#while the spider was just biding its time

[enjoyvoidblack]

Something that I don't think I've ever personally seen talked about:

Jon mentions in season 3 that he'd quit smoking for 5 years, prior to the cigarette he went for after hearing the Fears explained by Leitner. It's not hard to assume that the stress makes him start again, and that it continues, since it gets mentioned a couple times more after that. That breaks my heart a bit on its own already.

But the other thing is that the Web tends to play with addiction.

And in Season 1 it gave him a fucking lighter.

[sehtoast]

Tender Threads CH2 ( Homelander x OC )

chapter two: signed and sealed

chapter directory | slow burn, hurt/comfort, fluff, spidersona as original character, original trans male character, smut, sublander

summary: benjamin knows full well he's out there, watching and waiting, even doing a little breaking and entering. homelander is simply biding his time until he gets his way.

Benjamin’s personal life had always been a simple one.  With little to no time to truly be, there wasn’t much drama to get mixed up in– well, there used to be.  Back when he tried to have the best of both worlds, there was… a lot.  Failed relationships, friends walking out on him, family shunning him for his absences, unreliability, and perceived short temper that was truly just pure exhaustion.  It was one hell of a cocktail, but sometimes the loneliness was worse.  It was hard to see the few people who still talked to him, and harder still to make time to call his folks, but somehow those relationships survived.

Worse yet was his track record with jobs.  Delivery boy was optimal given his particular skill set, but showing up on time with every little disturbance was beyond difficult.  Table waiting jobs were even worse, and he’d lost a fair few.  These days he supplements income with side photography while primarily working an IT job at a small tech firm that he probably wouldn’t have gotten without a friend putting in a good word.

Moving to New York with his best friend from college was a decision he wouldn’t undo, but it wasn’t without its strife.  If not for his friend, good ol’ Jason Ortega, Ben would’ve fallen through the cracks so many times. Eventually they split from their cozy roommate situation after Jase got a girlfriend, but there were no hard feelings.  In fact, he was the only person in the world who knew about Ben’s little secret.

The two worlds of Benjamin's life were starting to collide bit by bit.

“You met Homelander!" 

“Shh! Not so loud!”  Ben stresses, eyes wide.  They’re on their first coinciding lunch break in a while, and they'd decided to pop a few blocks down to a sub shop for their first hangout in damn near three weeks.  “Yeah, just–”

“And you worked with him, right?” Jason asks, leaning forward eagerly, food all but totally forgotten.  “That’s what all the articles are saying.”

“No, I–” Benjamin releases a heavy sigh.  He knows about those.  It’d been two weeks since Homelander propositioned him, and… well. 

It had been an interesting two weeks.

“It wasn’t like that.”  Ben says, mind wandering back…

Bodega Burglary Botched!  Spidey and Homelander Team Up, had been Vought News Network’s big headline of the day the morning after the confrontation in the alley.  Ben pretty much choked on his bowl of Maeve-O’s when the segment ran on his TV.  

“Boy, I’ll tell ya,” Homelander said, smiling perfectly for the camera.  “That Spider-Man is exactly what we need in The Seven.�� After last night, I really do see why people say he looks out for the little guy.”

Ben must have looked quite the sight standing there in his boxers, spoon dangling from his mouth. Did he have bedhead or was his hair just showing how absolutely fucking insane he felt in the moment? 

“I can’t think of anyone better to fill Translucent’s shoes.  So, Spidey, if you’re seeing this: you’ve got my vote buddy!”

“You mother fucker…” Ben murmured.  This was a power play unlike anything he could’ve imagined.  This wasn’t just for PR– though it definitely was.  This was a way to turn the public onto the idea.  To make sure the wall crawler would be reminded of the offer everywhere he went.  

Which is precisely what happened.  And now it was happening in his personal life, which was even worse.  Not that Jase knew the fine details of what had happened, but…

“Man, Vought’s been hounding me for a while now.”  He explains.  “And now they sent the big dog.” 

Ben takes a moment, voice hushed, to tell Jason about all that had happened.  About how intimidating the whole thing was, how Homelander practically looked right through him, how he fucking name-dropped him despite every length the bug has gone to keep his identity a secret.

“You wanna know what else?”  Ben asks, glancing from side to side.  “I think he’s fucking stalking me.”

“Dude…” 

“Yeah, so get this…”

He spares no details.

It started off small.  Simple fly-by’s, flickers of red, white, and blue in the sky zipping by at the most random of times.  At first, it seemed like something weird in his peripherals, but then Benjamin learned to look up.  He made eye contact three days after first noticing his stalker while walking into work, and he’s not sure if that made Homelander more bold but he definitely did get worse.

Benjamin could’ve coped with the stalking. In fact, he was almost getting used to it, but then he went for the newly bought jug of milk in the fridge and found the seal cracked and roughly a quarter of the contents missing.

The lack of cup in the sink had him pouring the contents down the drain because that bastard clearly drank from the jug.  After that, subtlety went clear out the fucking door.

Ben’s apartment isn’t the neatest thing on planet Earth, but he prides himself on keeping up with his laundry.  His closet was organized, shoes kicked into a slobbishly-neat pile in said closet, and his underwear drawer was folded to perfection.

So why in the world were his boxer briefs unrolled from their tight, military-esque fold?  Why is his acoustic guitar on the stand where the electric normally sits?  

And why the fuck is the bed he made that morning now unmade and very obviously laid in?

Homelander had crossed a line.  This wasn't just some light stalking and intimidation, this was a Goldy Locks level violation of his privacy and space, and Ben didn’t know if it was going to end up so bad someday that he'd wake up to the fucker standing in the corner like some patriotic version of the hat man.

“And it’s still happening,” he tells Jason.  His best friend stares at him wide eyed with his mouth parted in disbelief. 

“Man, I hope you changed your toothbrush…”  He says.

“Fuck… No, but I will later, I–”  

A ringing from Jason’s phone breaks their banter and signals the end of their break.  Ben takes the opportunity to grab his own phone and type a message to him.  Eyes up when we leave.  Don’t react to this.

They pay and leave.  Sure as the sun rises in the morning, on the edge of the roof across the street stands Homelander, who smirks down at them, clearly having used that super hearing of his to listen in.

“Woah…” Jase utters.

Ben simply keeps his eyes up, watching closely as the star spangled supe gives an informal salute and takes off.

“Dude…” Jason says.  “That’s fucked.”

Yeah, Ben thinks to himself. I’m fucked.

By the end of the third week, Ben’s absolutely had it.  He can feel Homelander’s eyes piercing through the walls of his apartment building.  In fact, Benjamin knows right where he’s sitting.  He’d been laying in bed relaxing before his usual run through the city.

He hates to admit it, but… he’s given some thought to the offer.  Moral objections aside, he could make a real difference at Vought.  Plus, there’s the opportunity to try to change it from the inside out.  Maybe leak some information here or there…

Nothing he’s vocalized, of course.  He’d never risk Homelander hearing something and come barreling through the wall to laser him in two for even considering it.

But enough was enough.  These little interferences in his life weren’t going to stop, it seemed, unless he did something about it.  Ben swings his legs off the side of the bed and stares down at where his suit lays in a pile on the floor.  There was no sense in even putting the fucking mask on.  Homelander can see through it anyway.  He knows who he is, where he lives…  The jig is up as far as secrecy with Homelander goes, if there was even any to begin with.

Ben walks to the window and peers out.  Just as he predicted, Homelander is stood on the building across the street, looking almost amused at the bug’s knowledge of his location.

“Get over here,” Ben says.  He knows Homelander can hear it.  “For once, you’re being invited inside.”  With that, he opens the window.

What the fuck am I doing, Ben thinks to himself.  Fuck, I should’ve gone out, not let him in.  Fuck, fuck fuck…

It’s a curious thing to watch Homelander float through the window perfectly horizontal.  It never occurred to Ben that flying supes could do that so easily…

“Benjamin,” Homelander greets.  “Nice of you to finally extend the offer.”

The bug plops down on the edge of his bed, gesturing to his desk chair for Homelander to sit.  It’s almost comedic to watch him swish his cape out of the way to do so.

“Y’know, I can cope with you stalking me,” Ben says, getting right to the point.  “But rifling through my drawers is overdoing it.”

Homelander smiles, and it’s almost scary to see him so close in such an intimate environment.  Outside, he’s practically god.  In here he’s… scary in a different way.  Especially when Ben notices just how sharp his canines are.

“Couldn’t help it, Benny.  Besides, you’ve got some interesting things.”  Homelander turns in the chair just slightly to rap his gloved knuckles against the top drawer of Ben’s nightstand.  “Especially in here, you dirty boy.”

Ben’s cheeks flare red immediately.  Fuck, he hadn’t even considered–

“You are interesting, I’ll tell ya.” Homelander continues.  “You’re so fucking ordinary, and yet you’re about to be in The Seven.  Nothin’ to you besides that do-good moral compass of yours and some spandex.”

“What do you mean, ‘about to,’” Ben asks incredulously.  “I haven’t agreed to anything.”

Homelander gives him a smile so sinister that it practically takes a bite out of his resolve.  “Oh, I know.  But you’re going to once we’re done here, trust me.”

Ben cocks a brow.  “... explain.”

“Not yet.” 

Homelander leans to the side and snags one of those guitars he was clearly very familiar with.  “You’re a peculiar little thing, you know that?”  He says, finger plucking awkwardly at a nylon string that damn near snaps under his strength.  It makes Ben cringe a little.  “You’re so full of anxiety I can practically smell it on you, but you still have the balls to tell me no.  You’re pretty much a shut in as...” Homelander gestures vaguely to Ben to describe his secret identity.  “But then you’re such a social butterfly.  Thought you might’ve just had a thing for being stared at in spandex, but you’re quite the little ray of sunshine in the leotard.”

“I–”

Homelander holds up a finger.

“And you’re so fucking sad, little Benjamin.”  

What..? 

“You’re lonely.  Just that one buddy of yours and that strained relationship with good ol’ mom and dad… plus that cousin or whatever the boy is.”  Homelander plucks the lowest string, a deep open note reverberating through the body of the instrument.  “But you’re so sad, crying at night like you do.”

But I haven’t– 

“I can tell what you’re thinking… You haven’t had a bad night in a few weeks.”  Homelander says nonchalantly.  “What, you think I wasn’t scoping you out before that night in the alley?  Please.  I know you down to the fucking lube you use at this rate.”

“What the f–”

“Astroglide, by the way.”  He says, wiggling his brows.  “You want that spider-high you get when you’re swinging around to be permanent?  Quit your little desk job, stop being a pussy, and join my team.  Go have time to live your personal life– I don’t fucking care– just do the right thing.”

Ben’s gaze falls and he picks at his fingers.  Fucker found the sore spot and was using it to his full advantage.

“Don’t look so sad, Benny boy.  I’m offering you the relief you’ve been looking for, aren’t I?”  Homelander smiles almost genuinely.  “So exhausted all the time, too.  When was the last time you got eight hours, huh?  I’ve seen the way that little tingle in your head wakes you up all the time.  Plus all those late nights… you must be so burnt out.”

“Shut up…” Ben tries, but it comes out more sad than he means for it to.  He hates how fucking right Homelander is.

“Friends, family, rest… No more rent struggles…” Homelander sets the instrument down and turns toward Ben.  “You know what else?”  He asks, voice almost sweet.  When Ben looks at him, he grins.  “Ma and Pa will thank you when I don’t drop an oil tanker on them from orbit.”

Ben’s blood runs cold.

“Yeah, I flew by a day ago.  Nice little suburban house in Annville, right?  Pops has a nice red truck.”

No, no, no– fuck– 

“Be a shame if they had to suffer because of you, wouldn’t it?”

Benjamin sits stock still, his only movements being shakes of fear and anger.  How fucking dare he?  How dare he hold something so–

“Like I said, you will be joining The Seven.  And, if you do, no harm will come to mom and pop– I promise.” 

He knows he has no choice now.

“So, little Benjamin,” Homelander says, rising from the chair.  “What’ll it be?”

As if he has any choice.

“Fine…”

“Oh,” Homelander cocks a brow.  “What was that?  I think I need you to be a little louder.”

“Fine,” Ben says, more conviction in his voice this time.  

“Say it.  The whole thing.” Homelander demands, smile growing even wider.  “You’re gonna join The Seven.”

“I’m…” Ben sighs.  “I’m going to join The Seven.”

“Attaboy!” Homelander chirps, clapping his gloved hands together.  “Alright, buddy, get some shoes on and let's get you to the tower for your big signing day!  Did I mention you get a sign-on bonus?  Pretty killer, right?”

Dejectedly, Ben stands from the bed and slips his shoes on.

He supposes he’ll be signing his contract in his pajamas.

[strawberriesinbloom]

Cake Heist

MC/Mammon

Summary: Mammon tries to steal a cake.

Word Count: 1682

This is a tickle fic btw

~🍓~

Mammon tiptoed across the House of Lamentation, careful to avoid any creaky floorboards and the like. He didn't want to wake any of his brothers from their slumber. He made a beeline toward the kitchen, where he knew his prize was being kept: a bloodberry cake.

Leviathan had brought it home this morning, blubbering about how it was an exact replica of some sort of dessert featured in this manga he liked and that he wanted to eat it with you tomorrow during some sort of anniversary of its release. Honestly, it went through one ear and out the other, but Mammon did remember how Leviathan specifically called him and Beelzebub out. He made both of them promise not to eat the cake or else he'd unleash Lotan on them.

While Mammon would normally be more than happy to honor his baby brother's request, that cake looked really good, so…yeah. One itty, bitty taste wouldn't hurt, right? Leviathan would barely notice one missing slice, right? Right?

Mammon was going to eat that cake no matter what. 

He poked his head through the doorframe of the kitchen, and his blood ran cold when he saw you placing a bowl into the microwave. You pressed a few buttons until a low whirring sound filled the quiet.

Mammon wasn't sure how you noticed his presence, but, before he knew it, you were staying directly at him. You grinned, and his heart raced. 

He was about to make a hasty (but dignified) retreat when you said, "Hey, there, Mammon. Up for a midnight snack?" Your voice sounded hoarse and a little deeper than usual. You must have just woken up, unlike Mammon, who had been biding his time in his room until the perfect time to enact his heist. 

Although you had caught him red-handed, it wasn't like you knew he was going to steal Leviathan's cake. All Mammon needed to do was grab a plate, take a slice of cake from the fridge, and make a mad dash back toward his room. He could still win this. Ignoring his trembling hands (for some inexplicable reason, they always did that when he was near you), he waltzed into the kitchen.

"Yeah, I woke up and came here lookin' for a bite to eat," Mammon responded as nonchalantly as he could. He stood in front of a cupboard filled with dishes that was right next to where you were.

You pulled out your D.D.D. "Same here," you said, leaning against the counter, "I got this random craving for soup in the middle of the night." You jerked your head toward the microwave before starting to mindlessly scroll through Fab Snap. 

The conversation was over, but he couldn't help but look at you for a second longer in hopes that you'd continue talking. When it was clear just how engrossed you were in your device, he shook his head before turning toward his main objective.

Mammon reached up to open the cupboard only to screech when something poked his side. He flinched, shooting his hand down to cover where you had certainly touched him. 

He spun his head toward you, intent on giving you a piece of his mind. He faltered when he saw you still glued to your D.D.D. "What…what was that?" Mammon swallowed thickly. 

You absentmindedly shrugged. The microwave beeped, but you turned it off without looking up for a moment. Whatever video you were watching must have been pretty intriguing to keep you like this.

But…if you hadn't poked him, who did? Mammon searched warily around the kitchen. Nothing seemed to be amiss, at least, nothing at first glance.

Hesitantly, Mammon returned his attention to the cupboard. He opened it up, revealing the plates…that were all on the top shelf. He growled and stood on his tiptoes. His shirt slipped out of his belt, which he wouldn't have noticed if something hadn't spidered along his bare stomach.

It happened too quickly for Mammon to suppress the embarrassingly high-pitched giggle that tumbled out of him. He jumped back, slightly curling up to hide his torso from anything trying to touch him. 

Once again, you were glued to your screen, but you weren't completely tuned out to the world. "Nice squeal," you said.

"Somethin' keeps touchin' me!" Mammon shouted. His cheeks were beginning to burn. 

You typed something into your D.D.D. "Really…? Well…that…" You scrunched up your nose for a moment. "...is interesting."

Gah, you were too invested in whatever you were doing to care about him: the Great Mammon. Admittedly, this did sting a little.

Okay, it stung a lot, but, at least he would have his cake. Mammon stepped back up to the cupboard, casting a couple more skeptical glimpses your way. You didn't look up from your D.D.D. at all, and Mammon let out a quiet sigh. He was being way too paranoid. 

He raised his hand and shot it back down when your arm moved out of the corner of his eye. He pressed his limbs against his torso, but you were just scratching your cheek. You put your hand back down, and he relaxed, sending you a sheepish smile that you didn't even get to see. 

Outstretching his hand to reach the plates, Mammon managed to rest his hand on the edge of the top shelf. There was a single plate within reach, and he was so close to touching it. He was only able to poke the porcelain dish until something started touching his armpit.

He screamed and clamped his arm down, but it was too late. Mammon shook uselessly for a second to try to stop himself from laughing. He pressed his lips together but was too ticklish for that to last any more than three seconds. 

"Stahahahap!" Mammon suddenly shrieked. His entire body grew unbearably hot. He had no idea he could make that sort of sound. Though, out of everyone who could have heard him, Mammon was glad that it was you. 

The sensations were soon getting to be too much for him to handle. Mammon grabbed the hand that was so intent on tickling his underarm and pried it off of him. He took in a few sharp and heavy breaths before squeezing the wrist of his assailant. 

You pull your hand out of his grasp. "Wow, breathless already? I had no idea you were that ticklish."

Mammon pouted, the tips of his ears heating up. He crossed his arms and chose to stare at the counter. "Ya were doin' that on purpose!" He couldn't believe you were only pretending to be distracted by your D.D.D.

"Duh."

You slipped your D.D.D. back into your pocket, a smug smirk plastered on your face. Wiggling your fingers, you stepped closer to him. That dangerous grin only grew as you came closer and closer.

Against his will, a small smile of his own broke through his expression, except it was more giddy. Mammon bounced around from foot to foot until you were face-to-face with him. An adrenaline rush coursed through him, but instead of following his fight-or-flight instincts, he stilled. Mammon had ample time to sprint out of there, but he decided to stay rooted in place.

You took note of this with a cocky eyebrow raise. "Don't look too excited, now," you teased before pouncing on him.

Your fingers dug into the soft flesh of his stomach. Mammon doubled over and staggered back, but made no effort to get away. "Hehehey!" He wiggled in place as your arms wrapped around him. 

"You know, it's not exactly a punishment if you're enjoying it." You prodded at the area just below his ribs. It made Mammon jump and squeak. 

He shook his head, desperately trying to ignore how strange you were making him feel. "Whahahat punihishment?" he managed to scream out before falling back into a cascade of laughter.

You shook your head. "For trying to eat Levi's cake. He was saving that."

"H–how did ya knohow–? Mammon interrupted himself with a loud snort when you suddenly squeezed the soft part above his hips. "Ehehehe! Ehehe!" It was humiliating how squeaky his giggles were.

"You're not in your pajamas, so it's pretty obvious you didn't wake up for a midnight snack.” You drilled your fingers into Mammon’s sides, which made him thrash about in your arms. “You were looking for something in particular, and what could it be if not Levi's cake?"

Dammit! 

The pads of your fingers scribbled rapidly along his waist, concentrating on his most sensitive spots. "D'AHAHAHA–" It tickled so badly that Mammon couldn't get a word in.

Mammon broke out of your grip and stumbled away from you. His chest heaved as he blinked away the tiny warm tears that pricked the corners of his eyes. The ghost of your wandering fingers still remained, sending tingles all across his stomach. He let out a few residual chuckles.

You placed your hands on your hips. "Are you still going to try to take his cake?"

He puckered his lips, trying to weigh the pros and cons. If Mammon did attempt to steal the cake again, then you'd just resume tickling him. But, if he gave up now, then that meant he wouldn't get a chance to even taste that cake. What a tricky situation... 

"Mammonnnn?" 

Nevermind! The choice was actually really obvious!

He kicked the ground. "Okay, okay, fine! I won't try to steal Levi's crummy cake again. 

The way your face brightened up made Mammon's head spin. "Good! Now, go to bed." You went back to the microwave and pressed a couple more buttons to reheat your soup. He wasn't sure why, but Mammon lingered in the kitchen. You rolled your eyes playfully. "Unless you want me to tickle you again?"

Mammon perked up but played it off as a flinch. He shook his head rapidly. "I-I'm fine!" he squeaked as darted out of the kitchen, leaving your laughing figure behind. Mammon tried not to think about the excitement that had bubbled in his chest.

[chadillacboseman]

I was tagged by @thesingularityseries

Part of my intro to the Strakteran race featuring Kabal having the worst weekend of his life. Mentions of Kate and Danny.

--

"Human," the creature said the word with disdain, seemed to chew on every syllable as its many beady black eyes focused on Kabal.

"Spider...thing," Kabal retorted, his hookswords still raised between himself and the monstrosity.

"Your kind have not tread these stones for many, many cycles," each word seemed difficult to speak; the creature's mandibles were clearly not made for human speech, "and yet you remain unchanged. Arrogant, entitled."

Kabal scoffed, but said nothing in return. This one could talk, and it had chosen to do so rather than rip him to shreds as its brethren had tried to do just moments before. Perhaps it was worth hearing it out.

"Before...they came with loud metal. It pierced us, killed us. I did not know your tongue then." Guns, Kabal mused. He thought back to the skeletons that had been clothed in Special Forces uniforms they'd seen earlier.

"How did you learn how to speak?" He asked cautiously.

The creature blinked its obsidian eyes and considered the question for a moment, "I listened as they begged."

Kabal felt his blood run cold.

This creature was not an ally, no, it was just biding its time until it could string him up like those poor SF saps and liquefy his insides. He took a hesitant step backward, but kept his hookswords trained on the spider. All the while, it watched him, mandibles twitching as if in anticipation of his escape. For a moment, he forgot that he had superhuman speed.

For a moment.

Kabal exploded from the lair in a burst of bright, purple light, trying desperately to retrace his steps. Left. Right. Another right.

Shit.

A dead end.

He skittered to a stop, heart pounding in his chest, his ears straining against the deafening silence of the cave. For one desperate moment, he wished Kate was there with him, hell, he'd even take Danny. At least that dickhead had a good memory.

[razputin-vodello-au-archives]

Hey Raz you ever use psychic powers for pranks anymore? and if so what's the best one you got away with?

[Raz] Meh, not as much anymore. Kinda loses its glamour when you're getting older ...and predictable.

But when I was a kid, man, all the time. Lizzie was my usual sidekick - she might claim it was the other way around. When Lizzie was still Interning here, we'd go pranking at least once a week. Small stuff, like using TK to move things around when people weren't looking. We once filled the Atrium with unpopped corn and then we used PK to ....well, you can imagine what we did. Halloween was a holiday dedicated to pranks for us. We just went around the entire week planning for "the big one of the year". plastic spiders, ceilings filled with firecrackers, stuffing Oleander's office with silly putty, things like that.

Bold to assume we ever got away with it, though. And if we did, it was mostly biding our time until we got caught.

Note to self: I need to call Lizzie one of these days. It's been a while since we've last shared gossip.

[webbedphantom]

The Death of Gwen Stacy? [The only other arc/storyline I know ^^; ]

This is one that I've actually thought a lot about, and the way I'd go about it is much different from what you'd expect.

If you've looked at my second account, you'd know that Makoto is kind of the Gwen Stacy of the AU, but given she's also Venom, you might be wondering how that would even work?

Well... what if I told you it's not Makoto, but Futaba that takes the fall.

Let me explain:

Akechi in this reality has been wearing a symbiote for a few months, and he's losing his mind. The way the suits work is that they grant you power, but they begin to twist your desires. They're not inherently evil, but if you wear one for too long, you'll start to lose sight of yourself, and begin to act more like your shadow.

At the same time, Futaba is starting to feel inadequate. She supports the team with her hacking skills, and a drone she uses to survey the battlefield, but she's now the only one on the team without a Persona, without powers. At first it was just Aaron, but one by one, the others awoke to their powers, or in Makoto's case, acquired them herself through other means, leaving her as the odd one out.

So one day, after a battle against a foe that had put the whole city into a blackout, Futaba leaves the safety of her room and makes her way to the fight to try help out, to provide her usual support from on the scene, and while she is successful in that... Akechi takes advantage of it.

He'd been watching the team, biding his time and waiting for the right moment to strike. He's completely lost sight of his original goals, his ego wounded from being bested twice by the Spider and his teammates. The only thing he cares about now is making them hurt.

So he strikes, grabbing the girl and flying into the air, taunting the team as he carries her off towards a skyscraper, where he leaves her trapped on the roof.

The Phantoms give chase, a fight quickly breaking out, and even though they outnumber him substantially, he is able to take them all on. But then, just when it seems like they might be winning, Akechi throws a curve ball, and knocks Futaba off the side of the building, sending her plummeting to her death. Aaron immediately dives for her, but he can't get close enough. So he fires out a webline to catch her and-

Snap.

He sets her down on a lower part of the building, before jumping down to check on her, only to see that her nose is bleeding, and that she isn't moving. Its then that he realizes his mistake. In trying to save her, he ended up snapping her neck.

But... there is one other thing I forgot to mention-

See, the serum that gave him and his friends their powers has a few quirks. For one, if it succeeds, it will completely regenerate the user's body, meaning any injuries will be healed, no matter the severity. Secondly, it only succeeds if the person in question is ready to accept their shadow. And if they're not, it's guaranteed to kill them. And finally, and this is the big one, succeeding here will connect them to the Metaverse, giving them powers, but also allowing more dangerous entities to cross over to the real world. And I say all this to emphasize what happens next.

Because during that last big fight, Aaron was able to get ahold of a vial of the serum, something that he knows is incredibly dangerous and potentially deadly. Yet once the idea crosses his mind, he doesn't even hesitate to expose Futaba to it. He knows the risks, but he cannot, he will not lose anyone else. Not when he can still save them.

Thankfully, his gamble pays off, and Futaba awakens to her powers... while also being extremely traumatized by the experience since... well, she did kinda die. In fact, she kinda shuts down for a good long while, shutting herself in room as she tries to process everything.

She does eventually get better, and slowly starts to experiment with her powers, pushing her limits further and further until eventually, she becomes the strongest member of the team. But that story I feel is best saved for another post.

As for Akechi, his arc is also better saved for a separate post. There's just a lot to cover, and while it's not all that fleshed out, I don't think I could do it justice here.

I hope I was able to explain this all alright. If you couldn't tell, a lot of this stuff is just loose concepts, but I think there's a good story in here somewhere. I just gotta work out the details.

Also, none of this stuff has to apply to our threads, though I feel that should go without saying. These adaptations are mostly just for fun, and world-building for the fanfic, should I ever get around to finishing that-

[denimbex1986]

'The recent box office success of Barbie and Oppenheimer is a boon for movie theaters during this surprisingly fallow summer season. Films like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and The Flash failed to bring in the hundreds of millions of dollars studios wanted. Excluding, for a moment, Mission: Impossible – Reckoning Part One, the summer's two biggest successes offer a lesson for superhero filmmakers.

With the WGA and SAG-AFTRA forced to strike, studios seem willing to risk burning down the entire industry to save what amounts to infinitesimal percentages of their revenues. The future of everything is in flux now, from when movies like Beyond the Spider-Verse will release to whether streaming as an industry is "over." Yet, even in ordinary times, studios are reactionary. After films like Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind succeeded, a glut of sci-fi pictures was made, including Star Trek: The Motion Picture. While no one is rushing to the Hollywood trades to announce a series of films about World War II-era historical figures, Mattel is wasting no time trying to bring movies based on toys like Polly Pocket to theaters. Naturally, the hope is to replicate Barbie's success. When Spider-Man became the highest-opening movie ever in 2002, more superheroes followed. Once the Marvel Cinematic Universe took over, Warner Bros. raced (to their detriment) to introduce their own shared universe. Will toys, or even historical epics by auteur directors, become the next "superhero" film craze? Probably not.

Barbie and Oppenheimer Are Superhero Movies, Actually

On some level, all storytelling is formulaic, as folks like Professor Joseph Campbell and others have noted throughout the years. Superhero films are archetypal, meaning they have their necessary story beats. There is the origin story, the first attempts to be a hero, the near-defeat, and the triumphant saving of the day. One could apply all those beats to Barbie and Oppenheimer, but that's not how the audience sees them. Audiences know superheroes, even if they aren't fans. Someone who's never read a comic in their life knows what happened to Krypton, Batman's parents, and, of course, Uncle Ben. In this way, the films are superhero movies, because multiple generations of people grew up when the Barbie doll and J. Robert Oppenheimer were "household names."

Again, Oppenheimer is an outlier. The Historical Cinematic Universe is just reality in cinema. People who didn't get enough atom bomb construction can bide until Oppenheimer is released for home viewing by watching the gone-too-soon series Manhattan. Similarly, the Mattel Cinematic Universe will not be a second MCU. The reactions to Barbie's announcement were skeptical, even with heavyweight talent like Greta Gerwig signed on. Still, no studio will ever underestimate name recognition. Like superheroes, a beloved character's name in a movie will bring in audiences, if only out of curiosity. The Avengers only worked because people expected a visual trash fire and instead got a delightfully fun movie.

The animated Super Mario Bros. Movie is the only movie to cross the billion-dollar mark this year, though Barbie and Ken are rollerblading up on its heels. Again, generations grew up with Mario, Luigi, and the various Mushroom Kingdom characters that Nintendo built games and cartoons around. Sonic the Hedgehog's first movie was a surprise hit because it was an "actually good" video game movie. Curiosity will get audiences in the door once or even a few times. However, that's not what keeps them, as Marvel and DC have been discovering in the past few years.

The Secret to Barbie and Oppenheimer's Success Is Why Actors and Writers Are Striking

While the "Barbenheimer" memes absolutely pushed up Oppenheimer's box office take, it has an advantage over other films. Christopher Nolan is an auteur director who can fill a convention hall or bring eyeballs to interviews on his own. Despite Greta Gerwig's equally impressive relative track record, Oppenheimer is very much a "Christopher Nolan movie." Similarly, one of the reasons for Barbie's positive word-of-mouth from audiences is that Gerwig also applied auteur sensibilities to her film. Their visual style, combined with the stories and actors' performances, is why audiences love these movies. It's the same reason the MCU worked and the DCEU didn't.

Five years ago, anything that was once a Marvel or DC comic book was guaranteed to make at least $600 million. While it's still a ridiculous number, even "risky" superhero movies can get $200 million-plus budgets. However, audience curiosity played a huge role. In the first decade of the 2000s, it was about how these superheroes could appear "realistic." X-Men eschewed the colorful outfits, and Nolan's take on Batman was as authentic as that character gets. In the 2010s, when shared continuity was introduced, audiences came to see heroes teaming up. Today, the only thing that will keep them coming back to the theaters is the stories. Otherwise, they are content to catch it on streaming or skip it altogether.

Barbie's success is just like those early superhero films. It's a fun movie like audiences expect it to be. Yet, it also uses these familiar characters to convey emotional and psychological experiences through the characters by making them feel like "real" people. What helps Barbie continue to bring in audiences after is the work of the writers and actors who took something that shouldn't work and made it something powerful. The name may be important for getting audiences' attention at first, but it's only the quality of the storytelling and performance that keep them coming back.'

[awellboiledicicle]

Keep imagining Fiona telling Godrick shes pregnant and him being much too eager to tell literally everyone related to him about it.

Meanwhile Fiona's family is just hyped the ties are cemented.

Fiona herself is pleased with how doting Godrick becomes as she shows more. Its sweet how he croons over her, talking passionately about how hes going to train the child to be a grand warrior to make the lineage proud. A beloved heir, fit for the grace of gold. Which, given he's returned from the last three military engagements he's gone on in some form of "was injured and too loud complaining about it", is rather funny. The man has technical skills, sure, but putting them to use isn't his strong suit.

I think when the baby is born--a boy with downy black hair and wide eyes--Godrick absolutely has a Time because he insists the boy doesn't look like him. Because the hair. Fiona simply raises an eyebrow and reminds him her hair is black. He then spends the next week sulking because she made him sound foolish.

I also feel like his eldest has his smile, the poor thing. Fiona dotes on him regardless. Little thing is probably deeply convinced he must be The Best.

I also know there's 6 grafted scions in the game and that means Fiona had 6 kids with Godrick, grafted them all alongside their father, and was fine with that. She's probably why they keep their cloaks on while fighting. For modesty, if nothing else-- though i could very much see her demanding some poor seamstress and tailor fitting them for garments.

I think, in the Golden Consort au, the grafted scion's would likely be much more planned out, as their current bodies [link to video showing it off] are a bit slapdash. Her design would still incorporate a troll's body, but simply remove the head and seat her sons inside, their spines lining up and giving them smoother control as well as the ability to stand upright if needed. The 'spider' concept comes through largely through extra arms grafted on Godrick's directive, to wield more shields and perhaps sorcery and incantations. The bird wing wouldn't be there because Fiona would appeal to Godrick's sense of superiority about "are we to be no better than misbegotten? To sully our sons flesh? We must use only the best parts to gift our sons their best form." The tarnished are still used for parts on the younger scions, as good troll parts get slightly harder to get a hold of the further into the shattering you get. Tarnished, however lacking in grace they may be, were still graced once-- their blood and bone hardened by their ventures beyond the borders. Thus why there's a troll hanging off the dining room in Stormveil when the tarnished is poking around, along with other bodies. They're being prepared to be used on the youngest that's haunting the kitchen, trying to sneak snacks when he's been told he needs to keep a strict diet before getting new parts. Naughty boy :c

I feel like Fiona still dotes on them all, even when they're shambling horrors of bone and sinews. Godrick is less of an affectionate father, but we expect that. He's still proud of them, though. Each graft on his sons is meticulously planned for and nursed after. Each one is done with the utmost care and consideration. None of his bastards in the castle can say they've received even a fraction of a fraction of this sort of consideration from anyone except Fiona. Which she does largely to keep them from trying to kill her.

I think the last two were born and raised in Stormveil, post shattering. Thus why one is still clinging to his mothers' skirts-- he's the baby. The one at the chapel of anticipation is the second oldest. He was the only one willing to just sit and keep watch on an island with only occasional supply boats sent out from the castle. Honestly, he just doesn't like his father that much, even if he's fond of the grafting as a process. But Order knows he'd never be able to learn it from Fiona without Godrick butting in, so he's just... biding his time until his father either is killed or his mother gathers them all together to do a hostile take over. Its a low odds on that one, but still.

[lady-ragnvindr]

So, I wanted to try writing smut for the first time, and I wanted to post it on my account, but I'm not really sure if I liked it, so I wanted to ask for an opinion. Like, is it actually good enough to post? So um here you go! ^^

(By the way, my first language isn't English, So I'm sorry about any grammar mistakes.)

-

Character: Aether

Warnings: Omegaverse, breeding, Reader is gender neutral, but they have a Dick. The Reader is spiderlike, but they're still humanoid, They're an Alpha, Aether is an omega, Begging

-

Aether was traveling in Liyue, his Companion Paimon by his side.

He recently got a request that he should kill a new monster, which somehow appeared out of nowhere.

Tho he was warned that the Monster would be too strong for him, he didn't listen.

He heard from a few people that the Monster didn't attack anything at all, but it could be a danger to everyone.

So, Aether accepted the request of eliminating the Creature, and made himself on his way.

While Aether was making his way towards the Home of the Monster, he didn't listen to the Protests of Paimon.

She told him that the Monster would be too strong, but Aether was too determined to listen.

He wanted to kill it.

-

Aether arrived at the Cave, Paimon shaking in fear.

Aether looked at the Cave once more, before entering.

But then he noticed that Paimon wasn't next to him anymore.

He turned around, looking at his flying companion.

"Paimon?" He called out to her.

"Paimon refuses to go in there!" She told him.

Even tho he tried to convince her to go in with him, she refused.

So they made a deal that they would meet each other in Liyue again.

Aether sighed at the sight of Paimon flying away towards Liyue, and turned around, finally walking into the Cave.

-

Even tho only a few minutes passed, Aether was growing anxious.

"Where is the Creature hiding?" He asked himself, looking around.

Suddenly, he heard Footsteps, which sounded very heavy.

He quickly turned around, making eye contact with a Creature that was around 9 feet tall.

It almost looked like a human...but it had Spider like features when it came towards the lower half of it's body.

Aether's eyes grew wide.

No way he could take down that thing!

He looked down at the lower half of the Creature's body.

It had spider like legs, which were huge.

It also had a piece of fabric around it's waist, hiding it's intimate Area.

Suddenly, his Omega called out to him: "It's an Alpha!"

Aether then noticed the scent of the Creature, which made him weak to his knees.

The Creature still looked down at him, tilting it's head.

It then lowered itself to sniff at Aether's neck, making the Boy shiver.

After it took a long sniff of his scent, it muttered a low "Omega..."

Aether couldn't realize anything because it happened so fast, but he got picked up by the creature with it's spider legs.

The creature stared into his eyes, which made Aether blush.

The creature then looked away, walking towards a wall, still holding Aether in it's hold.

On the walls were Chains, which were definitely strong enough to hold his Body.

He widened his eyes and begged for Mercy, but his Omega inside was shivering in arousal.

The creature held Aether against the wall, pinning him onto it with the chains.

It then let go, enjoying how Aether tried to get away.

A spider leg went towards his body, which made Aether close his eyes in fear.

Suddenly, his clothes got ripped off, which made him open his eyes again.

He looked at the lower half of the Creature, which now revealed a huge Dick.

Aether gulped in fear, but couldn't help but feel a little excited of how the huge thing would feel inside him.

The creature went near him, still staring into Aether's eyes, wanting to know how he felt.

Aether didn't say anything, which made the Creature angry and shoved it's Dick inside, making the Boy scream.

Happy at getting a reaction of the Boy, the Creature started off with a slow pace.

Aether's toes curled and his hands gripped the Chains.

He couldn't believe it. A creature that he was supposed to kill was actually fucking him!

After a few minutes, the Creature grew annoyed again at the lack of Aether's moans.

It started thrusting faster, rubbing it's Dick more against Aether's walls.

His moans started to get louder, which the Creature greatly enjoyed.

"N-No wait! I don't w-want this!" He screamed, but the Creature knew that was a lie.

How his walls tightened around it's Dick, the pleasurable moans, and how his Dick let out some precum, told it that Aether was enjoying this.

Aether actually knew it himself that he wanted the Creature's dick, but he didn't want to accept it.

The creature went towards Aether's neck, biding down harshly on it.

Aether moaned even louder at this, his Omega begging that the Creature would mark him.

The Creature took notice of how Aether's scent changed, but decided to tease him.

It went away from Aether's neck, slowing down its thrusts.

Aether whined, making puppy dog eyes at the Giant creature before him.

"Please! Don't stop! Breed me! Make me your omega!"

Aether couldn't believe his own ears.

Did he really just say that?

The Creature's pupils grew wider, and started thrusting again.

Aether banged his head against the wall at the harsh thrusts.

His moans were growing louder, almost becoming screams.

He looked down at his lower half, enjoying the sight of the Creature's Dick destroying his Man-pussy.

He also took notice on how his belly was building because of the huge Dick destroying his organs.

He loved seeing the buldge appear and disappear.

"Is this a dream?" Aether thought. "If it is, don't make it stop!"

Aether's tongue lapped out of his mouth, his eyes crossing.

He could feel his orgasm approaching, which was shown of how much precum was slipping out of his Dick.

It was slapping against his own stomach, but it seemed pathetic now that he saw the Creature's huge one.

The creature growled, feelings it's own orgasm approach.

Aether noticed this, which made him continue to beg.

"C-Cum inside me! Breed me! Fill me up! Let me be your Cum-dumpster!" He screamed, trying to reach out to the Creatures neck.

But then, the Creature stopped.

Aether's tongue went back into his mouth, his eyes rolling back into their original position

He started whining, begging for the Creature to start moving again.

But the Creature just took it's Dick out of his hole.

Aether shivered at the loss of heat from the Dick.

The creature then took the chains of his body, and grabbed him with it's spider legs.

Aether struggled in it's arms, trying to get the Dick back inside his warm hole.

Suddenly, the Creature kissed Aether, which made his face explode in Red.

He felt how the Creature's tongue was asking for entrance, it licking his lower lip up and down.

Aether opened his mouth, giving the Creature permission on French kissing him.

While Aether was too busy with concentrating on playing with the Creature's tongue, the Creature slammed back into Aether, making him scream into the kiss.

It started thrusting at a rough pace, which made Aether's eyes roll into the back of his head.

His long awaited orgasm came back, again waiting for release.

The Creature stared into the Boy's eyes, enjoying how he looked.

Aether was sweating non-stop, which looked adorable with the Precum on his tummy.

Aether gripped onto the Creature's neck, closing his eyes

He then felt his long awaited orgasm finally come.

He shot a huge load out. It felt like the best and most intense orgasm he ever had before.

Then, it was the Creature's turn to finally release.

It broke the kiss, making Aether whine, and the Creature growled.

It bit into Aether's Neck, marking him as their Omega.

The Creature then released it's even more huge load into Aether, making his belly buldge even more.

Aether screamed once again, enjoying the feeling of how the Cum of the Monster coated his walls.

His screaming then took an end, and he closed his eyes, tired.

The creature let go of Aether's neck, and slipped out of Aether, making the Boy let out a whine once again.

The cum started dripping out of him, which made him even more sensitive.

The Creature just chuckled at this, and layed Aether onto the floor, putting the piece of fabric, which once covered it's crotch, onto him.

The small boy didn't even take notice of this, and fell asleep, smiling.

The creature layed itself next to Aether, laying his head against it's chest, falling asleep too.

-

The next day.

Paimon was still waiting in Liyue.

She was growing anxious.

Aether still wasn't back, and it has been a whole day!

"Where is he...? Did he get killed?" She asked herself.

But then, she noticed an approaching figure.

"Aether!" She screamed, flying towards him.

But then, she immediately stopped once she looked closer at him.

He was sweating, had many love marks around his neck, he smelled like Sex, and he was limping.

He had a love-struck look on his face and said to Paimon:

"Y/N...their Name is Y/N...Oh that was the best night of my life."

-

I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable or anything like that. You can tell me that if I did.

This was good!!! Oh gawd i can just imagine jim being so full of cum and limping while having a hand on his belly, with hearts in his eyes 😩😩😩😌😌😌😌

Just magnificent love!

[eliemo]

Something Long and Stupid (Part 2)

Summary: Remus knew he wasn't a good person. He was Deadpool, a killer for hire, "the merc with a mouth." He'd come to terms with what he was a long time ago. He didn't need Spiderman to remind him of what he was.

He didn't need Virgil to come into his life and make him question it for the first time

Notes: Violence, blood, gore, sexual inneundos

I didn't make a taglist for this story but I know @teamplutoforlife wanted to be tagged <3 And thank you @cheshirevalentine for editing

Part 1

Remus was falling, twisting onto his back as he plummeted towards the ground, the buildings around him nothing but a blur as he flew past. He could faintly hear the construction on the ground over the pounding of his own heart and the howling of the wind rushing past him, barely hearing the alarmed shouts of the workers watching him fall.

Virgil was nothing but a speck in the distance now, perched on the edge of the roof. Lifeless white eyes watched him fall, unfeeling and still.

Pain exploded in Remus’s back as he slammed into something sharp, legs hitting the ground when he finally stopped falling. He could just barely make out the rusty, blood stained spike in front of him, poking through his chest from his back where he'd fallen, blood pooling around the wound and into his suit.

-

“Hey.”

Remus jumped so hard he nearly fell off the roof, scrambling to his feet and reaching for his gun as he whirled around to face whoever the fuck was stupid enough to sneak up on him.

Spiderman was perched beside him, apparently fine after his near death experience last night, and holding… a pizza box?

“Hey,” Remus said carefully. “What the fuck?”

Spiderman shrugged and held out the box in his hand. “I have pizza. You asked for pizza.”

Remus stared for a moment, frozen where he stood with his hand hovering over his gun, trying to figure out if this was a joke. “You… actually brought it?”

“Yeah?” Spiderman said, like he didn’t understand how this was in any way strange. “Oh did you… were you joking? Did you not actually want it, or—”

“No, I did.” Remus stayed right where he was. What the hell was this? Was this a prank? Was he being pranked?

“Then… here,” Spiderman said. He held out the pizza box, close enough for Remus to cautiously take. “I didn’t know what you liked so I just got cheese. But cheese is good. Everyone likes cheese.”

Holy shit. Spiderman was a dweeb.

Remus carefully opened the pizza box, and when there wasn’t a bomb or some kind of spider-themed booby trap inside, just a freshly baked cheese pizza from some local place he’d vaguely heard of, Remus let his shoulders relax and barked out a laugh.

“Well shit,” he said, pleasantly surprised. “Thanks, Webs.”

Spidey was shuffling a bit, looking ridiculously awkward, and Remus was suddenly reminded that they were both just… people under their masks. “Uh, yeah. No problem.”

Remus hesitated, because he hadn’t been kidding about Spiderman owing him a pizza he just… hadn’t actually expected him to follow through. There was no way Remus was eating all of it on his own, he barely ate much as it was.

“Do you, like…” he paused, wondering if this was going to get him punched or laughed at. “Do you want a slice?”

Spiderman actually startled, like him being asked to lunch was just as rare as Remus asking someone to lunch. Jeez, he’d have figured people begged Spiderman to eat with them all the time.

“I, uh… I bought it for you, so—”

“Yeah, and I’m offering. Christ, do you want some pizza or not?”

Spidey still hesitated, and while it was annoying as hell Remus supposed he’d be a hypocrite to judge when he’d been half convinced there was a bomb in the pizza box two minutes ago.

Well, it wasn’t like it would have been the first time.

“Uh, sure,” Spiderman said, still visibly wary. “Thank you.”

Remus ignored him in favor of opening the pizza box and setting it down, motioning for the vigilante to take as much as he wanted.

It wasn’t until Spidey turned away slightly to hook his fingers under the bottom of his mask that Remus remembered- duh- they both had to pull up their masks to eat.

It wasn’t a problem, it wouldn’t be nearly enough to risk exposing their faces to each other, but Remus really wasn’t in the mood to be gawked at. A glance at his jaw might ruin Spiderman’s lunch.

“I’m not looking,” Spidey said, and Remus realized he’d been hesitating for a few too many seconds. “I can go, if you don’t wanna pull up your mask around anyone.”

Remus waved him off, even as he continued to fiddle with the leather. “I’ve got some scars, is all. Like… a lot. People think they’re gross.”

“Oh,” Spiderman said, and then simply shrugged. “That’s fine, I don’t care. Scars happen, dude. I’ve got a bunch.”

Remus still hesitated, a little caught off guard from Spiderman calling him ‘dude' while so nonchalantly eating his pizza just a few feet away, but he quickly pulled himself together and tugged his leather mask up just below his nose.

It was just a few inches of skin, and still enough to reveal a handful of scars littered across his jaw, and the one that stretched down from his cheek.

Spidey barely glanced at him, which Remus guessed he should have seen coming. It’d be a little out of character for New York’s hero to be an asshole about someone’s scars, but you never knew with heroes. Some of them were pretentious assholes.

They ate their pizza like common civilians, perched on their rooftop and watching the people of New York mingle below.

Remus barely ate two slices. He didn’t really eat much to begin with, and it was far more entertaining to watch in silent awe as Spiderman easily finished the rest of the box. The hero was a good two heads shorter than Remus, and looked like he barely weighed a hundred pounds. If Remus didn’t know better, he’d think the guy never ate at all.

“My metabolism is different,” he explained sheepishly when he caught Reus staring. “I eat more than… you know. You. Regular people.”

Remus scoffed, because this was definitely the first time anyone had described him as a ‘regular person’ but he let it slide with an eye roll and a thanks for lunch.

They parted ways, and Remus let himself relax at the thought of having one less enemy roaming New York.

Remus hadn’t meant to start hanging out with Spiderman.

Really, he hadn’t. The impromptu pizza date was supposed to be the end of it, just a slightly awkward peace offering that made it clear neither of them would actively try to kill each other in the near future.

Remus had saved Spiderman because he was bored, and Spiderman had bought him a pizza. That was all.

But then less than a week later Spiderman had swung (literally) by with takeout- coincidentally from Remus’s favorite place a few blocks away- and Remus hadn’t been able to say no to sharing.

They’d shared a meal together three times in the last two weeks, and Remus was starting to think it wasn’t an accident.

It probably wasn’t helping that Remus had started carrying snacks on him.

Remus wasn’t going to eat them himself, and Spiderman was always complaining about how hungry he was, so he’d just started keeping packets of gummies or granola for when he saw the hero swinging past. Chucking them at his head was good target practice, anyway.

That didn’t mean they were friends. Remus didn’t have friends, because being friends with Deadpool was possibly the dumbest idea anyone could ever have.

Remus had seen what happens when people get close to him. He wasn’t going to go through that again.

Apparently, Spiderman had other ideas.

It had been just another fight that Remus had happened to run into, watching for a moment as Spiderman took down what was probably his third armed robbery of the day.

He knew he probably could have just continued on his way and gotten lunch, but there were five of them, all armed, and Remus didn’t feel great about those odds despite Spidey’s reputation.

So Remus had decided to return the favor, Spiderman had introduced himself by butting into Deadpool's fight after all, and stepped in to finish the job twice as fast.

And it had gone fine. Spiderman had greeted him with stupidly cheeky finger guns and unfortunately insisted they keep all of them alive, which wasn’t Remus’s specialty but he’d manage.

It had been easy, some druggie civilians no match for New York’s hero and the merc with a mouth, three of them encased in webbing within two minutes, another on the ground with a bullet in his knee.

It had been fine, until Remus was shot in the chest.

Which, to be fair, wasn’t a big deal. He was shot in the chest all the time. It’d be a hassle if he didn’t get the bullet out before his skin healed around it, but it wasn’t like he could die.

It occurred to him a bit too late that he had forgotten to tell Spiderman that.

“No!”

The raw panic and emotion In Spidey’s voice caught Remus off guard as he stumbled backwards, pain he was unfortunately used to by now exploding in his chest as the bullet met its mark. There had been a fifth goon, hiding out and biding his time, which would have been a great plan if it didn’t end with a face of webs and a swift punch to the temple.

Remus lowered himself to the ground, the wind knocked out of him, dark crimson blood pooling around his hand and flooding through his fingers as he clutched the wound.

Spiderman was rushing over, and Remus could practically feel the worry behind that lifeless mask. He skidded to a stop and dropped to a crouch, hands hovering, frantic and unsure.

And maybe Remus was just an asshole, but this was fucking hilarious.

“Deadpool?” Spidey called, the vigilante leaning over him as Remus dropped to lay on his back. “Jesus- hang in there okay? You’ll be fine.”

Remus forced himself to cough, wet and ragged, biting back a smile. “This is it for me, Webs. I can see the light.”

“Deadpool shut the fuck up!”

“Everything’s getting dark—”

“I said shut up,” Spiderman snapped, and Remus gasped involuntarily, arching his back when gloved hands pressed down on the wound. “You’re gonna be fine, you’re… just- just stay awake, okay? Don’t close your eyes.”

Remus coughed again to hide a smile, blood splattering his chin, closing his eyes anyway and letting his head fall back on the concrete. He stopped listening to Spidey’s rambling, committing to the bit of playing dead- very obviously playing dead, for the record. He stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth and everything, waiting for Spiderman to catch on and tell him off.

“No!” Except Spidey still sounded genuinely distressed, only pressing harder on the wound. “No, no, no! Deadpool! Wake up!”

Well. This wasn’t any fun if Spiderman was too panicked to even pay attention. He sighed, opening his eyes again to sit up slightly and whack the vigilante’s shoulder.

“I can’t die, stupid,” he said, grinning when Spiderman scrambled back. “Cut it out. I’ve just gotta get the bullet out so it doesn’t heal around it. Those things hurt like a bitch, so—”

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Remus opened his mouth to respond, because there were lots of things wrong with him and he had a list at the ready. But he didn’t get the chance because suddenly Spidey was throwing himself forward, wrapping his arms around Remus and pulling him close, probably getting blood all over his suit.

Haha, what the fuck?

“You’re such a bitch,” Spiderman said, muffled since his face was practically buried in Remus’s shoulder. “You’re the fucking worst.”

“Aww, were you worried about me?” Remus asked, burying his shock. “That’s so sweet, Spidey.”

“Shut the hell up,” Spiderman growled. “I thought you were going to die.”

“You were so worried! It was so cute, oh my god!”

Spiderman finally pulled back, only to rear back and punch Remus square in the shoulder. Hard.

Remus barked out a laugh, now nursing two injuries. “Fucking- ow. I still feel pain.”

“Sucks.”

Remus crossed his arms, wincing when it pulled at the bullet wound still in his chest. “Rude.”

“I’m rude?” Spiderman asked, incredulous. “You thought it would be funny to play dead!”

“To be fair,” Remus argued. “It was funny.”

“No it wasn’t!”

Remus shrugged, already turning his attention to the bullet in his chest. “If you had known it would be funny.”

“Well I didn’t,” he said, the mask’s white eyes glued to Remus’s hands. “I thought you were dying.”

“I can’t die,” Remus said. “That’s not a joke, Webs. I don’t just regenerate fast, I can’t be killed.”

“How the fuck was I supposed to know that?”

Remus shrugged, a little put off because this was not how he’d expected this to go. Damn Spiderman and his stupid savior complex.

He turned his attention back to the bullet wound, the pain already faded to a familiar numbness, but two gloved hands grabbed his wrists before he could start digging around for the bullet.

“Here,” he said, obnoxiously soft. “I’ve got it, let me help.”

“Nah, it’s cool,” Remus said, tensing against his will at the thought of someone else caring for a wound. “It’s not too deep, I can get it.”

“Are your gloves clean?”

He took a minute to consider that, calculating the swords he’d been holding, the gun he’d reloaded that morning, coming up blank when he tried to think of the last time he’d properly cleaned any of his weapons. Not to mention he had to climb buildings with his hands, lacking Spidey’s abilities to walk up walls and propel himself across the city in seconds.

“Probably,” he lied. “What am I gonna do, get sick?”

Spiderman hesitated. “Do you do that?”

“No.”

“I can still get it,” Spidey said. “Let me help.”

Remus scoffed, trying to cover up his own uneasiness. “You wanna stick your hand in there? You know it’s gross, right?”

“I know how to remove a bullet, Deadpool,” Spiderman said. “I’ve gotten shot before, I can get it.”

There was no reason not to drop his arms and let Spiderman do what he wanted. The asshole was stubborn, but he obviously meant well. With how shaky Remus’s hands were, Spidey getting the bullet out would probably be quicker anyway.

And he was the city’s hero. He’d made it clear he didn’t mean Deadpool any harm, especially not when the Merc had so graciously dropped in to save his ass today.

Remus didn’t know why it was so hard to just relax.

“This is dumb,” he said, wondering if he could annoy Spidey into giving up. “I can handle it fine.”

“I know,” the vigilante said. “But I want to help. It’s like...returning the favor or whatever.”

Remus sighed, a little shaky now, but reluctantly nodded. The longer they argued, the faster the skin would heal over the bullet still lodged in his chest, and Remus would really like to avoid that happening. Again.

“Fine,” he growled. “Jesus, you’re stubborn.”

Under the mask, Remus was sure Spiderman was smirking at him. “Look who’s talking.”

Remus hadn’t expected Spiderman to be so gentle. He was digging a bullet wound out of Deadpool’s chest, there wasn’t really a way to make this a pleasant experience, but Spidey was taking his time, moving carefully as he dug into the wound.

“Could you hurry up?” Remus growled, teeth clenched. This would have been over in seconds if he was doing it himself. It was so much easier to just stick his hand in the wound, dig around for a second, and rip the bullet out. “I’m not exactly a fan of having someone else’s fingers in my chest.”

Spiderman didn’t even spare him a glance. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I got shot,” Remus snapped. “We’re well past that.”

Spidey didn’t respond after that and Remus for once stayed quiet to let him concentrate, breathing heavily to try to ignore the panic that came with being vulnerable like this. The vigilante couldn’t kill him, but he sure as hell could cause him a shit ton of pain.

But he wouldn’t. Remus had to keep reminding himself that he wouldn’t. Spiderman was insufferably good- he wouldn’t kick someone while they were down.

Eventually Spiderman’s fingers found the bullet and Remus gasped, forcing himself to shove the pain away and make a lewd sounding moan when Spidey’s fingers left the wound.

“Jesus,” Spiderman muttered, and Remus laughed when he tossed the bullet dripping in dark blood to the side. “You okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Remus said, and he was. Physically at least. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a civil conversation with someone, let alone had someone willing to help patch him up. “See? All good. It’s already healing itself.”

True to his word, Remus’s chest was fusing itself back together, skin closing up over the still bleeding wound, the rest of the pain fading to a background throb. It’d be like nothing ever happened in ten minutes.

“Holy shit,” Spiderman muttered, leaning in close to watch. Remus tensed uncomfortably. “That’s...fucking wild.”

“Yeah, it’s great.” Remus brushed it off, scrambling to his feet and ignoring the way Spidey moved to try and help. “Anyways. Are there any more fights you need me to hold your hand through, or can I go take a nap?”

“Oh please,” Spidey scoffed. “I was fine. All you did was get in the way and get shot.”

“I saved your ass,” Remus retorted, smiling behind the leather mask. “You’d be dead if it weren’t for me, Webs.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Spiderman mumbled, but Remus was willing to bet money he was smiling too. “Go take your nap, Deadpool.”

Remus gave a mock salute, sheathing his sword and turning away from the remnants of the battle and starting for his apartment.

Maybe Spidey wasn’t so bad after all.

[decayedhearts]

@liliavanrouge​ sent: 13. to tie up my muse //for rook to be tied up, no i will not elaborate any further

Nothing gets past Rook’s keen senses. He hears things no one else pays attention to, sees things that are not meant to be seen - it’s an instinct at this point, a reflex rather than active effort; like breathing. It’s what he’s been taught to be able to do for as long as he remembers, and something he takes pride in, especially in contrast to a comparatively mediocre ability to wield magic. The only times something slips his attention is when whatever - or whoever - is trying to trick him is notably smarter than him or just really good at this game too. In these cases Rook has another skill to rely on: survival.

Tonight is one of those times. Instinct and knowledge of the faekind alone urge Rook to be more careful than usual when in the company of Diasomnia’s Housewarden and his vice. Night Raven College houses plenty of colorful characters with fearsome skills, and though ever graceful, well-mannered and polite, Malleus Draconia and Lilia Vanrouge are without question the most dangerous ones among them. (The only exception possibly being the headmage - but only time will unravel the mystery that he is). And yet, despite being aware of the company he’s in and staying alert, by the end of the night Rook finds himself in the most delicious of predicaments.

The banquet in celebration of Malleus receiving an award for outstanding achievements for the magic community has ended and while all the other guests have gone back to their own dorms through the mirror portal Rook is still seated in his chair, a smile on his lips. The room looks empty, the table deserted left for the dirtied plates and wine-stained glasses. What a marvelous feast it was. The room looks empty, but Rook can feel Lilia’s presence in the shadows, eyes watching him from the darkness like spotlights waiting to flare up.

The rope that binds him is near invisible, a thin string of magic wrapped around his wrists and neck tying him to the chair. It looks like silver spider webs in the flicker of the candle light. It can’t have been a sudden spell, he would have noticed that. It must have snuck up on him, slowly and patiently, like a snake biding its time in the shadows until its prey feels safe and lowers its guard, the magic tightening over time so he wouldn’t suspect anything while keeping his attention on Lilia across the table, who mimed the ever-charming host.

   “The hunter becomes the hunted.. those were your words as I recall?” Rook says into the silence of the room. Is this the long anticipated response to his insolent teasing, his oh so human disrespect in the face of immortality? For now it feels like a game; one with death as an option, but not its intent. Most likely. Who can say what stirs the whims and desires of someone as old as Lilia Vanrouge?

Rook moves his hands a fraction and the pressure around his neck grows tighter. His heart is pounding in his chest, but it isn’t fear that drives it. It is excitement, pure adrenaline pumping through his veins and strengthening his senses. Nothing makes one feel more alive than the exhilarating danger of being perceived by something immortal; a mortal life made significant by being a thorn in the eye of an ancient one, if only for the length of a blink. What a magnificent death it would be to be torn apart by a creature like Lilia; to catch a glimpse of his true nature before the end..

..but it won’t come to that. Not tonight. If anything, this is just Lilia throwing him a bone. Rook looks down at his hands, his palms turning up towards the ceiling. He closes his eyes, his breath going steady and quiet. He can’t hear Lilia move about or even breathe, only sense his presence nearby, as if the air itself is carrying the tension between them like sparks of electricity ready to set something aflame. But he’s close enough. Warm magic travels through Rook’s body, spreading into every corner and centering in his mind. His eyes fly open again and for a brief moment the reflection of the room inside them is replaced with something else. The mark of the hunter.

“I see you,” Rook whispers as he peers into the darkness to his left.

Let the games begin.

[big-oof-bi-goof]

So there’s this meme going around with TMA fans, the whole “hello Jon” thing, but it kind of disappoints me. We, as a fandom, are capable of more. We can do better than this. We just need to Hello Jon. Apologies for the deception, but I wanted to make sure you started reading, so I thought it best not to announce myself.

I’m assuming you’re alone; you always did prefer to read your statements in private. I wouldn’t try too hard to stop reading; there’s every likelihood you’ll just hurt yourself. So just listen.

Now, shall we turn the page and try again?

Statement of Jonah Magnus regarding Jonathan Sims, The Archivist.

Statement begins.

I hope you’ll forgive me the self-indulgence, but I have worked so very hard for this moment, a culmination of two centuries of work. It’s rare that you get the chance to monologue through another, and you can’t tell me you’re not curious.

Why does a man seek to destroy the world?

It’s a simple enough answer: for immortality and power. Uninspired, perhaps, but – my god. The discovery, not simply of the dark and horrible reality of the world in which you live, but that you would quite willingly doom that world and confine the billions in it to an eternity of terror and suffering, all to ensure your own happiness, to place yourself beyond pain and death and fear.

It is an awful thing to know about yourself, but the freedom, Jon, the freedom of it all. I have dedicated my life to handing the world to these Dread Powers all for my own gain, and I feel… nothing but satisfaction in that choice.

I am to be a king of a ruined world, and I shall never die.

I believe there are far more people in this world that would take that bargain than you would ever guess. And I have beaten all of them.

Of course, this desire did not manifest overnight. When Smirke first gathered our little band – Lukas, Scott, and the rest – to discuss and hypothesize on the nature of the things he had learned from Rayner, I felt what I believe we all felt: curiosity, and fear.

But as he compiled his taxonomy and codified his theories on the grand rituals, I began to develop a very specific concern. Smirke was so obsessed with his ideas on balance, even as our fellows began to experiment and fall to the service of our patrons.

I began to worry that if one of them successfully attempted their ritual, then I would be as much a victim as any, trapped in the nightmare landscape of a twisted world.

At first, I attempted prevention, but the cause seemed hopeless. The only way to ensure I did not suffer the tribulations of what I believed to be an inevitable transformation was to bring it about myself. So what began as an experiment soon became a race.

Beyond that, I was getting older, and mortality began to weigh more heavily on my mind. How much in this world is done because we fear death, the last and greatest terror?

I convinced Smirke to work on Millbank, leading him to design it as a temple to all the Fears in equilibrium, such that my own modifications to the design of the Panopticon went… unremarked.

It. Took. Years, for the dread of the prisoners to fully suffuse the place, and I was an old man before I made my first attempt at the Watcher’s Crown, sat in the center of that colossal eye, the great ring of cells encircling me like a coronet.

It was… flawed, of course, as all Smirke’s rituals were, and none of the inmates survived as the power I attempted to harness shook the building almost to pieces, and the murky swamp upon which the prison was built consumed it.

But it left me a gift: For sat in that watchtower, I could see everything I turned my mind to.

It was a dizzying power, and one I discovered I maintained even as I found vessels to extend my life. Of course, I had to make sure the location was kept under my control while I worked on revising my plans, and so I moved the organization I had founded to assist in my research down to London, and the Institute as you know it was born.

I’ll not bore you with details of my bodies and failures through those intervening years. Suffice to say I kept busy, both planning my own next attempt, and doing my best to stymie those others who tried versions of their own.

Surely my interpretation of the Watcher’s Crown had been incomplete; there had been some element of the ritual I had overlooked.

It was not until I met Gertrude Robinson that things began to really come into focus.

You see, the role of Archivist has been part of the Beholding for as far back as my research can go. This isn’t uncommon for the Powers; most of the beliefs around them are guesswork and fallible human interpretation, but there are certain throughlines and consistencies that can be spotted, regardless of the trappings.

But Gertrude was unlike any other Archivist. She simply did not care about compiling experiences or collecting the fears of others. She was driven to stop those who served the Powers.

More than once I thought she must secretly be of the Hunt – but there was never that sick joy in her, that thrill of predator and prey. She had simply decided that this was her position in life, and went about it with a practicality that even I found disconcerting at times.

I once asked her what drove her, what had started her down that path. She told me the Desolation had killed her cat.

I don’t know if she was joking, and, to be honest, I could never bring myself to look into her mind and find out for sure.

In any case, Gertrude’s ruthless efficiency in derailing and collapsing rituals threw into stark relief a question that had been bothering me for almost a hundred and fifty years: In the whole span of humanity, why had nobody ever succeeded?

Perhaps there were a long line of Gertrude Robinsons throughout history, but I found that hard to credit. Could it be, then, that there was something in the very concept of the rituals that meant they couldn’t succeed?

She was clearly having similar thoughts in that last year, all of which culminated with the People’s Church.

When I saw that she was making no preparations whatsoever to stop it, I realized she was putting into practice a theory, and one she couldn’t afford to be wrong. She was going to wait, and see if the unopposed ritual succeeded, or if it collapsed under its own strain as mine had all hose years ago.

Knowing Gertrude, I’m sure she had a backup plan if she had miscalculated – but she had not. The ritual failed. And all at once, I realized what had to be done.

You see, the thing about the Fears is that they can never be truly separated from each other. When does the fear of sudden violence transition into the fear of hunted prey? When does the mask of the Stranger become the deception of the Spiral?

Even those that seem to exist in direct opposition rely on each other for their definition as much as up relies on down.

To try and create a world with only the Buried makes as much sense as trying to conceive a world with only down.

Every ritual tied itself so closely to a single power as to render itself impossible. They could bring their patron close, but never sever it from the others, and eventually it would be violently pulled back into the place next to reality where they dwell.

The solution, then, is simple: A new ritual must be devised which will bring through all the Powers at once. All fourteen, as I had hoped I could complete it before any new powers such as Extinction were able to fully emerge. All under the Eye’s auspices, of course. We mustn’t forget our roots.

And there was only one being that could possibly serve as a lynchpin for this new ritual: The Archivist. A position that had so recently become vacant, thanks to Gertrude’s ill-timed retirement plans.

Because the thing about the Archivist is that – well, it’s a bit of a misnomer.

It might, perhaps, be better named: The Archive.

Because you do not administer and preserve the records of fear, Jon. You are a record of fear, both in mind as you walk the shuddering record of each statement, and in body as the Powers each leave their mark upon you.

You are a living chronicle of terror.

Perhaps, then, if I could find an Archivist and have each Power mark them, have them confront each one and each in turn instill in them a powerful and acute fear for their life, they could be turned into a conduit for the coming of this – nightmare kingdom.

Do you see where I’m going, Jon?

It does tickle me, that in this world of would-be occult dynasties and ageless monsters, the Chosen One is simply that – someone I chose. It’s not in your blood, or your soul, or your destiny. It’s just in your own, rotten luck.

I’ll admit, my options were somewhat limited, but My God, when you came to me already marked by the Web, I knew it had to be you. I even held out some small hope you had been sent by the Spider as some sort of implicit blessing on the whole project, and, do you know what, I think it was.

Of course, I had to bide my time, get a measure of you before I began to push, learn how you worked – So I decided I would wait until something came for you, and see how you reacted. Attacks upon the Archives were not uncommon during Gertrude’s tenure, and, while she was always prepared, I made sure you would not be.

I reasoned if you couldn’t survive a single encounter, you were unlikely to make it through all fourteen. So, when Jane Prentiss attacked, I watched eagerly, one hand on the gas release from the start.

You acquitted yourself well enough, so I decided to see how far you would get, though I waited until the worms were in you before I pulled the lever. I needed to make sure you felt that fear all the way to your bones.

The discovery that one of the Stranger’s minions had infiltrated the Institute in the aftermath was certainly a pleasant bonus. Even if that sliver of paranoia, that vague wrongness you couldn’t quite place wouldn’t count as a mark, it was only a matter of time before it confronted you in a far more direct and affecting matter.

Admittedly, given the advent of the Unknowing, I needn’t have bothered. But what’s the old saying about hindsight?

More important to me was Sasha’s encounter with the Distortion. If it had taken an interest, then I very much wanted it to cross your path.

So I found one of its current victims and convinced her to make a statement.

Poor Helen. I actually had to put her in a taxi myself, she was getting so lost in those narrow London side streets.

It worked, though.

Between the stabbing and at least two desperate flights into its doors – you’re marked very deeply by the Spiral.

Jurgen Leitner was a surprise, of course, and I was forced to improvise. I had no idea how much Gertrude would have told him, and he could very easily have derailed everything if you learned too much too fast.

I… justified it to myself saying I was going to have to send you out into the world anyway, if you were to encounter more of the Powers, but I can’t honestly pretend it wasn’t a… rather rash move.

Still. I’d requested Detective Tonner be assigned to the case when they found Gertrude’s body in the hope that having a Hunter in the mix would eventually lead to a confrontation, and setting you up as a killer certainly hastened that.

Then it was just a matter of feeding you statements to lead you to a few Avatars I thought were likely to harm you – but probably would stop short of actually killing you.

Jude served her purpose exactly as I had hoped, as did our dearly departed Mr Crew, marking you for the Desolation and the Vast.

Honestly, I had – nothing to do with Melanie and her Slaughter adventure, but when I saw the situation, I made sure to trap her here, so when her rage bubbled over you would be right there, a ready target.

I didn’t foresee the mark coming from surgery gone wrong, but it was a very pleasant surprise.

The Unknowing was a distraction, but not an unwelcome one. For this to work, you needed more than just the marks; you needed power. And that was something the Unknowing served to test, though it posed no actual danger in the grand scheme of things.

And it did serve another purpose, of course. It inadvertently pushed you to confront death, a mark I had been very worried about trying to orchestrate. If I tried too early, you’d just die. Too late, and you might be powerful enough to see the attempt coming, and maybe even understand why.

As it was, it was just right, and once again, you came through with flying colors.

By this point, your abilities were coming along in leaps and bounds, and I was concerned that meeting face-to-face might end up with you Knowing something you shouldn’t.

I had initially planned to go into hiding, but when your colleagues surprised me with the police, well. It was simple enough to cut a deal.

All that remained, then, were the Dark, the Flesh, the Buried, and the Lonely.

I was a little put out when that idiot Jared Hopworth misinterpreted my letters and attacked the Institute too soon, before you were even out of the hospital, but then – Ho, you should have see my face when you voluntarily went to him.

I couldn’t see what happened in there, of course, but given how you came out, I’m very sure it counts as a mark.

I suspected the coffin might turn up again, and once it did, it was simply a matter of getting any, uh… restraining factors you might have had flying off on a wild goose chase, and waiting.

Honestly, Detective Tonner has been proving invaluable through this process. I’d been racking my brains for months about what I could use to lure you in.

And, of course, I knew the Dark Sun was just sitting there waiting. So when it came time, I just whipped up another apocalypse and sent you on your merry way.

Then all that remained was the Lonely.

Poor Peter. He really should have left well enough alone. Or just done what I’d asked in the first place.

Ah well. He knew what I was attempting, and was very unwilling to cooperate until I made him a little wager about Martin.

Of course, he had no way of knowing that, in addition to setting you up for the final mark, he was giving you all the tools you needed to escape from it.

How is Martin, by the way? He looks well. You will keep an eye on him when all this is over, won’t you? He’s earned that.

And there, I think, we are brought just about up to date. I have enjoyed our little trip down memory lane, but past here lies only impatience.

You are prepared. You are ready. You are marked. The power of the Ceaseless Watcher flows through you, and the time of our victory is here.

Don’t worry, Jon. You’ll get used to it here, in the world that we have made.

Now. Repeat after me.

You who watch and know and understand none. You who listen and hear and will not comprehend. You who wait and wait and drink in all that is not yours by right.

Come to us in your wholeness.

Come to us in your perfection.

Bring all that is fear and all that is terror and all that is the awful dread that crawls and chokes and blinds and falls and twists and leaves and hides and weaves and burns and hunts and rips and leads and dies!

Come to us.

I – OPEN – THE DOOR!

[les-mooserables]

Hello, John

[AS SOON AS HE BEGINS SPEAKING, A WHIZZING STATIC KICKS IN FROM THE BACKGROUND.]

ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)

Apologies for the deception, but I wanted to make sure you started reading, so I thought it best not to announce myself.

I’m assuming you’re alone; you always did prefer to read your statements in private. (slightly strained) I wouldn’t try too hard to stop reading; there’s every likelihood you’ll just hurt yourself. So just listen.

Now, shall we turn the page and try again?

[THE ARCHIVIST MAKES A PAINED COUPLE OF SOUNDS OUT-OF-STATEMENT-CHARACTER, AS IF HE’S TRYING TO TEAR HIMSELF AWAY FROM THE STATEMENT AND PHYSICALLY CANNOT.][WHEN HE PICKS THE STATEMENT BACK UP, THE WORDS SOUND LIKE THEY’RE BEING TORN FROM HIS LIPS.]ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)

Statement of Jonah Magnus regarding Jonathan Sims, The Archivist.

Statement begins.

[A SLAP ON THE TABLE – OR A CRACK? SPOOKY.]

I hope you’ll forgive me the self-indulgence, but I have worked so very hard for this moment, a culmination of two centuries of work. It’s rare that you get the chance to monologue through another, and you can’t tell me you’re not curious.

Why does a man seek to destroy the world?

It’s a simple enough answer: for immortality and power. Uninspired, perhaps, but – my god. The discovery, not simply of the dark and horrible reality of the world in which you live, but that you would quite willingly doom that world and confine the billions in it to an eternity of terror and suffering, all to ensure your own happiness, to place yourself beyond pain and death and fear.

It is an awful thing to know about yourself, but the freedom, John, the freedom of it all. I have dedicated my life to handing the world to these Dread Powers all for my own gain, and I feel… nothing but satisfaction in that choice.

I am to be a king of a ruined world, and I shall never die.

I believe there are far more people in this world that would take that bargain than you would ever guess. And I have beaten all of them.

Of course, this desire did not manifest overnight. When Smirke first gathered our little band – Lukas, Scott, and the rest – to discuss and hypothesize on the nature of the things he had learned from Rayner, I felt what I believe we all felt: curiosity, and fear.

But as he compiled his taxonomy and codified his theories on the grand rituals, I began to develop a very specific concern. Smirke was so obsessed with his ideas on balance, even as our fellows began to experiment and fall to the service of our patrons.

I began to worry that if one of them successfully attempted their ritual, then I would be as much a victim as any, trapped in the nightmare landscape of a twisted world.

At first, I attempted prevention, but the cause seemed hopeless. The only way to ensure I did not suffer the tribulations of what I believed to be an inevitable transformation was to bring it about myself. So what began as an experiment soon became a race.

Beyond that, I was getting older, and mortality began to weigh more heavily on my mind. How much in this world is done because we fear death, the last and greatest terror?

I convinced Smirke to work on Millbank, leading him to design it as a temple to all the Fears in equilibrium, such that my own modifications to the design of the Panopticon went… unremarked.

It. Took. Years, for the dread of the prisoners to fully suffuse the place, and I was an old man before I made my first attempt at the Watcher’s Crown, sat in the center of that colossal eye, the great ring of cells encircling me like a coronet.

It was… flawed, of course, as all Smirke’s rituals were, and none of the inmates survived as the power I attempted to harness shook the building almost to pieces, and the murky swamp upon which the prison was built consumed it.

But it left me a gift: For sat in that watchtower, I could see everything I turned my mind to.

It was a dizzying power, and one I discovered I maintained even as I found vessels to extend my life. Of course, I had to make sure the location was kept under my control while I worked on revising my plans, and so I moved the organization I had founded to assist in my research down to London, and the Institute as you know it was born.

I’ll not bore you with details of my bodies and failures through those intervening years. Suffice to say I kept busy, both planning my own next attempt, and doing my best to stymie those others who tried versions of their own.

Surely my interpretation of the Watcher’s Crown had been incomplete; there had been some element of the ritual I had overlooked.

It was not until I met Gertrude Robinson that things began to really come into focus.

You see, the role of Archivist has been part of the Beholding for as far back as my research can go. This isn’t uncommon for the Powers; most of the beliefs around them are guesswork and fallible human interpretation, but there are certain throughlines and consistencies that can be spotted, regardless of the trappings.

But Gertrude was unlike any other Archivist. She simply did not care about compiling experiences or collecting the fears of others. She was driven to stop those who served the Powers.

More than once I thought she must secretly be of the Hunt – but there was never that sick joy in her, that thrill of predator and prey. She had simply decided that this was her position in life, and went about it with a practicality that even I found disconcerting at times.

I once asked her what drove her, what had started her down that path. She told me the Desolation had killed her cat.

I don’t know if she was joking, and, to be honest, I could never bring myself to look into her mind and find out for sure.

In any case, Gertrude’s ruthless efficiency in derailing and collapsing rituals threw into stark relief a question that had been bothering me for almost a hundred and fifty years: In the whole span of humanity, why had nobody ever succeeded?

Perhaps there were a long line of Gertrude Robinsons throughout history, but I found that hard to credit. Could it be, then, that there was something in the very concept of the rituals that meant they couldn’t succeed?

She was clearly having similar thoughts in that last year, all of which culminated with the People’s Church.

When I saw that she was making no preparations whatsoever to stop it, I realized she was putting into practice a theory, and one she couldn’t afford to be wrong. She was going to wait, and see if the unopposed ritual succeeded, or if it collapsed under its own strain as mine had all those years ago.

Knowing Gertrude, I’m sure she had a backup plan if she had miscalculated – but she had not. The ritual failed. And all at once, I realized what had to be done.

You see, the thing about the Fears is that they can never be truly separated from each other. When does the fear of sudden violence transition into the fear of hunted prey? When does the mask of the Stranger become the deception of the Spiral?

Even those that seem to exist in direct opposition rely on each other for their definition as much as up relies on down.

To try and create a world with only the Buried makes as much sense as trying to conceive a world with only down.

Every ritual tied itself so closely to a single power as to render itself impossible. They could bring their patron close, but never sever it from the others, and eventually it would be violently pulled back into the place next to reality where they dwell.

The solution, then, is simple: A new ritual must be devised which will bring through all the Powers at once. All fourteen, as I had hoped I could complete it before any new powers such as Extinction were able to fully emerge. All under the Eye’s auspices, of course. We mustn’t forget our roots.

And there was only one being that could possibly serve as a lynchpin for this new ritual: The Archivist. A position that had so recently become vacant, thanks to Gertrude’s ill-timed retirement plans.

Because the thing about the Archivist is that – well, it’s a bit of a misnomer.

It might, perhaps, be better named: The Archive.

Because you do not administer and preserve the records of fear, John. You are a record of fear, both in mind as you walk the shuddering record of each statement, and in body as the Powers each leave their mark upon you.

You are a living chronicle of terror.

Perhaps, then, if I could find an Archivist and have each Power mark them, have them confront each one and each in turn instill in them a powerful and acute fear for their life, they could be turned into a conduit for the coming of this – nightmare kingdom.

Do you see where I’m going, John?

It does tickle me, that in this world of would-be occult dynasties and ageless monsters, the Chosen One is simply that – someone I chose. It’s not in your blood, or your soul, or your destiny. It’s just in your own, rotten luck.

[THUNDERCLAPS.]

I’ll admit, my options were somewhat limited, but My God, when you came to me already marked by the Web, I knew it had to be you. I even held out some small hope you had been sent by the Spider as some sort of implicit blessing on the whole project, and, do you know what, I think it was.

Of course, I had to bide my time, get a measure of you before I began to push, learn how you worked – So I decided I would wait until something came for you, and see how you reacted. Attacks upon the Archives were not uncommon during Gertrude’s tenure, and, while she was always prepared, I made sure you would not be.

I reasoned if you couldn’t survive a single encounter, you were unlikely to make it through all fourteen. So, when Jane Prentiss attacked, I watched eagerly, one hand on the gas release from the start.

You acquitted yourself well enough, so I decided to see how far you would get, though I waited until the worms were in you before I pulled the lever. I needed to make sure you felt that fear all the way to your bones.

The discovery that one of the Stranger’s minions had infiltrated the Institute in the aftermath was certainly a pleasant bonus. Even if that sliver of paranoia, that vague wrongness you couldn’t quite place wouldn’t count as a mark, it was only a matter of time before it confronted you in a far more direct and affecting matter.

Admittedly, given the advent of the Unknowing, I needn’t have bothered. But what’s the old saying about hindsight?

More important to me was Sasha’s encounter with the Distortion. If it had taken an interest, then I very much wanted it to cross your path.

[THUNDER CONTINUES AS HE GOES ON.]

So I found one of its current victims and convinced her to make a statement.

Poor Helen. I actually had to put her in a taxi myself, she was getting so lost in those narrow London side streets.

It worked, though.

[SOMETHING CREAKS. ANOTHER LOUD SNAP/CRACKLE.]

Between the stabbing and at least two desperate flights into its doors – you’re marked very deeply by the Spiral.

Jurgen Leitner was a surprise, of course, and I was forced to improvise. I had no idea how much Gertrude would have told him, and he could very easily have derailed everything if you learned too much too fast.

I… justified it to myself saying I was going to have to send you out into the world anyway, if you were to encounter more of the Powers, but I can’t honestly pretend it wasn’t a… rather rash move.

Still. I’d requested Detective Tonner be assigned to the case when they found Gertrude’s body in the hope that having a Hunter in the mix would eventually lead to a confrontation, and setting you up as a killer certainly hastened that.

Then it was just a matter of feeding you statements to lead you to a few Avatars I thought were likely to harm you – but probably would stop short of actually killing you.

Jude served her purpose exactly as I had hoped, as did our dearly departed Mr. Crew, marking you for the Desolation and the Vast.

Honestly, I had – nothing to do with Melanie and her Slaughter adventure, but when I saw the situation, I made sure to trap her here, so when her rage bubbled over you would be right there, a ready target.

I didn’t foresee the mark coming from surgery gone wrong, but it was a very pleasant surprise.

The Unknowing was a distraction, but not an unwelcome one. For this to work, you needed more than just the marks; you needed power. And that was something the Unknowing served to test, though it posed no actual danger in the grand scheme of things.

And it did serve another purpose, of course. It inadvertently pushed you to confront death, a mark I had been very worried about trying to orchestrate. If I tried too early, you’d just die. Too late, and you might be powerful enough to see the attempt coming, and maybe even understand why.

As it was, it was just right, and once again, you came through with flying colors.

By this point, your abilities were coming along in leaps and bounds, and I was concerned that meeting face-to-face might end up with you – (sigh) – Knowing something you shouldn’t.

I had initially planned to go into hiding, but when your colleagues surprised me with the police, well. It was simple enough to cut a deal.

All that remained, then, were the Dark, the Flesh, the Buried, and the Lonely.

I was a little put out when that idiot Jared Hopworth misinterpreted my letters and attacked the Institute too soon, before you were even out of the hospital, but then – Ho, you should have see my face when you voluntarily went to him.

I couldn’t see what happened in there, of course, but given how you came out, I’m very sure it counts as a mark.

I suspected the coffin might turn up again, and once it did, it was simply a matter of getting any, uh… restraining factors you might have had flying off on a wild goose chase, and waiting.

Honestly, Detective Tonner has been proving invaluable through this process. I’d been racking my brains for months about what I could use to lure you in.

And, of course, I knew the Dark Sun was just sitting there waiting. So when it came time, I just whipped up another apocalypse and sent you on your merry way.

Then all that remained was the Lonely.

Poor Peter. He really should have left well enough alone. (cruel laugh) Or just done what I’d asked in the first place.

Ah well. He knew what I was attempting, and was very unwilling to cooperate until I made him a little wager about Martin.

Of course, he had no way of knowing that, in addition to setting you up for the final mark, he was giving you all the tools you needed to escape from it.

How is Martin, by the way? He looks well. You will keep an eye on him when all this is over, won’t you? He’s earned that.

And there, I think, we are brought just about up to date. I have enjoyed our little trip down memory lane, but past here lies only impatience.

You are prepared. You are ready. You are marked. The power of the Ceaseless Watcher flows through you, and the time of our victory is here.

Don’t worry, John. You’ll get used to it here, in the world that we have made.

Now. (cruel, cruel laugh) Repeat after me.

[WHEN THE ARCHIVIST BEGINS TO READ THE INCANTATION, A HEAVY, DENSE STATIC RETURNS AND BEGINS TO BUILD, ADDING IN HIGHER PITCHES AS IT DOES SO.]

You who watch and know and understand none. You who listen and hear and will not comprehend. You who wait and wait and drink in all that is not yours by right.

Come to us in your wholeness.

Come to us in your perfection.

Bring all that is fear and all that is terror and all that is the awful dread that crawls and chokes and blinds and falls and twists and leaves and hides and weaves and burns and hunts and rips and bleeds and dies!

Come to us.

I – OPEN – THE DOOR!

[grim-faux]

2 _ 32 _ Dangerous Activities

First

 No matter how many of the miles and miles of the city they crossed through, it didn’t seem as if they saw any of it. Though getting around in some areas was much more difficult than others, the roads and building nearest to the Signal Tower suffered the heaviest damage. Though further from the Tower held dangers of different varieties, not limited to the destruction of the city and those perils. The speek scrawled on walls and floors, any surface that held the disembodied voices of travelers, carried the vibrations of warning. This place held dangers, shelters was an illusion, They will find you.

    As always, the Thin Man didn’t heed much Mono’s concerns. Adults just didn’t fear anything. Not until they were dead or worse, caught.  

This place seemed safe enough for temporary stop, small and poorly placed t was. The building, or room he should say, wasn’t good enough by the man in the hat standards. Mono wouldn’t disagree, but at least they couldn't get lost and the walls hadn't caved in. The place was a small room on the upper floor of building, with an entry that led directly to the outside. The place was fitted with only a much smaller room, and the bathroom. Some busted out furniture stuff too, like the bed and broken table. Nothing more, no other hide places, which Mono did NOT like.

    One window offered a view of the road and sights outside. Mono sat beside the filthy glass, on watch. He was having a hard time staying focused. It helped that it was brighter outside, but not by much. Little activities kept his eyes open, but his thoughts were badly muddled. He was so tempted to lay his head down – not on the sill here – on the floor, or somewhere within the broken out dresser/television stand beside the furthest wall.

    Doing some laps around the room and extending his investigation did help. They tiny room offered nothing, not even a chair. He poked into the bathroom, but that had even less - no cabinets, not even a vent to crawl through. He hated this place. The faucet was at least easy enough to turn on and shut off; he got a sip of water and splashed his chilled face with frigid liquid - despite barely drying out at all. All of this helped, since for the while he was going nowhere.

  The Thin Man was having a rest. It’d been a while, a good indication how badly the tall thin man needed to stop and do nothing. Do sleep. As well, Mono managed to gather a bit of sleep for himself, before he awoke and realized no one was watch. The man in the hat kept say he wasn't bothered and okay, but Mono decided the Factory took a lot out of him. The Thin Man should probably eat something and do more rest, but the topic always put the Thin Man in a grumpy mood. It was okay, Mono knew better. He kept some attention to the Thin Man - though he couldn't do much to convince the Thin Man of anything - he still kept watch. Like now.

    A big stretch helped. It perked Mono up for a bit, and felt good. He caught the Thin Man doing a stretch the other day, it looked so funny. Like a spider pole. He gave the Thin Man a smile, but the Thin Man didn’t seem impressed. Could possibly not like Mono see him do typical, awkward things. Like eat. Sharing food was important. He gave Mono food, but didn’t he take some for himself? The Thin Man mystified him. Everything with the Thin Man was complicated and unknown.

    Except for the sleep. Always lied. Said would watch, then Mono wakes up and he’s done the opposite. Gone usually. Off to the danger places. Oh well. Mono was okay on half sleep. It would be fine. The man in the hat didn’t like it when he mentioned watch.

  Outside the windowpane, a Viewer meandered by. On some weird impulse, Mono waved at it. They were less frightening with something between him and them, and  him having no reason to creep in close to their proximity. It was out on errand seeking a television signal, or a quiet box it could turn on. The television in this room was busted through.

    The Thin Man sometimes tried to show him how to traverse the transmission, without blowing up the television. It always felt hit or miss. Be calm. Don’t panic. No rush. Boom. He was a bad student, but it was such a trick. The Thin Man conducted the currents like sweeping his hands through a shallow puddle, creating ripples in the stream of electrical threads churning behind the glass barrier. The tall thin man said he was too excited, but Mono couldn't help it. Getting away from the shared shelter and exploring was an adventure, they would reach somewhere eventually. But for the while they roamed across the city, it was together. More important, staying in one place for too long would never not, and always make Mono nervous. Being left and alone, keeping safe - Mono had many jobs, it was hard. Chasing after the Thin Man was less hard.

    It wasn’t often that he rifled through the topic, of why he and the man in the hat had so much same. Felt... Familiar. Had speek – his speek, moved through televisions, and now he knew what his eyes looked like. How different they were from... Her. And the other children, his pack. Was that why he was hated so? That didn't make sense. Who cared what his eyes looked like? What difference did it make? But apparently, it was important for some reason. And it made him a danger.

  He didn't feel like a danger. For some reason, however, it made others not want to be near him. Except for the Thin Man. Still, he didn’t understand how he 'summoned' the Thin Man by opening a door, but it must’ve had something to do with the televisions. The transmission. Tuning it in a very specific way, rather trust blind luck. And the door! It was the same as the Signal Tower. Where the Thin Man was to take him. Said it was his... job.

    She knew, too. Without being there, and seeing what he did. Saw him. Tried to drag her from the screen but failed. Messed up.

    Mono rubbed a space on the glass clean and began doing speek. He fogged the pane and made a curve, then a line.

    Danger. Knew he and the Thin Man were too same. She didn’t understand. He wondered, did She miss him? Or at least, feel bad for not keep? The look on her face when he fell. She didn’t look sad. Maybe he didn’t see right. Could be she saw the Thin Man, and that scared her. That was a stupid thought, she was staring at him.

    He shook his head, and continued doing the speek. He did the Eye. There was a small Six. A cage, as well. He fogged the glass, and did a door, then a television with antenna. As well, a roof edge with people lined up. A tall tree, and a little twig sticking from the mound beneath. Another building, looming above all the others, with a bulb at its zenith. He scrubbed away the speek and once more, did some lines. A chair, and an ugly fish with nub arms.

    He wondered, as he scrawled the things he saw, was the Thin Man still friends with the Tower? It let them in and didn't bother them, despite his new found certainty that it could have. That time remained cloudy in his thoughts, closer to a dream. He remembered Her, the sing box. He killed it. Made her so mad. After that, it's harder to recall. Following her was his forefront focus, escape. The panic. He messed up, it would take them. Run. The flee. It would eat them.

    Scrambling through the collapsing corridor, he could scarcely catch the tinges of color against the crowding patches of grotesque mass. Hurt. He was still hurt. It could wait, he willed his legs to slam against the broken path and keep his pace balanced. The floor ruptured beneath his toes, freshly cleaved bits of rock tore at his feet. Onward he fought, heaving on the silt as his lungs demanded - You MUST STOP. There was no place for stall or recover, no moment to squander as the chattering cracks peered at him with glossy, bulbous glands. Jeered. Laughed. Like the sing box sneered at him.

    Mine. Mine. MineMineMineMineMine. Keep. 

    Faster. FASTER! The entire world came undone, spilling out wriggling folds of flesh and gurgling eyes. The loathsome things flashed and blinked, as he swooped by within inches of the rolling avalanche. They would make it. Don't stop, don't stumble. In the gloom far ahead, something glittered that was not teeth nor rolling viscera. His bones shrieked celebration, that familiar prickle of electric surge pulsed against his mind. Out! Escape! Screen! It gave him that last miniscule swell, coaxing him onward despite how his body ached to fail and be done.

    At his back, a sudden sound nearly launched him through the window. He whipped around and ducked, muscles tense. No walls. No eyes rolling. No dark unknowns....

    It’s only the Thin Man. At the far side of the room, the lank figure shifted on the short sofa seat he propped up in. Mono thought adults used beds, but the Thin Man seemed to prefer sitting. He tipped his head, hat slanting. Electric and distortions hummed pricked at the air of the cool, tiny room, giving him a creaking hurt. This made him mildly wary. He paced back and forth on the windowsill, eyes never leaving the murky corner.

    Before he’s certain at all, Mono dropped off the sill and hurried across the room. He skid under the bed and peeked out on the other side, studying the hunched silhouette as another jolt vibrated along his distorted outline. It is so-so critical that Mono be cautious as with be imperceptible. As he bided and observed with unwavering focus, Mono reached behind his head and rubbed at the scab behind his ear.

    Unsurprising, the Thin Man does not react when Mono clambered onto the couch cushions and sprang in close to his side. It was a bad fit. Not as alarming as the first, but the man in the hat was struggling. He climbed over the arms looped across the Thin Man’s waist, and perched on the chair's arm. The Thin Man was twitchy, face drawn into a grimace, teeth bared. It was scary. Mono wasn't sure if the Thin Man scared him more, or whatever haunting terror had snagged him. Nothing frightened adults....

    With every ounce of his strength, he pushed at the Thin Man’s upper arm. Even a dozen Mono’s wouldn’t have the strength to shift the man in the hat, but he wasn’t trying to jostle him awake. He dug his fingertips into the suit's knit and pulled back, heels digging into the couch arm. Like the way he tried to haul Her out of the television screen.

    It looks bad, but it’s not. A dream haunt. He’d seen worse.

  One time, he remembered Six had the absolute worst sort of dream haunt. The recollection was terrible, Mono didn’t like to revisit it. He wouldn’t have gotten so close to Her, because children dealt with the terrors of sleep on their own. It was best. Unless to shut someone up, otherwise, they didn’t linger on the nightmares. Done was done, don't die in the awake world. And also, it was taboo to dwell on all the ways they could die. Children that started doing warning speek of the things they saw in the haunts, they went off the deep end fast.

  But… she started screeching, and it sounded awful. Agonized. She never made speek like that, except that one... time. The haunting memories became so horrible, he had to stop her. When children cry in the night, they die. That was law. But it was the most horrendous haunt. It was like the monster in the dream was eating her bit-by-bit.

  In their scuffle she beat him up pretty good. They never fought like that – if they fought – it was never like that. When-if they fought, it was never to the point of killing the other. Not… like, the one .̷̣͛.̶͕͊.̶̬̑.̶͎̋T̸̯̅i̶̛̼m̷͉̚e̵͇̒. In the skirmish, she swiped for his bag a few times – something she never would ever do to him. It was brutal fight for survival, to the point of failure being certain death. Mono had to hold her down and throttle her out of it, she was going to get them found and killed.

  And she bit him good (again, something she almost never did to him). His sturdy coat saved him a debilitating injury, as such, she barely broke the skin. A persisting bruise lasted for a long time, along with a powerful ache. He never brought it up. She was upset and embarrassed, he thinks. If he tried do speek, it would have been strange to drag up the topic. It was gone, he was alright. Maybe she didn't remember.....

    "Hey," he hummed, a little louder than he meant to. "Aam got. T's has safe."

    When all the usual methods failed to break the Thin Man’s haunt, Mono scrambled to stand on one of the narrow arms and stood high enough to grip the Thin Man's collar. He slapped his hands against the chest, doing not much aside from agitate dust and static whistling. The man in the hat is totally out, otherwise he’d react to Mono’s proximity.

    "M'not leave," Mono wheezed. "Keep f'r watch. Make good. Psst? Have'gether. Got'y."

    The long arm beneath his toes twitched, and Mono nearly lost his balance. He tugged at the coat lapel, one foot braced to the Thin Man’s chest. This time he would be in the way and might get knocked aside. If he was careful, Mono was might only fall. Regardless the risk, it was harder to wait around and not do anything.

    At last, the Thin Man made a little clicking sound and the entire fiber of his being loosened. His head dipped, chin hitting his chest with an audible thump. The static on the air evaporated by a margin, to a more bearable haze. It wasn’t so piercing for Mono now.

    A little shaken but all right, Mono crept away from the Thin Man and slipped up to the chair’s arm. He sat and heaved out a deep sigh. Okay. Good. Rather chew on his bandage, he opted to gnaw splinters out of his palms. It was all good. That wasn’t too bad. Some had been worse. More jittery, the man in the hat stayed spooky and distorted.

    He’s not sure if his meager efforts helped. There wasn’t a real way to deal with the dreams, aside from ‘die’ in the nightmare and wake up. The lurking terrors hurt, and too much could be dangerous. Some kids lost their minds to them, drove them to desperation and insanity. He was fortunate he’d first smother himself dead than get to thrashing. Kept him alive this long.

    The window glistened, a soft twitter of rain pelted across the dingy glass. He couldn't see the Signal Tower from here, only when they went out into the roads. The man in the hat didn't like it to watch. Avoided it. But did look its way, when he thought Mono was not watch. He wouldn't venture too near it's area, but foods and stable places became difficult to secure. And the Viewers —

  “Mono?”

    He shot off the chair before the stark whir of static registered. The mattress breaks his fall but not by much, its so saturated and near calcified.

    “Shouldn’t play. You need to rest,” yawned the Thin Man.

  “Aam’watch,” Mono whispered. He dropped off the bed and returned to the broken table, which afforded a slope to the low windowsill. Only low enough for Mono to leap up to, the table was steep and he could only crawl up so far before he slid down the dusty surface. After a few tries, he reached the sill with a leap. “Y’sleep.”

  The Thin Man was exasperated. Not this rubbish again. How was he meant to pass those dragging listless hours if he wasn’t allowed to shut his eyes and disconnect from this abysmal world? This… counterproductive child. “Mono. Neither of us need to watch. It is safe.”

  The child tipped forward on the sill edge, as if ready to topple head and heels to the floor. “Not n’safe.”

  “I am not arguing this with you.” The Thin Man rubbed his eyes. “You have to sleep.” The child inclined his head towards him. “Do you understand safe? The danger here is in not getting enough sleep. You become careless, and get yourself beat up. And I am tired of that.”

    Mono glared at the floor below. “Hurt.” At last, he plopped of the windowsill and wandered the room over. Pacing past the dresser and sofa, before crawling under the mattress. The little head did pop out a fraction, peering up at him. “Watch? Safe for.”

  Put off, the Thin Man sighed. “Yes. I will watch. Now please, you. For the Eye, get some rest.” The shape flittered out of sight. An invading silence followed.

  The Thin Man pushed himself up from the sofa and went to the bedside. He bent all the way over to view where the child was, nestled up against the wall. One eye cracked beside the coat, watching him. “Would you be more comfort—” When he gripped the child around the sides, Mono ripped loose and scurried to the furthest corner of the bed. He gawked at the man in the hat, like he was an unsightly concoction of misaligned mannequin pieces. The Thin Man extended his hand under the bed, but only a ways.

  “Aren’t you cold? You can come here.”

  The response from Mono was curl into his coat more and stare silently at the Thin Man. The long arm withdrew.

  “Y̴̟͊o̴͇̚u̷̩͊ ̴̢͘Á̶̹r̷̲̚ḛ̸́ ̶͕̓A̵͙͝ ̶̦̃S̵̬̔ẗ̵̨́r̴͉a̶̺̅n̴̲̊g̸̳̒e̷̹̎ ̸̻Ǎ̷̯n̵̺͒d̵̟͠ ̵͎͝P̵͓͊e̶̙͘r̷̛̻p̴͓͘l̷̻̾e̸̯͒x̸͓͐i̵͈͌n̸̋͜g̶͈̐ ̸̨̚L̸͕͘i̴͓̓t̸͚̒t̶͍̐l̶̨̇e̴̻̅ ̴̙̈́C̵̟͗r̵̆ͅe̴̠a̷͓̓t̸̫̓u̵̱̾ṛ̴̈e̸̮͌.̴̹́” He rose from the floor and surged out, reappearing at the rooms sole entry. “Sleep then. I’ll watch. F̸̘̈́r̵̞͝o̶̭͊m̸̱͋ ̵̤̊O̵̩u̴̖̓t̴̘͝S̷̢̈I̶͈̕D̸̼̏Ė̶̯!̴͙̒” He slammed the door causing the window to crack and the walls to shudder. 

  Mono cringed under the bed in anticipation for getting hauled out. He's relieved that doesn't happen, but the Thin Man is leave. Will the Thin Man come back? What happened?

  The room was empty. He crawled out from beneath the bed, but leaned on the bent leg. In case. He just… tried to have a think. Should let man in the hat hold him? The Thin Man doesn’t like to bother with him, won’t let him be close unless for company. This confused Mono. Company is an awake game. No books or anything for the man in the hat. Then the leave, but Mono was awake. Follow? Was in to follow?

  He surveyed the room. Empty. The curling whir permeated, indicating the tall thin man was not quite leave. Not yet. Mono would’ve been okay. If the Thin Man didn’t watch, that might not be good. He hurt Mono without meaning to.

  Across the room stood the mostly standing television stand and dresser combination, the burnt husk of the television atop. The dresser stand has one drawer fitted in the bottom, which isn’t flattened entirely. It isn’t too difficult hauling the slot out, and it clattered flat to the floor. He can push it all the way over the dirty carpet and closer to the sofa side, where it’ll be hidden by the mattress. Once it is situated, he can go over to the windowsill and climb up the sloped table.

  He inched back and forth on the sill, searching for the intimidating silhouette. The static buzzed at his skin, the Thin Man was not gone, was wait Where! A swirl of thick vapor plows a clue right through his range, and he can see a bit more of the figure if he mushed his face into the glass. The man in the hat was waiting with his back to the door. He likely couldn’t see Mono.

  Nonetheless, Mono waved his arms in an animated fashion and stood up, also flashing the edges of his coat. Anything, but knocking on the glass. That wouldn’t be smart.

  By some good fortune, the Thin Man did catch a view of Mono, and shifted the glinting eye under the hat bill to view the child. The end of his cigarette gleamed.

  Mono fogged the glass and quickly etched in a good speek of the Thin Man. He kept fogging the glass, to keep the speek pronounced despite how dim it was. He looked from it to the Thin Man, and the figure outside only watched this playout. Unmoved. Mono… decided he didn’t like the way the Thin Man glared at him.

  With great care he eased down from the windowsill and snuck over to the drawer beside the sofa.

  Shouldn’t have done that. Stupid. If the Thin Man wanted to grab, then let. He won’t hurt. Dream haunt could’ve bothered him. It didn’t seem to, but the man in the hat pretended a lot of things did not bother. Except, he didn’t pretend to be okay with Mono. They went everywhere but reached nowhere. Too great a danger in stop. Though, he thinks the Thin Man wanted to not go anywhere anymore. He was always rest, seemed so spent. Dream haunts... they were hard.

  The relocated drawer had three walls, not a complete box, but it would do. He flopped into the bottom and tucked into a corner, with only his thoughts, pondering and puzzling. How to do better for the Thin Man? There had to be a foods even he would like. Something that interested the Thin Man, might be more appealing. Those stick things. Did he eat those? He didn’t know where they came from, or if he’d ever seen something like them anywhere.

  For the time, Mono can’t think of anything else. He’s too frazzled and weary. When they go back to the roads, he’ll try and find something, when he has a chance for scout. It was time to quiet his thoughts, and do half sleep. It feels good to rest. He dreams about the chair. It is there, sometimes in a flash of static of the television screens. Waiting. He appreciates how it does that.

  It is waiting for him, and that is very comforting. It’s a good feeling to be wanted.

Next

[taylorinthetardis]

My theory for how WandaVision will play out and what it means for the MCU as a whole

***SPOILERS WILL BE UNDER THE CUT, READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL***

*sorry if this doesn’t make a lot of sense, my brain is bad at having linear thoughts*

So. Since Agnes has revealed herself to be Agatha Harkness, and she’s been pulling the strings all along, here’s where I think they’re going with this.

I don’t think Agatha is of the normal MCU universe. I think she’s from either the same universe as Evan Peters’ Quicksilver (which is why we didn’t get normal MCU Pietro, but got X-Men Peter instead). She knew enough to know they were siblings, but didn’t know Pietro so she couldn’t conjur him/pull him from his timeline before he died to bring him to Westview. So she got the closest thing. Another thought I have is that Peter isn’t Peter and is actually either Mephisto in disguise or Agatha’s son Nicholas.

I also assume, given the comic book storyline that is being followed here, that she’s working with Mephisto and possibly the Salem Seven as well.

If the Salem Seven are involved, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dottie turns out to be one of its members. I also think she could be Clea, the guardian (Sorcereress Supreme) of the dark universe where Dormammu lives. She could have been pulled there through the Nexus and became unwittingly apart of Wanda’s fantasy.

I think the twins are probably gone for good, since in the comics they were killed when Mephisto came back for the shards of his soul that were used to make them. Agatha was shown to be behind a lot of things in Westview so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was behind Wanda giving birth to the twins as well, just like in the comics.

I also think this is going to end with either Vision being totally taken out of the picture or we’ll find out for sure that the twins are gone and/or dead or both of those things, and Wanda will completely snap, causing the Multiverse to become unstable and thus setting up the events of Doctor Strange 2 and probably Spider Man 3 as well.

So, how does this set up Doctor Strange 2 and how might this connect to Loki? Wanda is canonically known as a Nexus Being in the comics. This means that she had the ability to affect probabilities and, by extension, the future. Nexus Beings are keystones of the Multiverse and can affect its stability. What I believe is happening here is that Agatha is exploiting Wanda’s powers to affect the multiverse as a whole and possibly trigger its collapse. I think this is going to set up the so-called “Multiverse of Madness” by either bringing together the Nexus Beings from around the Multiverse, which would destabilize everything and cause a lot of chaos, or by manipulating the other Nexus Beings through Wanda (since Nexus Beings can astral project throughout the multiverse) and causing chaos in each separate universe that Doctor Strange will have to fix by travelling to multiple universes to put things back to rights. It’s also possible, like I mentioned above, that Wanda will become too overwhelmed with grief by the end of this and totally lose control of her powers, causing the Multiverse to become unstable/on the verge of collapse.

What does this have to do with Loki? Well, the Nexus Beings are watched over by both cosmic entities, like Uatu the Watcher and Immortus, but also the Time Variance Authority, or TVA. If you’ve seen the Loki trailer, you may remember that the group that Loki is either working for/with or being held captive by is the TVA. I think it’s possible that something (probably Wanda) is going to cause the timeline to destabilize and Loki will be trying to set things right, but because he’s Loki he’ll probably either make it worse or try and exploit it for his own gain. Either way it seems like it’s gonna be a fun watch.

Another note about WandaVision. So Paul Bethany said there’s one more big cameo that no one has guessed yet and he was super excited to do it because it was someone that he really admires and hadn’t gotten to work with yet in the MCU.

I think it’s Samuel L Jackson/Nick Fury.

So, stay with me on this one. So, when SHIELD was SHIELD, it wasn’t just SHIELD, it was also HYDRA. What if SWORD isn’t just SWORD? Two agencies operating under the guise of one, both with very different directives. What if the SWORD we’ve seen so far is actually just HYDRA or some other evil organization masquerading as SWORD? I believe that Maria Rambeau founded SWORD as an agency to deal with space-based stuff, since she has first hand knowledge that aliens are out there and they aren’t all friendly. But what if somewhere along the way SWORD was infiltrated? I think Nick Fury has been Talos longer than we think, maybe not the whole time he’s been in the MCU, but for a while. I think Maria sent him on the mission with the Skrull that we see in the end of Far from Home. But since Maria died, and Hayward took over running SWORD, things have been headed in a similar direction as when Pierce was running SHIELD. The bad guys are in control and are manipulating things to suit their own ends. That’s why Hayward was trying to bring Vision back online when Wanda took him. He was probably planning on using Vision as a weapon. I think Fury is gonna make it back to Earth and with Monica’s help, is going to take down whoever has infiltrated SWORD. It’s possible that this could be setting up Secret Invasion as well. In the comics that refers to the Skrulls because they shape shift, but we also saw in Captain Marvel that the Kree come in both blue humanoid and flesh colored humanoid forms. What if the Kree are the secret invaders and are trying to take over Earth as revenge for the events of Captain Marvel? Hayward and other SWORD members could be Kree pretending to be humans, biding their time until a major attack/overthrow of humanity would be possible.

The setup to a Multiverse story is super fun to see, anyone who is also a fan of the CW’s Arrowverse knows that all too well. The chances for fan service moments and call backs to previous films and shows that are not generally considered part of that specific universe are numerous. We could see old Spider-Men! We could see both Fantastic Fours! You could, conceivably, have Chris Evans on screen as both Captain America and Human Torch, while also having Michael B Jordan as another Human Torch and Killmonger! Both timelines in the X Men universe could be represented! You can bring in the Defenders, the Agents of SHIELD, the Inhumans! Miles Morales and the various Spider People from the Spider-Verse! The possibilities are numerous once you start talking Multiverse. It basically just comes down to who is feeling up for a role reprisal.

I’m stoked to see where this ends up taking us. I can’t wait for the rest of Phase 4 and beyond!

[unaskedformagnustheories]

UNASKED FOR MAGNUS THEORY #6: EXTINCTION IS COMING (AND HELEN WILL BE THE ONE TO OPEN THE DOOR)

If the title didn’t make it readily apparent, this post contains speculation on MAG Season 5. Please do not read if you haven’t made it to 160 in the pod. There be spoilers ahead.  We good?  All the new offerings listeners gone? 

Alright!  To my dearest Red-Stringers, I know it’s been a minute. I’ve been gearing up to this one for a while. Teased it on discord, even, but I’ve put off sharing, because this might be the theory I’m most attached to. Seriously, half the other ones on here are rambles at best (an exercise in futility at worst), I'm tired of letting this one collect dust, and want to share with you folks before I lose my nerve.  The short of it? I suspect the birth of The Extinction is still a threat in this post-apocalyptic world. I believe Elias’ ritual was just a stepping stone along the path, and Adelard Dekker and Peter Lukas were looking in the wrong place when they assumed this new power would be born from The End. Instead, I think The Spiral has been has been laying out the red carpet from the start with Distortion’s help, and The Archivist’s a little foolish for not questioning whether or not the apocalypse could get worse.  While I’ve been wary of Helen for a while (as lovely as Imogen Harris is), I have to admit the seed for this train of thought was planted by Simon Fairchild in MAG 151: 

“Peter seems convinced that the Extinction is different, that its actual birth will be as bad - or worse - as another power fully manifesting. He believes its advent will be heralded by all sorts of disasters, and catastrophes, and global upheavals, and whatnot. That kind of thing”

Upheavals? Catastrophes? Seems a fitting description for an escalating few decades worth of failed rituals, wouldn’t you say? Even Adelard Dekker mused in his last correspondence with Gertrude “perhaps the birth of such things is longer and more complicated than I believed” (MAG 157). It could even include an eyepocalypse on the way to greatness, and I don’t think it coincidence a familiar set of corridors has been on the sidelines munching popcorn for most of the story so far. One of the first descriptions we get of Michael is through a distorted window pane in Sasha James’ apartment building, the glass warped like a “funhouse mirror” (MAG 26). This description is echoed in A New Door when Helen Richardson describes the paintings in Michael’s corridors “each distorted [him] differently, like a selection of funhouse mirrors”. Curious then, isn’t it that one of Adelard Dekker’s statements regarding The Extinction tells the tale of a man who stepped from our world into a horrifying, inhuman reality via a very similar pathway? While the mirror world in Magnus 156 - Reflection isn’t usually tied to The Spiral (from what I’ve seen around the fandom) I would argue the funhouse aspect and the maze imagery should make us reconsider. That being said, I’d like to draw your attention specifically to the three odd mirrors this unfortunate dark tourist finds: 

1. “expanded him into a short, squat reflection”  2.  “bent him out of shape”  3. “squeezed him, made him thin and gaunt, and that was the one which took him” 

Is it just me, or do the first two distorted goldilocks mirrors remind anyone else an awful lot of The Maker of Clay “short and squat, with knobbly bare arms that seemed to reach down almost to his knees” and The Distortion (do I really need to explain why? ha, you folks have been listening to the same show I’ve been listening to). Is it such a reach to imagine that the third mirror represents a facet of The Spiral that’s still marinating? Biding its time until full emergence. Have we forgotten already that Extinction-prophet Garland Hillier left a warning telling us that “the door is the door” after presumably losing himself in an alternate Paris full of inhuman inheritors so twisted that the researcher who accidentally followed him couldn’t even put into words how terrifying the creatures that come after humanity are (MAG 134)? Or is The door THE DOOR, and we should really be more concerned about her machinations.  It’s not exactly news the Distortion’s motivations have been foggy from the start. In the very beginning Michael told Sasha he didn’t care if she and her friends at The Archives lived or died. And yet he hung around treating their handling of The Unknowing like it was a spectator sport. Then when he became she, Helen stayed around the Institute to offer ‘help’, but happily denied Jon assistance when he came asking for an ally before entering the panopticon. Post-apocalypse? Martin’s not the only one who’s noticed she’s gleefully getting “worse”, and I can’t help but get the sense she’s not riding the chaos so much as riding the tide of a plan finally coming to fruition. Thriving.

It could explain (if we assume The Spider is working to re-establish the world that was) why The Distortion was so intent on getting into Hill Top Road when it was torturing Marcus MacKenzie (MAG 146). When approaching the house, Marcus remembers feeling the door’s playfulness disappear as “a cold hunger” set in “as though [he] had no right to just stand there looking at it. The street was silent, but [he] could feel it screaming at [him] to open it”. Was The Distortion aware that the time-warp house might be the only real threat to Extinction’s birth and wanted to cut it off at the head? I know I’m spiraling into conjecture a little, but this post could turn into a novella if I didn’t. I just think it would be a great twist if while we’re focusing on Elias as the big bad something worse could be lurking in the shadows, and Helen seems like the most likely candidate. Elias had his villain moment. His arc (while not complete) felt like it reached its zenith at the end of Season 4. Tell me it doesn’t sound like a Jonny Sims bait and switch to have our intrepid heroes deal with ‘The King of the Ruined World’ only to find out he was the least of their worries. 

Random, but if this theory holds any weight, I wonder (with the whole through-line that the fears are inextricably tied to humanity), if Gertrude accidentally helped Extinction’s ascension by feeding Michael to The Distortion. It seems horribly fitting that if in trying to stop one ritual she lay the groundwork for a power so disgusted by its own existence it had to become something else. Something with the potential to raze things to the ground even further and build an entirely new world unrecognizable to those that came before. 

I’d like to leave you with one last (and arguably weakest) point. Ha, but if that’s not proof I do this for fun, I don’t know what is. This isn’t an essay. It’s me rambling, and if you’ve come along this far I appreciate you as a human. All the same, I’d like to draw your attention to episode 99 - Dust to Dust. The statement regards a town in Oklahoma that was built on a lie, a storm that felt like the end of the world, and a man named Stefan Brotchen who became something inhuman during the course of events. While Gertrude mentions that the town’s foundation reminds her of The Spiral, she ultimately admits that The Buried more likely stands to be the entity at play. However the prevailing reality of fear soup doesn’t negate the possibility that something else could be in the works too. Something that starts with an ‘e’ and ends in ‘xtinction’. I’d also like to put these two descriptions side by side: 

“Stefan Brotchen was, to all appearances, much the same as any other Okie farmer: strongly built, with a mess of short, curly, blond hair and a round, smiling face. But his eyes were different. There was… something there. I-I was never quite sure what, but they had a depth, a quiet intensity to them that struck me the first time I saw him.

“He was tall, maybe six and a half feet? And he had long, straw-coloured hair that fell onto his shoulders in loose ringlets. His face was round and unthreatening” (MAG 47, The New Door) 

Funny that at the end of that statement a very human Michael Shelley interrupts. Like I said. Could be nothing...or it could be the kind of move a certain horror writer likes to play which’ll make you want to bang your head on a desk for not seeing that maybe Extinction has been hanging around longer than anybody noticed. Maybe it’s been a part of The Distortion all along. Maybe it merged with it’s sib during the ritual at Sannikov Land, and has slowly been splintering since. 

All I know is we have no idea what Michael looked like pre-transformation. We just have a voice on a tape. And Helen is up to something.