#i tweaked his scaling again

[hydaelyns-bitch]

meow meow purr purr

[zedecksiew]

Monument vs Shrine

In "Replica, Aura, and Late Nationalist Imaginings", the political scientist Benedict Anderson (most famous for his Southeast Asia scholarship and that definitive critique of nationalism, Imagined Communities) muses on the Lincoln memorial:

Within a temple explicitly mimicking "the religious edifices of a safely pagan Greece";

Mazda Corp floodlights designed "to ward off unnatural, indifferent sunlight";

The abstract enshrinements of "Lincoln's memory" in the "hearts of the people", while neither Lincoln's actual remains or any rites for people to perform are present;

The sense that ultimately the most reverential thing to do there is to take photographs.

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The Lincoln Memorial; the Jefferson memorial next to it; both figures repeated again on Mt Rushmore; both figures repeated ad nauseum on dollar bills.

These monuments are designed to proliferate. Not only must they create a sober, stately experience for the visitor---but they must also do so consistently, because they are built for visitors: the mass audience of the national population.

Otherwise they must be physically replicable: a memorial to a particular national hero, erected in every city.

The very format of monument-building get copied:

Post-colonial countries, in need of new myths, choose to manufacture national cenotaphs of their own, in imitation of Western models.

Malaysia has Putrajaya, a federal capital sprung ex nihilo from palm-oil agricultural land, its buildings all arches and onion domes and imitation arc de triomphes in inhuman scale, its avenues broad and utterly unwalkable in the tropical heat.

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At such monuments the citizen is cast as tourist.

Of this state-sanctioned object of devotion you are encouraged to take photographs, sell merchandise---ie: continue the process of replication. With every copy nationalism is reified.

God forbid you tweak the official monument with your own meanings, though! While writing this post, I found the following story, from December 2023:

"Lincoln Memorial temporarily closed after being vandalized with 'Free Gaza' graffiti"

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Anderson's essay cites instances where the personal and irreproducible sneak back into, or leak out from, or vandalise, national monuments:

"Early in the 1910s,"---in Manila's Cementerio del Norte, a municipal cemetery planned by an American urban designer---"a small pantheon was constructed for the interment of Filipino national heroes."

This monument was to emulate the Pantheon in Paris, where "great Frenchmen" of the national canon are memorialised.

But the Filipino version failed.

"Today, hardly anyone in the Philippines is aware of this dilapidated pantheon's existence ... What has happened is that the Filipino Voltaire and Rousseau have managed to escape, summoning devoted, often familial bodysnatchers, to convey them to home-town shrines."

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Not that the municipal cemetery itself is deserted. Custodians and their families live in the very mausoleums they care for.

Further, Anderson describes All Saints' Eve in the Cementerio del Norte, when thousands pour into its precincts.

But these multitudes adjourn to their own myriad family graves and small ancestral shrines: spending the day with immediate loved ones, "drinking, praying, gambling, making offerings ..."

Most of the Philippines' presidents have mausoleums in Norte, "but no one pays attention to them ... and only their separate descendants come to attend them."

"There is something exhilarating here that one rarely sees in national celebrations, maybe because the structure of the ceremonial is not serial, but entirely cellular."

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Hometowns re-exerting themselves within the nation; ordinary people scrawling meaning onto the edifices of the uppercase-P People. A multitude of the singular, instead of a single mass.

Despite nationalism's efforts to centralise and clone a national identity, still we mutate, still we bootleg, still we graffiti, becoming once again ourselves.

And---particular to post-colonial societies---in doing so we casually continue the work of liberation, sneaking the idea of freedom away from our own architects and elites and prime ministers, who would seek to seize its meaning for their own purposes.

The churches or mosques or temples to demos that the federal government builds are ours to transform. To take from. To ignore.

"No need. We've got our own shrines at home."

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National heroes become local saints and slip out of national control.

Does the Filipino government really control the various Rizalista sects? Karpal Singh is now a datuk kong, without his political dynasty's consent.

Across Melaka and Negeri Sembilan there once existed shrines dedicated to Hang Tuah, Malay folk hero, now a powerful figurehead of Malay-Muslim ethno-nationalism.

One such shrine existed at Tanjung Tuan:

With a plain altar---more a porch, really---of poured cement, for folk to leave food offerings;

Sunlight mottled from the surrounding forest, and fluorescent lights from a nearby gazebo;

A large rock, with an indent on its crown, said to be Hang Tuah's actual footprint;

The idea that this was a sacred space, where you could come to ask the spirits of the place for love or children.

The shrine that existed was sited in a forest reserve. It was swept clean of leaves by locals; its adherents belonged to all faiths and ethnicities; following the transactional logic of folk religion, those who had received its blessing would've paid for its maintenance.

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"Existed".

Because the Religious Department of the State of Melaka destroyed the Hang Tuah shrine sometime in 2022, for the crime of idolatry.

A double heresy. An affront to both orthodox Sunni Islam---

But also to the Malaysian state, that sanctions Sunni Islam as its official religion; whose nationalism requires its mythic hero to have only the attributes and magics the state ulama and historians say he must have---and no others.

Local shrines are destroyed, because the nation-state intuits them to be threats to its exclusive franchise.

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Image sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_five-dollar_bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_de_Triomphe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putrajaya https://www.facebook.com/PilipinasRetrostalgia https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/984521.shtml https://www.facebook.com/PerakPress https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malays_(ethnic_group)

[godisshook]

New Year, New Me

Adam needed a change. Life for him had been dull, with each day feeling monotonous. He couldn’t stand it, entirely dissatisfied with school, he had all but given up on his studies by now. If his apathy towards school wasn’t already making things bad, his dating prospects made things miserable. Despite doing everything in his power to put himself out there, he simply never had any romantic success. As he celebrated the new year with his friends, the one thing making his life worthwhile, he silently wished for some way to change things, to make his life better. With the ball dropping and the new year starting, he returned home, not knowing that his wishes would be answered in the most unexpected way.

It was a quiet day on campus, with most people returning home for the new year. Adam didn’t particularly care about going back, and so stayed in his dorm with his roommate, Blake. Returning home from the store, Adam opened the door, and was met with a guy he had never seen before. Noticing Adam’s worry, the unknown guy spoke, “Hey Adam, it’s Blake!” Adam’s eyes widened. He had changed his entire look, going from a quiet, unassuming guy, to one of the strongest guys Adam knew of. Inquiring on this sudden change, Blake bluntly replied, “It’s this app called ResetR, It’s fucking crazy man!”

Curiosity would get the best of Adam, as he ventured to the App Store to find this seemingly magical program. Upon finding the page for ResetR, he quickly downloaded it, hoping this would be the change he so desperately needed. He zoomed through terms and conditions, not caring about the various warnings, ana made it to the main page, where he was met with a set of questions.

>Would you like to start? Yes. >Please answer each question on a scale of "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree." Ensure all answers are as honest as possible.

While going through the questions, Adam became more and more bored, as he failed to see the relevance of the app asking about his eating habits, and thus, before making it to the most vital questions, he closed the app, opened twitter, and simply scrolled the night away.

That would not be his last experience with ResetR, however, as soon more and more people in his life would change; some simply becoming taller, while others seemed to have a full makeover. Knowing the source of these changes, and with his dating life still abysmal, Adam decided to give it one more go. Luckily for him, the process was about to become much easier. He noticed the app had undergone a major update; allowing you to scroll through preset profiles, rather than simply filling out a form. Not only that, but he could change aspects of his current self, instead of simply becoming a new person.

Now, the starting screen presented two choices:

>I would like to change my current self >I would like to view profiles, and perform a reset

Adam wanted to venture into what this new update had to offer, and selected the second option. A few sliders were presented, such as muscle, and level of success, and after setting each bar to his liking, Adam hit confirm, and was presented with a slew of new bodies he could inhabit. He swiped through profile after profile, with none of them particularly catching his interest. Getting sick of the process once more, he would almost give up, until one profile would stop him dead in his tracks.

Danny, 22 Profile Features: Career: Model, Height: 6’3, Weight: 205 lbs, Personality: Cocky, Domineering, Self-Centered

Adam was completely enamored with this profile. Danny had everything Adam wanted, and then some. While his personality left some to be desired, it was a sacrifice he would be willing to make. Looking over everything one final time, Adam knew that this was what he wanted. He clicked the big green “Confirm” button, and was presented with even more waivers and forms, which he breezed through again, tweaking small aspects until he had the perfect profile.

Now came the decision of how long to maintain this. He could select it for a small period of time to see how things went, like many of his friends did, or, making his reset permanent. Mulling over his choices, dam reflected on his experiences. His life was entirely uninteresting, always being a wingman, and never having any luck in dating himself. There wasn’t many things in his life he would miss if he decided to reset. He then thought about his friends. They had all changed back by now, with the novelty of the app over for them. Those who had changed aspects of themselves chose to keep it, but most didn’t want to change everything. Noticing the option to stay within the area, Adam mulled over it, thinking that he would remember Blake no matter what.

Soon, his choice was made.

Adam chose to stay in the area, and just in case, he drafted and sent one final text to Blake, his closest friend, simply saying, “Thank you for everything, hope to see you again.” With the text sent, and without a second thought, he selected a permanent reset, and clicked “Confirm” one final time.

Any regret Danny might have had about his decision would be gone in just a few weeks, as he made new friends, and had guys lining up to be with him. His promiscuous attitude was perfect, as he was dicking guys down left and right, without a care in the world. With the change setting in, his old friends became replaced with new ones, and the old Adam was no more. Danny had come across a shaggy haired guy on campus in one of his communications classes, who introduced himself as Blake. While the name sounded familiar, he simply could not remember from where. Nevertheless, he set his sights on him, and got Blake in bed, making him straddle his massive cock, and take load after load.

The two soon were fucking every day, as Blake poured his heart out to Danny, talking about an old friend of his, who he had assumed left town. Danny shrugged at this, and continued pounding Blake out, and as time passed, even he would forget about his old friend. With the month over, and changes setting in completely, any trace of Adam was now gone, and his new life had truly begun. As Danny admired himself in the mirror, he knew he was going to enjoy this new life, with his new fuck buddy, and live it to the fullest.

[steveharrington]

major hornets nest moment here but i must speak my truth. its so fascinating to me how will byers was clearly written with the driving motivation and intention of making him a beloved fan favorite character and instead he falls so flat that, if you asked the average casual viewer of the show who doesn't engage in the fandom like, say, your coworker, the odds of him even being in their top five of favorite characters is pretty low.

will's disappearance kicks off the plot, singlehandedly. the first episode is literally called the vanishing of will byers. his name is shouted so much in the first season that most people would recognize the reference if you used the right cadence and desperation that winona ryder does. after not being featured much in season one, you'd think season two would've just like launched will/noah schnapp into stardom with how much more screentime he's given and how dramatic his plot is that season. but instead the fan favorites of season 2 were by and large el, hopper, dustin, steve, max, even bob who's barely there. that's not to say that there AREN'T will fans out there (and online i understand there are like entire armies dedicated to him/byler, but i'm talking about the average opinion of viewers as a whole, not just in fandom spaces) but think about all the stranger things merch you see in stores, the halloween costumes, the characters that appear in promotional materials when the show has partnerships with brands....will is so rarely featured. idk if any of yall ever got the chance to visit the stranger things pop up shop in any of its various locations, but there was such little mention of will in the stores theming or merchandise that it was almost funny. actually it WAS funny, to me, someone who does not care for him

i think the flop can be attributed to many things. one, noah schnapp is just not a very good actor and he doesn't have the same appeal in his performances that millie, sadie, caleb, gaten, priah, or finn do (although finn i've noticed is also kinda falling out of favor from majority audiences). one could argue that noah schnapp intentionally isn't given much to do, which is true and i'll circle back to that, but the decline in his acting between seasons 2 and 3 is truly a sight to behold. when he's not like tied up and screaming, he reallllllly struggles on the smaller scale performances compared to the other cast members his age. he doesn't really have the charm that gaten does or the humor that priah does or the depth that caleb does. (i don’t feel bad about saying this, btw, given noah schnapp’s behavior)

back to the vanishing of will byer's screen time. my beloved prettymuchit's eric striffler commented on how diminished will and mike's roles in the story have become in s4. "noah schnapp is below the grips on the call sheet" is my fav line, but he also makes an observation on finn's role that i think is soooo accurate. when mike and will are kneeling down next to the pizza dough freezer and watching el just kinda twitch while she fights vecna in her mind, eric and his co-host miles say "this is so embarrassing! finn's like, 'oh so gaten's fighting the monster? and i'm kneeling next to a tub at a pizza place? i used to be this show" and i think the same exact sentiment can be superimposed onto will

but i think this happened naturally, as the nature of the show is to shift its focus from character to character. not to mention the duffer brothers' obsession with tweaking their story to give audiences what they want. i've always held the belief that there isn't one main character of stranger things, rather a rotating circle of characters depending on the season you're watching. season one is mike, season two is hopper, season three is el, season four is max imo. again that's a little subjective and arguments could be made to swap those a little, but overall i think those characters stories and point of views take center stage during each of their respective seasons. by season 3, the duffers wanted to kick things up to a larger scale. the UD is no longer targeting just will, it's targeting the entire town. this works because a THIRD season in a row where this one kid specifically gets possessed would just be bonkers, so they kinda had to let him take a backseat. i'm not sure why they didn't let will be more involved in the mystery-solving portion of season 3....to this day that decision baffles me, but what's done is done and the will that everyone watched in season 3 literally just kinda follows everyone around and gets a small little slice of a plotline about wanting things to go back to normal, but alas

it like totally worked, though. though there are MANY complaints commonly made about season 3, i've never heard anyone offline complain that there wasn't enough will byers. i think the group in s3 that had the most success like, commercially, would be scoops troop and then a bit farther back i think most audiences enjoyed hopper/joyce/murray's dynamic. i think if there had been a huge outcry in the minimizing of will's role, the duffers would've backpedaled immediately. they aim to please. they can't even commit to killing of a main character out of fear that audiences will lose interest if we permanently lose hopper or max, so they just do some creative writing that allows them to milk the emotional consequence of those characters deaths without actually writing them off. if audiences on a large scale demanded that will be center stage, he would be. but they dont!

final point: i think will gets fucked over by the duffers obsession with romance. in season one, two of will's strongest dynamics are with his mom and brother. which like, yeah. theyre his immediately family and he is 12. but in seasons 2 and 3, jonathan spent all his screen time with nancy and from 2-4, joyce has spent all her screen time either with hopper or in the pursuit of finding hopper. these characters are written together as a package deal, typically. it was refreshing and unexpected to see jonathan get a whole season with a friend of his very own and his siblings, but they barely took advantage of that. jonathan and will get ummmm one (1) scene to talk about their emotions in a fucking 20 hour season. it's hard for will to be a main character when he rarely gets to interact with the people that make up the other half of his main dynamics.

as for byler, im of the belief that it will not be endgame because i just don't think they're going to break up mike and el at this point. i could be completely wrong and stand corrected, but im like 90% sure lol. i do think that will's s4 storyline resonated with a lot of people. even eric striffler! i think the issue is that the vastttt majority of people who watch this show above the age of like 15 do not feel invested about the romantic relationships between any of the kids. because why would they!!! theyre literally in middle school for 3/4 of the show. you would be hard pressed to find a vocal will stan online who doesn't also dedicate 90% of their engagement with the show to byler. which makes sense, because most if not all of will's scenes revolve around mike to some degree. but according to neilsen, the majority of stranger things audience is consistently in the 18-49 age range season by season. its more likely for adult audiences to identify with adults (or characters who are narratively treated like adults, like steve and nancy) than with any of the kids. esp when the kid in question, despite being written as the focal point of the show, has less relevant plotlines, less interaction with other characters, and an actor who just doesn't deliver on charm the way his fellow younger costars do

[bellaxgiornata]

Borrowed Time |2: Helping the Devil|

Pairing: Matt Murdock x Nurse!Fem!Reader Word Count: 3.6k [Series Masterlist]

Warnings/tags: 18+; heavy angst, hopeful but not happy ending, canon-typical violence, death

a/n: Because I've fallen for Matt and Reader in this series and I love their dynamic, I've altered a few things with this mini series--it now has a hopeful but still no happy ending (so it's a little less bleak). I've also tweaked the summary a little to fit better. Feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!

Tag List: @1988-fiend @danzer8705

Pushing your living room window up as far as it could go, the balmy heat of the evening seeped into your apartment, the humidity clinging to your skin. Taking a step back, you made room for the shadowy figure on your fire escape to slip through the opening, but when he emitted a soft groan of pain at the movement, you couldn’t resist shaking your head at him. Of course he needed your help again tonight.

“It is truly abnormal how fast you can scale a fire escape five floors up,” you greeted him. “Especially while injured.”

“Well maybe you're just slow,” he teased back. 

The masked man shot you a cheeky grin as he gradually righted himself. You noted how he was clearly favoring one side before he turned back around, shutting the window after himself and locking the heat back out of your apartment once more. 

You rolled your eyes at his back. “And maybe you're just a show off,” you countered.

He turned back towards you, one gloved hand reaching up and grabbing the edge of his mask. With ease he slipped it up and off of his head, revealing Matt's grinning face and sweat-dampened hair that was a mess on his head. He shot a wink in your direction that had you biting back a smile. 

“Only sometimes,” he replied, his face still flushed from exertion. “And only ever for you.”

“Right, well, how about you get cozy at your usual spot so I can patch you up, Casanova,” you said, gesturing over to the chair at your kitchen table. “I'm guessing that's why you're here.”

Without argument Matt made his way over towards his usual place at your dining table, hissing slightly as he lowered himself down onto the wooden chair. As he took a seat, you made your way into the kitchen, beginning to fill a glass with water at the sink for him. You knew full well that he needed it after running around Hell's Kitchen in this heat. 

Setting the glass down onto the countertop, you bent down and pulled out the above-average stocked first aid kit that you kept under your kitchen sink. You'd long since moved it from your bathroom vanity to here for easy access specifically because of Matt and his near constant need of medical attention.

Ever since he'd saved you from that speeding car nearly three months ago, Matt had been walking you home from the hospital whenever you had a shift unless he was otherwise occupied as the Devil. Usually you'd repay him for his time with some water and medical attention if he needed it before he slipped back out into the night. At this point the exchange between you both had become an almost nightly ritual now. 

But only a few weeks ago Matt had been so injured when he had showed up to walk you home that he'd finally had to lose the mask back at your apartment and reveal his face just so you could stitch his bleeding forehead. At that point, he had finally given you his real name–or at least, he said his real name was Matthew. You hadn't bothered to try and Google search the man after the fact, instead just trusting his word.

And that was how your weird and undefined relationship had formed with the masked vigilante, being the only one who apparently knew who his real identity actually was. Almost nightly he'd show up to walk you home from the hospital, having long since told you about his heightened senses which had made him aware of how terrified you always felt walking the streets alone at night. In return you helped keep him moderately healed and on his feet. Though it irritated you to no end with how often he'd show up the following night needing you to redo the same exact stitches you’d given him the night before which he’d gone and carelessly torn open.

But if you were being honest, you'd come to enjoy his company and the flirtatious, teasing banter he always brought with him. Even if you were exhausted at the end of a long and terrible shift, seeing him was always the highlight of your night when you left Metro-General. Truthfully having him either by your side or nearby as he walked you home always eased your fears, and you admittedly felt better knowing he wasn't bleeding out on the street somewhere because he couldn't get the medical attention he often desperately needed but so vehemently refused to receive.

“What was it this time?” you asked him, opening your kit and rifling through it on the kitchen counter. “Knife again? Or something more creative and equally likely to cause an infection?”

His amused chuckle broke on a groan. “Crowbar, actually,” he answered. “Edge of it cut me.”

“Mmm,” you hummed out, pulling out a few supplies from your bag. “That's a new one for you. I sure hope you're up to date on your tetanus shots.”

“Guess we'll find out,” he joked back. 

Your hands paused mid-gathering up of the supplies you'd pulled out of your bag, your gaze landing on him across the room. One of your brows quirked curiously up onto your forehead at him.

“You know, you should really be far more concerned about your well-being than you actually are,” you pointed out. “It’s a bit worrisome.”

Matt shrugged a shoulder lightly, pulling a face as he shook his head. “Eh, that's what I've got you for, right?” he teased.

Making your way over to the table towards him, some supplies cradled against your body with one arm and the glass of water in your other hand, you rolled your eyes at him once more. “You’re ridiculous, you know that, right?” you told him. Setting the supplies on the kitchen table when you reached it, you thrust the glass of water towards him. “Now tell me where it hurts and then drink this.”

Matt grinned cheekily back up at you, the dimple forming in his cheek as he reached a hand out to accept the glass of water. “You know I love it when you go all sexy, bossy nurse on me,” he told you. “Maybe I should buy you a little nurse costume to wear while you stitch me up. We could roleplay.”

“Pretty sure your mouth alone explains why you end up with so many stitches on a weekly basis,” you shot back, grinning. “Now seriously, tell me what I’m patching up this time and then drink that entire glass of water. I’m sure you’re dehydrated.”

You watched as he drew the glass towards his mouth, your eyes lingering on his lips as he took a drink from it. Truthfully the thought of doing more than just patching Matt up at night had crossed your mind more than once before. You’d be lying if you said you hadn’t steadily been developing feelings for him as the weeks wore on. Though so far, the pair of you only flirted back and forth–but the flirtations had gradually been growing progressively more inappropriate.

“Managed to get me on my right side,” he told you, his tone turning serious. “Right here.”

He set the glass of water onto the kitchen table and then he shifted in his chair towards you. His hands began pulling up the hem of his shirt until he’d entirely pulled it up and over his head. He emitted a sharp hiss between his teeth before tossing the black shirt onto your table. Your eyes were immediately drawn to the bleeding wound more visible on his side without the fabric obstructing your view. You winced at the sight of it.

“Yeah, that definitely needs a few stitches,” you murmured. “Here,” you said, placing your hands on his bare shoulders before gently turning him in the chair to give you better access to the wound. “Stay like this so I can work. And drink your water.”

You knelt down onto the floor in front of him, grabbing a pair of rubber gloves from off your kitchen table and beginning to pull them on. Though his cheeky ‘yes, ma’am’ had you pausing for a moment, shooting him a pointed look that you were sure he could at least feel.

“Alright, alright,” he said, that typical charming smile on his face. “I’ll behave.”

Focusing back on his injury, you began to work on cleaning and disinfecting it in silence. Meanwhile Matt remained true to his word, keeping his mouth shut except for drinking down the glass of water you’d given him after he’d removed his gloves. 

It wasn’t until you were beginning to stitch up his side that you’d decided to break the silence, knowing he preferred the distraction of conversation to keep him from focusing on the pain. Which is something you'd long since discovered for yourself because Matt would never have admitted just how much it hurt to have a needle repeatedly digging in and out of his skin with those senses of his. But you could always tell he was in pain by the set of his jaw, the tension in his shoulders, and the way he usually curled his fists along your kitchen table. All of the things he’d begun doing the moment the needle first broke through his skin.

“Do you ever think about fate?” you asked him.

Matt’s head shifted a little over his shoulder towards you, his dark brows furrowing together at your question. “Fate?” he repeated.

“Yeah,” you said, intensely focused on the stitching your hands were doing. “You’re a man of faith, right? So, do you ever think about fate? Or destiny? God’s Will if you prefer,” you continued. “Have you ever thought about if it’s real or not? How it possibly affects the world around you? The consequences of your actions?”

There was a moment of silence that followed your words as you threaded the needle through his skin once more. You tried to ignore the way his body tensed again; if you became too sympathetic to him, there’d be no way you’d finish what needed to be done. 

“That’s a pretty deep question,” he pointed out. “Not usually the type of thing you ask me. What brought that up?”

You shrugged faintly, attention still focused on your hands. “Been on my mind often considering I work in a hospital,” you replied. “I see death a fair amount more than the average person. People who could have been saved if the situation was just a bit different. Plus, sometimes I find myself  wondering if…”

Voice trailing off, you shook your head. You hadn’t meant to spill that much truth, but your concentration on your stitching had caused your tongue to loosen.

“Sometimes you wonder what?” he prompted.

Lips pressing firmly together, you kept your mouth shut and continued threading the needle through his skin again. Matt shifted in his seat, turning towards you just a fraction. Immediately your hands paused, your eyes flying up to his face as you sent him an irritated glare.

“You damn well know you’re not supposed to be moving right now, Matthew,” you warned him. “Keep it up and I’ll be putting more holes through you tonight.”

“Is this about that car that almost hit you?” he asked, entirely ignoring your threat. “Is that what’s on your mind?”

Blowing out a rough breath, your focus shifted away from the obvious concern on his face and back down to the laceration on his side that was half-stitched up. “If I answer, will you stop moving?” you asked him. “Because I can't finish what I'm doing if you don't sit still.”

“Yes,” he replied.

“Fine,” you relented. “We lost someone who’d been emitted into the ER tonight that hadn’t been brought in fast enough. And it had me thinking about fate again,” you confessed, your hands returning to their work, “and how if someone would have gotten to that accident faster tonight, maybe they could have still been alive right now. Just like that car that would have hit and killed me a few months back. If you hadn’t been there at just the right time, picking up on my fear of something else before that moment had even happened, I probably wouldn't be here, either. And it–it gave me this weird feeling.”

“Weird feeling?” Matt pressed curiously.

“Yeah,” you answered, tone softening. 

Ever since that night he had saved you, you'd been having this strange feeling on and off. It had taken you quite a long time to even make sense of what it was that felt like it had been gnawing away at your insides. On and off it would randomly come back to you, once more having you question things like fate and the idea that things might possibly be predetermined.

“Like what if that was my time to go?” you thought aloud. “And I’m just…I don’t know, living on borrowed time or something now? Just waiting for fate to correct the error of how things occurred that night?”

Matt's head tilted curiously to the side. Out of your peripheral you saw his eyes narrowing, the crease between his brows further deepening. 

“Are you saying you don't think I was supposed to pull you out of the way of that car?” he asked incredulously. “That you were supposed to die that night?”

You shrugged a shoulder, continuing to work. “Maybe,” you answered. “How am I supposed to know if I was or not? Maybe you interfering threw off the balance of things or something.” You shrugged again. “I don’t know, but it’s often got me thinking. Which is why I was curious what you thought about fate. How much you think things in life are predetermined by God or whatever and how much you think we actually have control over. And what happens if things are…altered somehow?” you continued. “Does fate ever correct itself? Or is there an entirely new series of events that arise from a single change of just one?”

“Well, clearly I don't think you were meant to die,” he told you seriously.

Your hands stopped what they were doing as you glanced up at him. “But how would you know that?” you asked. 

With your hands paused, Matt turned further towards you in his chair. His own hands dropped down, both of them firmly grasping onto your wrists as he focused on you.

“You weren't supposed to die that night,” Matt stated. “You hear me? Whatever sort of question you have about that, you should just let it go. Because you're here now. Alive. Making a difference in the world. Saving lots of people–me included.”

Sighing, you focused back on the last stitch you had left to make. As if Matt knew you were wanting to finish, he released his hold on your wrists and allowed your hands to continue their work on his injured side. 

“I suppose if you hadn't saved me there'd be no one making sure your ass made it back home marginally in one piece most nights,” you joked. “But it was just a question. I'm certainly glad you were there that night, don’t get me wrong. But, you know, the average person doesn't often have near death experiences like you do on a nightly basis. It's just got me thinking, I guess.”

As you finished up his last stitch, you were aware that Matt had grown uncharacteristically quiet at what you'd said. 

“There,” you told him, pulling off your bloodied gloves while rising back up to your feet. “All done.”

Matt continued to sit there silently, his lips drawn into a thin line as his hardened gaze remained fixed near you. Beginning to feel uncomfortable at his unusual silence, you made your way back into the kitchen and headed over towards your garbage can. You tossed the bloody gloves into it, but as you'd begun to turn around, opening your mouth in order to change the topic, you were quickly cut short when Matt's strong arms encircled your waist from behind. Mouth immediately snapping shut, your brows rose up onto your forehead in surprise at the unexpected embrace.

“I'm glad I found you when I did that night,” he said, boldly drawing the back of you in towards the front of himself. “All the teasing aside, you've certainly made an impact on my life. And I don't just mean because of all the free medical attention.”

You laughed lightly just before he lowered his head, burying his face against the top of your shoulder. Your eyelids closed at the intimate contact, your breath coming in shallower. This wasn't a normal interaction between the pair of you and you found yourself enjoying the feel of him wrapped around you. He'd never held you like this before and you couldn't deny that it was drawing forth a reaction from you that you'd been trying to ignore for a while now.

“I think God put me in the right place that night,” he whispered. “That's what I think. I think you're here for a reason.”

Biting your lip, you fought the urge to ask him the question that immediately crossed your mind at his words. What happens when you've fulfilled that purpose? 

“But maybe we should talk about something less depressing and bleak,” he suggested. 

“Yeah,” you agreed, eyes reopening as your hands rested on top of his forearms. “It was just a question, though, Matt. I'm fine, I promise. You can do that lie detector thing on me if you don't believe me.”

He withdrew his face from your shoulder, a huff of laughter leaving him. “I think what I'm more curious about is why your heart is beating so fast right now,” he teased. 

You scoffed, rolling your eyes as your hands removed his arms from around your waist, effectively releasing his hold around you. Turning around to face him, you spotted the cocky smirk already on his mouth, though his eyes were very clearly focused on your chest as he continued to listen to your heart, and that only had it beating a bit faster–especially because he was still standing there without a shirt on. It didn’t matter that some of his blood was still smeared and dried along his torso, you couldn’t deny how good he always looked.

“I'm going to go ahead and say you already know the answer to that,” you told him. 

His smirk grew into a wide grin as his head cocked to the side, his eyes narrowing playfully at you. “Is it because you're attracted to me?” he teased. “Could that be why?”

“Oh gee, I wonder,” you teased back, your focus shifting to the supplies still spread out on your kitchen table. “Maybe I just can't resist your bloodied and battered muscular body and that smart mouth of yours,” you continued, taking a step past him and over towards the table so you could clean up the mess. “Or maybe it's your ass in general, though it–”

Matt's hand deftly caught onto your wrist and gently tugged you backwards towards him. The gesture had cut you off, your words left hanging unfinished in the air of your apartment as you stumbled back towards him. He was smiling at you now, the expression on his face having shifted to one of something soft and sweet instead of teasing. His other hand slipped down around your waist before he pulled you in flush to the front of himself, the warmth of him once more enveloping you. He lowered his forehead to rest against yours next and you felt your stomach excitedly lurch up into your throat. 

“I like you, too, angel,” he murmured gently. “I just…hadn't exactly figured out a way to tell you before.”

Breath hitching at his unexpected admission, your gaze shifted to his mouth. You found yourself tempted to lean up and press your lips to his, wanting to know how they felt instead of just daydreaming about them.

“Though I'd been wondering if you'd caught on with how often I walked you home at night yet,” he mused. “Or if you'd…even want me with what I do.”

“Well I haven’t exactly been able to get rid of you yet,” you attempted to joke, though your words came out a little breathless. “Suppose I don’t exactly plan on it anytime soon, either.”

“Mmm,” he hummed out.

His hand released your wrist before it slid its way slowly up your arm, gliding over your skin and drawing forth goosebumps beneath the pads of his fingers. Eventually his hand came to rest along the side of your neck, his fingertips landing just over your pulse point. Your heart was still pounding so hard even you could feel it. Your eyelids fluttered briefly beneath his touch, but you fought to keep them open.

“So is that a yes on the nurse costume?” he murmured, lips drawing back into a smirk.

You snorted out a surprised laugh, one hand lightly swatting his bare chest. “You’re ruining the moment, asshole,” you replied.

Matt chuckled softly, nodding his head against yours. “You’re right, I’m sorry. Let me fix that.”

He leaned in, finally closing the distance between you both as he kissed you. This time you let your eyelids close, your body melting into his as your arms carefully encircled his waist. The pair of you stayed wrapped around each other for a while in your kitchen, mouths connecting in a myriad of kisses that gradually began to grow more passionate. And for the first time in months, the feel of his lips on yours had your thoughts about fate temporarily managing to disappear.

[bump1nthen1ght]

Tooth and Claw (M!Dragon x F!Reader)

Pairing: Male!Humanoid!Dragon x Female!Reader

Warnings: Explicit Content ahead (18+ ONLY), breeding kink, mentions of blood and bruises

Word Count: 1500 words

Summary: You're partner is as loving as they get, despite what their fearsome appearance may suggest. Never the less, who says those large teeth are a bad thing?

Request: nsfw male Draconic Humanoid (with human male face) x female reader with biting, breeding kink, soft to rough sex.

You’d think with a bed so large, large enough to fill the center of your large room in the horde, there would be ample amounts of space. But in these heated moments, when you and Callyx are a tangle of limbs desperate to kiss and touch and suck, it feels like there is not even room to breath.

All it takes is a look, that is often how you two end the night. A full dinner from a fresh hunt, some soft words, a tender look, and you are racing to the bedroom. Your clothes are flung to the side, too busy kissing and grabbing onto each other to notice anything else.

There is something very satisfying about the feeling of his scales, especially those along his side and back. When he presses you down into the bed, layering your neck in kisses and caressing your hips, you like to run your nails up and down them. They are always cool to the touch and catch the low firelight in the most beautiful way, the dark blue shining with aquamarine and turquoise.

You only loose focus in your exploration when he bites your neck with a low chuckle. You gasp and he returns with fervor, sucking and nipping the skin. Now your fingers run through his thick, black hair, pulling him in closer. You moan in his ear, knowing how much he loves to hear the noise.

“You always taste so exquisite, my love.” He says, barely pausing to breathe as he continues lavishing you. Callyx’s thumb rubs deep circles in your waist, slowly traveling up your chest. He pulls away to kiss at your lips, pulling at your bottom lip with a mischievous shine in his eyes. You return the energy, yanking down on one of his horns and nuzzling his face into your breasts. He soaks up the attention, quick to cup and lap at the skin.

Your fingers only dig deeper into his scalp when he sucks om your nipple, using a calloused hand to tweak the other. He devours your moans, eyes rolling back at the taste of your sweat. His thick, corded tail sways behind him, betraying unabashed excitement. A fang grazes the skin of your breast, but doesn’t break skin.

You yank on his hair, pulling his lips off your body.

“My love,” You whisper, rubbing his jaw with your thumb, “I think I want it rough tonight. Really rough.”

His smirk widens. “Are you sure?” You nod. “And you remember our safe words?”

You nod again, eyes drifting down to the glistening fangs in his smile. You can picture the marks he’ll leave all over your body, biting your lip.

Callyx gives you one last gentle kiss before his hand wraps around your neck, forcing you down into the mattress. His grip isn’t tight enough to cut off oxygen, but definitely enough to leave a nasty bruise tomorrow.

“Then you’re mine, bitch.” Callyx purrs, rushing down to your chest to resume his ministrations. But this time he bares his fangs proudly, lapping and biting with a desperate hunger. He still doesn’t draw blood, but the sting of scrapes and broken capillaries shoots right down to your pussy.

Callyx licks a long stripe up your chest, in between your breasts and ending at your jaw. He nips at the skin, growling pure filth into your ear.

“Of course you’d like this. After all, you’re just my little whore, aren’t you? My delicious fucking slut.”

Callyx uses one hand to press your chest down as he works his body backwards, slotting himself in between your thighs. His claws dig threateningly into the skin, leaving flushed patches, hot with bood,

“With how long I’ll be breeding you tonight, consider this a gift.”

He languidly sucks on two of his fingers, shooting a cheeky wink before shoving them inside your cunt. The sudden intrusion has you gasping, as does the gentle rub of the scales of his knuckles. The digits curl, Callyx letting out a deep breath when he hears your moans. “That's right, sing for me.”

With his palm rubbing against your clit, Callyx begins fingering you in earnest. Each thrust feels like a zap to your lower half, making your thighs clench around his waist. He reaches down with his other hand and slaps your ass, only forcing you to jerk towards him and force him inside you deeper. You throw your head back and dig your nails into the sheets.

“I’ll let you off now, slut. But when I’m blessing you with my dick, you better keep your eyes on me.” Callyx taunts, changing up the rhythm of his fingers and slowly stroking the inside of your pussy. You can only nod, moaning instead of responding properly. He laughs again, grinning fiercly when you whine as he pulls out his fingers. “Don’t worry, baby, the main course is coming.”

Callyx shoves down your chest again, using it as leverage to pull himself upwards and line his cock-head with your cunt. His other digs into the pillow by your face, unsheathed claws ripping it open and exposing feathers. That tail thumps on the bed behind him, only stilling when his tip finally presses against your pussy lips. Callyx groans, looking down at you under lidded eyelids with a smirk. “Get ready to be bred, mate.”

With that, Callyx thrusts in you with gusto, stealing the breath from your lungs. One of your hands immediately finds a hold on his horns, the other across the scales of his back,The pace he sets is brutal, the bed frame creaking with every hump of his hips. Your bouncing tits enthrall Callyx and he leans down to suck on your nipples. The sting of his teeth is overwhelmed by his cock pounding against your g-spot, your legs trembling and spasming around his hips.

“F-fuck!” You shout, throwing your head back and exposing your succulent neck. Callyx takes his chance and immediately nuzzles in, finding that sensitive patch of skin and sucking on it. Your pussy juices gush around his cock, the erotic sound of skin-on-skin leaving none to the imagination. The bedframe protests under you, the headboard slamming into the wall, but your mind is utterly elsewhere. With your ankles locked around his back, Callyx grinds his hips in a circle, lickinh a long stripe up your neck. You’re halfway through a moan when he bites down, the hardest he can without seriously injuring you, the shock and pain only making your stomach spasm in all the best ways.

The best way to tell that Callyx is about to cum is from his face. His brow scrunches up, he bites his lip, and for a second he loses the control on his shifted form. His fangs become a bit too big for his mouth, the scales begin to pop and climb down his jaw, his third eyelid nictitating across a golden iris. He likes to pull you in for sloppy kisses, especially whe he can pull back your lip and draw a little bit of blood. He’ll lap it up like an animal, his hips stuttering as he gets closer and closer. But not before you.

That infernal tail of his drifts up across the bed, under his abdomen and down to your crotch. Callyx purposefully shifts his hips to give it access, the ribbed edge teasing your clit. At this point, black spots are coming across your vision and you’ve just about lost all manners of speech. You’re limited to swears and moans, you're tongue lolled out like a drooling mess. “You’re gonna look so good stuffed full of my cum.” Callyx pants out, the sound of ripping bed sheets as his claws dig in deeper. “Full of my seed, full of my litter.” Callyx grabs hold of your jaw, those sme claws leaving half-moons in your cheeks. “Thats right, cum in my cock. Cum for me, cum.”

It's the culmination of everything that snips the rubber band in your stomach, that makes you pussy clench and your nerves burst. Callyx’s eyes roll back in his head.

“Sh-shit.” He stutters, barely holding onto his rougher persona. “Take it, take it.” Callyx says with a growl, puncturing his final thrust with a final bite to your neck. He explodes inside you, the warmth of his seed spreading throughout your abdomen. Callyx quickly collapses on top of you, the two of you still trying to catch your breathes. The normal heat of his dragon body is only amplified, reminding you of snuggling up under a warm, weighted blanket.

“Was that…tough enough?” Callyx sighs, mind still a bit too pussy-drunk to focus. You simply nod, kissing his cheek and sighing contently. He chuckles, giving your but a loving pst as he nuzzles into your neck. This sweet aftermath is always the best, just the two of you basking in each other's touch and comfort.

Right before the bed frame cracks in half, sending you both toppling to the ground.

[ancientbygone]

simulacra 3 [take me back to eden]

[sundowning] [tpwbyt]

Sleep's mimic forms of the vessels during the time period of TMBTE, because i can't be normal and start a series from the beginning and not the end.

more info + design breakdowns under the cut:

[obligatory "when talking about the vessels, i'm talking about characters" disclaimer]

background info on the whole idea:

Sleep as a being is shapeless in my mind; more of a concept than a creature. it can manifest as sort of an absence of light in any shape to others, usually to appeal to feeling/emotion. the only "rule" for that is that whatever Sleep tries to appear as cannot look more or less innocent/powerful than Sleep actually is, which usually manifests in two things: the size being different from the thing/person it's imitating, scaled according to power, and/or added features, usually in some way threatening or regal.

one of Sleep's more consistent forms it takes throughout interacting with Vessel is mimicking him, partially to create an illusion of the two being more similar than they actually are and partially because Sleep used to exist as Vessel's shadow when they'd just met. the visual itself has changed through time (you can see what it was like during Sundowning in my Higher artwork), and during TMBTE that visual is pretty much the titular song's character with the most minor tweaks (which is why i didn't draw it separately).

all that made me think about the idea of Sleep mimicking the other vessels just to fuck with Vessel further (to be clear, i am a strong believer that Sleep only interacts with Vessel in any way). so now here are the designs of those mimics during the events of TMBTE, utilizing the album's song characters much like the Vessel mimic. because again, i have to start a series from the end, i guess.

"ii"/ii mimic (song character used: AYROK)

the main idea driving the design of "ii" is the real ii's goal to keep Vessel more or less safe by being by his side in worshipping Sleep, which is the reason he'd decided to become the second vessel in the first place. the choice of AYROK as the character to use in this design is obvious. one of the ideas that stem from that is ii's duty/desire to keep his face hidden for Vessel's sake; only his hands are visible & detailed because that's the only part of him Vessel remembers before either of them became vessels of Sleep and the only part ii has really shown after that. another is ii's timidity in telling Vessel to go against Sleep's will because he fears that no matter how bad it may be, it'll be much worse if Vessel doesn't follow it. that part comes through in the pose - shyly holding his hands together as if they're tied.

"iii"/iii mimic (song character used: Aqua Regia)

the song character inspo being Aqua Regia is mostly because of the calmer nature of the song and the dynamic duo it makes with Vore, less so the themes of the lyrics. also its visual design. iii mimic's design themes are iii's adoration/borderline obsession with Vessel (wearing Vessel's jewelry and having elements of his robe in his shirt + his own face/mask slowly melting off) and his enagement with worship as an act/aesthetic rather than something more serious (the overabundance of jewelry and accessories; the extra arms; the body language; the cuffs around his arms and legs being decorative and not actually restricting). also the rings on his fingers make a checkered pattern.

"iv"/iv mimic (song character used: Vore)

the use of Vore for "iv" is obvious too. song wouldn't be the same without his real life self. the design really just aims to combine iv with the Vore character, but there are two big things here. the simplest one is anger issues, which is why he's So Goddamn Spiky and why his jacket looks like scarred skin rather than painted & customized. the anger mostly shows up in the body language: most of the time "iv" just stares unblinkingly with pure palpable ire in the two glowing dots for eyes, and when he does move it's very stiff and snappy and barely controlled. the other thing is that, simply speaking, the real iv got into this whole mess without knowing the full extent of it and now he's in too deep and kinda losing himself. in the design it's expressed through the human features gradually turning into bug-like, such as the hoodie fading into a segmented millipede-like body and the fucked up mantis hands, and the gold of the original iv's mask melting over the face with the horns being part of it. the spikes protrude from him in a way that makes it difficult to distinguish between jacket decorations and actual parts of his body, but the spines are definitely from his body & allow me to live the dream of iv with a mohawk LMAO

anyway have fun with these go nuts i'll make similar sheets & posts for Sundowning and TPWBYT eventually

[hypnoneghoul]

Tidal Temptations

WC: 1,2K

Relationship: Rain/Swiss

Tags: Tail Masturbation, Anal Fingering, Oral Sex, Gill Fingering, Water Sex

For Swiss’ and Rain’s defense, their evening started out innocently as well. They decided to go swim in the lake, just because it was really nice outside and they didn’t have anything better to do. Swiss should’ve known there would be no innocent thoughts in his head once he laid his eyes on Rain’s fully unglamoured, aquatic form.

Notes: the king of gill fucking is back again heh

Read under the cut or on AO3.

The warm summer evenings the ghouls had a chance to spend back at the Abbey were usually peaceful. Some were napping inside, some outside and some were engaging in a bit less… restful activities.

For Swiss’ and Rain’s defense, their evening started out innocently as well. They decided to go swim in the lake, just because it was really nice outside and they didn’t have anything better to do.

Swiss should’ve known there would be no innocent thoughts in his head once he laid his eyes on Rain’s fully unglamoured, aquatic form. Even disguised as a human he was annoyingly attractive, and the multi ghoul couldn’t be blamed for getting horny… Could he?

After a few minutes of just swimming around with no real purpose, Swiss’ eyes started to linger on Rain just for a bit longer every time. He took on admiring each and every little feature that made Rain Rain and there was so much he got lost in it. 

As always. Every damn time, for years now.

The water ghoul knew, of course he did. He was not only well aware of his general beauty but also the effect he had on Swiss specifically. He had him all but wrapped around his little finger.

Swiss didn’t even try to be secretive, blatantly staring at Rain over and under the water, gluing his eyes to whatever the other would allow him to see. He wanted so badly to swim up to Rain and touch him, feel all those scales under his calloused fingertips, the soft fins in his mouth.

He knew he had to wait for an invitation.

An invitation he got, of sorts, but only when he was already hard and dripping into the water surrounding them.

“Hey, Swiss,” Rain called out from basically the other side of the lake, but before Swiss could reply, the water ghoul was already gone, the surface of the lake left rippled where he was just a second before.

The multi ghoul looked around—not even thinking of bringing his quintessence into the equation—scanning the water for any signs of where Rain might reemerge.

He didn’t.

Swiss let out a gasp as something soft and leathery wrapped around his leg out of nowhere, followed by a grip of clawed hands on his thighs. “Hi, Raincloud.”

Only then did Rain poke his head out of the water, grinning up at Swiss brightly, his cerulean eyes glowing. “I see someone got all hot and bothered over me… again.”

“I– well, can’t deny it now, can I?” Swiss chuckled, a slight tinge of nervousness in his laugh. Damn Rain for being the only person in existence able to make Swiss actually nervous.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Rain purred, nuzzling into the multi ghoul’s neck, licking up his pulse. “I’ll take care of you.”

“Rainy–” Swiss sighed, smoothing his hands up and down the flawless skin of Rain’s back as the water ghoul’s cold hands slid his swimming trunks down to his knees. His hard cock sprung out and hit his belly, water muffling the slapping sound it would surely make in different conditions. 

Rain put on a faux pout at that, tutting, “So, so hard.”

“Yeah, baby, please…”

“Begging already?” he teased and dragged a sharp claw up Swiss’ stomach, ending up on his chest, tweaking a perky nipple. The multi ghoul let out a quiet moan, a putty in Rain’s hands.

He wouldn’t make him wait for much longer, though, there’d be countless more occasions to tease and edge Swiss into deliriousness. Rain swiftly moved down, asking his water to aid Swiss in keeping afloat, and the next thing the multi ghoul knew was Rain’s lips closing around the tip of his dick.

He moaned, all whorish, suddenly assaulted with the feeling of Rain’s skilled mouth on him, the wet tightness sliding down and down his length until he could feel the water ghoul’s nose digging into the soft pudge of his lower belly.

Lord Below, how Swiss loved the fact that Rain had gills.

The multi ghoul screwed his eyes shut so hard it hurt, crying out a whine after a whine, voice carrying over the water, as Rain was working him closer and closer to his orgasm. “Rain, fuck–”

Swiss could feel Rain uncurling an arm from his legs, the claws disappearing on their way in between them. The water ghoul cupped his balls, squeezing a few times. He let go when Swiss’ whole body tensed, too close to bursting for Rain’s liking, and moved further into the back, petting a finger around his ass.

Rain didn’t need to do much to bring the multi ghoul to the brink in a few moments, swallowing his cock over and over again along with gulps of water, his tongue teasing the thick vein running along the underside of Swiss’ dick and his finger slipping into his hole, second one following shortly.

“Oh my god, Raincloud, f– fuck,” he babbled, pathetically flopping his arms by his sides, splashing the water. “Y- you feel so good, oh shit, Rain, baby…”

No response reached him but a hand grabbing his own and bringing it to Rain’s neck, setting it down over his gills. Even as fucked out as he was already, Swiss got the hint, getting his shaking under control. At least enough to not hurt the water ghoul’s fragile organs.

Looking down into the slightly murky water, Swiss was pretty sure Rain was lazily jerking himself off with his own tail, while he focused on making the multi ghoul completely lose his mind. Swiss gently parted purple fins covering the gills and dipped his fingers inside, having enough experience to know how to make Rain as good as possible. He slid the rough tips of his fingers along the slimy, ridged surface and softly curved upwards, pressing down onto the spongy membrane. Rain’s own moan vibrated through Swiss’ cock, making it kick in reply where it was nestled down the water ghoul’s throat.

“Lucifer, Rainc-cloud, I– I’m gonna–” Swiss whined, so high pitched he felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment. Rain didn’t seem to mind, neither the noise nor Swiss being this close. Quite the opposite, actually. The multi ghoul noticed him speed up the movement of his tail on himself just as he doubled down on getting Swiss to cum. Rain bobbed his head in time with little thrust of his fingers, hollowing his cheeks and tightening his throat.

“Oh, so good, baby, oh– I– fuck, I’m–” and with last squeeze Swiss was gone, cumming hot down Rain’ throat. The responding moan and shudder from the water ghoul told Swiss he just came too, and kept milking him for all his worth.

“Ohhh, my god,” the multi ghoul sighed, running a wet hand over his face. “Rain, baby, come up here. Please?”

He obliged, breaking the surface and smiling up at the other, so innocently—like he didn’t just make him cum his brains out—as he cupped Swiss’ face, damp with lakewater and sweat. 

“You make such pretty noises, sweetheart,” Rain chuckled, running his thumb over Swiss’ cheekbone as he held his face. “All for me.”

“You evil little thing,” Swiss grumbled, even leaning into the water ghoul’s soft touch with a purr. “All for you.”

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Y'know, if Lila was just a one-off character for Volpina and we never saw her again, a few tweaks in that episodes writing could have made it a good lesson about not letting your temper get the best of you, even in a situation where your anger is justified

This is in reference to the post where I discussed how terrible Volpina's lesson is and I agree with the proposed change. If Marinette has to be in the wrong here, that's the only way to make it kind of work. In fact, this is what I thought the episode was trying to do on my first watch. When the next season started with Lila gone, I thought, "Okay, so that episode was supposed to be about being the better person and having a more measured response when you've been wronged. I don't think it did that lesson super well, but I can see what they were going for and we'll give them some grace. Definitely one that I wouldn't just give to a kid, though. Way too high a risk of them internalizing a very wrong message."

I only gave the writers that grace because I assumed that Ladybug had truly humiliated Lila out of Paris off screen (remember, we only see Ladybug out Lila to Adrien even though Lila was lying to everyone) and that is a pretty extreme punishment for a teenager making a dumb choice. Even then, saying that Ladybug was in the wrong feels a little too victim blame-y for my tastes. Lila was the one telling the lies and using Ladybug's name for clout on a city-wide scale or possibly even a national/international scale depending on the Ladyblog's viewership. By telling those lies, Lila was harming Alya's credibility and presenting herself as a sort of authority on Ladybug, a position that she was going to use to her advantage as we saw with her manipulating Adrien. She was also putting herself at risk if Gabriel or other villains believed the lies and saw her as a way to get to Ladybug.

That means that the lies Lila told aren't exactly minor, victimless crimes like the lies Marinette and Adrien tell to hide their identities. Lilia's lies needed to be outed on the same scale that they were broadcast and there's no kind way to do that. It's going to have a brutal edge no matter how pretty the words are.

There are times when it's right to be "the better person" and let a thing go, but it's hard to view this as one of them because this was not a nuanced situation. There was no reasonable option other than issuing a public retraction and Ladybug didn't even go that far! She had a single, private confrontation with Lila and then let the matter rest. A better version of this episode might see Alya and Marinette giving a really mean retraction on the Ladyblog that they then feel bad about because they should have been more professional, but that's about it as far as possible improvements go.

If we look at what the episode actually gave us, it feels like another Gamer situation. An episode that blames Marinette for impure motivations while ignoring anyone else's faults, creating a nonsense moral that just makes me mad. Ladybug-is-wrong-for-confronting-the-liar-for-impure-reasons is certainly a take. It's just not one that I'm ever going to agree with. To give a recent, real-world example, do people really feel that James Somerton was the wronged party because his many, many lies and instances of plagiarism were outed in a brutal public takedown? (Context part 1 & part 2, though part 2 is the one to watch if you only want to see why letting lies from respected sources go unchecked can be so messy.)

To be clear, I don't think that Lila's lies were Somerton bad in Volpina, but they were starting to go down that road and they arguably reached Somerton levels by season five. Fakes identities, almost getting Marinette expelled, using her lies to get social power from Gabriel, the list goes on, which is yet another reason to hate Volpina. Its nonsense moral is a big part of why Lila could do all of that. Ladybug should have outed Lila! Society suffered and will continue to suffer because she didn't. That's why you have to stop misinformation as soon as you possibly can, but that wasn't actually the moral of Volpina. The moral was that Ladybug was in the wrong for being mean to the liar. Maybe if she'd been nicer, then Lila wouldn't be so evil now which is a very gross moral! Volpina really does feel even more victim blame-y now that Lila is the new big bad.

That's a good segue to circle back and finish off my original topic: I gave the writers grace for Volpina until Lila returned and established that she'd never been publicly outed. At that point, Volpina lost any chance at me giving it charity. The lesson was worse than I thought and I was fully justified in hating it. It's one of the ones I use when I explain why I wouldn't want a child getting into Miraculous because the problem with Volpina's moral is pretty straightforward.

[strawberrystepmom]

a trick, a treat, a few tweaks later and i am proud to present...dragon suguru geto for @thefallen-firstborn! happy halloween and thank you for participating!

contains: NSFW, MDNI. fantasy au setting. dragon king!geto x afab!reader, piv sex, outdoor sex, use of pet names (love), size kink (he is a dragon man and does not fully revert to human and is thusly oversized)

The darkness of night envelops you where you stand, stone beneath your feet and curtains fluttering behind you from the open door. A sconce is the only light not provided by the moon, flame warming your body and the stone it sits against, but you wonder how much longer you can keep it burning for.

Where is Suguru? 

Usually the steady beat of wings can be heard across the skies by now, cracking across the night air and making the hair on your body stand on end. It’s your nightly ritual, one that you would hate to deviate from, and you wonder what could be keeping him. It’s late and the hours that continue to pass make you anxious, the moon’s changing position in the sky keeping you company while you lean against the stone railing of your balcony and wait.

The night grows thin, as does your patience, and you wonder when the stars will give way to the sunset. You yearn for him always - spending the day tucked away inside the library in the castle learning, wondering when at last the man whose secret only you know will return to your side. 

Suguru Geto is no mere man. He is a King, the leader of these lands you love and live in, and has an ancient birthright of power that has been a carefully kept secret since his youth. The man can shift into something far less human, winged and scaled and terrifying. 

You don’t think he’s more beautiful than when you see the remnants of his power across his skin, patches of scales across his chest and forearms. The most wonderful moments are after he has come home from battle, full of vigor and fire and ready to lay claim to the thing he loves having dominion over the most. 

Smiling wistfully and feeling heat flare through your stomach, you gaze across the horizon at the advancing morning and feel as though it’s time to try again another night. Perhaps the battle consumed your secret lover for a bit longer than either of you could have expected and you decide to accept that outcome, turning on your heel and letting your nightgown flutter behind you as you head back inside.

The steady beat of wings draws you back outside, feet stomping in time as you run across the threshold and watch his large body approach from a distance. You wonder how the whole village doesn’t arise at the mere sound of him but remember that none of them know this sound is their king returning from protecting them, fighting battles in distant places.

Your smile grows with each bit of distance that closes between the two of you and you lean against the balcony, eyes wide as he grows closer and closer. His current form makes that familiar heat rise once again, your cheeks and ears warming as he glides to a stop above you and lets himself down onto the balcony gently.

“My love,” you coo and he grunts his response, still unable to speak to you as he wishes while in dragon form. This is why you spend your day in the libraries, buried beneath texts hoping to get answers on how to best love him just like this, the way you love him most, but for now you’re content to let touch be the way you express your love to one another. He snorts when you run your warm and soft hand over the scales of his snout, warm air covering your body.

“I missed you.”

So much, you think. More than you ever have before and you can tell by the glint in his eye as he slowly transforms into something not quite man, not quite dragon, that he missed you as well. His amber eyes glow even in the low light, warm embers where you find your home, and your hands begin to caress flesh as he slowly becomes something you recognize better.

Something your body recognizes too, judging by the warm pool of arousal sitting in your stomach.

“Another victory, I’m assuming?”

He hums, his body continuing to return to a form you’re more familiar with. Broad shouldered and barrel chested, long hair the color of onyx flowing down his back. You love that his hair shines the same way his scales do in the light of the moon and your hand travels from his chin to the shiny strands, pushing it back from his face.

“Always. Knowing I’ll get to return to you when it’s all done pushes me further,” he can finally speak and you revel in the sound, closing the gap between your bodies and pressing your chests together. Suguru bends at the waist and wraps his arms around your hips, large hands smoothing over your back.

“Time to claim my prize?” 

His question is jovial, a little smirk playing across his features, and you nod, letting him hook one of your legs and drag it up until you can wrap it around his waist. Your underclothes do little to cover you and he’s grateful, wishing you’d simply wait out here for him in nothing given you know the routine.

He fights, he returns, he claims in that order.

“Of course, my king,” your hips begin to buck against the oversized bulge in his pants, well aware of just how long it takes his cock to go back to its normal size after he has been in his dragon form. 

You know how he feels in all forms - dragon, human, somewhere in between - and you love how salacious it feels to fuck him when he’s halfway between two of them. He’s human, flesh and muscle and bone, but he’s something more and the ridged texture of his cock takes you to highs you’ve been unable to experience elsewhere.

“Accept my apologies for keeping you waiting,” he offers and you nod, lips pressing against his again while he hikes your other leg up, wrapping it around his waist. He supports you with one hand cupping the bottom of your ass, one pressing your back so that there is no space between the two of you. 

Your head swims, heat and bliss and pure love for this man that has enveloped your lips with his own, the hand supporting your back now crawling from your spine and shoulders to the front of your body. There is just enough of a gap between the two of you that he slips his hand between your bodies and pushes your underclothes aside, gasping into your mouth when he feels the wetness between your legs that rivals the warmth of your tongue.

“Beautiful,” he mutters and you beam at the affirmation. He means it, just as he means everything he says to you, and you whimper feeling his cock jump beneath the laces of his pants. You’re all too familiar with the way it feels when it’s pressed between your folds, the two of you too fearful at one point to try and put the impressive girth and length inside of you, but he knows you can take it.

Nobody could ever take his cock like you do and you whimper at the loss of his touch across your cunt but grow excited feeling him fiddling with the laces, the worn leather of his pants pushed just beneath his ass and exposing his painfully hard cock to the cool night hair. He hisses, the sensation exactly what he needed for a sense of relief, and he’s quick to line himself up at your fluttering entrance. 

As always, you gasp at the sheer size of his tip. You have to stretch to accommodate him but you’re already so wet, silky folds covered in your own arousal, that it’s hardly an effort for him to slip the tip inside. Rocking your hips gently to get used to the feeling, you mewl and whimper into his mouth and he shushes you reassuringly. He’s so big and you’re already so full with just the tip but it’s not enough, it never is, not when you know what comes next.

A buried inch - girthy and thick, spreading you open in a way that you can only imagine is obscene, then another and another until he’s as close to bottoming out in you that he possibly can be. 

There are times you worry he’ll split you in two but the way the ridged and bumped texture of his inhuman cock feels rubbing against the deepest spots inside of you quiets any concern you have immediately, mindless moaning and pleas interrupting the silence of the night while your mouth fills with saliva.

It feels so good. He feels so good, a dream come true every time, and he looks down to see himself splitting you in two over his length. He uses his grip on your hips to increase your rocking and grinding, lifting you up and putting you back down again and again, impressively strong enough to do this while he’s standing. His thrusts are shallow, he instead uses the grip on your body to meet each one by dragging you down over his cock.

“My king, my love…” you start and he hums, warm puffs of air leaving his nostrils as he breathes through the way you’re squeezing him. Your silken walls have become a vice of pleasure for both of you and he lowers you down and lifts you back up, the sound of your own slick what finally pushes you over the edge. You feel dizzy as you reach your peak, head lolling against his shoulder while he fucks into you.

“Oh little love, do not give up on me now. We’re just beginning.”

As always, your climax simply marks the first of many that will come until the sun brightens the world around you and you keep your cheek pressed against his shoulder, happy to let him use your body as his own personal plaything until he's satiated.

[greed-the-dorkalicious]

All the discussion around AI lately got me thinking about an incident recently in which a guy got his ass sorely beat by the vocal synth community

For those of you not familiar, “vocal synths” in the electronic music sense typically refers to programs like Vocaloid, SynthV, UTAU, Alter/Ego, DeepVocal, etc., digital instruments that allow composers to create, as the name implies, synthesized vocal tracks. The way they work is that they draw from libraries (referred to as “voicebanks” or VB for short) of special studio recorded* vocal samples from singers singing different syllables at a consistent pitch. The program then splices these together and adjusts the pitch to match whatever notes you put in- You want to do All Star, it’s gonna string together “[suh][m] [buh][di] [wuh][n][s] [tO][ld] [mi]” or something like that. Basically it’s an extremely complicated sampler.

(*unless you’re using UTAU or another build-your-own-vocal program in which the “studio” is only metaphorical, and is sometimes somebody’s basement with a Rockband mic plugged into a laptop.)

Now, there is no threat of vocal synths putting actual singers out of a job. Even the best vocal synths always have a bit of a robotic sound to them, and the voicebanks take hundreds of hours of recording time from you know, actual singers. Any piece made with vocal synths has to be worked by a human hand in a process called “tuning” in order to sound any good, whether you’re trying to make it sound human or leaning into the robotic sound. This isn’t something that’s being done on a corporate scale to cut costs- This is something pretty much exclusively being done by small scale indie music hobbyists because we fucking love Hatsune Miku and her weird buddies. Most folks are less interested in doing something that sounds 1:1 like a human voice and more in going beyond what humans can do to make shit like this

One of the leading vocal synths right now is Synthesizer V (SynthV), created by a company called Dreamtonics. SynthV offers fancier versions of some of its voicebanks, which are called “AI” voicebanks. These use machine learning trained on, again, professionally recorded and legally licensed vocal samples to help make songs sound a little bit more smooth, a little bit more in line with whatever singing style you’re aiming for. Everything else previously mentioned still applies: They’re still painstakingly recorded and programmed, you still need to tweak it yourself to get it to sound just right, and it’s still never going to sound 100% like a human. And that’s fine!

For this next bit y’all are gonna have to trust me because the tweets all got deleted, though if anyone wants I’m happy to pull up screencaps of talking shit about it with other vocal synth folks when it happened lmfao

So basically. Since ChatGPT type grifters have convinced people that “AI” means “magic plagiarism button”, back in April some dipshit NFT guy on Twitter started complaining on an official SynthV update post that SynthV (which he apparently believed to be called “Dreamtonics”, the name of the company that makes it) should allow people to make voicebanks from “their own voice”, insisting that it would be easy and PROFITABLE!™ to do so. He also clearly did not actually mean “their own voice” but rather “the voices of celebrity singers shamelessly lifted without their consent”, which was made extra obvious from a tweet on his own page that was like “Teehee people in monitored Twitter spaces don’t realize their voices are being recorded and fed into AI!” which he then deleted after I linked it on the thread about SynthV. lol.

Dude proceeded to get whupped by actual vocal synth people basically saying shit along the lines of “Yeah we can all tell you just want to commit cheap plagiarism, jackass” and “Dude why are you here when you clearly don’t understand the very very basics of what this software even is” and “Go make an UTAU voicebank if it’s so easy then”. (UTAU being a Japanese freeware program that hasn’t been updated since 2013. Creating an UTAU voicebank is complicated and takes a lot of time and technical knowledge.) He still refused to learn the basics of how vocal synths work, and proceeded to ask if “UTAU or Diff is most compatible with Dreamtonics”, a question absolutely no one could make any sense of? Lol.

Anyway, I don’t have anywhere in particular I’m going with this, I just think AI grifters are morons, and it’s obnoxious how the vague and misleading term “AI” has gotten nigh-mythologized by shady tech companies to the point that people can’t tell the difference between perfectly reasonable assistive technology and magic plagiarism.

Btw, fun fact for anyone who’s wondering, there do in fact exist legally/morally questionable UTAU voicebanks spliced from outside vocals. These are called “jinriki” voicebanks and not only do they take the same amount (if not more) of hard work as any other voicebank, they’re far from the insta-Beyoncé this dude was aiming for, and instead they sound um. like this

[leolingo]

(long post about purgatory and meta and rp)

sigh one thing ive been thinking is that it feels a bit unfair to see so many people complaining or doomposting over how purgatory affects the overarching qsmp rp story or how it ~interrupted arcs~ or is ~disturbing current storylines~ or ~narratively unsatisfying~ like. Sure. its a bit abrupt and most players were caught off guard because lore-wise it stems from the federation which means none of them were told about anything beforehand

but... its only been three days. maybe we could have a little faith? like idk ill be soooooo out there rn and say that maybe the admins did this now for a reason. maybe itll make sense later on. we already see lore repercussions with elquackity and his motives and all the nods to the eggs.

theres fair criticism to be made (when done respectfully) if youre mainly here for the roleplay but i feel like we sometimes need to remind ourselves that the qsmp storytelling is a VERY ambitious project. lmao. imagine being the writing team and trying to wrangle 20+ characters with distinct points of view and journeys on an ever-changing story because of the very nature of live rp. its practically IMPOSSIBLE to tie up every loose end neatly and at this point i dont think we should expect that. keeping up momentum with all plotlines must also be pretty hard, cc's schedules and outside factors like server programming and building and mod tweaking and all those meta elements considered and so on and so on

i DO also want the story to move forward and be cohesive and make sense in a satisfactory way. like i really do!!!!!!! but i try to understand that thats not ALL the qsmp is about. from the start quackity said the server wouldn't be exclusive to the rp aspect. it sure is that way right now, but thats because most of the active members are VERY passionate about roleplaying. thats a good thing! they have fun and its fun to watch and the experience is mostly good for everyone because it corresponds to their expectations to an extent

the thing about purgatory is that i feel like its a lot more meta than most people doomposting realize. it ties into the story, sure, but to me it feels like the sudden switch in environment and vibes and stakes isnt actually catered to the rp and thats FINE. like thats not what it exists for and thats fineeeeeee

pac for one has said he appreciates the event for the change of pace, though its very hard (lol), because regular qsmp was starting to feel a bit stale to him and he was kind of running out of things to do. THATS A GREAT THING! managing player engagement like that is awesome and sometimes necessary. YES, purgatory caters to a very different playstyle than what we're used to -- and thats one of its strenghts.

a lot of hispanic creators have also felt this!!!! roier, rivers and carre most prominently have been VERY excited about this event because its similar in format to a lot of spanish speaking events like mc extremo and such. a lot of these players are also not particularly interested in rp-ing and had not been logging on very often prior to purgatory.

even roleplay regulars like tubbo, fit and bbh have shown interest in purgatory for the competitive nature of the setting!!! thats cool too!!!! something different, new possibilities to play around with. thats what the events should be about. kudos to the admins and dev teams for attempting it in such a big scale. their effort shows and all the mechanics weve seen are really fucking cool

i love the roleplay!!!!!! its one of my favorite parts of the qsmp!!!!!! but its not ALL there is and it shouldnt be! non rp-oriented creators are also part of the project and deserve to have a little fun too -- not to mention a big chunk of the hispanic fan community that has blown up twitter with support bc what we have rn is similar to events they already love!!!!!!! im glad to see so many of them get excited again!!!!!!

at the end of the day, qsmp is a LONG long term project, and purgatory ends in two weeks. by the time its over, we can all choose to engage with it as we wish. it can be a big filler episode in your mind, if you want. it can be just for fun..... otherwise, if its not fun, your regularly scheduled qsmp will be back soon anyway :3 its fine to not like it, its fine to have something negative to say about it if properly tagged and not like. crazy entitled or blown out of proportion for what this situation is.

i just hope we can all manage our online experiences accordingly and avoid making things less enjoyable for each other. this is supposed to be fun

[friendcrumbs]

oughhhh ur writing is so good!! and ur art!!! do u have any tips on how to improve writings? i feel like my fics ive written are very bland...if u have a process im very curious to hear what it is too!

thank you so much!! ;w; first of all, your fics probably seem bland to you because you were the one who wrote them -- you got used to the plot and prose, and maybe get caught up in the technical aspects of what to tweak/improve, so much so that the 'magic' of reading becomes lost. have a little faith in yoruself! when it comes to general writing advice, it will probably be super unhelpful and something you've heard before but: writing a lot helps. it doesn't have to be good/finished/"publishable," it's about getting words down on a page. i write between 100k and 300k words a year. most of them are utter garbage or ideas that don't go anywhere, but that's kind of the point, to get into the habit of not agonizing over it. the other unhelpful and generic piece of advice i have is to read/watch media criticism -- i know it won't work for everybody, but for me, seeing why something works or doesn't work in a piece of media helps with knowing how to "steal it" and include it in my own writing. if i may be pretentious about my own writing, cicadas leans heavily on everything i had to read on horror/the gothic and weird fiction as a genre -- seeing the elements of why these genres are successful in evoking discomfort/fear and what techinques they use in plain language makes it easier to put in plot points/descriptions that mimic it (for example, disrupted/stretchy/unverifiable time to get a confused, fever-dream atmosphere).

when it comes to the process itself, i highly recommend a beta reader/friend to bounce ideas off of. they don't have to be super familiar with the original media (hi @nullians who bravely soldiered on despite not liking these guys, i owe you my life) -- it's about whether the ideas you have translate onto the page. i would usually ask for a creepiness rating on a scale of 1-10 and whether certain parts were too short/dragged on too long and then adjusted accordingly. the other thing is an outline. my outlines are notoriously shitty, no matter if it's fanfic/ original fiction/non-fiction, so i'm perhaps not to be the best person to be getting advice from on the technical aspects. but to me, it's helpful to have both the crucial plot points and the "mood" i want in a given segment/chapter. it's so i don't forget where i was going with it after a few weeks, so i can see if the bare bones of the story work without being 'pretty', and lastly, to see if the pacing works. it helps to have an 'objective' to hit within a given segment so i don't get off track and spiral into talking about something that's only tangentially related but really, doesn't contribute much to the 'goal' (if you end up with these bits, save them! i have a dumping grounds document where all the rejects go to save me when i'm stuck)

anyways, this got VERY long, but i hope it's at least somewhat helpful!! and again, thank you so much, it's so nice to hear ;w;

[glassprism]

It’s kind of surprising sometimes that this story is still popular considering what the original story of the book is about. Why is that? Do you think the story still would’ve been as well-known without the musical, or if it had been written/performed with darker vibes closer to the book?

The ALW musical, definitely the musical.

I mean, all you need to do is look at the history of adaptations before the musical, and how much cultural staying power they had, and then look at everything after the musical. Phantom had a lot of adaptations before the musical, that is true, but none of them really settled into the cultural mainstream the way the musical did, with the possible exception of the 1925 film (and I think that was more because of its strong visuals and technical skills behind the scenes as well as Lon Chaney's iconic performance).

So without the musical, no, I don't think the story would have been as well-known, and I also think the public view of it might have been fairly different, perhaps seeing it more as a straight horror or suspense story rather than the Gothic romance we see it as today. Again, for proof, look at the various and most well-known adaptations pre-ALW, which tended to make a number of changes to the story and, even if they kept the Phantom sympathetic, went for more of a suspense or even horror vibe.

As for whether the musical would have such staying power if it had been darker... I mean, first, I'm not sure if ALW would even go that route (his musicals can have mature themes but I would not characterize most of them as "dark"). But my thought is that no, it would likely not have been as successful as it is now. I see this alternative version as having a fairly decent run on the West End and maybe Broadway and then getting the occasional international production, but nothing on the scale of what it is now.

Because I think what ALW did with the musical is that he brought out all those themes of unrequited love and melodramatic romance and dark, forbidden passion, which are all present in the book but subtler, and made it overt, then added a lot of earworm-y tunes to it. Combine that with Maria Bjornson's incredible design and Hal Prince's excellent direction, which emphasized even more the simmering sensuality of the main characters, and you have a musical that appeals to most audiences and is also understandable across many different cultures without any need to tweak the story.

Because at the end of the day, darker stories with more horror and suspense / thriller / mystery vibes are a little more niche. They are popular, I enjoy them tons, but I'm aware enough to know that not everyone else does, and not everyone is always in the right mind space to appreciate them. But a grand, sweeping tale of passion and unfulfilled love with a broodingly sympathetic male lead and massive spectacle? That's bringing Phantom into the mainstream, because most everyone can understand that.

[maddieautobot273]

Silk & Cologne (54)

A Miguel O'Hara X OC Fanfic - link to AO3 (X)

Chapter 54: Dawn - previous chapter (X)

Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x Female! Spidersona OC

Words: 5.8K words

Warnings: PG for injury and implied weapon of mass destruction

Summary: Lisa and her friends shut down the poral threatening to collapse Earth-1218.

//////

We all stared up at the portal in the sky, watching as it slowly sparked and crackled. It was becoming unstable. If it collapsed, would it simply be over and done with? It would go out in style and take my universe with it?

“What do we do now?” Noir asked, raising his voice as a large and loud gust of wind rush passed us. 

“We need to figure out a way to contain it!” Miguel yelled back, using his body to brace and shield mine from the wind, or try to at least. 

Panic rattled in my mind about the multitude of things that could go wrong. Even if we do contain it, what about the authorities? People would talk, ask questions. What about the national guard? The military? 

Come to think of it, where are they? 

A wave of guilt washed over me, “I probably shouldn’t have been too quick to kick Chameleon to the curb.”

“If you hadn’t, he would have taken me to God knows where,” Kasey shook her head as she glanced my way, her arms raised to shield her face from the wind. “You saved me, Lisa.”

“Don’t ever apologize for something like that,” Miguel reassured me. “In fact, I may have an idea on how to stop this. Well, two actually!”

“Let's hear it then before we’re blown away like leaves!” Gwen screamed, trying to keep herself and Touga from falling over. 

“Lyla,” Miguel brought his gizmo up to his face, trying to scroll through the touch screen. “Remember Project: Reset? Back in the old Alchemax days?”

“Oh, do I!” Lyla grins as her holoform appears, rubbing her hands together like an eager grasshopper before cycling through the database on her personal screen. 

“What’s Project: Reset?” I asked him.

I watched as a small portal opened beside Miguel and he reached inside it. He pulled his hand out, holding a strange looking sleek white baton. “Back during my early days in Alchemax when I first started, my old boss would have me occasionally work with the company’s R&D department. They were experimenting with a weapon that– with enough charge– could wipe and realtor people’s memory on a massive scale.”

“Sounds like a weapon of mass destruction to me!” Toya commented. 

“It was, which was why I convinced my then boss at the time to shut it down before more could be made,” Miguel responded. 

“Okaaay, but how does that help us with that?” I asked again, pointing at the portal as the integrity seemed to be getting worse. 

“With the portal? Nothing.” Miguel yelled over the wind as he began to tweak and make altercations with the device. “Lyla, Margo, and Gabriel can work their magic from HQ and contain the blast, sending it directly back to Harry’s dimension and doing a number on his lab. At the same time, I can trigger this device to alter the town’s people’s memories so they won’t remember anything from the invasion.”

“That’s brilliant!” Hannah beamed, gripping onto Touga to keep still. “A little terrifying, but brilliant!”

“But what about everyone else all over the world that was watching the festival online or on TV?” Kasey asked. “They’ll know something is off if the people of New York suddenly act like this all never happened.”

“Remember the part I mentioned about charging the device?” Miguel recalled. His eyes scanned the area, looking up to the top of the Statue of Liberty, specifically the tip of the flame torch in Lady Liberty’s hand. “If I can get high enough, I can pick up the broadcast signal and transmit the wipe to everyone that was watching the show!”

“Perfect, let’s do that!” I exclaimed, eyes widening in relief. 

“But there’s a catch,” Miguel quickly added, hooking his arm around my shoulders to stop me from blowing away. “I need to replace the memory of the invasion with something else-!”

“Like a fake memory or an actual event?” Noir asked. 

“Definitely the ladder!” Miguel answered back in earnest. 

“Like. . . like a canon event?” My mind was racing as I tried to figure out what new memory we could create to replace the one of the invasion. 

I could sense the gears in his head turning as Miguel looked over at me. “Kind of, yeah!”

“We’re always saving the canon from breaking, so this will be a wonderful change of pace!” Gwen grimaced and pushed against the wind. 

“So what kind of canon event?” Toya asked, his voice yelling over the wind. “It has to be something big right?”

Think, Lisa, think! 

All of those people, in the audience and watching on TV, their phones, laptops, why were they all tuning in in the first place?

Then it hits me. How could I have been so blind?

“What about our show?” I suggested, looking out towards the team. 

“The show?” Kasey repeated with more emphasis. 

“Yes, the show. Our dance, you guys!” I exclaimed, my gaze washing over Kasey, Hannah, Toya, and Touga specifically. 

My Webslingers. 

“Everyone came to see our show, so let’s give them a show!” I fought against the wind with an encouraging smile as I took my mask off so they could see my face. 

My friends looked at each other, silently debating what to do. 

“But wait, you said it alters people’s memories,” Kasey spoke up, a look of worry on her face. “Does that mean our memories will be changed too?”

Miguel hesitated briefly as the eyelets of his mask drooped to a sad expression, his voice laced with apology. “The device has been altered to protect only those wearing a gizmo. So, yes. . . your memories will be altered.”

“Then. . . that means you guys won’t remember everything that’s happened. You all finally getting the chance to see the real Miguel. The real me. . .” The realization hit me as I felt my heart drop to my stomach. 

My body suddenly felt heavy and limb. For a second, I thought I wouldn’t have to hide such a big secret from them anymore. I thought I’d be able to finally be my complete self around them.

I felt the grip of Miguel’s arm tighten around my shoulders, his silent apology plucking at my heartstrings.  

“If by the odd chance this does work. . . might as well go out with a bang, right?” Touga shrugged with a contagious smile. 

“What?” My voice was barely a whisper being carried out into the wind as I looked up towards my friends. 

“Considering all of the crazy stuff that we’ve seen in the last hour?” Hannah gawked at her friend before sharing a glance with me and the rest of the group. “I’m in! I think this can work!”

“If Hannah’s in, I’m in!” Toya grinned, grabbing her hand before looking over at Kasey. “What about you, K?”

Kasey glanced between everyone else before her gaze fell upon me. My eyes poured into hers, pleading for her to trust me. She suddenly laughed, hysterical even, before waving her hands in the air. “You’re our friend, Lisa. Super hero or not. What the hell! This day can’t keep getting any weirder, right?”

I grinned in relief before looking over to Miguel, nodding my head. “Let’s go with your plan.”

“Alright, team, repair the stage as best as you can and get a camera set up. I’ll contact HQ and establish the signal at the top of the statue,” Miguel relayed his orders like the organized leader I knew him to be, watching as the Spiders set off to do their task. His gaze fell upon me and my friends. “Webslingers, do what you do best.”

I looked out to my friends, smiling confidently as I used my powers to leap for them, gathering them in my arms before web-slinging us closer to the stage. 

“Gabriel, are you there? Did Lyla fill you in?” Miguel spoke in the background as he began running for the statue. 

“Yeah, she did, but still struggling to believe it,” his little brother’s voice spoke through the com-link. “Project: Reset? Are you serious? You must be really desperate to whip that out all of a sudden.”

“Don’t start with me,” Miguel grumbled, muttering something else in Spanish that I couldn’t decipher, although I couldn’t help the faint smirk that formed on my lips when my friends and I arrived on the stage. 

We quickly helped the others clean up the stage while they patched up broken and loose panels with their webbing. There was a lightning crackle like noise as I whipped my head up to the statue of liberty to see another portal open up just feet away from Harry’s portal. It was a portal from Spider Society HQ. 

“Our portal is stabilized, Miguel,” Margo’s voice spoke up through the com-link. “Ready to go on your mark.”

“We’re just missing one more piece to this puzzle,” Miguel uttered softly in the com-link before raising his voice. “METRO! Are you still around?”

“Right here, boss man!” A new voice fluttered through the com-link as a white and black dressed spider swinged up onto the stage. 

METRO’s spider suit had a black and white colour scheme that almost reminded me of the anti-venom spider-suit, but this one felt more personalized with a white spider necklace hanging low on his chest and a black with white spider webbing bandana wrapped around his forehead. The top part of his head was uncovered, giving way to his immaculately tailored dreadlocks of black and light aubrey brown coloured hair. 

Wait a minute, METRO BOOMIN?!

“Wait, he’s a Spider-Man too?!” I gasped, eyes wide as I looked between him and the small speck of Miguel’s body clinging onto Lady Liberty’s torch. “But you said originally no spider-person could actually exist in my dimension!”

“That’s right.” Miguel responded quickly. “He’s not from your dimension.”

“Huh?” I gawked, my head trying to wrap around the concept as METRO quickly fixed and set up his DJ player and sound mixer. 

“It’s true, Muse! I’d do the whole ‘Okay let’s do this one last time’ speech, but clearly we don’t got time for that,” METRO chuckled anxiously as he finished setting up. “I’m from Earth-101, I developed a psychic connection to my other dimensions personas. It’s how I’m here. Call me Metro-Spider.”

“O-Okay?” I wasn’t sure exactly how to respond to that, but I at least offered him a reassuring thumbs up. 

“Okay, we’re ready!” Hannah exclaimed as she and the others joined me on stage.

Leave it to Hannah to accidentally leave her bag backstage with backup costumes for all of us in the event something horribly went wrong. Loose stitching? Fabric got ripped? Trying escaping an enemy anomaly invasion and potential dimensional destruction. 

“Okay, Miguel, we’re in position!” I exclaimed through the com-link as I looked around the newly rebuilt stage, held together miraculously by our spider friends webbing and looked over as they each got cameras set up aimed towards us. 

“Cameras are primed and ready to roll!” Gwen chimed in, attaching the reset adaptor to the camera and the little device blinked green, indicating its connection to Miguel’s wand. 

“Here goes nothing!” Miguel took a deep breath. “But if this doesn’t work–”

“It’s going to work, Miguel,” I insisted, my gaze locking on to his body. “Trust me.”

I could feel our gazes locked on to one another, even at such a long distance apart. I felt a long caress down our bond, soothing me, both of us, as I breathed in and out slowly. In that moment my mind flashed back to when we danced together for the first time, he way he held me close, and when he whispered to me those same words I sent out to him through our bond. 

‘Do you trust me, Miguel?’

‘With my life, Lisa.’ 

“Let’s do it!” I called out as I launched a web to connect with the webbing along the stage, my player syncing with METRO’s sound system. 

“We’re coming to you live!” Noir announced with a signature radio actor voice, signaling us to start. 

I suddenly felt a tap on my wrist. I glanced over to see Kasey had leaned in closer to me, whispering, “If you still want to tell us about the whole super hero spider thing after all this is over, just come talk to us. We’ll think it’s crazy, but I know you’ll convince us otherwise.” 

I smiled softly at her, giving her hand a squeeze. “Thanks Kasey. I’m glad to have you as my friend.”

She smiled back before pulling away. 

Music started to play, the familiar violins and drum beats fluttering our ears as my friends and I started to dance, picking it right up from where we left off before the world seemed to go to shit. 

“I'm still fighting, I don't fear I've lost

Am I dreamin', is there more like us?

Got me feelin', like it's all too much

I feel beaten, but I can't give up!”

I cast a comforting glance to Kasey who was startled at first, expecting us to start from the beginning. After giving her an encouraging nod, motioning for her to follow my lead, she immediately stepped up and danced in sync with us. 

“Here we go!” METRO yelled excitedly. 

“I can't find it in myself to just walk away

I can't find it in myself to lose everything!” 

I closed my eyes, and it was like we were back in our dance studio, learning this dance for the first time. 

We all turned, forming a circle as Touya, Touga, Hannah and I surrounded Kasey. We all reached our arms out towards her as she crossed her arms over her chest, something similar to the Wakanda Forever salute before flexing her arms down to her sides. As she did that, the rest of us dropped to one knee, kneeling as we bowed our heads to her.

Just like before. Just like we practiced. 

“You’re doing great,” I whispered softly to them all. 

“Feel everyone's against me, don't want me to be great

Things might look bad, I'm afraid to look death in the face!”

“One, two, three, LET’S GO-!” Metro-Spider shouted, a fist in the air. 

That’s the signal. 

I could hear the ringing of Miguel activating the reset device and quickly soon after, wave after wave of pulsing blue energy soared across the sky of the entire city, and with any luck, the entire world. 

The beat dropped as Kasey then propelled herself forward, sliding along the floor. Hannah and I steered clear of her entrance. As we faced in her direction, Toya stepped behind Hannah and Touga stepped behind me, the boys hoisting us up to our feet and became our dance partners. The pair of us did a sweet waltz as Kasey was up front performing her own solo.

“I'm good now, who's really bad? 

I choose me now, what's wrong with that?

Wish you could see me

Now, now, mm, who had my back, baby?

Know no love lost, good always will win~”

I looked up into the sky, towards the portal to Harry’s dimension. The waves of energy from Miguel’s reset wand and the counteractive sparks from the conduit portal Lyla, Margo, and Gabriel created fought back against the enemy portal. It started to shrink, contorting violently. 

It’s working!

“Just a little more power and we can shut it down!” Gabriel’s voice rang through the com-link.

‘Finish it strong for me.’ Miguel’s voice purred through the bond. 

He had said the same thing when we were fighting Isabella in Noir’s dimension, and I felt the same surge of confident, motivative energy as I poured my heart out into the last steps of the dance, my voice reaching out. 

“Not done fightin', I don't fear I've lost 

Am I dreamin', is there more like us?

Got me feeling, like it's all too much

I feel beaten, but I can't give up!”

Kasey stepped aside, pulling up to the front of the stage as she and the others danced behind me. I was confused at first, but seeing her encouraging nod gave me the push to keep going. Together, I danced along with my friends as I sang the last set of lyrics to help me focus, my heart pounding in my chest. 

“I'm still fighting, I don't fear I've lost

Am I dreamin', is there more like us?

Got me feelin', like it's all too much

I feel beaten, but I can't give up!”

The enemy portal shrank smaller and smaller until it blipped into a tiny spec. There was a blink of light before the energy dispersed and sparkled in the sky like a giant firework. It gave us the perfect backdrop as we closed out the song. 

“Can't give up

Can't give, can't give up

Can't give, can't give up

Can't give, can't give up

Can't give up!” 

The music faded and the shimmering spectacle of the exploding portal faded into nothingness, giving way to the stars and the beautiful night sky. I took in deep breaths, my chest rising and falling as I lowered my fist from pounding it into the air with my finishing pose before my friend's dog piled me to the floor of the stage, their cheers and exasperated laughter filling the air. At the same time, Noir and Gwen cut the live broadcast feed and turned off the cameras. 

“Holy shit we actually did it!” Kasey laughed with a beaming smile. 

“That was like something out of an anime, oh my god!” Touga chuckled over Toya’s cackling. 

Hannah hugged me tightly, her thin arms wrapping around me. “We did it, we did it! You were amazing!” 

“Yeah. . .” I exchanged bewildered looks with each of them, the moment slowly processing in my mind before I reached my arms out to pull them all into a group hug. “I love you guys!”

I didn’t know why I was suddenly getting so emotional, but when my friends each returned their own embrace, I felt like my beating heart finally got the chance to slow down. Swift movement caught my ear as I looked up to see Miguel land near us on the stage, his mask evaporating from his face to show off his stunning eyes filled with pride. “It worked!”

“It did!” I beamed. 

When I moved to stand up, I suddenly felt a horrible, aching pain in my ankle as I immediately dropped back down to the floor, whining in pain. “OW!”

My friends immediately backed away, startled. But Miguel moved in, kneeling in front of me but was careful to not completely overshadow my form and gave me room to breathe. “What’s wrong?”

“I think– I think I sprained my ankle.” I hissed, my hand brushing down to find the source of the pain before retracting itself quickly. 

Miguel’s eyes looked me over, his eyes pleading silently before speaking, “May I?”

I nodded and watched as Miguel’s fingers gently, carefully skimmed down the calf of my left leg and as soon as his rough fingers brushed over my ankle, I bit my tongue as I held back a pained groan, fighting the urge to recoil from the touch. “That's definitely a sprain. You’d be screaming in pain if it was broken.”

“Obviously,” I couldn’t help but laugh as I shook my head. “Out of all of the things that happened tonight, this is what brings me under?”

“I’m glad it was something like this and not worse.” Miguel stated firmly, but a ghost of a relieved smile formed on his lips. 

He carefully stepped around me before gently scooping me up in his arms, and lifted me up from the floor. He held me close to his chest and I pretended to not see Hannah quietly squealing at the action, hiding behind Touga as my cheeks flushed with embarrassment. 

“Lyla tracked your home addresses through your phones,” Miguel spoke as a portal opened up behind my friends. “You’ll have another minute or so before the memory reset takes effect. I’d like you all to be in the safety of your homes when it happens.”

“Thanks for the free ride, Miguel,” Kasey grinned, offering him a salute. “We’ll see you around?”

Miguel offered Kasey a small smile as he nodded. “I’ll be around.”

“Good. After tonight, I think you owe us all a little group dinner night out,” She grinned, “You should come hang out with us sometime.”

“It could be fun.” I encouraged him softly with a soft brush of my fingers against his jawline. 

Miguel chuckled softly at the action before nodding again. “Fair enough. My treat then, just set a date and time.”

“So. . . I guess we’ll see you later?” Toya offered us a small wave. 

“See you later.” I waved back with my own smile. 

See you after your memories are erased and you won’t remember anything that happened tonight. 

One by one, I watched as my friends jumped through the portal. Kasey was the last to leave, offering me one more friendly farewell before following behind the others. The portal closed quickly after her departure. 

“Lyla, what’s the status of the dimensional integrity?” Miguel asked as Lyla’s holographic form appeared beside him. 

“Earth-1218 is slowly stabilizing, Miguel!” Lyla reported with a salute. “Margo and Gabriel will continue to monitor it for the remainder of the night to make sure there’s no setbacks, but all things considered, Project: Reset appears to have worked flawlessly!”

“So. . . no one in my dimension will remember what happened tonight?” I asked Miguel, staring up at him as the rest of the spiders regrouped at our location. 

“No one, except for you,” Miguel confirmed with a nod before his hold on me tightened ever so slightly. “But that doesn’t diminish what you accomplished tonight.”

“You did good kid,” Noir approached, patting my head gently. “Real good.”

I smirked over at him. “Aren’t I older than you?”

“I’d argue I’m more mature and older in spirit!” Noir jabbed playfully. 

“Okay, wise guy,” Gwen came up to his side, nudging his shoulder. “Do you want me to steal and hide your hat again?”

“The technical term is fedora and no!” Noir clutched his hat close to his head, making me laugh. 

“Alright, alright, settle down,” Miguel coaxed the group to ease up with a cautious stare. “I believe our work here is done. Spiders, let's go back home.”

Miguel swiped his finger along the screen of his gizmo, activating another portal. The familiar orange and yellow swirls and hexagons were a comforting sight as Gwen started running a head. 

“I’ll go a head and let Doc know to get a bed ready!” She chimed in. 

“Thank you, Gwen-!” Miguel could barely finish his thanks before Gwen was already through the portal. 

“Kids these days, they can never stay still,” Noir shook his head before running after her, disappearing into the portal. 

With just the two of us remaining, Miguel looked down at me with a softened expression. “You mind if I bring you back? Just so Doc can take a look at you?”

I nodded softly. “That’s fine. I don’t know how a normal doctor would react if two spider costumed people showed up to an ER in the middle of the night.”

“Wouldn’t that just be a regular Saturday night for them?” He grinned back. 

“Oh, hardy har har,” I mocked, rolling my eyes. 

Miguel started walking towards the portal, his arm that held up my shoulders lifting up to bring me closer to his face. “All that said, I really am proud of you, Lisa. You were spectacular, Spider-Muse.”

I grinned back at Miguel, cupping his cheek. “You weren’t so bad yourself, Spider-Man.”

The look he gave me made my heart flutter as his eyes seemed to sparkle just like the stars above. “Come here,” he whispered, before capturing my lips in a tender kiss as we phased through the portal. 

**********

“Oh I feel so awful for missing it, I just don’t know what happened!” My mother apologized profusely for the umpteenth time as Miguel and I stood with her at the departure gate at JFK international airport. 

It was now the early afternoon the following day since the Marvel Day festival ended, specifically just over 12 hours since myself, my friends and the Spider Society saved my dimension from complete and potential annihilation. 

Miguel’s plan with Project: Reset worked. After Spider-Doc looked me over and gave me some pain meds to sleep it off for a few hours, I woke up to check the news on my phone and for a second I thought I had woken up from a dream. It was like the anomaly invasion never happened, and all the news reported on were highlights of the Marvel Day festivities. 

One of the bigger highlights was The Webslingers performance. 

The firework-like explosion of Harry’s portal was played off as just that. Fireworks and special effects, which was why due to safety reasons, we didn’t have an audience physically with us. Nobody was expecting such a grand display, and as it turned out the animators and special effects crew working behind the scenes were so burnt out from the work that they “didn’t remember doing all of this but must have done it in their sleep”, and since then there’s been a call online to give their industry better pay. 

Honestly, good for them. 

When it came to my friends, when I first woke up this morning, the group chat was lively with reactions to our performance and watching the live playback. According to them, we had celebrated together briefly before we quickly realized I had done something to my ankle. They said they had seen Miguel take me to a nearby hospital and kept them all updated as they had their own little party back at the twin’s penthouse before returning home in the wee hours of the night. 

It was only then did the memory reset really sunk in for me. They really don’t remember anything that actually happened last night. The invasion, Kasey’s kidnapping and rescue, fighting Oscorp with Miguel and the others, seeing my powers in action. . . 

Perhaps it was for the best. 

As for my mom on the other hand, when Miguel and I arrived at her hotel room to check on her, the poor woman was so frazzled. Miguel’s reasoning behind her fainting was due to a sudden episode, or at least that’s what the “doctor’s” had told him when he said he had immediately handed her over to the local authorities to be brought to a nearby emergency room and they had contacted him. She didn’t remember arriving back to the hotel, and so I had explained that after I got my ankle checked out, between her fainting and the medication the nurses gave her, she passed out, and that we personally drove her back to let her rest. 

Speaking of my ankle. 

“And your ankle! Oh, I’m just happy you had Miguel and your friends with you, dear,” Janet hugged me tightly, and for a second I thought she was going to crush me. 

“Mom, I’ll be okay, really!” I reassured her with a gentle laugh as I attempted to return the embrace. “You’re acting like this is the first time I’ve injured myself.”

“I know, I know, it’s just been awhile, that’s all,” She shook her head, pulling away from me as she offered me an apologetic smile. “I know I can always watch your show online, but I would have loved to see the whole thing in person.”

“You showed up mom,” I took her hands in mine, squeezing them tightly. “That’s what matters to me.”

That part wasn’t a lie or made up memory. It was the truth and nothing but the truth. 

“You’ll be alright on your flight home, Janet?” Miguel asked with concern in his eyes. 

“Oh, yes, Miguel, don’t you worry!” Janet smiled reassuringly as she patted her fanny pack. “I’ve got my gravol with me so I won’t even know if I’m feeling sick on the plane as soon as I’m on board.”

“Or as dad liked to call it, the gravol haze?” I teased with a knowing look, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Oh hush you!” Janet glared at me with a playful grin. 

There was an announcement overheard that a certain flight would begin boarding soon. My mom’s eyes lit up as she quickly checked to make sure she had all her bags with her. 

“Oh, I should get going.” She sighed, grabbing her purse as she looked over towards Miguel and I. She had a soft smile on her face before she suddenly looked at me with this look of. . . longing. “But before I leave, honey, may I talk to you for a moment?”

My eyes lit up at the recognition in her words. Growing up I quickly learned if my mother ever gave me that look, she wanted to talk to me in private. Usually it was always something important, so I never kept her waiting. I should know, the first time she ever gave me that look was when she first told me when dad got sick all those years ago. 

“Sure, mom, just don’t miss your boarding time.” I nodded softly before glancing up at Miguel. “Give us a minute?”

“Of course,” Miguel smiled softly as he squeezed my shoulder, leaning in to peck my temple before stepping away. 

Once he was far enough where I convinced myself that he wouldn’t be able to hear our conversation, I stepped closer to my mom. “What’s going on?”

Janet was silent briefly, her eyes shifting as if she were choosing her words carefully. But when she spoke, she was calm and collected. “Would you feel comfortable if. . . if I showed Jin your performance?”

I could feel my nerves become static, my grip on her hands tightening. My pupils went wide, my eyes searching hers to try and find out if she was joking or not. But when it came to my mother, and topics like this, she never joked. 

Other than her updating me on his therapy progress every now and then, I haven’t physically seen or heard from my step-father since I cut contact with him. Just over 2 years ago. But if she could update me on his progress, then I could just as easily update him on mine. 

I want to show him how far I’ve come since then. 

“Sure,” I nodded softly. 

Janet’s eyes lit up in surprise, her jaw nearly dropping to the floor. “Wait, really?!”

I nodded again, squeezing her hands tightly. 

“Oh, that’s great, sweetheart, I’m so happy to hear that!” She even bounced a little in excitement. “He really has been doing better. I think watching it will just be the thing he needs to show him how strong and powerful you are and how far you’ve come. Show him what he’s been missing.”

What she said suddenly made a lump form in my throat, tears swelling in my eyes. “Oh, mom. . .”

“I know, I know, I overdid it,” she grinned, pulling me into another hug. “There’s also one other thing. This one, you don’t have to decide now, if you need time to think about it.”

My heart suddenly skipped a beat as I pulled back, anxiously awaiting to hear what she had to say. “Yes?”

“How would you feel about. . . flying down to Korea for a few days?” Janet suggested, her eye meeting mine with a genuine expression. “To come see him?”

If I thought I was frazzled before, I definitely was now. “When?”

“Anytime you want to, sweetie!” Janet quickly reassured me, squeezing my hands. “Again, it’s entirely up to you, but I was with your step-father for his most recent session and his therapist suggested the idea. He believes Jin is about ready to. . . make amends.”

My eyes widened at that. “And is. . . Jin ready for it?”

“I’m not sure if he’ll know for sure until it happens,” Janet shook her head with uncertainty. “But he does wish to see you. Even just for a few minutes.”

My mind was racing as the multitude of possibilities swarmed in my head. All the things that could go right, or wrong. Why did it feel like one weighed more than the other?

Even still, there was this sudden burning sensation in the pit of my stomach.  I met my mom’s gaze, offering her a small smile as I spoke softly, “I’ll think about it.”

She smiled back at me, holding me close. “Take as long as you need dear. I love you.”

Janet hugged me one last time as another announcement chimed over the speakers. She gathered her bags and I saw her off as she waddled to the security checkpoint. As I lowered my hand from waving at her, Miguel’s footsteps caught my ear as I turned to glance at him. “I’m okay.” I quickly reassured him. 

“Are you sure?” He asked me with a hint of worry in his eyes as he wrapped an arm around my shoulders, his hand reaching up to wipe a stray tear from my cheek. 

I nodded softly, leaning into him. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

“Alright,” Miguel gave me a tight squeeze, kissing the top of my head before he motioned to the side. “Let’s get going, and don’t forget~”

“I know, I know,” I rolled my eyes in an annoyed manner as I reached over to a pillar and grabbed the walking crutch I had left on the side while seeing my mother off. I hooked it under my left armpit, holding Miguel close with my right. “Do I have to keep this cast on for 4 weeks? Didn’t Spider-Doc say this could heal in half the time thanks to the healing factor of the spider powers?”

“Yes, but because of the reset, your friends and family don’t know about your powers anymore,” Miguel reminded gently. “So you have to keep up the façade of being your friendly neighborhood self.”

“Did you just make a Spider-Man joke?” I gawked at Miguel.

Miguel didn’t hide his cheeky grin and I caught a small glimpse of his fangs as he spoke. “Maybe I did.”

I groaned, rolling my eyes again as we stepped out into the main entrance of the airport. “Your–”

“An asshole?” He quickly chimed in, leaning in closer to me. 

I smirked back at him, bringing my hand up from his hand to cup his chin. “My asshole.”

“No lo olvides, mi Mona Lisa.” Miguel's tone was flirtatious as his hand caught the small of my back, his warm breath fanning my lips before he kissed me in the sunshine. - Don't you forget it, my Mona Lisa

///////

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[arliedraws]

Do you think Sirius knows how to cook?

On one hand, he grew up being served food his whole childhood and I dont think any of his relatives or Kreacher would want to teach him something so //muggle// and I don't think that after leaving Hogwarts he wpuld have had time to teach himself

On the other hand, learning how to feed himself would be another way in which Sirius is more independent/mature than his peers. It would also be a giant "fuck you" towards his family because he does something muggles do!

And he would probably be also good at it because Sirius really strikes me as someone who is a perfectionist - the best grades, the best at everything he touches (be it something he just picked up or spent hours learning by himself just to be the best)

Okay, maybe I’m biased, but cooking basic meals like meat, potatoes, and vegetables isn’t that hard if you don’t have any physical disabilities 😂 I think he could cook, for sure. He did have to feed himself when he was living by himself!

And I see Sirius less wanting to be the best and more that he wants to figure out how to get something right and/or make it better. If he wanted to cook an amazing meal, he could learn fairly quickly (again, making a delicious meal is not that hard), but I also think he just wouldn’t see making himself these incredible meals a priority when there’s a war going on. Maybe he never learned to be a really good chef, but I think he could cook a whole chicken.

I also think cooking is a scale:

Level One: Doesn’t understand how different forms of heat cook food (baking, steaming, boiling, etc) / no idea what sort of flavors go together

Level Four: Could follow a recipe as written and have a really tasty product (I think Sirius is here)

Level Five: Could follow a recipe with tweaks and substitutions and have a really tasty product

Level Seven: Could make up a recipe on the spot with whatever is on hand and have it turn out pretty good (me)

Level Nine: Can poach an egg reliably

Level Ten: Professional Chef (???)

Also, however, I do not think that Sirius would go out of his way or inconvenience himself to say “fuck-you” to his family once he’s left. That would mean admitting that he still cared what they thought of him. I think it’s different when he’s actually living at Grimmauld Place as a teenager to put up posters of scantily clad ladies because it’s funny to piss them off, but I also think he’s very practical once he’s on his own. If no one is there to see you rebel, what’s the point?