#very eerie and cosmic. I love her.

[stil-lindigo]

the witch of the west

[valinbean]

Chapter one : Ford the love of Bill!

Ford/ Gn!reader

1.4k words

my first fic in forever! please leave your thoughts on the first chapter!

Chapter 2: Bad Moon Rising

Chapter 3: Falling for the Mystery

Gravity Falls is still reeling from the aftermath of Weirdmageddon. Strange occurrences are on the rise. As a skilled botanist with deep roots in the town, you've noticed peculiar changes in the local flora. Anomalies in plant growth, unusual behavior in wildlife - it's as if the very fabric of the forest is unraveling. Your cousin, Wendy, encourages you to seek help from the enigmatic Stanford Pines, who seems to have a deeper understanding of the town's supernatural underbelly. Together, you discover that remnants of Bill Cipher's magic are still lingering, corrupting the natural world. To save Gravity Falls, you must delve into the heart of the woods, confront the remnants of this cosmic evil, and find a way to banish it for good

Journal entry #1 

‘It's been a month since the world ended, or so they say. Gravity Falls is a ghost town of denial. The carnival music still echoes in my ears, a haunting melody of what was and what could be.

My notes are filled with the grotesque. Animals, once familiar, are morphing into something else. I found a squirrel yesterday with a human hand growing from its back, its tiny fingers clawing at the air. A squirrel.

The forest, once a sanctuary, is now a horror show. The ground itself is alive, or something like it. I stepped into a patch of earth a few days ago, and a grotesque, pulsating eye met my gaze. I've never felt so utterly alone.’

Y/n closed their journal with a snap, the pen clicking against the leather cover. Their eyes, heavy with exhaustion, scanned the cluttered desk. Stacks of books, their pages filled with cryptic notes and strange diagrams, seemed to mock their fruitless efforts. A glance at the clock confirmed Y/n's worst fears: three in the afternoon. Half a day wasted, and they was no closer to understanding the bizarre transformations plaguing the town.

A frustrated sigh escaped their lips as they began the arduous task of tidying up. Books were piled haphazardly into a satchel, papers were stuffed into random pockets, and their worn journal was tucked safely away. With a final glance around the room, they muttered, “Pitter patter, let's get at ‘er,” and headed for the door.

The librarian, an elderly woman with kind eyes, offered a sympathetic smile as Y/n passed her desk. As they stepped out into the crisp autumn air, Y/n couldn’t shake the feeling they was being watched. A shiver ran down their spine, but Y/n dismissed it as a trick of the mind. After all, stranger things had happened in Gravity Falls.

The forest canopy filtered the afternoon sun into dappled patches, casting eerie shadows on the forest floor. An unnatural quiet hung in the air, a stark contrast to the usual symphony of woodland creatures. Y/n pressed on, their boots crunching through fallen leaves as they made their way to a small clearing, a place they’d often visited for solace.

A chill crept up Y/n's spine as they surveyed the area. Something was off. The vibrant green of the undergrowth seemed duller, and the familiar scent of pine was replaced by a faint, metallic tang. As Y/n bent to examine a peculiar, vine-like growth, a cold sensation touched their ankle.

Heart pounding, Y/n looked down. A human arm, pale and lifeless, was emerging from the earth, its fingers twitching. Before they could react, another arm sprouted forth, its grip tightening around Y/n's leg. A scream tore from their throat as they stumbled backward, their breath coming in ragged gasps.

Desperate, they fumbled for their satchel, Y/n's fingers trembling. A heavy book, filled with botanical diagrams, came loose. With a cry of defiance, Y/n swung it at the grasping hands. They recoiled, but only for a moment. More arms erupted from the ground, a grotesque, writhing mass.

Terror propelled Y/n's forward. They had to escape. Their eyes scanned the forest, searching for a way out. And then Y/n saw their cousin, Wendy, emerging from the Mystery Shack. Hope ignited within Y/n.

"Wendy! Wendy!" Y/n cried, their voice hoarse with fear. "You won't believe what I just saw!" Y/n gasped for breath, their mind racing. "Hands, from the ground! They were trying to grab me!"

Wendy's eyes widened in alarm as she took in Y/n's panicked state. Her casual demeanor vanished, replaced by a protective instinct. "What the hell are you talking about?" she demanded, her voice sharp.

Y/n gestured wildly at the forest, their breath still coming in ragged gasps. "There...there are hands! Coming out of the ground!"

Wendy's skepticism was quickly replaced by a look of grim determination. She grabbed Y/n's arm and pulled them back a few steps. "Let's see what's going on," she said, her voice low.

As they approached the edge of the clearing, a chorus of low, guttural sounds echoed through the trees. The ground seemed to ripple, and dozens of eyes began to open, their irises glowing an eerie green. A moment later, hands erupted from the earth, their fingers clawing at the air.

Terror seized Y/n as they realized the full extent of the horror. It was as if the forest itself was rising up against them. Y/n clung to Wendy, their body trembling uncontrollably.

"We need to get out of here," Wendy said, her voice steady despite the fear in her eyes. "Now."

The girls sprinted through the trees, their hearts pounding in their chests like frantic drum beats. Behind them, the forest seemed to writhe with an unnatural energy, a cacophony of low, guttural moans and muffled thuds echoing through the undergrowth. Panic surged through Y/n as they stumbled over a gnarled root, their ankle twisting painfully. Y/n cried out, but Wendy's determined voice spurred them onward. "Keep going!"

As they burst from the concealing embrace of the trees, they collided with Stan, his figure outlined against the porch of the Mystery Shack. Shock was etched on his face, his mouth agape in disbelief. Before he could utter a word, the unsettling sounds from the forest reached his ears.

The trio turned as one, their gazes drawn to the unnatural disturbance. The forest, once a comforting green expanse, had transformed into something sinister. The cacophony abruptly ceased, replaced by an eerie silence that hung heavy in the air. It was as if the forest was holding its breath, anticipating its next move.

Stan's face paled as he took in the scene. His eyes darted between the silent woods and the terrified cousins. "We need to get inside," he said, his voice barely a whisper, the words seeming to echo in the tense silence.

Without hesitation, he grabbed Y/n and Wendy by their arms and hauled them into the safety of the Mystery Shack. The heavy wooden door slammed shut, cutting them off from the ominous quiet of the forest. As they huddled together, their breaths coming in ragged gasps, the realization of their predicament sank in.

"What is that thing?" Y/n managed to whisper, their voice trembling. Fear, like a cold tendril, wrapped around them, threatening to consume Y/n.

Just as the last echo of the door closing faded, a creaking sound emerged from the depths of the house. A figure emerged from the shadows. His piercing eyes, held a lifetime of secrets and a spark of intelligence that belied his age.

Ford's emergence from the shadows was a jolt to the system. Lean and imposing despite his age, he cut a striking figure in the dim light of the Mystery Shack. Stan, who had grown accustomed to the quiet solitude of the shack, and his brothers dramatic entrances, looked surprised but not entirely shocked.

"Ford," Stan breathed, his voice a mixture of annoyance and relief.

The old man nodded, his gaze fixed on the door as if he could see through it. "Something is very wrong out there," he said, his voice raspy but firm. His voice carried an undertone of authority, a hint of a life spent commanding respect.

A flicker of a knowing smile played on his lips, a hint of a hidden amusement that was both intriguing and unsettling. It was as if he was privy to a secret, a dangerous game he was only now beginning to play.

His gaze fell on Y/n, and for a moment, their eyes locked. There was a spark, a recognition, a silent acknowledgment of something beyond the immediate situation. Then, he looked away, his expression once more impassive.

"We need to focus," he said, his voice cutting through the tension. "Whatever is out there, it's a threat. We need to understand it, and we need to stop it."

Stan nodded, a silent understanding passing between the two brothers. They'd been living together in the shack since the twins had left, a strange and often tense cohabitation. But in this moment, faced with an unknown horror, their shared history and knowledge became an invaluable asset.

Y/n couldn't help but steal a glance at Ford. Something about him, his quiet authority, his air of mystery, was undeniably captivating. It was a strange time to be noticing such things, but there was an undeniable pull towards the enigmatic old man.

Ford's gaze turned back to the door, his eyes filled with a determination that contradicted his age. "We have work to do," he said, his voice low and steady. "And it starts now."

Tag list! @shadowdreamer22

[deconstructthesoup]

I really enjoy how the title songs of the Hatchetfield musicals capture the essence of the show pretty well.

Like---

"The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals" is the opening number, an apt choice for a show that's a twisted parody of musicals in general. It's fun, it's got a jazzy, old-fashioned vibe to it... and it's sinister. The choreography is all jerky and wrong, the lyrics at first give off the impression that this is a story about a guy learning to love musicals but slowly devolves into tearing into him for not obeying and should we kill him? It's a bop and a good time and it's scary. It's a nice little notice that while there's gonna be jazz hands and kicklines, there's also gonna be murder. And it gives off 1960's vibes, which is fitting, seeing as TGWDLM seems heavily inspired by retro, Twilight-Zone horror sci-fi.

"Black Friday" is in the middle of the second act, which is a pretty damn good choice for a musical that's about how capitalism and consumerism is capable of bringing us to our destruction. It's slow, it's somber, and it shows our main character's life flashing before her eyes as she expresses her anger at the world and asks why the hell she was dealt this hand. It reminds us that even though there are definitely moments in this musical that are a touch absurd, it is a story that is deeply tragic, deeply horrifying, and deeply unfair at its heart. And out of the three title songs of the three musicals, it's the one that feels the most modern in its infliction, because Black Friday---while calling on some good old-fashioned horror tropes such as cosmic horror and creepy dolls---is a very modern horror tale. (Also, interestingly enough, it's the only title song that isn't a villain song!)

Finally, we have "Nerdy Prudes Must Die." The song that ends the first act, which is a perfect choice for a show that starts with the aftermath of said song, and a perfect example of the moment where all horror stories get serious. It starts out fast, heavy, and urgent, a bombastic villain song where the antagonist has fully embraced their final form and is furiously lashing out at his first victim... and then it slows down into an eerie call-and-response that starts out gentle, then surges in power again. This song, even more than "Literal Monster," is a perfect encapsulation of this show's theme---how you can never truly stop a bully, not unless they want to, and they rarely ever want to. And, of course, as this show is a wonderful homage to the classic 80's teen slasher films, the entire song has 80's vibes running through it.

So, uh... yeah. If we ever get that Miss Hollaway musical, I can't wait to see how amazing the title song will be.

[adarkrainbow]

Spooky season fairytales (4)

This series of posts is supposed to be about movies and a few television series, but given it is about dark, spooky, creepy or eerie fairytale-inspired works, I am bound to explore some non-movie pieces. More specifically three works.

The Book of Lost Things

I talked previously about my great love for this 2006 book. John Connolly had already proven his talent at making teenage fantasy mixed with dark comedy (not to say burlesque horror) with his series of "Samuel Johnson" series, but with this book he also left his mark within the world of fairytales. Dark fairytales.

There is still a bit of humor and comedy in this book - but not much. One chapter maybe. The rest is dark, creepy, sad, disturbing... but also very touching, very poetic and very beautiful. "The Book of Lost Things" tells the story of David, a young boy living a hard life in 1930s England. He had to live with the long sickness and death of his mother, he cannot stand his stepmother and her new baby, his father is away from home due to his work involving him with the nascent World War II, the threat of said war forces the family to move to a remote countryside house with a tragic past... And David thinks he is going insane because strange things are happening. He can hear books talk for example, and a strange shadowy "crooked man" keeps appearing at the corner of his eye...

The culmination of these supernatural events results in David entering the world of fairytales, a gigantic forest filled with knights and princesses and talking animals and dwarfs and witches... Except that it is a world where fairytales went wrong. Very wrong. It is a dreadful and horrifying world where all the grimmness and terror of the original tales are played at full force, and David only has one hope to return home: find the good king's magical "Book of Lost Things"...

This book deals with a lot of serious topics - which is what makes it at the same time hard and beautiful of a read. It is a book that doesn't just twist fairytales for the sake of it (though there is a perverse game about reinterpreting the folktales in the most shocking ways). But it does so to help us, and David, explore themes such as grief, disease, war, the loss of the people you love, the desire to return to a nostalgic past... It is a great book.

(And how come I just learn TODAY upon writing these lines that Connolly just RELEASED A SEQUEL! 13 YEARS AFTER THE ORIGINAL! I'm going to buy this for Halloween)

Dimension 20: Neverafter

"Dimension 20" is a web-series by the team of CollegeHumor. In the same way as "Critical Role", "Dimension 20" is a D&D role-playing show, with each season following a campaign where the members of CollegeHumor, using their talent as stand-up and improv comedians, make their reole-playing adventure as entertaining and engaging as possible for the viewer.

Each season has a different theme, setting and universe, and the season known as "Neverafter" is, as you can guess, the "dark fairytale" season. Neverafter takes place in the world of fairytales and nursery rhymes - but things are starting to... be wrong. Happy endings go missing. Gruesome deaths spoil the magical happiness. The peace of the kingdoms is troubled by monsters popping out left and right. Armies are rising up. A storm is coming. The Time of Shadows falls on what was supposed to be a "happy ever after", and in this upcoming chaos, a group of travelers gather together to try to survive... Before discovering a cabal of manipulative fairies, tyrannical lords, creepy princesses, ancient witches and other abstract monsters trying to deal with world-threatening troubles, plunging a simple dark fantasy tale into a cosmic horror epic...

In 20 episodes, the campaign depicts the adventures of six characters. Princess Rosamund du Prix - the Sleeping Beauty princess, who had to free herself from her thorns when her prince failed to come, and is now searching for him. Ylfa Snorgelsson, Little Red Riding Hood, whose fairytale went off to a very traumatic end and left some of the wolf inside of her... Prince Gerard of Greenleigh, the prince from the "Frog Prince", who is now returning to being a frog as the love of his wife wanes... Puss in Boots, forced to return at being a scheming and scamming scoundrel after his kingdom and master were destroyed by giants... Timothy "Mother" Goose, an old man who inherited a magical book after the death of his son Jack and is haunted by a terrifying black gander... And Pinocchio, the magical puppet-boy, now a warlock who uses as a staff his own broken nose and whose patron is a disembodied and mysterious "mother" figure...

Little Nightmares

Ah, Little Nightmares... Who hasn't heard of this groundbreaking video game that marked 2017 with its unique, eerie story?

A little girl in a yellow raincoat wakes up in the dark and humid depths of some sort of industrial area, near the corpse of a hanged man... She wanders with a little light throughout pipes and cells, infested with deadly vermin, filled with the remnants of the presence of other children, overseen by mechanical eyes turning flesh into stone... And soon she discovers herself inside a nightmarish, impossible structure inhabited by child-killing giants, deformed monsters that are out to get her.

Little Nightmares is primarily an attempt at capturing and translating into a video game primal childhood fears and the type of nightmares a little kid can have. It is about a small, helpless child, confronting monsters that are grotesque caricatures of adulthood, in a world too big for her and designed to destroy her... But Little Nightmares also take a strong inspiration from traditional fairytales, making the video game a dark fairytale epic. I don't think it will be a spoiler by now due to the game's huge success but...

... A little girl exploring a dark and haunted supernatural world. A blind giant looking around for his victim using his other senses. A pair of monstrous cooks killing and preparing children for the gargantuan and repulsive feast of obese clients. An intense focus on food and hunger and cannibalism. Helpful little gnomes straight out of a children's fairy book. A beautiful but evil sorceress with a special relationship towards mirror, antagonizing the female protagonist while having some maternal untertones towards her... What if the evil queen of Snow-White was the head of a restaurant for ogres? And no need to add that the games has strong Del Toro tones evoking his fairy-related movies (Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy II), while also disturbingly twisting the Ghibli movie style, making this the horror version of "Spirited Away".

The game received an acclaimed sequel, but I couldn't see very obvious fairytale tones in this one, much more focused on a dystopian feeling and ambiance.

[see-arcane]

Ok here goes

The Red Book 📕

Unknown and Terrible 🌑⚰️

Long Night Drive 🚙 (if I ever travel again to the USA I am doing so again why are night roadtrips so eerie there what happened)

The Harker Records 🖤 🖋️

Death's Dogs 🐕☠️

The M.A.D Gods 😤

Bloody Anniversary 💒

Lady Luna Blue 🔵

The Red Book 📕: A collection of some more explicitly saucy supernatural works. I tend to kind of tiptoe around any direct sexual/erotic aspects in things I write, so this would be more like a writing exercise than anything else, just to see how I can rework (disdainful literati voice) ~smut~ into something meatier ha ha than just a one-and-done indulgence shot. I don't see this one being put together anytime soon, as, again, I'm still prone to side-stepping outright raunchiness versus innuendo. But we'll see what happens.

Unknown and Terrible 🌑⚰️: Short version? Jonathan Harker winds up as the new Dracula following a very bloody climax in Transylvania. He uses Scholomance magic to pull Francis' reincarnation bullshit out through his nose, brings Mina back as a new soul, and tries to get her back. It is very much about me being a petty prick and proving Jonathan and Mina = The Better Romance and the Better Tragic Vampire Lovers. Choke on it, Francis.

Long Night Drive 🚙: This one fittingly only seems to haunt me when I'm driving after dark on empty roads. The premise being a sort of liminal What If? What if someone started a long drive at night and neither the road or the night ever ended? What if the last wrong turn turned them off of Earth's road map and onto Someplace Else's? Ideally this would only hit the driver on a night of Importance. One of those 'things are crossing over' nights--and they crossed over in the wrong direction. Uh oh.

The Harker Records 🖤 🖋️: Oh, but this one gives me brain itches. It's hazy at the edges, but it'd be a sort of fusion between anthology and purposeful/linked Big Narrative. Basically, the Harkers and their friends start becoming unofficial monster hunters/recorders/aides. I always love when paranormal stories have it work out so that if you're stamped once by the uncanny, the uncanny continues to gravitate toward you. I'd like to see them interact with myriad eerie happenings across public domain horrors together. Peak couple's activity <3

Death's Dogs 🐕☠️: An examination of how Death has an abundance of dogs with various tasks bred into them. And how Dracula maybe crossed the paths of more than one spectral hound during his English holiday.

The M.A.D Gods 😤: Augh, it's gathered so much dust, BUT I STILL LOVE IT AND MY WEIRD NUCLEAR NEON YELLOW PANTHEON SO MUCH. The gist is that 1) The Universe was made by one entity basically ejecting the bulk of Its body mass away so Matter could happen and flourish 2) That shit's tiring 3) The Atomic God (named because It is responsible for every atom in the universe) closes Earth around it like shell/blanket for an eons-long nap 4) It creates two guard-gods, Maker and Breaker, to keep any cosmic horror jerks out of the neighborhood--It ditched them to make the known universe so It could have some peace, finally. 5) Hijinks ensue as Maker and Breaker dutifully chokeslam any Lovecraftian interlopers out of the galaxy and spend their free time watching humanity fuck shit up

Bloody Anniversary 💒: An unexpected meetup of various couples in various states of actually being in love, each celebrating their anniversary. One of these couples is older than they seem. And maybe not celebrating the anniversary anyone would expect.

Lady Luna Blue 🔵: Started out as alternative what-if for who the Pretty Girl in Piccadilly might be. She could still go that route, but I think my imagination has long since run off with her into more original territory. Lady Luna Blue is her professional name; at least as Victorian era mediums and mystics go. In-between card readings and seances, she catches the attention of something with much more supernatural weight than she's prepared for. And it happily takes advantage when she invites any 'wandering spirits' in.

[laughingpinecone]

Yuletide 2024 letter

AO3: laughingpineapple

(treats welcome, AO3 settings a-ok in that respect)

Hello and thank you for writing for me! I hope you’ll have a great time playing with one of these wonderful canons!

I love a wide variety of fics - from strict gen to explicit, any tense, any format, big yes to all kinds of weird experiments up to and including external povs, found documents, interactive fiction etc. In general, I love canon expansion (showing new places/events/stuff in the setting or exploring those that are barely mentioned, just outside the borders), character work of all stripes (expanding on little quirks, putting characters in situations that complement/challenge certain personality traits of theirs, just… observing these weirdos as they live their lives, for better and for worse), magical realism and adjacent approaches. I eat up emotional moments with a spoon when a fic is character-centric (pining! danger! catharsis! hurt/comfort! the nitty-gritty of attraction!) and also love abstract stuff that at most touches shrimp emotions from afar: fake academia, a wider focus, inhuman povs, anything goes.

For both romance and friendships, I love it when it’s clear (not necessarily to the characters themselves, but to the narrative) what it is that they like about each other, how they get along, if and how they trust each other. The specificity of each dynamic! I also love it when the characters are very into something that makes sense for them, be it a hobby or a kink or whatever, even if it’s something I may not personally care for.

DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, focus on children, pregnancies, unrequested ships (background established canon couples are okay, mentions of parents and paired-up OC randos are okay!), canon retellings

In strict alphabetical order and with the usual disclaimer that shorter prompts don’t mean I want it any less, and that recycled prompts don't mean that I didn't print out and adore last years' gifts, just that my tastes are still the same as last year (there's also a few new prompts among the copypasted bricks!):

GHOST TRICK (Cabanela, Jowd)

All good for me: Jowd/Cabanela, Alma/Jowd/Cabanela, Alma/Jowd&Cabanela, any take that doesn't downplay/erase Alma (anything set during the game timeline or in alternate scenarios where they don't reset, for example!), or one-sided on Cabs' end while Jowd cares for him in a different way, or a Very (Very) Intense Friendship. Shippy or not, for me the draw is that these two are an unstoppable/immovable pair of burning determination and cosmic pessimism, big on loyalty (or at least big on being on the receiving end of it in Jowd's case) and being two difficult individuals who can and do get on people's nerves in record time but just fit with each other so easily… and ace the broccoli test like nbd. when they want to. which they might not. In Sissel's own words, whatever these two have got going on, warm or cold, it's "immeasurably deep" and I love to see that OTT dynamic play out in any way. If you want to include Alma, I'd be delighted, what's your take on her, there are so many great possibilities - could she be as cheerfully nihilistic as her husband, when push comes to shove? How would a 'boyfriend clothes' scenario work with the two or the three of them? Is there a supernatural/ghostly situation Jowd and Cabanela (and Alma? or Lynne? Sissel?) walk into that sees them well on top of their game thanks to their experience with the friendly ghost cat in the house? Or something eerie that's out of their wheelhouse even with Sissel's ghost tricks? What about a beach day but also a hiking trip, snowed in, anything? Dancing? Does Cabanela fail to remain spotless in any sense, ranging from oily bike repairs to more serious symbolic scenarios? Undercover shenanigans for either or both of them? Cabs and Alma bonding while Jowd is away? No-reset scenarios where Jowd, Sissel and the girls come back alive from the submarine (or never reach it, or whatever) but can't change the timeline, and a Cabanela who got shot and exploded has to maybe go live with Jowd and Kamila for a long while? Any kind of AU - different job, classic fantasy, classic sci-fi?

Ship-wise, Jowd falling in love fascinates me. Cabanela feels like he's been down bad for an impossible target for some time (one impossible target or two, conveniently married to each other) but for Jowd it all comes at such an awkward moment. He was ready to die and hurt them all posthumously (with the music box twist) to make it easier for them to leave him behind, and now what's this? He may not even have considered being into men before, what's that like, when does he realize that that's what's happening? Then it turns out his old friend laid down his life for him??? wild. and then he's ten years younger again, with a loving family and a Sparklesue of a friend-colleague-rival, and all these memories…

Fandom-specific DNWs: Cabanela-Yomiel reconciliations, everyone having memories of the old timeline

I SAW THREE CITIES - KAY SAGE (PAINTING)

As weird painting requests often go, I would like to read something that feels like this, and Kay Sage's oeuvre in general. The more surrealist the better. I am intrigued by the conversation between the title and the painting proper, and I'm open to any take on it: is there an unseen narrator who saw three cities in their travels, and the present image is either one of them or a homecoming, or across time and this is where we're at now? Or is the veiled structure/figure the pov? Is it possible to understand what's under the veil? Can you hear the wind blowing across the still landscape? And how can this get any stranger? Feel free to bring in elements from other paintings of hers, if that's where your idea leads you!

PÜHA JA ÕUDNE LÕHN | SACRED AND TERRIBLE AIR (Ignus Nilsen)

So there's this man of extremes (even for Elysium standards) who lived and fought for the burning belief in a better world, who left his homeland with a double middle finger and somehow, in a foreign land, grew devoted to a good man and his ideals and theory, their theory, and then lost him and their hope at once, and still tried to keep going, to begin anew, and failed there too, and even after his death in exile his beliefs did not waver. Always a live wire. He loved the world, every atom of it. A man whose devotion was so intense that it had to be erased from history, giving birth to a different legend instead. As a friend once put it, the spectre of communism is real and he's a bitter old queen.

I ship him and Mazov very much (dialectically, ideologically, handholdingly, through the ages and in the eternity of the pale, everything he says about the man sounds like the yearning of a sad old lover), and Mazov himself I love in every aspect. If you go down this path, I'm good with period-typical internalized homophobia being a thing in the fic. INTENSE HANDHOLDING ACTION very welcome. Also in-universe Mazov/Nilsen academic discussion, earnest sculptors, zines etc. But also: Ion Rodionov thirdwheeling into their life like a stray cat and supporting their idea even knowing that it would fail is amazing. The fact that Nilsen indulged his whims in their exile (the orchestra, really?) and presumably got his apocalyptic moniker from him (we know that it's because he warned people of the apocalypse) paints an interesting friendship to me, especially in the raw times after Mazov's death. The Zigi&Nilsen camping trip is a tragic delight and I'll always want more of that, and of Zigi himself, and of what Nilsen saw in him, and the other way round. The tragedy of that final mutual understanding of defeat - what led up to it, what companionship did they find in each other, hard as it was at times? Or what about the time Zigi spent with the Lund sisters while Nilsen went ballistic over teen girl mags, 'cause that sure was something canon felt the need to inform us of. As last year's gift showed, Khan could make for a very interesting pov, with his special interest in disappearances and Ignus being an disappearance himself as per Lilienne. Khan is also something of a dialectical materialist himself, unless he's a poser who's only wearing the glasses for clout. Would he get a grumpy ghost visit too? Dobreva and Abadanaiz don't deserve the party misogynist, but here they are and here he is. How did they handle him? I think their stated dynamic of burning star and satellite is also probably true for Mazov and Nilsen to some degree - any fun parallels? Voronikin can also be an interesting foil, as the resident Dude Who'd Chuck Himself Into The Pale (and come back mostly in one piece). What were Ignus' thoughts about the pale by the time the SRV was up and running? Rodionov was looking for the Trench, what did he think of all that? And rounding up the tagset once again IT'S AMBROSIUS WITH A STEEL CHAIR. I am incredibly fascinated both by Nilsen's (and Zigi's!) opinions on the ruling Innocence, and by the possibility that bb Ambrosius may have met all the future heads of the Revolution when he was being tutored by Ion, and/or that the failure of the Revolution may have been a turning point in his beliefs. Outside the tagset, anything with Sport is bound to be terribadamazing bc Sport, and Ukhotomsky was around as another of Mazov's close friends but it feels to me like he was the exact opposite of Ignus so that could make for interesting scenarios.

Some prompts: does his consciousness in the pale (subjectively either before or after his adventure with Zigi) meet some interesting people à la Nadia n Frantiček the Brave - "5 historical figures he met who are not Mazov + 1 long-awaited reunion" sort of thing? Some examples of Teachers Being Like That feat. him and Rodionov? Sitcom-tier shenanigans with the upper echelons of the revolution + that kid with the rancid vibes that Ion brought in? In case Nilsen's canon lil treatise on "early homebrewing" referred to tabletop homebrewing, what did their gaming look like - was it an early form of roleplaying proper or, like, reconceptualizing chess or Monopoly? What about any of his exiles, given how he was first thrown out of Katla, then Graad, then they tried to kill him in Samara too and he spent his last days in exile and according to a throwaway line he counts as one of Elysium's great disappearances (does Khan have some fun intel on all that, or maybe Ulv)? Did the various pale crossings mess him up? What about the crossing of the lungs of Graad, toward the interisolary pale, with the blood of thousands of prisoners still fresh behind them? Or how'd he take his hut era, when did those feral months in the polar wilderness happen in his timeline, what kind of weirdness can we expect above Elysium's polar circle, did he have Mazov to return to in Graad and just how emotional can we make this reunion? Any scenario like "idk, Kras Mazov was like 70% of my impulse control"? What was it like, gaining consciousness in the near pale and becoming more than Zigi's dialectic frenemy (or was there always a true spark of him in there)? Did they feel uniquely cut off from the pale that surrounded them? Did they ever talk about Ambrosius? Did he ever pull off some other godly rhetoric stunt like reverting the pale through stubbornness and conviction alone? Some identity musings based on all three heads of the revolution going under new names, and considering them nom de guerre? Something about Ignus' troubled relationship with his homeland - as it goes, he fought hard to deny the Vaasan allegations and Vaasa fought harder to deny the him allegations? What about his blacksmithing skills (and what makes one an apocalyptic blacksmith, specifically - how do these two things go together)? Or any of his numerous Opinions which he penned on so many topics? Or just slap him (in person or cytoplasmically, 's not like death or censorship could stop him) in a Situation that has some weird worldbuilding in it? He's so extra at all times! He's fun to put in Situations. Genuinely any Nilsen/&Mazov or Nilsen & anyone else in the tagset would fill me with glee.

NUCLEAR EDIT AFTER THE LATEST ROUND OF "MARTIN LUIGA SAYS THINGS ON TWITTER":

...make of this what you will. Add the most heartbreaking yearning to their pale trekking days. Make it work somehow, ass or no ass. I think there's something of Mazov in Zigi (by way of there being a lot of Mazov in Harry, and a lot of Harry in Zigi). Let them be guarded and harsh and ironic about this, or not. I don't even KNOW, I didn't have this on my bingo card.

Fandom-specific DNWs: "magpies" and the idea that the pale is generated from novelties. that reddit theory about Målin being pregnant with Zigi's child. I'm open to a variety of options for the sisters' disappearance but should it come up I would prefer if it were their own decision to vanish, a decision dictated by some kind of (non-bourgeois) ideology, and for Zigi to be loyal to all four of them. I would also prefer Nilsen's big hangup about his fellow communists to follow the translation which sees them as "prey" rather than "beasts". And please, do not excuse his grandiose shittiness. The old coot's misogyny is what it is and ditto the war crimes, etc.

PYRE (Volfred Sandalwood)

I’m so charmed by this smug revolutionary tree it’s not even funny. Make up any situation in which he can do his thing and I’ll be happy - be sort of full of himself but also sort of rightfully so, pragmatic to a fault except when he’s overwhelmed by grief, bearing the burden of taking care of the practical side of an impossible shared vision (and seeing it fail before it started and eventually picking up the pieces and starting again), long-winded and very much in love with his voice (also rightfully so) and also that’s what history professors are like, extremely charismatic, a mind reader with a higher calling which is always a dangerous combo when it comes to maybe going a step too far. I love this story set at the end of a cycle and I’m enamoured with characters who have enough historical awareness to acknowledge it and see that it’s up to them to bring about a new era. Canon’s bittersweet idealism is catnip to me.

I love him with Tariq who seems to be as charmed by him as I am (the shy, vague title of Volfred’s theme combined with its James Bond vibes are a killer combo. Tariq please) and with Oralech who’s maybe the only guy who can go “Volfred no” when needed. I love his friendship with his oldest friend Bertrude with all the camaraderie it entails, and with all the Nightwings, really. Volfred & Hedwyn! & Rukey! & Pamitha! & ae!!! There may be complicated feelings there that I'd be very interested in seeing explored, but when it comes to the Nightwings, I'd rather see a reconciliation, a positive resolution, or at least a narrative that understands both sides.

I would also be interested in seeing him face people from the other triumvirates in more or less friendly situations - generally sticking close to canon for the level of danger they might pose. Volfred & Dalbert bonding and fanboying the Scribes on one end; Udmildhe maybe being a real actual threat on the other end, with Extreme Sap Drama Volfred VS Manley somewhere in the middle - Volfred haaates having to deal with Manley and what is fanfiction for if not bothering our faves? Or Volf VS Brighton for that matter, with more intense levels of annoyance and pomp and juicy ideological clashes. In these cases I wouldn’t be interested in a reconciliation, and I don’t sympathize with Manley nor Brighton but I do find them very funny and good characters in their own right and I’m just here with popcorn for the catfight. How’d it go if he had to spend some time with Ignarius? Or Celeste? And of course when it comes to the True Nightwings, things get loaded - Volfred/Oralech-wise, does Volfred get a treacherous "oh no he's super hot now" moment sneaking in between the piles of complicated feelings and hurt and confusion?

As general Volf prompts: revolutionary bonding, be it with Oralech (early on or after everything), or awakening Some Things in Tariq, or Bertie or anyone else who'll share that vision. SMUG revolutionary bonding, him being the way he is? What was he like before his exile, what did his underground political engagement look like? Downside ending being a strange kind of freedom for someone who's been driven all his life. Opinions on the Scribes! Overly detailed, strong Opinionssss on tiny details like you'd expect from your average academic, and whom is he talking to? Someone who agrees? Someone who knows more than him (Tariq, ae…)? Someone who hates those guys' guts (Sandra, Oralech…)? He’s a natural schemer, does he naturally assume that everyone else is also scheming 24/7? Does anyone (my bet’s on Pam) find out that he literally graded the Nightwings’ usefulness to the Plan? Is he a chain smoker or is it a one pipe a day kind of deal?

I don’t have specific headcanons about Sap biology; if you do, please tell me all about them. With or without Oralech’s or Tariq's involvement (whose biology is probably also delightfully weird). Capital-letter-Reading can also be involved! What’s it like to mind-meld with the actual moon, or to get permission from the guy who spent like six years hating your guts?

Long shot: Elysium AU? get some star-and-antlers on this guy one way or another?

Fandom-specific DNWs: Oralech dead, Volfred and Oralech split end (I’m good with either topside or downside ending, as long as they're on the same side), Ignarius/Jodariel, Tariq/Celeste, ae/Almer (I know, I know, luck in canon ships, that's me 😅 love Hedwyn/Fikani tho!). The Reader being a central character in the fic.

SEA OF STARS (Garl, Resh'an)

It's like this game grabbed the two character types that have been catnip to me since time immemorial and put them both in the party at once. Here's the guy so chill and loving that you can't believe he's for real! Here's the blue-orange-morality immortal symbolically hidden by layers of fabric! And then Garl dies in a way that is played up to its rightful max, his absence is felt so keenly, and then he even gets to come back with a satisfying sleight of hand! And everyone celebrates him! And the artbook says his elemental meddling made him multiclass as Ovate, which is a verrrry intriguing statement all things considered. And on Resh'an's side of things, he's so caught up in distant flickers of hope, calculations, regrets across so many worlds... and then he gets to hang out with mortals, to exist in the moment, to make friends for a short while, before the weight of his past mistakes (and the complicated push and pull of his Basic Ex(tm)) drags him away again.

I'd like to see anything that plays up the potential odd lopsided friendship dynamic between these most rooted and least rooted characters. Garl who knows that a good soup and a hug will drag two fledgling gods back to earth for a day, and who may grow into something weirder himself, a link to the forgotten past of this world and perhaps a new future... and on the other hand Resh'an who's barely really there at any given moment, who's got the weight of worlds and timelines on his shoulders, and who's properly touching grass for the first time in so, so long. Missing moment is good. Postcanon is good. Anywhere in either world, the Archives, or make up someplace weird. Touching upon the fact that Garl's whole death and resurrection was all on Resh'an, and very blue-orange morality of him, can also be interesting.

I'm very keen on Valere and Zale quietly shedding their mortality as the plot goes on in an understated ascension... ...except for Garl. They're still Valere and Zale when they are with him. I'm also familiar with The Shopkeeper Stand-Up Special Messenger.

STALKER (1979) (worldbuilding)

I'm open to seeing things through the pov of the titular stalker, his daughter, Porcupine, an OC stalker and/or OC client(s) thereof, or even something more abstract. Anything in the tone of the movie will make me happy. A little expansion in any direction. The Professor-Writer dichotomy in the movie is great but the symbolic potential of the Room is so huge, so overflowing, that I think one could come up with more scenarios that resonate well with it. How does anyone relate to that? Likewise, that thin surreal line, so thin that at time it feels like it's nothing at all, surely has room for more routes, more strange happenings, or just the shadow of them.

Side note, I have not yet read Roadside picnic nor is it likely that I'll manage to read it before Yuletide this year, so any deep cut refs will sadly go unnoticed by me. But you're of course welcome to add them as long as they're not overt spoilers!

[khapaleaf]

I do enjoy a good [glare silently] kind of character. 

The basics

Name: Melissa Newman // No longer remembered Birthdate: March 8, 1971 // ??? Birthplace: St. Georges, somewhere in the United States // Somewhere in the depths of space unknown to humankind Occupation: Bakery assistant (dough maker in more ways than one, bakery clerk, delivery person, pastry cook and more) // Indescribable Love (?) interest: Jonny

Background

Manifesting into existence beyond the confines of the solar system known to the human species, and having seen entire galaxies change and evolve, the ancient cosmic entity whose name is now lost to the ages has hardly lost any interest in engaging in the ever-repeating pattern of hunting and feasting on other dimensional beings even after aeons of doing so. Over the course of its immeasurably long existence it visited many universes which could only be accessed by transcending matter, time and space, and grew fond of a great many hidden galaxies. It would have continued its journey to further solidify its own position as the ultimate and most voracious predator if it were not for a serious miscalculation that nearly cost it its very existence. In a panicked and injured state, it jumped dimensions hoping to regain the necessary energy to restore itself and become whole again.

The being’s arrival on Earth was marked by another disaster – the flesh bag whose body it attempted to use as a temporary means of settlement was unable to handle the overwhelming nature of the cosmic entity, and perished on the spot. Salvation was not impossible however, as it was able to use its remaining strength to make another jump into a much smaller casket. What it was did not matter, but fortunately for the cosmic being, the tiny body showed no sign of resistance.

Its first few years on Earth were decidedly turbulent, in no small part due to the casket’s physical limitations. Grief-stricken by the loss of its essence and identity, and enraged by the circumstances it had found itself in, it proved itself to be a right handful under the guise of Melissa Newman. To an outside observer, the casket was a quiet but easily agitated child, one that watched her surrounding world warily and threw violent tantrums – sometimes when people prodded too intensely, other times just to see their reaction. All the while, the entity inhabiting the developing human casket preferred to watch, listen, and to take the time to truly see and understand the world, and how to navigate it.

Personality

“Your sister is gone. It’s always been me in here”.

To the uninitiated observer, Melissa is a quiet and guarded woman whose usual repertoire typically ranges from rigid to apathetic to courteous but detached when interacting with others. She is described by many as being closed-off both on an emotional and physical level, and indeed does not like, and shies away from, any unnecessary contact. While reticent, Melissa has a heavy presence and can easily come off as severe owing to her eerie and intense nature. She is often perceived as intimidating (and even actively works towards being seen as such), which can render interaction with others difficult without either causing an unpleasant misunderstanding or a feeling that the other is being pulverised on the spot.

Despite not being particularly adept at communication, she possesses a gift of keen observation, and is usually able to pick up on the underlying mood in a room or sense the emotions of another person. After years of practice, she finds it nearly effortless to work out what kind of emotional response is needed depending on the context and situation – sometimes these responses are genuine and unbidden, other times they are based on unwritten rules of how one should feel and behave. But dealing with her own emotions is trickier. She is easily flustered and overwhelmed when confronted by her own emotions and usually tries to deal with them by either rejecting them completely, or pushing them away to deal with at a later date. Also, she is hilariously bad at “being normal” about romance-related things, but she is trying her best. 

Melissa is patiently and constantly surveying her surroundings, and is quick to size up a situation and its potential dangers. On the whole, she is very sceptical of seemingly well-meaning people and peaceful circumstances, and generally does not take anything at face value. However, when her anxiety kicks in, Melissa is prone to acting impulsively, which, more often than not, leads to unfavourable outcomes. Still, she is quite tenacious and stubborn, and refuses to give up and admit defeat even in the bleakest of circumstances. It would be a mistake to believe that she is a fearless individual, however.

For the majority of her time on Earth, she rarely finds causes that she can identify with, or that prompt her empathy outside of her immediate goal of gathering enough energy. If asked, she would likely reply that the food was the one thing that had kept her sane throughout the years. But the truth of the matter is that she is genuinely curious about other people’s stories – at first because she wants to alleviate the boredom of being stuck on Earth, but after a while because she wants to find something to relate to and to understand how others function. This curiosity also played a big part in making her see the possibilities that her new life may bring instead of regretting the choices that brought her there.

Likes: the sky at night, solitude, following a daily routine, comfortable socks, food with lots of spices for extra flavour, the aroma of freshly baked goods, obscure films (listening to Jonny talk about obscure films, more like) Dislikes: dwelling on unpleasant memories, feeling exposed, narrow or tight spaces, talkative customers, “bodily functions”, hospitals, unsolicited opinions

Miscellaneous

She pays little attention to the casket’s gender beyond seeing it as a marker or an anchor similar to her human name – it is something that grounds her in her current reality, but in truth human language is not an adequate tool to express the nuance and extent of her experience. Yet since she does not have strong opinions about it either way, it is very much a “I am a woman sure, but whatever” kind of feeling.

She is generally neutral about sex as a concept, but is completely disinterested in trying it out for herself. There are no conditions that would change her stance on this because she perceives this lack of interest to be an important part of her very being, and going against it for the sake of following some sort of script deemed socially acceptable by humans would be akin to betraying herself.

She does not like looking or shopping for new items of clothing, and has a tendency to wear clothes long after others would discard them. Specifically, she does not like how new clothes feel too restrictive, and is irritated by tags, thick seams, and itchy synthetic materials.

While she finds the buzzed feeling from drinking alcohol to be enjoyable, she lacks the capacity to tell how much alcohol is enough to achieve that state without overindulging. As a result of having had made a fool of herself on several occasions, she typically avoids drinking altogether, unless she finds herself in an environment she can fully control (which usually translates to sipping on an alcoholic beverage in the comfort of her room).

Even though she is able to experience a wide range of emotions, she rarely uses any kind of inflection to express them and speaks in a monotone voice (sounds similar to R. Dorothy Wayneright in the English dub).

Stats! 

[krankittoeleven]

a little bit ago @vault-heck tagged me for WIP Wednesday. Yes, I know it's Monday. Look, WIP Wednesday is, like a state of mind, ok? xD

I'd love to share something from Water of Life but I am currently in a war with CH 13 and I don't want to share anything I haven't already shared. So instead I will share this chunk from the unplanned sequel to my Trigun 1998 Vashwood fix-it fic But Like a Refugee. I'd love to link it BUT A03 is down again so I can't lol

Anyway, here is the (still rough state) opening for the sequel, which takes place 10 years after the previous fic (yes this could, in a roundabout way, spoil something for Trigun 1998):

Wolfwood’s eye’s flutter open, refusing to focus right away, at least not until the memory of drifting, floating feathers clear completely from his head. Something had woken him from his dream, but he’s not sure what. Maybe it had been nothing but the usual things that go bump in the night, the things that posed no threat, but still woke him sometimes. Like Vash breathing too loudly, or moving to quickly. Even after so many years, it still happened—

A soft knock on the door in the dead silence of the night sets Wolfwood’s heart fluttering, he had not been expecting it, and it did have an eerie quality to it; a barely heard noise, but it wouldn’t surprise him if that was what woke him. In sleep he was even more vigilant than in waking. Behind him, Vash mutters something mostly unintelligible. He too was a vigilant sleeper.

“I’ll take care of it, go back to sleep,” he says to Vash, and then to the door: “Who is it?”

“Woof woof, I need water,” a tiny voice says through the door. It does sound a little hoarse and dry.

Wolfwood smiles, “Just a second honey, let me get dressed.”

Immediately he had known who the voice belonged to: Danny who was always quick to point out her name was spelled with a Y and not an I. Danny, who was sometimes fussy and sometimes not. Danny who called him Woof Woof because she misheard his name on introduction. Almost all of the kids had a different nickname for him, he thought it was sweet, but he also thought it was some sort of cosmic retribution for the years of nicknames that he had pummeled Vash with. For every Needle Noggin, Spikie, Tongari, Blondie, Pinhead, Pincushion et cetera there was now a Woof Woof, Woofy, Nico, Nicky, Wolf, Woody, Smoky and others. In a small bid to win back a portion of his sanity, he had recently started calling Vash Angel and rarely anything else, while Vash always called him Nick. Through some sort of unspoken agreement the kids seemed to understand that those names were between them and them alone.

Rolling out of bed, Wolfwood finds his discarded clothes from earlier and slips back into them. He’s waking up more now, but he’s still not very graceful on his feet. On the bed, Vash rolls over to face him.

“Did we forget to fill the jugs?” Vash asks, mumbling in a way only Wolfwood could decipher after years of interpreting Vash’s sleep talk.

“Maybe, but I don’t think so,” Wolfwood replies. “You know how she is. She’s funny about the water sometimes.”

“I am not!” Danny says through the door, just loud enough to be heard.

They both laugh as Wolfwood stuffs his smokes and lighter into his pants pocket, then steps over to Vash’s side of the bed and leans down to kiss him on the temple, then his cheek and finally the corner of his mouth. “Go back to sleep,” he says. Vash hmmms and gently swipes a thumb along Wolfwood’s jawline before his hand drops down to the mattress. Behind him he can hear the faintest sounds of lips smacking, as if a small child is projecting how thirsty they are.

Wolfwood rolls his eyes. “I’m comin’ girl, I’m comin’.”

As often is the case when he steps from their humble little box they call a home and into the courtyard that separates it from the orphanage, Wolfwood is softly punched in the gut by a mix of emotions. Even after ten years of living there, it is hard for him to believe that this is his life now, that this was what everything had led up to. That this is what he very nearly missed out on.

Beside him, Danny takes his hand, as if she were afraid to cross back the way she had come on her own. She almost startles a jump out of him. He had, to his chagrin, almost forgotten why he was standing there in the first place. Sometimes these little moments he had were just too powerful.

Together they cross the courtyard, mostly in silence, but Wolfwood is curious about the water.

“Now, be honest,” he starts, trying to sound as genuinely not-judgy as he can. “Are the jugs really empty or did you just want fresh water?”

Danny remains silent for a few more steps and then says: “It’s colder from the tap.”

Well, at least they hadn’t neglected to leave the kids water for the night, he thinks as they walk passed the Punisher, now decommissioned and standing in the courtyard like a guardian instead of a weapon.

"Alright, let's get you some water."

Thanks for reading :D Not 100% sure when this will be done, but it's a cloud to float on for a bit.

[shallowseeker]

Eerie coincidences leading up to season 8's Goodbye Stranger

I swore I'd never talk about this episode, but it features a jealous guy named Spencer (he who "dispenses"), a "Jimmy," and a girl named after the "forgiveness" character in The Merchant of Venice and is reminiscent of Porsche/"fancy car."

But I will say that this is so very, very, incredibly, jaw-droppingly Chuck-coded:

SPENCER: Of course you don't. Neither of you ever considered my feelings. JAMES: Portia? This is about her? SPENCER: Can you imagine the insult when she chose you? I wanted her as my soul mate the moment I saw her. When she picked you...I endured it. But when you two went all Bella and Edward, broke the code, put your passions before the community rules, well, the arrogance, the entitlement was too much. Your total ruination seemed appropriate.

This is the infamous, cruel, disrespectful 8x15 Man's Best Friend with Benefits. (Skip it, it's not worth the egregious racism). Nevertheless, there is a remarkably consistent throughline running through many of these throwaway episodes, coming just before 8x17 Goodbye Stranger.

James "Jimmy" is a man being forced to "act out" murders, just as Cas is acting out and committing murders for Heaven. Like Cas, he's pushing his (would-be) lover away. He shouts her to "GO," Just as Cas shouted Dean to "GO" in Purgatory.

When I think about the ruination of the Nephilim-coded things being destroyed in seasons 8 and 15, all I can see is Chuck sundering Earth from Heaven.

///

And here, in 8x16 Remember the Titans, we have a Zeus behaving remarkably similar to how The Empty does in 14x08 Byzantium. Zeus cursed Prometheus to die over and over, and his seven-year-old son is now awakening to the same fate.

ZEUS: Tell me, has Prometheus experienced the child's death yet? [HAYLEY gives a nod.] How did he take it? Did he hurt? [HAYLEY nods again.] Good. [ZEUS points his fingers at SHANE/PROMETHEUS who falls to his knees attempting to breathe.] 8x16: Remember the Titans

...

COSMIC ENTITY: Stop interrupting! Start paying attention. I'm taking him. And where I'm taking you is worse than Hell… because at least Hell is something. Ohh. Ohh, God, they look scared. Does that hurt you? Good… because I want it to. [Cas deploys his angel blade to attack, but the Entity flings him across the room] 14x08: Byzantium

///

In season 7, Cas refers to his own resurrection as, "I don't die - I'm brought back again. I see now. It's a punishment resurrection. It's worse every time." 7x23: Survival of the Fittest

///

The Prometheus himself is dressed a little bit as season 1 Sam, as a boy hated by God, but narratively, he's Cas.

SAM: Of course not. You were afraid big daddy would find out that you fell for the person he hates most in this world.

Makes you wonder if Cas's instincts are right? Perhaps, Chuck actually hates Cas. Perhaps, it really is a sadistic punishment resurrection, and he actually lives and breathes to see Cas and Dean separated.

...

And again here, Zeus's rage has so much in common what what the Empty will be like:

ZEUS: You like being an immortal, don't you? [He's kneeling in front of OLIVER again.] Oh, sure, you die every day, but nothing can keep you dead. [ZEUS looks over at SHANE who is lying on the ground.] It's almost like taking a little nap. All of your cares and worries disappear for a little while. Well, it's sleepy time, my dear boy. [His tone is like a loving grandfather, he stands, both hands crackling with lightning.] I never get tired of watching you die. [ZEUS, holding SHANE up, says it right into his ear.] Your boy is going on the mountain. 

...

[The entity kicks CASTIEL.] COSMIC ENTITY: Just let’s lay down. Let’s just try and sleep. Hmm? Think about it. Infinite peace, yes? No regrets. No pain. Kiddo, save yourself.

///

I think Chuck is absolutely seething over Cas and Dean being in love in season 8.

Cas did not steal fire, but he did rip up the pages at the end of season 4. In season 10, his grace is reintroduced in a library, amongst fluttering pages, as a story-destroyer.

The theme of the angel-human hybrid family is ever-present in season 8, and the total ruination of the hybrid angel-human family is ongoing in season 15.

At the end, only Sam's family remains. The "pure," "good," "Noah-like" one. Heaven and Earth are split once more.

[ask-the-cosmic-duo]

"Maybe with that sort of fleet, we can finally be free. I have yet to meet any pony like you, Stella. We are doing economically well, but not enough to do extra. We have built a small chain of artifical islands for food and resources, but not enough to explore space. We have magic ore mines that we wrestled from Arimaspi but things are never enough. Every old important building here is built by the Empress " Aurora shrugged, finishing the final touches on the potion with a sauce.

"Well... the best technological advancement we created was the hover board, powered by Aether. But hover board races are really dangerous.. so unicorns are the usual riders since they could be controlled by magic. Also its uses are restricted for now, especially in the capital... due to many ponies misusing it... I can show you mine, if you like."

"We have our Fluttershy but she's busy somewhere in the Dragon Lands with Master. Yes, the main six exist here.. although their capabilities are different..."

Reaching a golden runic door at the end of the hallway, Aurora gave a knock hard but doesn't receive any answer.

"I'm going to say this: Her highness can be rude at times. Perhaps, it's due to recent events. Strange, she's not answering."

Giving a swift kick on wooden door blocking the way, Aurora rushed towards a nearby bed, dorned with jewels and runes of power. The bed glowed briefly with a goldenlike aura, but soon resumed its mundane form.

Upon closer examination, the duo could see fresh blood stains everywhere, from the carpet to floor. All sorts of books were scattered, as although it was ransacked.

The centre of the bed was revealed to be lean like figure of an alicorn, now covered with bandages. Once a proud figure but reduced to being a sickly figure with bloodshot eyes.

"...."

Aurora gave a worried glance between the duo and the Empress before spoon feeding the later who merely kept an eerie silence...

Stella trilled softly, enjoying the compliment and praise. “Yeah, well, it wasn’t easy making that stuff… I don’t even remember when I suddenly figured it all out, or what happened when I did. It’s… weird.” She shrugged. “But nevertheless, here I am.”

She paused, thinking. “I don’t think I can just lend my tech though, regardless of whether this world is sleeping or awake. But I can provide guidance, meaning I can help explain how it works. That way, you can make it yourself! There’s also a little loophole that’ll let me provide any needed resources…”

Sol shook his head. “I’ll just let that pass… Just don’t get us in trouble, Stell.”

“I won’t!” Stella blepped.

She sounded really interested in these hoverboards. “Wait… Are they like Extreme Gear?! Gosh, I love those things so much! They’re like, the most stylish hoverboards out there!” She giggled again, one particular Gear quickly coming to mind. Perhaps one of the most famous, actually. “I wish I could figure out how to make a design that works well with quadrupeds, though…”

“See, most of the canon Gear types are meant for bipedal creatures, specifically ones with hands, and it’s not that simple to adapt them for ponies. You said it yourself, most ponies can’t stand on their hind hooves for very long. I could still design it similarly to a normal board, but it’d have to be a lot wider. Can’t really make replicas when they have to be wider.” She sighed. “Kinda sucks… Oh, but I’d love to see yours! Just, uh… maybe after the important stuff.”

The two unicorn visitors nodded to acknowledge Aurora’s warning. They were worried, though. Really worried. That concern only grew as time went on, starting when their guide had to literally kick open the door. They entered hesitantly, with Stella looking around in confusion, and Sol focusing on the Empress herself.

Sol watched Aurora feed the feeble alicorn, and felt bad for her. There had to be some way he and Stella could help. Geez, he really did want to help here, didn’t he? That cosmic mare must be rubbing off on him…

With a sigh at that realization, he makes an attempt to sense the Empress’s magic signature, and try to figure out what was wrong based on how that magic flowed through her body. He knew there were changes to how magic flowed through a magic user’s body when they were sick or injured, at least back home. An Elysian’s magic not only sustained them, but also protected them. However, it might work differently for Equestrians, and even more so in an entirely different universe.

[rappaccini]

arachnophobia ch 7 notes

chapter title

from 'satellite mind' by metric

oh boy metric was all over the spider-gwen 8tracks playlists back in 2015. the fantasies album is packed with music that applies so well to her.

gwen comes home on her own terms, is about to leave someone behind and reminisces about feelings she once had for them, owns her greater calling, and feels an eerie psychic connection to somebody she can't quite see.

who that person is? multiple choices. she's bonding with her symbiote, who's talking to her in her own voice. she's bonding with her alternate selves, who do the same, and are walled off from her in their own worlds.

... and she's unpacking her cosmic connection to miles, who's her foil. in the spiderverse movies, she seems to have a magical extra spider-sense that goes off when he's in danger in other worlds. hate that. eviscerated the idea of it in this fic. but hey, it applies. gwen and miles are the same. time to address it.

fwiw, this was almost the chapter 3 title. very depressed girl staring at the ceiling, hanging out with a starlet, feeling a supernatural connection to someone like her? it was knocked out by a nose by pinkshift. but the influence is all over that chapter.

and 'breathing underwater' was almost 7's.

initial quote

from catherynne m valente's refrigerator monologues, a series of short stories inspired by famous fridged women in comics. valente was inspired to write them after watching gwen die in the amazing spider-man 2, and the story this quote's from is the gwen stacy expy.

used here because gwen's finally making moves to establish herself and find her purpose.

summer

ghost-spider is gwen's current comics codename. they changed it to distinguish her from the dozens of other spider-women. it's lovely, i love that it isn't gendered (suits gwen's feminist ideology), and that it calls attention to gwen's status as a resurrected version of a famous dead girlfriend. (granted the movies started before she was called this, and kept calling her sw, so... confusion.)

gwen a doesn't use that name yet because she only thinks of it because of excursions in the multiverse. she will, though.

this fic always begins a chapter with a different name gwen goes by. spider-woman, spider-woman-in-name-only, spider-something, spider-gwen, gwen, gwen stacy, now ghost spider; each chapter involves gwen examining that aspect of her identity in some way, building towards a gradual detachment from the spider-woman identity and embrace of something wholly her own.

lost girl: peter pan ref. wendy's back from neverland, ready to grow up. she's not a lost girl anymore.

george quitting: still happens in this fic, but it's more a solution he comes to himself gradually rather than one he decides during their argument. gwen doesn't ask him to quit as one of her caveats bc asking your single dad to give up his career would feel like a stiff ask. the most gwen probably hoped for was him not hunting her anymore.

since gwen in the movies didn't kill her peter, there's technically a way for the manhunt to be called off and dismissed as captain stacy using taxpayer money to fuel his grief, and for gwen to be exonerated. i'm going with that, to do something a little different.

gwen's transformation into ghost-spider is tied in with puberty/coming of age and transition. she's finally ready to let go of all those traditional trappings of being a girl, and take her first steps as an adult woman, being fully honest to her family about who she is, without caring about fitting into any societal standards.

in terms of the seven stages of grief, we're at acceptance.

'you should be angry/you should do something' -- a little echo of 138

carnage is red. however mjarnage is a gorgeous mixture of reds, blacks, purples, oranges and yellows. i think gwarnage (bleh at that name) is a mix of the two: mjarnage's color palate, but with gwenom's silhouette and maybe a few small differences, like more armoring along the calves and forearms to nod to her ballet slipper ribbons and gloves.

symbiotes reflect the personalities of their most prominent hosts. 616-carnage's was a schizophrenic serial killer, so of course it's Like That. carnage-65b, in this fic, would be bonding with only gwen, so it'll be more of an embodiment of gwen's anger, vengeful streak and drive to survive, like comics-gwenom's.

comics-gwen mostly keeps her suit shifted to the classic spider-woman costume. gwenom only pops up when she's mad or stressed. to keep her distinct, gwen b mostly wears carnage on her sleeve.

social media reactions: meta. people think gwenom is less sexy than the spider-gwen costume, and they would absolutely pitch a fit about their daughters' precious role model being too problematic.

hobie-65 is a preteen who tags buildings and hates gentrifiers. he is so much more like young miles than hobie-138.

ock-65b is wildly different than comics-65 ock. i think this is kind of endearing, that movie gwen gets her own unique bad guy. especially since most of her rogues seem to be missing.

gwen's identity is preserved because there's no hand to pressure her into revealing it. and, with the new look, people assume gs is an alien. works for her!

if you wanna be technical, gwen b got her hand arc: after exposing herself to her dad, she was conscripted into a sinister society led by a creepy man (whose name starts with m) who wants to possess her, and holds a power she needs to survive at arm's length unless she obeys him; which she does out of fear for her dad's life. and then she found a way to get away from him, through embracing a symbiote, and makes up with her dad.

so in a sense, gwen's wrapped up her latour arc. she's made peace with her dad, secured her symbiote, and is no longer actively hunted by law enforcement. she's enjoying that quiet lull before the mcguire run begins, where man-wolf, the storms and jackal turn up. (if they ever do.)

"gwen watches her father doze..." callback to ch 2. all the things gwen missed about her world, back and current.

fall

the nyc kindergarten cutoff is 5yo by sept 1. gwen's got a mid-to-late aug b-day here, so she's one of the youngest kids in her class. ergo, she was in eighth grade when she got bit, peter either died at the end of ninth grade or the start of tenth, she was a sophomore when she met miles, a junior when she ran away from home (which would've had to have happened around january since she's in the ss for about five months by the time atsv picks up around may). so she's a senior now.

gwen doesn't have to repeat a year of high school despite having basically skipped half her junior year, because she and her dad lied about her staying with family due to peter trauma and his manhunt causing him to neglect her.

plus she rocketed through a placement test. she's a spider-person, she's smart under pressure.

(in the comics, gwen has family in london. that's who she's visiting when she goes there to get away from her dad's death.) thought it'd be funny if gwen gets to half-lie about going to london.

in the comics, 616 gwen went to standard high. 65 gwen goes to midtown, peter parker's high school. in the movie it looks like she's going to a version of visions, probably another, sigh, ~parallel to miles~. gonna twist canon here and say: fine, she went to visions for a while, but it was a case of her school busing half the student body there for classes while it repaired the building after the lizard battle.

again my issue is not with the movie canon diverging from gwen's comics backstory/world in and of itself. it's that all these changes seem to exist to water her world down and remove the people gwen loves to make it impossible for her to find belonging with anyone but miles.

and given all gwen's paranoia about her world spitting her out to force her to live in miles's, she WOULD assume that's what determined her assignment to visions.

em jay's slightly older here bc her character design just looks like it. in the comics, all the girls are the same age. here, i think of gwen and glory as 17, betty as 16, and em as 18.

gwen and her dad's caveats were: gwen will live at home again, but he can't stop her from visiting other dimensions. she will make an effort to meet people in her dimension, but she'll keep the friends she has in other ones too (... at this time, just hobie and gwen a). she will finish high school, but she will still be a spider-hero. she'll tell him what she's up to and who she's fighting, and let him give her advice and support, but he will not fight her battles for her.

basically, gwen's not an adult, but her experience away from home matured her a lot. she was homeless for months, she's been in danger constantly, she contemplated death, she lived with an intimate partner. she can never go back to being george's teenage daughter again. her emotional maturity's more that of a college sophomore than a high school senior: still a teen, but able to function independently and ready for more mature relationships. they're in that state aged parents and their near-adult children reach where there's far more negotiation of agency.

in the comics, the mjs are gwen's closest friends. in the movie, they're just bandmates, and given that gwen 'starts her own band' at the end of the movie, it seems like the vibe is that she doesn't feel like she belongs with the mjs at all.

fuck that! in this fic, the girls start out that way, but they work it out after gwen runs away. they just had trouble warming up to each other because of gwen's peter grief. they're not 65a-levels of friendship, but they're getting closer.

(+setup for gwen and miles in the end: both parties are in the wrong, with trauma keeping them from bonding, that they both have to deal with if the friendship's ever going to work. and both are finally ready to do that.)

the mary janes put up posters for gwen in the comics. i like to think they do here, and they can eventually be friends with gwen a. they're taking their first steps here.

gwen a doesn't have a watch, so b has to pick her up every time she visits. comics-gwen has a big sister vibe with all her variants, so i'm translating that here. and since gwen a in the fic's dad is dead, i figure she'd really want to be close to george b.

they're talking job apps because both of them are out of work. and playing chess because in the comics, gwen plays a few rounds with her reed when they need to talk; i figure a picked the game up from him.

hobie's watch: progress on it's slower in the fic than in movie canon; he had to rush to get gwen's done before she glitched out, and since he's out of the ss, it took even longer to get his operational.

the symbiote amplifies all emotions. yes, including the horny ones. your honor, they got nasty on that billboard. and in many other places too.

in the comics, the symbiote feeds off her calories, so she loses a lot of weight and starts getting migraines before she changes her diet. i figure the same applies here

the falling joke's just because i thought it'd be funny. another side effect of malnutrition is lightheadedness after all.

flash thompson is the midtown high gym teacher in the comics.

since gwenom needs cellulose, i figure carnage does too. cue the most miserable after-dinner snack imaginable: a raw head of cabbage.

the symbiote is sensitive to sound. given that gwen's a drummer in a rock band, it's gonna need time to get used to that. which should lead to some funny mishaps.

and all those teeth sticking out of gwenom's design have gotta be cumbersome sometimes.

great, okay, fine callback.

winter

howard the duck's president in comics-65.

jameson's the mayor of nyc in the comics. he isn't in the movies, but i think it's funny and sadly plausible, so we'll assume gwen's world is in an election year and jameson won. and gwen's dad is a christian cop so she is very worried that he voted for him.

gwen's new go-to foods: tea, because of all her time on 138; samosas, because of mumbattan; corn dogs because of gwen a.

idk if harry and reed exist in 65b. i hope they do. chalking this up to gwen deciding to let her people find her.

polaroids: continuity error between itsv and atsv: gwen's pic with miles shifts from a phone selfie to a polaroid selfie with no explanation. my guess is a polaroid just looks more aesthetically pleasing. gonna just go with it, and say that gwen likes analog cameras.

the b in english is gwen's worst grade in atsv. here, it's her best one, because girl's got other priorities than school.

i get the sense that gwen b won't go to college.

re college: comics-gwen takes a gap year after high school to figure out what major, then goes to prison. she tries enrolling at community college (i love that it's not ivy league), but bc of marvel editorial wanting her in 616 with the big spider-heroes, she has to commute to empire state in 616, before eventually going there for good after her solo's cancelled.

'not empire' is a dig at that. let gwen live in her damn world please. it's a good thing if she's not going to the exact same school as her 616 counterpart. and not every hero needs to go to a fancy college on a full ride. it was really refreshing that gwen wasn't a star student and was settling for community and she lost a lot of charm when she got handed that stark scholarship.

regrettable hookup: the gwenom vs carnage comic is so queercoded it's insane. they have an angsty guitar-drum battle over their feelings and it felt very much like one of the plans for mcguire's ghost-spider run was to make gwenjay happen. in this fic mj never becomes carnage, but in my heart that battle still happens because they had a fling and it didn't end well.

gwen's over ballet and finally ready to quit it formally.

she's over her replacement complex too. she doesn't mind if she's replaced at the barre, at the drums, if she's interacting with em or mindy. her confidence is hard to shake now.

movie betty joined the band to vent her feelings, so i figure she's a good person for gwen to do that with.

i like to think that gwen's trying to get more involved in the band creatively as her friendship with the girls improves, so she starts showing em and glory old punk and new wave records she'd have listened to on 138. in the comics, the mj's sound starts off as 'pixies x blondie' during latour and takes on a pop punk/p!atd sound during the mcguire run. in the movies, i assume they were more pop-rock during itsv (the elliphant song playing over gwen's intro), and will be headed into punk for their second round of songs.

spider-mutt is real! hobie's carnage is a little goopdog. i love it, and i wanted to include it. i figure fic-hobie probably took note of gwen's symbiote and thought, fuck it, i'll give it a spin. so now he has a goopdog.

a's uncomfortable with mattea bc of her history with matt murdock. b never met her murdock so never had that issue.

a's reactions are from the comics: comics-gwen thinks hobie's a bad singer, but still likes his music. she thinks 138 gwen's death is cool.

in the film, hobie's why gwen and her father reconcile. he's the one who told george she was coming home, left the watch with him to give her, and yelled at him until he saw sense. here, he's not so involved in the reconciliation, but they still meet and he still yells at him.

so their dynamic is: hobie has bad history with his world's captain stacy, and george doesn't like that this guy's sleeping with his daughter. they mutually hate each other's politics and life choices, but recognize that they both love and care about gwen. so they will try to get along... mostly by ignoring each other. the vibe's basically 'if hobie never leaves through her bedroom door george will ignore him climbing in through her window'

(... though 100% i think hobie pointed to his bootlaces and was like 'that's you. if you fuck up i'll do it again.' and george begrudgingly respects that)

gwen's dad's giving her The Look because he's put it together that gwen and hobie are sleeping together and that he can do nothing about it.

now that gwen has her independence, powers, support system, and world under control, she's ready for a relationship. that's the thing: gwen has to get those things FIRST.

in the comics, pav is a scholarship student who's bullied for his village background.

if pav's a variant of peter, and peter's biggest hobbies are photography and science, i figured pav would be the same. to switch it up, he's a photo nerd. (plus, it gives him and gayatri, a model, more to bond over)

the crazy thing miles did will be discussed soon.

hobie and miles are not friends at this point in this fic. they were for that first month of miles's membership, but when the unbreakup hit and miles assumed the ghostpunk vibe was to blame he stopped wanting to associate with him. and hobie had no desire to wade into teen breakup drama, so he didn't set him straight (... plus, his sympathies are more with gwen in the situation. miles, he gets that the situation's fucked up, but you're more in the wrong here and she has more to lose. plus he and gwen are much closer). so after the initial anger cooled off, they simply didn't reconnect because they spent more time being frosty to each other than being friendly.

gwen's Miles Thoughts are to set up their confrontation later in this chapter.

hobie gets away with his watch because the society thinks he isn't capable of that level of subterfuge, and that gwen came back to 65b after she quit.

more refs to gwen breaking hearts.

gwen's now classified as an anomaly, as a symbiote from another dimension bonded with a gwen who was never meant to have one, in the wrong way. i assume miguel slapped some caution tape over her and a's dimensions, like he did with miles and 42 in canon. i guess the logic goes that anomalies can be allowed to remain in the wild, as long as they stay put. and as far as he can tell because hobie's watches are undetectable, she isn't crossing over.

gwen still expects a confrontation. she wants one. setup for later.

the river-smell sweater’s hobie’s. small implication that he sleeps over at hers sometimes.

timeline update: it's been a few months since gwen returned. needed some time for her changes to set in and to get some practice with her symbiote. it's about january, so roughly the time of the guggenheim fight (... even if the animation makes it look like it took place in spring or fall, if you do the math, it would've taken place in winter).

comic gwen-8 just wears the generic spider-gwen costume. i'm dealing with so many gwens at this point that i literally have a cheat sheet with all their costumes drawn out to distinguish them and needed them to look different. so this woman's wearing something like the madame web gwen costume. it looks suitably dramatic for a seemingly perfect celebrity hero. white and pristine, with a big flowy cape to remind of miguel.

that rip spider-woman mural was still thrown up by hobie65 because after eight months of absence he assumed she was dead.

earth-8 notes

earth-8, for all it's built up as ~one of the best possible futures~ for gwen and miles, sure does have a lot of bad implications.

1) gwen and miles willingly abandoned their respective families, friends, communities and worlds forever, presumably leaving them to their rogues, so they could run off and be famous. which is insanely ooc for both. and deeply selfish besides.

2) the marriage age: according to the watcher's earth 8 timeline, gwen leaves her world after murdock's defeat (~age 20) and the wedding comes halfway between then and the birth of charlotte, when gwen's 26. so she was most likely 23 and he was 20. which is Insanely Fucking Young to get married for anyone and does not feel in character for them. (my best guess is that the dudewriters didn't want their ideal gwen over 40, so they made her 38 and didn't think through the butterfly effect implications for the ages they were at marriage/childbirth.)

3) this wedding of this supposedly perfect couple was televised to 300 billion people, and they did it unmasked. that's multiple royal weddings in one. that wasn't about love, that was about attention.

4) they have public identities on earth-8, and were already known to the public when they married. they literally monetized being superheroes, being a supercouple.... and being super-parents.

5) their kids are only 10 and 12 and are already super-celebrities with codenames, costumes and seats in an otherwise all-adult hero team. what parents let their kids go into battle with grown adults? not good ones.

6) every time we go to earth-8, the kids are just... unparented. sitting around the house, miles and gwen nowhere in sight and it's treated as standard. the kids are always with a babysitter/nanny who they have no trouble getting away from. gwiles sure are hands-off with those perfect powerful photogenic kids they supposedly love so much.

i'm pretty sure that out of universe, marvel editorial or at the minimum the spider-man writers wanted gwen out of her world after her initial solo ended so she could become miles's love interest/the vessel for his spider-babies, and earth8 was their vision of what they wanted for her future. gross!

anyway for this fic i'm gonna say Fuck That to the surface level earth 8 interpretation and try to write a version of this relationship that acknowledges all the bad implications, without villainizing them or turning gwen into a victim/passive bystander/superbaby vessel in her relationship with miles. while also trying to preserve gwen8 as the most palatable dude-friendly vision of spider-gwen. because that's what she was created to be.

so 1a) gwen-65 leaving her world after murdock's defeat can make sense easily: this is a gwen who was facing exposure, incarceration and abuse from her rogues behind bars. borrowing from 65b, her rel with her dad was on the rocks... and since gwen only seeks miles romantically when she's trying to avoid her problems, she did the same here. gwen-8 broke up the hand, then fled worlds before she could be arrested while she was presumably powerless. she met miles and they left for 8 together.

(how'd she get her powers back and leave the symbiote? idk. but she's a male writer's perfect gwen, and a male writer's perfect gwen would only have graceful spider-powers, not a scary messy alien blob monster clinging to her. my best guess is gwen 8 left venom with her dad and got her powers back on earth 8.)

(... ergo, she and miles probably tracked down earth-8's spider and made sure it'd bite her instead of whoever it was meant for. so they pulled an earth-42 switcheroo, but with gwen instead of miles and on purpose. i imagine that's why they chose earth-8 to settle in: take someone's power, take their responsibility.)

1b) miles i had more trouble with. atsv had the perfect answer: here's a miles1610 who doesn't encounter a spider from the wrong dimension, who starts out as the prowler, gets a bite from a dimensional-native spider after being the prowler for a while (not vigilante prowler; henchman prowler), tries to make his own way as spider-man (i assume ripeter's dead at this point), but no one will let him redefine himself as a hero. so he goes somewhere where he can.

i imagine his father still dies (earlier, bc a city without spider-man is even more dangerous), which leads him to burn out of visions and embrace his uncle and get sucked into prowlering (he wants to protect aaron); aaron's killed by kingpin (aaron wants to protect miles), who sees miles as a replacement. miles is stuck as the sole prowler until he gets his powers, his mom finds out and their relationship gets bad/distant enough that he feels the need to leave forever.

i figure he meets gwen because she's got no resources except her hand training and is pragmatic enough to return to crime to get by. she figures out he has spider-powers and gives him tips, they start learning about each other, develop trust, and decide to leave together.

2) they're 17ish and 20 when they meet under desperate circumstances and flee to earth-8. so they're young, impulsive, isolated, and under a lot of pressure. i figure they end up in that kind of ambiguous intimate partnership that gwen and hobie have-- not overtly romantic, but definitely not platonic. but everyone on earth-8 thinks they're a couple. and responds accordingly.

4) when gwen and miles arrived on 8, a futuristic world, they had no identification or support system. they had trouble assimilating, and decided revealing their identities on their own terms was the best way to be accepted and get enough power/money/respect to live safely. but that's a slippery slope: once you monetize your relationship, people demand a wedding.

3) the wedding was america's favorite supercouple inviting the public to invest in that parasocial relationship, so they'd be more willing to defend and support them. they were 20 and 23, of course they thought being influencers would be a good idea. (and, meta: the general audience and fandom like gwen better when she's on miles's arm, and they think miles is more impressive when gwen's his love interest.) 'america's favorite superlove story' was more a political marriage between partners in crime who did shady shit to start over, but nonetheless have an intimate bond, than a love story.

5) they probably got pregnant with charlotte by mistake but decided to go through with it to secure their image. once you're married, people expect kids. the 8 are formed after charlotte's birth, so presumably that's when they're established and powerful enough to have their own team. they gave the kids codenames because their identities are already public, so fuck it.

6) because of all their trauma, becoming parents too young and public pressure, miles and gwen just aren't emotionally available as parents. gwen especially, since gwen stacy (especially spider-gwen) just isn't maternal. of the two, miles is the more affectionate one, and gwen's the disciplinarian. they're like a miguel and jess who do care about their kids and just don't know how to express it, so they treat them like apprentices. (gwen's the miguel, miles is the jess.)

=gwen and miles 8 are image-conscious, calculating pragmatists. they're heroes, sure, but they're doing it to secure their positions. they'll get their hands dirty (including killing) to get what they want, gwen especially. they'll cut and run, and are out for their survival above all else. they're a couple, but they're more partners-in-crime than they are romantic or heartwarming.

the simplest analog i can come up with is if gwen and hobie's dynamic gave way to miguel and jess's: two unhoused kids in a bad situation who find support in each other as they do what it takes to escape that situation becoming a power couple who are a dangerously effective but emotionally stunted unit, who aren't sure if what they've become was worth it.

perfect gwen

gwen-8 going to brunch is a thing she does in the comics, with gwen-617. already had her doing it with jess, now it's the 65gwens' turn.

the light on pg settles over her like she's born to it, because she was. she's a 65variant, as we learn in this section. also, the light in gwen's world behaves like it's underwater.

miguel wants a new gwendaughter.

unfortunately all the ones currently in existence are either too old, too willful, or don't have a dad-shaped void he can fill. so far.

gotta drop 17628 and 8311/guin, plus 457 early. they'll be here soon.

specifically, the info that 457's exploring the multiverse is gonna come back.

anytime the text is in bold, that's the symbiote speaking.

we need to burst the bubble on perfect gwen. she is not perfect, she is a person.

the most definitive way to ruin gwen's reputation, as we know, is by having her do something shitty to her spider-man. or something 'shitty' like rejecting his advances, getting with another guy, prioritizing herself over him... you know. gwen b was 'shitty' to her spider-man. gwen-8's gonna be shitty to him.

ergo, gwen-8 intentionally killed her peter parker.

(+i wanted gwen b, gwen a, and gwen 8 to exist on a spectrum: peter's death is an accident and she liked him back / she wasn't into peter but didn't realize he was the lizard until after she manslaughtered him / she wasn't into him, knew he was the lizard and murdered him specifically to stop him from hurting her later)

further underlines gwen 8 as an extreme pragmatist who'll do whatever she has to to ensure her own survival, who WOULD leave her world behind. if she was willing to kill her own best friend to protect herself from a perceived future threat, she'd be willing to abandon her world to do the same.

there's no canon age for gwen8's power onset, though it's implied it's the same as gwen65 (age 17). i went with gwen b bc i thought (1) being sw for 25 years is a sexier number than 21, (2) it's a good way to contextualize her more regrettable actions and her stronger desire to leave home: she was thirteen when she got started, of course she fucked up. and her dad was hunting her for far longer and at a far younger age. (3) since gwen8 was sw for seven years before abandoning earth-8, all those canon events lasted longer. the manhunt lasted years instead of months, and so was her time with her abusive overlords.

more gwen b pulls: gwen8's dad tried to arrest her and she ran away from home for months, instead of gwen a's dad covering for her= more stress + a weaker bond to her dad that'd be easier to leave behind.

i imagine gwen8, instead of being scooped up by the society, was taken up by the hand after she ran away (on the spectrum, the event falls between gwen a's reluctant temporary hand membership to protect her dad, and gwen b's full-time induction into the society). so she both received their training, and put up with murdock's abuse full time (which means he had time to start extorting her sexually— a thing he’s implied to intend to do in the comics, but she ditched him before he could)— and all at a younger age than in canon. more context to her hypercompetency, and to her desire to ditch her world.

... but still. gwen8 abandoned her world. she didn't want to face the consequences.

also i imagine gwen8's subletter of 65 (65c?) is a world where george stacy got to live his dadcop dreams by being that world's venom. and that given how she's 38 and he's in his 50s when she's a teen, he's probably dead by now.

she's a science-inclined gwen instead of a music-inclined gwen (the two Big Types, so far), to further her palatability, and make it possible for her to devise that portal to miles's dimension.

age gap: gwen and miles were 16ish and 20ish when they had that terrible date in the comics. presumably gwiles8 have that same gap. ergo, they'd have met at that age too! yikes!

gwen8's defensive because she and miles8 were definitely doing shit when he was 17 and she was 20. yikes!

another reason for murdock's abuse progressing to a sexual extent: to make 20yo gwen's decision to hook up with a 17yo miles less gross and ooc. don't get me wrong, its still bad, but more understandable if she's trying to get some amount of power back and thinks someone younger than her wouldn't be able to manipulate her like murdock did. yikes!, but the best thing her traumatized ass could think of.

do things different: an atsv motif.

meta: gwiles are a massively popular fancouple. they move merch.

gwendolyn

charlotte probably was named after charlotte's web in the comics.

ficgwen's deadname is max. the alternate son people keep trying to convince her to have being named that felt... appropriate.

once pg's done recounting her backstory, gwen stops seeing her as perfect. thus, she's now gwendolyn.

it's batshit to me that gwiles8 got married at 20 and 23 and literally never had any other relationships than with each other.

happy vs content: another fic motif.

gwen8 is a gwen. she can only be happy, alive and empowered in a relationship removed from heteropatriarchy. once they brought people in, she and miles's relationship was poisoned. but those early years, where they were on the run together, where they first developed that bond, were real.

gwiles8's early dynamic, as stated before, is much more like gwen and hobie's. gwen's making that connection here (intentional parallel to hobie presenting her with the watch, and that i'll-save-you-look motif reappears here). and catching on that she and hobie fit into that labelless zone that gwenships need.

gwendolyn's sensitive about her kids, so she lapses into pr friendly humor to deflect. but i also think she does not know spanish.

gwen-8 is a ballerina because i want to maintain that spectrum of 65gwen palatability: a's a drummer, b's a ballerina only to get the girlhood cred and ditches it for the drums when she gets it, 8's unironically a dancer and liked it and had no musicianship interests). and a perfect palatable gwen would absolutely be a dancer instead of a drummer in a rock band. (and if she never has the mary janes to begin with, she can't give those drummer ambitions up. better alternative to surrendering her dreams to be a superwife)

'i bet you're straight too' -- you KNOW the most palatable dudefriendly gwen wouldn't be queer.

giselle is a tragic ballet about a woman who's betrayed by her lover, dies, and enters a coven of ghosts, all women who died young and tragically due to love, but spares her lover by forgiving him. gwen stacy fits right into that kind of story.

the royal ballet's in london. another gwen stacy nearly makes it there, but something stops her.

truly movie-65 looks like a dead wife flashback.

gwen8 in the comics is heavily implied to be a version of gwen65. playing with that here. fic gwen8 is from another 65 offshoot.

in the comics, a version of ham is part of the amazing 8, and often babysits the kids. here, gwen-8 is talking to the peter porker of itsv. great way to ref canon while also building into the realization that she's going behind the society's back by hanging out with undesirables.

gwiles-8 joined the society because they were sincerely seeking a connection with other spider-people, and did think it would be helpful for their kids. and also because they're so much like miguel and jess that i think they got along right away.

'calling us partners without treating us like it' -- all salt at the writers and fandom. if gwen and miles are equals, that means miles needs to care about advancing gwen's plot as much as she does his. and that gwen's individual world and story should receive as much emphasis. that doesn't happen though. so they're not partners, now are they? he's the hero, and she's the hero's girlfriend.

gwen a is totally uninterested in miles bc he's just some dude she's heard things about. gwen b still needs closure with hers.

gwendolyn plays along with the societal categories... and also pays the price: no one actually fits into these boxes ('perfect' gwen is technically an anomaly, and did some extremely questionable things). and while playing along might get you what you want materially and keep you personally safe, it furthers the idea that those boxes are necessary, and makes it impossible for people who seek a way out of it to realize you could or need help as well.

and you pass it on to your kids, who don't know you're playing the game against itself and internalize those behaviors unironically.

supposedly, comics-charlotte morales-stacy has a mystical connection to the web. the fandom keeps insisting that gwen hurry up and get with miles already so they can produce her, and i hate that more than life itself. you're not done when you marry that boy, now you are obligated to produce offspring and fuck what you want, gwen, your daughter in one dimension is special enough to totally overshadow your wants and needs. vomits.

that's going in the fic as stakes for any gwen who joins the spider-society. bc the next step in the patriarchy machine after marriage is babies ever after. and if the babies have powers that can be of use to the society, they're gonna want them.

gwiles8 aren't natives to earth8, so they should probably be wearing some kind of transdimensional stabilizer tech to not glitch out. ergo, they had a variation on the portal watch decades before miguel invented his.

i imagine their kids are earth 8 natives bc they were born there.

the kids: get into transdimensional mischief in the comics. something tells me they'd cause chaos in the society.

another reason for gwendolyn to get her powers at 13: so she can have a crisis thinking about charlotte being that age and going into battle.

re the kids: i like to think that the society mess made gwiles8 rethink how they're raising them, and they're going to try to let them be children more than junior spider-heroes now.

lego gwen is real, also from some unknown variant of lego peter's world. i know nothing about her, so she's just a cameo in the fic for that reason.

spider-witch is also real. from some marvel fighting game. also has zero characterization other than a vague reference to her having scarlet witch powers. so she's gonna be another cameo.

spider-woman-617 is an amalgamation of gwen 617, and what if...? dark's spider-woman, who has no numbered universe so i lumped her in to use the 617 title. essentially: taking 617's middle aged detective and giving her the backstory of gwen outliving peter, taking his mask and her dad's gun and going looking for vengeance.

and 617 gwen's universe collapses in the comics too. taking that and using the spot now to justify it, and solidifying the society as an enemy by having them pick and choose which universes are worth protecting. they'll never protect the ones where gwen gets to be the hero on her own terms.

we'll meet all these gwens next time.

the spot: a small way to imply that whatever showdown he and miles will have is still going to happen, even if out of this fic. again, i didn't want to rob miles of his atsv arc, just stretch it over months instead of hours and let gwen have one of her own beside it. the movies did miles right, so i'm doing gwen's side.

gwen 8 is a pragmatist and an opportunist. she would stay as long as possible to extract information.

and she'd get her hands dirty, but not in public... which is why she's talking to the irreputible gwens and asking them to do it for her.

earth 73

earth-73 isn't actually canon. made up for the purpose of this fic. she's the only spider-gwen variant who was entirely made up.

the gist is this is a world where gwen dies the night peter's bitten by the spider, but instead of dying, she's bitten too. so now there are two spider-people where there 'should' be one, and no dead gwen.

she's a gwendolyne-with-an-e to distinguish her from gwendolyn, spider-woman-8. and also to bookend gwen's story on being finally able to encounter a living gwen-with-an-e in a snowy alternate world.

it's 1973 and she's a woman in stem. gwendolyne's dealing with some insane sexism.

another cindy moon ref! sorry cindy, gwen snatched your destiny again!

gwendolyne's never gonna make it to london. again.

being out of reach: a motif for this section

this peter's only just gotten his spider-powers, so all his insecurities are still amped up to 11.

gwendy. the nickname only ever given to gwen by peter, occasionally mj, and hobie in the movies.

here, gwen's the uncle ben, so her death is the one that makes peter take responsibility and stop being reckless and attention seeking. meaning, he's gotta be reckless and attention-seeking when she dies. bad decisions ensue.

he's different, he's special, he's spider-man: bringing this back.

having to try: another motif brought in.

the rooftop flirtation/websling grabbing: got the idea from gwen and peter's first kiss in the amazing spider-man.

so. in this world, gwendolyne gets bitten by the spider when she crushes it. that's the moment of divergence from Canon.

so when she falls, she catches herself.

and so the world is changed: section motif.

issue 121 is gwen 616's death.

gummy spiders being used as tracking/surveillance devices are a thing!

in this world, gwendolyne's dad still dies. it just happens before spider-anyone is around to fight ock. that's her moment of inspiration.

and instead of being inspired by gwen's death, peter73 decides to accompany her.

this is a story where gwen and peter both get bitten, and both get to be heroes together. (it's the strongest way for a and b to witness how possible it is for things to turn out differently, if an og gwen and peter can fall in love, subvert the death, and gwen's powerlessness-- in agency and superpower. because why not?)

the Outfit gwen dies in: purple skirt, green coat. it's repeated in the amazing spider-man movies. you can see gayatri in a purple flannel. and gwen's wearing a green shirt in the film. (... they're so gonna do gwen's death in btsv)

it's a trigger point for gwen: from 'don't you dare interrupt the creation of this new story' to 'oh shit, someone's gonna do that.' it's what makes her want to give gwendolyne some options.

gwendolyne's a nerd. she's gonna think alternate dimensions are cool as hell.

she also doesn't want to leave her peter. she's bluffing to get the gwens to follow her back to him so they can talk this out together.

and the society's just shown up too. they've been talking to peter73, trying to gaslight the fuck out of him into thinking of the gwens as the enemy.

the society's gonna snip gwen73 out of the narrative.

the original plan was that they were going to kill her to force a gwen death canon event. i've since revised it to 'gwen doesn't know, but it's either that or miguel's found his gwen replacement goldfish and wants to retrieve her for that purpose' -- regardless, gwen's here to save herself and miguel's here to shut down a possibility of a new path for a spider-gwen.

jess isn't here because she's taken some of gwen's words in ch4 to heart. she doesn't want to be involved in gwen issues anymore, but she's still in the society.

lady spider's here because i wanted gwen to punch the victorian.

and ben because he's an edgelord.

and miguel, because he's miguel, and he wants a new gwendaughter.

peter73's looking for miles, who came in with the rest of the crew and turned invisible right before gwen73 hits the panic button.

the second miguel sees gwen he goes into rage mode.

look that symbiote tongue's gotta be so fun to use in combat. and the tooth hood. somebody's gotta get bitten by it.

tiger: tiny ref to em (of 'face it tiger' fame) being the original carnage host.

the lab needed to be mirrored so miles could see miguel coming behind him. the reflection motif was a happy accident discovered during drafting.

gwen and her symbiote are generally in agreement-- but it still feeds off her anger and fear. she needs to struggle with it sometimes-- and so an invisible miles can see her doing that, and assume the worst.

also i needed to explain how the society turned up early. makes sense that they'd be surveilling 73, and see the gwens, and decide to move up their mission.

and that gwen would instantly be paranoid of gwen8 selling them out.

funnel webs are the super messy ones. befitting of a portal watch made by a punk. as opposed to the structured orb weaver build of the one designed by a control freak.

miles:

miles and gwen's final confrontation was one of the first things i wanted to write in this fic.

the shoulder touch/"hey" is a ref to itsv.

comic and movie gwen fight different. comic gwen's a clumsy brawler. movie gwen uses her feet and moves like a dancer. miles, who's a smart guy who fought alongside gwen (... and paid a lot attention to her looks as an artist and a guy crushing on her), would clock those kicks and be able to tell the symbiotes apart.

the body running past them isn't maybelle or ben.

miles's temporary suspension was made permanent after earth-42.

miguel gave him this assignment as an opportunity to prove his loyalty and get back in. he wanted someone to handle gwen for him... but then went on a miguel rage, and forgot all about the plan.

miles is here for two reasons: 1) he can't help wanting to ~save gwen from herself~. you know that's how it'd go if gwen got a symbiote and started tapping into her rougher emotions.

and 2) he genuinely wants to talk to her again, but can't until this moment. taking miguel's offer was also tactical, and an indication that miles isn't as naive or as desperate to belong as he was the last time we saw him.

re: saving her: the last time miles saw gwen, she was having an emotional breakdown in front of him. since then he's only ever heard of her, mostly from pav and now peter b. pav last saw her when she attacked him and tried to die in his girlfriend's place, and pete saw her right before something violent went down with miguel and she left the society. and now here she is, months later, possessed by a symbiote in the wrong world, attacking the society. it is totally plausible to think that she needs help.

(and since he's definitely spoken to pete b about her, he does have more perspective about why she rejected him)

saving her 2: it is also very much that he's still stuck in that hero-saves-the-girl mindset. his first impulse is still 'the girl needs me to save her' and not 'maybe the girl is doing this on purpose'

~saving her~: one of the most predictable things you can do with gwenom is make her a victim who needs to be saved by the power of love or a monster who needs to be put down. by the male main character. all the more extraordinary that the actual gwenom arc totally blows those ideas out of the water.

it's an old story, and gwen hates it, so that makes her antagonize him.

miles at this point is getting over his feelings for gwen. he spent 6-8 months not interacting with her at all, after all (and getting closer to margo). he's genuinely not thrilled about the idea of kissing her better, but he still cares about her, and if that does it, he'll do it. (hence the 'i'll-save-you' facial language. you can see it in pav and hobie in 3 and 5 too.)

gwen clocks that hesitation, and it makes her settle down and want to engage with him.

miles is older too. puberty acts fast. he's not gonna look like how she remembers him.

miles's secret weapon is the venom blast (+invisibility). gwen's is the venom symbiote, which can turn her invisible.

his plan was: show up for the mission, get the symbiote off gwen, get gwen back to her homeworld safely. he had no interest in going back to hq or rejoining the society.

(which tips the favor in this being a kidnap-gwendolyne mission instead of a kill-her one. miles wouldn't help out if it were the latter, and the former could be construed by him as For The Best.)

gwen's finally capable of understanding that miles changes over time too. in ch2, she was convinced he couldn't understand her but totally neglected that she's the same.

miles is still a 16yo boy who doesn't totally get what relationship anarchy is.

gwen wants to patch up the miles-hobie friendship. it broke over her, so she has to be the one to fix it. i think he'll actually take her up on it this time.

one of my goals for this fic was making sure miles still gets his canon arc. i think it's exactly what his character needs, and i don't want to flatten him or assassinate his character and throw him away after shooting gwiles dead. so he's still getting all his atsv development, just at a much slower rate and offpage. and without gwen at his side.

ergo: after his big society blowup, here recontextualized as a suspension, he heads to 42. differences being: he goes there intentionally, knowing what he'll find, and he brings his friends (here, peni and margo). it goes less to shit than in canon.

miles peni and margo are a trio because if gwen's had her female friend group removed and is now a guys' girl, at least make miles a girls' guy.

yes, background margo/miles. flowerbyte is cute, margo's a great match for him and i love this ship! i like to think they have a sweet friends to lovers slowburn in the background while gwen's running around punching walls for six months.

so at this point miles is into margo, but still hung up on gwen. he's getting ready to transition from teenage infatuation into a more mature kind of love, but needs closure with gwen before he can move on.

one of my btsv theories is that we'll meet one of the alternate gwens the creators teased in earth-42, and she'll be the gwenom.

which, at least we'd get to see gwenom. but the whole point of gwenom is that she isn't an evil or sad worst-case-scenario version of gwen. she's just gwen. the main gwen.

hence gwen's symbiote calling that out. excuse me bitch, we are not a side character or a sad ending, we're the main event.

symbiote body horror is fun! and carnage 65 is covered in tooth barbs.

(... miles facing off against carnage is a recent comics arc of his. got to pay homage to it here, in a way)

miles was talking to miles8 about prowler stuff all along.

gwen and miles in this fic each have a perfect earth-8 variant who was much more shady behind the scenes, and a villified variant they're supposedly destined to be, who's actually a great influence on them. they are indeed the same in the ways that count.

gwiles8 set up the gwen-and-miles reconciliation. gwen8 was going to send gwen to get gwendolyne anyway, but miles8 sent miles along to make this happen.

dream girl gwen's been a motif throughout this fic. the thing about dreams is you have to wake up from them if you want to get on with your life. miles is about to do that.

miles ii

chapter 2 parallels: gwen contemplating becoming the palatable miles-gf. "they're not us." the gripping of the shoulder. the invisibility. this is an inversion of that scene; they've grown enough to be able to fix what went wrong there.

it's batshit that miles8 got married when he was 20. what the fuck.

the thing about gwen65 is that she can't end up with miles or peter, ever. she has too much history with peter (and he has too much with her), and if they get together all their development since that trauma goes out the window. and that future with miles poisons a present relationship, because that's what it's leading to. one destroy's gwen's physical life, the other destroys her ability to be a protagonist.

movie gwen, at least, could've had something with movie miles. if they'd stayed in touch after itsv, i buy that gwen's feelings for him would've developed and they'd have gotten together and been sweet. but not after a year and a half of no contact; with that much distance and stronger connections to other options (hobie, even pav to an extent), she's moved on.

(even if they joined the ss at the same time, their dynamic would be poisoned by canon and societal expectations. same result as in-fic, but even messier because then they actually WOULD be a couple imploding, instead of an almost-couple averting getting together by having the implosion first.)

and even if they'd gotten together, i still don't think they'd have lasted. they'd be a high school relationship, and those tend not to work out for a reason: adolescent love and adult love are SO different, and adolescence is a phase to grow out of. we desperately need more stories about teen love that take that approach.

and since spider-man can't let gwen stacy go, he wouldn't have let them grow apart. he'd have held on and "time would've made it worse" -- reversal of miles in ch 2. he's going step by step here, confronting all his misconceptions and letting go of them. and it would've made it worse. they have a dynamic that can only work temporarily, and the longer they're together the more that would show.

gwen's a step ahead of miles developmentally. either she has to regress or stay put in order to stay on his level, or he has to grow up too quickly. neither is good.

miles can't grow up and seek a more mature, deep relationship if he gets his dream girl. and gwen can't go home if she's trailing after this boy, fighting his battles for him.

more miles growth: he's not the exception. he's another spider-man who'd cannibalize gwen's story. meta: because that's what'll happen if they get together. the fandom, the audience, and the writers will all make their relationship about him and the longer they're together, the more gwen will be written to vanish into it, and the more miles will be written to enforce that. he'll be turned into that boyfriend who doesn't encourage his girlfriend to have her own life. being with her will make him a worse person.

gwen and miles don't need to form a romantic relationship. what they're seeking in each other they can only find in themselves.

now that gwen's met gwen a, and miles has met miles g, they've outgrown that fixation on each other.

miles woke up. now he sees his dream girl for who she really is: a person, who wants control over her own life.

and gwen finally sees past that shining light of inspiration for the person miles is: a boy who cares and doesn't always know how to help. (+half in love motif paying off)

miles is no longer a lost boy. he decided to grow up, just like she did.

(... to the people excited about the peter-pan-and-wendy nicknames hobie gives miles and gwen, please remember how that story ends. wendy gets over peter and goes home because if she stays with peter, she can never grow up. if she stayed with him, then the story would've been a tragedy, because refusing to grow up is not a good thing. the same is true for miles and gwen.)

and the only way they could ever have grown up is if they did it apart. together, they stagnate each other. fine for a temporary high school flirtation, but bad for a relationship intended to last.

not all not-good relationships are toxic or abusive. sometimes it's simply that you and your partner don't let each other grow or change for the better, or that your wants and needs are incompatible in the long-term. and just because you and someone are into each other doesn't mean you'd be a good couple.

another added bonus of the portal in this scene is: miles gets to face the light, and gwen's face is in shadow. it all ties in!

part of gwen's anger at miles has been that subconsciously, she wanted him to fix things for her because she believed she couldn't do it herself (and at the time he joined the ss, she couldn't; she had no support system, no confidence, was purely in survival mode and was totally dependent on them for her portal watch). now she knows she can.

they fixed their shit. now, can the other spider-men and gwens do the same, and even stay together?

miles and gwendolyn had it... before they sold out.

peter and gwendolyne have it. if the ss never showed up at all, they'd have debuted as a hero partnership. maybe they wouldn't have lasted as a couple, but they'd both be alive, powerful and equals in the narrative.

pav and gayatri seem like they could. she may not have powers, but she already knows who he is. and now that he's aware of the narrative, he could attempt to subvert it.

(gwen and hobie have it.)

gwen can't end up with just anybody, in just any scenario. but it IS possible for her and a spider-man to work out. the key's agency and equality... which can only exist, in a world dictated by canon, (or, meta: by writers and fans caught up in heteropatriarchal storytelling,) in the dark, in the margins, out of sight, to keep it safe from the people who'd demand the traditional arrangement. and it can only be with someone who'd never be tempted by said arrangement (in universe) and (out of universe:) can't overshadow her.

[cough hobie brown is that someone cough]

so, any canon version of gwen65 can't end up with miles. or peter, for that matter. (in fanfic, the sky's the limit. but in canon? nope. miles and peter are too big in comparison to her, and the baggage is too much)

miles iii

gwen and miles individually have what it takes to break canon.

they are both marginalized by it and constricted by the limitations of their narratives, though to very different extents-- especially since they're set up to view the other as an obstacle (to gwen, miles is yet another spider-man who's here to swallow up her story) or an object (to miles, gwen is the reward for being the hero and completing the character arc), instead of an ally.

both are denied complexity and given strict rules to play by in order to be tolerated.

both are punished for breaking, failing or not wanting to live up to those expectations.

both are ideally positioned to recognize the limitations of canon and have all the motivation to want to break it.

and both are needed to break canon all the way...

but they cannot do it if they're a couple. all that would do is break miles's canon, while gwen's stays intact. miles would be settling for a designated love interest instead of discovering his own, and gwen wouldn't get her own story. the hero getting the girl can never challenge canon because it's one of the oldest most fundamental parts of the canon. changing up which hero gets the girl doesn't change anything because he's still getting the girl. and if you're gonna break it, break it all the way.

the ultimate culmination of miles's arc (fuck canon, i'll do it my way) isn't actually him doing it his way-- it's encouraging others to do the same even at the cost of him getting what he wants from them. the best way to do that is for him to give gwen that opportunity, because it shows he's grown enough to recognize that her ability to lead her own story matters more than his desire to make her a supporting role in his. fic-miles has reached this conclusion. i hope (and doubt) movie miles will too.

the ultimate act of love is acknowledging that your feelings are less important than their freedom safety and happiness. hobie gets that right away. it took miles a while, but he's here now. albeit, after gwen's feelings already evolved away from him. still important that he got there. now he's ready to be that person for someone else (in this fic, margo).

gwen and miles kick miguel in the face because it was fun to write. also, they're a functional team again.

miles can't come with gwen because she needs to get on with her story, and her story isn't about him.

(intentional parallel to hobie: yeah, she could stay with miles, but doing that defeats the purpose of her emancipation. she has to follow through with it before they can have the relationship they've just admitted to wanting; with hobie, something romantic; with miles, something platonic)

gwen and miles' parting words/gesture are intended to mimic the ones they had at the end of itsv. they are friends, and actually get to stay friends this time.

miles isn't dying here fyi. he's quitting the society and heading back to his world. he's fine. he’s just waiting for gwen to back out of the metaphorical parking lot first.

end quote

from seanan mcguire's gwen stacy: ghost-spider. this is when gwen returns to her universe after a spiderverse event, finally free from prison and ready to redefine herself.

[hircinesanters]

Falas stuff:

As I play more of him and also replay more of the dragonborn DLC I have some more personality and stuff for him tehe

- wears a mask when in combat so Mara “cant see him enact such violence.” He almost has 2 very different personalities, after a fight he is the gentle and humble priest of Mara preaching love and compassion. But once entering a bandit fort or cave he has no mercy, even if he does bless the poor soul he brutally murdered afterwards. The contrast is quite eerie.

- sees his dragon blood as a sort of burden he must now take on. The Greybeards warned him that he is a son of Akatosh and that sometimes the wills of Aedra conflict. But Falas assured them that he is devoted to Mara first, and that his faith will not sway from her.

- when he goes to Solstiem and finds the stones and the temple being built. He has many nightmares/dreams where Miraak calls him by name. These dreams unfortunately can get a bit raunchy as the extreme repression of both his sexuality and his dragon blood roams free in his unconscious. It doesn’t help that he and Miraak are also cosmic soulmates.

- these dreams freaked him out so much that he actually chickened out of Solstiem and ran back to Skyrim and back to the temple of Mara for some kind of guidance or protection, Mara basically shrugs her shoulders and says “pray about it.” Of course this doesn’t help much as the dreams and visions persist as Miraak beckons him back to him, as well as stealing his dragon souls. But he defeats Alduin during this time.

- when he comes back to Solstiem he has mentally prepared himself as much as he can, confident that he will kill Miraak. But once he actually meets him in the summit of Apocrypha, he ends up saving him- going against Mara’s wishes as well as literally his entire team.

- very bad with directions, has gotten lost countless times in caves, the wilds, and even cities. Lydia leads the team in Dwemer ruins since he simply cannot be trusted.

- even if he is a priest, he has a want for adventure. Almost a naive one. This can sometimes lead to trouble of course, and he is not at all arrogant about it. But if he stays in one place too long he will become restless. He’s read too many books about adventure and he wants to go out and explore. This also comes from him being almost cloistered in the temple of Mara for a decade to redeem himself of his Deadric affiliations. So he’s happy to be outside.

- throws all his money away to those who “need it more.” Always has barely enough to get by or buy food or supplies.

[tearsoftime0086]

Saw your post in the League tag. If you ever post some of those fics I'd love to see them!! Even WIPs/snippets, really (especially the Nasus & Renekton one; I will die and kill for brother content)

Anon first off thank you so much for the kind words a;dlkghsk;a

I saw this ask come in out of nowhere and was like!!! a fellow league lore enthusiast!!! It makes me so happy that you'd be interested in my little WIPs, it made my DAY! Gosh I'm still trembling typing this.

Hmm some of those fics are really small so maybe what I'll do here is post them all below the cut (for links to posts for the bigger ones, text itself for the smaller ones), along with some "writer's commentary" to explain what they're about. Feel free to read/ignore whatever you choose!

Also if there's an idea that intrigues you (or if you have a writing suggestion outright) definitely let me know, it'd be my honor to work on it :) Or if you ever just want a fellow league person to chat lore/ideas with! No pressure tho - I know that would potentially require coming off of anon!

Thank you thank you again~

Nasus and Renekton fluff is on AO3 as Shuriman Nights (I'm gonna respond to your other ask right after haha)

Sett/Aphelios heartsteel drabble is posted on Tumblr here! Just a small scene of Aphelios and Sett as they work on their upcoming concept album.

Jayce/Viktor Arcane Mr. Freeze AU is posted on Tumblr here! It takes place right after the Arcane season 1 ending and Viktor decides to cryofreeze Jayce. I have a LOT more notes on this one if you're interested - this was supposed to be a sprawling multi-chapter fic I committed to but I never came back to it.

Zed/Karma darkstar/odyssey AU is posted on Tumblr here! This one's a sprawling one too, including Odyssey Zed and Karma, Dark Star Karma, Dark Cosmic Jhin, and Cosmic Queen Ashe (at some point - all I have are quick scenes). Depicts the fall of Zed as he becomes consumed by the Ora - High Templar Karma decides to do whatever it takes to stop him... even if that means using the power of a Dark Star.

Sona and Ezreal psyops drabble is posted on Tumblr here! I love the Psyops skinline so much, so a small scene between two weapons who have made their own way in the world.

Pulsefire Ezreal is posted here! The prequel to number 5 - Ezreal was the first to escape Viktor's Psyops and has a hard time with the existential dread that entails... until a peppy, Pulsefire clone appears on his doorstep. The scene is just their first encounter.

I couldn't find my Diana and Aphelios interlude... but essentially this was Aphelios going on a search for Diana and being ambushed by Solari, causing his connection with Alune to be severed. When he wakes up, he finds Diana. He has to decide whether to bring Diana in to the Lunari by force or work with her to reconnect with Alune. It's a shame, I loved planning this one out.

Kayn and Yone dawnbringer/nightbringer drabble: As Yone fights to find his place in the struggle between gods and mortals, he encounters Kayn, who's facing the same dilemma a very different way. Here Kayn has just Umbral Trespassed into his mind, much to Yone's ire:

~

Kayn is unamused. "Huh. You lived."

His expression doesn't change when he's forced against the wall. Yone's eyes simmer black with anger as he presses the demon blade against the demigod's neck.

"How dare you trespass-"

"And for a moment I thought we could have a useful partnership. You're nothing but a man with a lingering brother complex."

"ENOUGH!" The blade slips against Kayn's throat, and golden ichor beads from the wound.

Gold blood, dripping from Yasuo's arm...

While he drowns in red.

Yone staggers back, hollow eyes looking far into the distance. Kayn scans his frame, scoffing as he sees Yone's fingers tremble. The demon sword clangs onto the ground and vanishes in a flash of dark smoke.

"I believe our meeting is over," Kayn says, wiping a rough palm across his throat. As the wound begins to close, the scythe in his hand glows an eerie white. "I'll at least wish you well in your endeavor, hopeless as it may be."

Kayn's eyes glaze over as his entire body turns ethereal, casting unholy shadows against the crumbling walls. "Farewell, mortal fool," he scoffs, and then he is gone, slipping under the shadows of the setting sun.

~

9. And last but not least but the Shaco backstory! Very short - I didn't write the sad part when Shaco becomes corrupted lol

~ Once upon a time, there was a clown....

Now, even people back then hated clowns. They were eerie folks, who dressed up in garish robes and baggy, dirty pants. And some of them weren't even human. So when Shaco was created, he became the immediate source of gossip amongst the nobles. What was the king thinking, giving something so crude and sinister to his ailing child? As Shaco wandered the palace halls, a permanently smiling face painted on his wooden frame, all he received in return were scowls and furtive glances. There were numerous times when he was stolen straight from the prince's hands. A bad luck charm, they said. The prince's final escort to the underworld, they said. But Shaco did not care. He had his friend. And if his friend would laugh for him, that was enough.

~

[girlcalledwhatsername]

It was only a few days ago that I brought you my bullets really sunk in, especially the title of that album. The entire album, they talk about everything from fantastical vampires or zombies to a workplace romance and drug abuse, they seem to be scattered songs but it's all about the same thing which is being loved despite everything you are. In Demolition Lovers he says 'all we are is bullets i mean this'. He's bringing her all of him which is ugly and seemingly impossible to bear and in his mind irredeemable and in return she is bringing him her love.

And then I could articulate more clearly the differences in how dark subject matters are treated in Bullets, Revenge, and Black Parade. In Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, all the songs have this playfulness to them, they seem hauntingly cheerful and flirty, with an uncanny quality to them. And it's so in contrast with Demolition Lovers itself, which is completely raw and angsty and tragic. And then that further contrasts with The Black Parade, which is dark in this very personal way that makes cosmic grief seem intimate and contained within yourself such that it's impossible to escape from. It's a dark abyss to fall into, nothing about it is humorous or even with a touch of irony in it. Revenge is like an amusement park ride into insanity, and Black Parade is the somehow worse-off reality. The Patient does make the narrative dodgy because he's unreliable as a narrator but if anything that makes the record all the more eerie.

[laughingpinecone]

Yuletide 2023 letter

AO3: laughingpineapple

(treats welcome, AO3 settings a-ok in that respect)

Hello and thank you for writing for me! I hope you’ll have a great time playing with one of these wonderful canons!

I love a wide variety of fics - from strict gen to explicit, any tense, any format, big yes to all kinds of weird experiments up to and including external povs, found documents, interactive fiction etc. In general, I love canon expansion (showing new places/events/stuff in the setting or exploring those that are barely mentioned, just outside the borders), character work of all stripes (expanding on little quirks, putting characters in situations that complement/challenge certain personality traits of theirs, just… observing these weirdos as they live their lives, for better and for worse), magical realism and adjacent approaches. I eat up emotional moments with a spoon when a fic is character-centric (pining! danger! catharsis! hurt/comfort! the nitty-gritty of attraction!) and also love abstract stuff that at most touches shrimp emotions from afar: fake academia, a wider focus, inhuman povs, anything goes.

For both romance and friendships, I love it when it’s clear (not necessarily to the characters themselves, but to the narrative) what it is that they like about each other, how they get along, if and how they trust each other. The specificity of each dynamic! I also love it when the characters are very into something that makes sense for them, be it a hobby or a kink or whatever, even if it’s something I may not personally care for.

DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, focus on children, pregnancies, unrequested ships (background established canon couples are okay, mentions of parents and paired-up OC randos are okay!), canon retellings

Ghost Trick and Pyre are old staples, prompts and musings in my old letters always apply! There's some PJÕL too in the last two. And now, in strict alphabetical order and with the usual disclaimer that shorter prompts don’t mean I want it any less:

GHOST TRICK (Cabanela, Jowd)

I'm into Alma/Jowd/Cabanela or Alma/Jowd&Cabanela, or any Jowd/Cabanela that doesn't downplay/erase the canon relationship (anything set during the game timeline or in alternate scenarios where they don't reset, for example!), or even one-sided on Cabs' end and Jowd caring for him in a different way, or a Very (Very) Intense Friendship. Shippy or not, for me the draw is that these two are an unstoppable/immovable pair of burning determination and cosmic pessimism, big on loyalty (or at least being on the receiving end of it in Jowd's case) and being two difficult individuals who can and do get on people's nerves in record time but just fit with each other so easily… and ace the broccoli test like nbd. when they want to. which they might not. In Sissel's own words, whatever these two have got going on, warm or cold, it's "immeasurably deep" and I love to see that OTT play out in any way. And feel free to add anyone else in the tagset if your idea leads you that way, I love them all dearly. Pigeon Man, for example - we only see his grump complement Cabanela's energy, but how does he play off Jowd, toward whom he is extremely loyal? Alma, of course, what's your take on her, there are so many great possibilities - could she be as cheerfully nihilistic as her husband, when push comes to shove? Or what about Missile the little warrior with his own brand of unstoppability? Is there a supernatural/ghostly situation Jowd and Cabanela (and Alma? or Lynne? Sissel?) walk into that sees them well on top of their game thanks to their experience with the friendly ghost cat in the house? Or something eerie that's out of their wheelhouse even with Sissel's ghost tricks? What about a beach day but also a hiking trip, snowed in, anything? Dancing? Does Cabanela fail to remain spotless in any sense, ranging from oily bike repairs to more serious symbolic scenarios?

Ship-wise, Jowd falling in love fascinates me. Cabanela feels like he's been down bad for an impossible target for some time (or two, conveniently married to each other) but for Jowd it all comes at such an awkward moment. He was ready to die and hurt them all posthumously (with the music box twist) to make it easier for them to leave him behind, and now what's this? He may not even have considered being into men before, what's that like, when does he realize that that's what's happening? Then it turns out his old friend laid down his life for him??? wild. and then he's ten years younger again, with a loving family and a Sparklesue of a friend-colleague-rival, and all these memories…

Fandom-specific DNWs: Cabanela-Yomiel reconciliations, everyone having memories of the old timeline

PÜHA JA ÕUDNE LÕHN | SACRED AND TERRIBLE AIR (Ignus Nilsen)

So there's this man of extremes (even for Elysium standards) who lived and fought for the burning belief in a better world, who left his homeland with a double middle finger and somehow, in a foreign land, grew devoted to a good man and his ideals and theory, their theory, and then lost him and their hope at once, and still tried to keep going, to begin anew, and failed there too, and even after his death in exile his beliefs did not waver. Always a live wire. He loved the world, every atom of it. A man whose devotion was so intense that it had to be erased from history, giving birth to a different legend instead. As a friend once put it, the spectre of communism is real and he's a bitter old queen.

I ship him and Mazov very much (dialectically, ideologically, handholdingly, through the ages and in the eternity of the pale, everything he says about the man sounds like the yearning of a sad old lover), and Mazov himself I love in every aspect. If you go down this path, I'm good with period-typical internalized homophobia being a thing in the fic. INTENSE HANDHOLDING ACTION very welcome. Also in-universe Mazov/Nilsen academic discussion, earnest sculptors, zines etc. But also: Ion Rodionov thirdwheeling into their life like a stray cat and supporting their idea even knowing that it would fail is amazing. The fact that Nilsen indulged his whims in their exile (the orchestra, really?) and presumably got his apocalyptic moniker from him (we know that it's because he warned people of the apocalypse) paints an interesting friendship to me, especially in the raw times after Mazov's death. The Zigi&Nilsen camping trip is a delight and I'll always want more of that, and of Zigi himself, and of what Nilsen saw in him, and the other way round. Or what about the time Zigi spent with the Lund sisters while Nilsen went ballistic over teen girl mags, 'cause that sure was something canon felt the need to inform us of. Idk how to fit in Tereesz but if they met I'm sure it'd make for an interesting conversation. And rounding up the tagset IT'S AMBROSIUS WITH A STEEL CHAIR omg best tagset surprise ever. I am incredibly fascinated both by Nilsen's (and Zigi's!) opinions on the ruling Innocence, and by the possibility that bb Ambrosius may have met all the future heads of the Revolution when he was being tutored by Ion, and/or that the failure of the Revolution may have been a turning point in his beliefs. Outside the tagset, anything with Sport is bound to be terribadamazing bc Sport, and Ukhotomsky was around as another of Mazov's close friends but was the exact opposite of Ignus so that could make for interesting scenarios.

Some prompts: does his consciousness in the pale (subjectively either before or after his adventure with Zigi) meet some interesting people à la Nadia n Frantiček the Brave - "5 historical figures he met who are not Mazov + 1 long-awaited reunion" sort of thing? Some examples of Teachers Being Like That feat. him and Rodionov? Sitcom-tier shenanigans with the upper echelons of the revolution + that kid with the rancid vibes that Ion brought in? In case Nilsen's canon lil treatise on "early homebrewing" referred to tabletop homebrewing, what did their gaming look like - was it an early form of roleplaying proper or, like, reconceptualizing chess or Monopoly? What about any of his exiles, given how he was first thrown out of Katla, then Graad, then they tried to kill him in Samara too and he spent his last days in exile and according to a throwaway line he counts as one of Elysium's great disappearances (does Khan have some fun intel on all that, or maybe Ulv)? Did the various pale crossings mess him up? What about the crossing of the lungs of Graad, toward the interisolary pale, with the blood of thousands of prisoners still fresh behind them? Or how'd he take his hut era, when did those feral months in the polar wilderness happen in his timeline, what kind of weirdness can we expect above Elysium's polar circle, did he have Mazov to return to in Graad and just how emotional can we make this reunion? Any scenario like "idk, Kras Mazov was like 70% of my impulse control"? What was it like, gaining consciousness in the near pale and becoming more than Zigi's dialectic frenemy (or was there always a glimpse of him)? Did they feel uniquely cut off from the pale that surrounded them? Did they ever talk about Ambrosius? Did he ever pull off some other godly rhetoric stunt like reverting the pale through stubbornness and conviction alone? Some identity musings based on all three heads of the revolution going under new names, and considering them nom de guerre? Something about Ignus' troubled relationship with his homeland - as it goes, he fought hard to deny the Vaasan allegations and Vaasa fought harder to deny the him allegations? What about his blacksmithing skills (and what makes one an apocalyptic blacksmith, specifically - how do these two things go together)? Or any of his numerous Opinions which he penned on so many topics? Or just slap him (in person or cytoplasmically, 's not like death or censorship could stop him) in a Situation that has some weird worldbuilding in it?

Fandom-specific DNWs: that reddit theory about Målin being pregnant with Zigi's child. I'm open to a variety of options for the sisters' disappearance but should it come up I would prefer if it were their decision to vanish, a decision dictated by some kind of (non-bourgeois) ideology, and for Zigi to be loyal to all four of them. I would also prefer Nilsen's big hangup about his fellow communists to follow the translation which sees them as "prey" rather than "beasts". Relatedly, should it come up, "Failure. Failure shapes the world" rather than "Futility". And please do not excuse his grandiose shittiness. The misogyny is what it is and ditto the war crimes, etc.

PYRE (Volfred Sandalwood)

I’m so charmed by this smug revolutionary tree it’s not even funny. Make up any situation in which he can do his thing and I’ll be happy - be sort of full of himself but also sort of rightfully so, pragmatic to a fault except when he’s overwhelmed by grief, bearing the burden of taking care of the practical side of an impossible shared vision (and seeing it fail before it started and eventually picking up the pieces and starting again), long-winded and very much in love with his voice (also rightfully so) and also that’s what history professors are like, extremely charismatic, a mind reader with a higher calling which is always a dangerous combo when it comes to maybe going a step too far. I love this story set at the end of a cycle and I’m enamoured with characters who have enough historical awareness to acknowledge it and see that it’s up to them to bring about a new era. Canon’s bittersweet idealism is catnip to me.

I love him with Tariq who seems to be as charmed by him as I am (the shy, vague title of Volfred’s theme combined with its James Bond vibes are a killer combo. Tariq please) and with Oralech who’s maybe the only guy who can go “Volfred no” when needed. With oldest friend Bertrude with all the camaraderie it entails and all the Nightwings, really. Volfred & Hedwyn! & Rukey! & Pamitha! & ae!!!

I would also be interested in seeing him face people from the other triumvirates in more or less friendly situations - generally sticking close to canon for the level of danger they might pose. Volfred & Dalbert bonding and fanboying the Scribes on one end; Udmildhe maybe being a real actual threat on the other end, with Extreme Sap Drama Volfred VS Manley somewhere in the middle - Volfred haaates having to deal with Manley and what is fanfiction for if not bothering our faves? Or Volf VS Brighton for that matter, with more intense levels of annoyance and pomp and juicy ideological clashes. In these cases I wouldn’t be interested in a reconciliation, and I don’t sympathize with Manley nor Brighton but I do find them very funny and good characters in their own right and I’m just here with popcorn for the catfight. How’d it go if he had to spend some time with Ignarius? Or Celeste? And of course when it comes to the True Nightwings, things get loaded - Volfred/Oralech-wise, does Volfred get a treacherous "oh no he's super hot now" moment sneaking in between the piles of complicated feelings and hurt and confusion?

As general Volf prompts: revolutionary bonding, be it with Oralech (early on or after everything), or awakening Some Things in Tariq, or Bertie or anyone else who'll share that vision. Downside ending being a strange kind of freedom for someone who's been driven all his life. Opinions on the Scribes! Overly detailed, strong Opinionssss on tiny details like you'd expect from your average academic, and whom is he talking to? Someone who agrees? Someone who knows more than him (Tariq, ae…)? Someone who hates those guys' guts (Sandra, Oralech…)? He’s a natural schemer, does he naturally assume that everyone else is also scheming 24/7? Does anyone (my bet’s on Pam) find out that he literally graded the Nightwings’ usefulness to the Plan? Is he a chain smoker or is it a one pipe a day kind of deal?

I don’t have specific headcanons about Sap biology; if you do, please tell me all about them. With or without Tariq’s or Oralech’s involvement (whose biology is probably also delightfully weird). Capital-letter-Reading can also be involved! What’s it like to mind-meld with the actual moon, or to get permission from the guy who spent like six years hating your guts?

Ships: Volfred/Tariq, Volfred/Oralech, Volfred/Oralech/Tariq. I also like Pamitha/Bertrude and Celeste/Jodariel.

Fandom-specific DNWs: Oralech dead, Volfred and Oralech split end (I’m good with either topside or downside ending), Ignarius/Jodariel, Tariq/Celeste. The Reader being a central character in the fic.

THE SEA WILL CLAIM EVERYTHING (Any: The Mysterious-Druid, Niamh, Worldbuilding)

I got to play this game at last and I LOVE it. I'm in that starstruck-and-with-nobody-to-talk-about-it phase where I don't have many thoughts but I'd be over the moon to get anything that's vaguely in the tone of canon. Earnest, dreamy, filled with mushrooms… I'm familiar with the Postcard From Afthonia epilogue but not really with the rest of the Kyratzes' oeuvre - feel free to reference other stuff as long as it's in a way that'll make sense to a newbie reader! Or if it's something from the Oneiropolis Compendium, just drop me a line in the opening notes and I'll get caught up. In particular, I found the mentions of Oneiropolis proper very intriguing, in a certain 'classic fantastical literature' way, and I'd love to follow a beloved character like The a/o Niamh a/o anyone else on a trip there, but I don't know if there are works set there yet. An evening in Underhome, during the war? Some druiding stuff, The's addition to Underhome? Niamh's side of research (I love her so! This is what the ideal woman looks like, honestly)? Something dialectical, something marxist AND fungal? Any character visits Underhome? Or the library? Or the Isle of the Stars? I really like the Oracle, but anyone really. Everyone's really cool. If you can find a structure that'll accommodate a bunch of fun descriptions and asides, and let's not forget the mouse's opinions, that could be fun!

THE STRAIGHT STORY (Deer Woman) (technically a 5 minutes fandom since the above scene is all you need to know)

I recently caught a screening and was once again fascinated by that one standalone scene with the woman who seems cursed to hit deer with her car. Asking "so… what's up with that" felt like a Yuletide thing to do, so here I am! Please tell me anything about the woman who seems cursed to hit deer with her car! I'm open to all possibilities when it comes to the source of this peculiar predicament of hers, future developments, and her own psychological state. Feel free to get weird about it, of course - be it in a specifically lynchian, etherealwhooshy way or otherwise. Is this supernatural event vaguely & mysteriously grounded in some psychological issue of hers, reflecting her inner turmoil (what is it?), or is it a broader thing she got caught up in? Or is it a deer thing about deer? Twin Peaks crossovers welcome if that's where your imagination leads you (I'm familiar with the entire extended canon). Or Mulholland Drive or any other Lynch idk, it just feels kind of peaksy more than anything else, what with the, well, deer.

[natalieironside]

The Prince of Venom announcement post (very cool and exciting)

Happy Preptober, everybody!  As I usually do, I’ve made a big change of plans at the very last minute without consulting anyone, and I’m gonna make The Prince of Venom my NaNoWriMo project.  (Don’t worry; this means the Voidsong sequels are gonna be the next serials once I’m done w/ this)

We’re returning to the setting of my much-loved In the Court of the Nameless Queen stories and hanging out with some old favorite characters like Freydis Gothi, Kristina the Apostate, and Olga Snake-Eye, and, of course, our glorious Queen, for a story that’s much, much, much lighter on the sexual content and heavier on the fantasy and adventure.  No swash will remain unbuckled.

We return to the Queendom of Corynnod, a realm of mystery and sorcery where nothing is as it seems, ruled over by the beautiful, terrible, and enigmatic Nameless Queen, where there are just so many spiders and everything’s got kind of a spidery motif going on. 

We meet Young Thorkil Eiturbur, a boy caught between two worlds. The unlikely child of two mothers, one with a deeply troubled past and the other not quite human, he feels out of place, too monstrous for the humans but too human for the monsters. His sense of being out-of-place is further underlined as he finds himself going through the wrong puberty. Seeking community, Thorkil enlists on a merchant ship with a somewhat piratical captain and crew, and finds himself embroiled in a war that he'd hoped was long over, this time with cosmic implications. It’s got everything.  Queer and trans characters, pirate adventures, evil wizards, religious fanatics, swordfights, Catholics [derogatory], and spiders.  It’s a swashbuckling tale of magic, adventure, community, self-discovery, and, most importantly of all, spiders.

***

There came a hissing, chittering sound from somewhere unseen in the darkness.  He rolled his eyes and grumbled, “I told you, I had to say goodbye to Khalid.  It took a while.  Now come on; I want to be in sight of the taiga by morning.  Mom’s expecting us.”

With higher-pitched, more agreeable chittering and the tattoo of chitin tapping against flagstones, a shape emerged from the shadows behind the bower.  It had the look of a black widow spider overgrown to monstrous size, like an ox or a destrier, each of its eight unblinking eyes about the size of Thorkil’s fist, with two cruel and gruesome fangs like sickle-blades at the front of its head.  At the sight of the creature, Toki grinned and came running over, throwing his arms around it as best he could and planting a kiss atop its head.  

The creature hissed, and Toki nodded and replied, “It went really well, actually.  He’s so sweet.  Gods, now I’m going to miss him all the more. . . . Eh? . . . I’m sorry, but I had to take the time.  I wanted to make sure the deed was done right. . . . Yes, I know it’s cold.  It’ll get warmer the farther southwest we get. . . . I love you, too, Sesheth.  Now, let’s get going.  Mom’s waiting for us.”

The warbeast crouched lower to the flagstones.  Toki checked that his sword and his things were secure and swung a leg across Sesheth’s cephalothorax, sitting astride her and leaning back against her great, bloated abdomen.  To the steady rhythm of more infernal tapping, she skittered up to the gate where a pair of the Queen’s blackguards waved them through, wishing prince and princess safe travels.

The moon and stars bathed the tundra in eerie silvery blue, and from atop the plateau, Toki could just barely make out a thin line of evergreens on the southern horizon.  He laughed aloud at the crisp, fresh air filling his lungs and the bitter cold biting his cheeks as they set forth.  Below them, he spied a band of reindeer-herders moving south, like him choosing to brave the bitter arctic night to make up travel time across the prairies.  With a grin, he tapped the spider’s carapace and asked, “Sesheth, do you see those reindeer-herders down there?”

The spider hissed in the affirmative.

“Why don’t you show them how fast a warbeast can run?”

***

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