#tab 001.

[bazhowletts]

closed for: @tabithaxking

"All I said is I would get her a crochet flower." Baz explains as he strolls alongside his cousin, gesturing to his niece-of-sorts who was happily playing with the yellow crochet flower he had acquired, just as he said.

"Never said anything about the how."

Good thing too, because Theo was an unwitting accomplice of sorts, which was the most fun part of being related to someone who had a kid. He had a built in partner-in-crime that was too cute for anyone to say anything.

"You having the time of your life yet?"

[luckylewis]

"I saw a real monkey!" Theo exclaimed, with as much excitement as she had when the pair of them had reached the monkey portion of the zoo. Ever since Lucky had shown her a photo of him in Spain with a squirrel monkey resting on his shoulder for the picture, seeing one for herself had been a recurring request from her.

The sighting couldn't have been a surprise to Tabitha, Lucky had lost count of how many photos he had taken throughout the day to send to her, including eight different selfies of the pair where he had only managed to capture a monkey in the background once.

"I see a real monkey too," Lucky teases, retrieving the plushie that had been tucked into their daughters backpack while she directed a hey his way at assuming he meant her. The very orange orangutan was was tugged from his possession so it could get the second hug of the evening, causing Lucky to smile at Tab.

"Hey, she's had dinner so, all good on that front." He knows it's not much, but he hopes it at least alleviates her task list for the evening. "Oh, and guess what?"

@tabithaxking

who: @luckylewis where: tabitha's apartment, ocean crest

Her whole life was laundry. Lugging both her and Theo's clothes up and down four flights of stairs down the basement had taken three seperate trips. It was a wonder that either of them had anything to wear. Thankfully, it was Lucky's night last night which meant that Tabitha got a sleep in and full morning to tidy the apartment and sort through their piles of clothes. Arms weary and running on autopilot while her mind went through the various events for the upcoming week, she was just onto folding the last basket when the front door open. The sound of feet slapping on the old tiles alerting her to Theo's arrival.

"Hey monkey," she bent down to hug her daughter who bounded over in a flurry. "Did you have a good time?" Tabitha had no doubt that she did. All she ever heard about was Lucky since he came home. He could do no wrong as far as Theo was concerned. Looking up at him as the man in question entered the room, their daughter still in her arms, she watched him put down Theo's backpack. "Hey you."

[tabitha-martin]

Tabitha knew better than anyone that bad things come in threes.

She learned that lesson in the span of a year when she was only eight years old. Her mom died. Her father started drinking. CPS came and she ended up in foster care. There the bad things were strikes and it only took three to be out. She spent the next decade bouncing around from home to home, striking out, until she inevitably aged out of the system. It wasn’t all bad, though.There were pockets of good. Learning to play guitar from her cooler, older foster brother. Night’s in the back of her friend’s pickups looking up at the stars and talking about all the things they’d do when they left their small town lives. Competing and winning pageants that banked her money for her future. Learning to ride horses from a foster sister. Getting so good she managed a scholarship to Cambridge where she really did leave her small town life behind. Starting university was a regression to the means, where good and bad things seemed to ebb and flow cyclically. Life was fluid and fun. Tabitha found her own family, ones she chose and who had chosen her back and promised to keep her. She no longer felt the pressing weight of feeling like the other shoe was going to drop. That all the bad things were ready to avalanche down upon her happiness. Until him. Loving him had been years of bad trios weighing her down. Pressing so hard that by the time she graduated her heart had been shattered into a million, irreparable pieces. It’s been nearly four years since he handed her that last letter, never to be seen again. Until now. Tabitha was on her way to a meeting in the heart of the city she had come to call home. London. Hopping off the tube and walking to her building on autopilot when she felt a familiar prickle at the back of her neck. Eyes on her that burned through to her soul and picked apart every ugly piece of her, never failing to remind her how truly trivial and worthless her life was. How he made her life worth something. How getting and keeping his attention was the only way to quantify her value.

And there he was. Sitting opposite his wife just outside a cafe only three blocks from her office but he wasn’t looking at her. No, he stared at Tabitha just over his wife’s shoulder. She caught his gaze for the briefest of seconds before her heart started to race. She was getting dizzy. Her stomach was in her throat. She turned away as fast as possible without breaking her neck and nearly ran across the street and the rest of the way to work.

What were they doing here? Did they live in London now? Why were they so close to her office? Did he know where she worked? Was this all on purpose or just a crazy coincidence? Tabitha’s mind reeled the entire ride up the lift to her floor, unable to even remember what her presentation was about to be about. All she could think as the lift doors chimed open that if this was the first bad thing that was going to happen to her, the next two were going to be really, really fucking bad.

[arachnidiots-a]

tag drop (redo: general & peter)

[vampiricgf]

did the other tabs disappear for anyone else?

[aegeanxcalla]

With the recent influx of Iskaran's into Lysara's borders, her heart felt heavy with compassion and concern. She ensures that when the bubbles pop they explode into a spectrum of color, warranting applause from the group of Novice witches watching. "Whimsy, I like that. That's one of the best things that magic can do, offer a little joy and lightheartedness to people, especially the young." To her small lecture group, she waves them off following the demonstration, finding it curious whenever a nonwitch visits the library. "But magic has a myriad of uses too. Did you visit today to find something specific? No one knows these books better than I, so now that I'm done teaching for the day I can put my efforts into helping you."

She feels the nudge inside her head, an asking to be let in and the only thing that remained inside her mind were horrors from the Darkspawn and when the Ironwood forest burned, if it was up to her, she would have kept her secrets for longer but there was a blighted Dragon and if she was bound to die anyways unless she fought back with claw and fang, then what a secret about the magic in her veins against the face of greater evil? She's in a tower of witches so she imagines there are some form of sanctuary here, her claws englongated where once there were human nails and she slashes the bubble, blowing the water away as if she was a badass. "It's okay, I've had worse inside my head. Cool bubbles, could provide a child with a lot of whimsy with that power."

[raeniskaies]

you need to fix your attention span ♡

- it is rumoured that human beings have an attention span shorter than a gold fish' . can you believe that such intelligent , amazing creatures as us can't even concentrate for more than 7 seconds ?

000 , just a short notice

- i apologise for taking so long to post ! life has been so busy and im sorry I left you guys ! also ty for 200 + followers ! i love you guys !

001 , don't have multiple tabs open

- stop having multiple tabs open ! this can cause frequent distractions and decreases your attention span !

002 , minimize multitasking

- just as previously stated , multitasking can help you lose focus on what you're trying to focus on !

003 , create no phone zones

- you don't need to take your phone everywhere with you ( at home ) , create no phone zones to reduce screen time and additionally regain more of an attention span ! no phone zones can be in your washrooms , kitchens & gardens , in those places you can focus on more important things other than your phone!

004 , say I'll do it after [x]

- if you had planned on doing something , do it. just because Jess or Ella asked you to call + play dress to impress + watch tik toks with them , doesn't mean you abandon your work. tell them you'll do it after [x] ( your work ) and just watch your attention span increase !

005 , automate school hours on school

- this chapter is just about using school for work and not for your phone !

006 , be okay with boredom and be curious

- if you're on a road trip or if you're waiting at a doctor's appointment , remember that your phone isn't your last resort ! for entertainment , try and look outside , imagine who has visited the area hundreds of years ago and how much it had changed or if you see any people , imagine their story ! be curious & imaginative !

007  , consume longer content

- watch long form videos til the end ; don't watch it on x2 speed ; don't read comments as you watch it ; don't skip past it ; watch it to its proper ending ! once you get used to focusing on long form content , your attention span will improve !

008 , consume to absorb , not skim

- when watching long - form content , don't skim past important details , watch it to absorb its content + not to get an uninformative gist !

[morning]

THEME 001 - LITTLE OBLIVIONS

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[flwoie]

LOVE IN DISGUISE — PARK SUNGHOON

SUMMARY Secrets are meant to be kept. Sunghoon never keeps secrets though, well except one—his friends being members of a super secret spy team. He finds out on the night he gets kidnapped and is rescued by them. That night, his friend offers him to be a part of the team to stop an organization, SPY-DER LILLIES, from destroying their campus and agency, I.R.I.S (International Resource for Intellectual Spies). And like the goofy goober he is, he joins for a jetpack and to impress his longtime friend and crush, the black cat agent, in order to win her heart before the spiders come crawling up his back.

TUNE IN TO WATCH THE SERIES OF SUNGHOON LEARNING HOW TO BE THE WORLD’S GREATEST SPY WITH HIS FRIENDS AND HIS JETPACK!

STARRING spy! sunghoon x spy! f! reader (WITH txt’s beomgyu, loossemble’s yeojin, lsfm’s kazuha, nwjns’ minji, kiof’s belle, xdh’s junhan)

GENRE smau + written, romcom, episodic, friends to lovers, college au, spy au, characters inspired by my friend group, heavily inspired by that one spy kickin’ it episode (s3, ep 21)

CONTAINS 15+, profanity, light violence, brainrot😭, spy terminology isn’t fully accurate, also 50% of the chapters in here are not even spy related, incorrect timestamps (pls ignore) (chapters will specify warnings)

STATUS airing (whenever i feel like it @ 5PM CST) | july 9, 2024 - ���

SOUNDTRACK

TAGLIST IS OPEN ✧ SEND AN ASK OR COMMENT UNDER MAIN MASTERLIST

🗯️ GUYS IK IVE BEEN DIPPING SMAUS BUT TRUST ME, I WONT DIP THIS ONE….

📻 : “I.R.I.S. TEAM 5 REPORTING, OVER…!”

MISSION #001 — PILOT IN DISGUISE

↳ sunghoon joins his friends’ spy team

one : jetpack joyride [0.9k]

two : the haters be hating [0.3k + smau]

three : my tall american friend

four : cuz im a sigma…👻

five : theres many girls in the fish

six : chicken butt

seven : when there's a screen, ao3 must be seen

eight : im gonna touch u lil bro

MISSION #002 — PARTY IN DISGUISE

↳ the boys throws a boys-only party in the lair while you’re out of town

nine : back early [0.2k]

ten : w rizz amirite

eleven : fake gucci pants..

twelve : H H HELL NAH🤦‍♀️ [0.5k]

thirteen : like the roblox game?

fourteen : the hell is spoogle images [0.7k + smau]

MISSION #003 — ENEMY IN DISGUISE

↳ the team keeps tabs on an I.R.I.S spy-in-training, who’s possibly a part of the SPY-DER LILLIES

fifteen : and ur dumb

sixteen : hide ur ladies🤫🥱

seventeen : luh luh loserrr

eighteen : what an ugly pepperoni […]

ninteen : PAUSE��

twenty : btw calc is short for calculator […]

twenty one : diss me diss me now u gotta kiss me

MISSION #004 — GAMES IN DISGUISE

↳ when the team is sent on a mission to defeat a tech team of SPY-DER LILLIES, they get transported to the internet world

... to be added

MISSION #005 — WITNESS IN DISGUISE

↳ the team joins a witness protection program after witnessing a fight between two canadian spy organizations

… to be added

MISSION #006 — CRUSHES IN DISGUISE

↳ in order for sunghoon to pass his final spy assessment, he needs to get over his crush

... to be added

MISSION #007 — CAMP IN DISGUISE

↳ the team is recruited to be camp counsellors for I.R.I.S spies-in-training

... to be added

enhypen masterlist

[rengineer]

Engineer turned around to answer him. " Well, sorting's just part of the job, pardner. " he explained, leaning back against his workbench. " Usually I’m tinkerin' on blueprints or calibratin' somethin' — engineer stuff, y'know. " He rummaged through a drawer, fishing out a cigar and a lighter. But as he held them out, he paused, catching sight of the cuts crisscrossing Soldier’s hands and arms.

" Hold up a sec, Soldier. " Engineer’s tone softened, edged with concern. Stepping closer, he took Soldier's hand gently, turning it to inspect the cuts. " You oughta be more careful! Don’t want you catchin' somethin’ nasty — like tetanus. " He moves his hand up soldier's arm — noticed the scratches and cuts crisscrossing his skin, some raw and others scabbed over but clearly fresh. " Let me get the bandages. "

[ @rengineer ] “ Y'know, soldier... I was wonderin', what made ya wanna go 'n... eat a Texan's ribs? ” He chuckled nervously on the ride back to work, thinking back to that domination taunt the patriot had thrown at the other Engineer today. (Admittedly, he’d glanced at his own ribs for a second before getting back to work.) “ Just a lil' question, purely outta curiosity. ”

Until I finish my workout. Speaking of working out, you should too! That gut of yours needs to be gone if you want to be a shield to your teammates!

[revasserium]

Hello, Rain! Congrats on the 2k followers! 🎉💖 Hope your day is going well!! For the event, may I request Marius and butterfly lovers? ☺️

prompt list reqs are: temporarily closed

14. butterfly lovers

marius von hagen; 5,103 words; fluff, no "y/n", slightly canon-divergent, highschool sweethearts to lovers, marius being the simp he is, mentions of dif socioeconomic backgrounds, verbal bullying from other students

summary: marius does not have many friends at starhigh; you see fit to change that fact.

a/n: this is loosely based on both his "precious mornings" ssr and also his "world of glitz" ssr so vague spoilers for both and you'll understand this more if you kinda sorta know those but otherwise it's just a cute lil fic to feed my marius obsession (ㅅ´ ˘ `)

001. want and need

“I don’t want anything from you.”

Those are the first ever words you say to Marius von Hagen.

It is, by all accounts, a strange kind of meet-cute (if you can even call it that, years later, with his arms curled around your middle, his chin hooked over your shoulder — the pair of you reminiscing on your school days, marveling on the passage of time, how quick things flash by. But back then, time had seemed an infinite thing, ticking solidly through from morning till night, Monday to Friday and onwards), but even then, Marius had an alarming amount of charm and self-awareness, a shockingly prurient view on the world.

Rich and spoiled as he may be, no one could say that he wasn’t brilliant.

“Sorry?” he says, blinking over the stack of notes he’d been going over in the library as you slump down in the seat opposite, tossing your bag onto the table and propping your cheek on your hand.

You shrug, “Just wanted you to know that… I don’t want anything from you. So, yeah,” you repeat, pulling out your own set of notebooks. They’re a bit battered but full of multi-colored tabs that bulge out the sides and top, your textbooks, clearly secondhand. Marius blinks for a second but doesn’t comment, leaning back slightly to look you over.

“Then, senpai…” an easy, self-serving smirk twists the corner of his lips, “why’re you here?”

You pause, fingers hovering over a pink gel pen, your shoulders tensing.

“All the other tables were full.”

It’s a bold-faced lie, but Marius makes a show of turning to look at the tables around you both — sure, they’ve all got one or two people but none are full. You could’ve chosen to sit at any of the other tables, with any of the other students. And yet.

“And,” you add, rather sniffily, “how’d you know I’m not in your year?”

Marius considers his answer — because Payton had presented him with a roster of everyone in his class (with headshots) the week before his first day and asked in that smooth gentle way of his for Marius to “make sure he’s done his homework”, because since then, almost every single person in his grade has tried to come up and introduce themselves, toppling over each other to try and make an impression, to stake their claim on his friendship and by proxy, Pax Group.

Because he wouldn’t have forgotten a face like your’s.

“Cause…. I know all the pretty girls in my year already.” He winks.

Easier to play up the foppish, rich fuckboy facade than admit any of those other things which are infinitely more true, but no less harrowing for a growing teenage boy to try and admit.

Predictably, you roll your eyes and continue on your journey of emptying the entire contents of your schoolbag onto the remaining space of the table.

“Right.” Your tone is disbelieving and Marius feels a thread of intrigue twang in his chest against the initial shock of your blunt appearance. You don’t believe him, and yet you’re still here. You claim that you don’t want anything from him, and yet.

“So? Are you gonna introduce yourself? Seems kinda rude to sit down at someone else’s table and not even tell them your name.” Marius taps the heel of a pen to his cheek, the intrigue slowly festering into curiosity. It itches inside his chest and he finds himself leaning in as you slate him a long, piercing look.

“Fine.” You say, and then you tell him your name — first and last, with no title, no frills, no mention of a family dynasty or some kind of foreign conglomerate empire. In fact, Marius realizes as he runs through his quick mental list of all the who’s who of society, he has no clue who you are or who you might be related to. It’s a difficult thing to achieve at Starhigh. And then he remembers —

“I’m on scholarship,” you say, dropping your eyes back to your now open notebook, twirling your pen once before setting in to scribbling along some sort of complicated looking diagram. Your voice is flat, almost curt, cut short by the implication of those three words.

Scholarship.

Marius knows that the prestigious academy accepts a handful of scholarship students a year, mostly as marketing fodder to pander to the masses — look at us, opening our gold-gilded doors, our marble-foyered halls, peeling back our velvet curtains to accept commoners who are driven enough, who are brilliant enough to shine amongst the ready-born stars.

“Well, guess someone’s gotta keep the test scores up,” Marius says, now entirely taken with the task of watching you take notes. You pause again, glancing up. There’s a spark behind your eyes that makes his heart stutter.

“Ah… so you do know about us.”

Us. You say the word so casually but it still makes Marius flinch inwardly. An “us” precludes a “them” — one group, and the other. Somehow, Marius doesn’t like the thought of you and him being othered from each other so obviously by your respective social circles, even though he knows it’s unavoidable.

“Sure I do — I mean, none of us study hard enough to make the numbers we post every year,” he says, with a stab at casual nonchalance, putting an extra emphasis on his use of “us” just to be a tad more self-deprecating. That should be the tactic here — people like to feel superior, so debasing himself a little from time to time is necessary.

So he tells himself.

You, however, don’t seem to be buying it.

“I’ve seen you in here every afternoon for the past two months.”

Marius leans back, stretching his arms over his head and yawning hugely.

“Nowhere else to be, so…” but even he hears the strained edge to his voice, the flatness that drops at the end of his would-be cheery tone. You hike an imperious eyebrow and Marius feels heat cresting up the back of his neck.

“Nowhere else?” you echo the words back at him, but in your voice, they sound softer, more wistful.

He slumps back forward, making an exaggerated face.

“Yeah, my brother’s busy with the company and my dad’s… off somewhere in Europe doing whatever he does in Europe,” he waves a would-be careless hand and sighs dramatically, “what’s a guy to do with all that time but —” he motions around the gorgeous library reading room with it’s floor to ceiling windows and endless stacks of priceless reference books and first editions.

“But to study,” you finish for him, amusement dangling off the end of your words like a comma, hinged there, waiting for the rest of the sentence, the remainder of the story.

Marius chews on the inside of his cheek and doubles down with a light laugh and another good-natured wink. Meanwhile, he can’t help the way his mind is racing. Why would a scholarship student randomly come up to him in the library, loudly declare that she “doesn’t want anything from him” and then proceed to invade his personal space?

It reminds him, outlandishly, of the story of a man who’d struck gold, and then, terrified that someone would come steal it from him, proceeded to bury it all back with the sign “NO GOLD BURIED HERE” tacked up over the mound of freshly dug earth. The denial so egregious that it rebounds back into confirmation instead.

Were you really trying to get closer to him by telling him to his face that you had no such intentions?

His chases down the line of thought, the speculations spiraling wilder and wilder until your voice snaps him sharply back into focus.

“Oi! Are you okay?”

Marius blinks, jerking back as you click your fingers in front of his face.

“Huh? Oh yeah sorry —”

You cock your head, that strange, knowing spark still flickering behind your eyes.

“Where’d you go off to, hm?”

Marius opens his mouth before shutting it again, shaking his head.

“Just… never mind.”

“You do that a lot, don’t you?” you ask, cocking your head to one side, birdlike.

“Do what?”

“Keep things to yourself.”

And this time, Marius feels himself being caught off-guard — there’s a skip to his already arhythmic heartbeat, a skid in his breath, a click-shuffle-snap in his mind’s eye as he tries to refocus his attention on what you’d just said. And when he does, heat and heat and heat claws its way up his skin, bleeding into his cheeks before he can force it back down.

“I - I don’t know what you mean.” There — that quaver in his voice. He curses himself for it. The vulnerability of it all.

“I’ve seen it, y’know —” you say, sighing as you drop your eyes back onto your notes, now highlighting something in a bright, blinding chartreuse, “the way people flock to you. But I mean, everyone titters over everyone else here, don’t they?”

Marius stares, nearly open-mouthed at the casual, almost bland way you’re laying it all out, as if he weren’t the storm-center around which all of this social grandstanding spins.

“What do they ask you about first? Oh, lemme guess — is it the fact that you’re confirmed to be Pax’s next CEO or whether you like girls with short hair? I guess the short-hair thing is a bit less on the nose, right?”

You flip a page in your notebook and methodically tab it with a pink sticky note.

“What do you want?” the words are out of his mouth before he can stop himself, and Marius realizes too late that he’s staring, wide-eyed and desperate, his heart now pounding inside him like some angry, caged thing, thudding so hard against the back of his throat that he actually feels like it might leap right out of his mouth.

Placidly, you raise your eyes back to look at him, meeting his wild, bewildered gaze with the steady, solid one of your own.

“Like I said… I don’t want anything from you.” Your voice is calm, your words sure.

Disbelief roils inside him like sickness and he swallows hard as he realizes his hands had clenched into white-knuckled fists on the table between you.

“Then why —” his voice isn’t light anymore, instead it's jagged around the edges, raw and torn and bleeding.

He feels naked, exposed, stripped in a way that he hadn’t felt since the first time his father had taken him to visit the family shrine.

You purse your lips and sigh, and this time, you look just as tired as he feels as you slowly start to gather up your things.

“Because… you just looked a bit lonely and I thought you might like some company.”

You tuck your last gel-pen back into your bag before hoisting it onto your shoulder, turning and walking away.

002. oh bully you

“Senpai… you know it was super mean of you to just leave me like that yesterday.”

You jump nearly a foot in the air as Marius drops into the empty desk directly in front of you, straddling the chair back with his legs on either side, crossing his arms over top of your opened textbook and peering up at you from beneath his damnably long lashes.

He bats them at you as you blink down at him, trying to reconcile the sight of him with the space of your classroom — which is not his classroom, because — right, of course, you’re not in the same grade. So, why —

“Oh~ reading even during lunch period? You’re so studious — hey d’you think you can help me with the history homework? I suck at names and dates.”

You stare at him for two whole seconds longer before narrowing your eyes.

“What’re you doing here? This isn’t your classroom.”

Marius pouts, feigning hurt, “But senpai… it’s lunchtime! Didn’t you say you wanted to keep me company yesterday?”

“Yester — “ you break off, understanding finally settling over your confused expression as you soften in your chair. casting him a reproachful look.

“Well you didn’t seem like you wanted the company so I thought —”

“Wha — I never said that! You just caught me off guard! I was just asking what you wanted to do for the rest of the afternoon, but you stormed off. Ah… I thought you were angry with me — you’re not angry with me, are you senpai?”

You let out an exasperated sigh at his antics, but a smile still breaks across your lips.

“Did I say I was angry?”

Marius’s grin widens by degrees.

All around you, people are beginning to stare. What is Marius von Hagen, society’s most elite golden child doing with a no-name scholarship student like you? And acting all chummy when no one had ever seen you two together before? Whispers gather like a rising tide but Marius doesn’t seem to notice as he casually reaches over your textbooks to peer into your bento.

“Whoa! That looks so delicious! Did you make it all yourself? Can I have some? I’ve always wanted to try home-cooked food from someone my age!”

You smack his hand lightly and click your tongue.

“Manners! And if you wait patiently, I’ll let you have half.”

Marius smiles cheekily, looking all too pleased with himself as the whispers and murmurs gather in strength and volume. And by the end of the day, there’s not a soul in school who doesn’t know about the strange new friendship between you and Marius von Hagen.

003. rumors

“Did you hear?”

“Yeah — and with Marius —“

“Everyone says he’s nice but hard to get close to, so how the hell —“

“Maybe it’s some kind of… arrangement?”

“But why would a von Hagen need any kind of arrangement?”

“Dunno, but maybe it’s a charity project?”

“What? Adopt-a-pleb? Ha!”

“I’ve seen them around campus — he’s always following her around —“

“Ugh, so weird! Unless they’re dating? But god, he’s so out of her league it’s not even funny.”

“Hey do you know anyone who knows her?”

“Ew, no! Who would any of us know who knows her? She’s scholarship!”

“Maybe that’s why he’s so into her? Like… y’know those kids who grow up in the desert and have never seen snow?”

“What, like he’s never seen a poor person before?”

“Up close? Have you?”

“Ugh, it’s just so… weird. I bet he’ll lose interest in her by the end of the month. There’s no way they’re actually friends.”

“Yeah, that or… they’re…”

“Oh… that.”

“You don’t think…”

“Well… if she’s really that good… I guess a guy could overlook anything, right?”

004. in place

He has always been quiet when he paints, but there’s something in the thick, churning silence today that makes you pause, looking up from the book of sewing patterns in your lap. The sun’s long since set, and there’s only the two you left in the arts classroom.

Marius frowns as he leans back, a streak of dark blue paint smearing his cheek.

You glance at the canvas, pressing your lips.

“Okay. What’s wrong?”

“Hm?” he sounds distracted as he picks another brush and leans in to carve a thick slab of black through the heart of the already dark and chaotic painting.

“You’re stewing. What’s wrong?”

“How do you know I’m stewing? I’m not stewing,” Marius huffs, tossing the paintbrushes into a can, his lips pursed into a pout as he turns towards you.

You snap your book shut and sigh, “Because. I just do. And you just admitted it.”

“No, I didn’t!”

“Did too — now spill it.”

“I —” Marius lets out another loud sigh before knitting his arms across his chest, turning back toward the canvas and picking up his brushes. He squints at the painting as if it’s done him some grievous personal harm, and then jams his brush into the middle, his strokes going wide and harsh.

“Have you heard the rumors?”

You scoff, “What, about us?”

“Yeah…” his voice drops, and you almost laugh at how childish he sounds before you realize that you’re both still children. You wonder if things will change when you grow up — the thought of it seems so far away. Like this, in the fluorescent brightness of the empty art classroom, the night outside stretches like an uncertain future, unfurling into impenetrable darkness.

“Sure I have,” you say, watching him as he pulls back to examine the dark blob on the canvas.

“You’re not mad?” He doesn’t look at you and you don’t make to look away.

“Why would I be mad?” You open your book again to mark your page before tucking it away in your bag. Marius pauses as you start to pack.

“Because it’s horrible! The things they’re saying — I mean, I’m used to it because I’ve grown up around people like this but you’re —” he cuts himself off as you whip around, eyebrows raised.

“I’m what? Different?”

Marius gapes, scrambling for words that do not come.

You pack up the rest of your things in a terse silence, then you push out of your chair with a loud scrape.

“But y’know, the people who talk behind your back? They’re right where they should be.”

Marius frowns.

Your lips pull into a wide smirk as you shoulder your bag, “Behind you.”

You’re barely out the door before Marius lets out an incredulous laugh and topples back into his chair. He lets a second pass and then he’s launching out of the chair, grabbing his own bag and slinging it over his back.

“Senpai! Wait for me! Hey, you wanna go to that really cute restaurant that just opened last week? It’s got a Michelin Star but I’m sure I can get us seats!”

005. be-friend

“Marius! You’re so funny!”

“Wow, Marius — that’s incredible! You’re so smart!”

Marius laughs, carding a hand through his hair, his expression bright and open and unassuming, but the group of people around him all inch in closer, as sunflowers might strain towards the sun.

“Hey.”

You lean against the doorframe with an amused grin.

Marius looks up, his eyes visibly brightening as he sees you.

“Senpai! I was waiting for you!”

“Bullshit. We’re gonna be late for the show.” You tap at your wrist where a watch might be as Marius bounds out of his chair, shaking off his hoard of simpering admirers.

“W-wait! Marius! We’re all gonna head to the Ace Club later — you know, the super exclusive one? Don’t you wanna come with us?” one of the girls asks hopefully.

Marius turns, smiling as if he doesn’t hear the strained desperation in her voice, the flash of annoyance in her eyes as she looks you over.

“Sorry! Maybe next time — I’ve got a theater date I can’t miss. Bye!”

“You know if you keep calling them dates, people are going to get the wrong idea, right?” you ask breezily, sounding less concerned and more amused.

“So? Let them get the wrong idea.”

You cast him a mischievous grin, “Ah… the prince in love with the pauper. Tale as old as time.”

At this, Marius pouts, “Senpai… so mean to me… and you were the one who wanted to be my friend first.”

You wave him off with a flap of your hands, “Sure, but you’re the one who stuck around.”

“Hmph, maybe after tonight’s show, we’ll go our separate ways then,” Marius makes a show of harumphing and stomping off in front of you as you laugh and jog to catch up, swatting him in the side with your bag.

“So you’re just hanging out with me for the theater perks?”

“Yep! Well, I knew you’d find me out eventually,” Marius smiles, teasing as the pair of you make your way off campus and turn towards the community theater.

After a while, Marius bumps you with his elbow, “You really are super good at costume design… are you sure you don’t wanna —”

“I don’t want a handout, Marius.” Your voice has gone cold and clipped, and Marius bites his lip, shoulders shrugging up as you continue to walk.

“I wasn’t offering one. It’s just… there’s a Pax program for young aspiring artists to study abroad in Europe and…”

“And you’re offering to get me in? That’s literally the definition of a handout.”

“No! I’m just telling you about it. I swear I won’t say a word about your application — if you even apply, that is…” he sounds eager in a way that you haven’t heard in a long time. Not since he’d entered the school fine arts contest under a pseudonym.

You give him a sidelong look before sighing, “I’ll… think about it.”

“Okay! That’s —” he reigns himself in as he skips out in front of you, looking not unlike an over-excited puppy, “that’s… good! Wah — I’m so excited for tonight’s play! Hamlet, right?”

You laugh as you hurry to catch up to him, “Yeah. But it’s not like you haven’t seen it before — didn’t you say that you dad took you to see it in London or something?”

“Yeah, but that’s different.”

“How?”

Marius rolls his eyes, smiling cheekily down at you, but when you catch his eyes you see them go soft, the light in them somehow molten as he looks and looks and looks at you.

“Obviously, because Ophelia’s dress wouldn’t have been made by you!”

006. stay and leave

“I got in!”

Marius blinks at the flat beige of his bedroom ceiling as your voice rings out from across the phone line. The bed beneath him is perfectly made, the silken sheets freshly pressed from this morning.

“A-ah! Congrats, senpai!” he tries to sound like his usual cheery self but he’s not sure how successful it is.

A beat.

“Marius?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

Another beat. Marius shifts, curling onto his side, cradling the phone to his ear as he stares at the halo of light cast by his artisan bedside lamp.

“For… telling me about the program. And… for not pulling any strings on the back end.”

Marius grins, flipping onto his back again, “How’dyou know I didn’t?”

Your laugh comes through the line, soft and sweet.

“Because. I know you.”

Something inside Marius squeezes; he fists his fingers into the soft silk of his nightshirt. Warmth spreads from the base of his spine up through the rest of his body till he’s tingling from his toes to his nose. He wrinkles it, feeling abashed as he scratches at his cheek, even though he knows you can’t see the gesture.

“R-right — so! When do you leave?”

“End of the summer — so…”

“So?”

You sound hesitant in a way that he’s not used to.

“I’ll miss you.”

He almost misses the words, they’re so soft, so quiet that he almost thinks he might’ve imagined them. But he knows your voice almost better than he knows his own, knows the color and shape, the weight and temperature. Knows how it gets pitched when you’re excited, and flat when you get mad. Knows the giddiness that fills it like sweet champagne bubbles when you know something and want to share. Knows the dull coolness of it when you’re done or tired or annoyed.

“Senpai…” Marius presses his cheek ever closer to the face of the phone, “if you keep saying that, I might ask them to rescind your acceptance letter just so you can’t go.”

He smiles, bracing for the sharp bite of your reprimand, but it doesn’t come. Instead, he hears you sigh.

“Just promise you’ll come visit, okay?”

“Sure! I’ll come every weekend if you want! My dad’s old jet’s been sitting in the hanger anyway.”

“Mm, maybe not every weekend.”

“Aw… senpai, I thought you’d want to see me!”

“I do! Just… you know what I mean.”

Marius chuckles, throwing his free arm over his eyes, reveling in the temporary darkness. A strange, hot tightness gathers at the back of his throat as he sighs. He feels the tickle of words on his tongue — and what is it about the nighttime that makes it so much easier to say the things he might never have the courage to in daylight?

“Senpai… if I asked you to stay… what would you say?”

“Hm?”

“If I — I mean… if I told you, right now, that… that I didn’t want you to go…”

You hum as if contemplating his question. Marius squeezes his eyes shut.

“I’d tell you you were being a spoiled brat and very selfish,” you say, but there’s a lightness to your tone that makes Marius smile.

“Well… I’ll never escape allegations of either of those things,” Marius replies.

“And then, I’d tell you that you’re being stupid because — why ask me to stay, when you can just come with me?”

Marius sits up, “Ha?”

“I’ve seen your art, Marius. You’re brilliant. You’d be the first to get in, even without being the next CEO of Pax.”

Marius stares at his own hand, now lying limply in his lap. He’d never considered entering the program himself — it’d be a huge conflict of interest. But… if he didn’t apply as himself then…

“Aren’t you being a little selfish too, senpai? Asking a guy to move across the entire world with you.”

“I never said I wasn’t.”

Marius drags his hand down his face, feeling his heart thudding right beneath this throat, a strong, startling hoofbeat that thrums through him. It beats behind his ears, rushes blood to his fingertips. He squeezes at the bridge of his nose, a recklessness filling him like helium to a balloon and suddenly, he’s weightless as he lets himself fall back onto this too-big mattress.

Later, long after he’s hung up the phone, your voice still echoing in the recesses of his half-asleep mind. He smiles to himself, pressing a palm to his chest to feel the rhythmic, certain beating of his own heart.

That, he thinks, is the girl I’m going to marry someday.

007. want and need (redux)

Years later, long after he kisses you for the first time at the airport in Florence, when you’d come to meet him for his first year in the young artists program, Marius flies you back under the guise of an anniversary trip.

You have a feeling you know what he’s going to do, and he knows you well enough to know that you do too.

Still, when he gets down on one knee, your eyes are gleaming with unshed tears.

“Remember when you told me you didn’t want anything from me the first time we met?” he asks, grinning up at you, a velvet box in the palm of his hands.

“Well… I can’t the same because… the truth is, ever since that first meeting in the library I’ve wanted so many things from you — I wanted to hear you laugh, to watch you when you designed your clothes, to listen to your voice every night on the phone till I fell asleep…”

There are flowers everywhere, and the sunlight is magnificent on Marius’s white tux. He looks like a prince stepped right out of the pages of all your favorite fairy tales; he looks like a daydream. You briefly wonder if this is a dream, but Marius charges on, and amongst all the tittering guests that surround you in the gallery, you’re the only one who notices the slight tremor in Marius’s voice, way his breath is just a tad more shallow than it usually is.

You reach down to pull him up, and you shake your head.

“Y’know, I lied to you — that first time, when I told you I didn’t want anything.” Your voice is scratchy from the tears, but Marius grins.

“Oh? Then… you did want something from me?”

You press your hand to his chest, the steady beat of his heart thudding beneath your palm.

“Yeah. I wanted… this.”

It’s a horrible, cheesy line, but all things considered, you think it feels right.

Marius laughs, leaning forward to press his forehead to yours, cupping your cheeks.

His smile is radiance itself.

“Good… because I want this too,” and he reaches down to open the lid of the tiny velvet box. You barely notice the ring for the feel of it as he slips it around your finger.

“But… I want so much more than that too — I want your everything — your body, your mind, your soul, your life — I want you to spend it with me, because even though you never wanted anything from me… all I’ve ever wanted to do was give my everything to you.”

You swallow, wiping at your eyes with an exasperated laugh.

“Dummy, you’ve always had it,” you hiccup as Marius tips your chin up with a finger, his eyes going soft as he looks over the planes and contours of your face — ever an artist, his gaze always both hungry and admiring. As if he could never get enough, but that won’t ever stop him from trying — from wanting.

“I’ve always been yours,” you say, and time itself is caught in the negative space between your lips.

Marius nods, reaching down to thumb at the solidness of the ring now circling your finger.

“Then… that’s the only thing I’ll ever want or need.”

[saruin]

Hii! Sorry to bother you! This isn't really related to the sims 4, but, on your succubus and incubus photos, how do you make their skin so shiny in blender? I'm new to it and I just really would love to learn! <3

I'm gonna assume you know something of blender + rendering. This is the way I do shine, it's quick and easy and works for me. I am using blender 2.8 but the method is virtually the same in higher versions

in the uv editing screen, take your mesh and separate the parts you want to have shine (highlight areas, press P and click separate)

choose your separated mesh and on the left side of the screen in the properties panel click the materials tab

duplicate the material by clicking the 'add new material' icon (the new material will show as whatever the original material name was + .001 example: my material was named Lavender and the duplicated material is Lavender.001)

go over to the shading tab (top of the screen) make sure you're viewing your separated mesh material in the nodes panel, locate the principled BSDF and change your metallic to .1

Also in the principled BSDF panel the roughness will control how much the mesh will shine, the lower the number the more shine, the higher the number the more matte

these renders show Lavender with a roughness of .9, .5, and .2 respectively

hope this helps

[magsev]

MAGSEV 001: WELCOME!

"Hello there, you on the table. I wonder if you'd mind taking a brief survey?"

Welcome to the severed floor of the Magnus Institute! Things only get more and more absurd from here....but the department is full again, in the vacuum of the previous head’s retirement, so how bad could it be, really?

MAGSEV 001 IS HERE AND READY FOR YOU TO READ!! Episodes drop every Sunday at 10pm BST, so 002 is not far off! Stay tuned and clock in for the ride!

If you want to keep track of all the episodes, there will be a tab when you open this blog as a website labelled season 1 where you can find (if i did it right) all currently released episodes under the s1 tag!

[dvsconocvdo]

An immense wave of relief washed over Haru as Ken offered them a lighter, too eager to light the cigarette in their fingers. Too eager to indulge in the vice and get some relief from the complete panic that stirred within them. Were they wrong? But they saw it too. The slight sudden pause Ken did, something they could've probably miss if their eyes hadn't been fixated on his face. Hope was an unfamiliar feeling for Haru yet in this moment it spurred out of them. Deep within their mind and heart, Haru wanted so desperately for this to be correct, and for Ken to remember them. For Ken to recognize them first. A childish desire, maybe, and one they didn't receive as his expression soured. Before the offer disappeared, Haru grabbed the lighter and lit their cigarette, returning the lighter promptly to Ken. "Thanks."

Their hand returned to their hair, and for a second Haru considered gripping it harder to see if this wasn't a dream. If it was, they were not going to sleep again in an entire week. "Kenji." The name fell out of their lips with such ease. Their own tone almost fooled them, it sounded calm and collected, everything Haru was not. "My brother," they started speaking in Japanese, another small intentional decision to see if it was truly him, "is named Kenji. Born in 1989. April 19 to be exact. He is two years older than me. He played the piano exceptionally well. He ran track pretty lacklusterly." A lie. Haru could not remember a single time Ken was lackluster. "His biggest weakness is probably the amount of cavities he got from eating all the fucking sweets he could grab his hands on. Not that there were that many around in our household." Our. A word Haru hadn't really used in years. Nothing really was theirs, and they had not been part of a collective in so long.

Suddenly, Haru felt like the scrawny teenager who took one big duffel bag with them when they left home unannounced. But the Haru in front of him could not be more different with shorter hair, more tattoos, and more muscle definition. Haru's face had aged too, and their sleep disorder didn't make them look any younger. "He took the bar exam in New York which led to him becoming a lawyer who focuses on criminal law. An insane and utter self-destructive choice, if you ask me especially given our family history. And—" Haru took a deep breath, and paused to inhale the smoke out of their lungs. "—in 2018 I lost any trail I had him." Another pause as Haru's eyes studied his face explicitly to see if he gave anything away to the information they offered. Was that enough? Did they have to share Ken's favorite toy as a kid? Or favorite color? Or how their siblings coped with their manipulative parents? No. Those were things Haru's mind had locked away too deep in their mind. Opening those doors would only lead for this entire facade to fall apart.

"You look like him. Older, but like him regardless." This was bold. They could not remember a time they had ever been so bold. Haru thought that their first and final act of bravery had been leaving San Francisco. Maybe... they were wrong, and this was their third attempt at bravery. Smoke filled Haru's lungs before they exhaled in a different direction from Ken, finally breaking away from his face. "I'm Haru. Harumi if you want specifics, but that's not a name my brother would recognize unless he kept tabs on me." Again, their uncertainty made them create distance between the two of them with language. "My brothers would know me by Masako, a name I've since let rot and die with my departure from California. It was never really my name, was it?" The question was a mere whisper. Who Haru was a teenager wasn't really them, they have made some peace with it.

There were moments, rare few, when Ken truly felt at peace, at ease with how his life was progressing. While he couldn't definitely call this a success, his mind simply did not allow for a such a thing, it was nice. And nice hardly showed its face in his life but he could hardly deny it now. It stirred some cynicism, undoubtedly, never had it been his nature to trust goodness without scrutiny and it would not differ now either. He should not, he knew, to pick apart this moment and taint it with pessimism and negativity but the calm troubled him, unearthed the restlessness that he had worked to bury. Yet, he couldn't quite help it. Parking his car in a random spot, Ken turned to a vice that he had hardly visited these days in hopes to clear his mind. Smoke filled his lungs, thick and heavy provided instant relief as he exhaled into the air, he walked a little aimlessly, feet carrying him directions he didn't care to put focus on.

"Hmm?" A voice pulled him out of his head and had him pause as the question they asked processed, "Oh, yes. Sure." Deeming the request to be polite enough, Ken patted his pocket and held out his lighter for them, and in doing so eyes scanned their face. He didn't mean to freeze but a vague memory tugged at the back of his head in that moment, old and faded with time and at times on purpose to avoid the sting of nostalgia, those features…why did he feel there something about them? "Do I-" But then they spoke his name and things immediately screeched to a sharp halt.

"What did you call me?" Irritation instantly sparked amidst mild surprise. A harsh exhale sounding to reject that name being spoken. So used he had been to Leyla saying it in moments of utter happiness, a sharpness registered automatically at the others tone, there might not have been one but Ken heard it nonetheless. He had not given anyone else permission to speak it, people knew to not, even in professional settings, it had always been Ken but even when it couldn't be helped it didn't sound like this. And for it to fall as a question, as if to confirm that indeed was his name. Ken remained silent, features dropped lower, almost to a scowl as the other person spoke again. Gone was the surprise, however brief it may have been, gone too was the raised brow he had initially returned with, replaced by thin pressed lips and a cold, hard stare. He did not recogisne them but for them to know him, he took a step back too. "You may have, yes. Who the hell are you?"

[electronzekrom]

The Glowing Being of Midwest Angelica: Episode 006 - Paradise

...because I have so many thoughts/theories about this; I want to run it by the public, so you all can tell me if I need to take my tinfoil hat off or not 😆 So- this glowing being (that features in the thumbnail), what are they, exactly? We only see them (her?) twice in the episode for a few seconds at a time, yet I feel like they are the most intriguing thing we do see.

The being seems to be either incorporeal or made out of something we can't see with the naked eye: after the second appearance, Marcus remarks that he only saw the figure on his camera screen. Some commenters theorized that the figure is some kind of projection from the Akashic Plane; if so, from who/where? It's not clear (and I really didn't register it at first either), but based on a handful of comments, the figure looks vaguely feminine. Someone we haven't been introduced to yet? Maybe one of the unfortunate members/victims of the Long Pine Midwest Church?

Could it be alien in origin? They certainly don't resemble any form of Starkill we've encountered yet. Building off of this, we don't know why this figure suddenly appeared, or what their goals are. They very well could be another manifestation of the Starkill/AZ-001/Nero, trying to lure humans to their untimely death and/or assimilation.

That being said... whenever this figure appeared, I got the feeling that it was benevolent? Or at the very least, wasn't actively hostile: True, the glowing being did in fact exert some kind of influence on Marcus, as I found out by this exchange:

After the night at the motel, Marcus states that he had an odd dream that night, but he felt strangely rejuvenated, and he felt the need to go back (something was "calling him"). While this might obviously sound sinister, maybe it was a good thing Marcus returned to the Starkill's lair, because it looked like someone was still alive in there (possibly Piso?). Right before Marcus reaches the Starkill lair, the glowing figure briefly appears before him again- was it guiding him to rescue? Plus, we've seen how quickly the infection takes hold, and Marcus appeared to be just fine? The description for "Paradise" says that two more tapes created by Marcus had been found, suggesting that he survived the end of this video.

If the glowing figure is indeed a benevolent force, and that indeed is Piso we see at the very end, it makes sense (from a narrative standpoint) that Marcus and Piso cross paths: they have the same goal- getting the truth out there.

So... where am I going with all of this?

There are certain little details, about the plot of Act 2 and Midwest Angelica as whole that I've been connecting like red strings on a corkboard. We all know the series is heavily inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion, but the crux of my theorizing is rooted in the media that inspired NGE itself. Consider:

If indeed this glowing figure (a being of light, if you will) is a benevolent alien trying to fight the Starkill, that probably means it was already pursuing AZ-001 to Earth or keeping tabs on it.

It wouldn't be a big stretch to think that the glowing figure is/will be instrumental in combating against the Starkill threat: there are some parallels we can make between it and an EVA unit. EVA units can technically be considered female (like how the glowing figure appears), given that they're the souls of the pilots' mother, and there's this:

Going off of the above point... let's not gloss over the fact that the Beta Chunk was able to make a kaiju-sized Starkill:

Even though I did say the glowing entity would likely be instrumental for fighting the Starkill threat, that doesn't mean the humans are counted out: there's probably going to be an attack team/force (HOME, or some other branch) that will aid in taking down these massive Starkill lifeforms (Operation Homebound might've been a false flag, but "Kill it With Fire" is definitely still a viable option).

So, without further ado, here's my unfounded prediction for how Act 2 will go: At some point, Marcus will sustain a critical injury, likely from something the Beta Chunk does. When this happens, he is finally able to see the glowing figure standing before him. The figure of light (an angel, perhaps, to use an Earth term) explains why they're there- they've been hunting the Starkill down, but they arrived too late. While they were doing their best to assist him and other humans in secret, the situation has gotten dire, so it's time for direct action. If Marcus allows them to merge with him, they will be able to manifest physically at full power. Marcus agrees. And finally, the Angel appears...

With the explosive defeat of the Beta Chunk, Marcus and the Angel become persons of interest globally, which is why the description mentions a Japanese official investigation in 2001. They have gone into hiding, as their work is not done. Dunno how aware AZ-001/Azazael is, but I doubt Nero would take it well that their giant Starkill mass got barbecued.

TL;DR: We got it all wrong, Midwest Angelica is not a Evangelion reference, it's an Ultraman reference.

[wandering-aloneo-o]

my cool cool awesome cool books arrived >:D

i know this is probably like the trillionth post you guys have gotten about this, but seriously @derinthescarletpescatarian and @its-not-a-pen thank you for both of your work making this sick ass story into physical books i love these so so much (and im finally going to be able to read these wayyy faster now that i can have them with me where ever instead of just in a tab on my kindle lmao)

also for anyone who hasnt read this, i Highly reccomend it, and you can read the first draft for it here!