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sasheemo · 3 days ago

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When we collide

Chapter 11

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Chapter Summary: Agatha sneaks into your house, and an already risky plan takes an unexpected, and even riskier, turn.

Word Count: 3.4k

A/N: I know this update took forever and I am so sorry, work and life in general have been crazy lately. Writing has been such a slow process, and finding the time to sit down and focus has been hella hard.

That said, I’m so grateful for your patience and support—it truly means the world to me. Every comment, like, and bit of encouragement keeps me motivated to push through, even when things feel overwhelming. I hope this chapter was worth the wait and that you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed crafting it.

Thank you for sticking with me through this journey. Your love for this story keeps me going 💜

It feels like you’ve been hiding in the shadows of your garden for hours. You have no idea how much time has passed or how long Agatha has been inside.

Seconds stretch into minutes, and you can’t shake the feeling that you’ve been waiting an eternity.

The night grows colder and heavier with each passing second, the chill creeps through your dress, your eyes fixed on the darkened windows above. The faint glow of the kitchen light spills onto the ground, a subtle but constant reminder of your mother’s presence inside.

You clench your hands into fists at your sides, trying to still the growing unease coiling in your chest. The plan had seemed straightforward at the time: get Agatha inside, have her pretend to be you, and wait for her to open the window. But now, as you stand in the biting cold, the enormity of the risks begins to gnaw at you.

Agatha doesn’t know your mother. Not the way you do.

She doesn’t know the sharp edge to her voice, the way her words cut deeper than her glares. She doesn’t know the little tells, the moments when her mood shifts and it’s better to stay quiet than risk provoking her. And most importantly, Agatha doesn’t know the intricate, tense dance you’ve perfected over years of enduring her.

The weight of it all suddenly feels crushing. You shift uneasily, your breathing shallow as your thoughts spiral. What if your mother notices something’s off? What if Agatha hesitates or says the wrong thing? What if she tries to talk her way out of something and slips up?

You bite down on your lip, forcing yourself to breathe slower, deeper. But the thoughts don’t stop.

What if your mother catches her before she even reaches your room? What if she figures out the truth? What would she do - to Agatha, to you - if she realized the extent of this betrayal? Your mind conjures up a dozen worst-case scenarios, each one more terrifying than the last.

A sharp gust of wind pulls you from your spiraling thoughts, and you glance down instinctively at the small bundle of fur near your feet. The rabbit, Agatha’s rabbit, sits quietly in the shadows beside you, its nose twitching as it sniffs the night air. Its presence is steady, calm, almost indifferent to the storm raging in your head.

You crouch down slightly, your fingers brushing against the creature’s soft fur. It doesn’t flinch, simply shifts closer as if it senses your unease. There’s something grounding about the animal, something simple and reassuring. Agatha had brought it here with her, and for some reason, the thought that something she clearly cares for is by your side soothes the sharp edges of your panic.

You take another breath, steadier this time. The faint glow from the kitchen is still there, unchanging, and the stillness of the house seems both unnerving and hopeful.

She’s inside. She’ll make it.

And then, finally, you hear the faint creak of the window above.

Your head snaps up, your pulse quickening as you watch it ease open. Your own face peers out from the shadowed wooden frame, tense and searching the garden below. It takes you a second to remember that it’s actually Agatha.

The sight pulls at something strange in your chest. You know the spell you cast has served its purpose, that she’s safe now. That realization settles over you like a wave, and you exhale slowly, steadying yourself.

Closing your eyes, you draw on the lingering energy of the spell, your magic buzzing faintly under your skin. You picture her, not as a reflection of yourself, but as she truly is: darker, undeniably powerful, magnetic. With a flick of your wrist and a soft breath, you send the magic out, releasing it.

When you open your eyes, the figure leaning out of the window has changed. Her true form has returned: wild, dark hair framing her face, sharp cheekbones catching the faintest glow of the night.

Agatha’s gaze catches yours, steady and knowing, as if she’s fully aware of what you’ve just done. She tilts her head slightly in acknowledgment, a silent signal to come up.

The tension in your chest doesn’t fully ease, but you let yourself glance at the towering tree at the center of the garden, its ancient branches stretching out in every direction like a great, unmoving sentinel. The bark is thick and weathered, furrowed with deep grooves that speak of countless seasons endured.

Its lowest branches bow slightly under their own weight, but higher up, the limbs grow stronger, sprawling outward with a defiant strength. One of its largest branches curves close to your window, not enough to block the view from your room but near enough to serve as your path inside.

The tree has always been there, a quiet companion through your childhood. Back then, its lower limbs had felt like a sanctuary, their rough surfaces welcoming and steady beneath your hands. You’d scramble up effortlessly, laughing as you dangled your legs and let the world blur into your own imagined wilderness.

But tonight, the tree looms above you, its branches no longer inviting but daunting, like a puzzle demanding perfect precision. Your gaze fixes on the thick branch that leads toward your window, and doubt creeps in uninvited.

You exhale, trying to calm the knot of nerves twisting in your stomach. The branches look sturdy, thicker than they seemed when you were younger, but you know they’ll need to hold more than they ever have before.

You step closer to the tree as you prepare to hoist yourself up. But as you look upward, plotting your path, reality snaps into focus.

One of your hands is clutching the rabbit, its small body shifting slightly against your palm, leaving the other useless for climbing. Both hands will be needed to grip the bark and the branches, to steady yourself as you ascend.

You can’t climb like this.

Your jaw tightens as you glance down at the animal, then over your shoulder at the satchel pulling against your back. The weight of both feels suddenly oppressive, a barrier between you and the safety of the window above.

Your breath is clouding in the cold air as you glance up at the towering tree again. For a moment, you stand frozen, your mind racing for a solution.

Then, an idea comes to you. Maybe it’s reckless, maybe it’s not perfect, but it’s all you’ve got, and it’ll have to do.

Kneeling carefully, you place the rabbit gently on the ground beneath the tree.

“Stay.” you whisper softly, as the small creature sniffs the grass, its twitching nose brushing against a fallen leaf. You shrug the satchel off your back, unfastening the flap with fingers that tremble slightly from the cold.

You glance down at the contents of the bag and let out a soft sigh of relief. Agatha, it seems, is a light packer. There’s enough space, you think, and without hesitation, you scoop up the rabbit again, cradling its small body close for a moment.

“Alright, you’re going in.” you whisper, angling the bag carefully to create a safe, snug space.

The rabbit shifts, its ears flicking in mild protest, but it doesn’t wriggle too much as you tuck it in among the folds of Agatha’s clothing. You adjust the fabric gently, making sure it’s secure, and offer a quiet, almost reassuring murmur. “See? Not so bad.”

You hope the familiar scent will keep it calm during the climb. For a moment, the faint smell reaches you as well - earthy yet sweet, rich and layered - and it stops you in your tracks. The briefest flicker of distraction pulls at you before you shake it off, focusing on closing the satchel and readying yourself for the climb.

You glance up at the window to check for any sign from Agatha, but what you see halts you. She’s leaning out of the darkened window, her features clear despite the shadows, and her expression… well, if looks could kill, you’d be flat on the ground.

Her glare is direct and unmistakable, her lips pressed into a thin, irritated line. It doesn’t take much to realize why.

She’s staring straight at the satchel slung over your shoulder and the rabbit inside it. You’re frozen, caught mid-motion, her piercing gaze making you feel oddly small, like a child caught red-handed. Your irritation flares before you can stop it, the sharp edge of it cutting through your nerves.

‘What exactly does she expect me to do?’ you think, sarcasm practically spilling over. ‘Carry it in my teeth?!’

You bite back a laugh at your own thoughts, the absurdity of the situation tugging at the corners of your mouth. You glance away from the window, shaking your head with a mix of annoyance and amusement.

“As if she’d have a better idea.” you mutter quietly to yourself, the words more a release of tension than anything else.

The bark digs into your palms as you grip the trunk, pulling yourself up onto the first branch. It creaks faintly under your weight, but it holds, as it always has. Your breath comes slow and deliberate, each movement measured as you reach for the next handhold.

Even so, the awareness of Agatha’s eyes on you gnaws at the edge of your focus. Her gaze feels like a weight on your back, amplifying every misstep and every slight tremble in your limbs. The idea of her judging your clumsy climb, silently critiquing each slip of your footing, sends another wave of irritation coursing through you.

And yet… there’s something oddly reassuring about it too. As if her presence, no matter how frustrating, guarantees that someone will catch you if you fall. Not literally, of course, but the thought lingers, steadying you more than you’d care to admit.

You shift your weight carefully, reaching for the next branch. The satchel presses against your back, its weight a constant reminder of your responsibility, and of the sharp eyes above you. You resist the urge to glance up briefly, focusing instead on the climb.

You move cautiously, gripping the bark tightly as you climb higher. The tree groans faintly under your weight, and you freeze, holding your breath.

The sound seems impossibly loud in the stillness of the night, a sharp contrast to the quiet hum of crickets and the faint rustle of leaves in the breeze. For a moment, you glance toward the kitchen window, half-expecting to see your mother’s silhouette appear, but the glow remains steady, undisturbed.

You grit your teeth, focusing on your balance, careful to distribute your weight evenly. Every move feels agonizingly slow, the need for silence making each step a deliberate act of precision.

As you near the branch that curves toward your window, you reach out with one hand, your fingers brushing the rough bark. It’s close, close enough that you can almost imagine the feel of the window frame beneath your palm.

But as you shift your weight to make the final stretch, your foot slips against the trunk, the bark giving way beneath your boot.

Your stomach lurches as your balance wavers, your free hand scrabbling desperately for a hold. The satchel shifts sharply, throwing you further off balance, and for a terrifying moment, you’re certain you’ll fall. Your breath catches in your throat, panic blooming in your chest.

From her vantage point at the window, Agatha tenses instantly. Her eyes widen, and for a split second, she shifts forward slightly in a reflexive, almost involuntary motion, as if she could somehow close the unbridgeable distance and reach you. Concern flickers across her face as her hands grip the windowsill tightly, knuckles paling with the pressure.

But then your hand finds purchase, gripping a knot in the bark just in time to steady yourself.

You hang there for a moment, your heart pounding in your ears, your body frozen as the satchel settles back into place. The rabbit stirs faintly inside, and you murmur a soft reassurance under your breath, though it’s as much for yourself as for the animal.

The faint creak of the tree subsides, and the night seems to hold its breath along with you. You force yourself to exhale slowly, the tension in your chest loosening as you steady your footing once more. Carefully, you reach out again, this time gripping the branch firmly before pulling yourself up onto it.

The window is finally within reach, a threshold to safety.

As you glance up, Agatha is there, her figure sharp and still against the faint shadows of the room. She’s waiting, her presence a silent promise that the plan is almost complete. The sight steadies you and, for the first time since the climb began, relief flickers at the edges of your thoughts, fragile but real.

As you near the window, Agatha leans out further, her gaze flicking to the satchel slung over your shoulder. She lifts a hand, gesturing for it with a slight wave of her fingers, her expression calm and maddeningly smug.

You pause, blinking at her.

“Really?” you mutter under your breath, incredulity practically dripping from your tone.

She tilts her head slightly, arching a single brow, her smugness somehow amplifying as she gestures again, clearly waiting.

For a moment, you consider ignoring her, but then you glance at the satchel. She has a point, giving her the bag would mean the rabbit is safer, and, without the extra weight on your back, you’ll have an easier time pulling yourself through the window.

With a dramatic sigh, you shrug the satchel off your shoulder, the strap sliding down your arm before you lift it toward her. She stretches downward, her fingers brushing the edge of the leather before she grips it firmly and pulls it from your grasp.

For a moment, you watch her, half expecting her to disappear entirely now that the bag is secure in her hands.

And that’s exactly what she does. Agatha retreats, vanishing from the window’s edge with the satchel in tow. You roll your eyes, your mind instantly jumping to the conclusion that she’s probably fussing over the rabbit.

The thought irritates and amuses you in equal measure, but you shake your head and steady yourself for the final push.

The ledge is close, and with the satchel gone, the climb feels marginally easier. You stretch your arms upward, gripping the edge of the window frame as you shift your weight onto the thick branch beneath you.

Carefully, you pull yourself higher, your knees brushing the frame as you begin to hoist yourself inside.

For a moment, it seems like you’ve done it. Your body halfway through the window, balance steady enough to keep going.

And then your foot catches on the edge of the frame.

The jolt sends you stumbling forward, your grip slipping as the momentum drags you into a clumsy, uncontrolled tumble.

Agatha moves instantly, appearing as if out of nowhere, her reflexes instinctive and precise.

You barely register the sudden shift before her silhouette is in front of you. One of her hands darts out, gripping your arm with surprising strength, but it’s not enough to counter the force of your fall. Her other hand slides to your waist, firm and steady, trying to catch you, but the momentum is too much.

There’s no time for either of you to adjust. The pull of gravity drags you forward, and you both tumble into the room in a chaotic, ungraceful heap. The impact knocks the breath from your lungs, and you land tangled together.

Agatha is half-sprawled over you, her weight pinning you to the floor, grounding and overwhelming all at once. The world seems to fade, narrowing to the soft rustle of leaves in the night and the rhythm of her breathing.

Her face is unbearably close, so close that her breath brushes against your cheek, warm and uneven. Untamed hair spilling over her shoulder and grazing your arm, strands scattered haphazardly from the fall.

There’s a stillness to her expression, but the faint parting of her lips reveals a hitch in her breathing, as though the shock of the tumble hasn’t fully left her.

Both of her hands remain where they caught you, one curled tightly around your arm, the other pressed firmly against your waist. The heat of her touch burns through the fabric of your dress, rooting you in place even as your pulse races wildly.

Those sharp blue eyes, piercing even in the dim light, are locked on yours. The intensity of her gaze makes your breath catch, as if she’s not only seeing through you but searching for something at the same time.

For a moment, nothing else exists. Your chest tightens and your pulse hammers in your ears as the space between you feels impossibly thin, a fragile thread stretched taut and trembling.

And then, fleetingly - so quickly you almost think you imagined it - her gaze drops, flickering to your lips. The motion is so subtle, so brief, that it vanishes almost as soon as it happens. But the imprint of it remains, sharp and electric, making you shudder.

Your mind scrambles for something, anything, to say, but the words won’t come. All you can do is stare back at her, your chest rising and falling as you struggle to make sense of the moment.

The silence stretches, thick and almost suffocating, until Agatha breaks it. Her voice is low, threaded with dry amusement but carrying an almost daring undertone that sets your nerves alight.

“Are you always this dramatic,” she murmurs, “or am I just special?”

The words pull you out of your daze, and your cheeks burn instantly, the heat rushing to your face.

“I— I didn’t—” you stammer, scrambling to find words, but every coherent thought scatters.

Agatha exhales sharply, her lips twitching as if she’s about to say something else, but instead, she pushes herself up abruptly.

The cool night air rushes in as her warmth leaves, and you’re left on the floor, heart still pounding in your ears.

She brushes off her skirts with deliberate ease, her expression once again smug and composed, though there’s a flicker of tension in her movements. She extends a hand to you, her sharp gaze watching you carefully.

“Come on, get up.” she whispers, her tone calm but firm. “Your mother might have heard that.”

You glare up at her, your pride stinging, but you take her hand anyway, letting her pull you to your feet. Her grip is firm, steady, and as she helps you up, her fingers linger just a second too long before she steps back.

The sensation is fleeting but familiar, a ghost of what had happened only hours earlier by the lake. She’d done the same after you healed her burns, offering her hand with that same deliberate calm, as though her touch carried no weight. But it had lingered then too, just like now, and the memory ignites a warm spark in your chest.

As you rise to your feet, your balance feels oddly unsteady, not from the fall but from the moment itself. You linger there, caught between embarrassment and something heavier. Your fingers twitch at your sides, as though still feeling the echo of her grip, and your gaze follows her as she moves away.

She crosses the room, moving toward the satchel she’d placed on the floor earlier and crouching down.

You turn toward the window, reaching for the frame to shut it. The cool night air still drifts into the room, carrying the faint scent of the garden below. Your fingers curl around the wood, and just as you push it closed, a sound freezes you in place.

A creak. Faint, but unmistakable.

Your heart stops, and you glance at Agatha, who has gone still beside the satchel, her hand hovering over the flap. Her sharp eyes meet yours, and for a moment, neither of you breathes.

Another creak follows, heavier this time, accompanied by the low groan of the wooden stairs shifting.

Panic flashes between you in a silent exchange, the weight of the moment sinking in with brutal clarity. Agatha straightens slowly, her hand dropping from the satchel as her gaze darts toward the door.

Well, shit. Your mother definitely heard.

#agatha harkness x reader #agatha harkness x female reader #agatha harkness x you #agatha x you #agatha x reader #agatha x y/n #aaa #aaa fanfic #agatha harkness fanfic #agatha all along #agatha coven of chaos #agatha all along fanfic #when we collide #agatha harkness

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if-whats-new · 23 hours ago

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What's New In IF? Issue 30 (2024)

By Aj, Dion, Briar, Jen and Peter

Now Available!

Itch.io - Keep Reading below

If you read the zine, consider liking the post: it helps us see how many people see it! And sharing is caring! <3

~ EDITORIAL ~

Event Highlight!

In this Issue we take a quick look at the Videotome Jam hosted by Freya, the dev behind all the Videotome game engines!

Continue reading to find out more!

We want some feedback!

As we’re starting to get a hand of things, we would love some feedback from you guys! What you enjoy, want more or less off, how we could improve... Anything goes! We even have a nifty form.

We hope you enjoy this new issue!

AJ, DION, BRIAR, JEN AND PETER

~ BE A PART OF THE ZINE ~

THIS ZINE ONLY HAPPENS WITH YOU!

Want to write 1-2 pages about a neat topic, or deep-dive into a game and review it in details? Share personal experiences or get all academic?

WRITE FOR THE COLUMN!

Prefer to be more low-key but still have something to share? Send us a Zine Letter or share a game title for Highlight on…!

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Came across something interesting? Know a release or an update announced? Saw an event happening? Whether it's a game, an article, a podcast… Add any IF-related content to our mini-database!

EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS!

~ EVENT SPOTLIGHT : Videotome Jam - "Waiting" ~

November 16th to December 1st 2024

Videotome Jam is a two-week-long game jam for games made in any of the Videotome engines with the optional theme of "Waiting".

What is Videotome?

Videotome is a series of small homebrew IF/VN engines made by Freya Campbell (communistsister), an indie game developer focusing on narrative games that are usually:

science fiction, horror, &/or romance

close to 100% LGBTQ characters

free/PWYW with low tech requirements

liable to make players keysmash due to feelings

Videotome was first released in April 2022 as a part of a game entry for the Domino Club collective. The initial idea for the engine was to make writing text-heavy games as hassle-free as possible, focusing not that much on the visual presentation format, but more on the writer's experience. It would allow writers to write in a notepad and then it would somehow grab the .txt file and parse the lines into an array, spitting them out one line at a time as a kinetic novel.

At the moment there are four engines available:

Videotome, for linear, no frills text / images / music;

Videotome ADV, adding a more conventional layout with ignorable choices and branching;

Super Videotome, for more fully featured and freeform image/canvas use;

Videotome Heartbreak, adding a stat raising dating sim & storylets structure to the above.

If you're more interested in the process of making these engines, check out the devs blog post - Words, Friction, Syntax: Stuff I thought about when making Videotome. (The post also includes a very interesting case study concerning other game engines Freya has experience with.)

If you want to check out some examples of projects made with Videotome, take a look at this collection. It includes games made by both Freya and other devs.

~ ONGOING (VOTING) ~

The voting for ECTOCOMP 2024 has officially started! To vote and participate as a jury, you must do so by giving between 1 to 5 stars on each entry page of the jam. The voting period ends on November 30.

~ ONGOING (SUBMITTING) ~

A Hallmark movie is a feel-good, family-friendly film, often centered around romance, personal growth, or holiday themes. A Very Hallmark Game Jam with a theme of “Charming Love Interest with a Secret” is also all about that!

Are you a fan of Videotome games? Then the Videotome Jam with an optional theme “Waiting” is for you!

This year’s Yuri Game Jam is in full progress. The devs have until December 2nd to submit their projects.

The Educational Jam is a perfect place to learn something new. Discuss some obscure tidbit. Showcase your insight about a specific thing, your pub trivia skills, or that Wikipedia rabbit hole you went down last time.

Disabled Rep VN Jam has a very simple premise but a very important message.

Once upon a time, a game jam was held to create stories around the theme of fairy tales… and that game jam is the Once Upon A Time VN Jam. It’s running from October 1st to January 31st.

Concours de Fiction Interactive Francophone 2025 is for all French-speaking enthusiasts. Submissions are accepted March 3rd 2025.

Are you perhaps a fan of more somber, melancholic themes? Then check out the Dying Year - Visual Novel Jam! You have until the end of the year to participate.

The Black Visual Novel Jam is all about working with creative professional developers who work in visual novels to bring more Black stories to life. The goal is to create a space where Black creators can show their unique storytelling through visual novels.

~ OTHER ~

PIZZAPRANKS is accepting submissions for their Indiepocalypse Issue #61. If you’re a dev and would like to try out your luck, definitely check it out! Any game is welcomed, not only IF.

~ NEW RELEASE ~

In Arctic Adventure unearth forgotten journals, repair malfunctioning equipment, and solve puzzles to piece together the station’s dark past. But beware—some secrets are better left buried in the ice.

You are a dragon - huge, winged, flying and even capable of magic. Only here, in a system of caves created by your magic, you can be yourself. But the time has come for you to leave your home. The old map, that you've been keeping since times immemorial, is now ready to unravel it's secrets in A Dragon and the Tower.

You’ve spent your whole life visiting the majestic Hotel Lexington, and now you’ve inherited it! The once-grand building is in disrepair, and rumored to be haunted! You’re the only one who can restore its former glory before it’s lost forever. Check in to your hotel, and check out the ghosts in Haunted Hearts Hotel.

As always, don't forget to check out the submitted entries to the events mentioned in the previous pages. They deserve some love too!

~ NEW RELEASE (WIP) ~

You are a key member of "The Constellation Club," a close-knit group of friends brought together by your shared love for music and dreams. Over time, the club members drifted apart, but a mystery brings you all back together. Reunite with your friends, uncover secrets, and chase the dreams that first united you in The Constellation Club (Twine).

Have you enjoyed the first Volume of Oblivious Melodies? Then be sure to check out Chapter 1 of Volume 2 (Twine)! You play as the Horne siblings, navigating their emergence into gentry society. You will delve into a country divided by class, religious dissent, political factionalism, and the ever-encroaching interests of empire. @oblivious-melodies

In Ashenmaw - Dragons of Marrowoods (CScript) you play as a freshly hatched dragon whelp, navigating the odds and ends of the politics and mysteries of the five flights. Intermingle with the younger races, and jump headfirst into uncovering the secrets of Ashenmaw and the Marrowoods. @ashenmaw-if

Aydan joins his husband Leo in this important family reunion that takes place 2 months after his father’s death. Suddenly, they are all trapped in the house for 3 days and the lawyer states that one of the siblings is the murderer of their own father! Find out who the real culprit is in Guilty at 5PM (Ren’Py).

In a realm of forgotten tales, you emerge as a ghost to yourself. Stranded in a land where memories fear to tread, the icy breath of solitude kisses your bare flesh, a chilling reminder of your forsaken existence. In this realm where salvation dances with oblivion, Snowborn (CScript), awaken to tread the treacherous path through a world steeped in sorcery and demise.

You are a young nobleman, in a stagnating empire, either on the verge of resurgence, or it’s final demise. An Empire held together by fragile institutions, led by ego-driven men. And here you are, in the middle of it all. As this den of vipers strike, where will you fall? Find out in Scion of the Alason (CScript).

You wake up suddenly with a system telling you that you are occupying the body of a green tea b!tch! The spy of the fearsome overlord, Hasthael who betrayed him for the male hero, resulting in the death of his beloved lightning hound. Avoid the fate of dying and accomplish the missions given by two of the available systems in Project Dominion (CScript).

You are the Aeon, an omniscient entity as old as time. When your powers begin to malfunction and the source of an incoming threat is unbeknownst to you, how will you protect the fabric of the universe? Abandon your omnipresent form for the first time in millennia and craft an identity as a demon to infiltrate the Ethereal Plane in The Time Keeper (CScript).

~ UPDATES ~

Aesemyr: The Withering (CScript) released 3/4 of the "university gathering" path of Chapter 3.

After Dark (CScript) released the last part of the fifth day of the journey.

Eldritch Tales: Inheritance (CScript) released part one of Chapter 3. @darielivalyen

Honor Amongst Thieves (CScript) updated their public demo. @leoneliterary

Oh Mother, Where Art Thou? (CScript) started Act 2 of Chapter 1.

Our Life: Now and Forever (Ren’Py) added extra content to their Patreon demo. @gb-patch

The Abyssal Song (Twine) released Chapter 5. @ri-writes-if

Virtue’s End (CScript) has updated their Patreon demo. @virtues-end

When Life Gives You Lemons (CScript) updated their public demo. @when-life-gives-you-lemons-if

~ OTHER ~

Is playtesting something that interests you? Check out part one of Drew Cook’s let’s TEST IF #1: being a playtester. @golmac

GlasswingGames is currently running a giveaway! You can enter to win either a chibi or emote of a character of your choice! @glasswinggames

As always, we apologize in advance for missing any update or release from the past week. We are only volunteers using their limited free time to find as much as we can - but sometimes things pass through the cracks.

If you think something should have been included in this week's zine but did not appear, please shoot us a message! We'll do our best to add it next week! And if you know oncoming news, add it here!

~ MAYBE YOU NEXT? ~

We did not get a submission this week. But if you have an idea for a short essay, or would like a special space to share your thoughts about IF and the community...

Shoot us an email!

~ HIGHLIGHT ON ~

A couple of games that we thought were cool.

God-Cursed by @wings-of-ink (Twine)

I think this game is fantastic. Plot, ROs, writing, everything. Deserves thousands of reads and compliments!

//recommended by Briar [Team]//

Your favourite game here?

Do you have a favourite game that deserves some highlighting?

An old or recent game that wowed you so much you spam it to everyone?

Tell us about it! And it might appear here!

Hello! I appreciate what you all do. As a living thing with a 9-5 job, I couldn't regularly check updates from existing WIPs, especially the ones I really like. I also tend to be the last person to know new IFs with lots of potential. So, I'm glad that with your zine, I get weekly updates from everyone in one place. Thank you, thank you so much!

- a very mysterious anon

WE LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU ALL! WHETHER IT'S GOOD OR BAD, OR EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN...

Have something to say? Send us a message titled: Zine Letter!

As we end this issue, we would like to thank:

our awesome mysterious anon!

For a very encouraging message!

As always, huge thanks to all you readers who liked, shared, and commented on the last issue!

What might be tiny actions are huge support and motivators to us!

Thank you for cheering us on this journey!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We actually have a separate Zine for all our individual Interviews!

Last Issue’s Interview with Leia Talon will be added this upcoming week.

And see you again next week!

AJ, DION, BRIAR, JEN AND PETER

WHAT'S NEW IN IF? 2024-ISSUE 30

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thursdayinspace · 1 day ago

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fic: all after such a desert (6/13)

Rating: Explicit

Chapters: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

This is one of my favorite chapters I wrote for this fic. I hope you enjoy it. I meant to update earlier this week, but my internet is apparently broken and comes and goes as it pleases. Very annoying, but it seems stable right now. Thanks once again to leiascully for the beta, muldersfingers for the cheerleading, and libbytxf for the title. And thanks to all you lovely people for your reblogs and comments, love you! <3

Summary:

He would rather stick his fingers in a wall socket than hurt or upset her, ever. He keeps waiting for this love to start hurting the way he knows all love hurts at some point down the road. But he’s loved her for years and here they are. Tentatively, timidly, his soul is still reaching for hers, asking it to soothe old hurts and pain. He doesn’t know how he’s ever going to be able to be enough, but he’ll try, he’ll try. And hope that eventually, maybe, one day he will deserve her, if he just tries hard enough.

In which Mulder learns what it truly means to be a whole person to someone.

Read on AO3

Tagging @today-in-fic

#txf #the x files #msr #mulder and scully #fic #poangpals #I really loved writing this chapter

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glassdollls · 2 days ago

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i would drive on (to the end with you) ch 14 update

after way way way too long of no updates, i come bearing gifts!!

(and for those of you that don’t know, i would drive on is my little fake dating wilmon fic that i’ve been writing for a while!!)

ch 14 will be coming very very soon!!! and, there’s gonna be a ch 15! i decided to split what originally was just going to be ch 14 in half, because i think that just makes the most sense for pacing, and it’ll help me get an update out faster after making you guys wait for so long.

so here’s a little ch 14 sneak peek for now, and if you need to reread ch 13 before you read ch 14, id recommend doing so soon! altho i will be making sure to include a little summary of the previous chapter in the a/n when i post ch 14 just in case, for anybody that doesn’t want to.

anyway, so so sorry for the wait, i hope this is good news for everyone and i hope everyone likes it when it comes out!! pls enjoy this little snippet, there’s some more on my twitter too if you’re interested!

They would’ve made the perfect couple, Felice and Wilhelm. Both their mothers gushing about how beautiful young love is when done correctly, at pretentious dinner parties where Wilhelm would flaunt his new girlfriend as she hangs delicately off his arm, a sparkly new dress draped over her shoulders and her hair styled nicely away from her face as people asked how they met and they spare all of the details.

He doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want to be shown off like a precious antique that only very specific people can touch, can look at. He doesn’t want to be paraded around like some sort of trophy that can be polished and admired but never actually loved, but he doesn’t want to be shunned either. He doesn’t want to be a piece of tangible evidence of the reason many of Wille’s relatives choose not to speak to him at all.

But, more than anything, he wants Wille. Even if the odds are stacked against them, even if he has to endure prolonged stares and backhanded comments for the rest of his life.

read chapter 13

read from the beginning

#wilmon #young royals #wilmon fic #young royals fic #wilhelm young royals #young royals fanfic #yr fanfic #ao3 #fic update

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something-wild-calls · 3 days ago

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Modded by @loupy-mongoose.

Jamie Wild was a character originally created as a trainersona more than a decade ago, who gradually evolved into a character all her own and ended up the protagonist of a yet-unpublished Soul Silver Nuzlocke called Shadowed Soul. In recent years, after these many years of building her character and the Pokemon world around her, I've been wanting to make her completely my own, world and all.

Someday I still hope to tell her Nuzlocke story and keep up with her in the Linden Roots world, but here I will be giving an alternate version of that story--Some elements will remain the same or minimally changed, while some changes will be drastic. So both stories will hold their own merit, when comes time to tell them both. :>

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Asks Notice:

I'm having the inbox open only so that people can ask about specific curiosities, and allow for prompt inspiration. This is not an interaction or Role Play blog! I won't say it's impossible, but any asks worded as such will likely not be answered as such, and may not be answered at all. That being said, I do reserve the right to answer as I see fit. XD

For now I will leave anonymous available, but I will turn it off if anyone chooses to act in ill-will or with weird intentions.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Some notes about this story:

-The setting is the same world as my other story The Matters of Life and Death. So some things, such as staffwyrms and the way magic works, is the same between stories.

-I currently plan to tell it in a slice-of-life manner, probably through mixed means of comic, artworks, answered asks, and potentially writings.

-My aim with this blog and story is to have fun above all else! It's something I feel I shouldn't have to say, but at the same time I also feel I've lost touch with that particular motive. So I'm hoping to remind myself that my art and stories are mine, and are for my entertainment first and foremost.

For those interested in this old tale being made new, welcome! I hope you enjoy the journey! ^w^

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Content warnings under the Read More (To save space.)

WARNINGS LIST FOR THIS BLOG (Subject to updates)

DEATH INJURY/BLOOD VIOLENCE SPIRITUAL/SOUL DISCUSSION. (Not really in a Christian sense, but I'll try to tag it as such if it gets too close.) CHILD ABUSE CHILD NEGLECT CHILD INJURY/ENDANGERMENT CHILD ABANDONMENT

Related Tags to mute if desired:

#TW: Death -- #TW: Injury -- #TW: implied injury -- #TW: Blood -- #TW: Violence -- #TW: Christianity (If it comes up, but I don't expect it to.) -- #TW: Child Abuse -- #TW: Child Neglect -- #TW: Child injury -- #TW: Child Endangerment -- #TW: Child Abandonment

#Extra stuff

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marcelloshdz · 3 days ago

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couples quiz

summary: you and marcello are the featured guests on the upcoming episode of the GQ "couples quiz." requested by anonymous. marcello x female!singer reader. this ended up being quite long, but i hope you enjoy! <3

“and there we go! you look stunning.” your makeup artist said to you.

“thanks to you.” you smiled at them. you were on set with GQ, getting ready to film a video with them. they’d invited you and marcello you partake in one of their “couples quiz” videos, and the two of you jumped at the opportunities.

you were led to the set, taking your seat as you waited for marcello to join you. he smiled at you has he walked over to you, pressing a kiss to your cheek before taking his seat across from you.

“you guys ready?” the producer asked, and you both nodded.

“so ready.” you said with a smile, as some members from the crew handed you your question cards.

they counted down, and began rolling, you and marcello putting on your best faces and beginning the video.

“hey there, i’m y/n l/n,”

“and i’m marcello hernández,”

“and this is the GQ couples quiz.” you said in unison.

“alright, who wants to start?” you asked.

“ladies first.” marcello said with a smile.

“well then, alright.” you settled the question cards in your hands, reading him the first one. “okay, this is a simple one to get us started. what is my favorite nickname for you?” you asked.

“you call me cello a lot. or cellito, if you’re feeling flirtier than normal. but you’re also very heavy on the babe or baby. sometimes honey, which i personally love.”

“hmm, good to know.” you laughed before moving on to the next question. “oh, this is a good one. what was the first song i ever played for you?”

“i don’t want to give too much away, because as far as i know, it’s unreleased, yeah?” he asked, and you nodded.

“it is.”

“but, i can say that you wrote it shortly after we made it official. so, almost four years ago. and, it’s about me.” he said, with a smirk to the camera.

“that is correct. at this point, i’m not sure i wanna release it, and instead just keep it between the two of us.” you said to the camera. you then moved on to the next question. “what is my favorite date we’ve been on?”

“ooh, i know this one real well, because you tell this story all the time to people we meet.” he laughed, and you blushed. “it was when we were first dating, we were both in LA for work, and had coinciding days off. i took you to griffith park, we had a picnic, and we made friendship bracelets for each other with our initials on them. then, after lunch, we drove up mulholland, parked at one of the overlooks, and laid on the hood of our car while we watched the sunset over the city. it was very romantic. that was the night i asked you to be my girlfriend.”

“i never told you this, but i’m sure i was already falling in love with you at that point. it was only like, a month or so after we started hanging out and talking, but i was already locked in.”

“honestly, so was i.” marcello said, echoing your sentiment with a smile.

“next question; what is my favorite sketch of yours?”

“you always tell me you have multiple favorites, and they change like, every month.” he laughed before answering.

“that is true, but i do have one all time favorite. one that i, without question, would top tier marcello sketches. and we’re not talking update features, because i love all of those. just live sketches.” you explained.

“okay, that helps me a bit. i’m gonna go with either fusion scientist, or the age of discovery.” he said.

“it is fusion scientist, but i’m only gonna give you half a point because you hesitated.”

“aw man.” he laughed.

“although, i do also love the age of discovery. there’s something about fusion scientist that just always gets me. i had genuine tears in my eyes the first time i watched it, and am still bitter it was cut for time.” you clarified.

“that one was really fun to perform. it was so ridiculous and goofy, but i loved it.” he explained.

“and thats why i love it too.” you said. “alright, next question. oh, this is a good one; what is my favorite gift you’ve given me?” you finished the question, and watched his eyes flit to your hands, landing on your ring finger on your left hand. he reached out to you, and you placed your hand in his, smiling as he pressed a kiss to the ring.

“this right here.” he said as you held your hand out to the camera for a close up. “i got you that ring on our first anniversary. it’s our birthstones in a heart shaped setting.”

“not only is it my favorite gift you’ve given me, but i think it’s my favorite gift i’ve ever gotten, ever.” you said. you finished out your questions, tallying up marcello’s score. “alright, we are sitting at a nice round 20 points.” you said to the camera.

“well, good for me.” he said with a laugh. “alright, my turn. first up, what sports did i play growing up?” he asked you.

“soccer was your main sport, and you played it throughout high school and college. but you also played baseball, and dabbled in golf, and sometimes fishing?”

“wow. yes to all of those. um, i don’t think i want to play this game anymore.” he laughed.

“hey, we’re only one question in. don’t get too discouraged.”

“next question; who has been my favorite host to work with so far on snl?”

“either pedro or benito.” you answered, and he nodded. “those were really big episodes for you, and i know you had a good time getting to write and work on pretty good sketches during those episodes.”

“those were both really good, and i enjoyed them both a lot. but, if i had to pick, i would pick benito over pedro.”

“oh, tea.” you gasped through a laugh.

“only because of the age of discovery sketch. that sketch being entirely in spanish, and all the love we got on it, it made me really proud. pedro was also part of that episode, so that still counts.” he explained. “what is my favorite food?” he asked.

“anything cuban or dominican. chuletas, tostones, literally anything else. you’re very easy to please.” you answered immediately. “c’mon give me a challenge.”

“yeah i should’ve skipped that one.” he laughed. “next one. oh, here’s a good one. what was i wearing on our first date?”

“you were wearing a dark blue cardigan, over a white t-shirt, with blue jeans, and white sneakers.” you answered. “i had a picture of us from that night as my phone wallpaper for a long time, it’s practically burned into my brain at this point.” you said. “do you remember what i was wearing?” you asked him

“you were wearing a black, like, lacy top, with a white skirt and black platform loafers.”

“actually,”

“what?!” he said loudly, feigning offense.

“no, i’m just kidding. that was right.” you laughed.

“i was about to be so mad.” he laughed. “alright, next one; where was our first kiss?” he asked.

“our first kiss was on the beach in miami. you were home, visiting family and some friends. you asked if i wanted to come see you, and of course, being as down bad as i already was, i immediately jumped on a plane with zero hesitation. we had just finished lunch, and we were hanging out on the beach near where you grew up. we were sitting there in silence, listening to the waves crash on the shore, when we turned to each other, and we kissed. i remember it being really awkward, and us almost missing?”

“i do remember that as well.” he laughed. “but look at us now, so it must not have been too terrible.”

“it was a first kiss, so you kinda expect it to be awkward. but it was good in the long run.” you said, and marcello nodded, smiling at you. before continuing through the next couple of questions.

“alright, i think this is my last one.”

“and, not to brag, but i am only one point behind you.” you said, raising an eyebrow at him.

“well, then this will count for two points.” he said, clearing his throat. “which one of us made the first move?”

“you did.”

“wow, that was fast.”

“you did! we were at an snl after party, after dua lipa’s episode. which, i was invited to by her, by the way.” you said, matter-of-factly. “we were both at the bar, waiting for our drinks, and made small talk. we hung out for a bit, and by the end of the night, you were already asking for my number. barely two days later, you were asking me to go out.”

“and you accepted without hesitation.”

“well, yes, but this isn’t about me.” you teased, and marcello rolled his eyes at you.

“well, that was my last question. our final scores are 21 to 20, y/n only getting extra points because i played multiple sports growing up.”

“and for that, i thank you.” you laughed.

you filmed the outro for the video, saying good bye and thanking the future audience for watching. there was a loud “CUT!” from behind the camera, and the producers and crew were thanking you and marcello for such a fun episode.

“thanks for having us! this was a lot of fun.” marcello said, and you nodded in agreement. the two of you headed out to your car, making your way to a nearby restaurant for lunch. you got your food, and sat down at a table, replaying the events of the afternoon.

“we should do more things like that. i know we pride ourselves on having quite a private relationship, but it was a lot of fun.” marcello said to you.

“it was! but i feel like youre just suggesting that so you can redeem yourself and let the people know that you know me better than i know you.” you said to him.

“no, why would you ever think that?” he said sarcastically. you just laughed and shook your head. the two of you finished your lunch, enjoying your meal and being with each other. truthfully, marcello knew you better than you knew yourself, and vice versa. and that made you happier than you could ever put into words.

#marcello hernandez #marcello hernandez imagine #marcello hernandez imagines #marcello hernandez x reader #marcello hernandez x f reader #snl #saturday night live

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ssreeder · 1 year ago

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omg i get my own tag, this has never happened before, i'm honored. but YES I finished it all. I am honestly both terrified and impressed of myself too. I didnt have anything going on so i laid down, got comfy and started reading. When i stopped i had finished Part 2, and was just Well shit i only have 10 more chapters.

I only realize now that that was 10 chapters in the form of 175k words..... I shouldnt be surprised I read a whole 500 page book in the same time frame like three weeks ago LOL

Looking forward to the update! :D I dont know how I feel about the calm before the storm... ill stay both in an excited anxious mood

-scroll anon!

Yes scroll anon!! Your own tag is needed!! :)

I am SO IN AWE that you read all that so fast! If you read the latest chapter that makes it 200k!!

You have a bit more calm before any storms but I promise when it does arrive it’ll be a pretty epic one ;) :) <3

YOU’RE AMAZING SCROLL ANON!

#I am impressed #I can’t believe how fast you read #I can write fast but Idk i Guess i read slow #idk #haha #scroll anon #if you read the update I hope you enjoyed #it was a lot of cuddles #& Ara angst #you’re amazing I’m glad to have you back!!#I hope you’re enjoying your summer break #liab #ITF #ask

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sugarpasteltmnt · 3 months ago

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Purgatory Paradise Part 2: Ice Cream Pizza Rolls Cookie Dough Potato Chips Candy Bars… and Mandarin Oranges

[Read it here on AO3]

It’s cold outside, but the Hamato brothers are excited to go to the store

#double update cowabunga #no beta we die like gram gram #again little to no beta read or even a second read thru these are gettin posted as they come to me lol #so i hope you enjoy!#purgatory paradise #TNV Ending Spoilers #TNV Final Chapters Spoilers #The Neon Void #The Neon Void TMNT #TNV TMNT #rottmnt fanfiction #tmnt fanfiction #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #ROTTMNT #ROTTMNT Leo #save ROTTMNT

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aeon-uriel · 5 months ago

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Hi! I really want to know the fic recs of the trope of married at first meeting for zolu!

heyya!!! here they come

❤️💚 ꕀ 𖠳 ᐝ ꕀ 💚❤️

oh temptation (i could be a part of you) by meteorablues

they are so married but not 'married' but thats only because its something more. they love each other so much since the first time they meet and their logic goes: if theres a beginning theres an end so their relationship is just there with them as long as they exist hes mine and im his its that simple but some things need to be put into words because because!!!! i might or might not cry what a concept (the fics about the rest of the crew being baffled because of that and its beautiful) (also ft nika luffy i just love that so much and this fic delivers so incredibly) (LIKE FOR REAL THE NIKA PART IS EUEGEHGEHEGEHHHGGHHH i dont wanna spoil it but!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!pls read this im begging on my knees

Just Because You Didn't See It, Doesn't Mean It Didn't Happen by anarchycox

this one is a pov outsider story which is one of my fave tropes ever. a real fun take of zolus marriage being such a part of themselves that even the other crew didnt notice it as a separate thing; oh yeah thats just how those dumbasses are. (apparently married.) (oh look another person falling for luffy.) (but hes already married.) (but we didnt know for the what feels like the longest time ever because we thought thats just how they are.) Or. Yknow. perhaps this one time the rest of the crew could be the dumb ones

(bonus) How It Happened, The First Time by anarchycox

companion piece of the one above! first night on the dinghy! so mind the rating. its quite fun and chaotic just like them

Love is where you find it by Alone77

another pov outsider but specifically jimbe's and the other crew actually knew! love that old fish man slowly realizing his new captain and first mate's love as palpable as the sun

honorable mentions:

baby you're my north star by galaxyninjer

5 thingy format of luffy proposing to zoro BUT WHERES THE ONE TIME THEY ACTUALLY GET MARRIED i really wish i could write a continuation for this im sobbing sm send help

Hearts Can Break Any Cage by anarchycox

its a abo au so cw for that plus the rating and not exactly "marriage" because. again. abo. :D not everyones cup of tea i know, but just in case coz it still fits and they make me go insane. zoro using a muzzle zoro in a muzzle zoroINAMUZZLE

❤️💚 ꕀ 𖠳 ᐝ ꕀ 💚❤️

writing this answer got me realizing yknow maybe i should actually write this trope from their povs in shells town and there is not enough of this trope pls pray for my muse to graciously make a comeback

#for some reason ao3s loading so goddang slow for me so i apologize it took me some time to reply this!#might update this later i feel like ive read more than this but i couldnt find them in my bookmarks eugghg #and again the slow loading is making me miserable #fic rec #fanfic rec #one piece #zolu #luzo #hope you enjoy the read if you havent read them yet!#or share some other recs my way too hehehehehe #el's nonsense

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basicallyjaywalker · 2 months ago

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All I Know

Good evening everyone, the time has finally arrived

@someloserinajaywig for you I present, the final fictravaganza fic: Zane angst. Zangst, if you will. I will admit this is not the best bc i'm not super familiar with writing a Zane POV BUT. I hope it is an enjoyable read regardless

Also, I didn't know if you had an AO3 handle but if you do and would like to have the fic gifted to you, lmk!

Prompt: Zane, The Run and Go by Twenty-One Pilots, and temporary amnesia

AO3 Link

Fic under the cut as well!

His throne was a glacier, built with his own powers, his energy, his essence.

His throne room was the frozen ocean, vast and inhospitable. The only living beings that dared pass through were himself, his advisor, and the guards that made their rounds. Their punctuality was the only way he kept time anymore.

His empire was barren, overtaken by the ice. His ice. His subjects either learned to cope or succumbed to it. Their preserved bodies littered the tundra, a warning spread through whispers amongst the people.

He was an emperor. A symbol of might, of terror, of strength. He was an iceberg. He was an all-consuming blizzard.

He dreamed.

He hated his dreams. He was always in a vast forest. There was always a snowstorm swirling, obscuring his vision. The air was always crisp, and if he focused he could catch something between sickly sweetness and earthiness clinging to the world around him. He was always acutely aware of the absence of something, though exactly what eluded him. He simply always knew there was always an emptiness within the world.

Sometimes there were beasts with long limbs and hollow eye sockets, but they did not disturb him. They simply passed by, their towering bodies stretching up into the gray sky.

Sometimes there was someone with him.

A man with messy hair, white like fresh snow, dressed in the same color. He wore something over his eyes. The emperor felt he knew what they were called, once, but that couldn’t be true. Nothing like them existed in his empire.

Whenever he saw the man, the emperor would just watch him as he went about menial tasks. The man spoke, but the emperor couldn’t hear him, as if wind was constantly rushing right past his ears and drowning everything out.

The emperor awoke from these dreams agitated. He tried to get his advisor to tell him who the man was, but he insisted he had never seen nor heard of him before.

“A figment of imagination, your eminence. Do not let it trouble you.”

And so he did not. His advisor was always right. He had rescued the emperor from certain death after being ousted by the traitor. He restored his throne. He reclaimed his throne room. He returned the emperor to his glory.

---

Zane still had those dreams, even after his return.

They weren’t uncommon before his tenure as the Ice Emperor. He often dreamed of his father and him wandering the Birchtree Forest where they lived. However, something felt wrong about the dreams he had during and after his time in the Never-Realm. He couldn’t explain it. It was like watching a different cut of a film he’d seen a million times before. There were details missing, but he couldn’t remember them.

He tried to reach into his memory banks for them, but was met with nothing. The previous version of his dreams didn’t exist anymore. All that existed was the incomplete, glitched version.

Every time he woke up from that dream afterwards, his face was wet. He hated it. He missed something that seemed to have never existed. More than that, he knew, he hated that he felt like it was his fault for forgetting. His own memories were obscured by a horrific episode of megalomania in which he had no choice. At least, that’s what the others said. Truth be told, Zane tried very hard not to dwell on the thought too much. He wanted to imagine he was forced into that role by the manipulation of Vex, but it was fifty years. He was a conqueror, a destroyer, for fifty years, and never thought anything of it? He’d crushed dissent at Vex’s suggestion, but it was still him who brought the hammer down. He froze the changelings because he was worried they would usurp him. Did it matter that Vex told him a lie and he believed it? Would it have been different if they did want to usurp him, destroy him?

Perhaps that was why he tried not to delve too deep into his memories of that time. They remained only because he couldn’t wipe them without wiping everything else about himself, but sometimes he wished he could. Originally, his father built him with his memory switch to provide that fresh start, to allow him to forget inconvenient histories like his father’s death and their life prior. He built it to protect Zane from pain. He must’ve believed it was worth the cost, since he refused to remove it despite Zane’s request upon their reunion. At the time Zane believed it wasn’t worth it to avoid the pain if he had to forget all the good that came before, but sometimes, in the dark and cold nights where he couldn’t sleep because of the visions of Ice Samurai and innocents encased in bergs that plagued him, he wondered if his father was right.

Then he would remind himself of his friends. He thought of Pixal and her warm smile, Jay and his neverending bad puns, Kai and his fierce loyalty, Cole and his firm reassurance, Nya and her cunning wit, Lloyd and his unconditional love, and Master Wu’s constant support and guidance. He thought of them and he knew he could never forget. Even if he could build a new life with them, flip the switch, remove it, then make up some grand lie about what happened, those memories were irreplaceable.

The unfortunate consequence of wanting to remember his friends meant he had to remember every time he failed.

He had to remember finding Pixal disassembled in the labyrinth beneath Chen’s Island.

He had to remember when Cole fell off the Bounty and into the uncertain shadows of the Oni invasion.

He had to remember Lloyd’s face as he begged, pleaded with Zane to remember who he was.

Every time he failed and someone got hurt. Maybe that was another reason he couldn’t just forget and start over. They couldn’t just reset. They still had to live with the consequences.

So Zane would lay there in the morning, face wet with tears. If he was unable to forget, how come he couldn’t remember? His father’s voice and the look and feeling of his home when he was young were fading. What was the point of having a computer for a brain if it just lost memories like a normal brain?!

Then one night, he ended up in that place again. His home.

Tall birchwoods towered into the cloud-speckled sky. Small rays of sunshine peeked through gray clouds, turning patches of snow on the ground into clouds themselves. Dr. Julien sat on one of these patches, with Zane beside him, shaded by the skyward stretching trunk of a tree. He could hear animals going about their lives around them. Squirrels scuttled through trees, cardinals flew through the air, and even a few bees came up and settled on the sparse greenery around them.

Zane heaved out a single word. “Father.”

“Hello, Zane, isn’t it such a pleasant morning?”

“Father, it’s been so long.”

The doctor tilted his head. “What do you mean? I only left you and Falcon alone for a moment.”

“No, it’s that… Never mind. I simply missed you.”

“Well, that is sweet of you. I’m glad you decided to join me. Spring is almost here, you know. It’s always nice when a bit of life returns to this place. The primrose will be blooming soon.”

“Yes…” Zane took a deep breath. “Father?”

“Yes, Zane?”

“May I ask you something peculiar?”

“Of course, son. What’s on your inquisitive mind today?”

“What should I do if I ever start to forget things?”

He paused. “What do you mean?”

“I mean if years go by and I forget days like this, where we both sat together and talked? What if one day I forget your voice or your face? What if one day I forget… you?”

“Well… that won’t happen for quite a few more years. Why does it worry you now?”

“I’m simply curious.”

Dr. Julien hummed. He pulled his glasses off and painstakingly cleaned the lenses. Zane locked onto his every motion, inscribing it into the artificial synapses of his mind. If he knew how to in the dream, he would motion capture the process so that he could recreate it.

“I suppose it’s something we all have to deal with. Our brains can only hold so much information. There are days I find myself slowly forgetting the details of my friends' faces, the voices of those I loved…”

“So what do you do?”

He shrugged. “There is nothing you can do. You can swear to yourself you will never forget, that you will commit every minutiae to memory, you will remember a person or place or story over and over until one day it’s simply… gone. I suppose that’s why they invented photographs. You can never forget if it’s preserved, but even those will fade over time, or you can forget the when and why and who of their taking. There are photos in my scrapbook of people I know I once knew, but whose names I can no longer recall… Zane? Are you alright?” Julien reached over, turning his son’s face and seeing the fresh trails coasting down his cheeks. He wiped them with the sleeve of his white overcoat. “I’m sorry, son. I didn’t mean to upset you. I believe I must’ve gotten too wrapped up in my own melancholy.”

“I don’t want to forget you, father. Never.”

“Zane…” Dr. Julien shook his head, his deep brown eyes full of softness. “One day, you will, and it will be okay. You may forget the details of my appearance, or all of our memories together, but you will always remember who I was to you. You will always remember your father.”

Despite the fresh tears still replacing the old ones on his face, Zane nodded. “You will always be a part of me.”

“Yes, I will, son.”

Zane woke up, the wetness of his face following him to consciousness. He sat up, wiping his tears with the sleeve of his pajamas. From the half-closed blinds, a beam of golden morning light shone directly on his bed.

“I will never forget, father.”

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clowningaroundmars · 2 months ago

Text

thanks to the amazing @starcut-sand for the inspo, i now present to you all... a new multi-chapter adventure! this time featuring our beloved gwen stacy and miles42 :)

no, it's not a ship fic lol but i hope to keep you all entertained nonetheless

this one will update much faster since i've plotted it all out and have drafts written already. so stay tuned for new updates coming soon!

general content warnings: canon-typical violence, mentions of blood, kidnapping, drugs, poisoning, death, bullets and explosions, teenagers being teenagers

without further ado, let's get into it!

part 1 of 4 >>

Gwen woke up in a small, dark room not knowing how much time had passed since she was knocked out cold.

And she knew she was knocked out cold, of course, because even she knew never to take a cat-nap in the middle of a mission.

That she was on currently… if memory served her correctly.

Slowly, painstakingly-- with knives in her ribs and her left shoulder still sore from her earlier encounter-- she sat up. Flicked through her watch to make double-sure that the migraine throbbing in her brain wasn’t tricking her into a vivid hallucination of some kind.

Earth-42 stared right back at her, bright green digital letters dancing and blurring in and out right before her very eyes. When she reached up to touch her forehead in a spot that itched, her glove came away with a bit of dried blood on the white fabric.

Shit.

Gwen could not let Jessica down under any circumstances, especially since this was her first mission since�� well, since Miles Morales from earth-1610 came in and single-handedly caused the collapse of the Spider Society as everyone knew it.

Which wasn’t really a bad thing in the end, but it did mean that poor Jess had to step up as the leader shortly after Miguel was forcibly dethroned.

“I’m the interim leader right now,” she would say to anyone who called her “boss” or “CEO” or any variation of the word. The poor woman already had enough on her plate as it was with a newborn and a new family life to tend to, so Gwen understood 100%.

It was also why the pressure was on her shoulders to complete this one tiny, manageable task that was given to her.

Gwen wasn’t stupid. She knew she was on a sort of probationary period after her first blunder on earth-1610. And the fact that she turned her back on the Society to break a couple of rules, help Miles, save the multiverse... well, all of that didn't help matters much.

She ignored the looks cast her way every now and then by other Spiders when visiting HQ, but she knew. She tallied up those glances whether anyone knew of it or not.

But then there was also the stupid feeling of… sentimentality hanging in the air, keeping her chained to the Society when most of her other Spider friends had already abandoned the group.

Yeah, her relationship with her father was… repaired, for the most part. But damn it if she didn’t take a liking to Jessica Drew, too! Sue her.

So here she was, on a mission to visit earth-42 and investigate an anomaly that seemed to threaten the very fabric of space and time. Again.

Gwen was already starting to regret her very dumb, not-very-well-thought out decision to volunteer for this one, though.

No time to complain right now though. We’ve got a problem to solve, Gwen mused, forcing her annoyance, frustration, and panic deep down for the moment.

Her aching brain switched over to Work Mode once again, and she immediately slid into compartmentalizing and sorting every bit of detail that she could manage to remember in the present moment.

Her head was bleeding and throbbing, which meant she sustained a brain injury of some kind. She wobbled unsteadily to her feet, wiggling them and checking on her balance. Her head complained louder, but she seemed to be able to walk just fine.

Okay. Good. It wasn’t a bad injury-- and if it was, it seemed her enhanced healing factor already took care of the majority of it in her sleep.

Alright, time to examine her surroundings now.

While she did so, she found it pretty irritating that while her injury didn’t put her out of commission, it seemed to wipe her entire short-term memory instead.

She eventually sat down on a crate in the corner of the room that she was imprisoned in and with her head in her hands, started sorting even harder through her mental files.

… Nothing.

Well, nothing past the memory of flying through the designated portal she opened back in Jess’s office shortly after receiving her mission assignment. And then landing on top of a familiar-but-not-so-familiar building on earth-42's Brooklyn.

She vaguely remembered the late evening sunset, almost choked out by the various plumes of smoke reaching up to the heavens from the fires that still raged on in parts of the city.

... And then? Nothing else.

Gwen remembered how it was like when earth-1610’s Miles-- her Miles-- ended up in this strange world for the first time, a time that seemed like it was eons ago to Gwen, but couldn’t have been more than a few months ago. The fires were much more numerous, news helicopters everywhere and crime seemingly never-ending.

She couldn’t speak on the crime rates per se, but the place looked a little bit less like the mess she and her Spider Band stumbled into at first.

She distinctly remembered thinking to herself-- before swinging down and heading towards the reports of the anomalies-- that she was glad that the Prowlers seemed to get some things under control. If it was them battling the crime in the first place, that is.

But now there was no time for such thoughts. Wherever the Prowlers happened to be now, they were most likely nowhere near her location. Calling Miles-42 up on her watch would be… distasteful, especially this early in the game.

Especially when she had no idea if he was even available or not. Hm. Maybe she should’ve let Jess ping him and let him know of her arrival as per the usual protocol, but. Oh well.

Too late for that now.

So she stood up again, massaged her shoulder and rolled her neck, and blinked the stars out of her eyes. Time to get to work, for real this time.

She eventually happened upon a door that seemed to lead to the outside, which was really well-hidden against the four walls that enclosed her inside.

The room she was held in wasn’t very big, but it was dark. There was only one tiny little window high up near the ceiling that offered a glimpse up into the night sky beyond.

So it was well past sunset… better than not knowing anything at all, right?

The exit was seemingly hard to get out of, unfortunately. Try as she might, Gwen’s strength alone couldn’t get the giant metal door open. She pushed and pulled on the edges, tried sliding it left and right, tried kicking at it. It didn’t budge.

Whoever trapped her in this… storage closet seemed to know exactly what they were doing, who they were dealing with… whoever they happened to be.

Sinister laughing echoed in the back of her mind as she recalled her run-in with the bad guy but… couldn’t for the life of her remember who he was! So frustrating!

Still, this was earth-42. The baddie could’ve been anyone at all, anyone from the Sinister Six Cartel that she knew still held power on the streets here.

Even with their power slowly slipping from their collective grasps, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that one of those assholes still owned a high-security compound out in the middle of nowhere. It also wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for one of them to have enough tranquilizers to knock out ten elephants, and use that drug on her to drag her out here.

For all Gwen knew, she was probably miles and miles away from Brooklyn, too. Just great.

No time to despair. Time to concentrate.

Okay, so she couldn’t really get past this gigantic metal door that seemed to be made of some titanium alloy or whatever. That left the small space up high on the wall that probably served as ventilation for the room, only sporting thick metal bars to prevent things from getting in… or out.

Gwen quickly scaled the wall and eyed the dimensions of the space before deciding that if she got the metal grating off of the concrete wall, she might be able to squeeze her shoulders through and possibly achieve freedom.

Assuming as well, of course, that the security in this building was easy to get past.

But she would rather take her chances with evil police-drones and bumbling goons than sit another minute in this prison waiting to see who exactly captured her.

Gwen got to work, using her super-strength to painstakingly detach the grates corner by corner, trying to stay as quiet as possible. She bent a few bars in the process, but what was a little property damage to a Spiderperson? No big deal.

If the bad guy who kidnapped me wanted his compound to be spotless and damage-free, he shouldn’t have kidnapped me in the first place, Gwen reasoned.

After what felt like hours, the grating was off. She was free! Now all she had to do was--

Gwen’s heart almost leaped out of her throat and into her mask when glowing purple and white eyes suddenly came into view. They narrowed into slits.

“Jesus Chr--!!! What the…” her brain fully booted up this time, taking a second to stare right back into the glowing eyes of...

“Miles?” She gasped, once it hit her.

The glowing eyes blinked once before finally nodding at her. He raised a metal claw to his mask’s mouth in a universally-recognizable gesture.

Shhhhh.

Gwen’s own giant white eyes blinked back at him before shifting out of the way to allow Miles to extend a begauntleted arm into the room through the window and shoot out… something.

A spark of purple lit the room up, and shortly after, a clattering of glass and plastic resonated through the room before the place fell deathly quiet once more.

“There was a camera in there with you, most likely recording audio, too,” Miles offered as an explanation.

“… Oh. Well, thanks.” Gwen said awkwardly.

So she was wrong. Somehow, in the middle of the night in this odd prison she woke up in, Miles Morales happened to find her anyhow.

She wasn’t used to… this other Miles, and they hadn’t spoken much after their first meeting months ago.

He would join the Spider Band on their own missions sparingly. As far as she knew, only 1610’s Miles hung out with him with any sort of regularity. The kid was a complete mystery to everyone else otherwise, and whenever he was brought up around 1610, the topic was usually brushed off as casually as possible.

Gwen had no clue why 42’s Miles didn’t seem to take a liking to any of the members of their little motley crew. She figured he probably had a hard time keeping up with super-powered heroes and just left it at that, even though from what she could see of their encounters-- however far and few between they were-- the kid seemed to have talent. He was able to keep up with them on most days without barely breaking a sweat.

So all in all, a total mystery to her. Even if this guy shared the same face as her best friend and ally Miles Morales, he... moved differently. Acted differently. Like Miles Morales, but in a different font.

He started to shimmy his shoulders into the room to get past the tight constraints of the window. Gwen stared at him with a cocked head the entire time.

He used his sneakers to cling onto the wall for a little bit, reaching right back out of the window once inside. He pulled in a backpack through the opening and promptly dropped down onto the cold hard floor of the room.

“Uh, hi? Wait. Weren’t we supposed to both escape through that window instead of you, y’know, coming inside?”

Miles-- well, 42--shook his head as he threw his pack back on in one swift motion. “I checked the perimeters, and we’re a long, long ways away from the city. Even if we managed to get past the millions of goons and cameras everywhere, they got dogs doing night shifts out in the woods.”

Gwen’s heart sank. Shit. Her earlier thoughts were coming true. They were far away from Brooklyn, which complicated their escape plans even more.

“I mean… ugh, I-- we can climb the trees! Right? If we just--”

“The guards, Gwen. They got guns loaded up with bullets. But you know what I got? A plan.”

Gwen blinked back at 42 yet again. “You do?”

42 took confident steps back as he put some distance between them and then triple-tapped the side of his mechanical mask. Gwen watched with awe as the front of the mask sectioned itself up and off of his head, revealing a laser-focused expression on Miles’ handsome face-- er, his regular, normal, totally-not-good-looking face!

From somewhere on his mask, a bright purple hologram was projected between them, suspended in mid-air. The lights cast the entire room in a hazy purple glow.

The hologram projected a 3D blueprint-like map of the entire building-- all 5 stories of it. Each floor was meticulously detailed, down to the various entrances and exits and relative dimensions of the many, many rooms the building held.

42 tapped his mask again, this time on the chin, and a maze-like structure materialized, all of it hovering on top of each other and weaving themselves in between the floors… a maze-like structure that seemed very, very familiar.

“Vents!” Gwen snapped her fingers once she recognized them. “You have the blueprints of all the ventilation shafts in the building!”

42 nodded, the projection bobbing along with his movements. “Yeah, I do. I’m a Prowler, right? We always stay prepared.”

Gwen squinted at him. “I guess...? How’d you get stuck in this place if you’re always prepared, then? Did you get kidnapped too?”

“Nah,” 42 answered easily, a corner of his mouth quirking up for a split second, “I followed you here.”

Gwen blinked at him for what seemed to be the umpteenth time. "What."

42 sighed. “You got knocked out by this dimension’s Doctor Octopus. He threw you into the back of a van and ordered his goon squad to bring you back up here, to a secret location he’s got surrounded by energy dampeners and signal blockers. Most likely? He knows you’re not from this dimension and wants to experiment on you. But me? I’m here ‘cause me and my uncle have been lookin’ for this place for months. It’s… top-secret, this compound. Classified.”

“Oh. How did… how did you know he’d bring me to the place you and your uncle have been looking for this whole time? What if he brought me to another building?”

42 smirked, the purple lights of the holograms twinkling in his eyes. “Doc’s assets are being… uh, slowly compromised by us with the underground resistance. Not many places for him to throw his unwilling science experiments into nowadays.”

So it wasn’t just Gwen’s imagination. This dimension really has been steadily cleaned up by the Prowlers and their freedom-fighting allies. Well, that was good to hear. Still didn’t provide much relief for their current situation considering this was Doctor Octopus they were talking about here, but it was still nice to know.

“Well. That’s great to hear, then. What’s the rest of your plan, after ducking out of here through the vents?”

42’s mask re-formed back onto his face and the glowing purple and white eyes came back online. “We’re not ducking through the vents. Well, yet. I came here on my own mission and I gotta complete it before leaving.”

Gwen sighed softly. “Which would be...?”

Getting the whole story out of this version of Miles was like pulling teeth! Was it always going to be like this? Because if so, this wasn’t going to be a very easy mission to pull off after all.

“I can get you out of here first, if you want,” 42 glowered at her, voice distorting behind his mask’s voice-changing technology. His tone seemed impatient, too. “I can stay behind ‘til I’m done.”

Gwen shifted her weight onto one leg. “No, not a chance. I have to stay here and make sure Doc Ock doesn’t turn you into minced meat. Plus, you’re the one who has all the blueprints and cool glowing tech thingies. I’m sticking with you until we can both get out of here!”

This seemed to satisfy 42, because he gave her one unreadable nod in her direction. “… If you’re sure, then let’s go.”

He moved swiftly, much more gracefully than Gwen was used to seeing a Miles move. He walked almost silently, crouching down near one side of the wide metal sliding door thing that Gwen was trying to unsuccessfully pry open earlier.

He reached back into his gear that was saddled on his back and pulled out what seemed to be a small metal object with tiny purple lights on the outer edge. It attached itself onto the door and then 42 was sliding a hidden panel that Gwen had completely missed.

Gwen eventually sidled up to him and clasped her hands behind her back. “I see we’re sticking real well to the branding here. Purple lights, purple holograms… very cool,” was her lame attempt at lightening the mood.

“Yeah, it’s a family thing,” 42 muttered as he worked on… what seemed like some electrical circuitry built into the door. It glowed a soft green. “Been passed down for a couple of generations.”

Gwen hummed. “Oh, I see.”

A beat of silence as 42 continued his work.

Gwen checked her watch once more as she leaned on a wall. “Soooo… should I be doing something while you… y’know…?”

“Yeah, you should be quiet.” 42 answered.

“Ouch.” Gwen replied back as flatly as she could. “Look. I don’t wanna step all on your toes or anything while you do this whole… Prowling thing, but we’re a two-man team here! I’m at the very least trying to make conversation,”

“Okay, sure,” 42 replied easily, never taking his eyes off of his task. “Why are you in my dimension in the first place? Since you like to talk so much, maybe you can tell me that.”

Gwen sighed loudly. Great. Here she was trapped in a bad guy’s compound in the middle of who-knows-where, with the meanest Miles in the entirety of the multiverse. Just her luck.

“I was sent here on a mission. By Jessica. You know, the other other Spiderwoman? Who’s now in charge of the Spider Society, by the way? Yeah, we detected anomalies here in this dimension and she sent me to check it out. But… well, I kinda already screwed that up so I guess I can go and kiss my Society membership goodbye for good this time. Happy?”

42 glanced up at her then, his mask as unreadable as ever, the darkness enshrouding much of his body language. He slowly stood up and backed up, silently gazing at Gwen all the while.

She stood there glaring at him with her arms crossed.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m happy.” 42 finally replied coolly. “Now keep quiet, we don’t know if there are guards out here on patrol. My mask is still calibrating its infrared heat sensors so I can’t see ‘em yet.”

Infrared heat sensors? God, is this kid packed to the teeth with high-tech spy gadgetry or what?

Gwen begrudgingly did as she was told, taking a couple of steps back as 42 lowered the brightness of his mask’s glow.

The door rumbled open with a mechanic hum, and that’s when it hit her; Gwen couldn’t have possibly gotten the door open by herself, because it wasn’t just locked… it was hooked up to a main power source and sealed that way.

Damn. Looks like she really did need to rely on this guy to escape this place, after all.

Well then.

They poked their heads out of the dark room and quietly surveyed the expansive maze-like hallways of the compound. Pipes running the entire length of the ceiling as far as they could see told them both everything they needed to know.

42 took a quick step back to update his mask’s digital blueprint and map out exactly where they were.

Gwen glanced back at him. “What’re you doing now?”

“I'm marking where we are...” He then drops his voice to a near whisper, eyes still methodically scanning the area around them. "This compound's built into the side of a steep hill, which is how I climbed in. We must be on the north side, then."

He tapped his mechanical claws on the tip of his chin and started thinking aloud. “Which means… what I’m lookin’ for has to be underneath the ground, towards the south. I’m lookin’ for a room not on the blueprints. And... and I think I know exactly where to start.”

“You think you know? I thought you had a plan!”

“I do,” 42 threw back. “An escape plan. But you’re stickin’ with me, so now we’re gonna do some Prowlering. Unless you changed your mind?”

Oh, right. This game. Well, this kid wasn’t getting rid of her that easily, that was for sure.

“Oh no, no. Just making sure you’re capable of getting out of here, is all,” she offered innocently.

42 might’ve rolled his eyes behind his mask, but it was hard to tell.

Together, they moved through the halls as silently as possible, straining their ears for any sign of human life-- or robot life, really-- as they quickly made their way down several wide corridors.

All of the halls started blurring together since they all looked completely identical to Gwen, save for the numbers on the various doors they passed by changing and getting smaller as they advanced.

After several minutes had passed, Gwen wanted to open her mouth and ask 42 where exactly they were heading to since it didn’t seem like their trip was even coming anywhere close to an end, when he suddenly grabbed her and pulled her around a corner they had just walked past seconds earlier.

Gwen made a slight noise of confusion and then sucked in a breath when the sound of metal clanging and machines whirring echoed all around them. 42 was closest to the corner, head turned over to where she suspected the intruders were coming from.

Sure enough, a pair of heavy work boots stamped gracelessly down the halls and the casual back-and-forth between the men that suddenly came into view could be heard more clearly.

“… Can’t believe he’s got us down here working doubles now, man! Sucks,” one of the men grumbled as they made their way past the two vigilantes and opened yet another giant metal door with a keycard.

Gwen’s vision zeroed in on it as the man reached behind him to tuck it back into his pocket, and her split-second reflexes allowed her to time her web just right.

She snagged the card and held a breath as the door whirred shut right behind the men, both of them none the wiser.

“Whew,” she said after a second of tense waiting, and smirked at 42 who held a metal claw out for the keycard. “Look who’s got a plan now! Aren't you glad I stuck around?”

42 chuckled, the sound warbling slightly under his voice modulator. “Yeah, that was pretty cool. I can admit that. Now that we got this, we might be able to use it to get into the room I wanna get into once we find it.”

“Right,” Gwen pipes up once they continue their descent deeper into the bowels of the compound, “about that. You never told me what it is that you came here to find. In fact, you’ve been pretty cagey this entire time. Like, about everything.”

42 made an undecipherable sound. “Uh, yeah. This is my recon mission, not yours. You’re not even from this dimension, this doesn’t really concern you.”

Gwen grunted. “Gee thanks. If that’s how you feel, then I’ll be having my keycard back!”

42 shook his head and laughed. “I didn’t mean it like that, man. I meant… just don’t worry about it. It’s info we’re looking for to eventually take down Doc Ock. If I said it out loud here, it might jeopardize this whole thing me and Aaron have planned. I'm in work mode right now, I'm sure you get it,”

Gwen relaxed a bit more. In a way, she did get it. She even understood 42’s hesitance to have her aboard to work with him, since working on group projects wasn't exactly on her own list of top ten favorite things… especially when the project itself concerned the very fabric of the space-time continuum.

Gwen was a solo hero, and maybe since 42 was here on his own, he finally graduated into being a solo hero, too.

Actually, on that topic…

“Does your… does your uncle know you’re here, then? If he does, maybe he can help us get out of here?”

42 helped himself to a healthy pause. “Yes, and no. Aaron’s not… here, near the compound. But he does know I’m out on a mission.”

Gwen stared at him. “Sooo… call him? I’m sure he can get past security, right?”

42 laughed yet again, shaking his head. “Guess you didn’t hear me back in the other room when I told you there are blockers all over this compound, huh.”

Gwen cocked an eyebrow at him and their lenses met.

“What I mean is,” 42 continues, “tech down here doesn’t work very well due to all the interference the Doc’s put up to conceal this place. Again, top secret. Super classified. My own mask took a little while to come back online, and some stuff is still… coming back online. Kinda."

“And your communicators wouldn’t happen to also be on the fritz, would they?” Gwen asked, fully knowing the answer she was going to get.

“Mmnnyep, communicator’s offline. I dunno what the hell Doc’s got this place running on, but it’s not electricity. I’m not too concerned about the details, though,”

Here, they came up to a wide metal door marked in bright caution-tape stripes with several warnings plastered on its surface.

“... ’Cause I got my eyes on the prize,” 42 finished, swaggering up to the door’s keycard panel and successfully getting the thing to slide open.

They both fell into fighting stances in case anything behind the door leapt out at them and attacked, but… there was no one and nothing in the spacious cave-like room beyond it.

Nothing except… a humongous collider!

Gwen gasped as she lowered her fists and advanced forward, making her way over thick wires and past computers to get closer to the giant dimension-ripping machine in the center of the room.

It looked… not quite as high-tech as the one in her dimension, or Miles’-- er, 1610’s collider, that is-- but it was completely unmistakable. The form never changes, neither through space nor through time. It was indeed a collider built by none other than the infamous Doctor Octopus, even if it didn’t quite look as close to being complete.

There were still various wires draped on ladders near the edge of the lab, scissor-lifts located below the platforms parked for the night, and several components were missing that seemed to lay underneath odd-looking bulgy sheets on top of several tables nearby. Gwen made her way over to a computer and woke it up, balking at the password-locked screen in front of her eyes.

Damnit. Damnit! It wasn’t just an anomaly that the Society managed to detect… it was the energy signals from this collider, most likely having gone through some initial tests before advancing to this final stage of construction.

If this was it, then Gwen needed to get back to Jess with this information ASAP!

She fiddled with her watch a bit, but it still looked to be on the fritz somehow, not letting her switch to any other dimension or access the other features Hobie had installed into it. Weird.

She straightened up and glanced behind her, hoping that 42 had some kind of tech or knowledge that would help crack this computer open so she could take a look through the files to gauge just how far along this little pet project was… only to find that she was alone.

... Alone?

"Miles?"

Silence. Her heart jumpstarted a bit and started hammering away in her chest as she hurriedly made her way past rows of tables, science equipment, and computer screens of all sizes, only to find a pair of legs sticking out from underneath a weird car-shaped machine set aside in the corner of the gigantic lab.

She stood there for a bit with her hands on her hips, quieting her thoughts and watching as 42 tinkered away at whatever the hell he was tinkering away at.

She eventually kicked a purple Jordan gently and smiled bemusedly at 42 shuffling his way out from under the machine.

“Having fun down there?” She said as casually as she could manage.

42’s mask was off slightly, still framing his face, but now Gwen could see his slightly exasperated expression in full view.

“Yeah, actually, I was.” He gave her a full view of his snarky attitude too, while he was at it.

He laid back down and pushed his way underneath once more.

“Is this gigantic collider in the middle of this room not a huge concern to you at all?”

“Not really.” 42 answered from under the machine.

“Can I ask why? You do know that if the Octopus gets this thing done and booted up, that your entire dimension is at risk of collapsing just like every other dimension that’s had a collider in it before?”

“Really? Ya don't say,” 42 replied sarcastically, clinking and clanking away. The machine rattled a bit. “That’s nowhere near done right now and I gotta prioritize my priorities. I’m getting to root cause of the problem rather than just climbing in here and smashing stuff up.”

“… Are you now?” Gwen deadpanned.

A mighty metallic scraping sound jolted its way through her eardrums suddenly, making Gwen jump slightly. After a second or two, 42 slides out once again with a big sunny grin plastered onto his face, holding up what looks like a small motherboard with a bunch of metal wires still attached to the metal casing it was screwed into. He only wore one gauntlet, she noted.

He quickly took his pack off and got to work inlaying the computer part into a panel in his pack that she had never noticed before.

A total tech marvel that thing was, really. Even Gwen had to make a noise of approval when with a few purposeful jabs and swipes, the whole pack disengaged and unfolded itself open, much like his mask. No tools required.

He made quick work of the task at hand, using one metal gauntlet as a makeshift toolset, his other gloved hand working to set the entire component into the rest of the pack’s inner workings.

Once that seemed to be done, all of the circuitry glowed purple for a beat before going dark once more. 42 tapped at his gauntlet, bringing up more info on the inside of his wrist, which he seemed to approve of.

“All set?” Gwen probed, still standing a little ways away from him, watching as he seemed completely engrossed in his little side-mission.

He reached back under the machine and pulled out his other gauntlet, springing back up once it was in his hands.

“Yeah. Better than all set, ‘cause now my pack’s online! I can use my climbing gear again.” At this, 42 unlatches a reel of rope from behind him, his grappling hook dangling on one end as he swings it in circular motions through the air. “Hell yeah,”

Gwen stared at him once again. “Your climbing gear wasn’t working? How did you climb into my window, then?”

42 gave her a bit of side-eye. "I got other gear besides my rope, you know that, right?"

Gwen huffed, clearly annoyed. "No, actually I don't. I've been following you this whole time and you haven't really been saying much at all,"

42’s mask slid back into place as he rolled his shoulders and readjusted his pack. “You ask too many questions,”

“You don’t provide too many answers,” Gwen bit out dryly. “Seriously, dude, we are in the middle of giant evil lair of some kind with no way to communicate with the outside world and you’re swaggering through this whole ordeal like it’s a walk in the park,” she huffs. “Why can’t you just tell me like, anything?”

They’re both face-to-face now, mask-to-mask, very obviously frustrated with each other if the electricity in the air was as thick as it felt.

Two teenagers butting heads in the middle of a giant lab, trapped in the lair of their greatest enemy… it would embarrassing if it wasn’t so absurd, but here they were, glaring each other down anyways.

“I am telling you things, you just don’t listen! Probably ‘cause you think your powers make you all-powerful and omniscient or something, that you think you don't need to listen to a word I'm saying,” 42’s words dripped with venom. “Seriously, staying with me to make sure I don’t get myself killed? Gimme a damn break. If sticking with me is soooo boring and you know more than I do, you can get yourself up out of here, then.”

Gwen bristled. “Listen here, jerk. I never said that I was better than you. Kinda telling on yourself there, don'tcha think?” She jabbed a finger in his direction. “I was perfectly capable of letting myself out before you fell in here and got us all turned around! I had it on my own, I could've gotten myself out of here ages ago!"

“And who’s stopping you?” 42 threw his hands up in the air. “Use your little spider powers to bust up out of here, and just leave!"

Gwen stepped back, seething. With fists clenched by her sides, she shoots 42 more daggers his way, hoping her mask’s lenses would convey the message.

Wordlessly, she turns around and shoots a web up to one of the ventilation grates high up in the cavernous room, sticking to the wall.

She works the grating off while 42’s Jordans pace right out of the room and into another side room, leaving the lab completely silent.

Fine. If that was how things were going to be, then fine. This was hardly the worst situation Gwen’s ever found herself in, and it most likely wasn't going to be over anytime soon. But she’s gotten herself out of stickier conundrums on her own, so this was just going to be yet another one of life’s little tests. Just a bump in the road.

A small, insignificant little bump.

As Gwen quietly seethed and crawled her way through the ventilation shafts (completely blindly, since she didn’t really bother to memorize the absolute maze that was whatever 42 showed her earlier) she came upon a vent opening that overlooked a room filled with monitors and… guards.

It looked to be a security room not too far from the collider room, and the men inside were armored to the teeth, only slipping off their helmets and masks to chat some shit over takeout containers and coffee cups.

The rest of the room was covered in tv monitors that showed various different CCTV camera feeds, all of them stationary. Most of them were pointing to the outside, though, hardly any of the screens showed views from the basement level’s numerous corridors, curiously enough.

Gwen doubted 42’s earlier claim that this building ran on some other form of power, since she didn’t think it would be very economic on the Octopus’ wallet to buy so many cameras and monitors and computers that ran on alternate power sources.

Maybe… if he was wrong… then maybe she could even use her watch to open up a portal in an empty room somewhere and just peace out!

Tell Jess what she found, because by now she’d pretty much done her job. Leave the rest to a more capable task force put together by the Society and just go back to her normal, boring, definitely not eventful life.

But then… as tempting as the thought was… she’d be leaving 42 behind. 42, sure, but a Miles nonetheless… a friend.

From what she could gather, the poor guy had very few friends, if any at all. If he wasn’t communicating to her properly, maybe isolation from his vigilante work was to blame, rather than a fault of his character.

Gwen propped up her chin in one hand and ruminated on all of these thoughts, arguing with herself over whether she should stay or go. She glanced at her cobbled-up watch, a permanent reminder of her best friend Hobie Brown, and laid on her back to mess with it one more time.

Her thoughts sunk down into the bottom of her stomach as she fiddled with it, continuing to get error messages as she tried to scroll through the various dimensions she knows she’s saved to her little watch, coming up with nothing even when she dared to try and open a portal in the middle of the vent shaft.

Nothing, nada. No dice. No portal whatsoever happened to materialize. It gave small sad beeps instead, really hammering home that… she really was on her own this time.

Damn.

Gwen didn’t know why, but this thought kind of depressed her.

At least on previous missions and patrols in her dimension, she was always acutely aware of how much rested on her own shoulders. She always went in with confidence and some sort of game plan, content enough to just let her quick thinking and powers get her out of any fight, any problem.

But ever since landing here on earth-42, she seemed… discombobulated, not entirely in her element. Everything in this dimension seemed to work against her at every single turn.

She’d have to bring that up to the other Spiders, ask if they’ve ever felt anything like she was feeling before.

If she could get out of this building in the first place, that is…

A loud, jarring alarm jolted her violently out of her wandering thoughts, and she almost hit her head on the ceiling of the vent, rolling over quickly to peer down into the room below her.

The guards were pulling helmets and masks on, scrambling up from their previous positions and pouring out of the security room door as quickly as they could.

In the midst of the sudden chaos, Gwen’s wide eyes honed in on one particular screen, which was pointed directly at the collider room’s interior…

... And directly at earth-42’s Miles Morales himself.

#mine #spiderverse #gwen stacy #miles g morales #earth 42 #welp. here we gooooo #new adventure! yippee!#don't worry. hobie1610 will continue to be updated. but for now? a nice lil gwen and miles g story to cleanse the palate :)#again big ups to starcut sand for the inspo!!! go read their miles g and gwen dynamic posts. i promise they're absolute bangers #and almost direct inspo to everything you read here and beyond :)#that being said #i did try to make their dynamic here my own thing too like... i'm not trying to bite off starcut too hard or anything LOL #lemme know if i'm doing a good enough job or anything #and before yall ask: yep. each chapter will end with a cliffhanger. LMFAO #i like torturing readers a lil sometimes :)#anyways as per usual thx for reading and hope you enjoyed!

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navybrat817 · 6 months ago

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Club Owner!Bucky intro written. ❤️

Sorry in advance, lovelies, he's crazy. 😂😏😉

#navybrat updates #bucky barnes #club owner!bucky barnes #dark!bucky barnes #cuckoo for cocoa puffs #turn it up au #future fic #just need it beta read #hope you lovelies enjoy #why am i nervous?#are you reading my tags?#go drink some water #stay hydrated my friends

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dipplinduo · 5 months ago

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Scrapped Content for The Dichotomy In Our Hearts

Where have I been? Ah. Well. Would you believe me if I told you I have been writing and rewriting the same chapter across this past like...week? xD

I have been working through a series of ideas for chapter updates, but I've been very very stuck on The Dichotomy In Our Hearts.

When I tell you. I have written this one scene. OVER AND OVER. LOOOOL.

Ultimately, I've realized the voice of DIOH comes from a sweeter/reflective/"grow through growing pains" kind of tone. Not as much of a conflict-driven/angsty/"Kieran can you please chill the edge bc you're lowkey toxic chain'd" one, like with what you might see me write in Sweet & Sour Dipplins. And lemme tell you, it feels sooooo good to have this breakthrough, because one thing I've been actively trying to do with DIOH is distinguish it from S&S D across the board (but especially with Kieran & Juliana's characterizations & dynamics).

So that being said, I'm gonna rework the last two chapters. I was originally going to have them come out as part of a bigger update in general, but if you've been following this story you've honestly waited long enough, lol. So! I'm prioritizing this. Next update from me will come out within a few days with the conclusion of this story. <3 In the meantime, I figured I should share some of the scrapped work I had - it's a good scene on its own, but you'll see a different version of this scene play out in a more effective way within Chapter 4. :)

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Kieran huffed out a breath of the furious storm that had festered inside of him. He had hoped his time decompressing in the frosty woods would freeze over the raw cut to his already withering pride, but it proved to no avail as he walked along the cobblestone pathway to his home. He relished in what remained of the short-lived comfort he obtained through casting himself to the shadows as his home’s lingering lights began to expose his wounds back to the watching world. The rays were an anomaly for this time of night; his grandfather had always had a strict rule of dimming the house before bed, and Kieran was highly certain it was too late for people to be awake.

He braced himself with a careful inhale as he quietly stepped up to the shoji before him, and the door felt like a paper barrier between the last of his solitude and judgment itself. They couldn’t have been waiting up to lecture him some more, could they? At this point, he didn’t need any punishment beyond the torment of his self-criticism. He knew he was rash and reckless. He knew he was lucky the little boy was okay.

He just wished he was better. It was another moment he could’ve used to prove himself, but he blew it. Again.

The guilt already gripped into him mercilessly. It seemed as if the history of his inexcusable failures enjoyed repeating themselves - no matter how hard he tried to remedy them by pushing himself - and it seemed as if the world would do anything but retire the spotlight from him while he dug his grave further into the lifeless ground. The real salt in the wound was the dramatic irony of how he had failed this time, though.

Once again, his efforts were fruitless. Once again, Juliana had stepped in so effortlessly. Once again, she is showered in praise while he is showered in shame.

And of course she bore witness to his humiliation.

Kieran clenched his jaw tightly as he slid the shoji. He remained stealthy, but still nonetheless moved swiftly to rip the band-aid off to whatever awaited him indoors. He squinted his sensitive eyes against the blaring, toasty lights - they were more powerful than what had seeped through to the front porch - and the illuminance from the lamps refracted warm hues off of the yellow-orange walls. Minus the scattered lights, the house was void of his noisy family members. They must’ve all retreated to their beds as Kieran would reasonably predict. As Kieran’s vision adjusted to his bright and tidy home, his movements slowed to the sight before him. He stepped inside in a manner that was as Dedenne as he attempted to survey the situation.

Juliana was curled up against the kotatsu in an awkward position - one that looked far from comfortable. It appeared as if she had fallen asleep entirely by accident; she had donned her usual attire instead of the pajamas she was meant to borrow, and she was sitting up rather than lying down into the kotatsu’s blanket that poorly covered her lap. Her back was hunched over so she could rest her cheek against her forearms, which were somewhat sprawled along the wooden surface of the kotatsu. Her Deerling-like eyes remained sealed shut as Keiran inched closer, and there was a subtle droop in her parted jaw as she softly breathed. Odd touches of flyaways and frizz decorated her waved, somewhat messy hair, and Kieran noted slight creases that wrinkled in a hidden gray underneath her eyes.

Was she waiting up for him?

It was yet another moment that felt stolen and improper. When he observed her, he could see nothing but a much more vulnerable aspect of his rival that he felt he wasn’t meant to experience.

It was yet another moment that felt stolen and improper. When he observed her, he could see nothing but a much more vulnerable aspect of his rival that he felt he wasn’t meant to experience. She was supposed to be unyielding and ruthless with limitless capabilities. An obstacle in his path that he could overcome to clear his conscience.

Kieran bit the corner of his lip and exhaled slowly - the bewildering tugs of emotions on either end only added to his already building frustration. He quietly snagged the patchworked, quilted blanket that was draped along the plush sofa nearby her - why she couldn’t just resign herself on that at the minimum, Kieran didn’t know - and carefully wrapped it around her narrow shoulders. As he turned to leave, a gentle touch around some of his fingers caused him to gasp.

“Ki…Ki-”

Kieran’s mouth suddenly felt dry as his heart skipped a beat.

“-eran,” Juliana finished, and the weird sensation in his chest rallied heat around him. Why was he imagining she would call him…?

The touch around his middle and ring finger became a soft grip as Juliana stirred and began rubbing her face. Now that she was awake, reality struck him back into his senses and he suddenly felt as restless as he was in the woods.

Kieran tried to keep his voice even as he spoke. "Juliana, it's late. Ya’ should go to bed,"

Juliana blinked sleepily as she sat up, still holding his hand. "I was worried about you," she murmurs. "Are you okay?"

Kieran nearly pulled his hand away as the realization dawned on him. So this was what it was all about: pity.

She was the hero who looked down on him and pitied him before anything else.

The epiphany was a coarse grain of salt rubbing in his wounds, but it was somehow the easiest and most sensible thing to believe than any lingering alternatives. "Why do you care so much?" he snapped, immediately regretting his harsh tone but feeling unable to stop himself. "You don't need to pretend to be worried about me."

Juliana flinched as she became more alert. “Why would I pretend to be worried?”

“Don’t play dumb,” Kieran spat as he snatched his hand away.

“Why are you trying to pick a fight with me?” Juliana asked firmly as she rose, a hint of anxiety in her defensiveness. “Is this about Peacharunt?”

“It’s about way more than that.” Kieran tightened his fists as he steadied his gaze on a chair cushion, readying his words like canons. “You won again. Ya’ always do. I don’t need your pity as a consolation prize.”

“I’m not trying to pity you,” Juliana countered. “I just know that things have been hard lately, and I-”

Kieran turned to face her, his voice almost trembling as the pain in her face brought out some of his own. “That’s why ya’ came here in the first place, right? I just mess everything up left and right. Ya’ just want ta’ keep an eye on me and fix my mistakes. ‘Cause I’m so horrible.”

Juliana stepped closer and spoke softly enough to make the hair behind Kieran’s neck raise. “Kieran, you’re not horrible at all. But you’re acting like you are, and you keep pushing people away. You’re pushing me away.”

Juliana’s cries fell on deaf ears as the anger flared inside of Kieran, directionless. An ugly mix of self-loathing, resentment, and deep-seeded insecurity oozed uncontrollably as he spat out his words. "Stop beatin’ around the bush, everyone knows that I can't ever measure up to you!” His voice cracked with the weight of his emotions, and he turned away again, unable to face her and complete his thought. How even his own grandparents trusted her battle skills over his.

“This isn’t a competition. I’m not trying to compete with you,” Juliana breathed unevenly, as if there was something unsteady brewing in her.

Kieran's eyes narrowed, his frustration boiling over. "Ya’ think it's not a competition? It's always a competition! Everyone is always comparing us, and I always come up short. Do ya’ even know what that's like?” Kieran continued as Juliana opened her mouth in protest. “Ya’ don’t. ‘Cause you’re always the hero everyone wants and loves. You are perfect,” Kieran spat as an insult as he ran out of breath.

A pulsating surge of shock struck Kieran as his rival’s voice grew uncharacteristically intense. "You think I'm perfect? You think I don’t have struggles? That I don’t actually care about you at all?” Her voice cracked before becoming small and hushed. “How could you say such a thing?”

His eyes danced between hers in anguish, and he messily attempted to somewhat soften his outburst as he recalled her smile under the fireworks. “If you had any flaws they’d just be a work of art.” (MAKE CONTRADICTION MORE FLUID)

“I thought you of all people would know that I'm anything but perfect!” Juliana cried out, tears bursting down her face. “After everything you’ve seen me struggle with.”

As he witnessed the seams of her composure become undone, Kieran felt as if he was sinking, too. The tension in his fists released as he was taken aback, rendered speechless.

Juliana continued to fall apart before him, using both of her hands to wipe her face repeatedly as her voice trembled. “I don’t fit in at the academy. I miss being at home. And the only person that really feels like a home is the one person I’m pitted against. You’ve seen me fail over and over again with all of these things. You’ve seen parts of me I haven’t shown anyone else. But you... you act like I’m this flawless person who just waltzes through life without a care. And it hurts, Kieran. It hurts because I care about you so much, and you don’t even see it.”

Kieran’s eyes widened as he was hit with a sudden sense of clarity. He began to blink rapidly as he recalled the intimacy and affection he had misread as a threat. Her giddiness, her eagerness to accompany him and cling to him, her interest in his thoughts and moods. A tingle ruptured inside him as he pieced everything together.

She…liked him?

It felt like a haughty deduction, but it was the only way he could make sense of such strong feelings. He wasn’t sure what to make of it - what he was even supposed to do with it. Kieran hesitantly reached out an arm around the shaking girl’s back and nudged her forward. His hyperawareness grew as she collapsed into him as she sobbed, curling her fingernails around arms. It felt as she was slipping down, and Kieran unintentionally dropped to the floor with her as she buried herself against him.

It was a moment he was entirely unprepared for and could never predict. There was a part of him that felt good - as if his damaged ego was stroked and given value. There was another that raved about the attention he was receiving, to have someone fight because they cared. There was another part that was disgusted at himself for those feelings. There was another that couldn’t make sense of Juliana and her multidimensionality. Was he wrong about her? Does he have the right to be mad at her? Is he even mad at her? Why would she have a crush on him, if she even did? Kieran felt as if he was short-circuiting from the swirling contemplation.

He was ages away from speaking as Juliana continued to blubber. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do! I don’t know how to make up for what happened with Ogerpon! And it breaks my heart to keep seeing you get so angry without knowing how to fix it!”

"Juliana, I..." he starts, staring aimlessly at the wall behind her as his voice trails off. “I didn’t realize…”

"Of course you didn't," she weakly replies against him to the point where it was difficult to hear. "You're too busy seeing me as this perfect person who has it all together, like everyone else. Well, I'm not. And it hurts, Kieran. It hurts.” She repeated, nearly nonsensical.

(Below are notes that follow the direction of the scene):

Kieran feels guilty and hugs Juliana awkwardly

I'm sorry/angry at self / feels disarmed by Juliana's crying

His thoughts eventually grow quiet as she sags further against him and nearly falls asleep

“We should both go to bed” wanted to escape but didn't want to leave, conflicted

(J) I’m sorry if I was being too much

(K): Thats the second time you said that/improved ability to observe Juliana

Was she afraid of taking up space? Starts to see how difficult that must be

Closes door abruptly, holds his hands to his face where Juliana touched him

~EMBARRASSED EMO ~ / Reflection on duality of relationship

#Kieran I heard you was conflicted B|#lolol but yeah thats full transparency on whats been going on over here I have felt so guilty about the lack of updates #for some reason I particularly always fixate on DIOH and go significantly more tryhard #I am confident that the tone change suits the story far better though like #even in this excerpt the complexity of Kieran's emotions didn't flow in a way that made sense #felt waayyy too forced #and also #THIS AINT S&S D KIERAN LMAO #Hope you enjoy xD give me validation and motivation pls #my fics #dipplinshipping #kieran pokemon #kieran x juliana pokemon #juliana x kieran pokemon #kieran x juliana #juliana pokemon #also TIL how to do “read more” on tumblr posts omg #I AM EVOLVING

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