#their not from the Specter Spider universe

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

My submission to the second @spidersociety-rejects zine!

I’ve always struggled with making a Spider-sona since I’m a boring person and don’t particularly love how I look. Figuring out a Spidersona that actually represents me and that I like was an interesting challenge and confidence builder.

[artbyblastweave]

So in the original 1977 run of What if...?, issue 44 covered the topic of "what if Captain America wasn't discovered in the ice until the 1980s." And the answer is that in the interim, a fascist, segregationist junta comes to power in the USA using the assistance and iconography of William Burnside- the white-supremacist reactionary successor to Captain America who was created by Marvel editorial to retroactively explain Cap's handful of abortive appearances as a red-scare communist hunter in the 1950s, when he was supposed to be in the ice. Most of the superheroes get neutralized, assassinated or co-opted, the real Cap is rescued by the crew of a Navy Sub that's on the verge of defection, and the comic ends on the verge of the second American Civil War. The issue oscillates rapidly between competent, prescient commentary and the exact cornball pablum you'd expect from a bronze-age one-shot trying to suss out the "real meaning of America", but either way I've always been interested in this branch of the Marvel universe getting more than just the one issue of table-time. Superpowered urban civil war in 1980s America is a compelling concept!

One of the reasons I like this comic is that it's one of several works from the late 70s/early 80s - mainline Captain America itself among them- that hit upon the idea that it would be comically easy to sell the American populace on strongman authoritarianism if it came wrapped in a cape and domino mask. This scene is an example of that; "Captain America" at a rally parading his team of all-American jackboots. Two of the members are, to the best of my knowledge, new characters: Golden Girl (later called out as an untrained actress kept on the lineup to illicit a very specific strain of nostalgia for Bettie-Page styled cheesecake) and embodied-specter of racist violence The Hangman (who... might be black, based on this coloring job? Potentially either very smart or very stupid depending on the level of thought put into it). But rounding out the lineup you've got... Hawkeye, which is the beat from this comic that I really like and the reason I decided to write this post.

Because Hawkeye, Clint Barton, has developed over time into the default scrappy underdog hero that gets to be one of the holdouts in dystopian alternate-universe situations like these- Old Man Logan, House of M, Next Avengers, Age of Ultron, What If...? S1ep8, Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, Age of Apocalypse, Marvel Universe Vs. The Avengers, these are just off the top of my head. It's a fun contrast, the dynamic of the "shit, man, this superhero war is fucked" hardscrabble carnie being the last man on the wall against something that would give Superman pause. So they do it a lot. Not here, though! And there's a level of honesty to that that I really appreciate. We're dealing with a guy who became a superhero in the first place because he was annoyed that Iron Man upstaged his carnival act, he almost immediately pivoted and agreed to try and kill Iron Man because an attractive woman asked him to, he tries to steal the armor to sell it, and even when he initially went straight there was an undercurrent of celebrity pursuit and showboating to his decision to join The Avengers. Absent the character development that was a direct result of falling in with the real Steve Rogers, all the assumptions about the character that have formed downstream of that, is it that insane that a guy with his early mercenary characterization would throw in with a fascist regime that paid him well and let him peacock? I don't think so!

[book--brackets]

The Two Princesses of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine (2001)

Twelve-year-old Addie admires her older sister Meryl, who aspires to rid the kingdom of Bamarre of gryphons, specters, and ogres. Addie, on the other hand, is fearful even of spiders and depends on Meryl for courage and protection. Waving her sword Bloodbiter, the older girl declaims in the garden from the heroic epic of Drualt to a thrilled audience of Addie, their governess, and the young sorcerer Rhys. 

But when Meryl falls ill with the dreaded Gray Death, Addie must gather her courage and set off alone on a quest to find the cure and save her beloved sister. Addie takes the seven-league boots and magic spyglass left to her by her mother and the enchanted tablecloth and cloak given to her by Rhys - along with a shy declaration of his love. She prevails in encounters with tricky specters (spiders too) and outwits a wickedly personable dragon in adventures touched with romance and a bittersweet ending.

Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tad Williams (1988-1992)

A war fueled by the powers of dark sorcery is about to engulf the peaceful land of Osten Ard—for Prester John, the High King, lies dying. And with his death, the Storm King, the undead ruler of the elf-like Sithi, seizes the chance to regain his lost realm through a pact with the newly ascended king. Knowing the consequences of this bargain, the king’s younger brother joins with a small, scattered group of scholars, the League of the Scroll, to confront the true danger threatening Osten Ard.

Simon, a kitchen boy from the royal castle unknowingly apprenticed to a member of this League, will be sent on a quest that offers the only hope of salvation, a deadly riddle concerning long-lost swords of power. Compelled by fate and perilous magics, he must leave the only home he’s ever known and face enemies more terrifying than Osten Ard has ever seen, even as the land itself begins to die.

Starbound by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner (2013-2015)

It's a night like any other on board the Icarus. Then, catastrophe strikes: the massive luxury spaceliner is yanked out of hyperspace and plummets into the nearest planet. Lilac LaRoux and Tarver Merendsen survive. And they seem to be alone. 

Lilac is the daughter of the richest man in the universe. Tarver comes from nothing, a young war hero who learned long ago that girls like Lilac are more trouble than they're worth. But with only each other to rely on, Lilac and Tarver must work together, making a tortuous journey across the eerie, deserted terrain to seek help. 

Then, against all odds, Lilac and Tarver find a strange blessing in the tragedy that has thrown them into each other's arms. Without the hope of a future together in their own world, they begin to wonder-would they be better off staying here forever? 

Everything changes when they uncover the truth behind the chilling whispers that haunt their every step. Lilac and Tarver may find a way off this planet. But they won't be the same people who landed on it.

Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy (2004-2024)

Meet the great Skulduggery Pleasant: wise-cracking detective, powerful magician, master of dirty tricks and burglary (in the name of the greater good, of course). Oh yeah. And dead.

Then there's his sidekick, Stephanie. She's… well, she's a twelve-year-old girl. With a pair like this on the case, evil had better watch out…

Stephanie's uncle Gordon is a writer of horror fiction. But when he dies and leaves her his estate, Stephanie learns that while he may have written horror, it certainly wasn't fiction. Pursued by evil forces intent on recovering a mysterious key, Stephanie finds help from an unusual source – the wisecracking skeleton of a dead wizard.

When all hell breaks loose, it's lucky for Skulduggery that he's already dead. Though he's about to discover that being a skeleton doesn't stop you from being tortured, if the torturer is determined enough. And if there's anything Skulduggery hates, it's torture… Will evil win the day? Will Stephanie and Skulduggery stop bickering long enough to stop it? One thing's for sure: evil won't know what's hit it.

Fairest by Gail Carson Levine (2006)

Once upon a time, there was a girl who wanted to be pretty . . .

Aza's singing is the fairest in all the land, and the most unusual. She can throw her voice so it seems to come from anywhere. But singing is only one of the two qualities prized in the Kingdom of Ayortha. Aza doesn't possess the other: beauty. Not even close. She's hidden in the shadows in her parents' inn, but when she becomes lady-in-waiting to the new queen, she has to step into the light--especially when the queen demands a dangerous favor. A magic mirror, a charming prince, a jealous queen, palace intrigue, and an injured king twine into a maze that Aza must penetrate to save herself and her beloved kingdom.

Trickster's Duology by Tamora Pierce (2003-2004)

Alianne is the teenage daughter of the famed Alanna, the first lady knight in Tortall. Young Aly follows in the quieter footsteps of her father, however, delighting in the art of spying. When she is captured and sold as a slave to an exiled royal family in the faraway Copper Islands, it is this skill that makes a difference in a world filled with political intrigue, murderous conspiracy, and warring gods. This is the first of two books featuring Alianne.

Monstress by Marjorie M. Liu (2015-present)

Set in an alternate matriarchal 1900's Asia, in a richly imagined world of art deco-inflected steam punk, MONSTRESS tells the story of a teenage girl who is struggling to survive the trauma of war, and who shares a mysterious psychic link with a monster of tremendous power, a connection that will transform them both and make them the target of both human and otherworldly powers.

Lockwood & Co by Jonathan Stroud (2013-2017)

When the dead come back to haunt the living, Lockwood & Co. step in . . .

For more than fifty years, the country has been affected by a horrifying epidemic of ghosts. A number of Psychic Investigations Agencies have sprung up to destroy the dangerous apparitions.

Lucy Carlyle, a talented young agent, arrives in London hoping for a notable career. Instead she finds herself joining the smallest, most ramshackle agency in the city, run by the charismatic Anthony Lockwood. When one of their cases goes horribly wrong, Lockwood & Co. have one last chance of redemption. Unfortunately this involves spending the night in one of the most haunted houses in England, and trying to escape alive.

Protector of the Small by Tamora Pierce (1999-2002)

Keladry of Mindelan is the first girl who dares to take advantage of a new rule in Tortall—one that allows females to train for knighthood. After years in the Yamani Islands, she knows that women can be warriors, and now that she’s returned home, Kel is determined to achieve her goal. She believes she is ready for the traditional hazing and grueling schedule of a page. But standing in Kel’s way is Lord Wyldon. The training master is dead set against girls becoming knights. He says she must pass a one-year trial that no male page has ever had to endure. It’s just one more way to separate Kel from her fellow trainees. But she is not to be underestimated. She will fight to succeed, even when the test is unfair.

Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes (2012-2018)

Princess Cleo of Mytica confronts violence for the first time in her life when a shocking murder sets her kingdom on a path to collapse. Once a privileged royal, Cleo must now summon the strength to survive in this new world and fight for her rightful place as Queen. 

 The King of Limeros's son, Magnus, must plan each footstep with shrewd, sharp guile if he is to earn his powerful father's trust, while his sister, Lucia, discovers a terrifying secret about her heritage that will change everything. 

 Rebellious Jonas lashes out against the forces of oppression that have kept his country cruelly impoverished--and finds himself the leader of a people's revolution centuries in the making. 

 Witches, if found, are put to death, and Watchers, immortal beings who take the shape of hawks to visit the human world, have been almost entirely forgotten. A vicious power struggle quickly escalates to war, and these four young people collide against each other and the rise of elementia, the magic that can topple kingdoms and crown a ruler in the same day.

[nanamimizz]

Ohhhh what's your spidersona like? 👀👀👀 Hobie is so so so cool <3

prepare to be sick of me. btw guys i will tag this spiderman talk just so you guys can block this tag on my blog if u are not interested. my spidersona is both an oc and my self-insert and oz is a real one for listening to me create her. it's all here under the cut !

 SPIDER FROST - EARTH; 1106 YEAR; 2077 AGE; 20 NAME; MELANIA DANTE(ANIMAL VER MELAMBIA) PRONOUNS; SHE/HER SEXUALITY; BISEXUAL

A child genius she was orphaned at a young age as her mother died in childbirth and her father died in a construction accident ( he was an architect) when it was revealed that she had much more potential than her peers she was sent to higher-end academies and universities as a ward of the state and soon met the current leader of biological studies Dr.Faith at the young age of 13-14. From then to the age of 19 Melania was a huge addition to the team that focused on altering the genetics of species to get them to replace extinct species in different biomes in the world. When working on creating a species of spider to deal with an evolved species of bark beetles that have no natural predators and are invasive to the countries in the arctic circle is when she was bitten.

At age 18, on her birthday Melania was bitten by the then-dubbed Frost Weaving Spider known for creating web fluid far much more sturdy than any other spider on the planet, and that mimicked the properties of ice. She wasn’t all that thrilled with the powers, Melania has no desire to be the hero and only wants to dedicate her life to research and helping the balance of life and is passive in the face of crime and injustice in the city of New Angeles (A mix of New York and Los Angeles) despite all her capabilities to stand up to it until a rising all right wave comes knocking at her door.

The all-right party comes with a challenge, with politicians eager to go back to things such as oil drilling to make millions of political groups aim to target any and all environmental scientists to send a political message. Dr. Faith’s labs are one of them and in an act of terrorism, the lab - Melania’s one and only home is blown up. Among the rubble, due to her stronger constitution, Melania finds Dr.Faith’s body near death and can only listen to her mentor’s final words.

“With great power, comes great consequences.”

There is a line within the comedy, Dante’s Inferno where Dante walks through the earth of limbo - “he who disrupts the earth that he walks” and it’s meant to illustrate how Dante, unlike all the spirits and specters of limbo, moves with human weight through the rings of hell. There is a consequence to the power of his steps and that is what the lesson that Melania is to learn. Whichever path Melania chose, there is a consequence - in this case, her passivity led to the death of the closest thing she had to a family figure. If Melania had risen to the mantle of Spider Frost, could she have saved Dr. Faith? Who knows, but the possibility will always be there and so will the grief and the regret.

Those who have been handed power can not be passive, they must use it - lest the consequences of their inaction come knocking on their doorstep.

This is her canon event and the spark that leads her to rise to the mantle and by the events of Across the Spider-Verse she has been Spider Frost for 2 years. She was brought into the Spider Society after defeating the same Prowler(Donald Glover) that fellow Spiderman - Spiderpunk brought in after he appeared in her universe. She left a lasting impression on Hobie Brown despite her withdrawn nature both due to her skills and her strong desire to fight off corrupt politics in her own universe which is something they bond over. With her genius, Melania is well versed in other things outside of environmental studies - with a keen mind anything is possible and her knowledge of technology, quantum physics, and the like are proven many times. It is because of this that she does not exactly follow Miguel O’hara’s canon event theory and is quick to sit with Miles during the great chase scene. She appears alongside Gwen, Peter B.Parker, Penni, Spidernoir, Spiderham, SpiderByte, Spiderman India, etc to save Miles when he is sent to Earth 42. 

Melania is an extremely shy and quiet person, from childhood to now she often goes unnoticed by the people around her until she speaks - it’s a running gag that not even others with spidey sense can sense her presence. Melania after losing her family at a young age had a hard time connecting with her peers and adults, finding comfort in academics and later on in Dr. Fath. In some ways she is quite immature, thinking that she will always be the quiet bookworm genius despite the new path her powers open. A huge part of her journey comes from her maturing that she can not be the same person forever, she must change and she must grow. However, despite her enduring silent nature, she did experience her first love with the Black Cat variant of her universe, Felicia Hardy who only used Melania’s researcher identity to steal valuable silkworm breeds that are said to produce golden silk to sell on the black market.

Felicia Hardy was apprehended by Spider Frost that same night, and Felicia Hardy is the only one on Earth 1106 to piece together that Spider Frost and Researcher Melania are one and the same. This experience was quite harrowing, and now Melania lives in the same research lab she uses to try to recreate all the knowledge that was lost in Dr. Faith’s own lab that was destroyed due to the grants she has, Melania lives in one of the most technologically advanced buildings in New Angeles. 

Melania’s suit is very similar to SpiderGwen’s suit being primarily white, blue and black rather than the common red and blue. With the body being white, one can see the patterns of light blue snowflakes instead of the web designs that pattern most Spidepeople suits, and even the pronounced spider that rests on her chest sits on a blue snowflake. She wears a hood lined with fur and the cuffs of the suit are fur lined as well. Because of the time period, like Miguel, she too has access to nanotech which is apparent in her mask. The suit and hood are fabric but the mask is nanotech that comes from two devices placed in her ears. In order for the lenses to zoom in they turn into slits - inspired by the snow-glasses Inuit people created to avoid snow blindness in the arctic circle.

Her abilities are as follows, the typical strength and agility of spider people paired with the spidey sense. The only differences are her webs as they turn from liquid to solid at a record speed and mimic the properties of ice in appearance and touch. Like Miles Morales, she can also camouflage as most creatures in the arctic circle depend on that survival skill too. As many different spider people have a specific way of moving - for example, Gwen takes inspiration from ballet and Pavitir moves with the style of Kalaripayattu, an Indian martial style Melania moves with the speed and grace of an ice skater. Another way that Melania differs from spider people is like Tobey Maguire’s iteration of Spiderman: she shoots webs out organically rather than from a handheld device like many other modern iterations of the hero. Because of this, she will often spray her webs onto her legs and arms, letting them harden and shaping them with her movements to create protective wear or weapons for more offensive potential. Because of her funds, Melania has access to other technology that other spider people don’t have and in some ways, this parallels her to the character Batman, especially in the 2022 movie rendition where he uses eye contacts that record everything she sees. Melania actually uses prescription glasses and her eyes are often sore at the end of the day.

Out of the entire cast, Melania is closest to Hobie Brown due to their age, similar enemies, and years of experience they are often paired with each other on missions from the Spider Society. Hobie is outgoing, sociable, and easy to get along with so he slowly breaks her icy exterior alongside Pav and Gwen. Even going as far as housing Gwen during her time at the Spider Society.

[themculibrary]

Star Wars/Jedi AU Masterlist

Avengers: Infinite Wars (fanfiction.net) - free man writer T, 1M

Summary: The Clone Wars are in full swing with the galaxy divided. The Jedi lead the clone army against the infinite droid army of the Separatists. Yet a wild card enters the fray. The Avengers. From there, newer, more sinister and deadlier threats emerge and The Galaxy, no, the universe, shall never be the same again. Phase 4. Co-written by Jebest4781 and BulletStormX.

Banish The Darkness (ao3) - Sishal jon/bucky T, 2k

Summary: Jon Antilles crashlands on earth and the first person he meets is a Bucky who is in the process of taking down a Hydra compound.

Broken Pieces (ao3) - celeste9 nebula/rey T, 4k

Summary: When Rey brought a droid back to her AT-AT with the intention of repairing it and earning herself more credits than she had ever seen in her life, the last thing she was expecting was for the droid to turn out to be not a droid at all, but a cybernetically modified being called Nebula who didn't take well to being scavenged for parts.

Darling, Let's Take Our Time (While It's Still Ours To Take) (ao3) - Voylitscope_speed steve/bucky E, 6k

Summary: (Or: Steve's a rebel pilot with a target on his back, Bucky runs a bar that's a hub for rebel activity, and the two of them have a long history. It's a Star Wars AU.)

Expectations (ao3) - twizzle loki/tony T, 1k

Summary: Loki is a Sith Lord. Tony Stark is a bounty hunter, ready to serve the Empire.

Protectors of the Nebula (fanfiction.net) - What If Universe G, 20k

Summary: The war is over. But the battle has only begun. The Republic has fallen, and the Jedi were slaughtered but some survived. Peter Parker, Spider-Man, Kate Bishop, Hawkeye. Amber Morgan, a Jedi Padawan, and Captain Rex. They have survived Order 66 and are now out on their own, protecting what's left of the Galaxy from the Empire. But are they going to be enough, or is it all for not?

Rebel Defenders: Emergence of the Spectres (Book 1) (ao3) - NaldMoney matt/claire, kanan/hera N/R, 101k

Summary: (MCU/Star Wars Crossover) Hell's Kitchen/Lothal has been ruled by the Empire for 14 years. The appearance of a Jedi leading a small group of Rebels called the Spectres upsets the status quo in this city.

The emergence of the Spectres sets off a war within the criminal underworld and a masked vigilante known as Daredevil attempts to stop it.

Darth Vader seeks Imperial experiment escapees Jessica Jones and Kilgrave for his own personal ambitions. Can the Spectres, Daredevil and Jessica Jones stop Vader and the Empire?

Star Wars: Civil War - Law & Order (ao3) - Justyce_15 mj/peter, kate/america T, 35k

Summary: What if all of the Empire's and Rebellion's leadership was taken out, and now the galaxy was in chaos? This is the story of Michelle Jones, agent of Rebel Intelligence, trying to navigate this galaxy and do the right thing, when the right thing is the hardest thing to do. Can she find love and happiness? And where does Peter Parker fit in to her future?

survivors (you and me both) (ao3) - SinginInTheRaine nebula/rey G, 600

Summary: Nebula arrived with a group of former slaves, freed by Poe and Han and some of the other Jedi from a life in captivity. But unlike the others, she never left. Rey noticed.

The Iron Mandalorian (fanfiction.net) - Bookworm2950 T, 45k

Summary: While recovering from the betrayal of Captain America, Tony receives a video from his long dead mother, showing him the true legacy of his family. One which stretches across the stars into a galaxy far far away.

The Saughteling (ao3) - Claudia_flies, SD_Ryan, zilia  steve/bucky E, 52k

Summary: James Buchanan Barnes and Steve Grant Rogers arrive at the Jedi Temple just over twelve months apart.

Many years later, a disillusioned Jedi Knight Steve Rogers returns to the Core Worlds at the summoning of the Jedi Council. Instead of following the will of the Council, Steve chooses a different path. His quest will lead Steve to confront a specter from his past and finally open himself up to the will of the Force.

The Will of the Force (ao3) - madasthesea G, 2k

Summary: Tony and Peter end up as mentor and mentee in a different universe. Or, should we say, Master and Padawan.

the world turns upside down (ao3) - andibeth82 clint/natasha T, 10k

Summary: “This is Natasha,” says Clint when they arrive on board, pushing his partner forward as Natasha yanks herself away from Clint’s grip. Rey nods curtly; she’s shed the jacket Clint had seen her in earlier and her staff is resting against the wall of the ship.

“You didn’t tell me she piloted the Millennium Falcon,” Natasha hisses as they fall behind, following Rey towards the cockpit.

OR: the one where Clint and Nat meet Rey and Finn, Poe is one hell of a pilot, and everyone wants to join the Resistance.

(trying to be) less volatile, less violent (ao3) - QueenWithABeeThrone anakin/thor T, 9k

Summary: “Typical,” says Darcy. “Crazy drunk guy’s walking around ranting about hammers and Hi-I’m-Dall or whatever and your first instinct is to take pictures of the fancy circle thingy.”

or: Anakin Skywalker, Darcy Lewis, and the time they hit a guy with their car.

Worshiping the Trickster (ao3) - JadeSabre83 loki/jaina E, 10k

Summary: Loki was silent for a long while, then he smiled. It was one of those lazy sort of smiles, the kind that slowly dragged out across his lips. It was also incredibly sexy, if you liked your sexy with a hint of danger to it.

Loki is broken after the destruction of the bifrost. Jaina is broken after the events of the Dark Nest crisis. When Loki finds himself in a galaxy far, far away it's only natural for them to try to piece their fractured lives together.

[finishinglinepress]

FLP CHAPBOOK OF THE DAY: Phantoms by Joanna Grisham

On SALE now! Pre-order Price Guarantee: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/phantoms-by-joanna-grisham/

In Phantoms we are visited by the #ghosts of the dead, the apparitions of former selves, the specters of what might have been and what should have been, dream-ghosts, even the Holy Ghost – a succession of #spirits moving in and out of shadow and light, sometimes at odds with one another, often converging, and ever present, as the speakers mourn shared and personal tragedies and contend with generational and ephemeral losses.

Joanna Grisham’s work has appeared in Gleam, The Emerson Review, The Write Launch, On the Run, and other places. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Georgia College & State University and teaches at Austin Peay State University. Phantoms is her first chapbook.

PRAISE FOR Phantoms by Joanna Grisham

In Phantoms, Joanna Grisham’s debut poetry collection, the world is both Holy Ghost and star-shaped mouth. It is a woman reaching into the nothing-space below her thigh as she remembers a lost limb. It is a voiceless girl in a 1910 Georgia sanitarium who recalls a lost child. It is the poet writing a past she can almost taste, like chocolate and ash. Time, Grisham writes, is a lie we use to shape our own selves into something we can bear. The poems in Phantoms do far more than teach us to bear the world—they remind us that we are not alone.

–Karen Salyer McElmurray, author of Wanting Radiance (The University Press of Kentucky, 2021)

From phantom limbs to cars named Ghost, Grisham swings open the doors to the past and finds the skeletons smoking Vantages, speaking in tongues, and spidering girls on the swings. She shares their stories like cups of coffee extending a conversation that will last until the shadows of “women who could not / be tamed or comprehended” turn into clouds and coax buttercups from the fields. Whether you anticipate the need or not, these intimacies balm.

–Amy Wright, author of Paper Concert (Sarabande Books, 2021)

Three poems set in one of Georgia’s sanitariums frame the haunting stories in Joanna Grisham’s poetry collection Phantoms. This powerful book explores how we can be held captive by the memories of our pasts, by trauma and by longing. Here the phantoms are what we struggle to let go of and what will not let go of us.

–Blas Falconer, author of Forgive the Body This Failure (Four Way Books, 2018)

Please share/please repost #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #poetry #chapbook #read #poems

[romijuli]

utilizing this to ramble abt something cause i saw the new deadpool movie the other day (mr chel and i had tickets for like Months) and i have. feelings.

honestly i thought most of the movie was p good, nice send off to the fox iterations imo, but my biggest nitpick is like

the first scene after the opening takes place in the main marvel universe w/ deadpool applying to the avengers. it's not explained they don't want you to worry about it or at least want you to assume cable's time device did it. i'm worrying about it and think the cable explanation is bullshit. anyway. so he has a whoooole conversation with happy hogan at stark industries about joining the avengers and you can see where this convo is going, right? the lingering shot on "proof that tony has a heart" and the picture of him and pepper and maybe some other people, i forget, i kinda eyerolled through it. i'll give SOME points in that the latter is probably designed to parallel a picture deadpool has with his friends. but here's the thing

personally i think having a similar scene with the xmen would have been better but i guess they felt that would be redundant with stuff from deadpool 2. idk man as i type this some of the beginning kinda falls apart and i'm not entirely sure how logan being canon to the movie fucks with the chronology (according to my fiance the answer is "yes") but bear with me. anyway. does it HAVE to be tony. like steve rogers is functionally dead. black widow is ACTIVELY dead. hawkeye's like retired on a farm or something. i think referencing the now-gone avengers as a whole would have been FINE. there's NO REASON to make it SOLELY about tony.

it's a CONSTANT PROBLEM honestly!!! two out of three spider-man movies in this continuity have had the looming specter of iron man hanging over them, and one was BEFORE he died. and in this it feels like they went OUT OF THEIR WAY to be like "hey remember iron man????? remember how he died?????" like girl!!!!! i would have taken a conversation with fucking HAWKEYE and i don't even really like renner!hawkeye all that much! good lord! it's just TIRING. and the dr doom casting announcement makes it WORSE for me holy shit.

Not to throw logs onto the flaming shitstorm that is Certain Film Franchises but even if you put aside the whitewashing (which to be clear you shouldn’t) this is such a transparent nostalgia bait ploy in the same vein as the 17363626 other different fucking references to one specific character that I cannot possibly FATHOM someone defending it with their entire ass

[honeylikewords]

cubs. (jack russell)

halloween brings all the little monsters out. aka, jack gets baby fever.

(warnings: mentions of pregnancy, planning for children, allusions to sex, descriptions of physical intimacy and making out, and jack smelling his wife, if that counts. nothing technically fully n/s/f//w//, but a bit saucy. word count 2.4k )

Jack’s head tilts sideways before the doorbell even rings, one ear higher than the other to catch something she can’t hear. He turns in his seat on the couch, arm strewn over her shoulder, to look behind them in the direction of the front door, tilts over, kisses her temple, and pops up in the seconds before the slightly-jarring “ding” echoes through the house. He’s already at the door, bowl in hand, beaming down at the gaggle of children and chaperones by the time she’s even stirring on the couch to come to join him.

“Oh, who do we have here?,” Jack coos excitedly, scanning the miniature crowd. “Are you the little one from--”

“Stranger Things!,” yells a small child in a pink dress, blonde wig askew, tendrils of the plastic hair stuck to their face. “I’m Eleven!”

“Yes, sí, can you do the--” --Jack sticks his hand out and makes a face, and the child eagerly matches him, giving him their best furious expression and most powerful psychokinetic pose-- “Yes! That’s so good!”

He quickly glances up at the three adults standing behind and asks if there are any allergies in the group (and there are none, thank goodness) as his wife comes to stand next to him, smiling at the Eleven who is now turning their powers onto their group of friends. Gesturing for the kids to bring their bags closer, Jack begins dropping generous fistfuls of candy into eagerly opened pillowcases and treat sacks, small hands darting out to show off the newest snacks to one another.

“Hey there, Mirabel,” says Mrs. Russell, waving at a young girl in a blue skirt and white t-shirt, sporting a giant pair of glasses and a pink flower in her dense curls. The little one is wrapped up in a purple puffer jacket on this cold October evening, and while it is a truth universally acknowledged that a big coat is the bane of Halloween costumes, the effect of her adorable smile and ‘Encanto’ printed trick-or-treat bag is more than enough to convey the essence of the character. “Is Uncle Bruno with you tonight?” 

The girl shyly shakes her head and wrings the handles of her bag in her fingers but is smiling widely when Jack speaks a few quick words of admiration for her costume in Spanish and passes her a scoop of candy for her bag.

“I’m Ariel!”, adds a small child in a green tube skirt with flared tulle flippers sewn on, a purple strip of cloth tied around their tummy over a slightly off-skin-tone longsleeve tee.

“And I’m Harry Potter!” A wand is brandished at Jack, who puts a hand over his chest in shock.

“I’m Batman!” The petite hero jumps into a pose to show off the padding of his armor, his light-up shoes kicking to life and casting green flashes over the porch.

Jack turns to his wife and grins, gesturing enthusiastically at the crowd of kids. “I think these are the best costumes we’ve seen all night, no?” She nods, and the kids all let out little shrieks and giggles as Jack procures a few extra pieces from the bowl and adds them to their bags. 

The chaperones guide the straggling children into a chorus of “thank you”s before shuffling them down from the porch, past the jack o’lanterns, and on to the next house, as Jack and his wife remain in the doorway. She leans her head on his shoulder and listens to him sigh sweetly, his eyes tracing over the sunset-lit streets swarming with seas of children and their families, all screaming and laughing over one another, racing past on the sidewalks, weaving in and out of lawns decorated with tombstones and inflatable specters, plastic skeletons and felted spiders. 

“You know, at the rate you hand it out, we’ll be out of candy before the street lights come on,” she teases, nudging his shoulder. Jack chuckles and puts a hand on the small of her back, shrugging as he steers her back towards the couch. 

“It’s Halloween, bebé; do you want us to be known as the stingy old couple, or the cool couple that gives out extra candy to the little monsters? Besides, that Mirabel, oh my God--”

“Total heart-melter,” she agrees, sitting and cuddling into Jack’s side as he hooks his arm back over her shoulders and pulls her body close. “I think between her and that four-month-old dressed as Grogu, we may have seen the two cutest costumes in all of North America today.”

Jack lets out a groan at the memory of the adorable baby, who he had greeted at the door with a delighted peal of laughter, and squeezes his wife tightly in his arms, as if hugging her in the baby’s stead. The abrupt squish pushes a small squeak out of her, and Jack giggles, bumping the blunt tip of his long nose into her cheek.

“Sorry,” he murmurs. “You okay?”

His slight frame conceals a rather intense strength, something that comforts her, even if it still sneaks up on her every now and again that he is, in fact, as strong as he is; Jack’s touch is grounding and warm when so few things in the world are, and she’s glad, especially in the cold months, for the over-active heat of his body and the power of his embrace. 

He traces the tips of his broad, tan fingers along the curve of her upper arm, pale nails leaving wake trails of gooseflesh and pleasant shivers. She realizes he’s waiting for a response before going any further with his affections, and she nods, cupping the square of his chin and running her thumb along his bottom lip. When his olive green eyes fix on hers, and his lips part to reveal the brightness of his smile, crooked to the left by the jut of his snaggletooth, she feels heat wash over her face and down her body, familiar and fluttering as he dips his face close and keeps her gaze.

“You know what I’m thinking?,” Jack purrs, voice dropping low and soft as he begins inching nearer. When he’s this close, his breath falls on her skin like a warm fog, sticking sweetly to her neck and cheeks, and the scent of him gets stronger. 

He smells like their bed, she thinks. Cozy, fuzzy, and tinged with a modicum of not-at-all-unappealing sweat, there is also that distinct canine note that can only be detected in this kind of proximity. His arms are still wrapped around her, and one of his hands is coasting, flat-palmed, up and down the length of her side, following the curves of her ribs and belly, while the other finds itself resting on her shoulder, idly fingering an errant lock of hair. His face is so close to hers that she swears she could count each of his eyelashes, individually, and the hairs that form his growing stubble.

This Halloween, Jack has chosen to go as a vampire, which he thinks is exceedingly funny. Dark makeup rings his eyes and the grey in his hair glows almost blue in the low light of the fading day, lending him an unearthly quality that fits his costume well. The powers of the vampire, too, seem to be his: he has her under his thrall, certainly. His smile is mesmeric, and she can imagine that if a vampire were to look like him, there would be no end to the line of people willing to be bitten by that self-same smile.

“What are you thinking, Puppy?,” she asks, trying to redirect her own wandering thoughts. She scratches lightly at the underside of his chin and, on reflex, his head tilts up, eyes fluttering shut as a contented noise rumbles in the back of his throat. He’s so easy to please.

“I’m, uh--” He seems distracted by the sensation of her scratching at that Just Right spot between the back of his ear and the crook of his jaw, a distraction that only worsens when she begins scratching the hair at the nape of his neck. “I was going to say that I… I was thinking we…”

His hands lie still on her, twitching every now and then when she finds a particularly pleasing spot to scratch, and she relishes the sensation of being the one who now has her beloved under her own thrall; Jack leans his head into her touch and follows the motion of her hands, chasing her attentions. A sigh leaves his lips and he unclenches his shoulders, melting into her as she leans back against the armrest of the couch and Jack follows, laying his head on her chest. 

His weight is surprisingly heavy atop her as he lays himself on her belly, slotting between her knees and positioning himself for ease of scritching. He’s not a big man, by any means, but there’s a density to him, and she’s feeling it now as he presses her into the couch with his body.

She pauses her petting briefly as she adjusts to the new position, and her hands still in his hair, which causes a growl of displeasure to part his lips. At that, she looks down at him and sees one green eye peering up at her (the other still shut and squished into her chest), and sticks her tongue out at him before continuing the strokes to his salt-and-pepper pelt.

It’s rather soothing, playing with his hair like this. There’s a therapeutic element to the combination of his body weight, intense warmth, rhythmic breathing, and the texture of his hair under her fingers, and she lets instinct carry her, as salient thought drifts away into the blissful mist of repetitive motion and familiar feelings. She traces the lines of his scalp, watching his black and grey and still, sometimes, brown hair forest up around her fingers, content to just match the tide of his breaths with her own, their ribs pressed together and expanding in synchronicity. 

After a moment, Jack stirs. Turning, he cranes his face so that he can look at her squarely, and she feels the irresistible magnetism of that green gaze tugging her deeper into his spell.

“I want to try for one of our own,” he says, shattering the stillness like a foul ball through plate glass. “Tonight, if you’re ready.”

It takes her a second to blink away the haze that had settled around her head, and when she does at last manage to, she finds herself staring down into Jack’s face, taking him in with utmost fascination. If she heard him clearly, and she believes she did, he asked her--

“A baby, by the way. In case I wasn’t clear.” He flashes her a smile and a breathy laugh, and he pats her side playfully. “I’m sure you could figure that out, amorcita, but I like to be direct.”

“Oh.” 

It’s all she can think to say: not because she is unhappy, or undesiring of the same things, but simply because the effect of Jack Russell, staring up at her with his big, moss-colored puppy eyes, brazenly stating that he wants to try and conceive with her, is flooring. He pushes up on his forearms, and suddenly he is above her, his face lit starkly by the shadows of the setting sun and the television, marking him out in black and white. His eyes glow, even in the darkness.

The wolf’s smile slips into his features as he stares down at her, watching her reactions with delight. He can hear her heartbeat, she knows, smells the minute shifts that not even she is aware of. He knows her, inside and out, and surely knows which way she is swayed, but he waits patiently for her to give him a sign, a command, an enthusiastic yes or a firm no. He won’t move without her urging.

She cups his face and lets out a shaky, excited breath, one that shivers in her sternum and makes Jack grin. There’s that crooked canine of his, sharply glinting in his smile, and she trembles joyfully at the sight, wondering if their child would have their father’s snaggletooth. She hopes they do.

“Tonight,” she repeats. Jack’s eyes widen.

Gently, she tugs him down and presses his pouty lips to hers, and the dam breaks. Jack lets out an inhuman groan of delight, dropping his center of gravity low to lean into the kiss, and uses his blunt incisors to pull at her bottom lip, nipping and sending the wet, lapping sounds of kissing echoing through the room. He uses one hand to hold her jaw in place, then begins trailing kisses down and around her chin, working his way to her throat.

“Look so pretty in your costume,” he rasps, voice low and clouded. “‘S hard for a man to keep his hands to himself.”

Before she can snidely remark that he, in fact, has not been keeping his hands to himself for almost the entirety of the evening, Jack sinks his teeth into her neck: not hard enough to wound her, but certainly hard enough to make her forget every other thought, her mind now focused completely on the reality that her husband is leaving marks all across her throat.

“You smell,” Jack groans, “So good. And, oh, God, when you have our cubs…”

He pushes his face into the crook of her neck and inhales, a series of Spanish and English curses flowing from his lips as they wander across her skin, and his hands begin rucking up the bottom of her blouse when--

“DING.”

Jack’s head whips up, and the two of them stare with wide eyes at one another. His face is flushed a deep umber and his lips are shiny, hair a fluffed mess, and she can only imagine she looks even more sordid and knocked askew. They exchange a communicative glance before the doorbell rings a second time and Jack, ever the gentleman, kisses her forehead, rapidly apologizing.

“We’ll get back to this, querida, I promise, I swear, I want to--”

She waves him off with a smile, and sees him bolt for the door, candy bowl in hand. He throws it open with gusto, and as she watches, she sees the transformation come over him; the brightness in his eyes, the giddiness of his smile, the sincerity of his sweetness. He’s going to make a magnificent father. And she’s going to have a very, very happy Halloween.

[sailforvalinor]

Everyone, the blog’s just hit 200 followers—thank you so much!!!! I never thought this many people would find my nonsense so entertaining, lol.

I’m writing a follow-up fic to that snippet I wrote about Midna a month or two back to celebrate, but it’s not quite finished yet, but I do have this Marink fic snippet that I started awhile back and then couldn’t figure out where to go with. Not my best writing, but you know, it exists, hehe.

—

Legend didn’t know why he loved Marin.

It was a stupid thing not to know, he supposed, but he wondered all the same. It was a mystery to him why she had even existed—after all, everything in Koholint, while partially his dream, had all sprung from the Wind Fish’s imagination.

Everything but her.

He couldn’t believe that she was merely something of his own creation—no, she was far too complex, tangible, so real in the glory of all of her flaws for that. She was something he could never make up. The dreams he had of her now were proof enough, distant and ephemeral, haunted by specters of a voice he could never quite hear—nothing like the freckle-riddled girl with laughter like wind chimes teasing him about his sunburn, begging for stories about his adventures, ever-searching for a world to belong to.

Marin was far too much for the world she was created for—but why, then, had she been made? Did the Wind Fish perhaps sense a void in him it thought it could fill?

If that was the case, then the Wind Fish was a worse fool than he had thought. Legend had long scoffed at the idea of people “completing” each other—the universe just creating people to fit together like puzzle pieces was far too simplistic a notion to satisfy him. But really, before Koholint, he had never really given such ideas much thought. Legend had never let himself be defined by his love. He had defined himself by what he defended—his uncle, Fable, the people of Hyrule, any who found themselves threatened by the careless wrath of Ganon. He had been defined by his duty—to his family, his friends, the world, the legacy of heroes who came before and would continue after him, even his own peace of mind. Duty, obligation, these were things he knew, safe things. He supposed that, subconsciously, he’d considered love far too dangerous a motivator—powerful for certain, but unpredictable. And it made one vulnerable.

That, he knew, was the real kicker. Even as a child, he’d always fled from weakness like spiders skitter away from light. He remembered that once, at six years old, he had fallen off of a garden fence, unknowingly cracked a rib, and was in an immense amount of pain, but had stubbornly refused to tell his uncle until he had fainted at the dinner table that night.

“Hiding your pain doesn’t make you strong, Link,” he remembered his uncle saying when he came to. “You see what happens—it gets worse, festers up inside until it overwhelms you.” He brushed back his hair from his forehead. “Learning to accept help is hard for all of us, but I think it will be harder still for you, my boy. And yet, you must learn.” Suddenly, his eyes had grown distant. “Pretending to be invulnerable is one of the most foolish things you can do—everyone knows it’s a lie.”

His uncle’s words had proven prophetic.

[sugar-plump-gal]

Go on do it, tell us about the ocs >:D

I've got so many of the fuckers I don't even know where to start so! Hey how about the setting, that's basically an oc right?

Basically, I was making a shit ton of troll ocs but Alternia isn't a great setting for that. The oldest people around are like 19 in human years which isn't great, and everything has a constant specter of death which, although admittedly great for vore, isn't as good for stuffing and the like.

Obviously there's Earth C, but it hasn't got the same weird alien shit Alternia has. You haven't got buses walking around on spider legs, y'know?

So I went 'hey what if Universe C had a new, less shitty Alternia as well' and named it Externia bc duh.

At first it was pretty much just an excuse to have trolls be horny and not exiled into a space empire but then I accidentally gave it actual lore and backstory about how it was actually created and how it works and woops now I have an entire setting with just HEAPS of lore. A lot of it carries over into my hcs for Earth C but the jist of it is

-They just sorta had a god bring an empty Alternia/Beforus from a dead timeline. Nobody's sure who exactly did it or why

-A combination of them living in a universe with knowledge of sburb, the fact the sessions that made their universe were So Broken, and their planet having never used remnants of a previous game means they all have more or less free access to a decent bit of sburb shit, namely alchemy and like. Basically resurrection pods like in bioshock or something

-At some point someone figured out that a full battery was worth way more grist than an empty one, so by making an empty battery and charging it w solar panels or something you can basically generate infinite grist. Pretty much everyone just has infinite money and resources. Specifically food. It's really fucking easy to be a fat fuck.

-They don't have mandatory cum buckets, so instead new trolls are just cloned w ectobiology. Since culling isn't a thing and ectobiology is weird there's LOT of mutations. Usually horny.

-Trolls are still raised by lusii and kept separate from adults, but instead of having their own planet and getting kicked into space empire hell they just sorta. Have their own neighborhoods and internet and then once everyone is grown up it just gets added to the wider city.

-They've got drones and shit but they're less bioweapons and more like. Imagine if you just replaced all the spikes and weapons with the aesthetic of baymax from big hero 6. They're mostly just there to do menial labor and/or detect and help with any emergencies.

-Since pretty much all labor is handled by drones and resources are infinite, more or less everyone is free to do what they please, with the only 'jobs' being ones people Want to have for their own sake. Sometimes that means writing or making music or blogging, but usually it means porn. LOTS of porn. Of the trolls I have, like FOUR are pornstars. Everyone fucks incessantly.

-Between that and the fact that anyone under like twenty lives in their own separate communities it's entirely socially accepted to just give sloppy to someone on the bus.

None of that is even TOUCHING the actual Plot or anything. I haven't mentioned a single fucking OC yet and already have a dash filling wall of text. Fuckin warned yall

[berryblu-arts]

Propaganda for the bench trio/spectrum AU

Enderchest can be a shadow creature that follows ranboo around and ocasionally inconveniences him

Tommy can have a mini version of shroud in the form of a spider shaped light creature :D, henry is also canon, he's cow shaped but not cow sized (small <3)

Actually since specters can take just about any form, all of their pets can be canon, they are safe and cannot be killed <3<3

Spectrum!tubbo with a bunch of bees following him around? Canon :D!

Beeduo and clingyduo childhood friends :DD (like, individually, also only tommy remembers he and tubbo were friends cause r e a s o n s)

Clingy duo bandanas are CANON :DD (actually, interesting fact is i didnt even have to change this from the original spectrum canon, except with my OCs they're scarfs)

Spooky stuffs but without literal demons (as in no altars, rituals and sacrifices and stuff, dunno about yall but they personally unsettle me, so trying to find supernatural AUs without them is HARD)

Spectrum!Tommy gets lightning and size shifting powers and is kinda fairy-trickster themed cause i said so (also can fly but ONLY if he's smol)

Spectrum!Ranboo gets shadow powers and can teleport :D (he is unaware of this last one)

Ranboo's memory still sucks, and theres an in universe explaination for it??? Wack

Ranboo is prone to getting posessed :D (again, this is canon to the original spectrum concept, idk how it fits so well???)

Keeping c!ranboo's heterocromia (the character he's taking the place of has it anyway lol)

Also, Spectrum!tubbo is a regular human who just so happens to be able to see specters, however that doesn't stop him from being the scariest of the 3 :)

[hoodoo12]

The Ties That Bind (And How to Follow Them) 3/?

@bunnys-beetlejuice-blog @werwulfy @mel-time @rainingpaint @infptarius @monsterlovinghours @turtlepated @strange-n-unbluusual @heresathreebee @sweetcat-666 @genderless-cryptid @fireflower1015 @go-whovian-universe

Monday at the archives went by uneventfully, though Pate did have some difficulty staying awake. She actually ended up going out to her car for her lunch hour and took a nap, the result being that she didn’t eat anything.

Pate was never quite sure these days what she might walk into when she opened her apartment door, but it was unusually quiet when she arrived home. “Beej?” she called out. He’d taken off once or twice before, taking care of she didn’t know what business she didn’t know where, but he’d usually be back before bedtime. Feeling a little more energized thanks to her nap but famished from her skipped meal, Pate changed into loungewear, scrubbed off her makeup, and started preparations for dinner. It didn’t take long, and she would ordinarily wait for Beetlejuice to return from his roaming but she was starved and quickly scarfed down her portion, keeping Beej’s helping warm with a foil tent over the plate.

Unsure what to do with herself with the specter gone, Pate curled up on the couch and put on an animal documentary to wait for him.

⁂

He worked it down to a system.

Find a crack, enlarge it enough to send a tentacle or two to start searching for the next one while he forced the rest of himself through. A few times he was slowed when the scouting tendrils took longer to find the next exit point, and once he was stymied because a crack was above the ‘window’. He had no idea if anyone on the other side of that mirror saw him, or what they thought as he shimmied up the inside of the glass like a striped spider right out of a nightmare.

As Beetlejuice expected, there was no rhyme or reason to any of this, and no way to determine where he was. He could have been halfway around the world or in the apartment next door to Pate’s. Nothing he saw when he looked out--and he looked out of every window--was familiar. Undeterred because he had nothing but time, he kept at it.

Just because he had time, though, didn’t mean he didn’t ache. He’d never worked his tentacles so long that they were sore, and his fingers felt more numb than not. He had no fingernails left and he could feel the scrapes on his face, left after he’d pushed through a hole that wasn’t quite large enough for him to get through.

Hours had to have passed. If he got to Pate’s mirror before she came home, Beej promised himself a rest. Till then, he pressed on.

It seemed a Sisyphean task, this endless clawing into the white space behind mirrors. Evilly, his brain started asking questions like, “how many mirrors were there in the world? What if he was going in a circle? What if Lillian had forced the illusion that he was making progress, when he was still just trapped in her one special mirror?” If he gave into those thoughts or despair, he’d be lost for good. Then, all at once, as he pressed his forehead to the inside of yet another pane of glass to look out, a piece of paper on the outside caught his eye. He’d been through plenty of mirrors that had photos stuck to them, but very few in a bathroom--with the same black and white striped shower curtain as in Pate’s! The photo had curled from the humidity. Around it was a smear of lipstick in the shape of a lopsided heart. She’d been so angry he’d used her favorite shade to add the decoration--with his finger, no less!--but she’d never wiped it away.

He couldn’t see the front of it, of course, but knew the photo: a spontaneous Polaroid shot on her balcony one evening during the golden hour, an old-school selfie taken just because. They’d both been laughing because it had taken time to line it up correctly and not just get hair or half of someone’s face. They’d wasted so much film trying to get a good one. The final shot was the two of them slightly turned towards each other, Pate’s forehead against his temple, her eyes closed and a wide grin on her face. His mouth was slightly open because he’d been caught mid-laugh, but he was smiling too. Both their arms were outstretched because they figured both of them holding the camera might work better. The tips of his hair were pink.

He was home.

Beetlejuice would have cried in relief if he wasn’t so tired. Now all he had to do was wait till Pate came into the bathroom, probably inadvertently scare the crap out of her, and get her to let him out.

⁂

She must have nodded off there on the couch because the next thing Pate knew she was startling awake, heart thumping in her throat. She’d been on the colorful road again in the foggy wood, running from she didn’t know what and towards she didn’t know where.

Pate rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands and sighed, swinging her legs to the floor. What she needed was a splash of cold water in her face. Rising to her feet, Pate stretched and squinted at the time on the cable box, noting that Beetlejuice still appeared to be absent. She frowned, slightly unsettled that he had yet to return home.

She padded to the bedroom and on to the bathroom, flipping on the lights. In the sudden brightness she was instantly aware of a figure in the medicine cabinet mirror that was not her own. The initial shock made her jump, but the oh-too-familiar green hair and striped suit made her huff a relenting half smile.

“Okay, Beej, that was a good one. You totally got me,” she said, turning to face him behind her only to find that the room was empty except for her. Brow furrowed, Pate took another moment to look around in case he was hiding and hoping for another shock but there was no sign of him. Turning back to the mirror, where his disembodied reflection still stood with a strange expression on his face, she flashed him a questioning look.

“What’s goin on, Bug?”

Looking more closely at him, Pate noticed that his already mussed hair looked even more awry than normal, and there were marks on his face. Growing concerned, Pate took a step closer, pressed against the counter to lean closer to the cabinet and the mirror with the growing suspicion that something was wrong.

⁂

Time still had no meaning here. He tried the same things on Pate’s mirror that he had in Lillian’s, pounding on the glass with fists and tentacles, to the same zero effect. He even did his best to simply wrench the glass from the wall, but unlike the odd cracks he’d found that was seamless, like it was one solid piece of material. Eventually he gave up and just waited. It was like being in a tomb. He’d had plenty of practice with that, although this was unending light and he could see a portion of the bathroom. That was almost worse torture than just laying in the dark. Pate had to enter here sometime, however. When she did, looking a little like she’d just woken up, it actually startled him. The light was blinding for a moment and he jumped. Pate did too, when she saw him there, and then tiredly derided him for the scare.

He shook his head and said, “No--Pate, baby, you gotta let me out!”

She didn’t see it. She had turned to look behind her as if expecting him to be there.

When she turned back around to face him, she looked confused. She asked him what was going on.

“Pate! Pate!” he shouted, the volume in his voice increasing. “I’m stuck here! I can’t get out, you’ve gotta let me out! I went to see Lillian and she trapped me in her mirror, and then I kept moving from mirror to mirror until I found yours--how long have I been gone? Let me out!” Beej watched her gaze shift from his eyes to his mouth, and realized with growing panic that one, she couldn’t hear him, and two, he just word vomited so much so quickly there was no way she was able to lip-read everything that spilled out of his mouth. He put one hand flat on the glass towards her and licked his lips to try again. Enunciating as best he could, voice still just one notch below yelling, Beetlejuice said, “Pate. I’m stuck. Stuck! Help me get out, baby!” He put his forehead on the glass. The fingers on his outstretched hand, the one pressed palm side to the interior of the glass, trembled as well. The specter lifted his eyes back to her. “Please,” he pleaded.

⁂

Ordinarily after pulling a scare on her, Beetlejuice would be preening like the cat that caught the canary, punctuated with nuzzles and kisses to her forehead and cheeks and statements that he simply couldn’t help himself, she looked so cute when he caught her off guard.

This time, though, he looked positively frantic. His eyes were wide and desperate, his hand pressed flush against the inside of the glass. Pate’s eyes narrowed as his lips moved but she couldn't hear him. She did her best to discern what he was saying by reading his lips, but even then she could only make out a few words.

She thought she caught him say the words “stuck” and “help”. She swallowed, feeling an apprehensive flutter in her stomach. Something was terribly wrong. He was scared, and anything that could scare Beetlejuice was something to be deeply concerned about.

Questions began forming in her mind; how had he gotten himself stuck in her mirror? How could she get him out? The first thought that occurred to her was breaking the mirror, but somehow that didn’t seem like a good plan. What if it hurt him or something?

‘Come on, think!’ she told herself, reaching up to press her hand over the spot where his was in the glass.

Nothing Lillian had taught her seemed to be of any use, it was all about how to keep spirits and specters away, not letting them loose. At that thought she wondered darkly if Lillian might have something to do with this.

“Beej,” she said slowly, in case he couldn’t hear her, too. “Did Lillian do this? Because if she did, I’ll go talk to her right now.”

If the older woman somehow sealed her demon lover away, surely she had the ability to release him, Pate reasoned. And if it meant finally coming clean about having Beetlejuice around, if Lillian refused to teach her anymore because of it, then so be it. She just had to get him out of there.

⁂

Pate putting her hand against his, unable to touch, felt like they were miles apart instead of separated by a layer of glass. He swallowed and ran his free hand through his hair, hoping it wasn’t betraying his rising panic with some odd color. She must have picked up something from his spill of words, because she hit on the person who had done this: her mentor. Beej nodded at her query, but Pate’s announcement that she was going to talk to the older woman right now made him pound a fist on his side of the glass in anger and fear. “Yes it was Lillian! But baby don’t--don’t leave me here!” he shouted. “Pate--!” Frustrated and increasingly worried she was going to follow through with her idea to go to Lillian’s right now, walking away from him after he’d clawed his way and only by chance ended up where he wanted to be, Beetlejuice continued to pound on the mirror. A terrifying thought skipped through his head: What if she went back to Lillian’s and he needed to be in Lillian’s mirror to be let out?!

He’d have to get back to the old woman’s apartment. Frantically he glanced in the direction he’d entered this space and to his ultimate fear, it was once again plain unending white. There was no broken seam, no evidence he’d ever been anywhere but where he was right now. That threw him into a state of even more panic, and without warning Pate, he stepped away from the window.

A tentacle immediately nosed the spot he thought he’d come in, but found nothing. His fingers found nothing. The seam he’d torn apart was nonexistent. He’d have to find another to try and leave this mirror, and who knew where that would take him. Where would he be? Could he find his way back to Lillian’s? A whine that he now knew Pate couldn’t hear escaped his lips. Beej pushed himself back to his feet and went back to the window. “Please don’t leave me,” he whispered.

tbc . . .

[aion-rsa]

How Alias Anticipated Modern Superhero Storytelling

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J.J. Abrams’ spy drama Alias, which turns 20 this week, was a lot of things: high-octane action-adventure series, twentysomethings relationship drama, occasional National Treasure homage. It was also, surprisingly, a spiritual predecessor to today’s hyper-saturated superhero movie and TV universes: A preternaturally gifted fighter, Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) inhabits comic-book-esque alter egos to infiltrate secret missions related to ancient artifacts and promised immortality, all while ensuring that her nearest and dearest don’t know how many times she’s saved the world—or which side she’s really on.

Like the series’ MacGuffin-generating Nostradamus figure Milo Rambaldi, Alias has proven to be somewhat prophetic itself about what makes for the kinds of superhero stories that land today. With some 20th-anniversary hindsight, let’s look back at what made Sydney’s story so super and what lessons Abrams’ ridiculous(ly fun) series can still impart to the current crop of superhero sagas.

The Secret Identity as Kiss of Death

The highest priority that spies and superheroes share is that they cannot get made—that is, have their identity as a larger-than-life individual linked to their “normal” selves. They must always keep their personal and professional personas separate, lest they risk losing the people who know both sides of them. Alias establishes this difficult lesson in the first half hour of the pilot, when Sydney reveals her true work (she thinks SD-6 is just a covert branch of the CIA) to doctor fiancé Danny, only for him to blab about it later and get bloodily taken out in their bathtub. It’s the first time that SD-6 treats its sweet protégée harshly, making clear the consequences of her actions should she open up to anyone else in her life. And then she defects to the CIA, which will be a death sentence for her if SD-6 ever finds out.

Yet beyond the specter of grisly assassination, what the series really digs into is Syd’s growing ethical dilemma about being a double agent where it concerns the actually good people at SD-6, primarily her longtime partner Dixon (Carl Lumbly) and sweetly awkward Q stand-in Marshall (Kevin Weisman). It would be too easy if the series were only about her getting long-game revenge on SD-6 director Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin); the real conflict comes from Sydney lying to Dixon’s face on every stakeout, knowing that he still thinks he’s working for the good guys and she can’t ruin that fantasy for him without potentially turning him into collateral damage.

Similarly, the moments in which Sydney’s two (or three) lives begin to collide have other heartbreaking consequences: While the scene in which her best friend Will (Bradley Cooper cast as the friendzoned buddy, amazing) gets kidnapped and sees Syd saving him, is one of the decade’s best laugh-out-loud moments, it also leads to Will going into the Witness Protection Program. His life ends, in a sense, because Sydney couldn’t keep everything compartmentalized. And we haven’t even gotten to the awful fate that befalls her best friend Francie (Merrin Dungey)…

What Alias Predicted: The beating heart (or arc reactor) of many a superhero story is this tension between selves—which means that the big reveal of a secret identity has to be carefully timed and deliberately presented. It’s as emotional as Peter Parker’s (Tobey Maguire) mask getting ripped away when he saves the subway car of people in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, as big as Spider-Man: Far From Home doxxing that Peter Parker (Tom Holland) in a commentary on fake news, or as pure and simple as Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) outing himself as Iron Man in the very first installment of the MCU. You cannot unring that bell, so it better be a memorable moment.

What Superhero Stories Can Still Learn: Rev the secret identity stakes back up! Captain America: Civil War ably took on the game-changing Marvel Comics arc of the same name by having heroes collectively unmask, and movies like Spider-Man: Far From Home are still playing out those ramifications. But mostly we see the dangerous ramifications of heroes doxxing themselves, without really digging into the strain for heroes to constantly have to lie about the things that truly matter to them.

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Campy Disguises and Clever Aliases

If you’ve watched Alias or were even vaguely aware of it, no doubt the first thing you envision is Sydney in black leather and bright red hair, a.k.a. her iconic look from the pilot. Her non-SD-6-sanctioned, under-the-radar disguise (impersonating Will’s sister) displays her ingenuity and establishes the series’ brand: attention-grabbing hair paired with increasingly ridiculous outfits, from chain mail waitress ensembles to rubber dresses. She’s played punks, rich bimbos, alluring businesswomen, escorts, and all manner of female personas upon which her marks would project their assumptions—all of which belied her true strength and cunning.

Even when future episodes riffed on the color wheel with teal, magenta, purple, and good old-fashioned blonde wigs, it was still within a clear spectrum established on that pivotal mission, when she channels a silly girl who cares more about the color of her hair than her safety, only to pin her torturer with the same chair to which she’s bound.

What Alias Predicted: I would hazard a guess that Natasha Romanoff’s first appearance in 2012’s The Avengers—a seemingly helpless redhead tied to a chair, about to be nastily interrogated—was a nod toward Sydney’s triumphant pilot mission. What’s more, despite the first ten years of the MCU leaning toward sleek costumes, later phases (like WandaVision‘s cheeky Halloween callbacks) have realized that they can embrace the bold colors and campy designs of the comic-book source material.

What Superhero Stories Can Still Learn: Better to lean into the bold colors and campy designs of the comic-book source material than to go for more sleek and cool. WandaVision did this, albeit cheekily and using the excuse of Halloween, but the nod toward Scarlet Witch’s original outfit was well received. Because any superhero can look cool in leather, but only the standouts can rock color.

Rambaldi Artifacts, Immortality, and Clones

While replicating the romantic dramas of Felicity, Abrams was also playing with early iterations of his signature “puzzle box” narrative style: The pilot has Sydney chasing after the mysterious Mueller device, which turns out to be… a floating red ball… which bursts into water the moment she tries to remove it. That head-scratcher of a device is only one of many inventions belonging to Milo Rambaldi, a fictional Renaissance-era philosopher whose sketches and writings all pointed toward the ultimate endgame: immortality. You know, just normal spy thriller things.

The series saw Sydney and co. chasing after all manner of Rambaldi MacGuffins, from a clock to a kaleidoscope to a music box to flowers that either demonstrated proof of eternal life (by never wilting) or amped up human aggression. Through all of this, it becomes clear that Sloane helped found SD-6 in order to collect all of Rambaldi’s artifacts and capture immortality for himself—even and especially at the cost of people like his daughter, Sydney’s half-sister Nadia Santos (Mía Maestro).

Before we get more into Rambaldi’s prophecies about the sisters, we can’t forget the parallel fever dream of the series: clones! Or, rather, secret agents genetically modified to look like anyone—which means everyone is a suspect. This constant paranoia quickly got out of hand on the series, but its first reveal was perfect TV drama: There’s not an Alias fan who doesn’t remember “Francie doesn’t like coffee ice cream” and the complete devastation that followed—the knock-down, drag-out fight that destroyed Sydney’s apartment just as badly as Danny’s death, but also Sydney’s heartbreak upon realizing that her best friend was already long dead.

What Alias Predicted: The Infinity Stones themselves are less interesting than in various superheroes’ personal connections to them: Loki (Tom Hiddleston) tempted by the tesseract in Thor: Ragnarok; Star Lord (Chris Pratt) and the Guardians of the Galaxy channeling their friendship to withstand the effects of the Power Stone; Wanda Maximoff’s (Elizabeth Olsen) stages of grief as she copes with trying to keep the memory of Vision (Paul Bettany) alive even without the Mind Stone. In short: grounding the most out-there plotlines in the personal ensures they will always land.

What Superhero Stories Can Still Learn: Ground the most bonkers of plotlines in the personal, and they’ll always land.

The Chosen One and the Passenger

This is when the Rambaldi business started getting less National Treasure levels of charming and more outright weird. Turns out the team wasn’t just recovering a treasure trove of artifacts, but also Rambaldi’s prophetic writings—including the mysterious “Page 47,” which featured a drawing of a woman known as the Chosen One… who bears quite the resemblance to Sydney herself. That would be easy enough to dismiss as a strange doppelgänger coincidence, but then comes the reveal of “Project Christmas”: When Syd discovers that she didn’t just stumble into the spy life on her own, but was actually trained as a sleeper agent from childhood, it only amplifies her fears that she has no true agency over her life.

Further Rambaldi writings center Sydney and Nadia into predestined roles as the Chosen One and the Passenger: supposed foes who are fated to clash, with one dying. Nadia getting injected with “Rambaldi fluid” in order to tap directly into the long-dead man’s consciousness (contained within another artifact known as the Sphere of Life) only earns her some nasty apocalyptic visions. But despite their genuine friendship that comes from bonding over their fucked-up childhoods, Sydney and Nadia are forced into that preordained confrontation when the latter is injected with a compound that reduces her to a mindless killing machine… all while a giant red ball is hovering over a city in Russia, because why not. Even after Nadia dies, and is brought back to life, then dies again, with her ghost haunting Sloane as he finally attains immortality, she remains a presence on the series.

There are certainly echoes to Black Widow and how it handles Natasha and adoptive sister Yelena’s (Florence Pugh) strained reconciliation after the older sister got out of the Red Room while the younger was still caught in its web. Their bickering banter about vests and poses, their differing memories of their false childhood, and their respective feelings of abandonment are what elevated Black Widow’s standalone outing—and made it even more tragic, on multiple levels, that this was the only time we would see the two of them in a movie together.

What Alias Predicted: Sister stories are gold! The Rambaldi storylines would mean nothing if they didn’t hinge on a tragically preordained confrontation, just as the MCU’s Red Room depiction seemed overdone until it was presented within the context of multiple generations’ differing experiences with its bloody legacy.

What Superhero Stories Can Still Learn: More stories about sisters! With Nat dead not long after she and Yelena had just started to bond again, it’s vital that Yelena’s future MCU appearances show her still grappling with the little time they got together.

After all, the best superhero stories are the ones that can feel just as fresh now as they did 20 years ago.

Alias is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

The post How Alias Anticipated Modern Superhero Storytelling appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[inklingofadream]

Prompts?? if you're interested, I would love to see any jon whump (you write it so well) early on in the series, maybe season one with the whole gang? idk maybe him just being super overwhelmed/sick right at the beginning or theres some sort of accident. honestly whatever you want, im so bad at prompts. btw, loving your daisy fics!!

owo s1 jon whump you say?

Read on AO3

Send me prompts

“Oh, Jon!” Martin waved a file around as he half-jogged after Jon. This was what he got for leaving his office. “I’ve just about finished the research on one of the statements that doesn’t record right.”

Jon did his best to banish any visible annoyance before turning to his least useful assistant. “Did you find anything useful?”

Martin shifted under his gaze, shuffling through the pages of the file. “Not much. The people and places are mostly verifiable, although the timeline doesn’t match up at all, but the Leitner book doesn’t seem to exist anywhere outside of this statement, which is odd-”

“The what?”

“Er, the book, Ex Altiora, “From the Library of Jurgen Leitner,” the title doesn’t show up on any list I can find-”

“Give me that!” Jon snatched the file away and stalked into his office.

-

Jon took a wobbly step out of his office, trying not to show how reading over Dominic Swain’s statement had shaken him. It wasn’t some coincidence, or a characteristically-misspoken conversation with Martin twisting into some terrible coincidence. The bookplate Swain had described matched the one Jon himself remembered exactly.

“Sasha.” He didn’t normally leave his office during the day, and even if they couldn’t see how off-center he felt, he could feel Tim and Martin’s gazes on him at the mere oddity of his appearance. “I was wondering if you could double-check the research on this statement for me.”

Sasha accepted the file and started to skim it. “I though Martin was already through with this one.”

Jon huffed, trying to pull his usual persona around him like a protective shell. “I’d appreciate a more discerning eye giving it a second look. Particularly the book- Ex Altiora.”

Sasha’s eyes were still skimming, and she hummed. “Ooh, a Leitner. Can’t just dismiss this one, Jon!”

He stiffened. “I- I beg your pardon?”

Sasha glanced up, hair falling over one eye. “You know I worked in Artefact Storage for a bit? They’ve got a whole shelf of them. Nasty things, but also credible instances of the supernatural,” she adopted a mimicry of his own voice for the last. “Research marks assignments dealing with books or libraries for Storage veterans specifically, since we’ve already learned all the protocols,” she spun her chair slightly, waving a hand at the other two, “You remember Tim? That month I got three different haunted library assignments? It was because they don’t want to risk just anyone tripping over a Leitner.”

“Were any of the libraries…?” Jon thought he did an admirable job hiding the squeak in his voice, under the circumstances.

Tim snorted. “Actually haunted? Pretty sure visiting one of ‘em was where she got that bug she ended up passing to half of Research. Maybe it was a cursed chest cold!” He let his voice waver and wiggled his fingers, eyes bright with mischief.

Sasha rolled her eyes. “Do you want me to round up some of the background on Leitners, Jon? I think Storage has a short history of their collection to go with the handling and authentication packet, though it’s annoyingly vague. Allegedly, there’s supposed to be clarification on “the 1994 incident” somewhere here, but with Gertrude’s filing…”

“That would be much appreciated, Sasha.” Jon turned on his heel and retreated to his office as quickly as he could without arousing suspicion. A whole shelf….

-

He had clearance to go into Artefact Storage, now that he was Head Archivist. He could go look for himself, if he wanted to. The thought was less a comfort than a persistent threat, looming over him. If he went looking for the Institute’s collection of Leitners, no one would stop him. If he picked one up, wandered off looking for a door, would anyone keep him from knocking?

He’d been working with a handful of walls between him and several dozen books just like the one that had ruined his childhood for half a decade and never known. Sasha had given him the list of titles and known effects with her research. Even if they weren’t identical to A Guest for Mr. Spider, they all sounded every bit as destructive.

And the titles were another thing. Scanning them, he’d nearly convinced himself for a moment that he’d somehow picked up the Leitner name and crafted an imaginary encounter to go with it. Maybe the trauma that had defined so much of his personality and the lingering memory of his hands acting without his input or desire were entirely concocted, a symptom of some deeper illness lurking in his own mind. It wasn’t as though he remembered his bully’s name to check, or had any evidence at all aside from his own memories. None of the Leitners in the Institute sounded the least bit like his own. If it weren’t for his own experience, he’d dismiss Dominic Swain’s Leitner for not matching a known text on the arcane, and it at least sounded like a near enough match thematically. As far as Artefact Storage was concerned, Leitner had never collected children’s books.

Around the time he’d entered university, Jon had convinced himself that, while his encounter had been real, there was no real library. Just whatever person or thing had created the book trying to make themselves sound more important. But there were dozens in the Institute alone, and he held evidence of more out there unrestrained in his own hand.

He didn’t leave his office for the rest of the day, alternating between trying to distract himself recording false statements into his laptop and trying not to vomit. His head felt too light for his body, and he was distantly sure that all of the recordings would have to be redone, rendered unusable by the shaking of his voice and the long, nauseous pauses he had to take every few paragraphs. When Martin knocked with tea in the midafternoon, Jon remained silent behind the locked door, afraid of what might come out if he opened his mouth. There were more of them.

He stayed much, much later that night that even he made a habit of, and he didn’t sleep once he did return home, to assured of the specter of long, hairy limbs to risk dreaming.

-

When he recorded Dominic Swain’s statement several days earlier, he counted it as a personal victory that his voice didn’t tremble on the tape, and spent the rest of the day working curled under his desk and flinching every time someone knocked at the door.

[salty-ironstrange-shipper]

Don’t Lift The Veil

*kind of based on this post you might remember, also on ao3

| 

Stephen stumbled into Kamar-Taj, only narrowly avoiding breaking his skull on the floor by an apprentice sorcerer lurching forward and taking his arm.

"Master Strange?" The girl said, then, more anxiously, "Master Strange?!"

April, Stephen thought to himself, placing the voice. He tried to reassure her, but instead made an odd choking sound and blacked out. Oh well . . .

||

When he woke again, April was still there, only there was a Master of the Mystic Arts who specialized in healing magic beside her and they were in Stephen's bedroom.

April dabbed at Stephen's forehead with a warm towel. No one was sure if that was necessary, but it seemed the thing to do. "Are you alright, Master Strange?"

Stephen tried to sit up and bit back a scream when doing so put pressure on the stab wound in his stomach. "More or less."

April lightly pushed him back down on the bed. "Sir," she said gently, like she was speaking to a child, "you should rest now. You were badly hurt."

Stephen dropped his head on the pillow, sulking. "I don't want to rest. I am the Sorcerer Supreme, I can do what I want."

"Of course you can," April cooed. 

Stephen scowled, waving away the healer. Still, April refused to leave, sitting on the bed beside his knees with her legs crossed.

Stephen sighed, but didn't send her away. Perhaps he was getting soft in his old age (a thousand years was a long time even for a sorcerer), but in truth it was a weakness he had towards some of the young sorcerers. April in particular was dear to him, being the descendant of dear Peter. More than forty generations separated her from Spider-Man, but he allowed himself to believe that he could see a bit of the wide-eyed teen he once knew in her. 

Just as he was getting melancholy, April started bouncing her legs, bored. Ah, there it is. "Are you alright, April?"

". . . Yes."

It was going to be a long day.

||| 

April refused to relent, and Stephen refused to sleep. Now at a stalemate, they passed the time by playing card games and idly chatting.

April placed her card. "Skip you, I go again. The color is red, and you draw four."

"Fuck," Stephen muttered before succumbing to the will of the Uno cards.

April smirked, looking down at her own cards. "Hey, Master Strange, have you always been a sorcerer?"

Stephen was old enough that none of the living sorcerers had been there when he first came to Kathmandu. Long before April's time and after Tony's death nine hundred years ago, all the information about who Doctor Stephen Strange had been was lost. Or destroyed, rather. Now few even knew who he'd been before becoming Sorcerer Supreme, and for the most part he preferred it that way. Any immortal could tell you that memories were the enemy.

So he wasn't quite sure why he said, "No."

April quirked a brow. "Where did you come from?"

He hesitated before answering. “Before I came to Kamar-Taj, I lived in New York with my husband.” He shrugged. “Fiance, at the time.”

April stared at him, wide-eyed. “Oh my God — Master Strange, I had no idea you were married—”

“Widowed now,” Stephen said quietly before laying down another card.

April blinked, her cheeks heating and turning red. “I’m . . . I’m sorry—”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m the one who brought it up.” He frowned. “There really is no point of a Reverse card if you’re just playing with two people.”

They played in awkward silence for another minute before April asked, “Do you want to talk about it? Or, him, I guess?”

Then the strangest thing happened.

Stephen smiled.

“I could tell you everything about him. Who he was, how we met. The color of his eyes and the shape of his nose. I can see him right in front of me. He is more real to me than you.”

His smile was sad, and his blue-green eyes seemed to lose their light. He laid another card, and when he spoke again, this time about an envoy that needed to be sent to the Nat'hal dimension, it was clear that the conversation was over.

|| 

But April was never one to give up so easily. It was in her blood. She was ninety percent sure she was descended from Superheroes (considering her family bad the right Peter Parker in their tree and not some rando from the same time).

She spent over a week going through everything she could find about their current Sorcerer Supreme. It wasn't easy. He was a private person even by hero standards, and had been born roughly a thousand years ago. But that was right at the start of the information age, and though it meant sorting through piles of white noise and conspiracy theorist bullshit, she was able to find some old interviews and articles from around his time that referenced a Stephen Strange . . . and his husband, Tony Stark.

That was the most surprising part. Even children knew who Iron Man was, one of Earth's first and greatest protectors, who lost an arm bringing half the universe back to life and defeating the Mad Titan Thanos. 

But if they knew each other, why doesn't Strange ever mention him?

If her theory was correct, then they hadn't just known each other - they'd loved each other, and had been married for almost fifty years (longer, if you counted the time Strange apparently lost to Thanos). They had children together. The memory must have been painful to him, living so long without his beloved, forced to remain on Earth and carry out his duties as Sorcerer Supreme.

Oh, Stephen . . . She'd always known that their leader carried a heavy burden, but she had no idea he'd lost so much. She wanted to do something, anything to help him . . . 

And she had just the idea.

“Okay,” April said, placing the last candle and looking back at her book. “This . . . should probably work.”

There were a few days when the veils between dimensions were thin. The winter solstice was one such time. The borders had only grown weaker after centuries of attacks from aliens and other-worldly beings and. The perfect time for such a spell.

April sat in the circle of candles and crossed her legs. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, her third eye opened too, and the silvery light of Oshtur poured forth into the room. She could see the dimensions laid over each other, and the things that lingered nearby. Some of them seemed almost familiar.

Her mouth moved almost unbidden as she spoke. “Oshtur Star-Eye, Mother of Agamotto, guide to sorcerors living and dead, I call upon you to find the soul I seek and lead it to me—” Her breath caught as the spirits started to take shape. Away and above Kamar-Taj, she could feel Oshtur looking upon her. “Bring me Anthony Edward Stark, Iron Man, Saviour of the Universe and Earth’s Defender, husband to the Sorcerer Supreme Stephen Strange, lead him here and show him to me—”

Suddenly she fell forward, the spell cut short as a breeze filled the room snuffing out all the candles. A moment later, Stephen Strange walked into her vision, knocking over the candles and using his heel to disrupt the chalk circle. When he looked at her, she flinched from his gaze. “What are you doing?!”

April shook her head, the movement slow and heavy. “I don’t . . . I . . .”

“It is the solstice, the walls between worlds are thin and weak, all sorts of things linger in the liminal spaces, waiting to break through! You didn’t even ward or purify this room, you could have invited any number of monsters and specters into this sacred place! What were you thinking, what were you even trying to do?!”

April frowned, fearing tears prickle at her eyes. “I was just . . . I was trying to find Tony for you . . .”

Stephen stared at her in shocked silence as April’s head dropped, tears streaming down her cheeks. Then he leaned down and wiped a tear away, his voice growing soft. “Go to sleep. The spell exhausted you. We’ll speak tomorrow.”

She could do nothing but obey.

| 

The next morning, April awoke to find Stephen already in her room, meditating on a mat in the corner. He opened his eyes when she saw him. “You’re awake.”

April nodded, yawning tiredly. “What, uh . . . what happened?”

Stephen uncrossed his legs, resting his chin on one hand. Even after all this time, it was still scarred and shaking. “You attempted to summon my husband from beyond the grave, and I stopped you.”

“Oh, that sounds about right.” She frowned. “Why did you stop me?”

Stephen considered it for a moment, his blue-green eyes showing nothing. “It’s quite insulting that you think I don’t know how to summon a soul. I’ve read every book here, know every spell. I can summon ghosts as easily as most people can snap.”

“Then why . . .”

Stephen shrugged. “I did. I admit now that I wasn’t always careful. I made the same mistakes as you. But twice a year for about a century, Tony and I met and were together. And that seemed like everything that mattered.” He looked away. “But we couldn’t keep going like that. It was worse than have each other for a moment and be wrenched away again than to never see each other. And it disturbed his rest, and there’s no one who deserves to rest more than Tony.”

Despite herself, April knew she was crying again. “I’m so sorry.”

Stephen smiled sadly. “So am I.” He stood up. “But I know that one day, in my time of greatest need, Tony and I will find each other again. He’s always there for me when I need him. That will have to be enough for now.” He walked to the door, opening it slightly. “I’ll see you in my class on defensive magic later, yes?”

She swallowed past the weight in her throat. “Promise.”

Stephen nodded once and left, closing the door behind him.

[serenzippity]

The Scales - Prologue

Words: 2,183 Member/Pairing: Monsta X, Got7, Exo Genre: Alternative Universe, inspired by 6 Underground Warning(s): Violence, language

Specter Underground Seoul, South Korea May 19th, 2019

Lux’s POV

“Lux…”

“Luxieeee…”

“LUX!”

“WHAT?!”

“Hi, Luxie!” The shrill voice echoed throughout the lab, bouncing off of the metal walls and instruments to make it sound like the owner of the voice was much closer than he was. I glared at the little speaker in the corner of the room, mentally ticking down ways to deactivate it.

“What do you want One?” I growled, turning back to the blood sample that was swirling under the microscope.

A light giggle came through the speaker before his voice went up an octave. “Come down Rapunzel we have a visitor. And bring Sleeping Beauty.” Drawing out the summons, One kept giggling through the connection for a couple of seconds before the distinct click indicated that he moved on. Rolling my eyes I pulled away from the microscope with a slight groan. My back and neck protested as I slowly stretched as I got up, vertebras clicking back into place from their previously hunched-over strain.

A light snore from the corner was the only noise in the room as I quietly put the sample back in the cooler and turned off the microscope. “Kai,” I called out towards the sleeping man on the medical cot. He stirred at my voice, but like a petulant child turned his back towards me and curled up in a ball. Sighing in overall annoyance, I took off my medical jacket and twisted it in my hands. Standing before the sleeping man I contemplated letting him continue snoozing for a moment, but then I remembered that One asked for him as well. Plus, his brown hair was falling over his eyes as he slept and it wasn’t fair for someone to look that good while they were passed out.

Twisting the white jacket further, I reached up and cracked it on his butt. The jolt woke him up immediately and he yelped in pain as he fell off the cot and onto the hard ground. He scrambled around, reaching for an invisible gun on his waistline before realizing where he was. The pout on his lips was evident as he looked up at me, and normally I would feel a tingle in my cheeks at it but One’s annoying summon put me in a mood.

“C’mon,” I said tossing the jacket on the previously occupied cot, “One called us to the main level.” I walked away from the spy on the ground, purposely putting an extra swing in my step. I heard him get up and follow me, keeping an extra step behind. I bit my lip at his presence, smiling down at my feet and letting my hair fall over my blushing cheeks.

-x-

“Welcome to our weekly family meeting!” One’s arms were open, gesturing wildly like an overzealous father. The rest of us sat in chairs that formed a semi-circle in front of him, and the overall attitude was that of the father’s embarrassed teenagers. Everyone looked either murderous, embarrassed, or— in Kai’s instance— sleepy. One, however, looked like the cat that got the canary as he stood next to a youth that was blindfolded and tied to the chair next to him. I could tell from the slow rise and fall of his chest that he was unconscious, and I shifted uncomfortably at his lack of response. “I’m very pleased to introduce to you all the newest member of our little coven!” He gestured to the unresponsive boy, and the fanfare was clearly a figment of his imagination. The five of us looked unimpressed, the annoyance clear on all of our faces.

“Did you already kill him with your voice, One?” Kai asked in-between a yawn. Stretching his arms up, he placed one on the back of my chair, causing the blush to make its way back to my cheeks. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the female spy next to me smirking but she didn’t make any obvious indication of the contact.

One looked confused at Kai’s statement, turning to look at the kid in the chair. “Shit,” he cursed under his breath as he tapped the kid’s cheeks, eliciting no response from him whatsoever. “Hey Luxie?” he asked, continuing to try to wake the kid up, “This is your sedative, can you give me a hand?”

“Dammit,” I mumbled getting up and leaving the warm contact of Kai’s arm. I walked over to the kitchenette in the corner of the massive room and pulled a cold water bottle out of the fridge. Uncapping it, I moved back to stand in front of the boy and dumped the contents over his head. Like a charm, the cold water pulled him out of his unconscious state, and he shuddered and pulled against his bonds.

“What the fuck?” he shrieked, moving and thrashing wildly despite his tied hands and covered eyes.

“Easy, easy,” One cooed to the now-soaked boy, moving to place his hands on the boy’s shoulders. He continued to move under One’s touch, lashing harder and baring his teeth as explicit curses poured out of his mouth. One reached around and put the boy in a headlock, all of his previous joviality gone in an instant. “Hey, stop moving,” he hissed threateningly.

Suddenly uncomfortable, I moved back to my chair and sat down quietly. The rest of the team was watching diligently, shock overtaking a few faces as One threatened the boy. “Calm down and I will release you,” he whispered in the boy’s ear, his biceps flexing tightly around his neck. “Nod once if you understand.”

The boy did as he was told, nodding slightly against the tight muscles around his throat. “Good,” One said, switching quickly back to his happy-go-lucky voice. “I’ll take off the blindfold and ropes, but if you do anything sudden we won’t hesitate to kill you. Got it?” He sounded like he was telling the boy good news rather than threatening his life, something that was characteristically One. His ability to switch between a murderous killer and an annoyingly stupid young man made my head spin sometimes.

I watched with renewed interest as One took off the kid’s blindfold, revealing his full face to us. He looked young, almost too young to be in the underground bunker with us, and I wasn’t the only one who shared that sentiment.

“Jesus One, are we now running a babysitting service?” growled the muscular man in the last chair. His arms were crossed over his chest and he looked unimpressed as well as angry if the red tips on his ears were anything to go by.

“Seriously,” drolled the female spy as she appraised the boy, “he looks no older than sixteen. He will get killed the moment he’s out on the field.”

The boy in the chair didn’t look intimidated by her in the slightest, which was a definite first that I couldn’t help but be amused by. “I’m twenty-three, grandma,” he hissed, glaring at her evenly as One worked to unbind his hands. Her eyebrows shot up at the quick backfire. She didn’t look put off at all by the insult, rather the amusement on her face was clear as day as a small smile stretched onto her lips.

“I like him,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest and relaxing into her chair with a cool aura that she mastered years ago. The boy’s glare dropped instantly as his eyes widened and a flush crept up his neck. He looked away from the intimidating woman, focusing on the ground at his feet as One let the ropes fall from his wrists.

True to his word, he didn’t move even as One came back to stand next to him. Clapping a hand on the boy’s back, One grinned down at him like a proud father. “This is I.M, and he is our newest recruit.” The grand gestures he made with his arms were reminiscent of that of a chicken, but none of us said anything to bring down his excitement. “Everyone, be nice to him and welcome him into the club. He can scale a building faster than all of you combined!” Clapping another hand on I.M’s shoulder, he practically jolted the boy out of the chair and onto his feet.

“My name is-” the boy said to One, but before he could get anything out One slapped a large hand over his mouth.

“No no no no, my little spider monkey,” he cooed, “We don’t know or use real names here, only aliases that we have either earned or that I came up with. Capisce?” The last word came out in a friendly tone, but there was an underlying threat to it. I.M could only nod against the hand pushing his mouth shut.

“Good,” One grinned removing his hand and pulling the boy to his side, “Now this is the team you will be working with. That,” he said pointing to the muscular man, “is Wonho. He’s the muscle of the group. Not a lot of brain, but a lot of brawn.” Wonho glared at One but didn’t say anything beyond clenching his fists threateningly.

“Asian Black Widow there is Jae,” One said pointing to the female spy next to me. “She can kill you 600 different ways and make sure that your body is never found.”

“601 ways,” she purred, giving I.M a beautiful smirk and a wink that had his neck flushing once more. He waved slightly before looking down at his feet again. Jae looked amused, knowing that she was going to have fun embarrassing the younger boy.

One moved on, pointing to me as he ignored Jae’s blatant flirting. “That is Doctor Lux. If you ever get shot, she can patch you up with a rusty spoon and a dishrag.” I.M paled at the mention of being shot, and I shot him a sympathetic smile to try to ease his discomfort. It didn’t help much with One talking in his ear.

“Next to the good doctor is Mr. Kai. He’s like the Korean Hawkeye, but if he had Wonho’s body he’d be the Korean Captain America.” One played upon Kai’s insecurity when compared to Wonho, poking at two bears that were on the verge of ripping him to shreds.

“Hey!” Kai snapped, nostrils flaring at the subtle insult. “I’ll kick your-”

“Not now Kai, introductions are happening,” One said interrupting him quickly before the threat could come out of his mouth. Kai looked murderous, and I gave his knee a slight squeeze to help bring his temper down. He didn’t respond, but I could see and feel the tension leaving his body at my slight touch. “And finally that twig there,” he said gesturing to the silent man at the other end of the chairs, “is Seven. He can shoot an apple off the top of your head in a snowstorm from ten miles away. Or something like that.” Seven didn’t say anything, he simply nodded his head at I.M and maintained his composed, bored look.

“And as for me,” One said, spinning the youth around to look at him, “I am the Tony Stark of this whole organization.” The Cheshire grin on One’s face was borderline unnerving, and the discomfort was clearly written on I.M’s face as the older man grinned at him.  

“One, stop with the Avengers gimmick. It got old after you recruited Lux,” Seven said, breaking his silence for the first time.

One only pouted at Seven when the sniper told him off, but his attention was quickly grabbed by I.M again. “So what are you guys? Some kind of biker gang?”

I couldn’t help the snort that fell from my mouth. I quickly stifled it, grinning and laughing behind my hand. Jae also laughed out loud at his question, earning sharp glares from One as her dark laugh echoed throughout the room. “No Spider-man,” One sighed letting go of I.M and running a hand through his messy hair. “Follow me, kid,” he said turning away, “I’ll show you who we are.”

-x-

“So you’re not a biker gang, but you’re more of an underground Avengers?”

One grinned widely at Seven, who only rolled his eyes. “I knew I liked him,” he said nudging the taller man.

“You’re going to inflate his ego, kid,” Jae said, coming to stand next to I.M. “But essentially yes.” Appraising the well-defined tree of photos, Jae drew his attention to the first of the seven images. “All of these people are the epitome of what it means to be an evil human.”

“Each one of them is tied to the other, and our job is to take them down,” I told him, coming up on the other side of him.

“Why?” I.M asked, looking in between Jae and me.

She and I shared a look before turning back to the tree of faces. “Because they have committed atrocities that warrant their death,” I said.

“And we are the only ones with enough balls to do it,” Jae affirmed smirking at the seven faces staring back at us, her mind calculating one of the 601 ways to kill each and every person on the wall.

Song: Glory - The Score

A/N: Yay prologue! Let me know what you think!