#source: jane got a gun

[breedaboyd]

Cathouse Tragedy ~ Vic Owen

Pairing: Vic Owen ☓ Samuel Adams.

Word Count: 4.1k+

CW: Anal sex, biting, cross-dressing, dom/sub, face-fucking, fisting, oral sex, period-accurate homophobia, period-accurate transphobia, prostitution.

A/N: Title from Voltaire's album, 'Riding a Black Unicorn...'.

The dusty haze hangs low over the town, a fitting backdrop to the weary souls that wander its dirt-ridden streets. The local cathouse, a ramshackle refuge of shadows and whispers, stands as a beacon for those seeking solace in the arms of paid companionship.

Within its dimly-lit confines, the air carries the scent of stale whiskey and sweat, mingling with the soft notes of a mournful piano in the corner. Samuel Adams, garbed in silk and lace, moves with a practiced grace among the patrons. Each step is measured, a dance of survival in a world where debts can cost far more than coin.

John Bishop, a man of cunning eyes and a grip that squeezes hope from the desperate, presides over this domain. Sam owes him a debt, a promise etched in blood, and so he performs this charade night after night.

Sam's gaze follows the entrance of a steady stream of cowboys and drifters, each one a reminder of the compromises made to keep afloat in this unforgiving life. He serves their wants, bearing the weight of their gazes, in this place there's no room for pride.

And then there's Vic Owen. A name that curls Sam's lip in a silent snarl because Vic is the embodiment of everything vile and loathsome. He strides in with an air of entitlement, his spurs jingling a discordant tune against the worn floorboards. His eyes gleam with a predatory hunger and Sam shudders under the weight of that gaze. With that being the case, why is this awful, cruel, disgusting man his favourite customer?

Shame colours his cheeks. Shame and something else he refuses to put a name to because Sam's want for Vic brings chaos and mayhem into his semi-ordered world. His gaze always returns to Vic with every move and gentle smile given. Vic, with his eyes that linger too long on silk and satin. Sam takes a steadying breath, his mind drifting over a myriad of possibilities at every tilt of that predatory grin.

Will Vic seek him out again tonight? God, he hopes so.

The night air is thick with a blend of sweat, whiskey and the distant promise of rain. Inside the cathouse, the atmosphere hums with a strange mix of allure and desperation. Sam — or Sammy to his clientèle — glides from table to table, his practiced smile unassuming and easy on the eyes.

"Evenin', handsome." He purrs, voice dipped in honey, as he leans in to brush a kiss against a grizzled cowboy's cheek. The man grins back, eyes gleaming with a mixture of appreciation and expectation. At another table, a young rancher clinks his glass against Sam's, the sound punctuated by a low chuckle.

Suddenly, the swing of the doors announces the arrival of two newcomers. Their boots echo loudly on the wooden floor. Sam's eyes flicker towards them, his heart sinking as he senses the trouble that they carry in with them.

"We heard they had a tranny slut in this joint." One of them sneers, eyes looking over each of the girls before stopping at Sam. "That must be you, bitch." They swarm him, hands pulling wandering, groping, intruding. The other patrons are quick to turn their gazes back to their drinks, useless bastards. It all happens so quickly.

"Don't worry, sweetheart, we'll teach ya how t'behave like a real lady soon enough." One of them grins. Sam chokes down a scream. Desperately, he squeezes his eyes shut as he's bent over the bar roughly, his nose crushed into the wood. He smells blood and he can already tell his nose is broken. Then, there's a gunshot and Sam squeezes his eyes shut.

"Reckon you gentlemen outta be leavin' 'fore I put the next slug 'tween y'ears." The warning comes with a soft tone, rich with malice. The bruising grip on his shoulders slacken and suddenly Sam's yanked up to his feet by one of the men and, God, Vic's a sight for sore eyes; all dark eyes and sinful, smirking mouth. Sam aches for him. Hates him. But would eagerly present his back for the honour of taking a fuck from him. Just not right now. All he wants to do is leave. Go home and wash off the feeling of unwanted hands on his skin.

"Shouldn't come 'tween a whore an' 'er customers, friend." One of the men says and there's a vicious edge to his words now. Sam notes the tension in Vic's jaw at the use of that word: whore.

"Sure but that there's my whore. An' y'see, I don't much like sharin'. Never learned ta. Now, I suggest you boys take y'leave." He smiles, a wolf baring its teeth. There's the click-click of the hammer pulled back on his Colt. "So get the fuck out." The air pulses with unspoken violence. Sam feels his pulse quicken, like the low hum of a storm heralded by heat. Then, suddenly, the one that grabbed him tosses him away like a ragged toy. Sam hits the ground with a thud.

"C'mon, Joel. Ain't worth it." The other man grabs his companion, dragging him towards the door. Then they leave, cursing their way out.

Vic stands there, watching, until the doors have swung shut before stowing his pistol and turning to Sam. The younger man stares up at him from the floor, hating the heat that coils in his belly at the sight. Slowly, he raises a trembling hand and brushes it against his mangled nose. Hurts something fierce.

He wobbles to his feet as the tempo of the cathouse picks up again, filled with music and cheers. He aches to taste the sweat on Vic's bronzed skin. To bite his chest and taste the tang of his seed on his tongue. Sam's knuckles go white around the shot glass placed before him, mouth dry at the thought. He downs the shot and braces his hands on either side of his nose, clicking it back into place with a pained groan.

"'Thank you, Vic. I'm fine' is what you're s'posed to say, princess. 'I'm forever in y'favour'. Like in the books an' shit, y'know?" His voice curls around Sam like cigar smoke. Yet, all the younger man can do is press a cold rag to his throbbing nose and scowl in Vic's general direction. But he's fine...mostly. Still, the words 'thank you' are lost among thoughts of tangled sheets and half-swallowed moans. Sam hates that look in Vic's eyes, like he knows exactly what the younger man's thinking. Hates that his thoughts always drift back to Vic and his rough, warm hands.

Sam tears himself from the hypnotic draw of that shit-eating grin and fights his way past drunken patrons to his backroom, where he sees his clients. He doesn't think about Vic's strong, sturdy hands gripping his hips hard enough to bruise. He doesn't think about Vic's burning gaze eating him alive with an intensity that scares him. He doesn't think about laying beneath him, fucked wide open, screaming his name as Vic fills him again and again with his cock. Vic, Vic, Vic.

Instead, he chooses to lose himself in the monotony of undressing, tearing at laces and silk until he's nude. He's not seeing anyone else tonight, damn John Bishop. Sam catches his reflection in the mirror. His face is painted with powder but beneath the paint and the rouge, he can see the ghost of a little boy he once knew, eyes haunted, skin soft. The sight brings bile to his throat. Beneath that is a man, tall and thin and angry at the world. His clothes feel like a prison. There are days where he'd sell his soul for a pair of breeches and a button-down shirt. Anything but satin and lace and cotton.

And then Vic's at his door, just watching him, drinking him in.

"Ain't the striptease half the fun?" He drawls, every bit the predator. Sam watches him in the mirror, eyes wary. Vic ducks inside and shuts the door. It locks with a click. That grin tugs at his lips again as Vic prowls forwards, fingers curling into the hair at the nape of Sam's neck. Then, he's kissing him, hard and demanding, shoving his tongue between the younger man's teeth. He tastes like blood and whiskey and cigars. "Y'smell so good, princess. Like honey an' flowers...an' cock." Vic pants against his lips. Sam opens his mouth for him, giving himself over to the sensation of it all. His mind sings with the glorious brutality of it, every nerve aches, every movement setting him on fire. God, this fucking man. If Sam could be his personal slave, he wouldn't bat an eye. "Such a pretty girl for me, ain'tcha?" Vic grins. Sam chokes out a pitiful whine at Vic's words, hating how easily Vic can coax his heart to pound so hard in his chest.

"'M a man, y'sick fuck." He breathes back, words trembling out between shaky exhales. Every scrap of self-preservation is dunked in a vat of molten want at the smug tilt of Vic's lips.

"Then show me."

And suddenly, Sam's on his knees, staring up at Vic, their gazes never breaking as he languidly pulls out his cock. It's a thick, weighty thing, oozing pre, and Sam's never been much of a swallower but all he wants is to sink his mouth onto it. He parts his lips, letting his mouth drool, letting the saliva build up around his tongue. And Vic thrusts in.

Instinctively, Sam gags on the intrusion, coughing around the base of Vic's cock. Immediately, the older man presses his palm to his temple, groaning at the wet warmth of his mouth. The head brushes the back of his throat. His world constricts into the feeling of his body refusing to give up his control. Breathe, Sammy, breathe. He inhales and Vic uses that brief second to his advantage. With a sharp, brutal thrust, he sheaths himself deep inside the tight heat of Sam's throat. The younger man can't suppress the whine that slips out and Vic echoes it, grinning wide and easy.

"Damn, y'must have been hungry, princess. Lookit that thing disappear." He hisses, tone reverent. The pressure in Sam's throat is making him weak and desperate. "That's it, darlin'. Nice an' easy." Vic groans, his voice drenched in an animal pleasure that sets Sam's own cock alight with need. His makeup's smearing across his face, dripping down his cheeks with tears, but neither of them could care less. If Sam had to hazard a guess, he'd reckon Vic likes it this way, likes seeing him debased and filthy. When Sam lets his eyes shut, drool dribbles down his chin. "That's a good, li'l' slut." Vic sighs, his breath coming harder and harder. "Good girl." When he says it, it's a term of endearment. A reward. Sam wants to sob.

Instead, Sam's tongue moves, slipping along the veiny underside and taking in the masculine salt of sweat and pre and everything that's just Vic. The older man doesn't let him up, not until Sam's so light-headed that the world tilts and shifts beneath him. And even then, Vic keeps him close, lets him breathe in the musk at the base of his cock. "Breathe, boy." He huffs out as Sam pants and gasps against him. If there's one thing he knows about the man, it's that Vic takes what he wants and damn the consequences.

And then, Vic's cumming down his throat, shooting deep into the back of Sam's throat, hunching over, growling as he fucks the younger man's face through it all. "Don't ya waste a single Goddamn drop, y'hear? Wanna see you swallow it all, princess." He snarls. Sam obeys. A thread of spit connects Vic's cockhead to Sam's reddened lips as he pulls out. Sam thinks he can hear Vic's grin, broad and cocky and cruel. "Good girl. Open up, let ol' Vic see what a good job y'did." He cups Sam's face, tracing his thumb along the younger man's swollen lips. Obediently, the younger man opens his mouth and presents his tongue, where the pearlescent strings of cum glisten. He waits for Vic's verdict. "God— Fuck, princess. Fuckin' perfect." Those words, spoken with such careless adoration, do more than any seduction could.

Sam leans forward, wrapping a hand around Vic's wrist, eyes shut, as his lips wrap around the older man's thumb. He's sure he looks quite the sight: face stained with tears and make-up, cock hard and leaking against his thigh, lips forming a seal around the digit. He swallows the load, all while paying his dues and lavishing Vic's thumb with attention. Their eyes gleam with want. "Mmmnn... Bet ya'd take anything I'd give ya, wouldn'tcha, darlin'? Precious, li'l' princess slut." He presses his thumb down against Sam's tongue, purring at the submission before drawing his now wet digit away. Vic sucks the cum-soaked digit into his mouth, tongue running over it with a low moan.

Vic pulls Sam up from the floor, nipping at his throat and marking him. The younger man whines, reaching down to stroke himself when Vic slaps his hand away, gaze firm.

"Did I say y'could do that, sweetheart?" He leers. Sam shakes his head, biting back a whimper. Vic bends him over the bed, planting a firm slap on his ass with a wicked grin. Sam bucks in the air, cock dripping onto the blankets. God, the bastard knows just how to push his buttons. Fingers dig into Sam's hair, tugging him back up so Vic can lean in close. "Get on that bed and spread y'self open. Don't wanna hurt ya when I tear that fine ass'a yours apart." Sam scrambles onto the bed, spreading his legs and reaching for the mineral oil on the nightstand, as Vic wanders to the foot of the bed, slowly stripping off his shirt. He hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his pants, tugging them lower and lower, until they drop to the ground. Then he pulls up a chair, eager for the show.

Sam slicks up his fingers with the oil and begins to spread his hole open, letting out soft, little gasps as he pushes deeper into himself. Vic's gaze is sharp as a knife, lips curved up and slightly parted in enjoyment. "Tha's it, princess. Lemme see my girl get good an' ready to take my cock." Vic grins and Sam feels himself bloom open, feels the slick clench of his inner walls clenching around his fingers. God, this is good. Good girls obey. He's heard that enough to know it's true. Sam is a good girl... Right?

He pushes his fingers right back in, two then three... Three fingers is still barely touching the sides. He's so loose from all the cocks he's taken, the fingers, fists. He's so loose and hot and slutty. "Mhm, that hits the spot, don't it?" Vic presses his thumb to his cock, stroking himself as he watches with a dark, heavy-lidded gaze. Four fingers now, and Sam moans at the delicious feeling of too much, too little, just fucking enough. He's putting on a show for Vic and his steady, approving gaze. Just for Vic. Nobody else.

And then he finds it, that sweet, little bundle of nerves, catching it with his fingertips and making his body flush with heat. He's in so deep, well over the swell of his knuckles, so he can reach it, pinch it, press it. That lovely, little button that just goes so well with the stretch of his hole, with the heavy throb of his cock, so thick between his legs, begging for release. But he can't, not before the older man fucks him first. He doesn't want the heat of Vic's gaze turned into scorn and he doesn't want to be punished because, if Vic punishes him, it means the sex'll be better but damn it'll be painful.

"'M-M so close, Vic. Can I cum? Please, please can I—" Sam doesn't want to make Vic angry, he wants to be a good girl, he wants it so bad. His body arches as he squirms against the bed.

"Nah, open up that pretty, li'l' fuckhole for me, princess." He runs a hand down his cock, ready to go again. Sam's voice cracks with his reply and his cock twitches against his stomach. He pants, reaching down to hook his fingers into his rim, pulling himself open, putting himself on display. His insides are red-raw, slick with the spend of the dozens of men he's seen over the last twenty-four hours. He's a disgusting, little whore, guts pouring out of his destroyed hole. Doesn't matter because he wants to be Vic's personal cumdump and he'll gladly take everything Vic has to give, up to and including his life. If only. "Shit, Sammy... Sweet, lil'l rosebud you got there. How many johns've you seen while you been here? I remember when y'was a virgin, all tight 'n' shy 'n' sweet. How many guys've you taken in that cum-hungry cunt'a yours over the two years we've had ya? Y'remember?"

"Over... O-Over a thousand." He chokes out the number, one he's long since memorised. He has the number in a little, black book in his nightstand; 1,567. Sam's had them all; big men, small men, rich men, poor men, young, old — he takes every cent, every cock, without complaint or hesitation. As long as they have cash because he's a whore. Because, as it turns out, plenty of guys like pretty, young men in panties with smooth chests, doll faces and a hard, slutty cock. And Vic is his favourite out of all of them.

"'S a lotta dicks, ain't it, Sammy? Lotta cum." He pauses, thinking as he pulls his head to the side, still toying with his cock. "Mm. I wonder how many'a them got ta see m'pretty girl cum..." Sam sucks at his bottom lip. And he's got a point. Johns don't give a shit about the whores, don't care for their pleasure. As long as the doll can put on a good sing-song while they're fucking, most of them just don't give a shit. But Vic? Vic makes him cum over and over and over until he's boneless, blissed out and drenched in his own sweat and tears, ears ringing, throat numb. And Vic's still tugging at his cock, licking his lips as he drinks in the sight of Sam's loose, gaping, slutty hole.

"Only you make me cum, Vic. Nobody else."

"Y'want me to make you cum, princess?"

"Please."

Then the tip of his cock pushes against his lax rim, the swollen head breaching him in one brutal thrust. The older man gives him no time to adjust, fucking into him hard, hands curled against his hips. Every thrust has Sam slamming against the headboard, the sound of flesh slapping against flesh deafening in the warm night. Sam can't help but cry out, every thrust hitting his prostate dead-on, tearing him apart.

"That's it, C'mon, darlin', take it. Lemme make ya squirt." He growls, thrusting into the slippery, sloppy clutch of Sam's guts. Desperately, Sam goes for his cock, his shaft aching for stimulation as Vic fucks up his insides. The older man slaps his hand away. "Don't need that, darlin'. Just need m'cock, don'cha?" His voice is saccharine sweet. His words pull Sam under, deep enough he can barely breathe. He's close to suffocating, drowning in heat and bliss. He hates it. Hates how Vic can give him everything he wants and more, while never being enough.

And then the trusts are deep, pounding rhythmically, undoing all that hard word, fucking the guts back into him. Vic wraps a sturdy arm around Sam's waist and props his leg against the headboard and his angle changes. He hammers his hips against Sam's lax body, driving his cock deep inside the younger man's fucked-loose hole with bruising precision. Vic's wetting his lips, sweaty and flushed, grinning and happy as he chases that little death.

His cock throbs insistently inside the tight clench of his princess's sweet, little, used-up cunt.  "Tha's my girl!" He snarls, his body shaking as he fucks into that tight warmth. The older man groans out a litany of half-formed words, the effort of speech long gone from his mind as he grinds deeper, deeper, deeper.

"V-Vic... Oh, God, f-f-fuck— Ngh— Vic! Gonna—" Sam's whines turn to screams as Vic leans down, sinking his teeth into the crook of his neck, breaking skin, tasting blood. The younger man just pants, head spinning with the pain and the heat and the fucking blinding bliss of Vic's cock pushing into him over and over. The older man's teeth are still buried in his neck when they both cum. They're animals; snarling, vicious, starving.

Heat floods Sam's guts and Vic lifts his mouth from Sam's neck with a bitten-back yell, the air thick with blood and sex. Sam can feel the wet slick of cum on his stomach, painting, staining. Vic thrusts lazily a couple of times before going still, buried deep. There's a bloody, toothy smile on his face, eyes filled with the ghost of lust. Sam smiles at the sight, body exhausted, blood smearing across his neck.

He pats a cold hand against Vic's nape, stroking idly as the aftershocks work through them, muscles jumping beneath his skin. He's leaking, a deep, rich crimson. He never feels safer than in Vic's arms, pinned beneath him, unable to move. If Sam could cut his heart out and stuff it in Vic's palm, he would. He fucking hates him but, in his arms, he feels everything at once and he doesn't have to think about tomorrow, about the masks he has to wear, about the lies he has to tell. He never has to think about anything because Vic will always be there.

And that's the greatest joke there is.

"Good girl, Sammy." The older man says softly and the younger man just shuts his eyes and soaks up the praise.

Vic never stays long but he stays longer than most johns, leaving right before dawn, after a final, biting kiss and a promise of 'next time'. Sam wonders if it's just because he and Vic have a mutual taste for rough, filthy, bloody sex. Or maybe Vic's like him deep down, lonely, desperate for physical affection. Sam falls into bed, unable to think straight. Head swimming, legs weak, whole body trembling.

After what feels like an eternity, the haze lifts. He stumbles into the communal washroom. He examines himself in the mirror, throat and neck splattered with dark, bluish-blackish bruises, and the bite mark is an angry, vivid red. The girls avoid him, eyeing him with a mixture of pity and distrust. Sam showers, washes off the grime, the semen, the sweat.

He steps back into his room, stares at himself in the mirror. Then he pulls on a chemise, slides his legs into a fresh pair of hose, re-laces a garter to his thigh, buttons himself up in a crisp, clean skirt, slips his feet into delicate, delicate slippers. Then he applies his war-paint. He dabs his bruised neck with rouge, hides his cheekbones in shadow, draws out his eyelashes with kohl. Each motion becomes a part of him.

When he's done, Sam leaves again, out on the prowl. Lures his prey into the shadows of the cathouse and hikes his skirts up. They'll fuck him but not like Vic does, not nearly as good. They'll fuck him and pay him, not enough to live on but enough to keep food in his belly and booze in his belly. They'll fuck him, john after john, until Sam's bone-tired and numb to his core and he passes out over the bar. Until next time.

In his dreams, it's a fairytale. A shit one but a fairytale nonetheless.

Vic slaps a ring in his palm, pulls him closer and kisses him rough. He'd take Sam out of the cathouse and into his bed. They'd steal kisses in behind the jailhouse, hands pawing at each other's bodies, hot and wanton. Faces close, breaths mingling, mouths seeking kisses, tasting of blood and whiskey and gunsmoke. They'd lay out under the stars and kiss and fuck. He wouldn't have to wear a dress anymore and, when he came, Vic would moan out Samuel. Everybody'd know. They'd be happy.

In his dreams, he's a good, little princess. In his dreams, he doesn't ache so bad. In his dreams, he makes Vic a better man, a man who's honest and loving but still a bit bloodthirsty. He's loved and he's happy and everything is so very good.

But it's only a dream. Maybe he's better for that.

[respectthepetty]

Not a Review: Manner of Death - Manga Version

I got the manga versions of Manner of Death that were released in 2023, and y'all . . .

This is wild bananas! Bun has an older brother and ex-boyfriend in Bangkok even though he is in the closet and dating women as a cover. Tan is younger, has a sick mother, and he thought Jane died by suicide because she was sad he was gay. Bodies are dropping dead left and right until the very end. Sorn and That aren't even side crumbs because they are just a crumb, as in one single crumb and nothing else. Oh, and the inspector is married, to a woman.

Pretty sure it follows the novel closely, so congratulations to Screenwriter Title, who was also behind He's Coming to Me, Dark Blue Kiss, Love Stage, and Low Frequency, for condensing the novel and making the series into a BL because looking at (a version of) the source material, Title really balanced this bad boy out for the show.

Combined, the two volumes are over 500 pages, which, once again, even though they aren't the original novel, probably are close to it, and there is constantly something happening on every single page. If this is how the novel was, trimming it down to a fourteen-episode series took skill. I loved Manner of Death, but people had issue with some of the plot holes in the series. However, compared to these versions of the original novel, the show is very focused and balanced.

These two volumes are enjoyable. I'm glad I have them to add to my small manga collection of BL favorites with Old Fashion Cupcake and Our Dining Table, but this journey is a lot. Seriously, Bun walks out to the balcony after having sex with Tan on the very last page since they got engaged in New York after reconciling two pages before, and a body falls from the sky. The End.

I know Tan proposed to Bun by pretending they were being taken hostage with guns pointed at their heads in the series, but . . . it wasn't a dead body jumping out of nowhere, you know?

Now I see how Dead Friend Forever aligns with Sammon's style, which is a non-ending ending where something ends, then starts again. That also happened in Make a Wish. And I ain't mad at it! It's just a lot, all at once, constantly. But it helps me appreciation the show more. I got two gay men who never felt bad about being gay and scoffed with the inspector even suggested they were straight. I got murder-mystery and romance. And I got a settled ending with Tan and Bun married.

Oh, and I got that kiss in the very beginning.

So this isn't a review. It's an appreciation post.

Because Manner of Death, the series, is solid.

[kayssweetdreams]

The Perfect Finale Ch15

On Trisha Jane's mark, the Negabosses, while still extremely reluctant, began to make lots and LOTS of noise. This drew the attention of Yin, who still was waiting for Kaylo to read the map, unknowing that she had been able to HEAR the Wonderworld Map now, and has actually been playing dumb. The pink haired girl couldn't let Yin find out that she had found Wonderworld's power source, but she couldn't do much...especially with Yin breathing down her back.

Yin glared upwards. "Oh. We have GUESTS." He growled, grabbing what appeared to be a strange type of gun. "By the time I get back, you better have figured out how to read that map. OR ELSE." He threatened, glaring at Kaylo before making his way up to the upper levels of the crater. Kaylo swallowed a gulp, How could anyone know that she was here?...unless...

Meanwhile, With Yin...

The Banished Maestro stomped up the steps of the crater. He was so close. He was SO close to finding the source of Wonderworld's power, so close to completing Project X. And there was no way that some pathetic, nosy human would stand in his way-

He stopped for a moment. And focused on the sound. He suddenly began to Grin. He gave a Grin that would make a serial killer shiver. "Hehe...Well Well. I guess the Pink Haired Brat's pleading heart called my home. Might as well visit my old stomping grounds." He said, before launching himself up into the air.

Yin smiled. It's time to pay a visit to his old "Home"

Meanwhile, Back Outside...

The Negabosses were still making as much noise as they possibly could to draw out Yin. Although, they were all pretty terrified of this as well...and could you blame them? They were all about to be face to face with the same maestro that made all of Wonderworld miserable for everyone.

Fortie hid inside of Fortsepher, shivering as he himself held a chainsaw as protection should Yin try anything. "Fortie! We all have to be doing this! Get out of me!" Fortsepher shouted. "NO! I'm not crazy enough to go up against Yin!" The pawn shouted. "Fortie. We're gonna eventually have to face him...so there's no use in delaying the inevitable.

"Well...Look at it this way. Maybe all those years Banished from Wonderworld did a number on him, and maybe he won't have all of his-" a powerful blast of wind knocked them all back, causing them all to give screams of fear. When they landed and got their bearings back, they looked up in fear at the one who had caused it.

"Why Hello Negabosses...is that any way to greet a maestro?"

Trisha Jane belongs to @lovelyteng

[hannahhook7744]

Isle kid Moodboards revamped part 2;

Marya Grigorievna Rasputin, the 20 year old daughter of Grigori Efimovic Rasputin and Baba Yaga (bartok the magnificent).

One of the medics of Harriet Hook's crew.

Lover of skeletons, magic, taxidermy, bugs, roses, and whiskey cake.

Not too great st speaking English.

Bestfriend of Big Murphy and Claudine Frollo.

Currently single.

Reza Vizer, the 15 year old son of the former Royal Astronomer of Agrabah and a harem girl as well as the adoptive son of Mozenrath and Sadira. Older brother of Omar and Alya.

He is the forensics expert of the Badun Detective Agency and is rivals with Carlos De Vil as well as a student at Dragon Hall.

He's good with swords, daggers, guns, tea, and breaking and entering, and He always acts like he is the smartest in the room (which he is most of the time) and doesn't like it when that title is challenged because he has earned that title.

He also doesn't like it when people treat him like he's less than Carlos, which is why he didn't join the Anti-heroes club (because it was being run by Yen Sid who is not found of him at all).

He is dating Yzla Sorcerer of Enchancia.

Claudine Esther-May Frollo, the 19 year old daughter of Claude Frollo.

She is homeschooled and apart of Harriet's crew, the Bad Apples, and the Anti-heroes club. She is also the bell ringer at Dragon Hall.

She is left handed and a redhead who loves science, art, music, sweets, and things being fair. Which of course while paired with her beauty did not bode well for her due to how her father is.

She works at her father's crepes shop and is dreaming of the day she can escape with her friends.

She has a thing for Lefou Deux.

Richard 'Rick' Perseus Ratcliffe, the 21 year old son of Governor John Ratcliffe.

He is apart of Harriet's crew, The LeGume Hunting Club, and The Bad Apples.

He and his dad do not get along at all due to many factors—like his dad being racist and naming him after his dog. If anyone dare mention the origin of his middle name, they will get a black eye from him.

He had his own pug named Prometheus.

Once when he and Clay Clayton were young and rough housing, he accidentally knocked the other man out of a second story window at Hook's inlet. They're still friends though, surprisingly.

He also has a habit of saving people from water sources like John Smith, much to his father's annoyance.

He has two younger siblings (Rachel and Rory) and is very protective of them as well as the kids of his father's former crewmates who got stuck on the isle with him.

He is dating Mad Maddy.

Claymore 'Clay' Comrade Clayton, The 20 year old son of William Clayton.

He is a member of the Bad Apples, Harriet's crew, and The LeGume Hunting Club.

Though unlike his dad he doesn't enjoy poaching or being crueler than necessary when hunting because it makes him uncomfortable, so he avoids doing it.

He loves graffiti and sailing and the jungle as well as tree climbing, rope swinging—on vines—, and partying. He also likes carving his intails into things and rough housing.

Especially with Rick and Anthony.

He and Rick once overdid it and he ended up getting thrown through a window, which no one has let them live down since.

He and his dad have a volatile relationship, which is arguably better than what most kids on the isle have, though those in Auardon would argue that that's still bad. He gets along alot better with his aunt and brothers though and has no clue who his mother maybe.

He has no problem with speaking his mind, which gets him in trouble often. He has tons of weapons as well as a stuffed grollia and would get along swimmingly with Tarzan and Jane, and their family. Especially their son, Taylor, who is just as rambunctious as he is.

He doesn't have the best grades but he's a good person and arguably Ginny's conscious, and that's all that matters, right?

Also he's terrified of getting hung like his dad and the idea of drowning again.

He's protective of his younger brothers, Cassius and Wilson, and is dating Ginny Gothel.

Jadeana 'Jade' of Agrabah, the 19 year old daughter of Nasira and the niece of Jafar.

She is in Harriet's crew and is the messenger of the isle, so no one really messes with her.

She's a bit of a loner but when she cares about people, she cares about them deeply—i.e. Jay. She'd help him steal so he could stock Jafar's shop quicker and so he would get hit or have to sleep outside. She rarely ever goes near Jafar's shop—since her mom who isn't all bad strictly forbade it—but when she does, it's to see Jay.

She was heartbroken when Jay left without saying goodbye but slowly over time she's gotten angry and bitter and resentful because she thinks he forgot about her.

She likes crocodile wrestling since it's an easy way to get out her aggression and she has two pets—a snake named Hassan and a parrot named Tygo.

She has magic but goes to Dragon Hall because she thinks the witch school is pointless on the isle.

Oh and she's dating Jonas Olympian (a member of Uma's crew).

Hermione 'Hermie' Leona Bing, the 14 year old daughter of The Ringmaster and Miss Atlantis.

She is a member of the Badun Detective Agency and as well as the Anti-heroes club.

She was an orphan by 7 and left to run what was left of her father’s circus on the isle.

She lives by herself with her animals in her father’s old trailer by the woods where the circus tents and trailers are located.

She is known as an animal whisperer and a Jack of all trades on the isle because she can do nearly every circus act there is.

She obsessed with circus related things—ESPECIALLY clowns.

She is in denial about the true nature of her parents' deaths and is emotionally and mentally unstable due them.

She has quite a sweet tooth—especially when it's traditionally considered circus food.

She collects glass figures as well as odd/deformed furniture, toys, and photos (along with just vintage photos in general) and loves colorful things.

She also loves reading, filing, painting, dagger throwing, acrobatics, gymnastics, dancing, playing games, and taking care of animals.

Her and Eddie Balthazar are dating.

Edmund 'Eddie' Seraiah Balthazar, the 15 year old son of Sarah Dear /Aunt Sarah and Edgar Balthazar.

He is apart of the Anti-heroes club and the Badun Detective agency.

He has alot of old school hobbies like croquet and crochet, golf, birdwatching, and collecting things. Things like stamps, coins, and bugs. He likes reading and listening to music and writing and he loves picnics, sewing, and knitting.

He had a litter of kittens that he adores as well as a motorcycle.

He also likes red wine, coffee, tea, champagne, slushie, hard candy, chicken pot pie, cigar, and toast with beans. Not that his parents know that he likes alcohol.

He usually shows little more than indifference to those outside his inner circle and has been taking care of his elderly parents (and their pets) since he was 9.

He is dating Hermie Bing.

Gaston Junior and Gaston the 3rd LeGume, the 21 year old sons of Gaston LeGume and Laurette. Aka Junior and Bronze.

They are hard heads lacking in education because of their father and can hold one hell of a grudge (as well as an ox) but have hearts of gold. When it comes to the people they care about that is.

They are both members of Harriet's crew and have many shared (and differing) hobbies.

They are very protective of their little brother (and sister) and their little cousins, even if they love getting under their skin at times.

Junior is dating Daphne Tremaine and Bronze is dating Sammy Smee.

Also Junior has a bad leg from trying to ram through the barrier with his dad.

Gemma Enchtra LeGume, the 3 year old (by d3) daughter of Gaston and the Enchantress. She is the younger half sister of the Gaston twins and Gil as well as the younger cousin of LeFou Deux, Claire Bimbette, and La Foux Doux (by default).

She is every bit as good, innocent, and bubbly as Gil is. She loves Magic, fruit, candy, roses, lifting rocks, animals, the forest, mirrors, and adores her older siblings and cousins with all her heart. She also loves her parents too despite not knowing them all too well.

Oh and she likes weight-lifting, though her elder family members don't allow her to do it.

And she loves mirrors as well and carries around the doll that her brothers and LeFou Deux made her.

She is my oc based on the toddler from d1.

[daeranilen]

Honestly, the more I think about Ogino “I kill for the concept” Ryo putting Jane Austen’s ostensible (seriously, is there a legitimate source for this?) last words on his gun, the more I think this man absolutely believes “I want nothing but death” is the hardest shit anyone could ever say before they went out, and not the words of an extremely ill woman either making a bleak joke or just fully giving up.

Ogino tells Rei that killing allows him to answer questions like, “What is this person’s reason for being? What will he see as his life passes before his eyes? What’s the thing he cares about more than anything?” These questions are fundamentally about living, but living is messy. Human. It lacks aesthetic sensibility. He’s curious about it, but he doesn’t much care for it. The answers he collects are mundane desires that he can’t relate to.

But “I want nothing but death”? I have zero doubt that he admires the conceptual purity of that answer. After all, what does Ogino want in life? Nothing but death - to kill, and to assert his mastery over life through that killing. This is why he claims to kill “for the concept,” why he tells Rei he’s checking the answers to his questions, why he collects last words. He ends a life and renders it inert and therefore knowable, something he can grasp in its entirety and then tuck away as a precise little note in his grim little notebook. Like our leads, he hasn’t really got normal living figured out, but he’s certainly decided his approach to mastering it.

Ogino Ryo has not read Jane Austen. He’s a pseudo-intellectual who sees a kindred spirit in a woman whose “last words” he probably stumbled on in a coffee table collection of famous quotes about death. If somehow these last few episodes reveal he’s actually got literary inclinations, I will eat my English literature textbook.

[marvelrarepairbingo]

We're getting closer to the next round as the days get colder and the nights grow longer in the upcoming season. However, in the spirit of the bingo, we've got some great stories to share with everyone under the cut below! Thanks to everyone who has been coming along with us for the ride on this bingo :)

Title: Beside my bed I keep a bottle of dreams Author/Artist: Chaoticgardenbread Card #: MRP-029 Square Filled: I5: in the back of a police car Pairing: Logan/Pietro Maximoff Rating: Teen Warnings: N/A Summary: Basically how Quicksilver and Wolverine might’ve met in an alternate universe. Word Count: 3933 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49855192

Title: The Valentine's Viking Author:  Blizzard_Fire Card #: MRP-032 Square Filled: I5: Spilling His Drink on His Crush Pairing: Bruce Banner/Thor Rating: Mature Warnings: No powers au, humour, fainting, alcohol, brief stripping scene Summary: At Jen's Galentine's party, Bruce has a close encounter with a Viking stripper. Word Count: 2920 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49408279

Title: A day in the life Author:  sadbi-hours Card #: MRP-035 Square Filled: Free Square Pairing: Steve Rogers/ Darcy Lewis/ Bucky Barnes Rating: Gen Warnings: N/A Summary: N/A Word Count: N/A Link: https://www.tumblr.com/sadbi-hours/727398248455782400/title-a-day-in-the-life-pairing-steve-rogers?source=share

Title: Fall Traditions Author: 42donotpanic Card #: MRP-038 Square Filled: N4: Hedge Maze Pairing: Clint Barton/Matt Murdock Rating: Gen Warnings: n/a Summary: Kate and Yelena have invited their friends to go on a day-trip with them. Clint doesn't quite understand how a mace made out of corn is supposed to work. Word Count: 830 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50617384

Title: The Heart Of The Mountain Squares Filled: Marvel Rare Pair Bingo (MRP-051): I1, Glitter/Sparkles Author: ibelieveinturtles Fandom: MCU Pairing: James "Bucky" Barnes/Brock Rumlow, Darcy Lewis/Brock Rumlow, James "Bucky" Barnes/Darcy Lewis/Brock Rumlow Rating: T Tags/Warnings: Dragons, Pirates Summary: Bucky slowly shifts to meet Brock's worried gaze. "Do you ever feel like-" he pauses, then starts again. "It's like I've been homesick my whole life, but I didn't even know it." "There's a reason for that," Brock says, "and I promise to explain everything, but we gotta take care of the eggs first." Word Count: 2047 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27076348/chapters/126206494

Title: Thoughts On Soulmates (Soulmate For The New Year, Ch 2) Squares Filled: Marvel Rare Pair Bingo (MRP-051): G2, Emotional Vulnerability AU Author: ibelieveinturtles Fandom: MCU Pairings: James "Bucky" Barnes/Darcy Lewis, Steve Rogers/Peggy Carter, Jane Foster/Thor Rating: G Tags/Warnings: Soulmate AU, Soultember, No powers AU Summary: While Darcy starts the long journey home, Peggy is enjoying a quiet evening at home with friends, both old and new. Word Count: 2327 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49880440/chapters/126623965 Title: Affectionate gesture Author:  Annie Card #: MRP-066 Square Filled: B2: “Weird Affectionate Gesture” Pairing: Brock Rumlow X Sinthea Schmidt (Love) Rating: Teen Warnings: Weird present, guns, Brock tries to being romantic Summary: Brock wants to show Sinthea how much he loves her. Word Count: 636 words Link: https://nekoannie-chan.tumblr.com/post/725628464562126848/affectionate-gesture

Title: Opening the heart. Author:  Annie/nekoannie-chan Card #: MRP-066 Square Filled: B3: “Zombie Apocalypse AU” Pairing: Wanda Maximoff X Victor von Doom (Love) Rating: Teen Warnings: Mention of characters’ death, zombie apocalypse Summary: Wanda and Victor talk about some stuff that happened at the beginning of the apocalypse. Word Count: 736 words Link: https://nekoannie-chan.tumblr.com/post/725809040160178176/fic

Title: A (not) good cake slice. Author:  Annie/nekoannie-chan Card #: MRP-066 Square Filled: B4: “Sharing a really decadent piece of cake” Pairing: Wanda Maximoff & Steve Rogers (Friendship) Rating: Teen Warnings: horrible piece of cake, refuse the service in a cafeteria Summary: Wanda and Steve wanted to talk and enjoy a slice of cake. Word Count: 632 words Link: https://nekoannie-chan.tumblr.com/post/726262042202357760/a-not-good-cake-slice

Title: “Are we friends?” ”I don’t think so” Author:  Annie/nekoannie-chan Card #: MRP-066 Square Filled: B5: “Roommates” Pairing: Ororo Munroe & Lorna Dane (Friendship) Rating: Teen Warnings: Arguing, the school was damage, sharing a bedroom Summary: Lorna and Ororo have to share Ororo’s bedroom, what could be the problem? Word Count: 562 words Link: https://nekoannie-chan.tumblr.com/post/726443248754819072/are-we-friends-i-dont-think-so-title-are

Title: “Stuffed animals” Author:  Annie/nekoannie-chan Card #: MRP-066 Square Filled: I1: “Favorite stuffed animal” Pairing: The divine pairing (Love) Rating: Teen Warnings: Stuffed animals, fluff Summary: Tandy and Tyrone talk about childhood memories. Word Count: 532 Link: https://nekoannie-chan.tumblr.com/post/729432911017836544/stuffed-animals

Title: Bewitched crossroads Author:  Annie/nekoannie-chan Card #: MRP-066 Square Filled: I2: Blue collar warlock Pairing: Morgan le Fay X Stephen Strange (Love) Rating: Teen Warnings: Summary: Sad ending, forbidden love Word Count: 502 Link: https://nekoannie-chan.tumblr.com/post/729614115112435712/bewitched-crossroads

Title: Stargazing love Author:  Annie/nekoannie-chan Card #: MRP-066 Square Filled: I3: “Lying in a field stargazing” Pairing: Crystal Amaquelin X Pietro Maximoff (Love). Rating: Teen Warnings: Stargazing, walking in the woods, love declaration, fluff. Summary: A special starry night for Pietro and Crystal. Word Count: 542 Link: https://nekoannie-chan.tumblr.com/post/729795302492717056/stargazing-love

Title: “Against the ghost” Author:  Annie/nekoannie-chan Card #: MRP-066 Square Filled: Ghostbusters AU Pairing: Reed Strucker X Caitlin Strucker (Love). Rating: Teen Warnings: Ghost, ghostbusters. Summary: Reed and Caitlin will save their children, no matters what. Word Count: 551 Link: https://nekoannie-chan.tumblr.com/post/730248306131976192/against-the-ghost

Title: “Trapped in the unknown” Author:  Annie/nekoannie-chan Card #: MRP-066 Square Filled: I5: “Scary encounter: someone with creepy long arms than can reach you anywhere” Pairing: Sue Storm X Victor von Doom (Love). Rating: Teen Warnings: Scary encounter, horror. Summary: Sue and Victor found a very scary being. Word Count: 618 Link: https://nekoannie-chan.tumblr.com/post/730429488689709056/trapped-in-the-unknown

Title: Staff unveiled Author:  Annie/nekoannie-chan Card #: MRP-066 Square Filled: N1: “Tarot: the high priestess” Pairing: Tina Minoru X Robert Minoru (Love). Rating: Teen Warnings: Argue, decisions. Summary: Tina and Robert make an important decision. Word Count: 528 Link: https://nekoannie-chan.tumblr.com/post/730610684804628480/staff-unveiled

Title: Old pets Author:  Annie/nekoannie-chan Card #: MRP-066 Square Filled: N2: “Pets” Pairing: Anna Marie D’Ancanto & James Howlett (Friendship). Rating: Teen Warnings: Pets, little sad maybe. Summary: Rogue and Logan talked about their pets. Word Count: 549 Link: https://nekoannie-chan.tumblr.com/post/730705047839817728/old-pe

Title: “Soul enemies” Author:  Annie/nekoannie-chan Card #: MRP-066 Square Filled: Free Square Pairing: Brock Rumlow X Sinthea Schmidt (Love). Rating: Teen Warnings: Pets Summary: Is Brock against his number one enemy. Word Count: 564 Link: https://nekoannie-chan.tumblr.com/post/730883460012621824/soul-enemies

Title: “Temple in the forest” Author:  Annie/nekoannie-chan Card #: MRP-066 Square Filled: N4: Into the forest Pairing: Lorna Dane & Steve Rogers (Friendship). Rating: Teen Warnings: Enchanted forest, magic Summary: There’s something strange in the forest. Word Count: 681 Link: https://nekoannie-chan.tumblr.com/post/731063656962506752/temple-in-the-forest

Title: daydreaming, and little falls Author:  Xenomorphic Card #: MRP-086 Square Filled: G1: Getting lost in the woods Pairing: Sharon Carter/Natasha Romanoff Rating: Teen Warnings: None Summary: Sharon and Natasha become separated from the others after a fight. Word Count: 820 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49983418

Title: cotton candy pink and a hint of mint Author:  Xenomorphic Card #: MRP-086 Square Filled: B3: Wildly dyed hair Pairing: Yelena Belova/Wanda Maximoff Rating: Teen Warnings: None Summary: Wanda stops short by the empty door frame that leads from the hallway to the receiver just as she spots Yelena, dressed in her usual casual chic as if there wasn’t a snowstorm picking up outside, and stares, suddenly speechless. Word Count: 1300 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50805199

Title: The Journey to Love Author: scottxlogan Card #: MRP-131 Square Filled: O3: Cock Warming Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Tony Stark Rating: Explicit Warnings/Tags: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Honeymoon, Self-Reflection, Cock Warming, Sexual Content, Romance, Tony Stark-centric, Enemies to Lovers, Romantic Fluff Summary: Tony reflects on the chemistry between him and Bucky and how in that journey Tony and Bucky took to finding each other and falling into love. Word Count: 1849 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50042902

[autisticsupervillain]

FTF: Isekai Invasion

The show where we take a character and drop them into a different franchise at a random location to see if they can conquer the world.

This Episode....

Mary Jane Watson invades Mount Massive Asylum!

Conditions:

Insomniac Games's Mary Jane

MJ as of Spider-Man 2 with all her associated equipment.

MJ will be replacing Miles Upshur in the plot of the original Outlast with all the same goals. If she can escape the Asylum alive with all the evidence needed to bring Murkoff to justice, that will count as a win.

MJ cannot call in the Spider-Men or anyone else for help.

Scenario:

The same set up as Outlast but with MJ replacing Miles Upshur. Mary Jane Watson, reporter for the Daily Bugle, gets an anonymous email from a burner account about the atrocities being committed by Murkoff at Mount Massive and goes in to investigate. MJ speculates that the building has a jammer when she mysteriously losses all signal after getting in range, but she pushes on regardless. It is only after MJ can no longer get out the way she came in that she realizes the building has been overrun, leaving her no choice but to push in deeper.

Invader: MJ

Mary Jane Watson. One of the most iconic damsels and love interests in comic book history. Though iconic for her role as damsel in distress in the Rami movies, Insomniac's Mary Jane is more in line with her comic counterpart. She's a freelance reporter capable of kicking as much ass as her superhuman boyfriend sometimes and she'll do anything to unbury the truth.

She's surprisingly an expert in stealth and infiltration. She's snuck into the compounds of crime lords like Tombstone and Hammerhead, snuck past the international mercenaries of Silver Sable and her men, and avoided capture by Kraven the Hunter's mercenaries. Using her boyfriend's Spider Lures as a distraction, she's even managed to break into the Oscorp undetected.

While writing a book on the country of Symkaria, MJ got some self defense training from Silver Sable herself, as well as a fancy new taser that can drop a goon in one shook. She later upgraded this taser gun with Peter's gadgets, allowing it to shoot webs and shoot sonic blasts loud enough to ward off a symbiote behemoth. With these tools, she's able to take down Kraven's hunters, who are strong enough to kick down steel doors with a single kick snd survive rpg rockets exploding in their face. These are the same rockets that usually explode with an energy equivalent to 650 kilojoules.

Source:

What's more, MJ is fast enough to dodge arrows from a hunter's crossbow, which csn travel up to 350 feet per second or 106.68 meters per second.

Source:

Honestly, Mary Jane Watson is kind of a badass. She's escaped from being captured by Kraven's hunters, fought her way through a symbiote hive, outrun a Symbiote controlled Spider-Man trying to kill her, and managed to fight off the control of the Scream Symbiote, with some help from Peter.

This MJ is a far cry from the damsel in distress she's stereotyped as and she's just as vital a member of Spider-Man's team as the Spider-Men themselves.

Invaded: Mount Massive

The Murkoff Corporation could never be said to have had a sterling reputation. The company had an unofficial history of human experimentation and exploitation. Never on American soil, of course. Never anywhere that the American public would actually care about. Not until they bought out Mount Massive Asylum.

Because if there's one group that Americans care about less than foreigners, it's the mentally ill.

Murkoff wanted to exploit the theories of the retired Nazi Dr. Wernicke by diving into dream theory. The enlisted him in their Morphogenic Engine program, hoping to summon, empower, and control the nanotechnological ghost known only as the Walrider. To this end, the experimented on the mentally ill, physically and psychologically torturing them. Turning the compatible into human engines so their nightmares could fuel the god they wished to enslave while leaving the incompatible to rot and die. Even loyal members of the company, like executive Richard Trager and Father Martin Archimbaud, were used as test subjects at the earliest convenience. The variants, as they were called, begain to mutate and deform. Tumors formed over their bodies, clogging their mouths and block their eyes. Their hair begain to fall out and they emancipated into borderline skeletons.

The variants pre-existing conditions worsened. At best, they became catatonic and unresponsive to the outside world. At worst, they became violent and murderous.

And then they found a subject fully compatible with the Walrider. Able to sustain it, control it, and survive as its host. Billy Hope. As soon as he was in control, all hell broke loose. The Variants broke out and happily took their revenge on their tormentors. Scientists and security alike were butched like pigs, heavily armed soldiers were impaled on pikes. And the Walrider was set free.

Notable Variants include the likes of Eddie Glusken, a misogynistic serial killer who was only made worse by the Morphogenic Engine. Granted superhuman strength by the treatments, he was now strong enough to lift a full grown man off the ground with one arm. "Doctor" Richard Trager was now strong enough to cut off limbs, decapitate his victims, and cut open the gates to the elevator with his giant scissors. And every varienty in the build was now strong enough to bash down doors and kill reporter Miles Upshur, who survived a massive explosion that blew him out a window. An explosion thst generated an energy equivalent to 11,840 kilojoules.

Source:

But the most dangerous Variant in the entire building was Chris Walker. Once a simple war veteran suffering from severe PTSD, Chis became a killing machine with an enhanced sense of smell, hearing, and sight that could let him track down his victims even in the dark. Obsessed with containing the threat of the Walrider, Chris's judo skills and military training make him a veritable beast, capable of easily ripping Miles's head clean off with one hand and bashing down reinforced steel doors.

But even he is still just a man next to the Walrider. A futuristic marvel of nanotechnology that feeds off the dreams of its host to survive, the Walrider can fly, go through walls, go through your pores and rip you apart from the inside, and is nigh-invisible to the naked eye, only complely visible on night vision cameras or during the day.

The only issue, however, is that the Walrider is completely submissive to the will of its perfect host, reliant on them to survive. And if its host is not perfect, as Miles Upshur turned out to be, they will be reduced to a walking corpse overtime by the possession.

Mount Massive Asylum represents one of the biggest atrocities committed in the name of corporate greed. A warcrime that even drew the digust of the Nazi forced to work on it. No one cares about "a building full of forgotten lunatics". Let it burn, I say.

Throwdown Breakdown:

The stats on this one are rather interesting. Miles Upshur is 11x more durable than the goons MJ can one-shot, meaning every single thug in the building is going to be strong enough to rip MJ apart if they get their hands on her, seeing how Miles is almost completely helpless against them.

But, none of the Variants have ever demonstrated superhuman speed, meaning they're absolutely never catching MJ, who can move fast enough to dodge subsonic projectiles. Sure, Chris Walker is fast, but MJ is faster than a speeding car. If he doesn't get the drop on her or corner her, he's not getting his hands on her.

Then there's MJ's other gadgets. Her sonic blasts will likely have no effect, as they're specifically designed to fight Symbiotes and ordinary humans are unaffected. At most, I could see them potentially stunning Chris Walker due to his advanced hearing. MJ's noise devices could be a good distraction, but her taser could likely be tanked due to how much stronger the Variants are. On the flipside, I don't see any of the varients breaking free of her webbing. This is the exact same webbing Peter regular uses to lift cars and restrain his supervillains. That's a bit out of the league of most Variants. Meaning she could probably skip Trager's whole segment by webbing him to the wall, which is admittedly funny.

This is compounded by MJ's far superior stealth. Walker might be a military veteran, but MJ's snuck past some of the best international mercenaries on the planet. It's no contest on that front, even with Chris's enhanced senses.

It's with the Walrider that this becomes tricky.

The Walrider isn't invisible or intangible in the same way, say, a ghost is. It's basically a cloud of microscopic nanites. It's difficult to spot and touch because it's a very thin cloud. For most people in most circumstances, it's difficult to spot until it's basically right in front of you, at which point it's too late to escape. This means that I'm pretty confident in it getting through MJ's webs, even if some of its components get stuck.

The issue is how damn fast MJ is. The second it appears in her face, she's gone halfway down the hall. It doesn't help that it prefers to throw its victims around before killing them, which would only give MJ the opportunity to escape.

I think the Walrider could easily end MJ's run if it got the drop on her. Which it very well could. It got the drop on Miles several times and he actually has the means to see it coming in less than optimal conditions, something MJ wouldn't without a night vision camera.

But, this is where MJ's superior stealth comes into play. With a sneaking ability far superior to Miles and a speed that the Walrider can't keep up with, MJ could avoid getting ambushed by the Walrider by never getting found by it in the first place.

There are plenty of scenarios where MJ gets ripped apart or, worse, possessed by the Walrider. But there are more where MJ uses her superior stealth and speed to avoid it long enough to complete her mission. And once she kills Billy Hope, whose sitting helpless in a tube at this point, the Walrider wouldn't be able to make her a new host to survive due to her just being too fast for it to catch.

Overall, I think Ms. Watson has all the skills she needs to get the scope she's after.

This Throwdown's Winner is...

Mary Jane Watson!

[genieofthebooks]

Incorrect quotes Ft. Mercy and Talia

Jane/Penny will just be called Jane as it is slightly easier for this.

(Gus as Mischa, I just couldn't find a group photo with everyone together)

Ricky: The floor is lava

Ocean: *Helps Constance on the table*

Mercy: *Kicks Mischa off the sofa

Jane: *Lies on the floor*

Ricky: Are you okay?

Jane: No

__

Ocean: Look from the outside it seems like I am holding it all together.

Noel: No it doesn't

__

Mercy: Here’s a fun Christmas idea. We hang mistletoe, but instead of kissing, you have to FIGHT whoever else is under it.

Talia: Mercy no.

Mischa: Mistlefoe.

Talia: Please stop encouraging her.

__

Mercy: If I accidentally sat on a voodoo doll of myself, would I be trapped forever in that position, doomed to starve to death?

Talia: How am I supposed to know?

Mischa: You say, as if we don’t use you as a source of knowledge of the occult.

Talia: *sighs*

Talia: You wouldn't be trapped.

__

Ocean: Are you the big spoon or the little spoon?

Mischa: I'm a knife.

Talia, from across the room: They're the little spoon.

__

Jane: Mercy and I were crossing the street, and this dude drove by and honked at us

Ricky: *Sighing* What did Mercy do?

Jane: She chased him to the next red light, then reached into his window and...

Mercy: Who wants a steering wheel?

__

Mercy: On a scale from “damn Daniel” to “fre sha vaca do”, how are you feeling?

Jane : In between “it’s an avocado, thanks” and “how did you defeat Captain America”, but as a solid answer I would say “I don’t need a degree to be a clothing hanger”. How about you, Ricky?

Ricky: Probably “road work ahead”.

Talia: I speak many languages, and this is none of them.

__

Mercy: Rules are made to be broken.

Ocean : They were made to be followed. Nothing is made to be broken.

Ricky: Uh, piñatas.

Constance: Glow sticks.

Mischa: Karate boards.

Noel: Spaghetti when you have a small pot.

Mercy: Rules.

Ocean:

__

Mercy, walking into her, Jane and Ricky's house house: Hello, people who do not live here.

Ocean : Hey.

Noel: Hi.

Constance: Hello.

Mischa: Hey!

Mercy: I gave you the key to my place for emergencies only!

Noel: We were out of Doritos.

__

Mercy, threatening the others with a paintball gun: Listen... Life comes at us fast. We don't know what life is gonna give us... And today, it's gonna give you... a paintball!

__

Store Worker: Would a Ms Mercy Bachinski please come to the front desk?

Mercy, arriving at the desk: Hello, is there a problem?

Store Worker: points to Mischa and Noel

Store Worker: I believe they belong to you?

Mischa and Noel, simultaneously: We got lost :(

Mercy: I didn’t even bring you guys here with me-

[theeverlastingshade]

100 Favorite Songs of 2023

100. Dust Bunny- Crumb

99. Fever- Yaeji

98. I Saw- Young Fathers

97. Steppa Pig- JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown

96. Retriever- Braids

95. Meant To Be- Wilco

94. Obscure- Jlin

93. Sparks- Cornelius

92. Prizefighter- Youth Lagoon

91. TV in the Gas Pump- Wednesday

90. Moonlight- Kali Uchis

89. Time Bandits- Angel Olsen

88. FLA- Empty Country

87. Satanist- boygenius

86. Tiny Garden- Jamila Woods ft. duentita

85. dazies- yeule

84. Club People- Alan Palomo

83. Out of Town- Hotline TNT

82. Don’t Let the Devil- Killer Mike ft. El-P & thankyougoodsir

81. Ms. America- Bully

80. Everybody (Source Codes)- Mach Hommy & Tha God Fahim

79. I Believe- Caroline Polachek

78. Swing (In a Dream)- Squid

77. Champagne Shit- Janelle Monáe

76. HEAVEN TO ME- Tyler, the Creator

75. Rosa Rugosa- Olof Dreijer

74. It Must Change- Anohni and the Johnsons

73. Dangle from the smoke ring- draag me

72. moonworld- Full Body 2

71. Town Crank- Clark

70. Imagination- Parannoul

69. Freak- feeble little horse

68. Mount Meigs- Lonnie Holley

67. This Stupid World- Yo La Tengo

66. Bloom- Blue Lake

65. Rats Come To Play- Bruiser and Bicycle

64. Flimsier- King Krule

63. skin meadow- Home Is Where

62. Sun Girl- Julia Holter

61. Aurora- Infant Island

60. THE GOV’T GAVE US GUNS- ICECOLDBISHOP

59. Everlasting Days- John Cale ft. Animal Collective

58. King- Chat Pile

57. Another One Another- Drop Nineteens

56. Rabbit- Youth Lagoon

55. Goodbye Evergreens- Sufjan Stevens

54. the CIA- glass beach

53. True Life- Water From Your Eyes

52. I Thought You’d Change- Hotline TNT

51. Say It Like You Mean It- Sleater-Kinney

50. Divers- Model/Actriz

49. Peach Fuzz- Mandy, Indiana

48. Wall of Eyes- The Smile

47. Laura- M83

46. Uncertainty Principle- L’Rain

45. Rudolph- MJ Lenderman

44. Fling- Jane Remover

43. D.A.R.E.- ICECOLDBISHOP

42. Paces- feeble little horse

41. Babylon By Bus- billy woods & Kenny Segal ft. ShrapKnel

40. Defeat- Animal Collective

39. Arrival- Parannoul

38. Changing Channels- Pangae

37. Turkey Vultures- Wednesday

36. Freak Me Now- Jessie Ware

35. The Blades- Squid

34. Suspended- Sampha

33. blue trio- Full Body 2

32. Dustine- Empty Country

31. Wespennest- DJ Koze

30. I Got Heaven- Mannequin Pussy

29. Making the Band (Danity Kane)- Earl Sweatshirt

28. Younger & Dumber- Indigo de Souza

27. Contact- Kelela

26. everyday feels like 9/11- Home Is Where

25. New Utensils- Fever Ray

24. borealis dancing- Jaimie Branch

23. I Can't Hush- Lonnie Holley ft. Jeff Parker

22. Three Drums- Four Tet

21. STUNTMAN- Tyler, the Creator ft. Vince Staples

20. We Thought the Sky- Bruiser and Bicycle

19. Pinking Shears- Mandy, Indiana

18. Year Zero- billy woods & Kenny Segal ft. Danny Brown

17. Unbreak My Love- Nourished By Time

16. Vampire Empire- Big Thief

15. Sleepless- Model/Actriz

14. Bath County- Wednesday

13. Blossom- Parannoul

12. Shit Talk- Sufjan Stevens

11. Bending Hectic- The Smile

10. N/Y- The Haxan Cloak

9. Raven- Kelela

8. Sinatra Drive Breakdown- Yo La Tengo

7. Barley- Water From Your Eyes

6. We Shine at Night- Parannoul

5. Kandy- Fever Ray

4. Lips- Jane Remover

3. floral organs- Home Is Where

2. Quarry- Wednesday

1. Pocket- feeble little horse

[shhisp]

1.I read your hc about Alpha Kids education and I wonder how much of Grandma English not telling Jake about HIC was because she thought she still had more time. Like he was still very little when she died. But at the same time for me it makes Jake look very sharp that he managed to survive on that island. Buuut yeah, he wouldn't survive normal school (mood).

2. Im really curious if you have hc about Jake relationship with Jade? I'm still sad that them being penpals and clearly friends for years was ignored in Homestuck. They build murderbunny together! Best bonding time ever. Plus I bet that Dirk was veeeeeery jealous that Jake build a ROBOT with SOMEONE ELSE for SOMEONE ELSE.

1. I do think she told him ENOUGH about HIC that, like, he got a helping of generational trauma from both Condy and LE which I love because angst. I do think she would've told him more, though, when he was... you know, older. But I can just as easily see her not going into true graphic detail about the stuff she used to experience. You have Jake remembering vividly about her mother killing her dog, but she told of a more "fantastical" tale despite that detail, curiously enough. Jade has so much she just builds up inside of her that I don't think she'd ever say enough to make Jake feel as truly devastated as she knew he probably would. I imagine she told him about Bec first and foremost, which had Jake spiraling, the poor boy. She tried to tell him what she could without breaking his heart ):

2. I could probably talk about Jade and Jake and their relationship together for fucking ages and all the different dynamics, because imo there's an infinite amount of ways I handle them in my head! In which case I'll probably go into my favorite platonic dynamic for them post-game, which I've done a LOT of thinking over since 2017.

Platonic route aside I love Dirk being jealous of Jade anyway. Jake clearly went to his grandma first and foremost as his main source of comfort after such a traumatizing game and a messy breakup with a hint of sexual assault to boot, and this is more or less Hussie-confirmed! In the epilogues, out of all the direct pairs (John and Jane, Dave and Dirk, Rose and Roxy), Jade and Jake seem to be the absolute closest with each other! And the umm. Well the whole Harlenglish annual orgy thing which is....... MOVING ON!

I think she always ends up seeing him as more of her grandson than she does her grandpa, especially since they know each other as kids and all! Jake, though, just naturally seems to fit into the role of soft submissive boy raised by an awesome woman trope. He greatly idolizes her, just like he canonically does John, who I imagine he saw as more of a "Poppop" than Jane did, seeing as everything Jade told him about dear old John! It's honestly so adorable I could cry! Jake loves his family to bits and pieces and it's so... SO very wholesome.

I have my own ideas about how John would see Dirkjake working out ("EB: how can a black eye be consensual??") but Jade I think definitely Gets It more than anyone. That being said she is so horribly hard on Dirk anyway. That's her baby boy her grandpa her grandson her BROTHER!!! and she will aim a gun at him if he does something fucking stupid (and he does that a lot, I think.) Dirk however respects her to hell and back and he's like. Alright. If my boyfriend's grandma tells me to kill myself I'm gonna respect her wishes, because she's right. A lot of mutual respect remains between them all the same, imo, especially when their main goal is to just see Jake happy. I love them getting closer and starting to talk about their shared interests more than life itself as the years go by.

The conversation when he calls Jade about wanting to get out of his relationship in the candy route is one of my favorite parts between them and says sooooooo much, even if we didn't get it in canon Homestuck proper. He trusts her more than even Roxy, at that point, and that personally says so much to me. Ugh I love them. Even when they're only cousins in some AUs I make, they're always two peas in a pod that almost always share the same bed when they can.

I have some other ideas of course that would be better suited for another post, and some particular details for Grandpa and Jade and Grandma and Jake (likewise, very specific circumstances) but this is how I like to write their relationship in almost every regard. Jane doesn't strike me as very protective at all, much as I love her, but Jade and Jake will defend each other to the ends of the Earth. Jake basically threatened Dave in candy for not giving her a child, imagine if he BROKE HER HEART!!!

Harlenglishes 4ever. I would do anything for more content of them together. 😭

[owltypical]

i've been grumbling about the branagh poirot movies a fair amount lately, and honestly i keep thinking about it in connection to that recent post about how differently and cynically movies are made these days, and how it all comes down to my big gripe that i've actually had for a long time now, about how modern media just doesn't trust the audience with adaptations of old books

it can't just be conversations and quiet thoughtful moments and characters acting like normal-ass people, there has to be ramped-up violence, gun fights, dramatic action, explosions, you gotta spice it up, and be sure to dumb down/minimize the dialogue

you can't have a full cast of characters of all kinds and let them be established and breathe, you have to get rid of a bunch or just combine them into fewer characters, and be sure to make them secret super criminals or turn them into something that has nothing to do with the source material at all, and make sure they've all been cast with generically attractive actors within a certain age range

like i remember a few years back trying to watch an adaptation of the bronte novel the tenant of wildfell hall because i'd liked the book a lot, and when it got to a part that had been relatively mild when written, suddenly it was a big violent fight sequence with intense dramatic music and was so wildly out-of-character and offbase that i immediately stopped watching

i have a strong fondness for the 2006 jane eyre miniseries, because the lead characters are so well-cast with good chemistry, but whenever i've gone back to watch it i actually just skip most of it to just get to certain scenes because there's so much that's just absurd and over-the-top and out of place

sometimes adaptations improve on books, sometimes greatly, but it's so tiresome to read something and then watch or look up info on the adaptation, and see how it's almost nothing like the source, it got changed around to something almost completely different because poirot needs a tragic origin story and a love interest and to stand in front of explosions, elizabeth and mr. darcy have to have an extended hot sexy half-naked makeout at the end of the movie so you can know they're truly in love, mr. markham has to scream and beat the shit out of a dude for the drama, even a bunch of poirot and marple tv episode adaptions i've looked up change things to an absurd degree and make it flashier and more intense

i think that's why knives out was so refreshing when it came out, it's just a fucked up family in a house and an eccentric detective, it has tense moments and confrontations but nothing super outrageous, it's going for an old school character-based whodunnit vibe and it nails it far, far more successfully than anything branagh's ever done with his own ostensible period pieces

glass onion is definitely a lot more absurd and even has a big explosion, but at least that absurdity is established as a very particular brand of modern absurdity with particular modern subject matter, and large chunks of the movie are still thoughtful and well-plotted and just feature a bunch of people in a house, or sitting and talking and having very interesting conversations

all this rambling to say: please trust the audience more, it's okay for something to be relatively quiet and character-focused, let things breathe, let things be expansive, give the audience room to think and take things in, inspire the audience to consume media more thoughtfully and with more literacy, you don't have to distract them every five minutes with an explosion or a tiddy

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

jake, frantically pointing a gun: Please dont lie to me jane.

jake: I know about your cooking. 

jake: TAKE OFF THE HAT.

jane, calmly slicing a carrot: Jake, you are hallucinating. 

jake: THERES A RAT

jane, who definitely has a rat on her head: And if you are wrong?

[bluejayblueskies]

can i be gentle?

Words: 7.1k

Relationships: Jon & Tim, Tim & Martin

Tags: Canon Divergence, Tim Lives, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Whump, Post-Unknowing, Injury Recovery

Warnings: suicidal thoughts/ideations, blood, injury, hospitals and hospitalization, survivor's guilt, body horror, minor gore, gun and knife violence, mentions of death, mentions of canon-typical worms, implied child abuse, meat, alcohol, swearing, crying, smoking

Ao3 link in source

.

Tim aches. It’s full-body, radiating through his arms and back and legs, and he wishes more than anything that he could go to sleep, to chase away the pain for at least a little while. It feels like he’s been hit by a bus.

 Or been on the receiving end of several kilos of C4 igniting all at once. But that metaphor’s a bit too on-the-nose, in his opinion.

 He should be dead. He should be dead. 

 (Does he wish he were dead? He hadn’t cared, in those few moments of clarity before he pushed the button on the detonator and the colors solidified into black nothingness, whether or not he would wake up when the smoke cleared. It’s hard to tell. He’d attached so much of himself to revenge, before, when it was easier than feeling everything else bubbling up underneath, and now that it’s been ripped away from him, he doesn’t know what emotion should be filling the gap. Probably relief.

 He doesn’t feel relieved.)

 The nurse is speaking to him. Her lips are moving, but he can’t hear her. His ears ring and ring and ring, and it sounds like spirling, mocking laughter.

 They do some tests. Blast-induced hearing loss, the pamphlet they give him proclaims. Prognosis is good. Most patients recover in 6 weeks. Hearing aids can help with high frequencies.

 His ears ring and ring and ring, and he’s alive.

 He’s alive.

 Jon is not.

 .

.

.

 “It’s because of him, you know.”

 Martin startles badly at Tim’s voice. Tim wonders if it had been too loud; the ringing in his ears is incessant, and every word spoken sounds as if it’s coming from a very, very far distance. He moves a bit further into the room that they’ve placed Jon in, his hands shaking where they grip the wheels of the wheelchair they’d given him. Hard to walk when your leg is shattered. And some ribs as well. 

 Martin says something, Tim thinks, as he’s turning. His eyes are wide and rimmed with red, and he’s looking at Tim expectantly. Tim sighs, then winces as the motion sends tendrils of pain through his ribcage. “I can’t hear you, Martin. Either speak up—way, way up—or just… move your lips more or something. I don’t care.”

 “What?” Martin enunciates, and it’s so ridiculous, Tim wants to cry.

 He answers anyway.

 “Me. Being here. I’m alive because… because of him.”

 It was stupid, thinking he could protect Tim from an entire building collapsing on top of them. But his hand had gripped Tim’s wrist and he’d pulled him to the floor and he’d covered Tim’s body with his own, so when the shock wave had hit, Jon had gotten the worst of it.

 Tim refuses to feel guilty about it. He does anyway. Because they’d argued, and Jon had stalked him, and Tim had cultivated his anger and fear into a simmering ember deep in his chest, but at the end of the day, Tim wasn’t supposed to survive.

 Jon was.

 Tim swallows, hating the bitter taste in his mouth, and says, “Do you… do you think he’s going to wake up?”

 Martin says something, too softly for Tim to hear. His mouth twists into something small and pained, and he looks at the floor.

 It’s answer enough.

 Tim doesn’t ask again. 

 .

.

.

 They arrest Elias a few hours later, after Martin’s collected himself enough to bring his plan to completion. Tim’s only regret is that he isn’t able to see the look on Elias’s face as he’s dragged away.

 Knowing Tim’s luck, he’d probably have just looked smug.

 The name Peter Lukas crosses Martin’s lips, spelled out in exaggerated motions when he visits Tim again. Tim thinks, absurdly, of the hydra. Cut off one head, two grow back.

 Lukas probably won’t be better. Knowing their luck, he’ll be much worse. But Tim thinks of the way Melanie had shaken after she’d come out of Elias’s office, of the haunted look in Martin’s eyes when Tim had asked how his plan went, and can’t find it within himself to care.

 .

.

.

 They release him from the hospital with a hefty prescription of pain meds, small plastic hearing aids tucked in each ear, and a thick folder of discharge papers. Martin’s there when they do; the bags under his eyes are dark and smudged, and he nods mechanically as the nurses talk to him, outlining Tim’s care regime for the next few weeks. His eyes keep flicking to the side, to the corridor that leads to the long-term care section of the hospital. Wordlessly, Tim reaches over and takes Martin’s hand in his, giving it a single squeeze before holding it tightly.

 Martin lets out a breath through his nose and squeezes back.

 “Do you want me to, er. To take you back to yours?” Martin asks once they’re out, his voice on the softer side of muffled and overlaid with that constant ringing but audible enough now that he doesn’t have to shout. 

 Tim feels something almost like embarrassment curling in his stomach. “I, uh. I don’t have a place anymore.” Tim drums his fingers on his thighs, looks at the ground, and says, “I canceled my lease. About a week before we left for Great Yarmouth.”

 There’s silence between them—or at least, as close to silence as Tim can get right now. Tim thinks Martin says something, a word or two brushing up against the edges of what the hearing aids allow him to hear, but he can’t grasp any of it. So, Tim looks up at Martin, at the pinched, pained expression on his face, and says, “Don’t pretend like you didn’t know.”

 “Know what?” Martin says bitterly. “That you never expected to come back? Yeah, I got that part. I even got why, you know? Doesn’t make it better, though. I didn’t want to lose you, Tim.” Martin pauses, then says, so quietly Tim can barely hear it, “I didn’t want to lose anybody.”

 “Yeah,” Tim says. But that’s not how this works. We were never going to all survive. Everything is fucked, and it still is, and it always will be.

 “I’m sorry,” he says and finds he means it. Then, to clarify: “For hurting you. And… and for Jon.” He doesn’t elaborate on that point. He doesn’t know what he would say even if he tried. “But I’m not sorry for going, and I’m not sorry for pressing that button. If I would have died, I wouldn’t have been sorry for that either.”

 “Right,” Martin says slowly. “But you didn’t. And the Circus is gone now, so do you…?”

 “Do I still want to kill myself?”

 Martin winces.

 “Hey, your question, not mine,” Tim says, holding his hands up in a defensive gesture. After a moment, his hands drop back to his lap, and he gives a small shrug. “Don’t know. I knew I would do what I needed to in order to destroy the Circus, and I did. Thought I would die in the process, but I didn’t. I’m still trapped in the world’s shittiest job, and I don’t really…”

 Tim shrugs again. “I don’t know,” he repeats. Then, because it feels true: “It was never… it was never the dying bit I was chasing, you know. I didn’t do this because I thought it would be a good way to get killed. I did it for Danny, and that’s it. Plain and simple. So if you’re asking if I want to die, the answer is no. But I can’t guarantee that I won’t make the same decision again if I have to.”

 Martin’s quiet for a long moment. Then, calmer than Tim expects, he says, “Okay.”

 “Okay,” Tim echoes. Then, with a levity that only feels slightly forced: “I suppose it’s back to your place, then. Just be sure to buy me dinner first.”

 Martin doesn’t smile at that like he used to, but his face does soften a bit. His voice is lighter when he says, “Oh, I will. Within your dietary restrictions, that is. Which means no alcohol.”

 Tim groans. “You’re no fun.”

 “Uh huh.”

 They begin the commute back to Martin’s flat, and the atmosphere between them grows more lighthearted than it’s been in months. Tim feels something warm and familiar curl in his chest, and he realizes just how much he’s missed this. It’s not quite easy conversation, not like it used to be, but it’s nice all the same.

 Tim’s ears ring, and his entire body aches, and he still feels a numbness in his core in the shape of suspicious glances and calliope music and a face he can’t remember, but for the first time in a long, long time, he allows himself to smile.

 .

.

.

 Tim doesn’t visit Jon often. At first, it’s the guilt, acute and cloying and weighing him down. Then, it’s old hurt and stale anger, resurfacing and driving away any passing thought of Jon that isn’t tinged with bad memories and broken trust. After that, it’s just habit.

 It also hurts, if he lets himself admit it. To see Jon lying there, motionless and clad entirely in white, the heart monitor attached to him reading out a constant horizontal line even as his eyes move in small, jerky motions behind his eyelids. 

 See? a part of him whispers. He’s not human. Maybe he never was. Maybe he was always a monster, and you just never noticed. It wouldn’t be the first time.

 A newer part of him, one that gets more prominent by the day, recognizes that even if Jon isn’t human anymore, he never would have chosen this. This stasis, this half-death. Not what came before, either. That part of him remembers the way Jon’s hand had gripped his tightly as they’d opened that trapdoor, and how it had continued to do so even as the worms had begun to bite into their skin. He’d tried to protect Tim then, too, putting himself between Tim and Jane Prentiss. For all the good it did, when the worms began to come from all directions. But Tim remembers the way the terror and pain in Jon’s eyes had been tinged with sadness, with a silent apology as he gripped Tim’s hand hard enough to bruise and they both accepted that this was it.

 It hadn’t been, in the end. And now it is, with Jon all-but-dead and Tim still here, wheeling his way into Jon’s hospital room for the first time in weeks. 

 He’s halfway in before he realizes he’s not alone.

 “Oh,” he says. “I… I didn’t know you’d be here.”

 Martin lets out a sharp, jagged laugh. “Where else would I be?” he says, and it’s tinged with something bitter and broken that takes Tim a bit off-guard. It’s become almost routine now, for Martin to visit Jon, and usually, he comes back looking drained but otherwise fine. Sometimes, when Tim asks him for status updates on our resident medical mystery, Martin even manages a small smile and responds, still dreaming.

 Martin scrubs a hand across his face, and Tim realizes belatedly that he’s crying.

 “Martin?” Tim says carefully, moving a bit closer to where Martin’s sitting. “Are you… did something happen?”

 “No,” Martin says, his voice catching in a way that indicates that something very much did happen. “It’s fine.”

 “Is it…?” Tim pauses, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. “Is it about Jon?”

 Martin’s laugh this time is more like a whimper. “Nope, he’s- he’s the same as always. Still asleep.”

 Tim moves closer but doesn’t say anything. The clock ticks rhythmically in the background, and he waits. Patience has never been his strong suit, but it’s been something that’s been required of him as of late, and he’s getting better at it.

 He likes to think he’s getting better at a lot of things.

 Martin doesn’t speak again for a few minutes. He stares at his hands where they rest just shy of one of Jon’s, his fingers restless against the sheets, coming up occasionally to fiddle with the thin black ring that rests on the middle finger of his right hand. Then, so quiet Tim almost can’t hear it, he says, “My mother died today.”

 Oh.

 “I’m sorry,” Tim says. They’re empty words, but they’re better than the good riddance and about time and you’re better off without her sitting on the back of his tongue, begging to be released. He doesn’t think they would be appreciated right now, no matter how true they might be.

 “Yeah,” Martin says. He’s still staring at his hands. “They called me a few hours ago. She… she passed away in her sleep. Natural causes. From- from her illness.” He falls silent for a few moments, his fingers twisting in the sheets. Then: “I… I think I should be sad?”

 Tim studies Martin’s face—the tear tracks down his cheeks, the unhappy set to his mouth, the way he’s shaking ever so slightly where he sits. His face is one of grief, but Tim doesn’t ask. He waits for Martin to continue, and after a moment, Martin says, “She was the only family I had left. She- she was my mother. I took care of her, I- I did my best to be a- a good son.” He takes in a shaky breath, curls his hands into fists, and says, “I haven’t seen her in months, you know. I- I visited at first, but she… she never wanted to see me. So I just stopped going. I’d call, every Saturday, but it was the same every time. She’s resting. She doesn’t feel up to talking right now. Call later, and we’ll see what we can do.” 

 Finally, Martin looks at Tim, and the guilt in his eyes is so acute Tim can feel it cut through him to his core. “I should be sad that she’s dead, but… but all I can feel is relief. And that hurts. I- I don’t know… why am I relieved? God, she was right, I- I’m horrible, no wonder she- she never wanted to see me, I- why can’t I- I can’t—”

 Martin cuts off with a wet sob, and all at once, Tim understands.

 “It’s okay,” he says, and he collects Martin’s hands from the sheets, holds them tightly in his own. “You can feel however you like, it’s- it’s okay.”

 He squeezes Martin’s hands, just once, and repeats, “It’s okay.”

 He knows Martin won’t believe him. But still, he sits, and Martin cries, and he says, It’s okay.

 It’s okay.

 .

.

.

 The hearing aids are a permanent fixture in his ears now, as most people have full hearing restoration after six weeks apparently doesn’t include him. The tinnitus is still particularly bad some days, but they help with everything else. It’s not perfect, but it’s a small price to pay for living, he supposes.

 He’s not sure when, exactly, he decides that he’s glad he’s alive. But he does. 

 He wishes he hadn’t been able to hear at all, when the Flesh attacks. He wishes he hadn’t been able to hear the wet, sticky sounds of things that shouldn’t be able to move without bones slipping through the vents, shattering the relative peace they’d begun to cultivate. He wishes he hadn’t been able to hear the pops of Basira’s gun, bullets burying themselves in things that barely flinched at the contact. He wishes he hadn’t been able to hear Melanie’s screams of anger, the responding screams of pain from things with too many eyes and teeth and limbs as her knife carved a violent path through them.

 There are yellow doors and hands slick with blood and a sudden quiet as the last of the twisted, mangled creatures falls, sliced neatly in two in a way that’s just a bit too clean. 

 Melanie is breathing heavily, but her hands are steady and her eyes are hard with something raging and violent. When Basira reaches tentatively for her knife, saying, “It’s over now, Melanie. We’re- we’re safe,” Melanie stiffens but doesn’t resist.

 “This isn’t right,” Tim says after Melanie comes back to herself in bits and pieces, enough to shudder at the blood coating her arms up to the elbows and mutter something he can’t quite catch before disappearing into the toilet. “None of this is. God, can we ever catch a fucking break?”

 “We can deal with it later,” Basira says. She’s calm, but she can’t quite hide the tremor in her voice. Her Al-Amira is splattered with viscera. “Right now, we need to make a call. Get this cleaned up.”

 “What,” Tim says bitterly, “so we can continue hiding away in the Archives? You’re the one who said we should start sleeping here. Should have known it wouldn’t be safe. It’s not like it was before.” 

 He rubs at one of the small circular scars on the back of his left hand, his skin crawling with a phantom itch that makes him vaguely nauseous. 

 “We stay here,” Basira says, leaving no room for debate. “We make the call, and we stay here.”

 Tim makes a low, frustrated noise, and bites out, “Fine. Because Basira always knows best. Whatever.” He unlocks his wheelchair and says shortly, “I’m going outside for some fresh air. The smell of rotting meat is making me sick.”

 Basira doesn’t follow him.

 Martin does.

 They situate themselves just outside the glass doors, and they don’t say anything for a long time. Martin still looks vaguely ill. His face is pale, and his hands are fidgeting at his sides. His fingers are resting on his ring, twisting it back and forth, agitated. His shoes are stained a glistening red.

 Finally, Martin tilts his head back so it hits the wall behind him and says to the air above him, “Is it horrible that I wish Jon were here?”

 Tim snorts, anger still bubbling under the surface of his skin. “Because we’d have done so much better with our own flavor of spooky bullshit?” He bites out a bitter laugh. “Maybe he could have compelled them to explain exactly why every single monster out there has a personal vendetta against us. Working for an eldritch horror of voyeurism doesn’t give you much in terms of an offense.”

 “Stop,” Martin says sharply. “You know what I mean.”

 Tim does. He’s just not particularly inclined to wax nostalgic about the power of friendship and comradery when he’s got bits of meat stuck in his hair. 

 Still, he finds that he means it when he says, “I wish he was too. For what it’s worth. Which isn’t a fucking lot, but it’s what we’ve got.”

 “Yeah,” Martin says. His hand brushes against Tim’s, and they fall back into silence.

 The police arrive, followed closely by the ECDC. It’s a messy affair, even messier than the last time Tim had been in this situation, and Tim wants nothing more than to get away. Forever.

 He doesn’t make any jokes this time. He just nods in the right places, and when they’re finally released and he and Martin return to a flat they haven’t seen in weeks, he can feel weariness cutting through him to the bone.

 When he wakes the next day, Martin’s gone. His note, stuck to the door of the fridge, says, At the hospital. Be back around noon.

 It’s ten in the morning, and the sunlight is bright as it streams in through the kitchen window.

 Tim digs out the bottle of rum that Martin keeps tucked in the back of his cabinet and pours himself a drink.

 .

.

.

 “Peter Lukas wants me to be his assistant.”

 Tim looks up from what’s turning out to be quite an impressive doodle of the little figurine of a frog in a top hat he’d purchased back in research from a charity shop and says, “Absolutely not.”

 Martin sucks his bottom lip between his teeth, holds it there for a moment, and then says, “I don’t know if I have a choice in the matter, really. It’s… it’s not safe here anymore.” Quieter: “He said he can help. Off- offer protection.”

 Tim audibly scoffs at that. He sets down his pencil and notepad and crosses his arms across his chest. He can already feel a headache coming on. (More than the usual, that is. He’s almost able to tune out the constant ringing in his ears now.

 Almost.)

 “What’s he going to do, isolate them to death? It’s not like the Lonely’s any better of an offensive force than the Eye. We’re doing just fine without involving him.”

 “Are we?” Martin’s voice is hard and a bit choked when he continues, “We’re living down here because it’s not safe to stay outside for too long. We’re still finding bits of- of flesh in- eugh.” Martin shudders and folds inward on himself. Quieter, enough so that Tim has to watch the motion of his lips to make out the words, he says, “Jon’s not waking up.”

 Tim feels something inside of him twist. “We don’t know that. We don’t know what’s happening with him.” A touch bitterly—old habits die hard, he supposes—he says, “Maybe he’s just not done going through his monster metamorphosis yet.”

 “Tim.”

 Tim sighs. It’s a profoundly weary sound. “Yeah, yeah. I… I miss him too, you know.”

 He’s surprised to find that it’s not a lie.

 “Right.” A small, shaky smile crosses Martin’s face, and he says, “I- I suppose they’re right, then. Distance does make the heart grow fonder.”

 “Somehow,” Tim says, “I don’t think whoever coined that phrase had this situation in mind.”

 Martin’s smile fades as quickly as it had come, and Tim feels a pang of guilt. “Sorry,” he says, pushing away from the desk and wheeling across the room to where Martin sits. He hesitates, just a moment, before placing his hand on Martin’s where it rests on his knee. “I… I suppose I’ve forgotten how to be lighthearted about all of this.”

 Martin nods. It’s a small motion. He’s silent for a long moment; Tim squeezes his hand and says nothing. Finally, Martin looks down at his hands and says, “It’s been four months, Tim. Nothing’s changed.” He pauses again, his mouth pinching around the edges. “I… I visited him today. I begged him to wake up, to- to do anything to indicate that he’s even still there. I don’t know why I expected him to answer. It’s not like anything’s different now. He- he’s never going to wake up, Tim.”

 Martin’s voice cracks, and he repeats, wetly, “He’s never going to wake up.”

 Then, Martin’s crying, heaving sobs that overtake him completely and have him hunched over, dripping salty tears onto the back of Tim’s hand. “Hey, hey, hey,” Tim says, leaning forward as far as he’s comfortably able to and wrapping Martin in as hard of a hug as he can manage. He rubs his hands in circles across Martin’s shoulderblades, feeling Martin’s shaky breaths against the side of his neck, and says, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

 He repeats it, again and again, as Martin cries into his shoulder and says, over and over, words thick with grief, “He’s dead, Tim. He’s dead.”

 “It’s okay,” Tim says. Maybe if he says it enough times, he’ll start to believe it.

 Eventually, Martin’s body stops shaking and he pulls back, the tear tracks on his cheeks already beginning to dry. His eyes are red-rimmed and glistening, and he looks tired, grief apparent in every line of him.

 “I said I’d think about it,” Martin says, in a voice rubbed raw and hoarse. “When Peter called me. I- I said I’d think about it. I- I don’t know why…” He cuts off, makes a small, distressed noise, and says, “What do I even have left? If- if this can help, what- what do I have to lose?”

 Tim feels a pang of hurt flash through him, but he suppresses it. He squeezes Martin’s hands, gives him as wide a smile as he can without breaking, and says, “You have me. And I’m not leaving—you’re stuck with me. So don’t think for a second that if you take Peter’s deal, I won’t be there still. I’m like a bad penny, or, I don’t know, a- a fungus or whatever. The point is, you’re not going to get rid of me. Whether or not you decide to work for Lukas—which you shouldn’t, by the way, in case I haven’t made that abundantly clear—you’re not going to be lonely, okay? Not on my watch. I can be very persistent when I put my mind to it.”

 Martin looks at Tim, eyes wide, and another small, hiccuping sob escapes him. “You really mean that?”

 “Yes, Martin,” Tim says, exasperation and fondness filling him in equal measure. “Christ, just because things got… rough for a bit, it doesn’t mean I stopped caring about you. Honestly, don’t know if I could. You’re a very lovable person, you know. It’s not like being your friend is a hardship.”

 Martin laughs a little at that, his voice still thick with tears. “Well, when you put it like that…”

 Tim gives him another smile, and this one feels easier. Like it would be harder not to smile. Still, he’s careful with his words when he says, “So, then. What are you going to do? I’ve made my opinion more than known, but…” Tim swallows around the lump in his throat and continues, “It’s your decision.”

 “Yeah,” Martin says, barely more than a whisper. “Yeah.”

 Peter calls again. And when Martin hesitates for a long moment before giving a quiet yet firm no, the relief that sweeps over Tim is enough to make him feel weightless.

 .

.

.

 Two months later, as a man who smells of death shuts the door behind him, Jon takes a rattling breath and finally opens his eyes.

 .

.

.

 “Tim?”

 Tim raises the hand that’s not holding a rather large bouquet of white daisies and baby’s breath in a half-wave. “Hi, boss. Been a while.”

 The look Jon gives him is half-shocked, half-nervous. “I… I suppose it has. Six months, apparently.”

 Tim makes a sound of affirmation before wheeling himself fully into Jon’s hospital room and letting the door swing shut behind him. “You know,” he says, allowing a blanket of levity to fall over him, “when we said you should get more sleep, this isn’t exactly what we meant.”

 Jon just stares at him for a moment, face blank and eyes wide. Then, a laugh escapes him, a small hiccup of amusement. “Yes, well. I can’t say that I feel particularly well-rested.”

 Tim imagines what it must have been like, to be locked in a dreamscape stasis for six months. He can’t say that the idea sounds particularly relaxing. “Yep, sounds about right. Guess we can cross ‘spooky coma’ off our list of possible cures for sleep deprivation.”

 Jon folds inward on himself a bit, hugging one arm to his chest and gripping the other tightly. “Right,” he says, his voice small. He looks away from Tim, focusing on the small window in the corner of the room, and says, “I… I’m sorry, Tim.”

 Right. Jon still thinks Tim hates him.

 Tim lets out a long, weary sigh and makes his way to Jon’s bed. He practically shoves the flowers into Jon’s hands; Jon takes them, more out of surprise than anything, white petals tickling the bottom of his chin. “It’s been six months, Jon. You’ve been… honestly, a bit dead? No offense. And I’ve been alive. And we both know it was meant to be the other way around.”

 Jon opens his mouth, and Tim holds up a hand. “Don’t. I know. I already hear enough about it from my therapist, I don’t need to hear about it from you too. The point is that I’ve… I’ve had time to think. And some of the things you did, I can’t forgive you for. But some of it…”

 Tim shrugs. “Martin would always go on about how it wasn’t your fault. About how you were suffering just as much as us. And maybe I didn’t believe it because I was already angry, or maybe I didn’t believe it because all I could think about was finally getting a chance at the revenge I’d chased after for years. But then you were gone, and the Circus was gone, and I just… didn’t have anything left for the anger to hold on to.”

 Jon clutches the flowers tightly in his hands, looks down at the petals. “But you were right,” he says quietly. “A- about me.”

 Tim casts himself back six months and sifts through a metric ton of bitter remarks and angry assumptions. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

 Jon lets out a slow, shaky breath. “About me not being human.”

 Oh.

 “Jon—”

 “Do you know what I was dreaming about?” Jon cuts in before Tim can say anything else. “I- I don’t remember, not really, but… but I can guess. I… I Know, somehow, that- that they were the same dreams, over and over and over again.” Jon takes one of the flower petals between his fingers and rubs it back and forth, a nervous gesture. “I started having them soon after I took this job, you know. Naomi Herne was the first one, and I- I didn’t understand why. Every night, she was trapped in the fog, forced into her own grave, and I would try to move, because it- it felt like I should have been able to, but it- it never worked. So I… I stopped trying after a while. I would stand and watch as she relived one of the worst experiences of her life, every night, and I- I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”

 Jon crushes the petal between his fingers. “She was the first one, but- but there are so many more now. Lionel Elliott and Jordan Kennedy and- and, Christ, Georgie—”

 Jon makes a small, unhappy noise. “I don’t know when I realized that they could see me in their dreams too. That in trying to help, I- I’d just made myself another source of terror.”

 Jon falls silent for a few moments; the quiet is filled by the familiar tick tick tick of the clock in the corner. Then, so quietly Tim has to focus on his lips to catch the words, he says, “I… I think I made a choice. Before I woke up. I don’t… I don’t know what it means for me, not really, but I know it means that I’m worse than I was before.” He lets out a bitter laugh, devoid of any humor. “So, you were right. I’m just- just even less human now.”

 Jon falls silent again, and for a few moments, there’s just tick, tick, tick. Tim rolls the words over in his mind, looks at Jon’s pinched, unhappy expression, and says, “Okay.”

 Jon looks at him then, his brow furrowed in confusion. “Okay?”

 Tim shrugs and repeats, “Okay. You’re not human. I’m not going to pretend like that thrills me or whatever, but it’s… honestly, it’s a lot less of an issue for me now than it was back then.”

 “I- I don’t…” Jon trails off with a frustrated noise. “What?”

 Tim sighs. “A lot’s changed, Jon. Things have… well, things have kind of gone to hell. Honestly, we could use a few monsters who are on our side for a change.”

 Jon blinks at him in stunned silence for a few moments more before saying, bewildered, “... Right. Uh, I- I suppose I shouldn’t ask how you’ve been, then.”

 A wry smile cracks across Tim’s face. “I’ve been just peachy, thanks for asking. Blow up one Circus and suddenly every spooky monster out there wants to kill you. It’s been one big, long, horrible sleepover in the Archives. But hey, at least Elias isn’t there! Now we’ve just got Lukas, and if one or two staff members disappear every once and a while, well—that’s just how it is at the Magnus Institute. Nothing to be concerned about. Sometimes, we still go out for drinks.”

 “Tim,” Jon says flatly. The exasperated expression on his face is so familiar—so Jon—that Tim feels a tension he hadn’t known he’d been holding slip away. 

 “Yeah, yeah,” Tim says, waving a hand absently in Jon’s direction. “Point is, I’m not disappointed or angry or whatever that you’re back in the land of the living.” He pauses, and then, more sincerely: “Martin’s not the only one who’s missed you, okay?”

 Jon’s lips part into an O. Then, his mouth twitches up into a smirk, and he says, “Mm, you’re right. Basira did stop by earlier, and then of course Georgie, and I bet even Melanie—”

 “Unbelievable. And here I was nice enough to come all the way over here, to bring you flowers.”

 “Mm, they are very nice flowers.”

 “Damn right they are.”

 Jon smiles then, a fragile thing, and says, “Thank you, Tim. I… I’ve missed you too.”

 Tim could point out that Jon had been asleep for the majority of the time in question. But he knows that’s not what Jon means. So instead, he offers Jon a smile in return and says, “Be honest: more or less than the Admiral?”

 Jon shoots Tim a flat, unimpressed look. “Tim, don’t be ridiculous. Of course less than the Admiral.”

 .

.

.

 Tim’s been out of the wheelchair for a week when he finally manages to make his way to the roof of the Institute, still learning how to maneuver the crutches he’s moved on to. He swears he can feel every motion of the pins and the rods in his leg—skin covered with even more scars for the collection—as he finally heaves himself through the door and into the cool night air. 

 The view is just as good as he remembers.

 There’s the faint smell of cigarette smoke hanging in the air, and Tim’s entirely unsurprised to see Jon silhouetted against the glow of London, leaning against the wall that rings the roof with his back facing Tim. The cigarette glows a dull red as he raises it to his lips and breathes in.

 Jon doesn’t say anything, even as Tim painstakingly makes his way over to where he’s stood. Tim props his crutches against the wall before leaning his weight heavily against it, arms crossed atop the wall in a mirror image of Jon as they both look out onto the city below, humming with life and light.

 Finally, after a particularly long drag of his cigarette, Jon says, “I’m going to get Daisy.”

 There’s no room for argument in his voice. But that’s never stopped Tim from trying anyways. 

 “I thought you were done doing stupid shit that’ll get you killed,” Tim says, turning his head to look at Jon. Jon’s staring forward, but Tim gets the distinct impression that Jon isn’t looking out at the city at all.

 “It won’t kill me,” Jon says quietly. He moves his hands as he talks, surprisingly competent sign language that he’s begun using tentatively in his conversations with Tim. When Tim had asked him where he’d learned it, Jon had been quiet for a long moment before telling him that he hadn’t.

 Well. At least the Eye was being useful for once.

 “Yeah, whatever,” Tim says. “Dead or not, you’ll still be gone. You know people who crawl into that coffin don’t come back.”

 “I don’t—” Jon cuts off with a frustrated noise. After a moment, he continues, “I have a plan. I- I read a statement, and it said that I would need an anchor. A- a piece of myself to keep here. I can find it when I’m down there, and- and use it to guide me back.”

 “Right,” Tim says dryly. “Because our plans have always gone so well.”

 “What would you have me do, Tim? I- I can’t just do nothing.”

 “Why not?”

 Jon affixes him with an expression that’s half-affronted, half-stunned. “Tim.”

 “What? Jon, we barely know Daisy. She tried to kill you. No, don’t give me that look.” Tim jabs a finger in Jon’s direction. “You know I’m right.”

 “I…” Jon trails off. After a moment, he hugs his arms to himself, his snubbed-out cigarette still smoldering slightly on top of the wall. “I know. But I… I still have to go. I… I’m still going to go.”

 Tim exhales slowly and says, “Right. Suppose I should have expected that.”

 There’s silence between them for a moment. Then, Jon removes his hands from his arms and signs as he says, quietly, “Why don’t you hate me?”

 Tim stares at Jon for a long moment before saying, “What?”

 Jon sighs and repeats, the motions of his hands larger and more emphatic, “Why don’t you hate me? Basira and Melanie, they- they keep looking at me like I’m some… thing, and- and maybe I am. No, not… not maybe. I’m not… I’m not human anymore, and I- I know what you said, but what happens when I—?”

 Jon cuts off with a small, choked noise, like the air’s been sucked out of him all at once. Weakly, he signs, “I’m so hungry, all the time. What happens when I… when I can’t take it anymore? When I- I become dangerous, a- a monster, will you—?”

 Jon’s fingers curl into fists, and he drops his hands to his sides, angling himself away from Tim and staring at an arbitrary point in the distance. “It’s better this way,” he says, loudly enough that Tim can make out the words above the hum of London at night and the ever-present ringing in his ears. “I… I don’t want to go. I don’t want to lose this, to- to lose you and- and Martin. But maybe it’s better than becoming something that will hurt you.”

 Jon won’t meet Tim’s eyes. Carefully, Tim reaches across the space between them and takes Jon’s hand in his, uncurling Jon’s fingers gently in an attempt to release some of the tension. Slowly, he says, “You know, I… I shouldn’t be alive right now. Back after the Unknowing, when I woke up in the hospital, I… I didn’t want to be. It was supposed to be whatever it takes, and to me, that was always going to mean my death. Revenge and poetic justice and all of that. I should have died, but I didn’t. And… and you did. And it’s not something I feel guilty about, because we both made the same choice in the end, but that… that doesn’t stop me from feeling, sometimes, like it was my fault somehow.” He lets out a sharp laugh and says, “Well, I was the one to actually blow the place up in the end, but, you know.”

 Tim holds Jon’s hand carefully in his like it might break otherwise, the mottled texture of the scar tissue firm against his fingertips. His eyes find the thin white line slashed across Jon’s throat, the stark white bandage poking out from the collar of Jon’s shirt where it covers a fresh scalpel wound in his shoulder, the pale pink spots that pepper Jon’s skin in a mirror image of his own. He can’t see the splash of jagged scars across Jon’s back, a memory of shrapnel and white-hot explosions, but he knows they’re there. “You asked why I don’t hate you?”

 When Jon nods mutely, Tim says, “I just… ran out of reasons why I should. I still wanted to, but…” He shrugs and gives Jon a wry, humorless smile. “We’re all just stuck in the same shitty situation. And I guess at some point, I just decided that you hadn’t chosen to be here any more than I did.”

 “Oh,” Jon says, barely audible. 

 Tim takes Jon’s other hand in his, squeezes them firmly, and says, “And I’m sorry. Not for- for how we used to be, because I think the blame for that falls pretty evenly onto both of our shoulders, but… but for everything else. For what’s happened to you. Figured I’ve spent enough time feeling sorry for myself, I might as well extend you the same courtesy.”

 Jon’s fingers tighten around Tim’s, and he mumbles something Tim can’t quite catch. Then, he extracts his hands from Tim’s and signs, shakily, “I’m sorry too. For everything. But for what it’s worth, I… I’m glad you’re here. That you’re not dead. I- I know it’s been bad and- and I wish I could fix that, but I… I don’t know if I can.” Jon’s eyes when they meet Tim’s are sad but determined. “But I can fix this. I- I can get Daisy back. I can find my way out.”

 Tim looks at the firm set to Jon’s mouth, the furrow of his brow, and says, “Okay. But I’m going to hold you to that. Otherwise, I might have to go in after you.”

 Jon looks horrified. “Tim.”

 Tim holds his hands up in a placating gesture. “Hey, come back in one piece and we won’t have to worry about it.”

 Jon opens his mouth, then closes it again. There’s a long pause before he finally says, decidedly, “I will. I- I promise.”

 Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Tim wants to say. Instead, he shuffles closer to Jon and leans against the wall again, crossing his arms on top of it and looking out over the city. “Good,” he says softly. 

 After a moment, Jon shifts to face the city as well. His arm brushes against Tim’s, and Tim lets that point of contact ground him as he looks up and up and up at the stars above, pinpricks of light on a satin black sky. 

 “Thank you,” Jon says, just loud enough for Tim to hear. 

 Tim moves his hand to cover Jon’s where it sits on the wall and squeezes once. “Yeah.”

 They stand there until sunlight begins to tickle the edges of the horizon. And when Jon gives Tim’s hand one last squeeze, the other holding the lid of the coffin open, and says, “Be back soon,” Tim believes him.

 .

.

.

 Three days later, Jon climbs out of the coffin with dirt caked underneath his fingernails and a thin, sharp hand clutched in his. “Tim,” he says, and Tim ignores the pain in his leg as he lets his crutches drop to the floor and hugs Jon tightly.

 “Looks like I’m staying above ground after all,” Tim jokes, his voice light even as his words come out wet and choked.

 Jon’s laugh vibrates against Tim’s chest. “Yeah,” he says, burying his face in the fabric of Tim’s shoulder to hide his smile. “Yeah.”

[ltwilliammowett]

The end of Blackbeard and the fate of Lieutenant Maynard

In November 1718, the pirate Edward Teach also known as Blackbeard was operating from a base on Ocracoke Island, in North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Governor Spotswood of Virginia sent a small naval expedition to deal with him, led by Lieutenant Robert Maynard of the Royal Navy, who commanded 50 sailors in two hired sloops. Maynard lauchned his attack at dawn on 22 November. Blackbeard had just 25 men on board of his sloop Adventure , but she was armed with 8 guns. Maynard’s sloops, formally merchant sloops the Jane and the Ranger had no guns just small arms ( just for these event they got the prefix HMS) and were crewed by 56 well armed and well trained sailors from HMS’s Pearl and Lyme. As the sloops approached the Adventure they were both raked by gunfire, which killed several sailors, and forced the Jane to drop out of the fray. Blackbeard taunted his enemies, and he must have been convinced he could defeat Maynard.  However, by the time the two ships collied Maynard had hidden most of his men below decks. They surged up out the hold, taking the pirates by surprise.

Capture of the Pirate, Blackbeard, 1718 depicting the battle between Blackbeard the Pirate and Lieutenant Maynard in Ocracoke Bay, by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris 1920 (x) 

What happened then, however, is still the stuff of myths and legends, and the sources are also at odds about this. But one thing they all say is that Maynard and Blackbeard got into a duel, which is said to have been very furious. Maynard is said to have injured Blackbeard several times, including shooting him twice. Now some sources say that Maynard himself was a very good fighter and hit Blackbeard in the back so hard that the blow killed him. Others say that Blackbeard was about to deliver the final blow to Maynard when a Sailor attacked him from behind, hit his back and then cut his throat.

Blackbeards Death (x)

But so hard that the head fell off. Other sources believe that it was Maynard who cut off Blackbeard's head to demoralise his pirates and force them to surrender. Others, such as his supposed letter to his sister, say only that he cut the head, but not why. Maynard himself, after examining the body, was said to have found that blackbeard had been shot 5 times and stabbed 20 times before he finally died. He then disposed of the body overboard before hanging his head on the bowsprit. 

April 25 1719 Weekly Journal and Saturday Evening's Post - alleged Maynard letter published Capt. Charles Johnson,the controversial author of A General History of the Pyrates

In the end, Blackbeard was dead and the Lieutenant a celebrated hero. You would think so, but it wasn't so. On the contrary, Maynard disappeared very quickly and was neither promoted nor celebrated. The question is why. Because Maynard should have been promoted for this extremely heroic act. But he was not made captain until 1740, when he was already 56 just 10 years before his death. There are several theories, one being that Governor Spotswood did not have the authority to call out the Royal Navy. Therefore, the act of killing Blackbeard would have been illegal and there would have been disputes over the booty that Maynard took.

Memorial Plaque to Capt. Robert Maynard (x)

For he captured goods from the Adventure and sold them. The governor took part of the money to cover his expenses for this action and another part ( around £ 1400) is said to have gone into Maynard's own pocket. An unexplained sum of £ 2000 which he stated in his will is supposed to speak for this. Now this is no proof, it could be that he had come to this sum otherwise. However, he had a legal dispute with the Admiralty that lasted for years, unfortunately there is no mention of what it was about.

However, since the booty automatically belong to the king and the crew received a prize money from such actions, Maynard had stolen from the king. Normally, if he had done so, he would have been thrown out of the Navy and punished. However, there are speculations that he was protected by his family, who had a high level of influence. This is not conclusive, but it would be a possible explanation for his faltering career.

If you want to read more, I recommend Murder at Ocracoke! by Baylus C. Brooks.

[avatarvyakara]

Strands of Webbing

A Spiderverse Fanfic

Prompts 253-264

“Not Sidekicks”

First | Previous | Next

253. Mentor

The Original Six—the Spider Gang—the Cluster—the Veterans—they have many names. But what they also are, is a rallying symbol. In a cosmos where the Friendly Neighbourhood Spider is so often alone, they're the ones who get it.

Most of the time, they're also the first to find someone new. Someone like them.

And there's always room to learn something new.

254. Nephew

"This is Charles!" says Ham, proudly showing off the tiny spider in his hand. "My great-niece Nelly's kid, she left him to me in her will."

Miles and the other Spiders exchange glances.

"Um…"

SP//dr's face produces an "it's-so-cute!" emoticon, and the robot waves gently.

Charles extends one leg and wiggles it up and down.

"Well done, Charles! The nice lady's name is Takara. Can you say 'Takara'?"

Apparent silence.

"That's neither here nor there, kid."

"What was that?" asks Peter, who quite frankly looks exhausted already.

"It's a spider thing. Now, you guys got any mashed bedbugs?"

"Not in this house, we don't," says Aunt May sternly.

But Ham isn't paying attention. He's turned back to his nephew and is tickling under his thorax. "You're gonna be the best superhero ever! Yes you are! All we need to do is find someone to bite you…"

SP//dr raises its hand.

“Nah, nah, it’s gotta be something different. Something unique...”

?_?

“Not that you’re not unique!”

255. Simian

The first and only time Peter tries to make money in a wrestling match, it's a terrible mistake. The man's gotta be pushing sixty and he's literally got a god on his side, how is he losing?

"Come on, you little masked menace!" calls Crusher Hogan from below. "You gonna get your hands dirty, or are you just gonna sit on that pole jumping around instead of fighting like a man?"

Figures he'd have to go for a "shooter", which apparently means "someone who doesn't fake matches and therefore knows exactly how to hit where it hurts". And here he thought it meant he could use his guns...

Odd, though. He's glowing. His costume is literally glowing Red.

(The Spider-God wouldn't give him the Red unless there was a good reason.)

"Why don't you come up and fight like a spider?" he asks, letting the colour sink into his words.

The old Black man stares up at him for a moment—

And grins.

Uh oh.

"Nah," says Crusher. "How about I fight like a monkey instead?"

The light around the ring turns Blue.

"Oh, son of a—"

POW.

The man just jumped eight feet like it was nothing, grabbed him, and tugged him down into a chokehold.

"Language, son," he says, mildly reproachful. "There are impressionable youths in this place."

Peter loses as gracefully as he can, to the sound of cheering from the (quite young) crowd.

That night, the Spider-Man stops by the arena to see the Monkey King.

“What’s that colour you got around you, son?” asks the surprisingly hirsute hero—more than he was before, anyway. He’s using a long, featureless iron pole as a walking stick. (Definitely for show.)

“It’s red.”

“I wondered. Never seen red before. Mine is blue.”

“I know.”

The Monkey King grins. “That sounds like a tale, young’un. You got time to swap?”

“Maybe. If you can tell me what you’re supposed to be doing with that power.”

“Hah! Nothing too special. Have fun. Keep my family safe. Take what I want from the Man. Help people out on quests. That kinda junk. Wrestling helps pass the time and keeps the neighbourhood kids out of trouble.”

“How often do you get quests?”

“You would be amazed. You good with tea?”

“Much obliged, Mr. Hogan.”

“Call me Crusher. Or Sun, if you want. That’s his name, but he don’t mind my using it. That or The King.”

Now Peter grins. “Guess you’d better shut my mouth and call me Anansi Boy.”

The King of Brooklyn roars with laughter.

256. Uneasy

As far as Mary-Jane Watson is concerned, Carnage is a Symbiote, a remnant of her best friend Steff “Stay” See (who was once the Red Spider and didn’t tell her until it was too late) and the source of Mary-Jane’s powers. It's a way to feel closer to her lost companion, and an ally in protecting her version of New York.

As far as Carnage is concerned, Mary-Jane is a legacy, a comrade mourning their lost friend. And for a while the resentment and guilt battled each other, and so Carnage and Mary-Jane had to make a decision as to which they would follow. But one thing is for certain: whatever darkness lies within Mary-Jane, it is far more manageable than Knull was.

Both of them assume they’re in control. Both of them are right.

(Both of them also agree that, whether Flash Thompson or Venom is in control, the individual on the whole is a bit of a prat.)

257. Duality

Most of the stuff Hida knows about, Peni has as much connection with as Billy has with Peredur’s time, and vice versa. (“No, it’s not magic, you daft brush, it’s not even a particularly good record, the Beatles really went downhill since they brought in Ringo Starr—”) So there’s a cultural impasse. Noir, on the other hand, while much closer in terms of tech level and linked to a spider-spirit directly like Hida is, knows basically no Japanese at all, and what little he knows is from Peni’s time. So there’s a linguistic impasse.

They work on it, together. They both seem quite happy to. Peni learns more about her mother’s ancestral culture, Noir learns his friend’s native language to the degree he can actually manage simple conversations.

And Hida gets better at web-slinging, and her English is pretty good after a year of learning, and they get a chance to work on water combat so she can move better in her home environment. (Well. Swim in a lake uptown. But still, water combat.)

“So...is it like adoption? Did Peni and Noir agree to joint custody of Peni’s mom or something?” asks Miles from the side of a building in Peter B.’s world, to some very weird looks. “What?”

“Think about that sentence for a moment,” says Peter.

“...oh. Oh, urgh, dude, no. Not like that!”

Gwen snickers.

“But I get what you mean,” says Peter. They’re like a brother-sister team-up.”

“Taking care of Peni’s mom. Who is also a demon spider in human form.”

“That would explain so much...” muses Miguel, only for Peter to elbow him.

"Behave. That's my baby sister you're talking about there, O'Hara."

"You don't even have the same parents, Parker."

"Regardless."

258. Combo

Ava Ayala, the White Tiger, huffs in annoyance.

“Really, Spidey? One of you wasn’t enough?”

“You’re welcome,” says Spider-Glitch drily, pulling off the door of the hanging cage. “Think you can get down while the others handle the VENOM agents?”

White Tiger squints. “Isn’t one of them a VENOM too?”

“A Carnage, actually. Don’t worry, she’s cool.”

“I’ll bet.”

Something’s a little odd about the fight down below. The five other Spider-...people?...well, they’re fighting, but whenever they land a hit green numbers appear in the air.

“Bet you can’t beat that, Peni!” crows the little black-and-red spider, after a couple of shots knock three VENOM agents unconscious and reverting back to their original forms.

“You’re on, Morales!” says the red-and-blue giant robot.

Spider-Glitch grins at Ava’s expression. “I think they took to the Matrix pretty well, all things considered.”

“They’re treating it like...a video game?”

“I know, right? I can’t believe Fury never thought of that!”

259. Elastic

“Uhhhh...hey!”

Spider-Man stares.

"Oh. Yeah. Forgot about that." The…rather strange girl (she can't be more than thirteen) shrinks her fist down from colossal size to something approaching normality. "So! …what's up?"

"¿Debería volver más tarde?" asks the Scorpion, fresh from a punch from the aforementioned fist. "Puedo dejar la plata si lo quieres."

"Don't move, this will just take a minute," orders Spider-Man. For good measure, he quickly webs the Scorpion down.

"It is as if you don't trust me…"

“So...can I hang out? Not, you know, as a sidekick, but maybe just kinda shadowing you for a bit? Until I’m ready to work back in Queens. If...that’s okay?”

"Okay, first off, what are you doing out of school?"

"…it's March break and I took the two-week option? Why aren't you in school?"

Miles almost splutters. "Wha—who said anything about being in school?"

(It's his last semester, for your information.)

"And why do you sound like you've got a bad cold all of a sudden?"

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" Then Miles remembers himself. "And what's with the costume?"

The girl draws back, looking a little self-conscious. "It's not like I just have materials that stretch with me lying around…" she mumbles.

"No, no, that's okay. I had the same problem, went around in a store-bought suit for my first few days too. I can help with that if you want," Miles offers, wondering how to explain this to Mrs. Parker. ("Hi, I found a stray superhero and she needs a suit"? Probably not the best opening line.) But the strange girl brightens up a bit, at least. "No, what I meant was, why the Captain Marvel costume?"

"That's because I'm Ms. Marvel!" says the girl proudly. Trace of an accent…Hindi, maybe? Urdu?

“Seriously? You know that’s probably copyrighted, right?”

“Okay, to be fair, you basically just took over the franchise. This is a tribute.”

"I did not—okay, look, bottom line, you do not just go out into the street and start swinging! That's not how superheroing works! You gotta practice a bit, maybe get yourself some decent digs, some kind of support network, again you can start with part of mine, and…and what am I saying? You don't need this kind of life, kid! My advice? Just stay outta the game until you’ve got your future settled. I can handle stuff until you do."

"I think you're gonna be a baaaad teacher," mutters Ms. Marvel, which annoys Miles for reasons he can't quite place.

"Probably!" calls the Scorpion.

"Stay out of this, Marco."

"Wow. It's not like secret identities mean anything around here, is it."

"Cállate."

260. Include

And Kron Stone, alias Venom, is down for the count.

“Lyla? You getting this?” murmurs Miguel.

—well, yeah, but that doesn’t mean I can actually tell you who it is—

Odd way of phrasing it, but...

“Hey!” calls Miguel in his Spider-Voice. “Whoever you are, you did good, kid. But this isn’t safe for you.”

“If it’s safe for you, then it’s plenty safe for me,” says the copper-bodied figure through a modulator. “And I’m not a kid.”

“You sound like a kid.” Actually he sounds like Gabriel with a sore throat.

The shimmering mask of liquid metal (a Stark-Fujikawa specialty—maybe a corporate rival?) twitches into a face like an annoyed gargoyle. “I’m not. Uh...I am the Green Goblin, here to clean up this town!”

“Uh huh.”

“Look, I just saved your life, dude, give me a break.”

“I’m trying to. Go home, kid. You’ve got better things to do with your life.”

“Right about now?” says the Green Goblin, fanged face looking surprisingly solemn. “This is exactly what I want to be doing. I’ll...see you around, Spiderman.”

And he gets on his hoverboard and starts to fly away.

“Hey!”

The Goblin turns in midair.

“...thanks.”

The metal face twists into almost a soft smile, and on he goes.

Stark-Fujikawa tech again. Hmmm...

Maybe he can ask Gabriel if he’s seen anything suspicious lately. He works for Stark-Fujikawa, right?

—honestly I have no idea who that was—

And maybe he needs to bring Lyla over to Xina again, she’s definitely malfunctioning and he didn’t even ask her to this time.

261. Corporeal

The fact that there's another Spider in Miles' dimension? That's…cool. The fact that she's about the same age as Peter Parker, was bitten by the same spider as Peter Parker, and had a bit of a tough time for some reason so she moved out of town? Also cool. The fact that she's got a bit less experience than Peter so Miles doesn't have another mentor (not that he really wants one)? All good.

But San Francisco?

"That's like…the anti-New York."

The ghostly figure beside Silkworm on the rooftop rolls his eyes.

that'sabitrudeisn'tit?

Silkworm (who is wearing what seems to be a yellow and white hanbok-style suit with black web patterns and a domino mask) grins.

"Okay, so it takes some getting used to. But it's not too bad. And hey, it's nice to know there's another Spider around, just in case."

andyou'renotthrowingyourselfatthisoneso.

"Spectro."

Spectro just grins.

Miles blinks.

"I don't think you two have been properly introduced. Miles Morales, Spider-Man, meet my idiot boyfriend, Hector Cervantez. Alias Spectro."

Miles scratches his head. "Uhhh…correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't he…aren't you…"

dead? Spectro finishes. probably.

"Dude, I'm…"

actuallythat'sreallyunclear, butyouknowwhat? i'velearnedtolivewithit. sortof. He smiles. plusitmeansIgettohelpoutabitmorearoundhere.

Silkworm smiles back. With practiced ease, Spectro makes a karate-chop movement, which Silkworm catches easily, and they hold hands for a couple of seconds.

"So…what kind of bad guys do you get around here?"

"Would you believe me if I said Pokémon?"

"Come on," says Miles dismissively. "You ain’t gonna fool a Brooklyn kid that easy."

There's a roar on the horizon, and a large pink dragon soars overhead.

"…man, that's not fair."

Silkworm and Spectro laugh.

262. Wail

Taking a piece of Peter’s grave to another dimension? That’s one thing. Him asking to be carried around all the time? That’s another.

“Gee, Stacy, aren’t you a little old to have a pet rock?”

Gee, Allen, aren’t you a little old to need to get a life?

...okay, fine, she snorted at that one.

It hasn’t been very helpful on the job either. Up until now.

“Any last words?” asks Doc Ock, squeezing tight.

Mind you, now’s not the best time to find out.

Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod just stay there I’ll help!

“That,” grunts Gwen between her teeth as she tries to push the mechanical limbs apart, “would be a really bad idea—”

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

The sound pierces Gwen’s ears and turns her stomach. Doc Ock is literally blown backwards. Her ears are bleeding.

It disappears as quickly as it started.

A few quick webs and an anonymous text later, and Gwen’s up on the rooftop squeezing the rock tight enough to crush it. (She doesn't. She wouldn't.)

“What the hell, Parker?”

...I’m sorry. Are you okay?

“Never mind about me, what was that? When did you turn into a banshee?”

I didn’t! Honest! I just...gathered up some of the sounds floating around and kind of pushed them out. It’s like how I talk to you, just...not like that. Maybe a bit stronger.

Gwen pauses. “How long have you been able to do that?”

Far as I know? This is the first time I’ve actually tried. I honestly didn’t think it could work.

“...hmm.”

...can I try it again?

She knows the hope in that voice. That curiosity tinged with mild desperation.

“Only on bad guys,” she warns him. “And only in emergencies.”

You got it, Sensei.

“Shut up.”

Hey, how's "The Banshee" as a codename?

"About as on-the-nose as 'The Lizard'."

It's straightforward at least.

"You're gonna be the death of me, you know that?"

I wouldn't dare. You'd give me hell for the rest of my afterlife.

"And don't you forget it." But she's smiling again.

263. Mentee

One evening, Doctor Octavius—not Doc Ock, don't mix lab work with mask work—starts glitching.

"Whoa! Doctor Octavius, are you okay?"

She bats his hand away from her shoulder—and then falls to the floor, starts going fractal again with a noise like a lightsaber put through a DJ mix. "Don't worry, Mi/les, I'm ab/sol/utely f/ine! …owwwww." She cricks her neck. "Just a side effect from a personal experiment."

"This is…"

This is weird. This is very weird.

(And if she hadn't just tried to kill him again last week he might actually be worried.)

She looks at him softly, puts a hand on his shoulder to reassure him. "Hey. Hey, it's okay, kid. I'm alright. Nothing to be s/caaaaaared/ offffffffff. Aargh, that hurt."

Miles winces in sympathy. "What—what can I do?" (Play dumb.) "Can I get you anything to help?" (Smart dumb. Nice.)

She nods, panting. "You think you can g/et a bage/lllllllll…get…get me a bagel from the cafeteria please?"

"Extra cream cheese?"

She grins. "You know me so well, Mister Morales."

Better than you'd think, Miles thinks to himself as he rushes down the hallway.

Okay. Option One, there's a parallel-world Olivia Octavius who's managed to get through. Unlikely but possible. Option Two, travelling too many times between dimensions causes you to start glitching in your home dimension because of the other atomic structures incorporated into you. Again unlikely—he's never glitched at home—but worth talking to Tech Support about. Option Three…

Option Three is that travelling too many times between dimensions when you don't have a stabilizing factor, like, for instance, being a Spider, causes your atoms to slowly fall apart regardless.

None of these are good. Other hypotheses may be even worse.

Much as he has concerns about Doc Ock, much as he really doesn't like Liv based on Aunt May's stories, he doesn't want Doctor Octavius to die. Least of all like that.

Bagel. Toasted. Extra cream cheese. Strawberry jam. Some water as well. Bed rest is next, he can handle the project report (a re-evaluation of thread theory based on “anonymous research”, i.e., collider data). He's been at this job for two years now anyway. And then…he hopes Miguel's still up, at least.

Miles doesn't need to imagine how painful it could be. He knows. But he, for one, is not going to wait around and watch.

264. Collective

"See?" says Ham, proud as can be. "Told you guys that Charlie would be amazing."

"Well, yeah," says Peter B., who looks mildly ill, "but…it's not exactly just him, is it?'

"Well, no. But hey, the psychic link seems to be holding up fine. Who would've thought being bitten by a radioactive human would do the trick? Millicent, stop pulling your brother’s legs!"

“How do you even tell them apart?”

“What, like it’s hard?”

The large mass of churning, scuttling spiders in roughly the shape of a human being manages to stand up inside one of Peter’s old suits. It waves.

"How many kids did your great-niece have, exactly?" asks Peni.

"Nelly was always very popular," says Ham, wistfully.

SP//dr, oblivious to her best friend's mild discomfort, waves back eagerly.

"Ladies and gentlemen! I present to you the one, the only, Spiders-Man!"

Now there's just the matter of a mask, which is duly provided, brought up to the top of the pile, and inhabited. There’s a small vocal translator in said mask, designed specially by Miguel.

And so speaks the Spiders-Man for the first time:

“...hi.”

[traincat]

I feel like I've read a ton, but I'm honestly still pretty new to comics rn. That being said... What is one more day? Ik we don't like it and it happened a while ago, but that's about it [,=

Time for Spider-Man History With Traincat: Highly Controversial Storylines! And that feeling is totally normal with comics with huge canons -- you can read a ton and still have some fairly big blindspots in your understanding of the total picture. That being said, this is kind of a big one, both in terms of Spider-Man history/canon and in terms of how Spider-Man fandom functions. I would say probably no other storyline has had quite as much impact on how the fandom views and interacts with the source material as One More Day/Brand New Day. It's been the Wild West out here ever since it happened. (Which was in 2007, so like, yes, fairly long ago, especially when you look at how Spider-Man canon has evolved since, but in the grand scheme of things, also kind of recent. One More Day is not old enough to rent a car.)

So when people talk about Spider-Man's One More Day, they're usually actually talking about two related arcs: One More Day and Brand New Day. For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to be covering both. For the sake of transparency, I am going to admit that I think One More Day, as a self-contained story, is good, actually. This is controversial! I admit that! But I stand by my stupid opinions on this blog, for some reason. I think One More Day when you examine it on its own, by which I mean you ignore the decade and a half worth of canon that came after it, as a Spider-Man story and as a PeterMJ-centric story holds up under scrutiny and that people who don't like it don't like complicated love stories and might actually throw their own mothers under buses. No offense to the OMD haters. Little bit of offense to the OMD haters. Brand New Day, which is the continuation of One More Day, on the other hand -- largely bad. Very largely bad.

But let's backtrack. One More Day is a four issue crossover storyline that takes place directly after Civil War, during which Iron Man and Captain America got divorced and divvied up the superhero community and Spider-Man made some startlingly bad decisions and made a fugitive out of himself and his family in a manner that got Aunt May shot, and Spider-Man: Back in Black (Amazing Spider-Man #539–543) which examines Peter's actions immediately after Aunt May is shot and ends with him humiliating the Kingpin in front of an entire prison. One More Day consists of Amazing Spider-Man #544 -> Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #24 -> Sensational Spider-Man v2 #41 -> Amazing Spider-Man #545. In One More Day, Aunt May is dying, all of Peter's efforts to save her have thus far failed, and, consumed by guilt, he is rapidly running out of time. Approached by Mephisto, a literal demon from hell, Peter is offered a deal: Aunt May will live -- and Peter's identity, which was previously revealed to the world at large during Civil War, will once again be hidden from the memories of all but a select few -- if Peter trades him his marriage to Mary Jane. Peter and Mary Jane struggle with this, but eventually both agree to the deal. The clock strikes twelve, the deal is done, and Peter and Mary Jane's marriage fades into history.

(ASM #545) A reasonably simple premise for a story that caused so many problems -- most, I would argue, not actually the original story's fault. So obviously, this was an unpopular move -- Peter and Mary Jane had for a long time been a fan favorite Marvel couple, and in a fictional universe where most relationships are doomed as soon as they begin, the enduring Spider-Marriage was sacred ground. And then, with a snap of its fingers, it was gone: Peter wakes up in Aunt May's house, no longer married, with Mary Jane out of the picture. (She would not return to the book on any sort of consistent basis for over 50 issues.) In the wake of One More Day began Brand New Day, which is basically what it sounds like: a promised "brand new day" of "exciting" Spider-Man content and a publishing schedule where Amazing Spider-Man came out three times a month. (Which sounds good on paper but I think in practice caused more problems than it created good storylines.) Peter, newly single again, had new love interests! And also Harry Osborn was alive again for some reason! I generally like Harry's post-BND stories so that part's fine with me.

But overall? Brand New Day is a mess. It knows it wants to tread new and exciting ground with Peter -- tell new stories! ensnare new readers! make them fork out for a book three times a month. -- but it doesn't know what those stories should be. Readers who were invested in Peter and Mary Jane's relationship -- a major facet of Spider-Man comics for decades at that point -- felt rightfully betrayed that the marriage could be so easily traded in and that Mary Jane herself, perhaps the second most important figure in Spider-Man comics after Peter, could be tossed aside. From a personal point of view, I think Brand New Day fails in large part because it abandons what has always made Spider-Man such a compelling series, and that's the mix of Peter's personal life with his vigilante life. BND sees Peter with new friends, new jobs, new love interests, etc -- it is very much a brand new day! But it isn't a better day compared to the stories that came before it. I do like some post-BND stories, especially American Son (ASM #595-599) and Grim Hunt (ASM #634-637), but compared to pre-BND where I think the majority of canon is good, it's a very lacking body of work that is hurt by the way it divorced itself from the PeterMJ marriage as Spider-Man's central relationship.

"But Traincat, I thought you said you liked One More Day?" Yeaaaaah. I do. This is why I keep saying I like One More Day on its own merits, and not on the merits of the stories it opened the doors for. I like a good romantic tragedy in fiction, and the way Peter and Mary Jane's final scene in One More Day plays out is beautiful. I like the idea of Peter caught in this impossible situation, being asked to choose between two women he loves more than his own life. A really common criticism I see leveled against One More Day is that Peter should have chosen his relationship with Mary Jane over May's life, which is -- okay, I think it's weird that people keep insisting on this, not in the least because by asking Peter to sacrifice his aunt's life they're essentially demanding he commit a callous, out of character act in order to further his own interests. It's also weird because the thing is, Peter already chose Mary Jane over May -- that's what gets them into this situation. It's literally in the scene where May is shot:

(ASM #538) When the gun goes off, Peter's spider-sense kicks in, and he covers Mary Jane, leaving May in the path of the bullet. He does choose Mary Jane over May, regardless of whether he realized what he was doing. And that's why he can't make that choice a second time. His actions in One More Day do make sense for him as a character, whether or not any individual reader likes them, and Mary Jane's actions make sense, too -- after all, she's the one who ultimately tells Mephisto that they agree to the deal when Peter can't bring himself to voice it.

A lot of people also like to nitpick One More Day by going, well, why could (x) or (y) with life saving powers save Aunt May which is like -- yeah, I guess, but if we're going to ask that about this specific comic book near death setup, you kind of have to do it with every single one, and I'm not going to stake every single moment of comic book drama on whether or not that gold kid from the X-Men was busy at the time. Comics are soap operas in flimsy paper form: serialized longform storytelling that relies heavily on melodrama. Sometimes you have to go with things. Sometimes you sell your marriage to the devil. Stuff happens. That in and of itself doesn't make One More Day a bad story -- and while some people blame the Spider-Marriage's dissolution entirely on One More Day, I think that's a little shortsighted when you look at the history of Spider-Man since the turn of the century. It's clear -- and Marvel themselves have been perhaps a little too open about this -- that Marvel in the past few decades has had trouble with the direction they want to take Spider-Man. They WANTED Spider-Man to appeal to a distinctly youthful audience that they didn't think they were actually reaching -- understandable, considering that Marvel nearly went bankrupt around 2000 and was saved by Ultimate Spider-Man, an out of main continuity series which retold Spider-Man from the beginning and focused heavily on Peter as a teen -- but the problem was Spider-Man in the main continuity was at that point in canon a happily married man who was pushing the dreaded 30 whether or not they wanted to admit that. This is also why Marvel has continually pivoted away from Spider-Man having kids, because they feared that making him a dad would age him too much and make him unrelatable to their coveted audience of Teens. (This is also why almost every new Spider-Man property, especially the live action movies, perpetually stick him back into high school, despite that occupying a very small slice of 616 canon.) So around the year 2000, they started trying things in relation to the Spider-Marriage, which was viewed as a major problem -- after all, what's more adult than being married and liking your wife. First, they had Mary Jane presumed dead. Then, they had Mary Jane and Peter separate. Then, when Mary Jane and Peter had only recently gotten back together, One More Day struck. If One More Day specifically hadn't gone the way it had, it's pretty clear that the Spider-Marriage was going to go one way or another -- it's a little bit of a shame it happened when it did, because OMD is the end of J Michael Straczynski's run, and JMS wrote a really beautiful Peter and MJ relationship. But Marvel as a company and especially editor in chief at the time Joe Quesada viewed Peter and Mary Jane's relationship as a major problem in how they wanted to portray Spider-Man and thought that striking the relationship from the books would allow them more freedom in their portrayal of him as younger and more relatable to their Desired Audience of people who I guess really wanted to see Peter sleep with characters who weren't Mary Jane.

(ASM #546. Younger! Fresher! Less attached! Kissing random women in the club!)

The problem with One More Day has always been in the follow through -- from the content of Brand New Day to the pacing of events to the fact that Marvel withheld key information for such a long time that it allowed misinformation to thrive. After all, what does it MEAN to trade Peter and Mary Jane's marriage to the devil? It altered the events of canon in Peter and the majority of other characters' memories so that the marriage didn't exist, but it left people wondering -- did the relationship as they remembered it existed? How much of Spider-Man canon was altered? And the answers didn't come for over 100 issues of Amazing Spider-Man. One Moment In Time or OMIT (Amazing Spider-Man #638-641), which revealed that while Peter and Mary Jane never got married in the altered canon they did continue their long committed relationship up until just after Civil War, was published in 2010, so essentially readers were hung out to dry without answers for three years. That's a long time to string people along, but not as long as it took Marvel to confirm that the popular fan theory that Mary Jane retained her memories of the original timeline as part of her own deal with Mephisto was also true, which happened this year. I would say, at least from my perspective, a lot of the frustration doesn't come from the individual One More Day storyline so much as how Marvel has continually dragged out the aftermath, using the promise of a Spider-Marriage return to keep fans on the hook. Which is why One More Day continually comes up in discussion of current Spider-Man, because Spencer's run has relied very heavily on imagery from that period with a serious question of whether or not there actually was going to be payoff, something which is still up in the air.

This has been Spider-Man History With Traincat, brought to you by anonymice like you.