#who only know WASP shit and “struggles”

[kcdodger]

Oh no I hear ya' this pisses me off immensely too. For different reasons but just declaring everything under North Carolina, "UN Controlled Magastan" is some serious yankee bullshit!! First off derisively using "Stan" to hearken towards Islamophobia, second off deciding that once again the south is evil when quite... fucking frankly it's always yanks deciding the entirety of America is evil. It's 2:37 and maybe I'm out of line for my admittedly colonialist VS. colonialist complaint but I'm so tired of the fuckers who benefit the most from American Imperialism deciding that the nation they stole from the natives and lord over the rest of the world can just be thrown away wantonly

"*X country* should colonize the US! Please nuke the US!"

You all will do anything to not give us our land back huh

[slocumjoe]

Companions on social media

Cait; Posts gym thirst traps and videos of her working out or getting into fistfights. Can be found in the comments and DMs of women, gay or otherwise. Lots of activity in sobriety and self-help communities. Doesn’t have a lot of followers, but does fundraiser streams for a week every three months she's sober. The money goes to child abuse prevention foundations. Her most recent charity streams had her trying to get all achievements on Just Dance after someone donated 10k requesting it.

Codsworth; self-help videos for people struggling to take care of themselves. How to tidy up, how to take effective breaks, what needs to be cleaned in a house and what supplies you need...very useful, very popular with college students and teens. Once posted a video of him going at wasps with a chainsaw and gained a million subs overnight.

Curie; children's educational YouTube channel that's, somehow, more popular with young adults. Science experiments gone wrong. Think Jackass and Mythbusters hosted by a tiny French woman who approaches everything with the joy and whimsy of My Little Pony. Her most popular videos are her 100k subscriber specials, a series where she goes ghost and cryptid hunting to disprove them and demonstrate the fraudulence you can find behind such things.

Danse; has a Facebook for work purposes. It has a profile photo only because Haylen insisted. Fears the internet deeply, thinks its the closest humanity can get to staring into the void and seeing something blink. Unbeknownst to him, there's a viral video of him teaching a workout regimen to trainees. The comment sections are pure thirst. All of his coworkers know and made an oath to never speak of it.

Deacon; Is the one who snuck into training and got that video. Posted it to r/NextFuckingLevel with 🥵🥵🥵 for a caption. Owns several large meme accounts, all with distinct personalities and lives. Someone tried to dox him after suspicions, but found all accounts had different IPs and info. He's just that good. His Facebook changes profile photo every. Single. Day. He consumes an absurd amount of audio books. Drops CRAZY money on charity streams to make the host do weird shit, like 100% Just Dance. Probably sells feet pics.

Dogmeat; The internet's darling. Nick Valentine's dog who doesn't help with catching bad guys, but with far more important things; Dogmeat cuddles and plays with victims at the scene or in court. Also trained in search and rescue. Much of Dogmeat's page is just Nick sharing important information (hotlines, self-defense, survival tips, et cetera) while petting or playing with Dogmeat. Kind of a McGruff the Crime Dog vibe.

Gage; Facebook that he uses to cyberbully cop pages and Craigslist to offer his...unconventional services (pretending to be your boyfriend at family gatherings to cause drama). His pet lizard, an Argentine Tegu, has an Instagram with 3k followers. The Tegu often wins pet competitions and Gage posts the awards captioned with 🖕🏻💚🦎💚🖕🏻. Works at an amusement park, posts tell-all confessions on Reddit.

MacCready; Facebook with friends and family, posts a lot of Duncan. His YouTube history is videos for Duncan. Lots of Curie's videos. Mac has a Craigslist and LinkedIn, does odd jobs when he isn't working as a security guard at a shooting range. Activite in communities about comics, shows, and video games. Sometimes he'll post a theory about a show or comic and he's usually right. Really enjoys the meltdowns of fandoms when the media takes a nasty turn, even if he's also betrayed.

Nick; Ellie runs Dogmeat's page, Nick just does the talking. As for Nick himself, has some pages for his work (that Ellie also manages) and a Facebook profile to stay in touch with friends and family. Much like Danse, consumes media offline—except for poetry. Most of his screen time is spent on Poetry.com, one of those people that leave comments. He likes how the internet makes information and art accessible. Very peaceful and wholesome internet time.

Hancock; The void that Danse is scared of. Also does streams, but not only for fundraisers. Streams high. Streams himself trying to find his way back to his apartment late at night. Always end up in a fast food joint, trying to convince the workers to unionize. Twitter shitposter until a politician needs cyberbullying. Organizes protests. Extremely active in Massachusetts' political scene, his fans are a force to be reckoned with. Has fistfought his own fans before. Occasionally cancels himself to prove a point. Makes mock apology videos whenever another celeb/influencer fucks up.

Preston; Park ranger and community organizer. Uses Facebook and TikTok to appeal to all ages. Is unfairly good at TikTok dances. Posts safety tips, upcoming event information, etc. Does a lot of work with Dogmeat and Nick. Posts bodycam footage of him arresting people, like shutting down fire-themed gender reveal parties, or poachers. Not a lot of followers, but the bodycam footage goes viral on subreddits like r/Instant_Karma.

Piper; a journalist and blogger. Posts videos of her political rants and makeup/hair routine. Joins Hancock in politician cyberbullying. Makes commentary essays and videos, sometimes book reviews. Appears on podcasts. Her media presence is decently known, but mild. She tries to keep herself distant from it. Despite this, has a good-sized following who appreciate the lack of parasociality. Her most famous video is her trying to find the best coffee spots in Boston.

X6-88; security guard for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who got stuck running the Twitter when the last guy got arrested on weed charges. Piper keeps DMing for an interview and he keeps blocking her accounts. He has LinkedIn for work. Half of it is redacted and involves NDAs. No other media presence except for one thing; he's an infamous esports cryptid. Across a few different shooter games, a high-rank player called X6-88 (its just his first initial and the numbers on his security badge) fucking curbstomps everyone in the match. He has never died or missed a shot. Never speaks in chat, never in team chat. He's a legend among gamers. For him, he's just relaxing on a Friday night, keeping his senses sharp. Doesn't realize there are compilation videos of streamers raging at him.

[vanosslirious]

BBS Dialogue Prompts: #381

BBS & Frouse Prompts and Sentence Starters: [ 8 ]

SMII7Y

It's the same guy!

It's inside the car!

At least you get to live to do another one, until you successfully do it.

I'm excited for this round, boys.

That's the best way to play it, bro.

Are you trying to manifest this?

Shut up, bro, I'm gonna kiss you on the mouth!

That's seconds after you slapped me in the face.

How did that not hit you?

Guy's we're getting distracted, the true foe is winning!

I'm practically on fucking welfare right now, give me something.

These guys are struggling down here.

Did I just get hit by a rock, what the hell was that?

I think we should go in here.

You are dead, you are absolutely dead.

There's still so many of them.

I think from here, it only gets worse.

That's not the guy we need to fight.

Oh shit, he summoned minions.

You look so goofy when you're doing that.

ELASTICDROID

Alright, where's my hug at?

Feeling kinda peachy today.

Wait, where's my squad at?

I'm the most irrelevant one here, leave me alone!

Patience is a virtual.

Nope, I'm still in, bro.

You're all getting banned.

Fear him!

Wait, drinking and driving?!

Hell nah, I'd block ya from my real life.

BLARG

Hold up, I'm pretty sure these one's blow up.

Why did I follow the frog?

She never even loved you.

I'm the onset photographer.

It's okay, we'll live with it.

That's it, I'm playing my violin poorly.

Hold on, there's a fellow slug.

I'm gonna shoot it in the head for being a slug.

You guys are like wasps.

There's a frog here, who is this?

BIGPUFFER

Damn, motherfucker, you moved it out of the way.

Stop throwing shit!

I'll try to come find the phone, who else is up there, I saw someone…

I'm over the nail gun.

It has no ammo!

I know, I've noticed, I'm just trying to keep ya'll away from me.

I think we're both dead here.

What's the fucking point, dude?

My camera broke!

Okay, no need to yell at me!

TERRORISER

I'm sick and tired of it.

He's been here for twenty minutes.

I've been slow to get my shit to work.

Get your party hats!

Yeah, you need teammates.

You scared the shit out of me!

I was so close!

Yeah, can you see me flipping you off?

He was a chair.

You gotta admit, that was a good spot!

MOO

It's really not that good.

I got a key.

Don't vote for me

This is not riled up, this is me losing my will to live.

People believe you when you say that!

It's not believable, that's the thing.

I have so much free time.

We have to just survive!

Get out of the way.

Jump down.

NOGLA

No, that's too fucking noisy.

How did you get it working?

Do you guys think this is good enough to wedge the hole?

Dude, this just doesn't fucking fit right, man.

Are we all innocent, all four of us?

Stay in the dark, don't move.

Okay, I was just defending myself.

What I'm about to say, everyone should listen too.

This is a self-report, don't ask me why, I just know.

Just take the fucking L!

VANOSSGAMING

That's a weird looking cat.

Wrong spell, hold on!

No, you're a cat!

He's gonna show us something violent!

There's no match to bet on yet.

Don't you fucking lose it all again using it on the damn slot machines.

Am I hearing gunshots?

I keep thinking they're dying.

Are we there yet?

We must stop the drug train.

[idksomethingclever99]

So, perhaps this is a hot take, but I think that the Grimm from RWBY are a bigger threat to humanity than the Titans from Attack on Titan. Now, admittedly, I haven't even finished Season 1 of Attack on Titan, so perhaps I'm jumping the gun, but my sister has seen more of it, and she said I was raising a fair point, so I will now spread it here. Also, don't ask why I even thought of this in the first place, I don't know either.

So, the Titans in Attack on Titan are just giant people who, yeah they're strong, but I'm thinking most of that comes from proportions. They also struggle against stone walls to the point where they need these two special bigger, stronger Titans to fuck said walls up. Humanity also has basic ass cannons, shitty swords with clip-on blades, and gas propelled grappling hooks. Titans also have regeneration and can only really be killed by cutting into the back of their necks.

In RWBY, meanwhile, the Grimm are mostly just shadowy animals with bone armor (Beowulfs are wolves, Beringal are gorilla, Ursa are bears, etc.), so on that front, they don't seem that bad. However, they also have ghosts, dragons, kaiju, zombies that rob you of the will to live simply by existing near you, giant scorpions, giant ravens that can shoot their feathers like bullets, giant wasps with harpoon stingers, boars that can do a Sonic Spindash, and more. Not only that, but Hunters/Huntresses in RWBY have superpowers, minor force fields, guns, the use of steel, more diverse weapons, RPGs and grenades, airships, and one kingdom (Atlas) even has an entire goddamn robot army and mechas. Not only that, but also on the side of humanity are the Faunus (technically), who are basically humans but with a few animal features, like night vision, heightened hearing, gills, wings, and more, depending on what kind of Faunus any given Faunus is. With all of that said, however, humanity and the Faunus are still losing. They have all of this extra shit but they're still getting their asses kicked by shadow demons and whatever other nightmare Salem thinks up. Oh yeah, the Grimm are also being led by an IMMORTAL WITCH with REAL ASS MAGIC! So, yeah, I'm not sure who's in charge of the Titans (if they even have a leader), but I'm just going out on a limb here and guessing that THEY CAN AT LEAST STILL BE KILLED!

I don't know, your thoughts?

[hegrowth]

🚩 🚩🚩TEA. SPILL. NOW.

send me a 🚩 and i'll share my unpopular rpc opinions and hot takes. || accepting

oof ya'll we are in for it now. it's time... for puffin's hot take on softblocking. because yes I am and always will be salty about this shit, come fucking fight me and my anxiety-ridden existence.

firstly. I softblock inactive and archived blogs. I think that's chill. but I also always say I'm doing that, so in the event I accidentally softblock someone I didn't mean to and they check my blog like ??? they'll see that post and be like ah okay, it was a mistake.

now. for the love of fuck, why do people say they softblock when unfollowing folks in their rules but also state they do not want to be contacted if they unfollow you ? this is why I have anxiety. like, if you're gonna get offended every time someone messages you to make sure it wasn't an accident or glitch just block people.

and yeah, that is probably where 90% of my anxiety comes from, and why I struggle to reach out to people. because me, popping into someones DMs to make sure it wasn't a mistake gave them the ick and they decide to vague about me or block me anyway. grow the fuck up. and stop assuming the worst about people !

because you know what ? your self-righteous "ew don't talk to me after cutting you off" like tumblr isn't a glitching hellsite / mobile tumblr isn't an accidental thumb-swish away from deleting your blog is not friendly to your neurodivergent followers who struggle to understand situations and approach people.

because being disgusted by someone's genuine concern is shitty. if I come to you like, hey... it's because I noticed, and it mattered to me, and I managed to overcome the anxiety telling me everyone secretly hates me. you being rude about it isn't sexy, and it isn't cool. like, good for you. you're no longer being haunted by my lame ass.

listen. I understand that anxiety exists, obviously. but if that whole situation up top gives you anxiety then you should just block people. and also, if you are softblocking folks but aren't comfortable with them contacting you about it ??? copypastas bitch. a simple "hey, thanks for reaching out ! I did mean to softblock you, nothing personal, just please don't contact me anymore or follow me." goes a long fucking way, because if they then choose to keep pushing it ? you've set your boundaries, they're the asshole now, not you.

because the sentiment I see a lot is "I don't owe you an explanation" and I agree with that 10,000% !! do not come to me asking about why I blocked you or your friend or whatever else, I will not tell you, I do not have to tell you. but re: the copypasta I provided above ? no reasons, just facts. the only explanation you do owe someone is a clarification of the situation, aka setting your boundaries. no one needs to know why those boundaries are being set, in fact I fucking applaud you for setting them, but you do need to communicate that those boundaries are there.

SOFTBLOCKING ISNT ENFORCING A CLEAR BOUNDARY. softblocking is a petty ass way to rid yourself of someone. the metaphor I often see used is its the equivalent of scooping up a spider in your house on a piece of paper and putting it outside. I don't know about ya'll, but when I'm removing a critter from my home that I do not want in it I am actively talking to it and explaining the situation, even if it doesn't understand me, because I want it to know I mean it no harm and please don't come back. guys, no fucking joke, I wished a wasp a merry fucking christmas when I had to remove it from my house because I felt so bad my cat had been torturing it. wasps probably don't celebrate christmas !

point being, I communicate my boundaries to the spiders I'm taking out of my house like they're going to respect them. ya'll should do the fucking same. grow up. we all have anxiety. we all struggle to understand and accept certain social environments and interactions, especially online. we're all doing our best.

don't be a fucking asshole if you softblock someone and they want to make sure it was purposeful. in fact, don't be an asshole to anyone. there is no valid reason to be an asshole to anyone in the rpc, jfc.

also yes, if you softblock me I will block you, because I do not have the mental endurance to deal with the "they hate me" monologue spiraling through my silly little brain. because too many times I have experienced scorn and disgust and hate at being reached out to about softblocking and that has cemented in my brain, more than the anxiety it was a mistake. like just fucking block me, then.

so like. either don't softblock folks or grow up and communicate your boundaries, idk. and don't be an asshole, as previously stated.

this probably doesn't make any sense and has errors in logic / rationale but it's my anxious, frustrated ramblings so fuck it

final thoughts: please don't softblock me ! thanks

[jennrypan]

if you can write chloe redemption arc what will it be like

Ohhohoh. Ok.

Basically.

Have Chloe act the same in Season 1, during the beginning of season 2 give hints on what her home life is like and her inner struggles/fears of being accepted but everytime its acknowledged have her cover it up and get defensive. Like keep all of her little moments, (the bear, the party etc. Keep it!!)

Then at the end introduce Audrey and at first its just a "Oh shes a bitch thats where Chloe gets it from, obviously" type of thing, like it just seems like Chloe is acting like her mom, have Marinette make that observation and have ADRIEN slightly glare at Audrey and just grumble how 'Shes not just mean to people she thinks arent fashionable' and ofc Marinettes confused and stumbles to ask him what he means but he just smiles and waves it off cuz its not his place to tell, he just didnt think she'd hear him.

Fast forward and we see how Audrey treats Chloe, we see how Andre instead of being a parent just throws presents and shit at Chloe instead of talking to his wife, instead of telling his daughter that doing these things arent good..you see WHY she acts like this, and then have her snag the Bee Miraculous the same way, and since she idolizes Ladybug soo much she wants to be hero, thinks itll finally make her exceptional, so she takes it.

Everything plays out the same as Queen Bees debut, she does the train thing, and LB and Chat are annoyed and pissed cuz why and shes just so excited and telling them she finally did something good, shes finally worthy of something and Ladybug still acts annoyed but Chat knows Chloe so he gets why shes suddenly so excited and impulsive (her mothers back and she wants her to pay attention to her) and obviously LB has to take the bee back, but Chats the one who talks her down especially after Audrey publicly humiliated her, and Chloe hesitates but Chat reassures her that she'd be a good hero, just not right now and to maybe not make anymore run away trains, (he says this jokingly and she gives a smidgen of a smile) even Ladybug pats her shoulder to try and make her feel better and Chloe just nods.

Now we fully know how much Audrey AND Andre suck, and why Chloe acts the way she does, it doesnt excuse it but it explains and

DO NOT HAVE MARINETTE TALK TO AUDREY AND CHLOE!!!! Marinette has no idea what havin an abusive parent is like!! She should not have given her two cents in the matter!!

Instead have Adrien talk to her! He grew up with her, he knows what havin a shitty parent is like and he also wants her to be nicer, he already thinks shes exceptional and they have a heart to heart and she promises to be a little nicer, starting with Sabrina

And season 3 you see her bein nicer to Sabrina, protecting her, shes not going out of her way to make snide comments or even insult Marinette..but problems arent fixed over night, her mother is still shitty and shes still stuck with them and the feeling of not mattering..and Ladybug not given her pollen even when the bee would be useful (not salt to LB, she has reasons to not trust chloe) and Hawkass and Mayora decide to manipulate Chloe at her lowest, make it seem like Ladybug doesnt like her and make it seem like theyre the only ones who do

She tries to resist but she gets akumatized into Queen Wasp, everything plays out the same but when shes deakumatized, shes devasted and shes angry (shes angry at herself for getting akumatized but she lashes out at Ladybug cuz she thinks Ladybug is gonna hate her even more and berate her so she beats her to the punch, obviously Ladybug wasnt going to do that, but Chloes spiralling and she just storms off)

Alright this is getting long lmao--

Just..have Chloe show remorse and try and change, make her emotions make sense instead of just..not acknowledging them, and stop giving Andre a pass!! He has a big hand in raising Chloe just as much as Audrey, even more so cuz he actually raised her and he was never a parent, he doesnt get a pass cuz hes oh so big sad he cant be some movie director, (we hate Andre and Audrey in this house)

And have Adrien interact with her more!! As Adrien and as Chat, thats his childhood best friend cmon!! He knows what Audreys like, he knows what having an abusive parent is like!

And if we MUST include Zoe, make her Chloes cousin (it makes sense with the timeline and doesnt make her mom a cheating cheater.) And itd hurt more if someone who wasnt even her daughter gets more love from Audrey than Chloe does, up the angst!

Boom. Astruck, give me Chloe, Ill treat her better

[rayclubs]

Hi I would like to request the dissertation on "What's it called, Engie?" please <3

FUCK YEAH there's so much shit going on in that fic, if I wrote it a bit more competently it could have been a masterpiece, thank you for letting me brag about it, let's fucking go.

So I already explained how the trees/bees metaphor works throughout the whole fic and I'm not gonna do it again, but, believe it or not, it's not the only metaphor the fic is built on. Another one is spiders, which represent negative thoughts, fears, trauma, or even - in a segment - a malevolent outside force. Unlike the trees-bees metaphor which gets its resolution at about midway through the fic, when Soldier accepts Engie's affection, the spiders theme NEVER resolves, and the closest the characters ever come to it is saying "I don't know" and leaving it be. That is completely intentional. By the end of the fic, while the characters have grown as individuals and as a pair, the negative elements of their lives don't disappear. They're there, they're gonna be there, it's not the kind of story where things simply get better, it's a story about people who get better at managing them.

Another detail that's really good is Engie's sense of order and rationality. In the beginning, Soldier's presence is a distraction, making him drop a tool when he gets caught off guard by a loud noise. Later on it becomes a comfort, he sees Soldier and immediately gets his thoughts in order, remembers where he'd put a pencil he couldn't find earlier. Then his sense of security and normalcy is challenged during a battle. By the end of the story it is restored into a new normalcy, where Soldier's company is constant and expected.

ANOTHER THEME that I think is fucking awesome is names. The story alternates between Soldier's and Engie's POVs, and you can easily tell because Engie thinks in titles ("Soldier", "Engineer") and Soldier thinks in names ("Jane", "Dell").

Well, if you look at what they actually CALL each other, you'll see that Engie says both "Soldier" and "Jane", demonstrating that he is comfortable and secure in their interpersonal dynamic, while Soldier DOESN'T say "Dell", because he views their relationship as more distant than it really is, and inadvertently puts that distance there himself because he is emotionally unintelligent and it places a great weight on all his social interactions.

When he does say "Dell" eventually, it's treated as something unusual, and is a growing moment for him. He actually gets to explain his way of thinking ("you call me Jane all the time", invoking a sense of fairness, something very natural for him to think of in this context), AND he makes sure to leave the matter open in case Engie has any objections ("I won't call you Dell if you don't want me to", as in, look, he doesn't register social clues so he learned to be more direct in letting other people set boundaries, and has become more confident as a result). It's fuckin. Growth, man.

As a side note, I was re-reading the fic and remembered I described Engie's eyes as "honey-brows" which. BEE IMAGERY. A.

I'm actually terrified of bees, I dunno if it's a phobia or just a strong fear but I stepped on a wasp nest accidentally as a kid and haven't been the same since. I dunno how I wrote bee imagery in a positive light. Like, I have a separate original work in progress where a horror villain is portrayed using bee (and wasp and hornet) imagery as a tool of creating an absolutely disgusting and terrifying presence. I do NOT vibe with bees. The ghost of a beekeeper briefly possessed me to write this fic.

BUT YOU KNOW WHAT MY FAVORITE THING ABOUT IT IS??? The reception. Throughout the fic Soldier struggles to explain his emotions and uses analogy instead. Happiness is yellow, sunny, cornflakes, air balloons. Well, if you go to the comments of the fic, there are people saying they "can't put their thoughts into words" and explaining it like Soldier does. There's yellow heart emojis, mentions of air balloons, cats, back when the fic came out some people sent me asks literally saying "I don't know how to say this so I will say it like Soldier"... It's!!! So heart-warming to me!!! I struggle with emotional awareness too and metaphors are a huge part of how I process that (which is why I write metaphors so good bro just trust me), and me projecting my own experience onto a character I think would have a similar issue, and then seeing people adopt the same "tactic" I give to said character to help him navigate his world? It just makes me want to keep writing. It's why I do it. It's everything.

P. S. Forgot to mention how gay Heavy and Medic are in the background. They go on a date in Teufort and then Medic explains love to Soldier by letting him hold Archimedes in his hand. Homosexual behavior. Me and who

[illarian-rambling]

💙💜 and 💖 :D

💙- What would your character be doing if they hadn't gone through what the have?(Don't play with me I know they're probably traumatized)

This one's tough because a lot of bad things that happened to my characters eventually made them better people

Izjik: If she was never End-Made-Flesh, she would've stayed with her enclave, content to hunt the swamps of N'Diki and occasionally war with humans.

Sepo: If Saius was never executed, Sepo would've remained a Singer-Priest. Since he never got tossed into the Trench, he would've never met Izjik, so he would never have realized that surface people are sentient. He would've become a true terror of the seas, murdering sailors by the hundreds in the name of Lamsara Hedandros.

Twenari: If her father had found out about her earlier and had taken her to be raised among the Devaris family, she would've never had the trauma of being her mother’s living weapon. She would've acted much more like a kid, and her sorcery would be even more improved since she'd be living among sorcerers. She would have a strong distaste for violence.

Djek: If there had never been a famine in Fayuki, and his family never tossed him out to cut down on mouths to feed, he would've remained in the factory slums. I think he'd end up in the criminal world anyways, as factory work would be too boring for him, but it'd be a local gang, rather than the Tunnel Wasps. Since he never ended up on the street, fighting for his life, I doubt he'd ever learn he's a sorcerer.

Astra: If her family had been rich enough to pay for her schooling, she would've been a rune scribe of unparalleled drive. She wouldn't have been instilled with as strong a sense of universal dignity without her struggles, so I think she'd be a much less moral person. Not gonna lie, she'd probably go down that mad scientist slide pretty quick.

Mashal: If he never got kidnapped by Vermir, he would've remained a knight of Sulu'Oku, his duty being to protect the travelers of the road from bandits and other misfortune. I think he would've been happy to do this for the rest of his days without moving any higher up the military ranks.

Ivander: This one's a little tricky, but I think his least trauma-filled path would've been if his mother, who ran away when he was eight, had taken him with her back to her people on the Flying City. Idrin was a wealthy merchant, so she would've trained Ivander to take her place. He would've been a prince of merchants, traveling the Planar Wheel and trading with all manor of strange folk. No curse would've ever come his way.

💜- How many languages does your character speak?

Izjik: Janazi (the human language), Sepo’s sign language, and Halawema’ishi (the halawemavira language). She can only speak these though, she can't write. Halawema'ishi doesn't even have a written component.

Sepo: Janazi, Halawema’ishi, his personal sign language, and Llanaodan (the siren language). He can write Llanaodan and later in book 2, learns to write Janazi too.

Twenari: Janazi, Halawema’ishi, Sepo’s sign language, Skasi City dialect of Nabafyrian elvish, and Skysheerian elvish.

Djek: Janazi, Sepo’s sign language, and Halawema’ishi, but only the swear words.

Astra: Janazi and a few words in the Tetrapi dialect of Nabafyrian elvish.

Mashal: Janazi and Skysheerian elvish.

Ivander: Janazi and a few words in Kevete.

💖- Who's your character's best friend if they have one? What makes them work so well?

Izjik and Sepo are ride or die besties. They tend to refer to each other as siblings, so close is their bond. Both have an equal ability to talk shit and dish it out. Sepo makes up for Izjik’s proclivity towards willing ignorance with his scholarly nature, while Izjik brings out Sepo’s sense of empathy. They forgive each other's failings and compliment the other's strengths. I would say they're the closest thing to soulmates I've ever written.

Twenari and Djek are mentor and student, little sister and older brother. She teaches him magic, he teaches her how to survive middle school without being awkward as hell. While they might have very different personalities, Djek has always taken it upon himself to look out for the younger girl in a social and emotional sense. He's the one who taught her how to do eyeliner and took her out for ice cream when she had a bad day. In the same vein, Twenari never looks down on Djek for his shoddy magic, but instead praises how cunningly he uses the spells he does have. It's some much needed praise for the man.

Astra and Mashal are sort of the first friends either of them have had. Astra was alone on the road for many years, while Mashal lost his memories after his Event. They love talking to each other and, for once, having someone else who listens. They encourage each other to be better people. Even though they have their differences, they're both in awe of the other. The feelings between them definitely start as platonic, but are steadily sliding towards romantic.

Ivander’s best friend is his detective partner, Ceyrel. They didn't like each other at first when they were assigned to work together (Ivander is the snobby son of nobility and Ceyrel grew up poor and angry), but they found a mutual love of shit-stirring to bond them together. They're both unrepentant gossips, have PhDs in being haters, and have no sense of shame about these things. Ivander has always defined their relationship as just work friends. However, in his heart, Ceyrel means much more to him than he'd ever have the courage to admit.

Thanks for the asks! Sorry this ended up being a little long lol

[stephenjaymorrisblog]

Unnatural Law

We Must Protect Rich White Guys

Stephen Jay Morris

7/13/2023

©Scientific Morality

In Al Gore’s 2006 documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” he presented factual evidence of an upcoming catastrophe: the climate crisis. Not only did he discuss the urgency of the impending situation, but he offered solutions to prevent it. Solutions such as lowering your carbon footprint and avoiding fossil fuel.

So, what did the oil companies do? They threatened their Republican representatives with ceasing donations to the G.O.P. unless they committed to run a campaign against Al Gore and his “Ecological Army.” Fox News attacked Gore by discrediting him with claims that he used tons of gallons of jet fuel to fly to his speaking engagements. You know? Labeled him a hypocrite. Also in CHUD fashion, they wealth-shamed him and aired aerial photos of his mansion.

You see, to take a left wing view of anything, you must be poor. After all, all leftists must take a vow of poverty, as do Catholic priests and nuns. Donkey shit! If you are going to slander somebody, try not using paralogical arguments.

At any rate, that is a major tactic they use—personal defamation. That way, the focus is taken off the issue and spotlighted, instead, on the individual’s shortcomings. Libel replaces the facts about Big Oil’s destruction of the earth and its atmosphere. Al Gore’s movie was right on the money.

Meanwhile, as the CHUDS are calling Al Gore an alarmist, they are telling the world that transgender people are grooming kids to be homosexuals. These halophiles only want to drink liberal tears. What the fuck are they good for? Sucking off WASP billionaires? Then Trump goes to court and the Newsmax reporters show their ugly, dolorous mugs. They sound almost robotically monotone: “We must protect rich white guys.” “We must protect rich white guys.” “We must protect rich white guys.” Ad-nauseum.

Today, I heard on the radio that Texas hit 110 degrees and two days ago, the state of Vermont experienced unprecedented flooding after nine inches of rain fell in less than five hours. The weekend leading into July 4th saw the highest ever recorded global temperatures. The southern portion of America is experiencing an unrelenting “heat dome,” while the northern portion of the country is seeing tornadoes, hurricanes, violent storms, and other extremes. Any meteorologist will tell you this is not normal for this time of year. If the world unites, we can begin to stop this onslaught of natural disasters. But the conservatives think their money and profit is more important than the welfare of humanity! While farmers’ crops are drying up and blowing away in the wind, the rich are snorting coke off a prostitute’s ass! But leave it to the conservative propaganda machine to spew that these are dignified, American gentlemen who want a clean cut, Christian country.  

 The only way to fight against this crisis is to counter the CHUD propaganda with educational facts to the contrary. When a liar calls you a liar, you are winning the climate struggle. There is a global youth movement and they pissed to the max. They are willing to damage property to give notice of the planet’s destruction, as well as hold nonviolent resistance protests. We should all support their efforts.

Meanwhile, the political Right is in shambles. The Religious Right is living their “End Times” fantasy, the fossil fuel companies are panicking that their great grandchildren will have to get jobs, and the White Power creeps are worried that all food will become kosher. The Republicans will build a giant tomb in Washington D.C. for Trump after he dies from a massive heart attack.

After Florida submerges into the Gulf of Mexico, oil drilling rigs will be above sea level because human remains become dirty energy. It’ll be better than dead dinosaurs!

America has the worst conservative movement in the history of the world!

[themculibrary]

100k+ Masterlist

part two, part three

20 questions (ao3) - bevioletskies gamora/peter T, 118k

Summary: Wasp has a new competition in store for the students of Avengers Academy, and there’s money involved. So obviously, Peter and Gamora have to pretend to be a couple in order to win. Wait, what?

Anthony of Asgard (ao3) - RenneMichaels loki/tony M, 109k

Summary: After several years of being housed in Stark Tower as a state prisoner of Asgard, Loki is recalled to Realm Eternal. Devastated Tony is now minus a lab partner, wingman and a snark buddy for movie night. Pepper has moved to the west coast and married, SHIELD is doing some crazy shit and with the exception of occasionally seeing Bruce, Tony doesn’t have much interaction with his former team mates. He wonders how it is possible to feel so lonely in a city so full of people. However he's and engineer and a genius... he can fix this. All he has to do is convince Queen Frigga and Odin All Father to go along with his plan. - Sequel to Queens Grace but you do not have to have read it to follow this story. I wish you would, but it isn't necessary. COMPLETE

blondie (ao3) - luckybxrnes bucky/clint, steve/tony, wanda/natasha, pietro/peter T, 188k

Summary: when james buchanan barnes and clint barton meet for the first time, it ends with clint in a dumpster and a broken hearing aid.

maybe it wasn't his best idea to yell at another assassian and try to fight him on a rooftop.

eight years later, clint is a little smarter and james is trying his best to be okay.

Captivated (ao3) - missbecky steve/tony M, 281k

Summary: When Tony sustains a life-threatening injury, Steve takes him to a world where magic can heal any wound. But their happy ending swiftly becomes a nightmare when slavers attack, and Tony is captured and taken away. After months apart, they are finally reunited, but the quest to save Tony is only just beginning.

Catching Lightning in a Bottle (ao3) - sabrecmc steve/tony M, 120k

Summary: College student Tony meets janitor Steve at MIT and they fall blissfully in love, until Howard happens and things fall apart. One divorce paperwork snafu courtesy of the ever-helpful Jarvis, and ten years later, Tony has to get re-divorced from Steve.

This does not go as he imagines.

Or, the Sweet Home Alabama AU that no one--well, okay, a few of you--asked for.

Cold Hearted (ao3) - Xythia loki/tony E, 132k

Summary: Sometimes the best defense is indeed a good offense. Which means, if you ask Tony Stark, that you should give the most Machiavellian, twisted and ruthless bastard you've ever met every reason to act in humanity's best interest.

Deep in the Heart of Me (ao3) - Finely Honed (jaqen_hgar) steve/tony E, 244k

Summary: Veteran single dad Steve runs a tattoo shop. Pepper arranges for Tony to get that tattoo he always wanted, and he winds up with the mother of all crushes instead. Jumping out of airplanes is one thing, but love requires real courage. Steve struggles with letting someone into his life. Tony tries to keep his heart intact while Steve works on his issues.

Craving a realistic depiction of a romantic relationship featuring PTSD, mental health issues, and characters who discuss their problems? This might be for you. No magic fixes here but a happy ending is guaranteed!

Grow To Be (ao3) - Sororising sam/bucky M, 110k

Summary: Sam flops back down onto the bed, shoving a few of the pillows behind his head and upper back - there’s way too many for one bed; if you multiply that by thirty bedrooms there must be -

“I can’t do math when I’m drunk,” he says mournfully. “Bucky, come here and help me do math.”

Bucky lets out a small laugh. “Bet you say that to all the girls.”

Sam doesn’t know how to unpick that sentence. He isn’t even going to bother trying; he just waves his arm around in Bucky’s general direction, hoping that he’ll make contact eventually.

I'll Keep You Safe Here With Me. (ao3) - sara_holmes bucky/clint M, 110k

Summary: Yes, Clint is avoiding the other Avengers. No, he does not want to go back to New York. But then again, he didn't exactly want to be kidnapped by the Winter Soldier either. Really, he just wants to go back to bed.

i would do anything to see you smile (ao3) - fyeahnatasharomanoff (MykaBeringWells) steve/natasha E, 124k

Summary: Natasha has been a straight A student since elementary school. All the teachers at her school know her, and know what to expect of her - only good things. So when she learns she will have a brand new teacher for AP Lit that year, she sets out on the first day to introduce herself … and what follows is not a life either of them ever thought they’d find themselves living, but they wouldn’t change it for the world.

Join the Club (ao3) - HashtagLEH pre peter/wade T, 143k

Summary: Homeless and mute after everything Peter has been through, he somehow makes friends with Deadpool, as Spiderman. And then he meets the Avengers, as Peter.

Or, alternatively: “Spidey and Deadpool: the Mute and the Motormouth” (a title by Deadpool).

leave the gun on the table (ao3) - Myrime M, 185k

Summary: Tony meets his soulmate under the worst possible circumstances. It is not just a kidnapping gone wrong. It turns out Steve and his gang picked him on purpose and they want some personal revenge. If only he had managed to say the words written on his soulmate's arm before they threw him back out into the streets.

Nameless (ao3) - AvaKelly bucky/clint M, 101k

Summary: A gun is pointed at him before he can even move from his position, the Soldier's metal arm steady in its aim. Clint sighs.

"Nemo," Clint says. "It's tattooed on your wrist, right here," he lifts his right hand and taps his left index finger where his palm ends.

The Soldier's eyes widen. "How do you know this?"

"I put it there."

peter's stars (ao3) - IronPengu, parkrstark steve/tony T, 175k

Summary: Steve and Peter lose their apartment and are kicked out on the streets. Steve has to juggle between jobs to earn whatever money he can, take care of his son while resfusing to let him realize how much they're trouble in, and keep them warm and safe on the city streets in winter.

So, he really doesn't have time to date the billionaire that flirts with him everyday as he buys his cup of coffee. Even if he did, he can't let himself fall for the man. Because if he knew that he lived from a backpack and showered in a public bathroom there's no way he'd still want him...right?

Start Here (ao3) - howlingbuchanan (penmarks) steve/bucky, sam/bucky M, 110k

Summary: "Tell him you will never know any better. Pretend to understand why that isn't good enough."

or

An exploration of grief and trauma through Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson, who also happen to be accidentally, absolutely, and unconditionally in love.

Stetsons and Schoolteachers (ao3) - NotEvenCloseToStraight steve/tony, bucky/natasha, clint/sam, pepper/happy E, 136k

Summary: Alpha Sheriff Steve Rogers doesn’t know what to think of the new school teacher in his small town.

Omega Tony Carbonell is a quick witted, sharp tongued, sarcastic Omega with a butt that won’t quit– and a temper that won’t quit either.

Every attempt the Sheriff makes to get close is met with rolled eyes and snarkiness, but finally Tony gives in a little bit and the pair spends a few moments together that leaves the Alpha panting, desperate for more.

But there’s a layer of secrets beneath the Omega’s attitude, and the more Steve pushes, the more Tony pulls away.

When Tony’s past comes back in a terrifying way, Steve learns more about the Omega than he ever thought he would, secrets that make him rage, stories that break his heart, and when Tony is kidnapped, the Sheriff saddles up to bring his Omega home.

But Tony doesn’t consider Wildrock home, and he certainly doesn’t consider Steve his Alpha.

How can the Stetson wearing Sheriff convince the stubborn Schoolteacher that they are meant to be?

The Underwater Basket-Weaving Society of America (ao3) - thisiswhatthewatergaveme loki/tony E, 130k

Summary: Loki's crash landed, which is great. Only what do you do with a powerless, power-hungry ex-god looking for retaliation?

Tony’s Girl (ao3) - Crosshairs pepper/tony M, 130k

Summary: When Tony Stark finally opens his eyes after being rescued from Siberia, he isn’t the same man anymore. What happened in that abandoned Hydra base has broken him in ways that even Afghanistan hadn’t.

But Tony is famous for his innate ability to fix things, even himself. Slowly, with the help of friends old and new, he learns to deal with his new status quo, picks up the pieces of his destroyed existence and rebuilds it from the ground up.

Until an unusual accident puts a new, interesting spin to his already interesting life.

Wings of a Broken Hero (ao3) - Sexy_Avengers17 bucky/clint, steve/tony N/R, 132k

Summary: Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier no more. Out of Hydra's grasp, he now lives at the Avengers' Tower alongside the Avengers themselves. His life becomes a roller coaster as he balances the guilt he carries on his metal wing and arm, the craziness of living with superheroes, and stopping a bio-terrorist attack from A.I.M.

Also, the winged pain in his ass known as Clint Barton is too difficult to ignore. Looks like this is what Bucky gains after seventy years of fuckery.

Winterheart (ao3) - orphan_account loki/tony M, 144k

Summary: For his crimes, Loki’s punishment began in a lonely and endless winter. For Tony’s sacrifice, his imprisonment began with a rescue.

A story of ugliness and beauty, inside and out, and learning what the word ‘monster’ really means.

[skaruresonic]

clearly because US white people owned slaves, that means that I am a terrible person complicit in the system. My own personal character is completely irrelevant. /s

I guess in some freaky weird way, both natives and whites make for "acceptable" targets. Natives exist in small numbers and who really cares what they think, they're all just on reservations! Whites of course are the "dominant" group in US culture so they make easy targets.

what really gets me is that it doesn't really matter what country it is - native groups usually get shafted. Canada, Australia, China, the Celts, and so on. I hate how consistent parts of humanity can be.

clearly because US white people owned slaves, that means that I am a terrible person complicit in the system. My own personal character is completely irrelevant. /s

It's not even that, really. It's more along the lines of "What does scalping have to do with anything and why are you bringing it up?"

People tend to forget as well that indigenous struggles and the struggles of people of other races aren't so very different. The Skarù·ręʔ were among the first to be kidnapped, sold, and shipped to the Caribbean as slaves before the colonists decided to forcibly take slaves from Africa.

---

I guess in some freaky weird way, both natives and whites make for "acceptable" targets. Ehhh. On Tumblr there's some discrimination against white people, but out in the real world, people largely treat me better because I pass as white, which is a weird and off-putting experience as a mixed person. The minute they discover I'm not 100% white is the moment they treat me differently, sometimes opening me up to racism. I'm not discriminated against for looking white, just for not being Completely White.

Whiteness-as-inoculation is something that makes you realize how absurd and fucked-up white supremacy is.

In the eyes of the community, I'm just as Indian as our full-blooded neighbors with dark skin and eyes, because one's indigeneity is not measured by blood or appearance. But in the world at large, people judge you based on your appearance. I can be clocked as Vaguely Off-White(tm) sometimes. People can subconsciously tell I'm not a WASP, for instance. But it confuses them even further because they can't place that small hint of Otherness.

The reason I say this is because I have a memory of a high school history teacher who once attempted to guess our ethnicities for fun (yeah... don't really know what he was going for there...) and he paused when looking at me for some time, before guessing noncommittally, "Eastern European?"

Which is, sadly, a common experience for us. It's been noted that the last thing anyone will guess as an ethnicity of an unknown mixed person is Native because it is commonly assumed we no longer exist.

In my personal experience, only Native people ever try to clock others as Native (and given how few of us there are, we tend to get a little overexcited about that, like holy shit another ękwehę̀·wę I thought we were the only ones in this Chili's). And because we know appearance isn't a factor, it's usually based on other things like their behavior, speech patterns, jewelry, the way they wear their hair, and if they have some sort of indicator of tribe or clan on their person (ie. turtle necklace)

---

what really gets me is that it doesn't really matter what country it is - native groups usually get shafted. Canada, Australia, China, the Celts, and so on. I hate how consistent parts of humanity can be.

I've heard it said before that indigenous is a class that cannot exist without the existence of a dominant class. If we were simply allowed to be ourselves, we wouldn't consider ourselves indigenous at all because, again, that inherently exists in opposition to something else. My people would just be Haudenosaunee, or Skarù·ręʔ, the same way others call themselves Americans or white.

The uwu-ification of our cultures is just an ignorant misunderstanding at worst. It's not an actual problem, and it comes off as Supremely Weird when you think it's a problem and try to rectify it by insisting "Nooo, but they did the Barbaric Thing actually. Remember? They did it super hard you guys, don't blorbo them!"

Swinging the pendulum in the opposite direction and being all "they scalped people" helps exactly no one because everybody's ancestors have done something shitty.

Even though I understand the point was to try to say that people are complicated and no one culture exists without sin, so to speak, it's kind of a "no shit, Sherlock" point anyway. And it rubs me the wrong way whenever they bring up the usual examples of scalping and human sacrifice because they know such things are more visceral and hit people harder than "Hey these five tribes stopped fighting and developed a Longhouse where everyone is essentially family and takes care of each other."

The rhetoric to not uwu-ify us comes off as disingenuous, to be frank, because I know for a fact these same people do not dedicate the same amount of breath for the Two-Row wampum as they do for the scalpings. They're ready to trot out the old "the Natives beat each other to death with sticks and stones" thought-terminating cliche at the drop of a hat, but say mum about any of the various things we did that were peaceful or beneficial.

Furthermore, scalpings have no meaning when

A.) more white people scalped Indians than the opposite (or Indians scalped other Indians) because they were selling those scalps to the government. for sport. for money. because they could. not as a part of war. do you not understand how the difference in context does not make these two actions congruent.

B.) we all know our dark pasts because we're not stupid, and it's patronizing to act like we don't know our own history and you need to explain it to other people on our behalf,

C.) we no longer do it, any more than today's Romans are running around jamming stakes up dudes' dicks and modern Greeks are throwing people down wells

[talkingtotheapples]

.

[byfulcrums]

if we keep adding to this this post will become infinite

also i saw ur rb like 5 hours ago but had to ignore it cause i was in school :((

AND SHIT URE RIGHT THT SONG DOES FIT??? DAMN. ALSO I WILL DEFINITELY TELL U IF I WRITE SMTH

HUGS

GODD YES THEM JUST, GOING FROM FIGHTING TO TRYING TO SQUEEZE THE LIFE OUT OF EACH OTHER (THEY ARE NOT HUGGING, NO, WDYM)

THEM CHILLING IN SPACE TOGETHER.... I MEAN THEY'RE PRETTY MUCH THE ONLY 2 BEINGS ON EARTH THAT CAN SURVIVE BEING IN SPACE SO WHY NOT??

something i have always loved is the idea of a hero, or just a superpowered person, chilling in a way that would be weird to others. flash running around town, spider-man reading upside down, invincible floating around in boredom, you name it

the idea of mark (it doesn't even have to be in this au, just in general) being so not human but still so human is beautiful to me

i have a hc that viltrumites like flying and floating better than walking (it's like nature to them. walking is what crawling would be to us: we can do it, but it's not exactly comfortable), and so nolan and mark would always be flying around at home

mark could ask his dad about what being a viltrumite is like. so, when he got his powers, he finally got to experience it. and every single thing that happened, the things that made him realize that he's not actually a biological human (sharper teeth, maybe. liking the feeling of boiling water on his skin. struggling to act like he's in pain when he's punched, and then finding it almost impossible to not break someone's jaw when defending himself), he could share with his dad

but now his dad is gone. his new brother doesn't have his powers yet. his mom is a normal human. even the heroes that can fly wouldn't understand it, because they're still not viltrumites

it makes him feel a little lonely. he hates what the viltrumites do and what they represent, but life would be sm easier if he could just. share his worries with someone else that's like him

enter wasp.

he does not "share his worries" w him. at all. fuck no

but still-- having someone who acts just like him, in the more alien-like ways, reminds him that he's not the only one

this. isn't really a good thing

basically wasp is a living reminder that the viltrumite empire is out there, which means mark cannot slack off because the moment they arrive they will fucking decimate earth

most importantly, he's a reminder of what mark himself is; of what he could (or will) become

"No one has a broken nose. It's mystifying" ASHDHASD everyone being both super surprised when they hate each other that much, then being even more surprised when they actually work w each other without any murder attempts

CAIN INSINCT BUT TAKEN TO THE EXTREME... i have 2 siblings so i know very well what the cain insinct is like, and it being dialed up to 100 is insane

yk when you ruffle your sibling's hair? that but its them trying to pull each other's hair out

softly smacking your sibling's head when they say something stupid?? it's like they're trying to rip each other's heads off. jesus. what was that cracking noise??

or when you kick your sibling. they try to break each other's bones regularly (wasp usually starts it. hey, he's basically a prisoner. the least he can do is try to take some of them out before he gets out! [or so he says])

imagine they're fighting a villain together. they usually do the "i kick him to you then you punch him in the face and send him flying" thing, but sometimes, when wasp is feeling silly, he'll be the Older Sibling TM and refuse to give the villain to mark

it's like two dogs fighting for a chew toy. mark gets the villain off wasp's hands but wasp immediatly tackles him to get him back. most crime doers now refuse to fight those two when they're together bc of the amount of nausea they feel afterwards

RUDY WANTING TO STUDY THEM ASHFDSHAJH

rudy is the type of person to scientifically study his friends without their consent to figure out what the fuck is wrong with them

wasp Does Not Like That. mark doesn't either but he's not as murderous as that other idiot (wasp begs to differ. "have you seen what he did to angstrom? he has it in him. i just have to bring it out") ("he said that? he stopped mid-fight to pet a puppy the other day") ("i would have killed it. i was about to, but this asshole interrupted me") (they are in the same room when this conversation happens theyre just ignoring each other)

comic con!!

they were raised VERY differently so yeah, them disagreeing on smth that reflects their own personal character arcs fits so well

the only reason they refuse to fight right then and there is because they don't want to be banned from going to comic cons. that is the only reason. the literal only reason

also i could imagine that since wasp is Like That, at some point he has to drop comics because hey, destroying earth means to comic books. so seeing how far the comics he likes from his own dimension are getting in this other asshole's dimension is an Experience

(he so wants to take over this world)

"Why consider your emotions when you can fall back on the one thing you're incredible at? Violence!"

this. reminds me of mark too

mark ignores everything and goes out to punch stuff and beat villains to clear his mind. wasp just straight up murders people. the thing that differentiates them is why they're doing it, to who, and to what extents

"I can totally see Wasp snapping at Mark and telling them to get a rise out of Mark."

oh but this would so be the way they find out about that

wasp is angry as fuck 24/7 (can't blame him but also dude, chill out) and this one particular day he's even angrier than usual, so he just randomly decides that the best way to rui mark's life is to tell everyone the truth (smth that has literally ruined mark's life once, see episode 8 of season 1)

and wasp knows that the thing mark fears most is turning out like his father, so why not tell his friends that he's destined to be a megalomaniac murderer in almost every universe??

they do love mark, but some of them are. a little freaked out

he doesn't even tell his friends, he tells everyone. it's on TV. people are debating whether it's true or if he's jst fucking w them (he does that a lot)

half the internet thinks he's lying because he always lies, but the other half is sure he's not because he never looks this angry and earnest and mad (in the crazyness way) when he does

mark finds out and throttles him but wasp is laughing like a goddamn maniac. mark doesn't kill him (he never could) because of how familiar that face is

then the whole "we're the same person" thing strikes again

"He hates Wasp does have more training."

this

they're the same, they have the same strength and speed and durability. they're both smart, both cocky, they both smile a lot and make fun of the enemy they're going against, they have similar strategies bc of their similar powers

but wasp has sm more experience

it angers wasp too, because this asshole, who has literally no experience at all, can actually keep up with him. it's the worst. he hates it so much

ALSO i just had an idea. yk thos fanfics where 2 characters are stuck together bc of magic? like forced to hold hands or smth? imagine that w them. imagine the disaster that would be

when they finally stop biting each other they start thinking about how to fix this

add them being stuck in a cave together (there are other people inside there. the exits were blocked. it's unstable, so if they drill they way out, they will kill everyone inside. wasp doesn't care, but mark really fucking does, and he's technically the one in charge sooo)

the poor civillains that are now stuck with them...

wasp n mark r used to fight separately. mark tends to handle the more "saving ppl" aspect of the battles, while wasp handles the bloodshed. then this random villain binds them together w some sort of magic spell, and they are so thrown off their game

they try to go separate ways all the time, which results in then falling and crashing and destroying buildings instead of, yk, winning. mark tries to go save the family that just had a car dropped on them, wasp tries to attack the villain

they both fail. they fall on their asses

its so embarrassing

turn this into a bonding experience where they learn to take advantadge of the fact that they are the same person. once they have the same goal (ex: getting out of the cave, defeating the villain once there are no civillains in danger [which would definitely throw them off again, bc mark would try to help them again and wasp would fight him, making them crash again], finding a way to free themselves from the other, etc), they kick ass. it's just... kinda hard for them to want the same thing

if i write a fic w these two it's gonna be about this. it's just so funny

ALSO THAT ART OP??? AJFHSJADKFHDSJKFHASJKDFHDSJK SO GOOD. SOOOOO GOODDD

this is making me want to draw too ngl. BUT I CANT, THEIR HAIR IS SO HARD TO DRAW FOR ME AAAGHH

EVIL MARK, EVIL MARK, EVIL MARK!!! I want to be coherent about this season but please picture me foaming at the mouth and running on the walls. S2 being what if Mark's just like his Dad? Insanity. I love this show. Anyways, AU where an Evil!Mark tries to make Our!Mark worse, and Our!Mark tries to make the other better. Something something confronting your idea of the worst version of oneself. Plus, tweaked black and yellow costume because I saw it and immediately went murder hornet lookin' ass and knew I had to draw it. Evil ass Mark. Horrible. I think he should be dragged kicking and screaming into redemption.

[nobodyfamousposts]

Chloe's Lament

Why no! I'm still not over Miracle Queen, why do you ask?

_______________________

They were impossible odds to begin with.

That was why they had failed.

Miracle Queen smirked as Ladybug was stung by her wasps and put under her control. Seeing the once great hero brought low really filled her with vindictive satisfaction.

“See?” She sneered. “I didn’t need you. You needed me!”

If anyone had the right to destroy Ladybug, it was her. After all, hadn’t she deserved this? What right did Ladybug have to refuse her her Miraculous anyway?

Well, it didn’t matter anymore. Because now all of the Miraculous were hers. Including Ladybug’s and Chat’s.

“My lady!” Chat shouted, though he was helpless to stop it. Helpless to even escape the grasp of her guards.

And speaking of which…

Her guards didn’t move, simply standing in place while they waited for orders. She was mildly annoyed that they couldn’t think for themselves and simply take the Miraculous already to present to her in offering, but…

…actually, no. It was better if she did it. This was her victory, after all.

She considered starting with the sidekick. He had always been an eyesore, anyway.

But Chloe was never one for patience.

At her command, Ladybug approached, apparently unaware of the world around him. Before Miracle Queen, she placed both hands over her ears.

She...seemed to hesitate for a moment.

Miracle Queen arched a brow at that. Was there some part of her trying to resist?

“Give me the Earrings.”

Whatever hesitancy she had vanished and within a second, she had the Earrings off, causing the transformation to fade and revealing—

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng?!”

She barely heard that alley cat’s gasp. She took little notice of Hawk Moth or Mayura’s own responses. She outright ignored the little pink bug thing that appeared and blanched at her presence. She didn’t even register anything any of them said afterwards, her mind whirling from the implications.

She had always thought Ladybug this distant figure. Untouchable. Unreachable.

But for it to be her of all people?!

She wasted no effort on kindness, simply ripping the earrings out of the former Ladybug’s hands with a sneer.

Her own goody-goody classmate just stood there staring ahead blankly. Chloe almost regretted not leaving her unstung, if only so she could see her reaction as she lost everything.

Chloe bit back a snarl at the girl.

She had always been a pest. Always getting in Chloe’s way. Always acting as if she was actually worth anything compared to her. Always denying her—demeaning her—opposing her—stealing from her!

Her Adrien! Her Mom’s attention! And now her Miraculous!

Chloe grit her teeth.

Of course. OF FUCKING COURSE!

“Chloe! Please listen to me!” The Cat was pleading to her.

Chloe felt numb. Her mind still registering the truth.

Because how dare she? How dare she?!

How dare SHE of all people fool her like this!

Words seemed to warble through the static surrounding her.

“You don’t have to do this!”

Have to? Of course she didn’t.

Want to? Oh, she certainly did.

“If Hawk Moth gets both Miraculous, he’ll make the Wish and it could be catastrophic!”

Chloe rolled her eyes.

Like that pathetic stray knew anything.

Of course anyone would say whatever they could to convince Chloe. She barely paid him any mind, still ruminating over the clear deception. How Marinette had gotten one over on her. Again.

All this time, Marinette must have been laughing at her. Trying to use her! Now she lost and Chloe won and people were still acting like she knew better! Like she was still so perfect!

Pathetic.

How could Chloe have ever looked up to her?

“Chloe, please! You can’t let Hawk Moth win!”

“Shut up!”

Hawk Moth wasn’t the winner here, she was!

And she would prove it!

She didn’t even need to waste a wasp on the sidekick. With the guards holding him in place and at her command presenting his hand to her, she was able to get to his Ring easily. His attempts to throw them off or keep his hand closed and protected were useless as she removed the ring, causing his transformation to dissipate.

She gaped.

“Adrien?!”

Him. Adrien Agreste. The boy she loved. The only one who was good enough for her. And he was staring back at her from the same spot where that stupid cat had been.

Adrien…staring at her in a mix of horror and disappointment and rage.

“Chloe…how could you?”

How could she? No! How could he?! He knew who she was this whole time! Why didn’t he tell her? Why didn’t he stand up for her when Ladybug told her she wouldn’t be Queen Bee again? Or hell, give her the Miraculous in the first place? She thought they were friends!

She shoved away from him.

This…

This wasn’t her Adrien!

“Excellent job, Miracle Queen.” Hawk Moth called, pulling her from her thoughts. “Now bring me their Miraculous and the glory shall be yours.”

A pause.

She considered.

Ladybug was defeated. Hawk Moth had won. He had won because of Chloe—the person whom Ladybug—Marinette had looked down on. The city was under her control. Now everyone HAD to listen to and obey her.

Marinette had lost everything and could do nothing about it while Chloe was free to be the Queen she always deserved to be.

Wasn’t this enough?

Wasn’t all of this…finally enough?

Silence.

Hawk Moth was waiting.

Her subjects were waiting.

Everyone was waiting on Chloe.

It was all about Chloe now.

So…wasn’t that enough?

“No.”

This wasn’t enough.

This wasn’t nearly good enough to appease her.

Hawk Moth frowned.

“What?”

“No!” She replied. “I don’t have to. I don’t want to. And now that I have these, I don’t need to.”

She smirked up at him.

“I don’t need you anymore! I don’t need any of you!”

She held up the two Miraculous in victory.

“Now I’M the one in charge!”

“Chloe, don’t do it!” Adrien shouted. “You don’t know what the Wish will do!”

“I’m not listening to you anymore!” She shouted. “When Ladybu—when SHE refused to give me my Miraculous back, where were you?”

“Chloe!”

“NO! What right does she have to say who deserves a Miraculous or not? She should never have been Ladybug!” She shouted, stomping her foot. “She doesn’t deserve it! I do! And I just want what I deserve!”

“Miracle Queen, don’t be foolish!” Hawk Moth ordered. “You are to hand over the Miraculous to me!”

“So you can just take my power away and leave me in the dust? I don’t think so! No!” Chloe shook her head. “This power is mine!”

The power and the Wish—wasn’t that what they had said? Wasn’t that what Hawk Moth had been after all this time?

Well, it was Chloe who won. Not Hawk Moth or any of his other lame akumas! HER! So Chloe earned this!

Which meant that the Wish was rightfully hers!

She turned towards Marinette with a smirk.

And she knew exactly what she wanted with it!

But first, best to get the riff-raff out of her way.

With a flick of her control, the wasps converged on Hawk Moth and Mayura. In a matter of seconds, they were under her control as well. The last thing she needed was either of them getting in her way.

The kwamis gaped at her in surprise, like they didn’t think Chloe could plan for things? Please! These peons were so below her it was embarrassing!

Chloe was smart! She was smarter than anybody! Better than everybody! Certainly better than that wannabe heroine! Even the universe agreed! Why else would she be blessed as she was?

She looked down at the two Miraculous in her hands with a smirk because this? This just proved it!

Of course she was better! And now everyone would know it, too!

Especially…

She turned to face Marinette once more.

Because this time, there would be no interruptions for Chloe’s gloating.

And boy, was she going to gloat.

“So…how does it feel to be the one to lose for once?”

Marinette simply stared blankly, as if she didn’t actually understand what Chloe was talking about.

“All this time,” Chloe continued. “You’ve been playing it up for the masses. Making everyone love you. Pretending like you were actually worth something. And all just to look down on everyone and boost your own ego!”

She laughed.

It sounded hollow to her own ears.

She pushed through.

“Like it wasn’t bad enough even as a civilian! You were always showing off! I bet being a hero was everything you ever dreamed of so you could get twice the attention!”

Marinette didn’t respond.

Adrien, however, did.

“That’s not true!” He shouted, struggling in vain to pull out of the hold as he defended his ‘Lady’. Gag. Miss her with that shit. “She’s never shown off or done any of this for attention! She’s not that selfish!”

Chloe was only more infuriated.

“Of course she is! The glory! The popularity! The power it gives you over other people! Why else would someone like her be a hero?”

Adrien actually seemed to find his spine, because he glared at her.

“That might be what you would do, Chloe. But that’s your choice. That’s how you choose to respond to things. Not everyone is like that!”

“Adrikens!” She gasped, appalled that he would argue against her like this.

“No, Chloe! You’ve done some horrible things, but this is probably the worst! You helped Hawk Moth! You betrayed everyone!”

“Oh please!” She said, brushing him off. “I wasn’t helping him, I was only using him. Now the city is safe and it’s all thanks to me!”

“Then why aren’t you freeing everybody?” Adrien demanded. “Why reveal Marinette? Why take over the other heroes and make them fight us? Why not just use your power to control Hawk Moth and let everyone else go?”

“Why should I?” She asked, flippantly. “They were all useless anyway.”

She had always wanted people to respect and obey her, and now they would! So she would be waited on like the Queen she was, and they would have some actual purpose to their lives.

Really, if anything, she was the gracious one, here.

It wasn’t like any of them were useful otherwise.

But something seemed to upset Adrien, as he winced at her statement and shook his head. She didn’t really know why.

“No one is useless.”

She sighed.

“Oh, Adrikens.” She looked at him in pity. The poor boy just didn’t get how the world worked. “Of course they are. Why else am I here in charge,” she asked, gesturing to herself before turning her hand to gesture to the unmoving ‘Guards’ around them, “and they’re there waiting for orders?”

Whatever response he seemed to be expecting from her, that apparently wasn’t it as he stared at her in shock.

“Chloe, that’s horrible!”

“What? It’s only the truth.”

She won. Lady—Marinette lost. Everyone had to obey her. Why wouldn’t that be the case if she was wrong?

“But it’s okay now!” Chloe said cheerfully as she turned back to him. And—oh, he was drawing back from her. Here poor Adrikens. He always was skittish.

“Now it’s just the two of us. We can do whatever we want, live however we want, and have nothing to worry about. If there’s anything we need done, the peons can take care of it.“

She smiled.

“It’s you and me against the world!”

Just like it always was.

Just like it was supposed to be.

But Adrien…

…he only seemed to look more upset at that. Pale. Almost sick.

“No.”

She blinked, surprised.

“No?”

“No!” He repeated with more emphasis. “I don’t want that! Nobody wants that!”

“I want that!” She replied. Because that was what mattered! As long as she got what she wanted, things were fine! And now they always would be since she would always get what she wanted! What was wrong with that?

“Nobody else wants that!” Adrien bit out.

She rolled her eyes. “Well, they don’t matter.”

Honestly, he must have been stuck under Marinette’s thumb too long to actually take that whole ‘hero’ role seriously. Seriously, people were there to help THEM, not the other way around. It’s a good thing she saved him from that line of thinking.

“They do matter!” Adrien said with a hiss.

He paused, his gaze falling on Marinette.

“She matters.”

And his voice had gone so quiet and soft. She couldn’t recall a time he had ever spoken that way to her.

It only infuriated her.

“Oh please! What has she ever done for me?!”

Adrien actually seemed to look annoyed now. That was actually a new look for him, and she couldn’t recall a time he seemed so angry.

“Do you want a list?”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh come on, there isn’t nearly enough to bother counting, much less make a list—”

“She stood up for you time and again. Both as Ladybug AND as Marinette. More than she had to, especially as the person you’ve been bullying all this time!” He stated flatly, giving her a glare. “She helped you with your Mom and supported you. She gave up on a once in a lifetime opportunity just because you were upset she was the one getting the offer to go with your mother instead of you. And that Queen Bee party everyone put on? Her work. She was the one who got everyone to do it.”

“No, she didn’t!” All of that was just because Chloe was that awesome and people had finally realized it.

“She did!” He insisted. “She stood up for you to Alya over your blatantly false account of how Zombizou was defeated and she got everyone to convincing everyone to throw you a party to make up for saying you weren’t a hero! Even though you never apologized! Even after you tried to get her kicked out of her home city!”

Chloe huffed. “Well, she deserved it! And why should I have had to apologize for anything? It was her own fault I had to do any of that to put her in her place! If she had left, everything would have been better off!”

That way, there would have been no one to challenge her. No one to take attention. No one to be compared to. No one to be reminded was ‘better’. No one for people to admire instead of her.

“She was useless anyway.”

And he just…stared at her. Like she was something abhorrent. Someone he couldn’t even recognize.

“What?” She groused.

A pause.

And then a quiet admission. Spoke just above a whisper but still somehow louder than anything Chloe had heard before.

“Marinette was right. I should never have defended you to her.”

Chloe reared back in hurt.

“Adrien—!”

He only glared at her.

“That day you announced you were leaving, everyone was glad. Nobody was sad to see you go, Chloe! Not one person!”

“That’s not true!”

“They were celebrating, Chloe!”

She froze.

“What?”

“Our entire school was literally throwing a party the instant they heard you would be gone!” He explained. “Teachers were hugging and crying in relief! They canceled classes! There was a conga line at the time I showed up! Fireworks, music, confetti—the works!”

She shook her head in disbelief.

“But...no. That was a party for me. To thank me!”

“Not originally.” Adrien corrected her. “They changed the reason for the party after the akuma attack, but reused everything from it. They just added a banner. That party was only started because you were leaving, Chloe. Not so you would stay.”

She gaped.

She had known they hated her...but that much?

“And the real reason—the only reason they did even that much to turn it around for you was because Marinette asked them to. And that was after you threw a tantrum and tried to get her banished from Paris just for saying you weren’t a hero!”

“But I was!” She shouted, stomping her foot. “I was Queen Bee!”

“Not at that time, you weren’t!” Adrien shot back. “You were a thief who used a stolen Miraculous to try to crash a train!”

“It was her fault for losing it—!”

“Marinette was on that train!” The bug kwami exclaimed, suddenly speaking up. “She and her parents could have died because of your stunt! Her saying you weren’t a hero after that was not only justified, but the very least you deserved!”

Adrien hadn’t seemed to know that previously, as he stared at the kwami in horror.

“She and her family—all of those passengers could have pressed charges! They should have! But Marinette believed you could be better!”

It glared up at her.

“Her saying you weren’t a hero at a time when you had done nothing worthy of the title was nothing compared to that!”

“Shut up!” She hissed, making the thing glare at her. “What does a bug know?”

“Enough.” Adrien cut in. “Do you really think anyone would have decided on their own to throw a party to thank you for something you caused in the first place?”

She didn’t believe it. She refused!

It was only because of her that the city was saved! Was a little gratitude so uncalled for? Seriously, after what she did for them, she deserved a parade at least! They’re just lucky she intervened at all!

She huffed. “Well, it was only the least they could have done after I saved the city from my dad!”

“Who only threatened the city because you upset him to begin with by demanding something he couldn’t give without unfairly hurting people!”

“Unfair?! You want to talk unfair? You heard what she said about me! That I wasn’t a hero! How was that fair?!”

“Because it was the truth?” The black cat kwami replied with a smirk.

Adrien shook his head and just…looked at her like he was disappointed. Like she actually did anything wrong! “It says something that you put Marinette in danger and she still tried to get everyone to appreciate you with that Queen Bee party.”

She blew up at that.

“She only did that because of you!” Chloe practically screamed. “Because she’s so in love with you that it’s pathetic!”

Adrien started in surprise.

“She loves me?”

And she couldn’t believe it, but the damned fool was actually starting to smile and his ears were turning pink! Like that was supposed to be something to be glad about!

Marinette had only ever acted for Adrien’s attention. Even that time she comforted Chloe as Ladybug when her dad was akumatized was probably just to look good to him! It didn’t matter that no one else was there to see her breakdown, it had to have been part of her plan!

She just had to explain it to him! Adrien would be on her side! He was her friend, after all!

“She was only acting nice to make herself look good to you!” She insisted.

He blinked and the happy look was gone. Chloe smirked at that, because he should be disgusted!

But Adrien only shook his head at her.

“Regardless of the reason she did that for you, she’s still the only one who did. Nino didn’t stop DJing that party out of friendship for me. The teachers didn’t corral the students or end the party out of duty to their jobs. The students didn’t receive any lecture for an unauthorized party on school grounds, celebrating a peer leaving, or just about having basic kindness and respect for others. The only one—the only one who not only stopped but advocated on your behalf to get everyone else to do the right thing was Marinette.”

He gestured to the city around them.

“And now after this, I have to wonder if it was really the right thing after all...”

She balked.

“What? No! Adrikens—”

“STOP calling me that!” He shouted sharply.

She took in a breath.

He…never…

Even when he was mad at her, he never talked to her like that!

“Adri—”

“I hate it. I hate that name. I hate how you call me that. I hate how you cling to me and hurt people and try to drive people away but also drive them away from me like I’m not allowed to have friends besides you and I hate…”

He took a breath, coming to a decision.

“...I hate you, Chloe.”

She stared at him, waiting for some sign that this was a joke. Because he didn’t mean it. He couldn’t mean it, right?

But Adrien glared back at her unflinchingly.

She felt her heart freeze.

He...

He meant it.

He really and truly meant it.

“You...you can’t be serious! You would turn on me? For her?!”

He didn’t take it back! Why wasn’t he taking it back?!

“You promised! You promised me, Adrien, that you would always be my friend!”

“Chloe, you don’t know what friends are!” Adrien exclaimed. “To you, they’re either supposed to be servants like Sabrina or things to ‘own’ like me! And I didn’t know better before because I only ever had you. But since I’ve started school, I’ve learned what friendship is!”

He looked away, guiltily.

“I wish I had learned it sooner.”

She stared.

This…

This couldn’t be.

There was no way this was real.

Adrien. Her Adrikens!

“Are you really going to abandon me, Adrien?” She asked. “You, of all people? I thought…I thought you understood.”

He winced.

But he didn’t take it back. Not one bit.

She clenched her fists.

“Fine! Then…then if you want to be with them so much, I’ll just make you one of them!” She shouted, ignoring the tears stinging her eyes. “Then you’ll have to stay with me!”

He looked her in the eyes, solemn but stern.

“It won’t be real, Chloe. Whatever we had…whatever you would call it is already gone.”

“But it doesn’t have to be!” She insisted. “I have the Miraculous. I can just…there’s a Wish! If the world won’t let us be together and perfect, then I can just Wish for it!”

It was in equal parts a plea and a warning. For him to give in, just as he always had. For him to stay by her side like he’d promised.

He clenched his fists. But refused to back down.

“Whatever you do. Whatever world you create. My feelings won’t change.”

“We’ll see about that!”

“Don’t do it!” The bug kwami shouted. “Making a Wish should never be done, especially for selfish reasons!”

“I’m not selfish!” Chloe argued. “I’m the most selfless person I know!”

Adrien didn’t look impressed. Neither did the kwamis. If anything, the bug one looked furious.

“You can’t ignore all the horrible things you’ve done and reasons people could have to not like you, then turn around and figure that doing one nice thing after hurting someone means they now owe you somehow!”

“What,” Chloe bit out, “am I supposed to be owing her instead?” She demanded, gesturing to the still frozen Marinette.

“No!” Tikki replied, earnestly. “Because friendships are not about owing each other!”

“Since when were we friends?” Chloe laughed, jerking away from the annoying pink…thing. “Everyone is so below me it’s ridiculous, utterly ridiculous!”

The thing looked up at her, almost pityingly. “Chloe, you clearly care. That day when you were going to leave Paris, you were crying because you didn’t have any friends.”

Chloe stomped her foot. “That’s not true!”

“But you can have friends!” It insisted. “You just need to be nice—”

“I AM nice!”

“You’ve hurt people, Chloe! Intentionally and maliciously! And right now, you were helping a terrorist just because you didn’t get the Bee Miraculous on demand!”

“It was MINE!” Chloe shouted. “She took it away from me! How was that fair?!”

“It was never YOURS!” The kwami argued. “There is a duty! A responsibility involved! The Miraculous is not a toy! It it not a thing you can just use as you wish! It is a magical artifact that must be used for the greater good! It has a kwami with a name feelings attached to it! Did you ever even talk to Pollen?”

Chloe faltered, but then scoffed. “What would you know?”

Geez, did Marinette always let this thing talk so much?

It was Adrien who answered. “Of course not. Because you never do, Chloe. You don’t talk to people. You don’t consider people. You don’t look at anyone outside of yourself to even notice the effect you’re having.”

The black thing laughed. “You’ve caused a good half of the akumatizations in the city! In all our time active here so far, it says something that we have spent more akuma fights protecting you than any other person.”

The bug nodded. “And not once—not once have you ever so much as acknowledged doing anything wrong! Much less apologized!”

Oh, now Chloe knew she was full of it. “Because I wasn’t wrong, duh!”

She was. Because why else would Ladybug refuse her when Chloe had already proven herself? And she had! No other hero was nearly as good as her!

“Of course I wasn’t wrong!” She insisted. “Because even the universe knows it! That’s why I won! I’m a better person, a better hero, and a better Guardian than she could ever try to be!”

The bug was having none of it.

“Marinette is a better Ladybug—a better person than you ever will be. And that’s because she chooses to be kind! Regardless of the circumstances!”

It glared at her defiantly.

“Even if your positions were switched, that wouldn’t change.”

Chloe glared. “Why you—!”

How dare she?! Acting like she was better than her?

But Adrien cut her off.

“I kept telling myself that they don’t understand. That I knew who you really were. That other people just didn’t know you.”

Chloe gave a disgusted look at the prospect. She didn’t get why he looked so angry though?

Or why that look was directed at her?

He…wasn’t still serious about hating her, was he?

Adrien shook his head, completely infuriated.

“But I was just making excuses. It wasn’t that they didn’t know you…it’s that I didn’t.”

She balked.

“What? Of course you know me!”

It was why he was so perfect. And the only one worthy of her, after all!

Or…well…had been, she remembered, shooting him a petulant glare.

But Adrien refused to be cowed.

“The Chloe I thought I knew never would have done what you have! You were willing to go this far—help the enemy and take over the city all for the sake of your own self interests! Even if she had given you the Bee this time…what about the next time? Or the time after?”

This was irritating. He was acting like Chloe was the one bringing THEM down.

“At least I would have gotten my Miraculous!” She pointed out. Because that was what mattered here! It was only what she deserved and Marinette was the one in the wrong for not giving it to her! Everything would have been fine if she had!

Adrien glared at her—and she couldn’t recall a time he looked so angry. Not with anyone. And especially not with her.

“I had already enabled you enough, Chloe. And I encouraged others to do the same, thinking it would help you. That if they got to know you—if you had enough support, eventually you would open up and finally be the great person you always seemed to think you were. That they just needed to give you a chance and you would be satisfied and everyone would finally get along. But I was wrong.”

He looked done. No, even worse, he looked done with her!

He hung his head.

And near whispered:

“You’re the sort of person who is never satisfied with anything.”

And with that, Chloe broke.

“SHUT UP!”

With a wave of her hand, the wasps surged forward and Adrien was made into another of her mindless thralls. But she didn’t care. He was as good as lost to her anyway and in her mind, there was only one person to blame.

“Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!”

She spun around on the expressionless Marinette in a rage, zeroing in on the cause of all her problems. Even now, the former hero still somehow looked so goddamn noble!

“You don’t deserve to be Ladybug!” She shouted, eyes wide and spittle flying. “You don’t deserve your Miraculous! You don’t deserve your life! You don’t deserve ANYTHING!”

She clenched her fists tighter.

Her palms hurt, drawing her attention back to her clenched fists and specifically to the two Miraculous she had in each.

She smirked.

“I do. And now I have the power to fix that!”

She turned away, putting the Ring on her finger.

"You becoming Ladybug was a fluke!” She continued, moving on to the earrings. “You just got lucky! It was just a chance! Anyone else could have had it!”

She put in one earring.

“I could have had it! I would have deserved it more!"

She put in the other earring.

“I deserve it more than you!”

“Don’t!” Came a little voice—the pink kwami. Whatever the hell her name was was now floating in front of her waving her arms frantically. “The Wish isn’t without consequences!”

Chloe cut Tikki off.

“Just shut up and grant my Wish!”

The bug gasped right before her mouth disappeared. Nice! Chloe liked this feature.

But there was still the distinct lack of Wish-granting.

“Well?” She demanded.

The black one floated up to her.

“You’re going to have to actually say what your Wish is, first.” He said amicably.

See? This is what she needed. Simple. Sweet. And straight to the point! If only more servants could be like this!

Of course, if Chloe knew Plagg—or if she was just paying attention, she would have noticed the smirk on his face and been wary of it.

Plagg was a chaotic little kwami. As such, he was never this pleasant, especially to those who were going to use him in a way he didn’t like.

Chloe did not know this. And in this moment, she was too driven by rage and spite to consider it.

She was used to Pollen, after all. A quiet, subservient kwami who was perfectly fitted to Chloe—a person who was used to quiet, subservient people in her life.

Plagg was neither quiet nor subservient.

When he was, it was a sign to worry.

Perhaps if Adrien had been in control of himself, he could have warned her.

Perhaps if she had put more thought into Marinette’s attempts to help her previously, she would have reconsidered.

Perhaps if she had just given more consideration to Tikki's own warnings against it, she would have taken her time.

But Chloe Bourgeois had won.

She won. Everyone else lost. And that was all that mattered, so it was all she needed to think about.

And thus, without hesitation. Without thinking twice.

“I Wish—“

Chloe made the Wish to rewrite the world.

And

i t

a l l

w e n t

b l a c k . . .

.

.

.

.

.

.

Reality is not as one would expect. It is both more complicated and yet also more simple than one would think. Thus, there is no scientific way to adequately explain the process through which things are rewritten so that something that once was not now is and always has been. Or vice versa.

That is what metaphor is for.

Imagine, if you will, that the story as we know it is a performance. Particularly a play. One where the people we have met—from Marinette to Adrien to Hawk Moth and everyone inbetween are all actors filling certain “roles”. And imagine further that the Universe itself is equivalent to a Director overseeing these actors and their performance.

It was a passable show. Mixed reviews so far. Decent performance depending on the actor and their scene. But overall, it was entertaining enough and there weren’t any major issues.

Not until one of those actors just up and stopped the entire performance in the middle of the climax to complain about the show, insult the Director’s choices, and demand everything be redone with her in a different role.

Now the Universe is not a person. It does not have a form. It simply is. And despite having a will and a sick sense of humor, it is in no way a human.

…but if it WERE a human, what happened next would be the equivalent of it tilting its head and considering the defiant actor before it and said actor’s ridiculous demand.

For one eternity…

Two…

Before shrugging and simply saying “You know what? Fine.”

There was a sound of a “snap”.

The feeling of a curtain closing.

Darkness.

A shuffle from behind the stage.

A cough from the audience.

Then the curtains lifted.

And Chloe Bourgeois woke up in a room she had never been in before.

[fatedevour]

♢  —     @bogachs​​ said:  19. your muse brings groceries (stop eating like shit dottore)

nonverbal actions    19. your muse brings groceries

   Although QUIET was hardly the word for Dottore’s lab, there was a certain level of noise that was considered TYPICAL, and of which quickly would be regarded more as background noise than anything else. But right now the lab was active, as if someone had disturbed a WASP nest. Segments moving here and there, papers being traded or set down and picked up, segments exchanging information or squabbling over details.

   As for Prime, he stood pouring over details of a schematic, double and triple checking it to ensure neither time nor resources would be wasted if a miscalculation existed. It was doubtful that such an error would be found considering just how MANY segments were focused on this one task, but he would allow no error. He hadn’t even realized Pantalone had stepped into the lab amidst the chaos until he heard the familiar footsteps and lifted his eyes in time to see bags of groceries being set down in front of him. He huffs, frowning at the bag. As if he had time to do meal prep. He supposed he could make Xi cook or give it to some agent and have them cook.

   “  Stop giving me that look Regrator.  ”  He clicks his tongue at the disapproval and disdain that reads CLEAR on the ninth’s face when he observes this discarded remains of quick meals in the trash - and the fact the number is more due to multiple segments eating rather than any semblance of the doctor himself having a schedule for eating. Ironic that his test subjects had a proper meal schedule compared to him. But it was easy to get lost in the obsession of work and theories and details. The hunger could be forgotten when the mind stayed hellbent on completing a task or correcting an error.

   “  I’ve been busy for Her Majesty. The Tsaritsa had a personal request, so naturally my time has been sparse, and I have no interest in reducing it with GRATUITOUS visits to fancy restaurants or other things of such nature.  “  He already knows the INEVITABLE lecture is bound to be unleashed, he can at least dampen it. Though he’s not so DELUSIONAL as to believe that Pantalone wont find some quip or way to spin the narrative in his favor.

   He turns his attention back to the plans. Yes, it all seemed correct. So by scientific THEORIES it should work. But now it was time to put it into practice and begin the actual creation and trial run period. “Theta, take these with Omega and start with the chemicals on page 4, I’ll start working on the framework in a moment.  “  He orders, handing off the bundle of papers to the younger segment who only spared a brief glance at Pantalone before disappearing into the hive of the lab.  Good, everything was proceeding on time as predicted.

   Still, Dottore casts a subtle second glance towards the bag of groceries. It WAS saving him the struggle of having to go fetch food... After a moment he lets out an exhale, looking away.  “....I will see to trying to eat more regularly.  “  It isn’t an explicit thank you, but it is an ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of the gesture done on his behalf. 

[tedisnotdead]

The water flow stopped, and Andrew sighed, picking up the towel. He looked at himself in the mirror, his eyes scanning across the plain chest and stopping before his view reached his elbows.

"Andrew?" a voice called from the other side of the door, startling him. Andrew took a quick breath, closing his eyes before sighing, reminding himself of where he was. Renee's bathroom. Allison was downstairs, probably preparing baby Seth to stand in the crowd with her. "Nicky just left me your clothes. Do you want me to leave them in the spare room for you?"

"Yess." Andrew replied, looking down and pulling his boxers on. "I'll be out in a second." He reached for the armbands, pulling them on and tucking his thumb into the holes before walking out.

Betsy, Nicky and Erik were changing at home. They didn't need the preparation like the twins did, they wouldn't get picked. Jesse was safe too, wrapped up between his dads but next year he wouldn't. Next year he would be up there, and Andrew couldn't save him. Andrew had already felt the guilt of the six years he missed protecting his cousin and the four years he missed with his brother.

When they were united two years ago, it was a shock to everyone around them. Andrew had been in Betsy's care his entire life before then, with help from Renee for a few years during his more rebellious phase. When Renee started her fighting lessons twelve years ago, he was one of the firsts to sign up. Eight years after Andrew signed up, another Andrew signed up. Renee knew it wasn't him. And she mentioned it to Betsy, who connected the fourteen-year olds and since took them both in, alongside their cousin. A year later, Nicky introduced his boyfriend and his son to the family, and they were welcomed with open arms.

Betsy took two-week-old Andrew in from the day she saw him left on the side of the work field, wrapped in only a blanket. She took him home, where eight-year-old Renee was waiting. She hadn't been ditched like Andrew, she has been unfortunately orphaned by a factory malfunction and lost her mother at only six.  

Renee and Andrew grew up alongside each other, but when she left for the games at age thirteen, they knew they would never be the same. Renee came back a victor, that's when she started her fighting lessons. Betsy advised against it but saw her development and let her work. When Andrew questioned her why she let her fight after she had won, Betsy reminded him Renee had won for a reason.

That's when he met Wymack. David Wymack, the winner of the forty-third Hunger Games. David Wymack, the man who relied on the pain of tattoos to give him a mental escape from the pain that the Games had caused him. The same David Wymack who took Jean Moreau out of Betsy's care less than a week after she took him in.  

"Just because Jean was taken in by the Wymacks, it doesn't mean that you're not wanted." Betsy would always say. She would say the same thing every time she took one kid into her home and then they were taken in by a family a few days after. "You are just as valid. You are just as special. You just need to wait for your special time to shine."

Eight years passed and Aaron appeared. They united, Nicky was introduced, and Betsy took them all in. Betsy introduced them to Wymack, who introduced them to his kids and the Boyds. Befriending the entire of the Victors Village was a kick in the guts to Andrew. A reminder how he wasn't special, how he was basically nothing in comparison to some people.

Jean remembered him though. Jean made him feel special way. Not a romantic or sexual thing. Andrew knew those. Well, he knew sexual. He knew from all the hook-ups behind the factories, he knew from the nights he stayed at Roland's, a classmate in Renee's fighting class, and experimented with things. He knew from the start he was gay, but never said it out loud. He wasn't too confident when it came to romantic feelings however, but he had an idea.  

Jean Moreau-Wymack was his first and only friend. Renee accepted this, seeing how they're bond was more sibling like than friends. Jean joined him on the tree searched. Andrew taught him to climb quick, how to spot the nests quickly, how to remove both wasp and birds safely. In return, Jean baked him sweet goods. The banana breads and cakes and muffins rolled through the door daily, Jean delivering them every morning with a small smile. Occasionally, Jean would bake with exotic flavors that David Wymack brought back from his annual visits to the Capitol.

With all the time Andrew had started spending Jean, Aaron began spending it with the other child in the Wymack household. Kevin Wymack-Day. David's biological child from a woman he didn't meet again after their one-night stand.

When Kayleigh, Kevin's mother, passed Kevin had been put in the custody of David. Jean, Kayleigh's other child, had been given to Betsy to be cared for. David hunted him down and took him in, not having the heart to separate the kids.

Aaron and Kevin clicked the second they met. Both being insufferable, obsessive assholes in Andrew's opinion (and Jean's, but that was one of the secrets between the two that were shared in the tops of trees over a muffin each). Aaron's obsession laying in the profession of David's wife, Abby Wymack. One of the best doctors in District 7. Since Aaron became closer with her, he became more obsessed over the profession and soon, if he survived the final reaping, would become her apprentice. Kevin's obsession laid in a Capitol sport, Exy. Whenever his father visited the Capitol for the games, he would bring back his son merchandise of his favorite teams. David had a friend in the Capitol who recorded every game so he could take them home and Kevin could watch them.

Andrew reached the spare room and froze before remembering where he was. Renee's house. Aaron was at the Wymacks', using their shower like Andrew was using Renee's. He knew the only reason was to see Kevin, and 'secretly' say goodbye and good luck in their own special way.

Their attraction to each other was not unknown, practically everyone knew. But it was obvious they were waiting until Aaron's last reaping, until today, to make anything exclusive. As long as they snuck out of the Victors Village before anyone began to head to the town center, no one would notice the luxurious treatment the twins were getting.

The clothes were spread out, waiting on the spare room bed. Nicky's old black, short sleeved button up shirt and a pair of Erik's old, tight fit, wash jeans. A pair of old boots that Betsy had managed to afford where on the floor, with a pair of Allison's bright pink socks laying neatly in the neck of the boot.  

"You'll need to be ready in a few minutes Andrew." Renee's voice filtered through the door again. "The ceremony starts in an hour. People begin to move soon." Her footsteps echoed down the corridor as she left and Andrew looked at the clothes, sighing.

◒◓◒◓◒

Andrew stepped out, seeing Kevin and Aaron talking through a gap in the curtains. He sat back, waiting silently and watched them argue.  

"They're horrible." Jean mumbled, sitting next to Andrew on the wall, leaving a large enough space for Capitol's largest man to sit between them. "Kevin kicked me out so I couldn't hear. I think they're talking about their latest hook-up." He took a bite from a muffin, leaving one on the wall beside Andrew. "It was at ours while we were climbing. I think they think we're fucking."

"How disappointed will they be when they find out we don't fuck; we talk shit about them and stuff our faces with shit." Andrew mumbled and Jean giggled, taking another bite. "Truth for a truth?" Jean nodded. "I'm nervous."

"That's well justified." Jean said. "Your name is at the highest chance it's ever been, and ever will be. But some people do sadly have their names in there more than you. So, the chance it being you is low. And the chance it's Aaron is even lower, since your name is still in there from the past years of tesserae. "Jean sighed. "I'm gay. I think." Jean mumbled before looking over.

"Want another round?" Andrew asked and Jean stopped before nodding. He took another bite of his muffin, looking forward again. "I'm gay too." Andrew said, picking his muffin up. "I've known for a few years."

"I have a crush on Jeremy." Jean said. Andrew turned to him, raising an eyebrow. "The baker's son. I used to talk to him a lot when I lived with Kayleigh. She would let me pick up her weekly orders from the bakery and I would pay them with grain and milk. I used to talk to Jeremy every Sunday, and that's why I like baking. Because I like Jeremy. "

Andrew looked back through the window, seeing them still talking. Aaron seemed more angry than usual during their 'conversations'. "You should offer to work there." Andrew suggested. "You could see him more."

Jean laughed, looking down before taking the final bite. "I could, but who would you hang out with then? You haven't got any other friends." "I have Jesse." Andrew said, taking a bite. "This is good. What flavor is it?"

"It's another new one from the Capitol called Palmetto. It's basically a super sweet blood orange." Jean said. "And Jesse doesn't count. He's got school you know."

"I'll teach him then." Andrew argued, his eyes following Jean as the older boy got up and started pacing. "I remember all my lessons. I could teach him with no struggle." Jean snorted, looking up. "Shouldn't you be getting ready?"

"Kicked out remember?" Jean mumbled, looking back at Andrew. Andrew shrugged, taking another bite from his muffin and Jean laughed. "I should. Aaron seems to be done in the shower, so if I go straight up Kev probably won't care." Andrew nodded, taking another bite quickly. "I need to, don't I?" Andrew nodded again. "I'll see you after. Good luck Andrew." Jean turned to walk back.

"Jean." Andrew said and he stopped, turning. "If I get picked, don't be nervous to say goodbye."

Jean knew that was Andrew asking him to come. But Andrew didn't like asking. Andrew didn't want to ask, say the word please. It wasn't how Andrew worked, and Jean knew that. He never questioned why, but he knew that. He never pressed any questions when it came to Andrew, because Andrew never did the same to him. He never questioned the scars on his cheek or the roughness of his hands or the burn marks that Jean turned up with.

"I will." Jean said, smiling gently. "I hope you enjoyed the muffin! If I do need to visit you, I'll bring one along. A parting gift." He laughed before walking inside.

Andrew watched the door for a few seconds after it closed before moving his glance to the gap in the curtains. Their argument went on for a few more minutes until Aaron looked out the window. Andrew raised an eyebrow and Aaron sighed, turning back to Kevin and saying something before leaving.

"Trouble in paradise?" Andrew muttered when Aaron reached his side.

"Shut up." Aaron muttered, already towards the village entrance.

He was dressed in a tight red shirt, it looked like Kevin's with the way it was too tight around his waist but loose around the arms, and a pair of trousers which were too torn to belong to a victor, and the style choice only pointed to Nicky. Too tight around the thighs with baggy bottoms. Just how Erik liked it.

"He just wanted to wish me good luck and I wanted to thank him, or tell him to thank his dad, for letting me use their shower."

"Wish you good luck with a massive smooch." Andrew said, walking after him.

"As if you and Jean weren't doing the same." Aaron muttered, scowling at him.

"Jean was actually just telling me about his crush. I got a name and everything. It was glorious." Andrew said. As Aaron went to ask, Andrew continued, "But I will not be saying anything about the mystery person. It was in our game, and I never tell secrets from our game."

"You're stupid shitty 'Truth for a truth' game?" Aaron asked and Andrew nodded. "I don't know why you two play that. It's not even a game, its talking. Like normal people do. You and Jean are weird."

"I think Jean is smarter than you when it comes to most things." Andrew mumbled, pushing the gate at the end of the pathway open. Nicky looked up through the window, smiling when he saw the twins. "If him being weird is the consequence of that, I don't think he minds.  

"Fucking weirdo." Aaron muttered, pushing past. Nicky immediately fussed over him, asking where the shirt he left out was. Erik moved closer to Andrew, holding Jesse in his arms.

"I have missed you." Erik said.  

"Jesse." Andrew called and the young boy looked over. "Want to hug?" Jesse nodded excitedly. Erik squatted down, letting Jesse run over. But just before he reached Andrew, he slowed down and then calmly wrapped his arms around Andrew's waist. "Oh Andrew, you look amazing." Nicky whispered. "I wish Betsy could see you before the ceremony, but she's already gone to get the other kids ready." He stood up, smiling. "You both look amazing. And we are going to get through this, and we are going to come home and be calm and happy."

His smile faltered for a second, but he plastered it back on before Aaron could notice. Erik and Andrew did, but both decided to stay quiet, knowing he was trying his hardest.

"Andrew, are you sure you don't want to move to a factory job with me and Aaron? You could watch the games."

"I'm fine being a clearer." Andrew mumbled. "I get good pay and I only have to talk to Jean. I see no flaws."

"But you can't watch the games." Nicky said.

"Erik doesn't like to watch the games. Neither do I." Andrew said, looking down at Jesse, who had buried his face in Andrew's side. "I am happy getting the updates from you over dinner."

Nicky went to say something, but Erik stepped forward and whispered into his ear. Nicky sighed, looking at him. Erik pecked his lips softly.

"We should get going, though," Andrew said, pushing Jesse back lightly and holding his hand out. Jesse smiled widely, taking his hand and holding tightly, as if his life depended on it.

The walk to the town center was mostly fully of Nicky's nervous rambling, with Erik and Aaron occasionally responding. But Andrew ignored them and chose to focus on the small tune Jesse was humming, squeezing his hand along to the beat.

When they reached the town center, Erik picked Jesse back up. Jesse waved to Andrew sadly before his dad carried him off, holding Nicky's hand. They passed the peacekeepers and stood in the crowd beside Jean and Kevin. Andrew took off down the silent path, leading them to the identification tables.

He could see over the peacekeepers' shoulders, David, Matt and Renee lined up along the back of the stage, with their escort, Kathy Ferdinand, standing in front of them. She was talking animatedly to them, with her big blonde hair and eyes practically painted with pink. The skin-tight pink leather dress clung to her to an uncomfortably revealing extent where Andrew had to look away.

"Next." The peacekeeper said and Andrew looked up, seeing Aaron's whole-body flinch. "Go through. Next."

Andrew stepped forward, holding his hand forward. The peacekeeper grabbed his wrist roughly, tugging it forward and pricking the end of his finger. They then pressed it to the paper, scanned it and let him through.

Andrew rushed through, pushing through all the crowds to find his brother. Aaron was waiting nervously, wringing his wrists. Andrew pushed through the crowd until he ended up besides his brother, waiting silently.

"What if we get picked?" Aaron whispered, looking at his brother. Andrew shrugged, keeping his eyes focused on the stage. "Andrew I'm serious." he said before his voice was drowned out by Kathy tapping the microphone.

"Welcome, welcome." she said, smiling at everyone.

The neon yellow contacts she wore made everyone unsettled, but she continued, her cat-like eyes scanning the crowd.

"Welcome to the fifty seventh Hunger Games. May the odds be ever in your favor." She smirked, looking across to the group of people who weren't being reaped, taunting them. "Now, the time has come for us to select one courageous young man and women for the honor of representing district seven in this year's Hunger Games." She stopped for a second, smiling. "As usual, ladies first."

She shuffled across the stage in her overly tight dress and waved her hand over the bowl. A hand skimmed Andrew's wrist and he looked down, seeing Aaron's beside his, the knuckles brushing the black cloth. Andrew slid his hand into his brothers as Kathy waddled back to the microphone.

"Marissa Goodman." Kathy read out, looking across the crowd. People were stepped aside two sections before the twins.

Sixteen years old, Andrew told himself. The girl stepped forward, dressed in a light green dress which skimmed her knees and her hair tied into a tight ponytail.

"Come on up dear, don't be afraid." Four peacekeepers surrounded her, leading her up to the stage. Marissa slowly walked up, and Kathy enthusiastically welcomed her. "And now the boys."

Aaron's grip tightened on his hand as she reached the glass bowl. Kathy smiled, waving her hand around the top before diving in and pulling out one white slip. She slowly shuffled back to the microphone and leant close, undoing the slip slowly. She smirked before reading, "Aaron Michael Minyard."

"I volunteer as tribute." Andrew looked down before he even had acknowledged the words come out of his mouth. He looked back up, seeing everyone staring at him. Aaron was looking at him with tearful eyes.

"Not Andrew." he whispered, but Andrew pushed past. "No. Andrew stop!" he shouted, following him through. Andrew took his place in between the peacekeepers but was dragged back violently. "I won't let you do this." Aaron shouted.

"I volunteer." Andrew repeated, making direct eye contact with Aaron. Aaron shook his head, his mouth opening and closing until the first tear rolled down his cheek and his grip on Andrew's arm loosened.  

Aaron was pulled back quickly, and Andrew recognized the hand around his twin's shoulders immediately. Jean pulled Aaron back, avoiding Andrew's eye. Andrew turned around and followed the peacekeepers down the aisle. Renee was staring at him, shocked, from the back of the stage. Matt's eyes were filled with tears, while Wymack's jaw was clenched.  

Andrew didn't remember as far back as to when he was four, but he knew Wymack's story.

Wymack had trained as hard as he could after losing a close friend to the games when he was twelve. When David turned eighteen, he volunteered himself before the name was even called out. His reasoning was to save one more helpless kid from being killed in his district. This caused him to become a fan favorite in the Capitol, and a respected citizen in the district. In every shop, I have had a discount. Everyone smiled at him in the streets. Everyone welcomed him into their homes and invited him round for dinner.

Every year, when the victors returned, all three of the victors visited the houses of the fallen tributes to mourn with them for one night. They supplied the family with the food for the night and left them all the leftovers. It was a tradition started by Wymack, but when Renee won the forty-fourth Hunger Games, she joined in. And when Matt won the fifty-first Hunger Games, he became the final part of the trio.

Andrew was snapped out of his thoughts when he reached the bottom of the stairs, looking up at the stage. He made eye contact with Renee, who smiled gently at him. He sighed before walking up.

"A volunteer!" Kathy cried, holding her hand out to showcase Andrew's arrival. "Now, what's your name young man?"

"Andrew Joseph Minyard." Andrew said, looking forward.

Jean was finally looking at him, his face contorted with fear. Nicky was beside him, crying into Erik's shoulder. Erik was staring at Andrew in fear while Jesse sobbed, bundled in Betsy's arms. Aaron was crying, while being held back by Kevin.  

"Oh, and was that your brother I picked?" Kathy asked, smiling widely.

"Yes, my twin brother." Andrew answered, trying to keep his voice monotone.

"How lovely." Kathy said before turning to the crowd again. "Here we are. Our tributes from district seven!" She started clapping, but everyone stayed silent.

Jean brought three fingers up to his lips before raising them above his head. Slowly, everyone around him began to do the same, the gesture spreading among the crowd. A single tear rolled down Jean's scarred cheek and Andrew took a deep breath before bringing three fingers to his own lips then raising them above his head.

"Happy Hunger Games!" Kathy cried, "And may the odds be ever in your favor."

They turned away, Kathy leading them both to the door at the back. Andrew flinched away from her touch, overtaking Marissa and pushing himself into the corridor.

"Andrew." Renee said, walking up to him.

"Not." Andrew spat out through gritted teeth.

He would not let himself cry; he would not let himself cry.

"We can talk on the train. I want to say goodbye to them."