Freed stumbles, falls into Laxus, and there's strong arms holding onto him. His face flushes a deep red, but he makes no move to pull away.

"Do you wanna go to this event... together?" He asks, craning his head to look up at Laxus. The other hums, smiles down at him, and nods. Spring love blossoms with a dance.

Maybe dandelions work after all?

[trensu]

Jon's Creeping Terror Fun Fact Corner!

You know how Cecil has his Fun Fact Science Corner segment on his radio show? Well, Jon has his own show produced by The Magnus Studio. It's an educational kids show all about the Entities of Fear!! It's a very specific kind of kids show. You know the ones. Those kids shows that children are absolutely mad for but any adult in their vicinity is left deeply unsettled by them? Yep. On the surface, the show seems fine but if any adult dwells on the content for more than five minutes, they are left feeling very very unnerved, especially since the host, one Jonathan Sims, seems more than a little unhinged half the time.

The show is so popular it gets almost 15 whole episodes! (It gets cancelled at 14 bc at that point it had received far too many retrospective complaints from parents to continue any further). Sometimes, the episodes even have special guests!! Although it got cancelled, you can obviously still find it on the internet if you know where to look. There's even compilations of all the show's best Unhinged moments.

--

The Vast Episode

Jon: Today's episode is about the Vast! And to tell us more about it we have Simon Fairchild visiting us. Kids, if you ever see this man in person, please run very far in the opposite direction.

Simon: Thank you for that warm introduction, Jon. Now children, who here likes ROLLER COASTERS?

Jon: And that's it for our special guest [proceeds to literally kick an old man until he's off screen] Do not trust this man and please be careful when going on roller coasters in the future.

--

The Lonely Episode

Jon, reading from the teleprompter: We have an expert of the Lonely with us, Mr. Peter Lu--what? No!! Why's he here? Get him off my set! What do you mean no? I don't care how much funding he gives the studio!! He tried to take Martin away!

[scene cuts off and starts back up with Martin sitting next to Jon, looking particularly sweet and cuddly in a knitted jumper]

Jon: Here we have m-my Martin, I-I mean my ASSISTANT Martin Blackwood. Say hi to Mr. Blackwood, children.

[Jon is a twitchy mess and cannot even look at Martin's direction. Martin looks flushed]

Martin: Er, yes, h-hello.

Jon: Martin has experience [this is hissed with all the venom he can muster] with the Lonely. He's going to teach us the best way to avoid that evil, conniving bast--

Martin, hastily cuts in: Yes, well! Kids, who do you have in your life that you love? It can be anyone! Your siblings, your pets, your friends! Anyone at all!

[at the edge of the set, just barely visible, Peter can be seen crammed into a cage gleefully guarded by Daisy]

(it's during this episode Jon finds out that he's not allowed to use naughty words on the show. All the stuff with the murder and the skinning and the worms and such is fine! Just no cussing. Jon is befuddled and aghast. This is why Hopworth was not allowed as a guest; he's a very swear-y man)

--

The Corruption Episode

[Jon is seen clutching a jar of ashes throughout the entire episode with absolutely no explanation as to what it is or why it's there]

Jon, gesturing manically: and that's why it's important to see a doctor when you're sick and have an exterminator on speed dial.

[Martin comes onto the scene with a worried look on his face. The screen goes to black for a moment, then reappears with Jon still clutching his jar but looking significantly calmer. He smiles at the camera and it almost looks normal]

Jon: To finish the episode, can you demonstrate the proper handwashing technique we taught you at the start? Be sure to tell your parents what you've learned about infection control and have them show you where the CO2 is kept in your home!

--

The Hunt Episode

Jon, earnestly happy: This is my best friend Daisy! She's going to help us learn about the Hunt. She's one of the bravest people I know.

[Daisy turns away to hide a shy smile before clearing her throat and starting in on a rehearsed lecture. The episode ends with her and Jon making the children repeat the "don't listen to the blood, listen to the quiet" mantra and also "all cops are bastards."]

(Basira, in post production: ...yeah, that's fair.)

--

The Flesh Episode

Parents are horrified when they hear their children singing "you are what you eat, meat is meat!" whenever they play after that episode airs.

(Martin: Just to be clear, we're encouraging cannibalism??

Jon: no! ...maybe? i don't know, Martin, they told me it tested well with the focus group children

Martin: yes, okay, but WHY did you come up with that jingle?

Jon: Don't look at me like that, I'm not crazy, Martin! I wouldn't just eat a person. But, well, if someone asked me to eat them like, after they died, I wouldn't necessarily say no...?

This conversation was recorded and leaked somehow. And that's how Actual Cannibal Jon Sims became a trending meme. He has to do a PR statement confirming that he "has never knowingly eaten a person" and that that was "a completely hypothetical discussion." This convinces as many people as you think it would.)

--

The Stranger Episode

Nikola: I don't much like children. Not enough skin on them to do anything really fun.

Jon: Why are you--how did you even get in?? S-Security! Someone come get her out of--

Nikola: oh, but I have information for the little ones! [she pulls out a basket of high-end skincare products and looks directly into the camera with her featureless face] These are the lotions that are best for Archivist flesh but I'm sure they work for the kiddies as well! You all want to grow up to have lots of beautiful skin don't you? Here, let me show you how to use them! [attempt to lotion Jon]

Jon: [flinches away] Security! O-or Daisy. DAISY!

[growling is heard and we get a flash of a wolfish Daisy body-slamming Nikola to the ground. The rest of the episode has Tim shoving Jon off screen and going on a rant about circuses and how to best explode them. This becomes one of their most popular episode amongst the children]

--

Breekon and Hope show up occasionally in the background of various episodes and become something like an Easter egg for fans of the show.

Anyway, I love the idea of kids adoring socially awkward, neurotic mess of a man Jonathan Sims. Jon is completely confounded by his popularity but also, he's glad of it bc that means the children will be more prepared if they ever encounter any of the Entities (most parents think it's all fiction, except for the ones who've had Encounters with one of the entities; Jon ends up with a sort of underground cult following comprised of survivors of fear encounters)

I blame @lemonisinplay (and Jonny Sims) for the entirety of this post, tbh. She came up with the name and half the stuff here XD

[softholand]

cherry flavored kisses - t.h

pairing: tom holland x youtuber!reader

summary: tom and harrison try to do your makeup while answering questions to know ‘who knows you better’

warnings: swearing, a lot of dialogue

words: 3.2k

a/n: this is absolutely not my favorite writing, but i still quite like it so, here you go!! lol i really hope you guys enjoy it, i love writing this series (can we call it that?) and i have so many ideas for it :)) please, let me know if you like it and want more of these <33 i think that’s it for now, enjoy!!

Another day, another video to film. This time you weren’t alone though, you had your boyfriend Tom and one of your other best friends Harrison with you, to film a video you had been dying to.

You were finishing setting up your camera to start recording when you felt two strong arms wrap around your torso. “Tom, stop! I have to finish this!” You chuckled, already knowing the owner of those arms. “Couldn’t resist, you look good from the back.” Before the warning, Tom swatted your ass, causing you to let out a muffled scream, which got the attention of Harrison, who was previously on his phone.

“C’mon, you guys will seriously keep flirting with each other during the whole video?” Harrison huffed, tossing his phone away. “No, we’re not!” You assured your blonde friend, but Tom had a different idea. “Speak for yourself, love!” He smirked, happy to annoy his friend. Rolling his eyes, Harrison said, “I already regret accepting this!”

Once your equipment was ready, you called Tom and Harrison, who got settled in your bed, with you between the two. “You guys ready? Did you turn off your phones?” You asked, not wanting to have anything getting in the way of your filming. When both boys assured you they had, you relaxed, pressing the small record button on the remote on your hand.

“Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel! Today I have two very special guests here with me. On my right side we have Tom Holland and on my left, Harrison Osterfield. I don’t think you’ve ever been officially to my channel before, Haz?” You asked Harrison, to which he responded, “No, I don’t think so! Hello everyone!” He said, flashing the camera an smile.

“Well, you guys are already familiar with Tom, so he doesn’t need any more introductions.” You sassed, laughing at his offended face. “Rude!” He said, before giving the camera a little wave. “Hi guys, it’s me again, Tom! I know, I know you guys have been dying to see me again, what can I say?” Your boyfriend let it out, taking complete control of your video.

“Okay, that’s enough, movie star! Can we actually start the video now?” You asked, Tom, letting out a laugh. “Yeah, yeah! Go ahead!” He rolled his eyes to the camera, but you could feel the small kick he gave your foot, wanting to make sure you knew it was all a joke. You smiled, and before you could say anything else, Harrison came through.

“What is the video about, by the way? ‘Cause, I don’t know if you guys know but we have absolutely no idea what we’re doing here.” The blonde said, pointing to Tom and himself. “Yes, they have actually no idea why they’re here.” You laughed, being met with worried looks from both of the boys. “I didn’t like that laugh,” Harrison exclaimed, being followed by Tom. “Should we be scared?” Asked your boyfriend, but you quickly shrugged them off.

“No, just shut up and let me tell them, and you, what you’d be doing. On today’s video...” you said, before getting the makeup box you had put together for this video, which was hiding under your bed. “You are going to be doing my makeup!” You exclaimed, laughing at the boy's surprised reactions.

“Haven’t you realized I’m not wearing any?” You asked, pointing to your bare face. “No! You know you look beautiful anyway, love!” Tom cooed, making your cheeks grow red. “Oh, shut up!” You rolled your eyes, flashing him a smile.

“I don’t like this!” Haz let it out, inspecting some of your makeup products. “Isn’t it fun?” You smirked, making him roll his blue eyes. “You’re kidding, right? How am I supposed to do this?” The blonde huffed. “Actually, this is a test to know if you watch my videos, cause you’ll have to recreate one of my looks.”

Tom and Harrison shared a look that could only be translated by the word fear. “You do makeup-related videos?” Tom asked, completely oblivious. “It was not a proper makeup tutorial, it was more like a get ready with me.” You smiled, trying to ease both of the boys' nerves. “Well, clearly you both haven’t been watching my videos, so it’s your fault you have no idea what to do.” You sassed, putting your tongue out.

“We’re fucked, mate!” Your boyfriend chuckled. “Don’t swear on my videos, Thomas!” You scolded him, slapping his arm. “Okay, so I’m gonna show a picture of the look you have to recreate but that’s the only help I’ll give. You can’t ask me anything related to makeup during the video, got it?” You questioned, to which they nodded. “Also…” before you could finish your sentence, Tom added, “There’s more?”

“Yeah, I’m going to be asking you questions about me while you do my makeup, to know which one of you knows me better.” You squealed, feeling the excitement in your veins. The boys didn’t seem to be so happy, especially Harrison, who claimed this was not fair, since Tom was your boyfriend, therefore know more about you.

“We’ve been friends for forever, Harrison! I bet there’s stuff you know that Tom doesn’t.” You said, getting an offended reaction from Tom. “Hey!” He protested, to which you rolled your eyes. “Can we start now, please? We’ve been here for 10 minutes already.” You pleaded, getting them to finally agree.

“Okay, where do you guys wanna start?” You asked, being met with confused glances. After a couple of seconds, you heard “Foundation!” and “Primer!”, all at once. “Yeah, primer! That’s exactly what I said!” Tom tried to cover it up but Harrison wasn’t having it. “Fuck off, Tom! I said it first!” Swatting the blonde's arm, you went back to scolding, “I told you two not to swear!”

While the boys started to choose between your selection of products, you took back your phone that was currently sitting on the bed, with the selfie you took with the look they had to recreate. “While you guys start on my face, I’ll ask the first question. What do I like more: sweet or salty food?” You asked, closing your eyes for Harrison to apply the primer on half of your face.

“Sweet!” Tom answered, squeezing some of your favorite primers on his hand, before applying it to your face. “Yeah, you’re like an ant. Always looking for crumbs of sugar.” Harrison responded, making you chuckle. “True, I have a very sweet tooth.” You smiled, before going to the next question. “What is one of my biggest fears?”

While they looked for a foundation, they answered, again at the same time. Tom said spiders, while Harrison said, clowns. “I mean, you’re both right! But if I had to choose it would probably be clowns.” You said, laughing at Harrison's little victory dance. “C’mon, you can even look at a spider, love. You always call me to get rid of them.” Tom protested. “Well, yes but I would rather have to kill a spider than a clown.” You tried to reason but ended up making the three of you burst out laughing.

When you finally recovered from your fit of laughter, the boys started with their foundation choices. “Wait, you only put your skin tone foundations here, right?” Tom asked, still trying to find the perfect one. “Yeah, I’m not that evil.” You laughed. “Can I use this to apply it?” Harrison asked, holding one of your beauty blenders. “What did I say, Haz? No makeup-related questions.” You smirked, hearing him groan.

“God, I hope this works!” By your side, Tom started spreading some of the foundations he had placed on the back of his hand. “Okay, next question! Am I an early bird or a night owl?” Harrison was quicker than Tom this time, “Night owl! She just doesn’t sleep. It’s ridiculous!” He complained, to which you scoffed. “I do sleep, but I’d rather stay awake until 3 am than having to wake up at 6 am.” You reasoned.

“Just admitted, love! You stay up ‘cause we have lots of fun in bed.” Tom winked, making your face grow red, and Harrison gag. “Seriously, Tom?! Ugh, disgusting!” The blonde exclaimed while you tried your best to calm your nerves. “You did not just say that!” Tom only shrugged, laughing at both of your faces.

“Moving on, what was the most embarrassing moment in my life? Oh no, I already regret that!” You said, scared about the answers you were gonna get. Tom laughed while trying very hard to blend your foundation with an eyeshadow brush. Great.

“The time you slipped and fell into the water fountain.” You instantly cringed, remembering the moment vividly in your head. “God, I hate that I told guys that!” You let out a groan, asking for Harrison’s answer. “I was gonna say when you walked in your underwear without realizing Tom was doing an Instagram live, but that's pretty good too.” Harrison laughed, making you blush at his words. “Oh my god, I had completely forgotten that!” You exclaimed, joining your friends in laughter.

“It’s okay, babe! You looked really good.” Tom stated, pecking your lips. You blushed, still getting flustered by his compliments. “Thank you!” Smiling, you kissed him back, before checking your face in one of your blushes to see how they were doing. “That’s actually not bad, good job, guys!” You high-fived them, laughing at their smug faces.

“What’s next, then?” You waited for an answer, which came from Tom this time. “Concealer?” He was so unsure of his answer that it ended up sounding more like a question. “I don’t know, is it?” You shrugged, glancing at Harrison. “I think so, all I know is after concealer, you have to contour,” Harrison stated, taking you by surprise.

“By your shocked reaction, I think we’re right.” Tom laughed, you and Harrison quickly joining him. “Okay, while you guys do that, I’m gonna ask some other questions. Ready?” When they both nodded, you continued. “What is my favorite time of the year?” Tom immediately answered, afraid Harrison would say it first. “Autumn!” Your boyfriend proudly said, while your friend's answer was “Christmas!”

“I do love Christmas but my favorite has to be autumn, it’s just the perfect temperature and the trees are all orange. It's beautiful! So, point for Tom!” Tom smirked, making Harrison roll his eyes. “Next one, what am I allergic to?” You asked, and that was the only question you weren’t sure they had the answer for.

Harrison looked at you as if that would give him the answer. “You don’t have any allergies.” He stated, to which you shook your head. “I have one.” At that, he stopped applying the concealer to your face, totally focused on his next answer. “I have no idea, Uhm, pollen?” The blonde tried, but he was wrong.

“Walnuts, she’s allergic to walnuts!” Tom triumphantly exclaimed, knowing he was right. “Realy?” Harrison asked, to which you nodded. “I had no idea, you know how dangerous that was? I could give you something with walnuts and kill you?” He inquired, making you laugh. “I wasn’t going to die, Haz! It just gives me bad itches.” You clarified, watching him nod.

When the boys moved on from concealing to contouring your face, that was when things started to go south. Tom chose a colorway too dark for your skin tone, while Harrison put so much on your face turned orange. “I’ll give you guys one tip, just ‘cause I don’t wanna look like a clown at the end of this video.” You told them, before explaining they could go back to the concealer to clean the mess they made.

Once everything seemed good, they moved on to blush and highlighters, and you to your next question. “How many tattoos do I have?” You waited for the answers, while the boys kept painting your face. “Two, your star sign on your finger, and a butterfly on your ankle you did when you were 16 and regret it since then.” Harrison proudly said, making you wince at his words. “Ouch, you didn’t have to go that hard, Haz!” You smirked, looking expectantly at your boyfriend.

“What’s your answer, Tom?” Taking a break from your face, he cleared his throat before answering. “Three, the two Harrison said and a rose on your hip.” The brunette smiled knowing that, once again, he was the only one right. “Another point to Tom!” You exclaimed while Harrison looked at you like you had two heads.

“See? I said this game wasn’t fair! How could I know you have a tattoo on your hip?” The blonde protested, making your roll your eyes. “That’s not an excuse! The tattoo is visible when I wear a bikini, Haz!” You tried to reason, but clearly, he wasn’t having it. “Oh, sorry I don’t pay closer attention to your body!” Harrison mocked, sticking his tongue out when you flipped him off.

“The rose is my favorite one,” Tom stated, a smile wide on his face. “I wonder why!” Harrison exclaimed, and this time, it was Tom who flipped him off. “Okay, you guys finished with the skin, then?” You inquired, taking another look at yourself in the mirror. Overall, it wasn’t bad. There were a couple of patches here and there where they messed up the contour but, to your surprise, it actually looked decent.

“Now, you guys are lucky I chose a look with no eyeshadow.” You stated, getting excited about the next part. “But you’ll have to put false lashes on.” You smirked, knowing what was to come. “And you call that lucky?” Harrison inquired, making you laugh. “C’mon, it’s not that hard! Here, I’ll show you how to do it.” Taking the lashes from the box, you started to show them how to apply the glue and carefully place the falsies the closest to your real lashes as possible.

“God, I’m sweating!” Tom breathed, making you laugh. “I’ll close my eyes for you to apply, ok?” The boys nodded, and once your eyes were closed, you could hear their nervous breathing at each side of your face, making you chuckle. “This is stressing me out massively. You’re buying dinner tonight for making us go through this.” Your blonde friend sighed. “Oh, shut up! I do this every day!” You flipped him off, still unmoving.

Once you felt they stopped moving, you asked if you could open your eyes. Deciding to do a little prank, you pretended to open them, only for it to be stuck. “Oh my god, I think you guys glued my eyes shut!” You cried, already dying to watch his reactions. “What? We could do that?” Tom exclaimed, completely freaked out. “y/n, look at me!” Harrison asked, and you felt his hands going to your eyes.

“It hurts!” You whined, “trying” to get your eyes open. “Fuck, what do we do now?” Tom practically yelled, making you laugh, which obviously confused them. Opening your eyes, you saw two shocked faces, staring with wide eyes, right back at you. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I had to!” You laughed, feeling tears starting to form in your eyes.

“I can’t believe you did this!” Tom breathed, while Harrison shoved you harshly, absolutely pissed. “You fucking asshole! I’m never filming with you again!” He stated while you tried hard to recover from your fit of laughter. “I’m sorry!” You apologized, doing your best puppy dog eyes for them.

“My hands are shaking!” Tom informed, showing his hands that were in fact, shaking. “Baby, I’m so sorry! I didn’t know you’d believe it.” You said, guilt coating your words this time. Tom assured you it was okay, even saying he did find the prank kinda funny in the end. Harrison did not agree with your boyfriend, pretending to be mad for the rest of the video, even though the corners of his mouth gave him away.

Seeing you guys were filming for about forty-five minutes already, you decided to not even check the boy's work with the lashes, going straight to the last question, while they applied lipstick. “Okay, so here’s the final question, what is my body count?” You smirked, Tom’s expression completely shifting.

“Seriously? That is the question?” He inquired, raising his eyebrows. “Hey, they suggested the question.” You defended yourself, pointing to the recording camera. “I’ll go first then, let me see…” Your blonde friend said while pretending to count with both of his hands, over and over again. “Fuck off!” You flipped him off, watching his smirk grow in size.

“I’m kidding! But uhm, I would say five?!” Raising your eyebrows, you nodded, before turning back to Tom. “What’s your answer, sir?” You playfully asked. “Six, the answer is six!” He rolled his eyes, annoyed with the question. “Oh, shit! I’m so stupid! I forgot to count Tom!” Harrison face palmed himself, making you burst out laughing.

“Yeah, sorry to break this to you, mate but we already banged,” Tom smirked, shooting you a wink. “Tom!” You scolded him, while Harrison pretended to gag. “Gross! I didn’t need the image of my two best friends fucking in my head.” Harrison exclaimed, making your cheeks grow red. “Okay, that’s enough! Are you guys finished with the makeup?” You quickly asked, dying to change the subject. “Yeah, yeah!” Harrison murmured, while Tom smirked.

Taking your blush, you finally checked yourself in the mirror to see the finished look. “Oh my god, it actually looks good, guys! Good job!” You exclaimed, shamelessly fixing your lashes. “Well, I’m not gonna be the one judging who did it better, so now it’s with you guys. Who do you think did better, Tom or Harrison?” You asked, showing both sides of your face to the camera.

“About the questions, I’m pretty sure Tom won.” You stated, much to Harrison’s dismay. “Of course he did!” The blonde rolled his eyes, making you laugh. “Good luck next time, mate!” Tom teased, a smirk sitting proudly on his face. “Stop it, you two! Now say goodbye before I finally end this almost hour-long video.” You groaned, dreading the moment you’d have to edit the video.

“Bye everyone, thank you for watching! Please, vote for me!” Tom smiled, giving the camera an adorable little wave. “Mate, you already won the questionnaire, let me have this one,” Harrison whined, sounding like a child. When he said goodbye, you finished your outro, before finally stopping recording.

“We did it! Thank you, guys! It was a little chaotic but you did a great job.” You smiled proudly. “Of course, anything for my girl,” Tom stated, getting up from his spot on the bed, stopping right by your side. With both hands on your hips, he closes the distance between you, landing a soft kiss on your lips. “Okay, I had enough of you two for today. Bye!” Harison exclaimed, before also getting up, leaving your bedroom.

“Why do you taste like cherry?” Tom asked as soon as he let go of your lips. “Oh, it’s probably the lipgloss. It’s cherry-flavored!” You explained, asking if he liked it since his eyes kept trailed to your lips. “Hum, I love it!” Your boyfriend smiled, and this time it was you who closed the distance, giving him another one of your cherry-flavored kisses.

funny story (that’s actually not funny at all): the water fountain part it’s based on true events 🥲 lmao

tagging: @stuckonspidey @bi-writes @duskholland @screamholland @missnxthingg @wazzupmrstark @peeterparkr @veryholland @cali-holland @mrs-hollandstan @uglypastels @storybookholland @bi-lmg @spideyspeaches @sinisterspidey @rosyparkers @hollandswife @sunshine96love

[peterpparkerwrites]

revelations - part eighteen

a/n: currently on hiatus - look at my pinned post for more info! this fic has a lot of parts so I’ll have it scheduled to post twice a day - once at 11:00 AM PST and once at 5:00 PM PST. since I will be gone and can’t update links, if you want to find previous parts, just scroll down my page :) warnings: language pairing: peter parker x reader word count: 2.4k note: this part is the “end” of the infinity war / endgame installment of this series - the next part (and most up to date part) is the first part of the far from home installment

masterlist ~ requests are closed ~ part nineteen

taglist: @lilbeatlebear @somefuckshit1 @hufflepuffseeker

~

"Y/N!" The little girl laughed and put her hands up, and you picked her up and spun her around. Morgan hadn't gotten much bigger since you last saw her, but it felt like ages since you had been at Tony's funeral.

"Hey Morguna," you dipped her, her squeals bringing a smile to your face. "I brought someone for you to meet!"

Peter's eyes were a little wide seeing you playing with the kid, the sight making him melt. When you had suggested going to meet Tony's daughter officially, he hadn't been so sure. He met her at the funeral, but there wasn't time for a proper introduction, and he hadn't been in the right spirits for it. He could hardly fathom the idea that Tony had a daughter at all.

But when Pepper had suggested maybe you two could babysit, you had been all for the idea, and he couldn't help but admit that he wanted to meet Tony's legacy. Well, one of his legacies, anyway.

"Petey!" Morgan cried out, giving him grabby hands while his eyes widened even more.

"She knows me?" He asked in disbelief, a little smile finding it's way onto your lips.

"Of course. I talked about you all the time, showed her pictures. So did Tony. Want to say hi?"

Peter seemed a little nervous but stepped forward, much to Morgan's glee. She practically jumped out of your arms but he picked her up easily.

The rest of the day she acted like she had known him her whole life. Which she practically had.

"And this is Peter," Tony cooed, running a finger over the scrapbook photos. You and May had made it for his 1st wedding anniversary with Pepper, and it held photos from a lot of cherished memories in their lives. Which meant there were lots of Peter.

The picture he has pointing to was one you were also in, and you think it was from a day you and Peter had gone to Coney Island. It was hard to look at the picture, but it had gotten a little easier over the last almost year of living with May.

"Can you say 'Peter'?" Tony asked her, making you chuckle. He had been trying to get Morgan to say her first word for months now, despite knowing that babies didn't start forming words that made sense for at least a year.

But any time you pointed that out, he insisted that Starks started early.

"What about 'Mommy'?" You asked her, and she made a noise that didn't resemble anything.

"Hey, has Pepper been asking you to try and get her to say Mom first? Because I know this little one is gonna be a daddy's girl," he tickled her stomach, and she let out a cute laugh, making your heart melt.

"She already is," you grinned, knowing it was true. And she would definitely have Tony wrapped around her finger.

"Can you say 'Y/N'?" Tony continued, but Morgan stayed silent. "Damn. I was hoping-"

"Damn!"

Your mouth dropped open in shock as Tony stared at his daughter in disbelief. But it only took her saying "Damn!" again to make you nearly drop to the floor laughing, while Tony put his head in his hand.

"Classic!" You cried, actually wiping a tear from your eye, "She's definitely a Stark."

"Never say a word of this to anyone."

It was nearly nine when Morgan finally passed out. She fell asleep on Peter's shoulder, and the sight made you want to cry with how soft he looked. You never thought you'd see him again, much less with Morgan like this.

For the last half hour it had been mostly silent, the television on for background noise, but you were just enjoying being with two of your favorite people. Peter had one arm around Morgan to keep her upright so she could sleep against him, and his other arm was wrapped around you, where you were also nearly asleep against his shoulder.

"God, she looks so much like him," his voice cracked as he suddenly spoke, making you bite your lip. It was true - she was still young but she had Tony's eyes, she got the same disgruntled look he did, and you were sure she was going to be just as insanely brilliant.

"She sure does," you smiled a little, brushing some hair back from his face, "He'd be happy to see you two getting along so easily. He used to joke that you would've been two peas in a pod."

Peter smiled a little, "I can't wait to take her swinging."

"Absolutely not," you smacked his shoulder lightly while he snickered. "Pepper will have a heart attack."

"Maybe when she's older," he compromised, and you just rolled your eyes.

It was silent again except for Morgan's soft snores, Peter's his free arm wrapping around you a little tighter. You could hear his heartbeat from where you pressed your face against him, the sound like music to your ears from how long you lived without it.

"It's so weird to think that you guys talked about me, thinking I was gone," he murmured after a minute, his lips brushing against your hair.

"You were gone, Pete," you replied, shutting your eyes. "No one thought you were coming back, that anyone was coming back."

"It's weird," he just repeated, "I hate that you and May went through that."

"We had each other," you promised, "And we got through it."

Pepper found you all knocked out on the couch, and you and Peter woke up as she carefully took Morgan to bed. She thanked you both and told you that you could stay the night, but you both decided to do late patrol before heading back to May's.

It was later than you had ever patrolled before (with Peter, at least), but there was something calming about him swinging you through the almost quiet New York. Of course, New York was never completely silent, but it was better than you had ever seen it.

It seemed like your conversation from earlier about the snap hadn't ended once you were at your apartment, having decided last minute to go there instead of May's. She knew you both needed space sometimes, especially now.

But Peter had asked about a photograph on your desk of you and Nat and Tony, and now you were laying on your bed telling him about how they became two of the most important people in your life.

"I really miss them," you sighed, "Nat helped me through so much, and without Tony, I wouldn't be in college or an Avenger. They should've been able to celebrate everyone coming back."

"I know."

Neither of you said anything as Peter joined you on the bed, his eyes searching yours as if he was trying to read your expression. It was clear you had changed, not just physically - but he was still able to read you like an open book, and he knew that you hadn't fully healed from their passing. Or, for that matter, the absence of your friends and family for two years despite them now being back.

He settled next to you and snuck an arm around your waist, pulling you against him as you sighed through your nose, relaxing every time he touched you.

"How bad was it?" He asked after a beat, letting his hand rest over your chest near your collarbone, feeling your heart rate pick up a little.

"Peter..."

"I want to know," he insisted, his lips brushing against your shoulder. "Please."

You remembered how it felt the minute he turned to dust in your fingers. You remembered seeing the bits of ash brush away in the wind and wanted to chase it, thinking maybe there was some way you could save him. You remembered screaming at Nebula and then going dead silent for weeks on that ship, not eating or drinking or talking to Tony despite knowing he was dying, too.

You easily remembered the ounce of relief you felt when you saw May, who was broken like you. You remembered how easily it would've been to give up if May hadn't been there. You remembered holding your necklace tight every night and trying to make it through the first few months, just for May. You remembered seeing your soulmate tattoo fading over time.

You remembered thinking that Peter rejecting you the first and second times was nothing compared to what you felt the second he died in your arms, and how you would go through that again and again if it meant you'd never have to lose Peter like that ever again.

"There aren't any words," your voice cracked, "I never want you to experience that."

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, his breath tickling your neck as he hugged you against him, and you knew he understood. "I shouldn't have asked. But these last few months, the way you look at me...I just needed to understand how bad it was. So I can help you."

"I'm sorry if I'm worrying you," you said sincerely, turning over and cupping his face in your hands, almost getting distracted in his warm brown eyes. "You have to understand, I've...I've been without you for so long, sometimes I forget I was lucky enough to get you back. And you'll do these little things that I had been thinking about for the last two years and agonizing over. You'll say you love me, and I remember the first time you told me that, and how I thought about that for a week straight last year around your birthday because I was so miserable. Or you'll bring me my favorite drink and I'll remember how up until six months ago I used to go to a cafe once a week and order your order even though I hated it, just so I could feel close to you again. Sometimes it's so easy to forget that you're back, and it startles me into remembering how it was when I thought you were never going to come back."

Peter brought his hands up over yours that were still cupping his face, giving you a squeeze. "Thank you for explaining."

He pressed his lips to yours, his thumb now brushing your cheeks as he held you close. You kissed him back easily, knowing the feeling would never get old, especially not after the last two years of missing him so much.

"Hey," he mumbled once he pulled away, a cute and sleepy expression on his face as he smiled at you. "I love you."

Your heart still skipped a beat whenever he said it.

-

"Hey," Peter dropped a quick kiss to your forehead before dropping down onto your bed, making you chuckle. "How was school?"

Ever since Peter had gone back to school, you had asked him to just come to your apartment after and then you could both patrol. And getting into a routine again was helping you get used to him being back, and him get used to not having you at school or with him all the time.

The first few months were messy - getting everyone back into school and work had been difficult, and your parents ended up having to move to a new apartment closer to their new jobs. You were still in school and planning on spending the summer at the Avengers compound, but now that Peter was back, you didn't know if you still wanted to do that.

But you still had yet to find out what his plans were for the summer or even if he would be finishing around the same time, considering it was May already but to him, it was October of his junior year.

Couldn't Thanos have at least scheduled the snaps a little better?

"Terrible. I hate physics," he snickered at your complaining, and you threw your pencil at him. "Hey, we can't all be geniuses here."

"I have some news," he sighed.

"Are you finally leaving me for Ned?"

"Not this time," he replied easily, making you chuckle. "Actually, there's a decathlon trip this summer that I'm thinking of going on, and I just wanted to see what you thought about me going."

You smiled a little, turning in your chair to face him for the first time since he hopped in through your window. "You don't need to ask if I'm okay with it, Peter, even though that's really sweet. I'll be fine without you, I know you're coming back this time."

"I just want to make sure. It'll be nearly a month," he chewed his lip, but you shrugged.

"That's fine. I'm sure I'll find a way to keep myself busy. Is it another nationals trip, that's pretty long for just a competition?"

"Well, internationals, actually. Hopefully it won't go like the last decathlon trip did," he shuddered, making you laugh.

"Yeah, try not to nearly destroy any national monuments this time," you snickered, "Where is it?"

"Europe."

"That's kind of far from home," You frowned a little, and he sighed. He made grabby hands at you and you let out a laugh, getting up to lay on the bed next to him.

"Far from you, yes," he agreed, draping and arm over your waist and pushing his face into the crook of your neck, "But I know you can cover the city while I'm gone, you've done it for two years now. I would take you with us, obviously, if I could, but I doubt the teachers would let a college student come-"

"Barely a college student," you lightly smacked his arm, "But that's fine, I'm just giving you a hard time. I was thinking of training at the compound for a while. Or I'll just hang out with Morgan, she'll be more entertaining than you, anyway."

"Hey," he pouted, and you just laughed. "But May thinks it'll be good for me. I've felt...weird since the snap. She thinks it'll be good for me to do something other than homework and patrol."

"As usual, she's probably right," you ran your fingers through his curls, smiling a bit when he shut his eyes and leaned into your hand.

"Promise not to destroy too many European monuments while you're away?"

"...I'll try my best?"