#this is spider's form it takes on when distressed it just changes depending on its mood at the time

[spider-gallery]

Lonely beast

[matildainmotion]

The Monstrous Shame of Motherhood and the Quest for a Cure

I feel exhausted. Even-more-than-usual exhausted. Whoever knew that staying at home could be so incredibly tiring. We have our daily outings – mainly to the golf course, which is the nearest green we have. The other evening, when we had finally made it out the house, and the children were running ahead of me across the fitted-carpet grass, I had a thought: “Maybe it will be okay,” and instantly I wanted to cry. It wasn’t a thought only about the pandemic. It was about the lot: the pandemic, plus how to get an autism diagnosis for my son that supports him, plus my 78 year old mother staying well, plus my husband’s work and the theatre community surviving in a post-Covid world, plus managing to finish my book, plus both my children’s long term futures, plus the world’s long term future and climate change, plus racial inequality, plus economic inequality, plus gender inequality, plus, plus…..

In that moment I realised that a kind of deep worry is such a constant for me now that I have grown accustomed to it, so that it is like the planes that used to fly over our house in London – a noise so familiar that after a while I no longer hear it, and yet it is there, every few minutes, unnoticed, another monstrous metal groan. And when it stops - when the planes stay down, when the worries lift up - the sudden silence is startling, enough to make me cry. But – here’s the thing- thanks to the lockdown I have realised that it isn’t just worry to which I have grown accustomed in this way. There is something else, even more monstrous, which it has taken me a long time to name – and its name is shame.

I believe the shame comes from a thousand ‘shoulds,’ from the many things I feel I should be doing as a mother and am not.  Motherhood, along with the paraphernalia of nappies, wipes and purees, comes with a huge bundle of shoulds. The very first thing I did, nine years ago now, on discovering that I was pregnant, was to rush out to Waterstones and buy a book on what I should and shouldn’t eat during the next nine months– and that was only the beginning. The shoulds come from everywhere, a mountain of well-meant advice, not only from books, but from doctors, midwives, family members, partners, friends, other mothers, even complete strangers. I remember standing in a shop queue with my three-week-old son in a sling, when the woman behind me leant forward and touched one of his toes. “Where’s his socks?” she said, “He’ll catch his death of cold.” On the one hand I felt reasonably confident that carrying my son around sock-less was not going to endanger his life, on the other, as a brand new mother, I was nonetheless shaken by the idea that my son’s survival was up to me, and that many different people had many different ideas about how best I should fulfil my role of raising and protecting him. At times, even my instinct, that famous maternal inner guide, seemed like a mysterious thing that someone else had told me I should follow.

Mothers Who Make began, in part, as a response to all these shoulds. When I went along to the new mother and baby groups, that I also believed to be obligatory, I noticed a distressing pattern. All too often we were simply swapping ‘shoulds’ with each other and coming away feeling worse than when we arrived. No place or position was safe: I met mothers who felt they should be breastfeeding, mothers who felt the need to put a label saying ‘breastmilk’ on the bottle they fed their baby in public, as well as mothers who felt they should be weaning their baby and moving rapidly onto solids. I met mothers who felt bad about co-sleeping and mothers who felt bad about not doing so. In those early days of mothering - when you should be feeling overjoyed - there are even charts that tell you what should be happening when, how much your child should weigh, by when they should be making eye contact etc. It is not that these charts are entirely unhelpful or inaccurate, but they certainly encouraged my constant questioning: is my child okay? Am I okay? Am I doing this right? And if I thought I wasn’t, if I was not doing what I should, I felt ashamed.

I have felt many parallels between lockdown and early motherhood – the sudden cessation of all usual activity, the focus on ‘intensive care’ and care-taking, the washing, the sense of vulnerability, the way leaving the house seems like an epic adventure, the isolation and longing for connection. And, as in early motherhood, our diverse lives are again apparently aligned. We are all in the same situation: all the mothers in those baby groups had a new born / all the mothers I know now are in lockdown due to a pandemic. This makes comparison seem possible, even appropriate. There is a set of scales around again – I weigh our lives on it and find myself at fault.

Let me give you a small sample of some of the shoulds that fly low over my home, through my mind, like aeroplanes, a few of the many that I have collected over my nine years of mothering. I should get my children to bed earlier. I should give them less screen time, or it shouldn’t happen first thing in the morning, or I should manage the whole issue of screens in a better, different way. I should give them less choice about what they eat. I should make sure they eat more fresh foods and less sugar. I should make them help around the house more. I should hold the structure of the day better. I should make sure everyone stays at the table when we’re eating. I should take steps towards weaning my daughter. I should never resort to threats – to the ‘if you don’t stop x, you won’t get y’ pattern. And so on and so forth – you get the gist. And because I do not do these things - and I imagine a thousand other mothers who are doing them wonderfully - I feel ashamed. I realise as I write this that my ‘shoulds,’ as listed here, are nice, white, middle class ones- signs of privilege. Shame is a heavy word and it is associated with far darker things than letting your kids watch too much telly. I want to acknowledge that my issues are trifling compared to those many have to navigate, but shame, whatever the context, is still shame and it is powerful. As someone who was once anorexic, I know that shame can sit alongside privilege and that, where present, it undermines the ease of even the most comfortable life.

Back in Jan 2019 I wrote a blog about guilt. I now think I was muddling up some of my guilt and my shame. In general, I feel guilty about specific instances that have an immediate, present moment, ground-level reality: I shouted at my son when he blasted water over the bathroom with the shower head and that triggered one of his big, aggressive rages. If I feel guilty about something, I can say sorry about it, to the person or people I have wronged, and then it’s over. Shame, for me, is more like the ongoing aeroplanes, it is long term - a long haul flight. On the bad days, motherhood seems like a very lengthy exam, the end of it still twenty years away. My children are not the examiners – certainly not for now – they are the results. Depending on how the children turn out, I will pass or fail. There are external examiners, keeping track, making notes, of all the things I am doing or not doing. And who are they, these examiners? I think, somewhere in my psyche, there is an impressive panel of them, made up of everyone who has ever shared ‘a should’ with me, from the author of the book on what to eat during pregnancy, to the woman in the queue who wanted my son to be in socks, to the many other authors, friends and strangers who have offered me advice - they are all sitting there, scribbling on their notepads, shaking their heads. They are not bad people. Many of them are people for whom I have enormous respect, which makes it worse. I believe in their advice – seriously, I should be following it.

In my blog on guilt, I found my guilt a figure – made it into an image that helped me connect to the things that mattered to me, lying underneath the guilt. It turned out to be a Mary Poppins-like character, flying a kite. I think my shame has a very different form. There is the panel of judges, frowning from a distance, and then there is the shame herself, much closer in, and, like the sound of the low-flying planes, she’s monstrous.

My son’s latest obsession is the Beast Quest books (he has moved on from My Little Pony - woe betide you if you mention his former interest to him). There are over a hundred Beast Quest books, all with the same basic formula – boy meets monster. Giant birds, snakes, insects, spiders, bears, apes, hounds, trolls, ogres, dragons – you name your flavour of nightmarish monster, it will be there. I am glad to say there is a reasonable spread of gender representations across the monsters – sadly none of them are trans but there are some mothers. My ‘shame monster’ is definitely a mother. She is immense, stinking, gruesome and green. Her roar is the soundtrack of my days, to which I have grown accustomed. In some of the Beast Quest books the beasts are evil and must be destroyed, but in some they are good, set under an evil curse, from which they must be freed. I think my monstrous shame mother is one of these – good at heart but under pressure, after years of judgement, she has turned malevolent. And here is the irony: I believe her malevolent aspect has a more toxic impact on my children and our household, than any of the things such as screen time, sugar, late nights, unstructured days, which have driven her into this terrible state. Her constant growling makes me tense, fractious and very, very tired. I don’t think I can go on like this. So, what to do? How to release her from the curse? And who would she be without it?

Often the opposite of shame is presented as pride. But I think pride too is problematic – the panel of judges, external examiners, is still present in the dynamic, it’s just that they are giving out good marks instead of bad. So, if the shame-beast, when transformed, does not turn into the proud mother, who does she become?

As ever, when I am wrangling with a question in my mothering, I look to my making for answers. Throughout the lockdown I have been writing whenever I can. Always, when the children are having their screen time. Often, when I should be getting them dressed, or focussing on making us breakfast, or preparing them for bed. I don’t write because I should. I write because I want to do it, because it helps me give things meaning, because it brings me joy. I think back to that teary moment on the golf course, watching the children run ahead of me over the grass. What made the worry lift, the planes stop, the monster turn out good? Yes, I think it was a moment of joy. I think, when the gory green monster is not sweating with shame, she is lit up with joy.

So much, so often, is laid at the mother’s door. On the one hand we are ‘just’ being mums, with minimal status, doing an insignificant job, and on the other, we are accorded huge significance – everything can be traced back to us, to our care or the lack of it, our early influence. I do not wish to deny our responsibility as mothers, but I do not believe our shame helps us to shoulder it, or that we should shoulder it alone. When I started Mothers Who Make I wanted it to be a held peer-support space where women could share their challenges without shame, and celebrate, even cultivate, their joy. I wanted to create a group in which we did not find further fault, did not inadvertently end up undermining or judging one another, adding to the great big bundles of shoulds already carried. It is why it is still vital to me that we welcome every kind of mother – breastfeeding, bottle-feeding, those who keep their mothering and their making strictly separate, those who take their children to work – every kind. It is also the same impulse that lies behind our Matronage scheme. Rather than a panel of judges telling us whether or not we are worthy, I want to see whether we can hold each other up. We have been asking people to become our ‘Matron Saints’ by giving us the price of a coffee a month - £3. We need 300 of you to become self-sustaining. So far we have a fantastic 99! Once we reach 100, I am going to announce a new project in celebration– a way, I hope, to keep the same ethos of grassroots peer-support alive and kicking – kicking off the shoulds, turning them into wishes and dreams.

And in the meantime, whilst you are all rushing to bring us over the 100 Matron Saint mark, (go here to do so: www.motherswhomake.org) these are your questions for the month: as a mother and/ or as a maker what are the ‘shoulds’ and ‘should nots’ you carry around with you? Do your ‘shoulds’ turn into shame? And then- as an antidote to this -what brings you joy? In your mothering? In your making? As we slowly emerge out of this pandemic, can you do more of this? Can you create a more shameless world? Can you help make the monsters joyful?

[keenerparkerstark]

All I see is green (5/?)

All I see is green (4/?)

Ship: Harley Keener/Peter Parker

Summary: Peter Parker feels on top of the world! Getting good grades in high school, spending time with Tony Stark (!!!) on his weekends, and at night, he roams the city as the hero known as Spider-Man! Everything changes when a new student shows up at Midtown who seems determined to take it all away from him.

AO3 | FF.net

“Slow your roll, asshole, unless you want some extra holes in that body of yours.”

Harley put up his hands, immediately without turning around, and stopped walking, remembering what Tony had told him about the dangers of walking around on your own in New York. He couldn’t help but glance down at the, most likely, ridiculously expensive jacket he was wearing, which Tony had insisted on buying him. Combine this with his lithe, youthful appearance, and you basically had a bright neon sign over his head that says: ‘Rob me, please!’

“I don’t want any trouble,” he states for good measure, and turns his head slightly to try and catch a glimpse of what his attacker is doing. He barely caught sight of a figure with a hoodie drawn over his cap, casting an impenetrable shadow over his face, with a black-clad arm reaching out to the back of Harley’s head, when he felt a harsh cold pressure to the back of his head, and flinched away when he realised that it was the barrel of a handgun.

“No funny games,” the figure behind him grunted. “Just slowly reach down, take out your wallet and phone and hand them to me. Don’t even think about turning around, screaming, fighting or running away, because I will put a bullet in your brain before you can finish the thought.” Harley shivered, a lump in his throat making it difficult to breath. His hand trembled as it reached into his jacket pocket, and took out his phone, reaching back to hold it out for the figure to take. It was yanked out of his hands without warning.

“Your wallet,” the voice pressed urgently behind him, “and hand over your watch too.” His watch… Harley’s heart skipped a beat as he was reminded of the elaborate smart watch that sat on his wrist, equipped with all kinds of applications and gadgets, and a panic button that sends a distress signal straight to Tony. Of course!

“M-my wallet is in my backpack,” Harley stuttered out, raising his hands up again. “Let me take off my watch.” Keeping his hands in the air to show that he wasn’t taking out anything else, Harley started fidgeting with the claps of his watch. With as much subtlety as he could muster, he pressed the tiny red knob on his watch, which vibrated gently in acknowledgement. Just as he finished unclasping the watch, another voice echoed through the alley, this time from up high.

“You know, most people don’t really appreciate being held at gun point. You might want to stop that.” Harley let out a sigh as relief washed over him, making his knees buckle under him. He knew that voice… He had heard it hundreds of times before in YouTube videos and the like. Immediately, an arm wrapped around his neck in a choke hold, his own hands involuntarily flying up to desperately grasp at the grip, and he was drawn backwards until his back met the figure’s chest. The cold pressure of the gun has shifted to his temple, and he squeezed his eyes closed in fear as he gasped for breath.

“Get the fuck out of here, Spider-Man, or I’ll put a bullet in this fucking kid!” Harley heard a thud as Spider-Man landed in front of them, but didn’t dare open his eyes, his world narrowed down to the metal against his temple and the arm around his throat. He felt the chest behind him rapidly moving up and down as his attacker takes in one panic breath after another.

“Okay, hey, slow down, there’s no need for that.” Spider-Man’s voice had lost its earlier lightness, and sounded almost stern. “I ain’t looking for trouble if you’re not making it. You got what you wanted. Just let the kid go, and walk away.” Suddenly, Harley felt the gun being taken away from his temple as the figure behind him shoved him aggressively, and he stumbled forward, eyes snapping open and only seeing red and blue as a pair of spandex clad arms caught him gracefully. He looked up at Spider-Man’s mask, but it was facing forward determinedly, as he helped Harley stay upright.

“Stay here, Harley,” he spoke firmly, and he was off, a web slinging him to the furthest end of the alley, where, as Harley now noticed, the perpetrator was making a quick escape. He did not get far, however, as Spider-Man made quick work of webbing up his feet, and dragging him by his lower body towards the wall, continuously shooting webs at him to make the robber stick to it.

Harley let out a shaky breath as all adrenaline seemed to rush out of him simultaneously, and he could barely make it to the wall before his knees gave out entirely, dropping down on the concrete below, which emitted a strong stank of urine. He felt tired beyond belief, and wanted nothing more in that moment than to close his eyes, and fall asleep, be unconscious for a while and wake up in his bed in Tennessee by his sister jumping on his bed, and the smell of freshly fried eggs. He didn’t notice when the tears started falling, but soon enough there were wet patches on his jeans where his face was pressed against his knees, which he had drawn to his chest in an attempt to make himself as small as humanly possible.

A sudden presence beside him startled him, but he calmed down when he realised it was none other than New York’s wallcrawler, sitting on a urine-flooded alley next to a crying teenager who felt home sick. He didn’t even say thank you… Harley started furiously wiping at his eyes, and sniffed a few times before he managed to find some form of composure. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but was cut off by Spider-Man, who spoke first.

“I got your phone back.” It was then that Harley noticed the hand that was holding out the phone to him. He took it with a grateful smile, and an unreadable mask with white lenses glared back at him. Say thank you, say thank you, say thank you…

“I’m sorry.” Wait, what? Spider-Man’s head cocked in confusion.

“What are you sorry for, Harley? None of this was your fault.”

“I know, I know, but I should have known better than to- Wait a minute… How do you know my name?” Harley suddenly remembered Spider-Man calling him ‘Harley’ earlier as well, although he had been too out-of-it to notice at the time. Suddenly, the mask was not as unreadable as it had seemed earlier when the white lenses gave away the widening of the eyes underneath. “Uh, I mean, I know all the names of the citizens of New York!”

“What, like Santa Claus, or something,” Harley laughed incredulously, both curious, worried and amused about the situation.

“I mean, would you believe me if I said yes?” Harley just raised an eyebrow in return, slowly feeling the weight on his shoulders lift some more. “Yeah, I figured as much. Okay, so, here’s the truth. Mr. Stark told me about you.” Of course!

“That makes sense. Tony mentioned you to me before too! But don’t worry, nothing about your identity, or anything. Just that you had needed his help.” Spider-Man let out an awkward laugh at that.

“Yeah, Mr. Iron Man and I are what I like to call co-dependant. He needs me as much as I need him.”

“I really don’t, Underoos,” a voice from beside them spoke, uncharacteristically quiet. Both Harley’s and Spider-Man’s heads snapped up at the sound of Tony Stark’s voice, and stared at him as he stood before them, the Iron Man armour only a couple steps behind him, opened up. “I think of it more as a mentor-mentee relationship, where you screw up sometimes, and I try to help you not screw up.”

“Mr. Stark,” Spider-Man laughed, but he was cut off by Harley getting up and launching himself at Tony, trembling from head to toe, the impact of the evening hitting him again at full force at the sight of his pseudo-dad.

“Shh, it’s okay, kiddo,” the older man whispered in his ear, as he pressed him close to his chest. “I’ve got you. I’m right here.” As Harley stood there, tightly wrapped up in Tony’s embrace, a soft thwip was the only thing indicating Spider-Man’s quiet departure from the scene. Distant police sirens could be heard approaching.

“You, my friend, have had the craziest week ever, and that including the one where you were bitten by a radioactive spider and gained superpowers.” Peter groaned pathetically from his position on Ned’s lap, the latter of whom simply ignored him for the sake of stealthing his way across whatever video game he was playing, his hands holding the controller resting on Peter’s chest.

“Tell me about it,” Peter whined. “At least getting bitten by that spider and everything that followed was just facts, you know? This all involves feelings and social behaviour and puberty-”

“As much as you’re my best friend, and I truly sympathise with you,” Ned interjected, as he casually took out at least four other players as he was talking. “I think you’re overthinking this. Be honest with yourself! The answer to all your current problems is right there: just talk to Harley! God knows he could use some friendship after what he went through, and by the way he was hunting you down in school today, it seems he’s really eager to talk to you too.” Peter groaned again, opening his eyes and absentmindedly glancing up at his best friend, who’s full focus seemed to be on the TV screen in front of him. “Something’s holding you back from talking to him though, am I right? What is it?”

What was it? Honestly, Peter wished he could answer that question. Harley genuinely seemed to want to talk things out with him, and after his conversation with Mr. Stark, there was no real grudge that Peter found himself holding against the other teenager. It sounded like the boy was going through a lot, and in his own way, he was standing up for somebody he loved, or, at least, he thought he was. What had happened that evening was intense, much more than anybody should ever have to go through. Peter had been held at gun point more times that he could count, a job hazard, you could call it, but he never got used to the feeling that the person holding the gun could end everything in a split second, no questions asked, no going back. All they had to do was pull the trigger, and it would all be over. Peter squeezed his eyes closed again as his mind flashed with memories of his uncle, lying there surrounded by a puddle of his own blood…

“I don’t know, Ned,” he responded, a slight tremor in his voice giving away his current emotional state. Ned, ever the graceful friend, did not look away from the screen, but dropped one hand away from his controller, and onto Peter’s chest as a sign of comfort. “I want to talk to him, especially after what happened tonight… Mr. Stark will be there for him, but I just want to know if he’s okay, you know? But then again, I wasn’t there. Spider-Man was. And Spider-Man didn’t get into a fight with him about Tony Stark.”

“Having a secret identity is not easy, Peter.”

“I never thought it would be,” Peter sighed in response. “I just want to know what’s holding me back from talking to Mr. Stark and Harley. I want to, I really do, but every single time I think about it, I feel like some freaky disembodied hand is trying to choke the life out of me.”

“Of course, you’re going to feel anxious about it, Pete,” Ned responded, his hand pressing down slightly. “You feel hurt by both of them. But the only way to get rid of that anxiety is to communicate. Hell, even telling them that the idea of talking to them makes you anxious is already better than the radio silence you’re giving now. Harley’s not stupid: he knows you were avoiding him yesterday.” Peter nodded in understanding, letting his friend’s words sink in.

Honestly, knowing that Harley probably wanted to talk to him about something was both dauntingly terrifying and infinitely comforting. The situation was a chip on both of their shoulders, and they seemed equally eager to move past it, but Peter had no way of knowing how. After all, Harley still seemed awfully friendly with Flash, who hadn’t let up on bullying Peter constantly since their last year of Middle School. He doubted Harley could change his mind about that. But not giving him a chance to redeem himself seemed wrong too, and he could almost hear his aunt in his head, telling him to ‘never write of strangers at first sight, because strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet’. Naïve, but not necessarily wrong.

Tomorrow, Peter promised himself. Tomorrow, he would set aside whatever was holding him back, and talk to Harley.

[charmspoint]

I know you said they don't have a concrete story yet, but would you be ok with telling us more about Zan and Ghost? They seem really interesting

Anon you don't know what you unleashed its like past 1am here but I could talk about them forever.

This is gonna be under the cut because nobody has to be subjected to this.

General quick point: Both of these started off as bnha oc's but then reached that point where I was like 'yeah, I want them in their own story' so rn their powers are just powers with no wider context since I aint got that story

I'm gonna start with Zan cuz he's older by creation and my fav oc atm. For him we have TW's of child abuse and neglect, familial death, trauma, drug abuse, depression and anxiety, though I'll be running through this points as quickly and non graphically as I can cuz...I'm not gonna make you read my thesis so it should be fine.

His full legal name is Kazuya Moriyama but he goes by Zan Mori, he's 24. Zan was created to be two things 1. Character design with a fully body tattoo 2. Someone to use a power I came up with but didn't match with a character yet.

Here's that power, yes I have a copy paste off it:

Nightmare fuel is a power that terrorizes everyone, including its user. Zan’s sweat contains a special kind of chemical that when smelled causes mild to severe hallucinations, paranoia and other fear responses by interacting with victims brain chemistry. However, this chemical is only contained in sweat that he produces as a result of fear so, for example if he goes running in the gym, nothing bad will happen. The strength of the power depends on how much Zan himself is afraid and how much sweat he is producing. A weak dose will only result in sense of unease, a feeling of being watched, escalating through general paranoia, with its worst manifestation being complete loss of touch with reality and intense hallucinations. It's odorless and since it’s a chemical can be stored for later use. The last stages of it are very hard to reach because they require for Zan to be at similar levels of severe distress. It affects him as well, often resulting in endless loop of him being afraid, activating his power because of his fear, the power causing more intense fear and so on.

So here is where we start to build.

Zan's backstory hinges on him developing this power very early on in his life, as a result of mutation that his parents were not ready for. Kids get scared of things, a lot, especially when their own power feeds back into that fear. His family quickly spiraled from it, going from trying to figure out how to help him to neglecting him to dying very bloodily in front of him as a result of the constant psychological distress. After that he was cycled through different foster and youth homes with pretty similar result before striking it on his own basically as soon as he could.

Zan's main motivation is to find a way to get rid of his power. He hates it, hates what it represents and how it essentially stripped away his ability to connect with anyone. He doesn't control it, he doesn't activate it, it simply happens to him whenever he gets distressed and as someone with deep seated anxiety caused by that very same power, he gets distressed a lot.

He self-medicates. He self medicates a lot. I don't really have the world planned out but it's very much a world where powers are a new thing and the society just doesn't have systems in place to catch people like Zan. So he basically keeps himself high as much as he can, to numb himself out so he doesn't feel anything so he doesn't get scared so his power doesn't get activated.

When I created Zan, I expected him to be a very jaded, angry, abrasive character and in some ways he is. He's very slow to trust and tends to keep away from people. His first instinct is to mock and insult, he dresses like an emo reject, he's absolutely covered in tattoos, he's a dark humored pessimist and just not the kind of person you want to be around for long. He's also probably one of the most empathic characters I have on the roster atm. He's like, a natural big brother. Any kids younger then him, fuck older than him but awkward and unsure, he's instantly adopting. Fuck everything else, his kids now, he'll make them lunch and make sure they get to school. Zan is more so abrasive out of need than out of actual malice or bad attitude. He does want to be close to people he just knows how that always ends so keeping away is a lot safer. He is genuinely very loving and soft when he lets himself be. He's not great about advice but he's a good listener and the type to throw everything on the backburner to come and help a friend out. He is inherently kind, he just doesn't allow himself to be so very often, unless someone damn well takes a chisel and digs it out of him.

Fun fact time:

He's got a knack for painting and idolizes Van Gogh

He's got a cat named Shikei who he picked up after it got run over by a car, it likes only him and wants to see the rest of humanity burn

Here are his established tattoos, yes I have a copy paste for that too:

Full body tattoo in shape of a jungle of thorns crawling over his entire body, save most of his face. The whole piece is done in eerie, cold colors, with a sudden splash of warmer color here and there, the thorns themselves being colored in misty and muted blues and greens. Over his heart, there is a tattoo of a birds nest, but the nest is breaking apart, suffocated by the thorns clustering around it and breaking into it, its branches drenched in blood, the baby birds in it barely even noticeable. Along the length of his spine and over the width of his hips an ornate cross of st. peter is painted, also crumbling, red spider lilies breaking through the frail rock. His shoulder blades are covered in sunflowers, strikingly bright on the cold surface of the thorns and painted in Van Gogh style. There is a chain of daisies lines across his neck and down to his chest, covering an old scar and a tiny ring of roses over his ring finger. On the nape of his neck, two butterflies are pinned by the thorns, appearing to still be alive and in agony as their bodies are pierced. A silver snake slithers through the thorns on his right arm, though its shade helps it blend in with the color of thorns, it’s body a tiny bit coiled, considering should it strike or not. On the back of his left hand there is a tiny leaf bug, trying to hide amidst the bare thorns and on the outer shell of his ear, mostly hidden from view by his head, is a ladybug, wings spread like it is about to fly away. A swarm of blue butterflies paint the silhouette of his lungs across his skin and two koi fishes circle each other endlessly on his hip. In thorns climbing up and down his neck, there are tiny fireflies, just barely bright enough to be seen. Two thin thorn branches separate themselves from the cluster on his neck and climb across his temples, their thorns appearing to be piercing through his skin and letting blood flow.

The tattoo is still in progress.

This was the brief summary.

Ghost! Ghost is a lot newer than Zan, I only made them at the start of this year so they are a lot less detailed but they hit the ground running. Their tw are mostly prostitution and existentialist feelings but I'm not getting into anything in detail.

Their full name is Ghostown Verb and yes they did name themselves that. They are 27 and their power is Forget me not, as I said previously, as soon as they are out of someone's line of sight, to that person it's like they never existed. The memories of meeting them return as soon as they are back in the field of vision but uhh you can see how it would be super easy to lose a child like that.

Ghost grew up on the street in a kind of do whatever you can when you can how you can attitude. Turns out it's really hard to get help from anyone when they can't remember you as soon as they stop looking at you, which includes but is not limited to social workers, well meaning passerby, police, foster homes and landlords. The name and face for the paperwork doesn't exist and people just find themselves grasping at nothing, feeling like they are forgetting something but not knowing what it is. It works in some ways, shoplifting is a lot easier when you're sure that you can just turn a corner and be safe, but it's mostly just a hassle. Ghost is homeless most of the time and when they were old enough for it their career of choice became prostitution simply because it's pretty much the only job where the customer doesn't need to remember you after they're no longer looking at you and it's not like Ghost has to answer to any boss who would have to either.

They had not had a kind life but they are the let and let live type. They don't stress a lot about things and generally take everything in a fly. They are very extroverted, very loud, very friendly. They form friendships fast because they know they'll lose them fast and same goes with love affairs. They live in the moment because for everyone else the moment is the only place where they exist. Loud fashion, loud words, loud actions, provocative and noticeable, they just want to be seen by people, remembered by people, they want the attention on them even though they know it's useless. Much like Zan they also have no control of their power so all they can do is live with it. At least it doesn't bring anyone any direct harm, they are grateful for that much.

But it does leave them displaced, unanchored. They don't have any support system, no family, no long term friends. The system can't even remember them for long enough to decide it isn't equipped to deal with them. They flitter through peoples lives, there one moment and gone the next. The biggest impact they can hope to have is the nagging feeling of having forgotten something.

It's not like they are exactly sad about it, their main mentality is just not to worry about things they can't change. These are the cards they've been dealt with and play those cards they shall. At the very least they are having fun with their life, doing whatever they want with no one remembering them long enough to stop them.

But it's a lonely existence with no viable human connection. That much does get to them.

Fun facts!

They have a tattoo of a forget-me-not on their shoulder, I haven't decided do they have it before the plot whatever it is starts, or do they get it cuz Zan's influence.

They like to make their own clothes when they can, though having a stable enough place to be for a long enough time is rare.

Their biggest fear is that when they die nobody will remember to look for their body :)

That was a brief rundown of these two! If you made it to the end damn congrats I love you

[mr-hawkmoth]

Chat’s Heart Gets Stung!

Hey @edendaphne  so I did the thing...

Here is the artwork of Eden’s that inspired this.

I have no idea what I just created...

Marinette had a strange fear revolving around bugs, particularly scorpions (bug family or not Marinette considered them a bug and she was absolutely terrified of them). Needless to say Marinette was more than a little on edge when a guest speaker came to her class with containers and containers of bugs, including scorpions. While most girls were squealing over the various spiders and tarantulas Marinette eyed the scorpion’s cage warily. She wiped sweaty palms against her jeans and swallowed hard. Her heart drummed in her chest and her breathing felt much too shallow.

“Girl chill out it’s in a cage!” Alya shook her head.

“It could still get out!” Marinette pointed out.

“We’re almost legal adults and you’re telling me you still have a phobia of scorpions?” Alya shook her head incredulously.

“You’re still afraid of swing sets!” Marinette shot back.

“Hey those things are a deathtrap!!!” Alya snapped. Marinette raised an eyebrow at Alya’s outburst. Alya took a deep calming breath. “Okay you’re right but don’t you think it’s about time we faced our fears? Maybe today is the day we leave these silly phobias behind…” Alya urged Marinette towards the table of critters. Marinette’s chest tightened. She shook her head violently, flipping around in Alya’s arms and looking up at her pleadingly.

“Today is not that day!” Marinette pushed Alya away from the table, a lump already forming in Marinette’s throat. Alya sighed in resignation, patting her friend comfortingly on the back. Adrien noticed the girl in distress and began to move away from the table to see what was wrong. All the while Lila sat by and watched. She sent a loathsome look towards Marinette. Lila looked towards the table, smiling cruelly as she discreetly knocked one of the containers to the ground releasing its contents unknowingly into the classroom.

“Hey Marinette is everything okay?” Adrien asked. He knit his brows together as he looked on the frightened girl. Marinette squeaked, nearly jumping into the air at the sound of his voice. She turned to him pulling at one of her pigtails as she did so, cheeks pink.

“I’m fine! I just I- um- I- uh- bugs um they uh- the scorpions they- I uh-“ Marinette fumbled for words running her fingers nervously through one of her pigtails. A smile pulled at the edges of Adrien’s lips.

“Not a fan of scorpions?” Marinette nodded, chewing on her bottom lip. “Want to know something? I’m afraid of spiders,” Adrien admitted.

“Y-you are?!” Marinette’s eyebrows shot up into her bangs.

“Yeah, they really freak me out.” Adrien rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

“They do kill 6.6 people every year!” Marinette blurted. Adrien chuckled.

“So they kill six people and a half person?” Adrien smirked tilting his head to the side.

“Well technically it would by 60% of a person,” Marinette babbled, face growing red. She couldn’t believe she was saying this. To her relief Adrien laughed.

“Somehow I think we are getting this statistic wrong,” Adrien said.

“We probably-“ before Marinette could finish the thought Lila let out a sharp scream. Everyone turned towards her in alarm. Her eyes were blown wide as she pointed a shaky hand towards Marinette.

“Scorpion!!” she shouted. Marinette’s heart beat sped out of control. Her mouth went dry as her head slowly shifted down to see a small black scorpion resting on her foot. Marinette screamed as panic swept over her. Her body jerked backwards in an attempt to shake the scorpion from her. She stumbled backwards throat raw from the inhumanly high pitched noise emanating from her. She fell back onto the ground scorpion landing on her stomach. Her chest felt tight her breathing shallow and erratic. Perspiration lined her forehead. She could hear her pulse pounding haphazardly in her ears.

“Hold still!!” The man in charge of the creatures called out. “Whatever you do don’t move! If we frighten the creature he might sting you,” The man commanded. Marinette’s eyes widened. Tears began to prick the back of her eyes. Her stomach twisted in knots. Marinette fought every instinct in her body that was screaming at her to move, to get the hell out of there. The man approached her and quickly removed the scorpion from Marinette’s abdomen with a gloved hand. Tears spilled down Marinette’s cheeks as she slowly sat up body shaking uncontrollably. Alya kneeled down next to her.

“Are you alright?” She whispered. Marinette sucked in an unsteady breath before whipping her head from side to side, sobs threatening to overtake her. Lila, Chloe, and Sabrina’s cackling sent her over the edge.

“Oh my gosh! It’s just a stupid bug! I can’t believe you’re crying about this!” Chloe laughed.

“So ridiculous,” Sabrina snickered. 

“Stop being such a baby Marinette,” Lila scolded. Marinette pushed herself up on uncertain legs and quickly fled from the room sobs wracking her body as hot tears steamed in an endless current down her cheeks. When she collapsed on the bathroom floor she let herself cry, she didn’t bother to muffle the whines escaping her raw throat. And very suddenly the pain melted away bubbling into something else, something much darker.

***

Adrien bolted down the hallway searching for Marinette. Not good not good not good, Adrien repeated to himself as his shoes slapped against the tile floor. Marinette had avoided being akumatized for so long and Adrien didn’t want to see her fall under Hawkmoth’s control now. The sound of screams caused Adrien to slide to a stop. he whipped his head in the direction of the screams. Definitely not good.

“Plagg!” Adrien called on his kwami. Without having to finish the sentence the transformation took effect as he dashed down the corridor towards the cries of his classmates. Chat Noir burst through the door, jaw dropping as he took in the scene. Marinette in a pink and black suit (why did it look so good on her?!) had her arms wrapped adoringly around Chloe and Lila. Her twin tails morphed into sharp elongated ends pointed at their throats. Are those stingers!? Chat grit his teeth together. Marinette looked up at Chat a wicked smile playing at her lips.

“Chat Noir! So nice of you to join us! We were just trying to decided who gets what?” Marinette practically purred.

“Who gets what?” Chat asked cautiously.

“Who gets to live and who gets to take a dirt nap,” Marinette clarified stingers lifting of their own violation and moving towards the opposite sided target.

“What do you think?” Marinette asked playfully.

“Well it depends which is which?” Chat asked. Better he knew which stinger would kill him, although it would probably be best to avoid them both. He wondered absently what the second stinger would do.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Marinette chuckled.

“Marinette why don’t you let the girls go and then we can have a long talk about the stingers okay?” Chat Noir tried.

“The names Sting,” Marinette corrected.

“I’m sorry I’m afraid that name’s already taken,” Chat chuckled.

“By who?” Marinette growled.

“Marinette we really need to sit down and have a chat about the music you listen to.” Chat clicked his tongue.  Her stingers rose pointing towards him as a frown crossed her features. She pushed the two girls to the ground smiling ever so slightly at their cries of pain. The two girls, now free, quickly jumped to their feet and sprinted out the door. It seemed they were alone. A smirk played at Marinette’s lips once again as she sauntered Chat’s way.

“Alright alley cat why don’t you educate me. Chat Noir barely jerked out of the way of one of her stingers which to his surprise had quite the reach. He ducked beneath another stinger. Chat flicked his baton out sweeping it towards Marinette. Marinette bent in half letting the baton pass over her. She was alarmingly flexible. A stinger whipped out towards him. Chat Noir caught it with his staff keeping its sharp end mere inches from his face.

“I love it When We Dance,” Chat chuckled at his own joke. Marinette knit her brows together in confusion. Chat frowned. It was less fun when his puns were lost on his victims. Chat pushed her stinger away with his staff. Marinette looped her arms around his neck face moving surprisingly close to his. Chat raised his eyebrows mouth hanging open. Her fingers wove into his hair, her nose just barely brushing up against his. Chat hesitated unsure of what to do. Marinette fixed him with a lovestruck look.

“You know we don’t have to fight like this,” Marinette breathed her breath hot against his lips. Part of Chat was screaming that something was very very wrong here, the other more hormonal part however was shouting much louder, letting his mind play with the possibilities. “I’m still Marinette, the akuma doesn’t change that,” She whispered, voice sultry. She took a deep breath her chest brushing up against his. Her eyes darted to his lips and back up to again to meet his gaze. She bit her lip and smiled mischievously at him. Chat’s mouth went dry. He tilted his head ever so slightly beginning to lean in to the girl’s touch…

“Chat Noir!! Her stingers!!” Alya screeched from her perch behind her school desk. Chat’s eyes widened quickly darting around him to find that he had lost track of the stingers. In the reflection of the window Chat could see that Marinette had her stingers poised at his back. Marinette glowered over at Alya a sinister snarl etched over the sweet girl’s face. Marinette let out a deadly hiss as she looked at the girl her stingers raising in agitation. Chat quickly grabbed one of her hair pieces with one hand praying it was the deadlier of the two. He pushed the stinger away from him as his other hand swept his baton beneath Marinette’s feet sending her falling backwards onto the ground and taking him down with her. Chat dropped his baton, it’s usefulness no longer effective. He pinned one stinger to the ground and fought to pin the other. Marinette’s legs wrapped around his midsection and squeezed tight forcing the air out of Chat’s lungs. Her fingers ran roughly through his hair as she pulled her face up to meet his.

“What’s the matter kitty, you look a little uncomfortable,” Marinette pouted, lips brushing against the corner of his mouth. Chat’s face flushed. Losing his concentration Marinette gripped his shoulders and quickly flipped them over putting Chat Noir onto his back. Stingers now free. She wrestled to pin his hands down. Chat Noir squirmed beneath her. Risking getting stung Chat Noir grabbed her knees and flipped her off of him and onto her back. Chat rolled onto his knees pushing himself to his feet. A sharp knee in his back pushed him back down onto the tile floor. Hands flat against the tile arms up Marinette quickly linked her arms beneath his pulling them tight until she was straining the muscles in Chat’s shoulders. Chat grunted in pain. Chat’s legs thrashed in an attempt to buck her off of him. Marinette slid her legs down his body entangling them with his and stopping his movements. Chat struggled beneath her grunting in irritation as he did so. Marinette let out a light bubbly laugh as Chat snarled up at her. Now would be a great time for you to show up LB, Chat thought to himself as a drop of sweat slid down the side of his face, the other side pressed down against the cool tile.

“Hey Sting could you be careful there, I’m a bit Fragile,” Chat snickered to himself before a sharp pain in his shoulder silenced him. Numbing pain spread through Chat’s body seeping up into his arms and neck. Panic swept through Chat as his pulse quickened and his arms went limp. Chat’s breathing became shallow. He fought to move, to move anything. The numbness quickly spread down into the rest of his body. He twitched his legs spasmodically until finally he lost all feeling in his body and was no longer able to move. Slowly Marinette disengaged her arms from his. Chat’s arms slid lifelessly to the ground. Marinette’s hands slid along Chat’s back as she leaned down to whisper in his ear.

“We’ll continue this later handsome, I’m saving my venom for someone else at the moment,” Her lips brushed tauntingly against his ear. Marinette pushed herself up off of the superhero. She shot him a beaming smile and a little wave before she strode out of the room hips swinging victoriously from side to side.

Chat groaned where he lay one the floor. I change my mind, He thought to himself, Scorpions are much worse than spiders.

[firstpuffin]

“It’s just a movie”: Does quality of writing matter?

-Note= minor Avengers: Infinity War spoilers.

As an aspiring creative writer who really cares about writing something fun, internally consistent and plausible, the one phrase that irritates me the most is “It’s just a movie” or some equivalent. It’s dismissive of the efforts of everyone involved, and of fiction in general and it is being said by people who spend money to consume this, for lack of a better word, service. Don’t people want quality in their product?

   I’ll try not to be too serious, or rant and whatnot, but this is a concerning subject matter for me. After all, who wants to spend money on something sub-par?

   I have a friend who watches some of the same stuff as I do and he once responded to my criticisms of a character with “well she’s hot”. I was watching one of the Hobbit movies, doesn’t matter which as I found them all terribly boring, with my mother and when I pointed out some flaws that really grated on me, she responded with “it’s just a movie”. I’m pretty sure I was lost for words and it kinda hurt; given all of her support for my own writing, what does she actually think of my chosen path?

  An uncomfortable amount of television that I watch is honestly quite poor and I justify continuing this by saying that I’m learning from the mistakes being made but when I see a fellow aspiring author who loves a series that is pretty terrible, I become concerned. Let’s take The Flash as an example: in the television series that follows the titular super-powered runner, major plot points are also often major contrivances. The events of the second season only happen because the main character goes back on a promise and lashes out at the villain who was about to leave forever, and earns his eternal hatred. This screws things up, killing one of the teammates (which conveniently leaves his wife free to pursue a new love interest for the next series) and allowing for a new villain.

  But okay, he was new to the hero scene and it was an emotional situation so I’ll let that slide. But then he does something equally stupid at the end of the next series. You see The Flash has had time to mature and has discovered both time-travel and its dangers, so naturally when he gets the girl that he has been chasing from the beginning, he proceeds to go back in time to do what he deliberately chose not to do at the end of the last series, potentially losing everything. But you know what? He had just lost his father who had finally been cleared of murder so I’ll, reluctantly, let this slide too. Even if it, conveniently, sets up the events of the next season.

  So we can’t blame The Flash for the events of series four because he nobly sacrifices himself in series 3. Instead, his friends decide to stumble all over his sacrifice and bring him back at the beginning of series 4. This is getting old. All I can say is that at least season 5 isn’t going to be his fault.

  It’s going to be his daughter’s. I guess bad decisions are genetic?

  So let’s change things up and talk about less forgivable contrivances. It is established repeatedly and early on that The Flash can move so fast that he can have an entire one-sided conversation with somebody who won’t have the faintest idea that it has happened due to the speed with which it happened. So how does anyone stand a chance fighting against someone so incredibly fast? Urm… ice guns? No. I mean yes, but that’s because the hero apparently just isn’t as fast for some reason, not because it’s a legitimate weakness. They don’t give a reason why.

  So once these absurd levels of speed have been established and he’s supposedly gotten multiple times faster since, he is framed for murder in series 4 when he finds a body in his apartment with one of his knives stabbing it and armed police at his door. We know that he could 100% clean up the body, have a bath and probably even read a newspaper on the toilet before the police enter his apartment and find nothing there. Does he? No. Because earlier in the episode he told his wife that he wouldn’t run away.

  Do you know what’s not running away? Cleaning up evidence of a false murder of someone who isn’t actually dead so that you are free to save lives and not rot in prison.

  So why is The Flash such a popular show? And it’s not just people like me who watch it because it’s bad, the show actually gets praise.

  This is my question: what actually matters in fiction? Should I write a screenplay for attractive actors and flashy fight scenes and just ignore character development, motivations and dialogue? Or should I continue writing in the hope that people will appreciate the effort I put into making a complex character involved in an internally consistent narrative?

  So I’ve given examples from a series that I feel is particularly bad, so where do I go from here? I could mention how when I was a child I loved the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies purely because it was my favourite superhero, but I was a dumb kid who honestly got a lot smarter after I left school and had to learn things for myself and so that particular anecdote would go nowhere. I could find more examples, particularly from the Arrowverse that spawned The Flash, but what is the point?

I’m not very good at online research, I can’t google to save my life, and nobody thinks that the poor television that they watch is low quality because that reflects badly on them. This means that I am going to have to form my own counter arguments. One, people don’t realise that what they are watching is badly thought out and contradictory and if I am to be honest, why should they? I only do because I am looking for it. Two, they are more forgiving than I am of flaws which is… fair. I can be way too unforgiving. And three, most people aren’t nitpicky bastards like I am.

-Note= I’ve been working on this piece for a couple of weeks now, unsatisfied with my one-sided tirade, and as I often find, time has given me an answer. I googled “do plot holes matter”. A simple solution that took far far too long for me to think of. Still, this gave me some rather useful, and sometimes distressing, opinions on the subject of plot holes and thus quality of writing.

  So, what is a “plot hole”? One of the sources I found took this definition from Google:

“In fiction, a plot hole, plothole or plot error is a gap or inconsistency in a storyline that goes against the flow of logic established by the story’s plot, or constitutes a blatant omission of relevant information regarding the plot.”

To summarise, those moments where you go “that don’t make sense” are plot holes. As I have complained a lot already, I might as well continue for a bit longer. The very first source that I found, and the same one that gave the above definition, provided a list of times where a plot hole doesn’t matter and would you believe it, I disagree vehemently with the first one. The author says that a plot hole doesn’t matter if there wouldn’t be a story without it, which I can accept only in those action films where the action is what is important.

  They use The Matrix as an example: why have a matrix at all? It seems the machines don’t need people to be conscious or something. Unfortunately it has been far too long since I watched it for me to comment, but like an uncomfortable number of the points made in their article, their argument is basically “it’s not real so don’t think about it”. The trouble is that while some “plot holes” are merely people taking things too seriously, an inconsistency in the story itself is worth pointing out. A personal example of this came from when Infinity War came out and people asked “why is Thanos trying to destroy half of the universe when he can just make more resources?” and this could fit into “there wouldn’t be a movie without it”. But this is complete balderdash.

  Ignoring the fact that the makers were trying to stay true to the source material, I always have to ask “when did we see Thanos create anything?” We didn’t. Well, there were illusions, but even if those were physical, they were also temporary. We didn’t see him create and we didn’t hear anyone say that he could. And if those don’t appear in the movie, then we have to assume that he can’t. It doesn’t matter what the source material was (y’know, those comic books where Thanos wanted to date the anthropomorphised Death), but instead it is what the movie itself has established.

  A Quora user called Sam Morris posted an answer to this question which kinda hurt my pride as a writer, but it made sense. He pointed out how it depends on the medium: novels and such need to be consistent because the reader will be paying more attention to the story and events, while television intends to serve a different goal; he describes watching television being like zen meditation, where the watcher clears their mind while the television stimulates the more excitable parts of their brain. On top of this, a television writer has to be able to work with what the producers want and sometimes cannot account for the inevitable holes that appear. This might well explain my problems that I mentioned with The Flash, although I am loathe to admit it.

  Finally, a writer for screencraft.org tried to categorise five different types of plot holes. His first type can basically be summarised with what I said earlier: we can only know what we have been told, with a slice of “roll with it”. His second type covers holes that are inconsistent within the story so again, we only know what we are told, although a better way of saying it in this case could be: rules are made within a story, so anything that goes against those rules is a plot hole.

I could keep going and explain all of his five types, but that isn’t the point of this article. Instead, I will try to summarise everything I have found so far: quality of writing does matter, to different people. An unsatisfying answer, right? One source basically doesn’t care, while another obviously does and has categorised why. I think that it was Mr Morris who really got it right. As an aspiring novelist, I should definitely be concerned about quality because readers will be paying attention; they will notice and be brought out of the moment by a glaring mistake. But should I delve into screenwriting, I should be prepared to deal with temperamental producers and try to write with as few obvious flaws as possible.

  On a more personal note, I feel motivated to keep the quality of my own writing, whatever the medium, as high as my skill level allows. Of course I wanted to anyway, I have long intended to write for children and I feel that anything relating to children should be top quality; high expectation results in high results, and quality writing has been shown to have various benefits on children. Regardless of what you think of The Guardian newspaper, their article on this study provides links on how reading effects children, increasing empathy and is not alone in their findings. There has also been talk of there being other benefits, such as improved critical thinking and can help to deal with serious themes such as coming of age etc.

  So while I was always intending on aiming for quality, my findings from this brief search are reassuring. People do care about quality, and yet are willing to let some flaws slide under the right circumstances, although this does not mean that they do not care in general.

-Note= What with a review of the first two Predator movies in the works, I feel like this blog has been quite negative, so I’m going to try and put something positive out soon. Maybe an Alien review; I watched it for the first time recently and I loved it.