#i guess she was right: 'when it doesn't rain it snows'

[kimis-gloves]

Runnin' Home To You - read on ao3

The winter break. The time of year that either leaves people longing for more, or an appreciated break from the world of cars and speed. For Charles leclerc it's a different situation. During this time of year, he's apart from everything he loves, everyone he loves. The way he grabs onto charles when they share a podium, the looks they share while they achieve one of their few moments alone. Charles can't see his life in racing without Max Verstappen being there with him. From the early years of karting, Charles knew he loved max. His entire mind and way of thinking revolves around max. The way he races, the way he does not find any genuine attraction to anyone other than max. It's almost as if he's been poisoned and rotted by his fellow dutchman. 

After Abu Dhabi, Charles found himself not wanting to leave Max's side because he knew that once he did, it would be one of if not the last time he saw Max before the next season's testing. His heart ached everytime he had to spend time away from max. He wondered if Max ever felt the same way, he doubted that as he watched Max walk over to his new girlfriend, one that came upon somewhat suddenly. He watched as they hugged each other tightly, embracing the other's presence as Max exclaimed with joy after winning his fourth world drivers championship. When Max leans in to kiss her, Charles can't bear to watch as it just hurts too much to see the man he's loved for his entire life, act so affectionately to someone that isn't him. 

That was what Charles thought would be the last time he saw Max that year. He spent most of his winter break attempting to take his mind off of the fact that he is so in love with the boy who was sent from the stars. He spent nights laying in bed, deeply wishing Max was there with him. To laugh with and to hold, to stare into his oceans of eyes and tell him how right from the start, he was the light in the dark. 

But alas he can't. He lay there in his cold, empty bed and continued to wish. It's a colder & rainy night, not cold enough to snow. He listens to the droplets of rain rattle against his windows, as he turns over to face the moonlit & rain scattered window, he hears a loud, but stern knock at his apartment door. 

“What the-”

knock, knock, knock

2:37AM

After quickly checking his phone, Charles drags himsout of his bed, throwing on the nearest joggers and whatever loose tee he can get his hands on. As he's making his way towards his front door, hes wondering who on earth could be at his door at this hour, surely nobody import-

“Max?!”

“Charles.. May I please come in?”

“Oh, of course here..”

As Charles is making wax for Max, he's left utterly speechless as to why Max Verstappen is at his door, dripping wet with monacan rain, asking to be let in. surely there's no logical reason for this. 

“Max.. why are you here”

“Shit- charles im sorry, i knew it would be a mistake coming here.”

“No, talk to me.”

Charles brings them both over to the sofa, he offers max a drink but he abruptly declines

“So max, are you going to tell me why you've shown up at my doorstep, at 3 in the morning and soaking wet?”

“She left me, charles.”

‘Oh. I'm sorry to hear that, but it doesn't really explain why you're here like this.”

“Something in me just really needed to see you, I tried calling Daniel for a word of advice but nothing and nobody is helping. I guess I just- really needed to be with you for this. You understand, right?”

Charles is at a loss for words. THE max verstappen.. needed him?? He didn't know how to respond or how to feel about this information, all he could do was sit there and stare at his beloved, not noticing his gaze moving to the freckle on Max’s light pink lip. 

“Charles?”

“Uh- yes max. I get how you feel. Sometimes you just can't help but only want one specific person at times.”

“Yeah”

The two men sit there in silence, thoughts racing through minds. Max worries that he's making Charles uncomfortable so he's urged by his mind to get up and leave. He really doesn't want to, but he doesn't want to make his situation worse by ruining things with the person he genuinely loved. The person that was the root of his breakup with his now ex girlfriend.  

 - 40 minutes before -

“You only talk about charles!! Charles did this, Charles said that. Charles talked about these things and that person charles charles charles!! I’M supposed to be your girlfriend, not charles. I've had enough of being put second to somebody you're supposed to be rivals with. It's going to be either me or Charles, Max.”

Max did not respond to her, instead he walked out the door and walked straight to charles apartment where he knew charles would lie awake at that hour. 

Ever since Max was a young boy, he knew he had some types of feelings for charles. He didn't care about winning against the other racers, he only enjoyed racing against charles. Seeing the way Charles would be left frustrated after knowing Max is the only one he couldn't take on. He enjoyed the rush he got from teasing Charles of the win, knowing he would come out on top every single time. 

When Max met Kelly, he thought he had found it all, but soon he started to feel as if there was something missing. He felt empty. When he realized it was because of these feelings for Charles, he tried so desperately to ignore them but the more he tried the more he couldn't keep his mind, or his eyes off of charles. He thought Charles was the most beautiful thing to have ever existed. Charles was everything to max and max was everything to charles, but neither of the which knew of the others “secret”

—

“I think i should leave, im sorry charles”

“What? Why?’

“This was wrong. Enjoy your night.”

“Max”

Max turns towards the door aiming to leave but charles quickly follows and grabs max by the back of his shoulder

“Max.”

Brushing off Charles's hand, he stands there, slightly hovering over charles.

“Please stay” he says, looking up into the madness of max's eyes.

And that was all max needed to feel sure that coming here was, in fact, not a mistake. 

#f1 #formula 1 #formula one #lestappen #charles leclerc x max verstappen #max verstappen x charles leclerc #f1 fanfic #cl16 #mv33 #mv1 #cl16xmv33 #cl16xmv1 #AAAAAAAA #lestappen fic #guys ik this is short im sorry #i rlly hope its good #i tried so hard #pls we can be world champion #i considered having max call esteban just to fuck with the plot but nah #mutual pining #unaware gays #I WILL DO A PART 2 AT SOME POINT MUAHAHAHAH

[mail-me-a-snail]

oc interview: ✨✨vance✨✨

thank you to @swearingcactus AND @glitchinginthegarden AND!! @v-eats-bugs for tagging me !! finally got to sit down and answer this :3

let's hit it !

🧡 Name?

"Just call me V."

his first chosen name was penn, but he started going by vance after his medical transition. he doesn't give it out freely bc that was the name arasaka knew him by; he doesn't mention his surname, either, bc it's a pretty prominent one with much of its members still working for the megacorp in question.

🧡 Nickname?

"...Well, last I checked, 's still V."

apart from "mano" from jackie, vance doesn't have much in terms of nicknames. his old netrunning handle was N3tH0und (net hound); it's a retired username that's been largely scrubbed from the net, but sometimes he signs his major hacks with it just to fuck with people. it's a ghost's name, and it's fun to haunt the net only when he knows for certain that it can't be traced back to him.

🧡 Gender?

"Guy! Never been asked that outright before."

🧡 Star sign?

"'s not my scene--can't say I know much about it--but Misty's got me down as a Cancer, whatever that means. Says that's probably why I'm, er, so 'intuitive', as she called it. You ask me, that's just the merc work--bein' able to read a room, that is."

i first drew vance on july 7, 2023, so i consider that his birthday. like vance, i have no idea how being a cancer applies to him, but google says cancers are loyal, domestically inclined, and committed to their loved ones, so that sounds about right!

🧡 Height?

"Six flat. Johnny's pretty sure I'm taller than 'im...but he's slouchin' all the time, so don't think he's got a say in it."

🧡 Orientation?

"Usually go for other guys. But I guess the definition of that is pretty loose these days, 'specially in NC, huh. The hell does it matter to me if you've got certain...parts. If you're a guy, you're a guy, and if you're down, I'm down, y'know?"

vance is a gay man with a preference for masculine-identifying individuals. like he said, if you identify as a "guy" in any form, then that's good enough for him. he's not one to talk about having "appropriate" parts, and he thinks it's dumb that they're gendered in the first place. he's not usually looking for anything serious and he's more than okay with just being an input and having one as well.

🧡 Nationality/ethnicity?

"Nay's Indian. Tay's Filipino. Ya ask anyone, I look more like my mom."

nanay and tatay are the filipino words for mother and father, respectively. vance has a very limited grasp of either language but he at least knows that much from his dad's mother tongue.

🧡 Favorite fruit?

"Oh, man, 's been a while--this one time when I was growin' up, think I was ten or eleven, 'Saka sent Dad a basket of 'ganic fruit. For his 50 years o' service, I think it was. Anyway, had my first apple then. What I wouldn't fuckin' give for one right now."

he likes fuji apples the best :3

🧡 Favorite season?

"Gotta be winter. I got to go a lot of places back in '65--Europe, mostly--an' most of them were snowy. Loved seein' my breath fog up. You don't get that here. You get hot rains and the pavement steamin'--guess it's pretty, in its way, with all the city's neon shinin' through the rain.

"But it ain't a real winter without snow."

🧡 Favorite flower?

"If ya hike it out to the Badlands in the summer, you'll find these little white flowers blooming on the cacti; Net says they're called Saguaro blooms. I like their...tenacity, I 'spose."

"But if I had to give ya a traditional answer...blue hydrangeas. Maya--she used to grow 'em in her apartment, still don't know how she did it--she gave me some blooms for my birthday back in '70. A welcome home kinda thing. Don't got her green thumb, so they died a week later...but they were real pretty. Somethin' to look forward to comin' home to."

🧡 Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate?

"Coffee--can't say it works for me, though."

he likes all three and refuses to drink his coffee black. he will put so much milk and creamer in that cup that it might as well be a dessert. johnny is disgusted (affectionate).

🧡 Average hours of sleep?

"...Hours, plural?"

vance is a champ at power naps and between the relic and an insomnia left over from his arasaka days, he doesn't get to bed much. if you do somehow get him into bed by morning, however, be prepared to not see him until near-evening the next day.

🧡 Dog or cat person?

note: those 10,000 photos are just the ones he has on his phone; do not look at the cloud where his kiroshi photos are stored.

🧡 Dream trip?

"...Was actually, erm, thinkin' of--well, when we get all this shit sorted out--I was thinkin'...might bring Johnny somewhere colder. Somewhere with snow. Said he hasn't seen snow before, so, I-unno, thought he might like it out there."

please take this time to imagine johnny in his android body nuzzled up to vance in the snow, red-faced and, for the first time in a long time, in awe. they're going to have hot chocolate later in some cabin vance rented out for the season--but right now, they're watching their shared breath cloud together in the air, simpatico even in this.

🧡 Favorite fictional character?

"Oh, oh--there's this real old holovid I used to loop when I was fifteen. 's fucked how they got most of it right. Anyhow, Rick Deckard. I used to think he was so damn cool."

deckard, with his big-collared jacket and general gruffness, was definitely one of vance's transition goals. that, and he watched br2049 right after--with how deckard was treating K, vance started projecting Really Fucking Heavily on K. like wow! you're a total killing machine with a father who just might love you. that's crazay man. could not be me

🧡 Number of blankets you sleep with?

"Run pretty warm as it is already, so just the one. Like the...texture of it, as it were. The weight o' it."

get this man a weighted blanket please god. i think it would fix him. alternatively, just lay on top of him and he'll be happy.

🧡 Random fact?

"I used to klep a lotta shit when I was a kid. Wires, chips, motherboards--mostly tech, really, from the vendin' machines and bus stops 'round the city. Sold 'em for a pretty eddie down in Heywood; got no buyers in the Hill, not when we could all afford the tech those Heywood kids were tryin' to kitbash together in the first place. Don't really know why I did it.

"To strike out, maybe? Maybe I liked the challenge. There's somethin' about makin' a machine give its own parts to you; get a vending machine to dispense its motherboard, a bus stop sign its LED, and ya feel like ya can make anythin' bend to your will."

--

thank you again for the tags!! this was a lot of fun to do :3

tagging @netripper , @knuckle-cluster, @matapang-coffee, and

@nakitengoku AND whoever else would like to do this! no pressure to do so ofc!!

if u ever dont want to be tagged in these kinds of posts, just lmk!

#cyberpunk 2077 #cbp2077 #cp2077 #cp77 #male v #digital art #doodle #mine #my art #vance #WHOOWEE this was a long one but i had a lot of fun doing it #hes so dead wife core here tbh

[punsmaster69]

NOV/6/20XX

6/NOV/20XX

ignore that.

just a bit tired, today.

it stopped raining sometime late yesterday, but i'm....

stuck inside. again.

guess collapsing sometime around eight and waking up at six doesn't exactly meet papyrus' expectations of a healthy brother.

couldn't imagine why.

——

.........

never thought i'd miss going outside so much.

though, i am allowed on the balcony, which is good enough for me.

gonna hang out there for a while.

——

extra cold outside after the rain. feels like it could snow soon.

i can almost hear the jingle bells already...

——

ok.

so.

...

it's sort of...childish.

stupid, even.

....

but, uh.

i snuck out.

papyrus doesn't know yet,

but he probably will in maybe.. twenty minutes.

that's about the frequency with which he was checking on me.

——

"Oh! Hello Sans! Are you feeling better today?"

"yep."

"I am glad to hear that."

"Please, come inside!"

"ok."

"...uh. heya, undyne."

"Hi...?"

"Me and her are having a chat over some pie. I'd be happy if you could join us."

——

"Would you like another slice, Undyne?"

"No thanks, Tori."

"Sans?"

"i'm ok."

"He's barely touched THAT slice!"

"Is it not to your liking, Sans?"

"the pie's good, but i.. had a lot, before i got here. not hungry, y'know?"

undyne stared at me like she could tell that wasn't right.

"Alright. I'll wrap it for you to take home."

"thanks, tori."

the silence was tense as undyne kept staring me down.

"Um... Would you two like to watch a movie?"

i looked away from undyne.

"sure."

"..Yeah. Let's."

——

"can we turn off the lights?"

"How come?"

"...better for ambience."

still, glaring from undyne.

"Well, alright."

——

we didn't get far into the movie.

"Sans."

"undyne."

"Aren't you sick again or something? Why are you here?!"

"He says he is feeling better."

"BULLSHIT."

undyne slammed her fist against the couch arm.

"He's always saying that!"

"Tori, you saw how he was just the other day!!"

"He's LYING!!!"

the look on tori's face said she wanted to take my side, but knew undyne was probably right.

can't blame her, at this point.

"...Sans, you are not lying again, are you?"

"........"

"What did I say?!"

"Sans, WHY?"

"..Even I am uncertain of your reasons, now."

"We already know you are sick."

"Why would you do this...?"

"To yourself especially, dude."

"I know what it's like to push yourself to the limit."

"But, I'm gonna be honest, Sans."

"You aren't as strong as me. You can't take as much of that pushing."

of course.

the best possible timing for this to get worse, is now, obviously.

can't even hide it.

"Sans?! Are you alright? Come on, let's get you off the floor."

"i just need a minute. i'll be-"

"STOP WITH THAT ALREADY!!"

"ok, ok."

"st-stop yelling, at least."

"hurts."

suddenly, both of their phones were blowing up.

the sinking feeling i got from it was quickly justified.

"........."

"Sans."

"..yeah?"

undyne picked me up by my hood.

"You're going home. RIGHT NOW."

"It is for the best if you do."

——

"...."

"can't change your mind, can i?"

"No."

"Why would you do this, anyway?!"

"You're a dumbass, Sans."

"i know."

"You're gonna REALLY hurt yourself, at this rate!"

"....."

"I'm still not even sure WHY you do this."

"......."

"...Sans?"

"God, how can you even begin to insist you're okay when THIS is a common occurrence??"

she picked up the pace.

——

"..REALLY, SANS?"

"SNEAKING OUT... I REALLY THOUGHT YOU HAD STOPPED DOING THAT FOR GOOD."

"WHY IS IT ALWAYS WHEN YOU'RE AT YOUR WORST, YOU HIDE SO MUCH MORE?"

i'm sorry.

"I JUST DON'T GET IT."

"ARE YOU STILL TRYING NOT TO WORRY US?"

"BECAUSE IT'S... DEFINITELY TOO LATE FOR THAT."

please don't.

"......"

"ONE DAY... I HOPE YOU'LL TRUST ME ENOUGH TO TELL ME WHAT'S WRONG IMMEDIATELY."

"...I HOPE I... CAN BECOME A BETTER BROTHER."

"A YOUNGER BROTHER YOU REALLY RELY ON."

"i do."

"Y-YOU'RE AWAKE?"

"....."

"BUT YOU DON'T."

"i trust you more than anyone."

"THEN WHY DO YOU STILL COVER AND HIDE THINGS FROM ME?"

"...i want to rely on you for this."

"i really do."

"WHY WON'T YOU?!"

"if i... break our promise."

"you can't-"

"YOU AREN'T GOING TO."

"paps.."

"I'M NOT LETTING YOU!"

"i know you can be okay without me."

"DON'T TALK LIKE THIS!"

"it's-"

"PLEASE."

"....."

"i'm sorry. let's talk about something else, alright?"

"......."

"WHY DO YOU SEEM SO SURE THAT YOU'LL.. DIE?"

really can't tell you.

"...just paranoid."

"it's scary, you know?"

"THEN LET ME TAKE CARE OF YOU!"

"you do."

"NOT JUST WHEN YOU'RE ALREADY COLLAPSED SOMEWHERE, SANS!"

"ALL THE TIME. I WANT YOU TO SAY SOMETHING AS SOON AS YOU'RE HURTING."

"....."

just for the night.

"everything hurts right now."

"especially my head."

"and i'm so... so tired."

papyrus promptly stood up. he grabbed and shook the pill bottle that holds the migraine meds.

"...HAVE TO GET MORE SOON."

"TAKE TWO. I'LL GET YOU SOME WATER."

"ALRIGHT, HERE. I'LL GET THE LIGHTS."

"THERE."

in the dark, i could see him sit on the end of the couch.

"not goin' to bed?"

"I'D RATHER BE WHERE YOU ARE."

"EASIER TO KEEP AN EYE ON YOU THIS WAY."

"AND...AFTER WHAT YOU PULLED TODAY, I'M ESPECIALLY GOING TO."

"sorry."

"IT'S FINE. JUST, NO MORE DANGEROUS THINGS LIKE CLIMBING OFF THE BALCONY! GOT IT?"

"got it."

#journal #undertale #sans #papyrus #toriel #undyne #sans and papyrus #papyrus and sans #skelebros #soriel

[gloryride]

OC INTERVIEW

Thanks @alphanight-vp for the tag ♥

And as you love him, let's start with Virgile !

-- Name --

Virgile Luca Ilario Sarto. More italian than that, not possible. Or you're my brother !

-- Nickname --

Not really one. Panam calls me Blue sometimes, so Judy too. As my netrunner name is V3rgiLLius VIIct0r, people in the Afterlife thinks my name is Victor ... thanks Nix for the joke, i guess, but i never said no to that.

-- Gender --

Cis Male

-- Star Sign --

Born in January 24, so i'm an Aquarius.

-- Height--

1m83, or 6" if you prefer.

-- Orientation --

Bisexual

-- Nationality/Ethnicity --

Nothing, i guess ? i was born in the Free States, Nevada, and i'm a nomad. but all my family are Italians immigrants.

-- Fave Fruit --

Grapes and Pears. But i don't eat a lot anymore, hard to find good ones.

-- Fave Season --

Winter, but true winter doesn't exist anymore, which is really sad. I would love to see real snow one day

-- Fave Flower --

Viola Tricolor, but we rarely see some.

-- Fave Scent --

Grass after cutting, or after rain, or both. Good coffee smells is really good too. And Panam's ... what ? she smells really good !

-- Coffee, tea or hot chocolate --

Coffee, black. Forever !

-- Average hours of sleep --

Not enough ! Between none and 6 hours. Sometimes i take some naps but my schedule is chaotic, i'm working mostly on nights.

-- Dog or Cat person --

Dog ! I have one, i rescued a wolf in the desert, and he stayed with me. I mean, he stayed with Aldecaldos because he would be sad with me in the appartment. His name is Callahan, and i love this doggo.

-- Dream trip -- Somewhere with snow to jump in, but real snow not fake one ! Or Italy, i'd love to see where my family come from. But it's very far away, don't know if i could ...

-- Favorite fictional character --

I don't have a "favorite" but i have many i love. Like Marcello Rubini, the main character in La Dolce Vita, an old italian movie. Poor Marcello lives many some adventures but end up alone. The Man with No Name, alias Clint Eastwood in cowboy is awesome too. I watched some so many times ! I can say also Dorian Gray in classic litterature i read, or also Antigone in greek tragedies ... and many more for sure.

-- Number of blankets they sleep with --

Two, because Panam always steals the first one, so i have one for myself. Need to learn tricks when you're with a blanket thief !

-- Random fact --

I worked for NetWatch during 6 years, as one undercover in Dogtown, for Kurt Hansen. I simulated my own death to go out and be back to Night City. How i simulated ? I have a Second Heart, the right dose of IEM and i'm almost dead !

------------

Tagging (no pressure as usual) : @imaginarycyberpunk2023 @drunkchasind @pacificaisstillpacifica @miss--river @beckiboos

#about : virgile sarto #thanks for the tag #i was tagged by 3 others i will try to do them quickly ! #cyberpunk 2077

[lovelynim]

Profile Tag Game!

Hello - Oh, hello! You can call me Fabi. I was tagged by @otomiyaa and saw no other option but to participate in this little game. Now... I wonder, what brought you here, hm?

Chat: Tickling - Why do I like it so much, you ask? I'm not sure... I can't really tell when it caught my attention, but I guess I just dove deeper and deeper and here I am now. If I'm ticklish? Sorry to disappoint you, but no. Trust me, I tried to find out.

Chat: Writing - I'm not sure why, but when I'm not really inspired or don't have a prompt in mind, I feel that my writing gets better if I'm angry or sad. I wonder... would this mean something?

When It Rains - It's been reaaaaally hot here lately, so it's good to finally see some rain ~ of course, that if I can get home before the rain leaves me soaking wet.

When It Snows - Snow, you say? That might come out as a shock, but I never saw snow before... what is it like?

When the Sun Is Out - Agh, sunlight... Who gave the stupid idea of going outside when it's this hot?

Good morning - If you are waking up early, make sure to not make much noise. I'm having a day off and I don't want to be up by the sunrise...

Good night - There it goes another day... I always feel like I could've done more at times like this, but it's no use feeling this way, right? Good night!

About me: Games - I hope this doesn't sound too cringe-y or something, but I'm quite a gamer myself. I'm somewhat proud for being able to manage to play four games even after becoming an adult, eheh ~

Something to Share: Fandoms - I think the thing that disappoints me the most about my blog is that I'm head over heels for so many niché fandoms and I barely have people to hear me ranting about them... Sigh, I wish I could make more people play the same games as I do ~

My Hobbies: ??? - Ahm... Is writing or gaming considered a hobby? Eh, no? Hmm... then I guess I don't have any to share...

My Troubles - Dealing with people is more troublesome than I first expected when I started working at my current job... I need to find a way to look less angry and more friendly - even when they make stupid questions...

Favorite Food: Oh, that's an easy one: pasta! ~

Least Favorte Food: I'm quite the picky eater myself, so there are quite some to list here, but I simply refuse to eat pork, no matter how you prepared it or whatever.

About @wertzunge - Max was probably the first person I got to know when I started my blog. I reached out to him without much in mind, but seeing how our friendship developed over the past years... I don't regret a single bit what I did and would do it all over again!

About @shy-lee-chu - I've to admit that kid got some nerve, heh. She is fun to hang around with and I'm glad I could get to know her more - she has a lot of interesting stuff to share, but... Well, that doesn't mean I won't put her back into her place if she doesn't respect her elders, ehe ~

For this game I'll be tagging @fluffy-ami @chibimochii @ticklystuff @keru0 and, as always, whoever feels like joining us ~

#tag game #genshin impact #profile tag game

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

(Sharing an au a friend and I explored a bit that I just need to be out there)

ㅤ

So. Surge and Kit share the same place. Now they don't have stable housing (as if they could afford that). No, they just sort of jump from place to place, living any place with some sort of roof. Right now they've been living in an abandoned cabin. The cabin is a bit run down, and the roof leaks a bit when it rains. There's no food. But the location isn't bad! It's close enough to civilization that the two could walk to the nearest city/town, but far enough away that no one'll bother them (much less care that they're squatting in abandoned property)

Now Surge has decided (for a reason we have not yet decided upon) that she wants to spend some time away from Kit (perhaps to prove for herself whether their relationship means anything more than the roles forced upon the two of them or the fact that having someone devoted to you can be a helpful tool, or if this all even matters. Or perhaps she just needs some alone time to think, to figure some stuff out). So, Surge (knowing that Kit can take care of himself) sends him out of the cabin for a while (doesn't give him an end date), tells him to go have fun or do whatever it is he wants to do for the time being.

Reluctantly, Kit obeys. He takes the front door out, closes it behind him.

As for Surge, she spends the better part of a week doing whatever. Leaves the cabin to get food, sleeps in, steals from window shops at different stores. She tries some things she's always wanted to out in the city. And in the end...she (although she won't admit it) finds it's a bit lonely without Kit there. She finds that she doesn't much mind her life as it is, nor does she really care if their relationship was forced upon them (because if Kit wants to go against it, that's for him to decide), and she finds out some things about herself (as she is now) and what she likes. So when week 2 begins, she waits inside. Sure, she still goes out to get food at first, but she just waits for Kit to come back.

Because he will, right? There's no way he can leave her alone for any longer, not with how close he sticks to her most of the time, can he?

Meanwhile, Kit hadn't gone very far. After obeying Surge, he'd circled the cabin and decided to stand at the back door. Day and night, rain or snow, he stands behind the cabin, just waiting for Surge to come back.

After about two weeks (Surge hasn't left the cabin for a couple days at least), she finally concedes, talking into the empty cabin.

"...Guess he's not coming back."

And she's...obviously not sad about it (definite lie), because this was always a possibility after they took their time alone. And if Kit decided he didn't want to wreak some havoc with her anymore, that he was no longer devoted, then she doesn't need him. She doesn't need flimsy "bonds". To be honest, in a few days she should probably gather her stuff and–

Amy walks through the front door of the cabin unannounced, doesn't even bother to knock or announce her presence.

And Surge, instead of going on the offensive, assuming Amy meant to fight, or instead of wondering how Amy found their current hideout, takes a brief minute to pretend that she is in no way even slightly depressed or living like shit (that she's totally taking care of herself and she just loves the sound of the rain drops hitting the wood floors).

But Amy, even if it takes a little bit, manages to pull the problem out of her. She's not convinced that Surge is right (that Kit abandoned the place and decided he doesn't need her), about as much as she's not convinced that Surge is completely fine over the prospect of Kit abandoning her.

"Okay, okay. It's fine if you're worried about him, you know. And I don't think it's like you say!"

"I'm not worried about him. He can take care of himself, and his choices are none of my business. He can do what he wants."

Amy sighs, shaking her head. "If he's lost out there in all that heavy rain, I'll find him." And if Surge says anything after that, Amy doesn't hear her. She tunes out everything else for a moment as she turns her head, happening to glance out the back window.

When Amy spots a glimpse of Kit, standing out back in the heavy rain, she isn't sure whether she's sadder about the implications of this, or angrier at Surge for not looking out her own window. Heedless of anything Surge could be doing or saying at the moment, Amy opens the back door, fully intending to drag Kit inside.

"How long have you been standing out here?!"

Kit only shrugs, looks at Surge just past her. "Waiting for you to come back."

Surge grits her teeth, anger and relief rushing her heart at once. "You idiot." She stomps out of sight, looking around for a dry cloth, while Amy pulls Kit inside and tries to start a fire in the old fireplace.

And while Amy is still angry at Surge (all she had to do was look behind the cabin!), she can't help but smile when Surge drapes the dry blanket over him.

Now, as for Surge, at some point she informs Kit that she'll be leaving this place soon, as the enemy (she gestures to Amy) has found them. So, she'll be leaving before sunrise.

The statement isn't very direct, but Amy gets the point. Surge's statement is code for "If you want to go with me, you better be there".

And Kit, perhaps he smiles just slightly, so relieved that Surge does want him (not that he requires this. Of course, if Surge left for good, he'd most likely trail her from afar. He doesn't even require appreciation or genuine want. But that doesn't mean he can't feel happy when she proves she does care, even a little).

And I'd like to think that after finding out for sure that he'd just waited in the same place for two weeks, she takes him to do some of the things she'd done during that first week (under the guise of giving him some enjoyment, since he didn't do anything those two weeks, even though she'd ordered him to. Although deep down, she'd also wanted to do these things with him, so as to enjoy them without feeling lonely, to share this with him) and treats him a little before they find their new temporary sleeping place.

#For the record while this is a Kiturge idea Surgamy is implied as well. so I'll tag it just know it's mostly Kiturge #kiturge #surgamy #kit the fennec #kitsunami the fennec #surge the tenrec #amy rose #amy the hedgehog #sonic the hedgehog #sonic idw comic #kit x surge #surge x kit #I should mention that I haven't read the idw comics so I know I'm not 100% solid on Kit and Surge or their situation but I do know a little #I just think their inherently complicated relationship is just so neat #Also since I couldn't find any kiturge content on tumblr and can't currently write fic for them I just *really* #needed to make the tag a thing #i just be ramblin #Gotta love a fucked up (but also power couple) of little buddy and character they're devoted to 'we're the strongest relationship either of #us have' relationship

[daintyduck99]

Cuddle prompts! did we fall asleep? / i think we did...

Rulie

Julie can't help but giggle when she catches Reggie making snow angels on her comforter for the millionth time. 

He just looks so…so…

Well. Not not cute, but more…content. 

He scrambles up at the sound of her laughter, which she supposes is fair, even though she gave up on scolding him very much a long time ago. She doesn't really mind anymore, now that she knows him. 

She watches with amusement as he stammers, gesturing wildly before slumping with a sigh. 

He runs his fingers through his hair, which doesn't flatten it so much as it makes it stick up more. Julie stifles another giggle. 

He's so red, too. It is pretty cute. 

"Okay, I'm out of excuses. But I remembered to take my shoes off!" 

She shakes her head, smiling so he knows she isn't serious. "Congratulations."

"Hey." He points at her. "You know what? Don't knock it 'til you try it." 

And…she can't argue with that. So…

Reggie squawks as she all but tackles him when she flings herself onto the bed. She just laughs again, rolling free, and peers at him through the mess of her curls. 

He's gone a bit doe-eyed, and his mouth has fallen open. His cheeks, already blooming red, have become especially rosy, and the color crawls down his throat.

He clears it, suddenly, and her heart beats wildly in her chest, ready for anything. 

"That was more of a football maneuver, but for you, I guess I'll let it slide." 

She huffs a laugh, reaching out to poke him in the ribs. "You're in my bed!" 

Reggie arches his eyebrow at her.

"And? I still don't see any angels, Molina."

…

"Okay, this is pretty fun," she admits after a while, then pauses. "And weirdly comfy." 

He's the one who flops down excitedly on top of her this time, and she smothers her laughter in his shoulder as he hugs her close, rambling about vindication. 

Not that he actually says 'vindication'. It's just…the gist of what he's saying. 

It's hard to focus on much of anything but how bizarrely comfortable this is, being sort of…gently crushed into the mattress. 

She's not used to it at all. When she cuddles with Flynn, they usually just curl up on their sides like spoons, and she suspects that Luke and Alex have concerns about actually crushing her, so she typically ends up cuddled into their sides, maybe with an arm around her or a foot in her lap. 

But…this is really nice. 

She likes that Reggie has weight to him. She likes the way he's molded around her, not laying on her too heavily but solidly enough that her mind goes blissfully quiet.

She likes that he has a heartbeat, steady, if quick, before it slowly starts to settle. 

She likes…

…

A whisper makes her jolt. Her eyes start to flutter open. 

"Julie? Did we fall asleep?" 

She hums. Everything is still a little fuzzy around the edges, and a large part of her is tempted to simply burrow closer and close her eyes again, but she doesn't. 

He probably needs…not vindication, but validation. Sleep is so new to the boys right now, and he'd never say, but she knows Reggie’s been having issues with it. 

"Yeah," she says softly. "I think we did." 

He lets out a sheepish little laugh. 

"Sorry—" 

"Don't be!" She says it louder than she meant to, and she flushes, burying her face back in his shoulder, where she mumbles, "It was nice." 

She feels his heart thumping wildly in his chest like hers was, earlier. He swallows.

"Yeah. Yeah, it was." 

"You know…I don't care if you sleep here, sometimes." 

He lifts to look at her hopefully and…

Man, his puppy-dog eyes are lethal. 

"Really?" 

She shrugs, smiling up at him as her own heart does somersaults into her ribs. 

"I mean…I already let you make angels and mess up my covers all of the time." 

He whoops, and she giggles as he starts to rain kisses all over her face. 

"Thank you, thank you, thank you—" 

She turns her face up a little more, on instinct, really, and he kisses her square on the lips without hesitation. 

Julie wraps her arms more tightly around him in case he starts to get second thoughts, and he melts completely, kissing her more soundly. She could drown in it.

It's so easy and so sweet that she can't really bring herself to regret it. This is how she's always dreamed about being kissed, even if Reggie only started appearing in those dreams more recently. 

She really does like him a lot. 

"You…shouldn't thank me," she breathes dazedly when he finally breaks the kiss. 

He laughs quietly, tucking a bunch of wayward curls behind her ear.

"Why?" 

"Because I'm totally planning on using you as a weighted blanket again." 

His laughter fills her whole room with light.

"Sweetheart," he says warmly, "that's more than fine by me." 

#cuddle prompts #rulie #reggie x julie #ficlets with ash #julie and the phantoms

[wxndswept]

Profile: Voice-Over(Yuuki and Moon)

Below the cut is a not-so-quick overview of Yuuki's various voice lines if she was playable I guess? Moon speaks as well, italicized

Hello: I'm Yuuki, a world travelling adventurer. If you've got any- "Hmm, and who is this, Master?" Ugh... and this is Moon. It's an... odd story.

Chat, Drink: You need to take the edge off? I can give you a quick drink if you want. Kidding, kidding!

Chat, Impatience: "Enough standing around. Get a move on!" Moon! Don't be so rude!

Chat, relax: Sometimes it is nice to take a break.

When it Rains: *SIgh* Great. My coat is going to take forever to dry...

When Thunder Strikes: It's getting bad out. Maybe we should go inside?

When it Snows: Brrr, it's cold... better find a warm Seelie.

When the Sun is Out: Haaah, that sun feels nice... Let's just lay on the grass for a bit!

When the Wind is Blowing: Feel that? That's the blessing of Barbatos at our backs!

In the Desert: "Aah, I still have memories of when this wasn't a desert..."

Good Morning: Morning! I was about to head out, you want to come?

Good Afternoon: *Yawn* I could really use a pick-me-up. You want some coffee?

Good Evening: Hey, come with me. There's a spot that looks absolutely beautiful this time of day!

Good Night: "Sleep well, I'll watch over you and wake you if anything happens. Don't worry, as an AI, I have no need for sleep."

About Yuuki: Running: Back in Mondstadt, I would often sneak out and climb the windmills in the city. I just... had to get out of the house, you know?

About Yuuki: Journey: I wonder, if you saw me now, would you be proud of me, mother?

About Yuuki: Truth: Locked

About Us: Adventuring: This journey of ours... I hope it never ends, moon. "......"

About Us: The Sword: You know, I've been calling this the Ruin Blade, but I don't think it's actually connected to Kaehnri'ah. I'm starting to think it might be from a different world entirely.

About Us: Aeternus: Locked

About the Vision: I'm very happy that this reawakened for me. No matter where I go or what I do, she's always with me. Plus the Anemo energy works very well with the elements the Ruin Blade uses. Almost like it was meant to be.

About the Vision 2: Locked

Something to Share: Fragments: It's hard to believe that these little things contain a piece of a person. "I'm not a person, I'm a machine! It isn't that hard to comprehend! "

Something to Share: Teyvat: This world is so rich in history, secrets and culture. It's my life's goal to uncover and learn all of it.

Interesting Things: Moon knows a lot despite being broken. You can ask her almost anything and she should be able to answer! Unfortunately, that doesn't mean she'll actually tell you.

About Moon: I found the sword in Stormterrors' Lair, but Moon I first found in Enkanomiya. To think, they're more than a thousand years old... but so much more advanced than anything here in Teyvat. At least from what I've seen.

About Moon 2: Locked

About Jean: I hope Grand Master Varka returns from his expedition soon. Maybe then I can finally see Jean relax. Nah, knowing her, she won't. 'For Mondstadt, as always...'

About Diluc: Master Diluc... hehe, it's always a good night when he's working at Angel's Share! "You drunkard."

About Venti: Winds: "You do know that bard is Barbatos, right?" Moon please, how and why would he do that? "Don't be daft. Have you seen anyone else with that much control over Anemo? Pay attention to what he says and does, you'll see! "

About Eula: One thing I've never understood is why most of Mondstadt is so rude to her for what her... ancestors did? That never made sense to me, Captain Lawrence seems like a perfectly good person. That said... she makes me nervous, it's that whole vengeance thing.

About Amber: Y'know, it's because of Amber that I tried out for the Knights. Seeing her try so hard to become an Outrider like her grandfather really inspired me. Heh, good for her.

About Amane: You know, my first thought of him was that he was a loner putting up a literal cold air to push people away. Goes to show you not to judge a book by it's cover. "I don't like the way he looks at you." W-what? Where did that come from?!

About Zhongli: "Rex Lapis is alive." What, and you think he's Zhongli Why, because he's smart and well-versed? I swear Moon, you might be a bit broken.

About Zhongli: Help: Locked

About Xiao: Help: Locked

About Ningguang: The Tianquan? I once saw her at a pretty cheap food stall buying Mora Meat! She looked like she was enjoying herself too, it's nice to see someone so high up the ladder enjoy something so... simple.

About Tartaglia: Fatui: I'd love to fight Childe honestly. I wonder if the other Harbingers are actually stronger than him...

About Blair: Locked

About Yun Jin: Her operas are something else! I- "Clearly. You spent nearly a week going in and out of that damned tea house for those shows and stories." S-so!? I can appreciate good art when I see it!

About the Raiden Shogun: Curiosity: I wonder if the Shogun still takes duels... "Don't you dare!"

About the Raiden Shogun: Truth: "If you ever get chummy with Ei, ask her about artificial bodies. Maybe I could have something commissioned like the Shogun puppet." Moon, what are you on about?

About Kamisato Ayato: Ah, the Kamisato siblings. My mother was close with their parents, so I would see them on occasion when we were really young. I wonder... does he still remember me?

About Faruzan: Aside from Kris, Madam Faruzan is the only person to truly show any real interest in the Ruin Blade. Unfortunately, the only thing she was able to tell me is that 'the name is incorrect.' Pft, obviously... I just can't think of anything cooler!

About Nilou: I happened to pass by one of her troupe's shows, and I must say... I was enthralled, for lack of a better word. *Sigh* I should really go back to the Zubayr Theater. I really want to express how enchanting they are, especially Nilou. She dances like... like... agh I can't find a good word for it!

About Kris: That poor girl blames herself for the accident that took her sister from her. She's dedicated her entire life to finding her again, and because of it... hasn't really led a life. I hope she can find at least some time not worrying and fretting.

About Lesser Lord Kusanali: Truth: "Well well, the previous Archon's reincarnation has finally grown wings of her own. Good for her, I cannot wait to see her fly." Huh? Lesser Lord Kisanali isn't a reincarnation, she lost her power, right? Or something like that, according to archives.

About Wanderer: "Foolish Ballader, you cannot hide your true identity. A discarded puppet, the sixth Fatui Harbinger, a failed god, you will always be those things, no matter how hard you try to hide them." Huh? What? There isn't even a sixth Harbinger, what are you talking about with all this?

About Ruby: There is something about that woman that I can't put my finger on. "My suggestion is to stay away from her. Not only is she not human, she's barely comprehensible." Moon, that just makes me even more interested!

About Lyza: Rival: Haha, I've been hired by Kris to find her, but I can't help but be caught up in the moment every time we fight. Lyza is... she's not like anyone I've faced before. Is this what having a rival is like? "No you idiot! Ugh, that poor girl. Having to deal with those curses, forced servitude, and you."

About Lyza: Family: I wonder, if I was in her situation, would my father expend as much time and energy into finding me? It could have just as easily been me with you, you know. "Mmh, perhaps. That girl does have quite a caring family. I do hope she can see that again."

About Lyza: Aid: Locked:

About Neuvillette: The Chief Justice, or Iudex of Fontaine... I hear he's incredibly knowledgeable on all manner of things and has been around for a long time. I'd love to pick his brain about a few things.

About Furina: I sat in a trial once, and if I didn't know any better, I'd say she's... ah, never mind. I shouldn't bad mouth an Archon like that.

About Clorinde: Beautiful and strong? Haha, a small part of me wants to get arrested just for the chance to fight her! Hmm... nah.

About P: Revenge: Locked

More About Yuuki 1: I'm actually from Inazuma. Before moving to Mondstadt, I lived with my family in the middle of the city. We weren't too far from the Komore Teahouse, although we were never allowed entry.

More About Yuuki 2: I had quite a few odd jobs when I was younger, after moving to Mondstadt that is. I helped at Quinn's stand, ran deliveries for Sara, and even helped out Grand Master Varka! *Sigh* Things were simpler back then. But not necessarily better. Heh, I did a lot to get away from my father.

More About Yuuki 3: Before I became an Adventurer, I actually tried to join the Knights. Back then, I was doing anything to get out of the house, but... I don't know, something stopped me from following through. I was told I had what it takes and had more than enough skill, but I just couldn't finish. I wonder what kind of person that makes me...

More About Yuuki 4: Locked

More about Yuuki 5: Locked

Yuuki's Hobbies: Aw, this is a bit embarrassing, but... I like to draw. I've drawn a lot of the landscapes that I've visited and a few... portraits. Wha- you... want to see? Nngh... fine. Just don't be too harsh, okay?

Yuuki's Troubles: Moon likes to butt into conversations a lot, usually to inform or correct something in a conversation. "Please, I bring life to some of those boring conversations with boring people!" It's... complicated to explain to people exactly what's happening.

Yuuki's Troubles 2: Locked:

Favorite Food: Aah, I'm not super picky. As long as it's cooked properly, filling and I can have a good drink with it, I'll probably eat it. Especially if I can eat it on the go.

Least Favorite Food: Hmm, I'm not a fan of making soups and stews when I'm out. Clean-up is such a pain, and it's so easy to get the seasoning wrong.

Receiving a Gift 1: Oh wow, this is delicious! Thank you so much!

Receiving a Gift 2: Mmh, you're quite the cook, aren't you? Very nice.

Receiving a Gift 3: Oh... uh... wow... thanks...

Birthday: Happy Birthday! Where do you want to go? From breakfast in Liyue to dinner in Fontaine to star-gazing in Inazuma. Anywhere you want, I'll have you want, in a jiffy!

Feelings About Ascension: Intro: I can feel it... this sword's ancient power!

Feelings About Ascension: Building Up: "Well well well. You found me. I guess this makes you Aeternus, hmm? Well? Come on, take me! I will give you what you desire, my master~"

Feelings About Ascension: Climax: So this is the power of Darkness... the element that Lyza used. I'm... not sure I like how this makes me feel.

Feelings About Ascension: Conclusion: Locked

#( headcanons. ) #;;wandering wind(yuuki) #;;star watcher(moon) #ngl i actually had a lot of fun making this despite how long it turned out to be! #i also finished it at like 2am last night so i'm posting it now! #also i know exactly what those locked ones are but i won't reveal them until later #unless you want to message me about them #kidding #or am i?

[fictionalurl]

I'm a day behind, but I had a ton of brainstorming to do! That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it :P

Here's my challenge version: I'm trying to do both 7 sentence challenges at the same time. That will probably mean being a little loose with the prompts, but I think it's honestly kind of easier to have more than one prompt to think about at a time!

This is effectively a totally original fic, but the characters are (I guess?) slight AU versions of the characters from... a different one of my original works (see the thorn twist in your side). That one's not finished yet, though, so I guess that won't mean anything to you yet!

(also they're probably like 13 here. I couldn't figure out a way to get that very specifically into the exposition because, you know, 7 sentence original fic is kind of limiting :P)

---

1. road trip + salt

"I think this is sleet, actually," Carter says, cheerfully launching into a lengthy explanation of the differences between winter precipitation types and exactly how dangerous she thinks each ought to make a drive over a twisty mountain pass in a beat-up old station wagon. In the back seat, Shae folds her arms across her unsettled stomach, feet tucked underneath her, lulled by the rhythm of Carter's chatter-chatter-chatter interspersed with her dad's dutiful sounds of vague acknowledgement as he drives: "mhmm," "right," "'course, hun." 

It doesn't seem to her like it matters what this is, really—sleet, hail, freezing rain—because no matter what words you use to describe it, the result seems like it'll be the same: they're going to be crawling up and down the narrow lanes of state highway whatever-the-heck at what feels like fifteen miles an hour, the car's motor wheezing like an asthmatic, until they break down and freeze to death, or slide off the road and freeze to death, or... something else involving freezing to death (the possibilities really seem endless).

Shae had been nervous about her first ski trip—maybe she'd be terrible at it; maybe her friends would all leave her behind on the training slopes, laughing at her, and she'd have to just sit in the lodge and drink hot cocoa and sulk—but at this point a comfortable, stationary place to sit and not be carsick sounds like heaven, and she says a little thanks to whatever god might be listening when Carter finally gets a momentary bar of cell service and finds them a little log-cabin-hotel-thing just off the highway.

As they enter their room and knock the snow off their boots, Carter's dad says something about waking up and setting off as soon the trucks come through with with salt for the roads, but Shae has other things on her mind: insulation is not a strong point of rustic cabin construction, she discovers with growing horror, and she's soon tangling herself in the too-thin blanket of her double bed with all of her clothes on, trying not to shiver, insisting that she's—fine, really, honest—

"...Shae, silly, c'mere," Carter whispers, though, only a few moments after they turn out the lights, raising up a corner of her blanket.

And... god, is it ever so warm to curl up next to her, not touching but almost, just listening to the sleet-or-hail-or-freezing-rain-or-whatever drumming quietly on the roof.

#7days7sentences #sevensentenceficjuly #stttiys

[hourglassfish]

Fun and Work

I guess I'm gonna use this blog to think about The Bear a little?

So my investment in this show - is heavy. I am really, really rooting for the team of The Bear to build a workplace that they enjoy working in. Not all day everyday, because working under capitalism is always gonna suck a little bit, service work is real hard. And it doesn't have to be forever, cus the nature of many workplaces is that folks move through it. But a place where people can work, and grow, find joy and pleasure and fun in it, earn enough to live with dignity, and for their work environment to also enshrine that dignity. Basic human right. Rare for most of us in the current working landscape.

Anyway.

I find Sydney and Carmy both hugely relatable - and I laughed for about 10 minutes straight when Carmy said that he'd googled fun in Al-Anon. Cus I've done that:

I did not find an ER doctor girlfriend from my childhood, I got an allotment and a cat and I highly recommend both.

But as I get older I cannot deny the pleasure I get from my work, and the joy I find in the people I work with and the connection I have to them - and one of the real sadnesses I feel when I rewatch season two is that Carmy doesn't just bail on the stuff that sucks - money woes and dead raccoons and competing for staff - he also bails on the really fun stuff (and the really fun people) present in his work.

There is the obviously fun 'lol as if this is our job for the day' stuff - literally travelling around CHICAGO and EATING ALL DAY with Sydney. She doesn't just eat - she roots herself, and The Bear in the city, meets other restaurants, gains their support and encouragement, builds community around herself, builds relationships with suppliers that are warm and friendly, picks up on gossip. All the good - and fun - things that you need, cus even in a competitive industry, you've got to have friends. And this Carm's first restaurant. He'd be meeting folks, not as a CDC, but as a fellow executive chef. He misses those words of encouragement and affirmation, the hugs and the light jibes from people who really get it, cus they've done it - the unknown unknowns that are revealed in the random bits of advice people drop.

There is the nerdy fun - the pops of joy we see when Tina unboxes those shiny new pans, picking the art for your walls, stroking the woodgrain on the table that you picked, figuring out the cheapest way to get the silent plates you're craving when the originals are out of budget, learning what your space looks like first thing in the morning, last thing at night - when it rains, when it snows, when the sun is at its highest. Getting a particular piece of kit that is expensive but worth it.

There is the slightly delirious fun - Tina tries for this, when she gently sings 'nduja' at an extremely in the zone Sydney, who is a bit too stressed to be there with her - but if it's not impacting your health, and you're with the right people? Working till the small hours on something you loved - ordering takeaway and snacks to get you through it, psyching each other up and making shitty jokes which you then look back on and laugh about later - these are some of the delights of being in a team, they're building blocks of intimacy.

Related to that is the delight that comes in getting to know people better - and this is where I am saddest for him, because we've seen enough of Carmy's relationships outside of work to know that Sydney was likely the first person to ask him how he felt about retaining the stars. She's a nerd! She loves it, just like him! What other questions would they have asked each other? What else would they have learnt about one another, and themselves from sharing that process? If it hadn't felt so chaotic and weighted with tension, what would it have looked like to have Tina there also, able to learn from them both? I keep referring to her here, because she is, for me, the heart of the show, the absolute best of The Bear (show and restaurant) and a quiet revelation in the second season. To learn that windows become pasta in Sydney's mind, to have Tina straight talking about whether the things in your head are actually being communicated on the plate, to have Marcus asking these endless questions with this kind of quiet joy that disperses out from him?

There is fun and joy and intimacy to be found at work - especially when you are building something tangible and real that you will own, which so few people get to do. When you get to teach people, nurture them, be a part of their development. Especially if you're kind, and sensitive, and you're paying attention. Especially when all the people you work with are united in their love and grief - and by a gift that the person they are grieving for has given them.

Working has maybe not been fun for Carmy historically, I really, really get that but -

(MAYBE. I don't trust Carmy, currently carrying his trauma and his grief, as a reliable narrator - I think maybe work was fun for him for a while, with an underlying sadness around Mikey and home, then he ended up in the wrong kitchen with the wrong chef and had a really terrible time. I am DESPERATE to get a fuller picture of who Carmy was pre New York but still away from home. The Carmy that got those tattoos and made friends with Thom Browne. Like maybe he was shy, Claire. Maybe he *was* But. BUT. Anyway - )

I feel like this could have been the very early, first steps of a shift in that for him. I feel so sad - to see him and Syd laughing in his kitchen and to think he didn't get to have that (you only build your first restaurant once). He also didn't get to have it again in Episode ten, when the shit hit the fan, and Syd And Rich (wow, how far they have come) pulled the team together with a ticking clock, hella yelling/swearing and a shared commitment to a vision. Was it stressful? For sure, I wanted to bust through the screen and get Syd out of there!!! But was it thrilling? Was it the stuff of a glorious anecdote? Were they all sort of exhilarated and grinning at the end? Was it... kind of fun?

Like... isn't chaos kind of fun when you're with a team? When you're safe, and no one's been stabbed, and no one's screaming? We're pack animals. All we ever really want is each other.

Anyway, I dunno what I'm trying to say here. I've been thinking a lot about how with Carmy - and with many folks working through trauma and various anxiety/panic related stuff, the logic is all or nothing. Balance, working with where you are and what you have, being present to what is there, is real hard!

#the bear #the bear fx #the bear hulu #the bear season 2 #carmy berzatto #tina the bear #sydney adamu #marcus the bear #richie jerimovich

[emeraldtart]

The Masked Decepticon

Previous Chapter

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Chapter 8: Fire In The Sky (Part 1)

"Yo, Doc. What'cha doing there?"

"Just some of Sumdac's old things. Aha, there it is,"

Powell pulled out a dusty blue print from the box. On it was written 'Weather Machine'.

"One of Sumdac's failures. If I can make his failure work, then people will certainly think I'm the better scientist than him,"

"So, when are we working on it?"

"Right now, of course, Masterson. The sooner we complete it, the faster we can get those robots out of our way,"

Xxx

Fast forward two weeks later.

"Any clue about Prof Sumdac's whereabouts?" Optimus asked his team. They all shook their heads. The Prime sighed, its been months, and they had searched the entirety of Detroit nearly four times for Prof Sumdac and Megatron.

The team transformed into their altmodes and decided to go back to base.

Bumblebee is clearly getting frustrated with the situation, too, "Seriously, how did a giant Decepticon like Megatron can just vanish like that?"

"I mean, can't we ask those guys to search, too? They can fly," he whispered.

"You know we can't do that. It's already hard enough convincing the people of Detroit we're not the bad guys after what Megatron did. Imagine if they find out. It'll be worse," say Bulkhead.

Bumblebee sighed, "Yeah, I get it. But still, where could those two be? Underground?"

"Maybe. But I have a hard time imagining Megatron in the sewers," say Prowl.

"Not really, he spend lunar cycles in the mInEs..."

"What?"

Everyone stopped and turned to Optimus. "Optimus, what did you say?" asked Ratchet.

"I Mean... He's a MinEr... He... RarElY... Sees the SUn... My VoICe...?"

"That doesn't sound good. Come on, I'm getting you checked up,"

Xxx

At the base, Sari is hanging out with their Decepticon members, watching the news. Usually, she doesn't find the news interesting, but this...

"Professor Powell's newest creation, the Weather Machine, has launched to space a week ago. And now today will be the invention first test run. Professor, mind telling us what exactly this machine does?"

"Well, that's simple. It controls the weather by changing the direction of the air and temperature. It can even make snow in at of summer,"

*BEEP*

"Aw, I vas vatching zhat..." said Blitzwing.

Sari threw the remote in anger, "Argh! First, he take away my dad's company. Then, he have the nerve taking his inventions?!"

"I don't remember a weather machine in Detroit, though," say Blitzwing.

"It's one of my dad's old projects. He can't get it to work because of some issues, so he put it on hold until he can figure out what's wrong,"

"And I'm guessing this Powell fixed it?"

Starscream grit his dentae, all the memories from before the war is surfacing back in his processor, "Ugh, reminded me of those bots back at the Science Division. I hate to know what they've done to my research,"

Sari blinked at Starscream's words, "You're a scientist?"

"Was. Besides, I don't get why you humans want to control the weather. Can't you tell just by looking?" asked Starscream.

"Well... Maybe it's for events? Like, it sucks if it's raining on a sports event, right?"

"Hard to fly," Blitzwing agreed.

"Yeah. Wait, is it true that flight frames can tell the weather just by looking?"

"Not really. It's more like we feel the air current and predict it. Not always accurate," say Blitzwing.

"Can you show me?"

Blitzwing peered to the windows and look at the clouds. It was quite dark, but... Those aren't rainclouds.

"... Its going to snow?"

"What? But it's the peak of summer," say Sari.

"Move aside. Let Megatron's most loyal pre- snow?"

Starscream pushed the two away and looks at the clouds. He held out a servo and a single white flake fell on it. His optics zoomed to look at it, and to his shock, it was a single piece of snowflake.

"What the Pit is going on here- whoa!" the trio were taken aback by a powerful gust of wings. Lugnut immediately closes the window, and the other two begin closing the doors and other window of the base.

"There's a whole aft blizzard outside!" Starscream yelled.

At the same time, Team Prime arrived, all of them are covered in a thick layer of SNOW. Bumblebee shivered as he comes inside the base, "What's going on!? The weather become crazy all of a sudden. AC-HOO!!!"

Sari turned on the TV and paled, "Uh, you guys might want to see this,"

"This just in, the Weather Machine launched by Professor Powell is malfunctioning. Citizens of Detroit are advised to stay indoors for safety,"

"I'm guessing he doesn't fix that problem, huh?" say Blitzwing.

"We NeeD to FInD ThE MaChIne BEFore DeTrOIt iS FRozEn..."

"Lord Convoy, what happened to your voice!? Is the strange weather making you ill!?" yelled Lugnut.

"No idea, but me and Prime will have to stay. You guys get the ship and shut that thing down," say Ratchet.

Optimus coughed and pointed at the three Decepticons, "FoLlOW toO. JUsT In CAse soMeThIng HApPen to ThE ShIp,"

"Alright, don't force yourself. Come on,"

"I will stay, just to make sure Lord Convoy is alright!" say Lugnut.

Starscream looks at the snowstorm outside. Bad memories resurfacing. Along with worse ones.

Xxx

"Alright, everyone ready?" asked Prowl. He didn't show it, but Prowl is quite nervous. He had never piloted a ship this big before.

The Decepticons are outside, staying outside the ship incase something happens.

"I got the copy of the blueprints. It says that the lever on the back will deactivate it," say Sari.

"Alright, let's go,"

And with that, they all fly to their next destination, the weather machine.

Xxx

"Zhere, I see it!"

Bulkhead opened the scanners and saw the weather machine within a snowstorm.

"It's inside there... How do we get in?" asked Bumblebee.

"Above. There's the eye of the storm. The weather machine is probably in the middle. We can enter from there," say Blitzwing.

Prowl carefully drove the ship upwards, where they could see a circular hole in the middle of the storm.

"We need to ve careful. The inside is where the most dangerous winds occurs,"

With that in mind, they carefully tread within the eye of the storm. Finally, they saw the machine itself.

"So... Who's going to pull the lever?" asked Bulkhead.

"I'll do it. Bulkhead, control the ship and keep it as steady as you can," say Prowl. He put a hook on his body and opened the door. The blowing wind almost knock their ship off balance, but Blitzwing managed to hold it steady.

"Phew, that was close..." say Bumblebee.

"Hold on a nanoklik... Where the Frag is Starscream!!?"

Starscream was still above the eye. He was flying still, not being able to move. The wind, the cold, the freezing snow and ice on his wings and turbines. He can't move. He needs to stay.

Blitzwing's scanners saw something coming at them at full speed. He ducked as a piece of debris came at him, but it instead hits the ship's turbine.

"Prowl, hurry up!" Bulkhead yelled.

"I'm almost there-ah!"

The hook slipped from Prowl's hips, but Bumblebee managed to catch the cyberninja's pedes, "Gotcha!"

"Urgh, I can't hold on... Starscream, get your aft down here, you slaghelm!"

Starscream snapped from his trance and dove down, "I'm coming, I'm coming!"

He pushed the ship and managed to get it balanced again, "Primus, what took you so long?!"

"Prowl, you're done yet!"

Prowl fumbles with the panel and manages to pry it open. He quickly pulled the lever, but nothing happens.

"It's not working, I think it shorted out!"

"What!!?"

Suddenly, the wind blowed stronger, causing the Orion and the two flight frames to be flown away to the Arctic.

#transformers animated au #transformers au #tranformers animated #Tfa #Tfa au #the masked decepticon #decepticon leader optimus #optimus prime #tfa op #tfa optimus #starscream #blitzwing #lugnut #sari sumdac #isaac sumdac #bumblebee #ratchet #prowl #bulkhead #This one is a two-parter

[jax-is-rattled]

Like A Death In The Hall

Wrote this as a fic bc I'm trying to hype myself up for posting more fics. And it gives me practice for writing Copia and the band ghouls interacting with bw bc I'm a cringe ass nae nae baby and I'm mushing them together like a kid playing with dolls. ANYWAY THIS BITCH IS GONNA BE ROUGH SO BUCKLE UP. AND READ THE WARNINGS.

CW// forced "medical procedure"?, suicidal ideation, self harm, body horror, very graphic depictions of said body horror, serious case of the ouchies, whole lotta hurt, self image issues, bws just not having a funky fresh day yall

Just be warned in general

Sister Imperator had told the skittish ghoul that she needed to tell him something very important. That it was about his job as the cardinals assistant. So she called him down to said cardinals office, pulling him from dinner where he sat at the opposite end of the table from the ghouls and into another chair in the dim office.

The other ghouls were still a bit skeptical of him and he was terrified of them. The wound of theirs was still open so they had the right to be angry and skeptical. Scared even. The three older ghouls had most of their other band mates stripped away from them, sent back to the pit or killed presumably, and were forced to adapt to new ghouls. And the current fire ghoul, Dew, wasn't even supposed to be a fire ghoul. Or so he's heard. So when they pulled August from a watery grave only to get a fire ghoul, the band was a bit nervous that Dews time was up as well. That he wasn't good enough to keep and needed replacing like the others.

He thought about it on the way down to the office. It had been almost a year, but he still didn't blame them, not one bit. But it would be nice to just sit down and explain to them that he was just an assistant, nothing more nothing less. They wouldn't have it though. Dew snapped and swung when he'd get too close or talk too loudly or did much with the others really. Mountain refused to acknowledge his existence, would talk around him if he had to talk in the general vicinity of him. The earth ghoul talked to the others perfectly fine, just not him. Aether was sweet, though. Checked up on him and all that jazz, but he seemed like he didn't want to get too close to him. He couldn't blame them but it did sting a bit. The others were kind to him, he vibed pretty well with the water ghoul, Rain. It was relieving that at least someone was ok with him existing in the wing.

He hadn't even realized he was standing infront of the door to the office until someone opened it for him, snapping him out of his thoughts and back to where he was. He shuffled into the musty office, not exactly expecting to see Dew sitting in the chair next to where Sister Imperator was pointing for him to sit. He was wondering why he hadn't seen the ghoul staring daggers into his forehead at the table earlier. Guess this answered his question. The door closed behind him. The way Sistor was looking at him had his hair standing on end. The Cardinal waved happily at him from where he stood next to Sister, so he waved back just as happy, if not a bit confused, as he sat.

"The cardinal doesn't need a fire ghoul as an assistant-" Sister said, rather bluntly as she arranged papers on the desk. August could practically feel his heart fall out his ass at that. "Cool, so why the fuck am I here?" Dew butted in with a huff of annoyance. "If you'd let me continue you'd know." Sister snapped back, "ahem, we don't need a fire ghoul burning important paperwork, but the Cardinal enjoys your company," August visibly relaxed at that.

"So we're changing your element."

He didn't quite understand what that entailed other than the obvious, but the way that Dew sucked all the air out of the room through his teeth and went pale as snow and the Cardinal looked like he had been shot, it wasn't a good thing. "Wh-what uh what are you changing him to, Sister?" The Cardinal sputtered out in a rush.

"Water."

He felt like he was going to puke.

His mind completely turned off. He heard Dew and the Cardinal argue for him but he didn't understand a word. He gleamed a loud 'was I not enough proof that this isn't a good idea?' and a 'he's harmless he can't even keep a flame!' but that was it before he was being dragged out of his chair by the old era ghouls that he hadn't even seen when he walked in. He was too shocked to fight back as he was pulled out the door and it was shut, closing him off from the conversation he didn't even get a word in.

He opened his mouth to plead to them to let him go as they dragged him down the halls, but nothing came out. So he thrashed. He kicked and twisted and snapped and bit but all it got him was a rush of quintessence dragging his mind into a pit of inky black as his body went slack.

He doesn't remember much of the ritual. Brief flashes of red and the smell of fire thay were quickly overtaken by deep indigos and violets. And the smell of lake water. Sharp and cold. The colors and smells were quickly drowned out by the searing pain that zapped through his body before he was out again.

When he woke up in his own room, he felt like he had been struck by lightning. Like someone had cracked him open and taken a hand mixer to all his insides. He felt like he was being rearranged from the inside out. And in all actuality? He was right. He was being rearranged from the inside out. On top of that he was ice cold. His teeth chattered as he tried to pull himself under the blankets he was unceremoniously dropped on. It felt like the hardest thing he's ever done with how little energy he had. He felt like he was dying.

After an hour of trying to warm himself under a blanket and failing, gasping and whimpering through the pain, he remembered the bathroom he had connected to his room through his haze of pain. A searing hot bath felt like the only lifeline he had left. There was a sharp throb under his horns and he practically threw himself off the bed, getting tired and angry over the pain and the cold. As soon as his feet hit the floor he felt like was about to crumble like a kicked sandcastle as an even more intense pain wracked through him from the tip of his horns to the end of his tail. He wiped out his nightstand when he stumbled, gasping as he tried to steady himself on the wall. He continued his struggle to the bathroom as the room spun around him.

"Dying. I'm dying aren't I?" He thought to himself as he slammed the door open and collapsed to the floor. He wanted to die at this point. They should have just killed him and got a new ghoul. His mouth felt like he was chewing on bricks and glass. His teeth hurt. his horns felt like they were about to either fall off or explode. Were his hands always this pale? Fuck he was so cold. He pulled himself up by the edge of the sink. As soon as he saw himself in the mirror he felt like screaming. Crying. Anything to get the anguish out. His skin and the tips of his hair was pale as a sheet and his mouth was dripping with that pitch black blood that pumped through his veins. Those golden honey colored eyes swirled with ice blues. He doesn't know what the fuck was looking back at him in that mirror, but it wasn't him. That's not him. He isn't him anymore.

He wasn't the same fire ghoul the Cardinal loved and grew attached to.

The sharp throb in his horns from earlier came back ten fold, almost knocking him over. And his eyes landed on his horns. They looked weird against his hair and the splitting skin at the base.

Those aren't his anymore either.

They had to go.

He wrapped his hands around one of those beautiful golden horns that he loved so much. And he pulled. He pulled and pulled and when the horn finally snapped off in his hand, the wave of relief almost had him sobbing. But there was one more horn. He repeated with the second one, but it wouldn't budge. He thought about slamming his head onto the porcelain of the sink to break it, but before he could put it into action it finally gave way.

He managed to stumble from the sink to the side of the shower and crank the hot water on as high as it would go. It's the only way he'd take showers normally. He loved how hot the water could get in his room. But as soon as he slipped under the water, still in his clothes, he felt like he was being dissolved in acid. He screamed. That hot water felt like searing hot razors taking him apart down to his bones, flaying him open and laying him out. Skinning him alive. And when he opened his eyes he realized it was. His ash gray skin sloshed off him in thin sheets to reveal soft pale skin and fur. If this didn't kill him he was going to do it himself.

He just wanted to be warm again.

There was a knock on his door and Dews surprisingly quiet lilt drifted under the door but he couldn't understand it. He did the only thing he knew was left. His voice was rough and his throat was raw from screaming, but he managed to call out a single word.

"Help."

#drabbables #august ghoul #he is havi g a HELL of a time huh #god how do i tag this #uuuh #fuck #definitely nit puttin it in the main tags FUCK that noise #lmk if yall want me to tag the cws down here bc im drawing a blank

[n7viper]

🎶 + Mihren, Mihri & Rylen, Lia & Garrus AND Lia & Tarquin oOoOOo I know you have multiple songs for everyone so I am choosing all of them

Send me a 🎶 + an OTP of mine and I’ll give you a song that reminds me of them.

Ohohoho so I actually didn't have any Mihri/Rylen ones (so why did I put their names there??), and I didn't have any for Lia and Tarquin either. But I have done some extensive research and have come up with some. I've got lyrics with these, so I've put everything under the cut to save everyone's dashes.

Mihren (Mihri & Cullen):

I mentioned this song the other day in another ask (not as an actual answer), but I'm gonna go ahead and use it anyway. As a note, I think the perspectives could change a bit for this song to fit them. Mihri wants to absolutely destroy him, not necessarily the other way around.

It's only just a crush, it'll go away It's just like all the others, it'll go away Or maybe this is danger, and he just don't know You pray it all away, but it continues to grow

I want to hold you close, skin pressed against me tight Lie still, close your eyes, girl, so lovely, it feels so right I want to hold you close, soft breath, beating heart As I whisper in your ear, "I want to fucking tear you apart"

Her hand brushed up against his, she left it there Told him how she felt and then they locked in a stare They took a step back, thought about it, what should they do? Cause there's always repercussions when you're dating in school But their lips met, and reservations started to pass Whether this was just an evening or a thing that would last

Either way, he wanted her, and this was bad Wanted to do things to her, it was making him crazy Now a little crush turned into a like And now he wants to grab her by the hair and tell her

Mihri & Rylen

Not much to say about this one. She has, frankly, bewitched him. One of my favourite horny songs.

Her lipstick stains like acid rain Dissolving away my sense of restraint … Concealing the violence, I've been stung by the wasp So come to me No sense of restraint So come for me

Come with me and disappear without a trace Criminal, in how I crave the way she tastes I'm the rapture in her head when she attempts to sleep It's haunting, she kills me

No time or place to take it slow And my head aches but I refuse to go Her face as soft as snow She looks so lost but she feels like home

I will wait endlessly I will break you carefully So take me harmfully You fit so perfectly I will wait

Lia & Garrus

We've waited so damn long, we're sick and tired I won't leave any doubt or stone unturned I've got a collar full of chemistry from your company So maybe tonight, I'll be the libertine

Oh, show me your love, your love Give me more but it's not enough Show me your love, your love Before the world catches up 'Cause there's always time for second guesses I don't want to know If you're gonna be the death of me That's how I want to go

You've got it all worked out with so little time Memories that I'd black out if you were mine You've got a pocket full of reasons why you're here tonight So, baby, tonight just be the death of me

Lia & Tarquin

I have seen this used as an actual love song before, but I get missed opportunity/pining vibes from this. Lia and Tarquin are the FWB that catch feelings, but unfortunately they're both just too stupid to ever realize that they're both in love. And guess what? It doesn't matter because I don't do a Tarquin Lives AU :) Missed opportunities ahoy!

I'm a ghost in your eyes A shadow you can't seem to recognize I have a thought of you for every star in the sky But I'm scared, I'll never cross your mind Yeah, I'm scared

Will our stars ever align? Will two hearts beat in time? These words you should always remember To you, my heart I surrender Chasing love that can never be mine Maybe one day you'll realize These words you should always remember To you, my heart I surrender My heart I surrender

And I can't count the times I stayed awake pretending you were mine Now I'm left here with this emptiness inside Why can't I make you mine?

#thanks!! #I realized I am desperately low on love songs #I keep recycling the same ones for all of my pairings #I generally listen to things that are just... aggressive and/or violent #mihri tag #lia tag #ask game answers #mihren

[unfortunately-obsessed]

Come morning light (I'll die homesick)

Warnings: Violence, Wounds, Blood 🔹Words: 3.1k | AO3 Link 🩵

Summary:

If Miles Morales is right, then tragedy is meaningless and dozens upon dozens upon a myriad of heroes – fundamentally good people, not like Miguel or Anastasia – lost their loved ones over nothing. All tragedy is just how the universe works?

When everything comes back later, Miguel will hate himself for this just a little more. It doesn't break him yet. The worst hasn't even begun yet.

That's the easy part.

In other words: every person that confuses correlation and causation winds up dead.

\\~~~//

In my memory, it doesn't end. We just stay here, looking at each other, forever.

What happens is: he's cold. Miguel is cold like he never have been before.

Cold. Cold. Cold.

Earth-6055 is one of the worst places he's have ever been.

One month since the Collider incident from Earth-1610, Miguel understood he can't fix the multiverse alone.

More accurately, he started to understand what this entails.

When a notification about another anomaly popped-up on his screen, he hadn't thought too much about it.

LYLA suggested contacting the local Spider variation, naturally, but she wasn't able to gather any more information past the: female, only Spider of her earth.

By this time, he had been in a handful of other universes. Earth-404, Earth-13122... He already had a handful of recruits, Peter B. Parker and Jessica Drew for starters, willing to save as much people as maintaining the universe intact would allow.

The anomaly – a variation of Doc Ock – that was snatched into this universe was, if anything, unlucky. Even Miguel's breath caught on his mask.

Earth-6055 had a gloomy atmosphere, permanently night and raining like a bad joke. New York was freezing with everlasting thunders. It had roughness, it was sharp, gritty, a nightmare he can't quite wake up from since the moment he stepped into it.

He isn't panicking, not yet, even when he can't find the anomaly anywhere. Miguel's lungs burn, the air quality worsening at each breath. His chest is unbearably tight as he swings over the city. Quiet, calm night.

Heavy rain.

The colds bleeds through his impenetrable nanotech suit, to his bone.

It's not snowing, yet this city is cold like the vacuum of space.

It happens too quickly. One second he's swinging from one building to another–

Then he is free-falling.

The impact with the ground makes he taste blood. Thick. Metallic and oh-so-familiar. Sweet.

Everything hurts.

Miguel can't see the starry night through the clouds. Vision wobbly.

Somewhere along the darkness, his eyes close.

Things don't happen too quickly in his line of work, not to him. It happens just quick enough, and he always parries.

That Miguel's hamartia: he keeps his eyes shut. It's cold and he follows the dark down, down, down–

Mercifully dark. Certain that if he open his eyes, his head will be split in two.

Cold. Hypothermia? He can't even understand what has hit him. He barely breathes.

Miguel wakes up precisely one second later. Pulled out of icy water to a harsh surface.

A pressure on his chest. An insurmountable pain on his left side.

Miguel comes back with an sharp gasp for air.

It takes too much to catch his breath again.

A kick to his liver, his brain suggests. He twists his lips, trying to understand what is above him. Who is above him.

It hurts for too long.

If he wasn't him, he probably wouldn't wake up until tomorrow morning – probably would need a hospital and a month-long rest.

"Let me guess," says a suave voice, looming just above him, "another freak claiming to be from another universe."

A tactical mask stares him down, white lenses narrowing at his grunts. He can see a red arachnid logo against matte black.

It hadn't stop raining, so Miguel's heart ticks hard against his ribcage when he explodes into movement, freeing himself from below her feet, barreling distance between the two.

She rears back.

"I don't want to fight you," he says.

"You're barely," she answers, tucking her elbows and keeping her foot in her shoulder width.

It's almost comical – Miguel had seem Peter and Jess fight before, each against an anomaly respectively, and sparing once. Seeing a Spider-Woman assume such abrasive, professional stance send shivers down his spine.

Would be comical if she hadn't decked him earlier, if she hadn't already showed how perfectly she could take him down. Efficiently, to the point he didn't know what attacked him.

It comes back around: a momentum against his face that, this time, he blocks.

Miguel slams his fist against the blur trying to hit him, making a wet, blood-gushing noise. He can count on one hand the times he had met his match; androids, clones, robots...

"Listen to me–" he tries, but she throws something heavy on him that he manages to chomp in two with the blades on his arms.

It comes back around: a swoop to his stomach that do make a deep gash.

Talons?

He bleeds before dodging the next blow, an elbowspear that certainly would have broken his nose through the mask.

This Spider is not holding back from trying to maim him.

The next swing, Miguel pulls her bun back. She changes her direction mid-air, attempting a punch to the face.

He loses balances with a kick in his legs. Groaning, Miguel is pinned to the ground.

"It will hurt if you don't stay still," she says.

Miguel can't comprehend what this entail until the lower part of her mask disappear and two authoritatively pearly-white fangs swoops closer and closer.

For a second, Miguel feels transfixed. All he sees is pure white, beautiful. Perfect.

The next, his instincts scream at him to move. A warning that thrum through like electricity.

Get away. Get away. Get away.

Miguel kicks her away. A hiss leaves her mouth just as her tactical mask goes flying against his talons, deep-cutting her cheek in the process.

The pain disorients.

Holding her by the wrists, she can't escape. Those on her hands are claws, he realizes, which she is trying to scratch him with.

A feverish look stricken her eyes. Her breathing is heavy, mouth-agape and trying to twist herself free.

Mierda.

It doesn't feel like too much at first. Anger simmering in the surface and blood slowly dripping. Unreadable.

He holds her by the wrists. "Listen to me– Listen to me," She tries to force herself free again, fruitlessly. Miguel doesn't relent. "–I'm from a different dimension. I'm not a villain."

"You punched me," she says.

A problem: there's no mental tingle that could reach out to her, that could connect her spider-sense to him, to say, hey we're not so different, see?

His masks disappears then.

"You punched me first," he snarls.

Her nose crinkled, studying the fangs inside his mouth.

Ah, yes– fangs.

The woman pinned under him seems to come to a similar kind of realization. She mutters, "You're like me?"

Miguel groans, bleeding, but also loosening the grip on her. "I've been trying to tell you that."

She brings her knees to his chest and, more gently than the last time, pushes him away. Two feet of distance, eyes so wide in surprise.

It hurts to breath.

Her hair tucked in a bun, soaked. Fair skin, and the fangs once there disappeared. She pushes the red arachnid logo on her chest and the mostly dark grey suit starts to change into black, red and white.

Sealth-tech. Nice.

"You are from an entirely different universe than this one?" She points to the ground, and then desperately at all around them.

Miguel could start to explain but she hits him with a:

"How are you molecules not unstable?" One step closer, and all aggressiveness in her vanished. Miguel can hear the child-like wonder on her voice, pacing closer. "Did you artificially stabilize the quantum flux necessary to travel between realities? How?"

This is the very first thing that enthralls Miguel on Earth-6055. This spider-woman is nearly his height. Her voice not even close to sounding harmless, lacking exhilaration. Disheveled.

It's still pouring and he can barely hear the city abuzz below them, can barely hear LAYLA suddenly popping on his shoulder. It's rarely one of his concerns.

"It's a device designed to stabilize the molecular structure of the subject and–" Layla sings-songs, eager to answer all questions before Miguel interrupts her by trying to grab the tiny hologram.

(But, still, he can count on one hand the times he found a match to his strength, villain or otherwise.)

"The anomaly," he hisses, a command to Layla.

"You mean the wanna-be Doc Ock?" asks the Spider-Woman. Not waiting for an answer, she goes, "He's down four blocks from here."

She jumps on the balustrade, putting her mask back into place. "Keep up with me," and then she leaps.

There's a tray of destruction leading into the alley. If that Doc Ock had wrecked havoc earlier the same night, no one could guess by the state he was currently.

Tied down in webs to a wall, pale and unconscious. Bleeding too.

"What did you to him?" Miguel asks partially because of curiosity, and he can't put the finger on why, but he also feels impressed.

"I paralyzed him," she says as if it should've been obvious.

He hadn't seem it yet: another spiderling that also had fangs. It seemed to be one of the things that managed to be rare throughout the multiverse, or at least as far LAYLA had scanned for.

(He is different too. His Earth already had a hero, once, and already lost it. He's a substitute, a cheap copy. He managed to be different from the rest of the multiverse in every fundamental way.)

Everything was a blur when he did it, biting someone into unconsciousness, blood-rushing frenzy. He feels his fangs coming forth now out of instinct.

Miguel observes it with an uncanny sensation on his stomach. The woman goes around him, marvelled, not bothered with Doc Ock.

He can't take his eyes out of the four perfectly rounded holes in Doc Ock's neck, glowing red and purple, swelled up, his clothes teared out of the way.

"That's the device?" She points to the gizmo on his wrist, circling him like prey, and this feels on itself like a paradox.

Miguel grunts, the scowl bleeding through his mask.

Layla yet again intrudes herself into the conversation. "It's a Dimensional Travel Device, called DTD, capable of–"

" Layla," he warns, and he's sopping wet because of this incessant raining.

White lenses scan him, from his mask to his stance, cutting him up. Malcontent, all of this Spider-Woman's attention is on him, and she heaves with breath in an alley painted red.

Again, Earth-6055 feels like a strange, feverish nightmare. The ravager that protects it is a match to him.

"What's your name?"

He thinks he might have misheard.

He didn't.

"Spider-Man," says Miguel O'Hara.

She scoffs. "Quite complacent."

Miguel pulse pounds on his throat, and this Earth has the worse air quality ever. It's quite irrational, he despises the Spider screaming inside his head – even if it never wronged him – urging the fangs out, and he can taste his own blood pressing his tongue on them.

Very suddenly, Miguel realizes he loathes Earth-6055.

Precisely ten seconds later, he asks, "What's your name?"

Her voice changes into amused. "People call me Predator."

Out of the alley, her New York is alive and bleeding.

"Yeah," he grunts, "I can see why."

\\~~~//

Layla convinces him, somehow, that they need Predator working in the Society.

They don't.

Yet he finds himself stepping into Earth-6055 again.

The city is torn with train rails, shattered and architectural in its suffering.

Cold in a way he never felt before, dark and shadowed in a way that it's not quantifiable.

Nevertheless, he sees it. Sinking.

"Blood," he echoes, stupefied.

"You don't do this?" she asks.

It's fascinating. He takes a deep breath so he doesn't scream, or retort his face.

He doesn't want her to feel othered.

"You consume blood," he says carefully.

"You don't," she says again, eyes narrowing.

Miguel gives her a incredulous look. "Well–"

"I was bitten by a genetically modified spider," she says, her tone rough, "a vampire spider."

(He had seem it from afar, before she sees him, before she knew he returned to try to recruit her, just after stepping again into this nightmare that is Earth-6055: a monster is encircled by armed men and not has any trouble in tearing one by one apart, leaving them inches away from death.

And when she had bitten the last one standing, fangs piercing through his neck and staying there for several seconds, Miguel had thought only that her venom took some time to act.)

"Huh," it's all he manages out.

She shrugs. "Yeah."

It hits Miguel that if he had hesitate for a second, she could have done the same to him.

He's not so sure if what he feels is fear. The concept is scaring.

He doesn't feel scared.

"Your webs are biological," he comments.

"Your's clearly aren't."

He blinks. "Not exactly."

A beat pass. She doesn't feel convinced in the slightest.

"Your webs are bright red," she dictates, glaring at him.

"It's an aim-assist tech." Her eyes narrow, suspicious. Miguel clears his throat. "My webs are... mine."

Great choice of words. Eloquent.

She winces. "Aim-assist tech? Nerd."

Miguel rolls his eyes.

"Is this rare, too?" she asks.

"No," he says, but he also doesn't say that the blood-sucking thing is not rare, it's I've seem this before and it's bone-chilling. "I don't know. Other Spiders I met use web-shooters. I can guarantee you that there must be others with organic web, though."

"You're saying that they were bitten by a radioactive spider and decided to die on that hill?"

"Didn't you?"

"Didn't you?"

He tries not to roll his eyes again. "I'm more genetic tampered than most."

("How many universes have you been too?"

"Five, counting this one."

"How are the rest of them– the other spiders?"

"Same story as yours, I think. Spider-sense, sticks to walls, etcetera."

"Huh," she pauses, eyes never leaving Miguel.)

For a second too long, Miguel feels unearthed. And she refused to look at him for this whole time.

Don't people fear you? Asking this would taste just as ironic as it would sound. Hypocrite, even.

"I'm hungry all the time," she says, and Miguel has this little ah moment because if her webs are biological and she needs to consume blood, then– "Hard combo."

Not rare for a bioengineer to question like this (especially for Miguel if you consider his geneticist genetically spliced with a literal spider because of Alchemax backstory), but Miguel wants to understands why and how and– how does it feel?

Spiders do have fangs.

He never asked himself how his preys, the villains, felt as he bite them.

Paralyzing venom probably hurts a lot.

Unexpectedly, she unfastens the bottom part her mask, looking into the night sky. Her lips are busted, red raw to go with her reality's inky quality.

Miguel is struck.

She breathes in, hard and sharp. Swallows dry. "So the multiverse is real, huh."

And he remembers very well feeling this same excitement. Travel between different realities exists! It's possible!

Her teeth are red when she smiles, looking at him like he hanged the stars up in the sky, sitting there with her worldview adjusted.

All entirety of space, time and matter can coexist at the same time, it's happening all at once, parallel to each other.

From this distance, he can hear her heart beating strong.

"That's cool," she whispers to the sky.

So, Miguel is struck. She makes a bloodful but pleasant expression.

"It is," he says.

She exhales.

\\~~~//

"I don't understand," she says.

And, to be honest, Miguel is not entirely sure how he ended up comparing hands with her. On the rooftop, he can still hear sirens.

"You have claws," he says, their gloves inches away from each other. "I have talons."

Maybe a little pathetically, he doesn't want to fumble.

Her mask shifts, scrutinizing. "I understood that," Predator argues, "I don't understand why the word difference."

Miguel doesn't really feel like explaining. He doesn't really socialize with the others in the Spider Society either.

"You don't look like you care about semantics," she says, taking her hand back to herself.

Miguel was smart. He programmed Layla. He built machines to travel between universes. He'd been putting together a strike force to clean up the mess Earth-1610 made and he was even able to command Alchemax into being better after dethroning his father.

She's tall, if only she tilted her head she'll have access to his neck. And she has claws, fangs, yet is just as much of a variation of him than any Peter Parker is, which is to say: not at all. Her claws are straight from her nails, while his talons are curved from his fingertips.

They're not the same. Just painfully similar.

Braches from the same root.

"Does it ever stop raining?" he asks.

She's scratched and covered in blood from before his arrival. Being Spider-Man is a sacrifice.

And he doesn't want to explain the difference between talons and claws.

"Never," she says.

\\~~~//

One thing he had gathered already about the woman people called Predator was: she's a doctorate student of physics. The way she controls her intonations, making modulated jokes, differentiates her. Calm, and nothing like a chatterbox such as Peter.

She understood the problem rooted in the original collider incident from Earth-1610 easily, how it made a hole in the fabric of the multiverse; understood how it caused anomalies and made him impressed when she explained it back to him with added theories and thoughtful questions.

Another thing: he can't directly ask Predator to work in the Society. She is not like Jessica Drew or Peter Parker. She's the first of her name.

When danger becomes alive as her city is, it's hard to leave. He sympathized, other heroes also hesitated before joining.

Normally, the sheer amount of people that one can save by taking care of anomalies convinces them.

She'd say, if I don't save them, who will? The implications made of Miguel a dumbfounded man.

Had to argue with that, even when the multiverse could crumble. Her city is, if anything, cluttered with people begging for help, grinding them down to dust.

It is uncanny how tall she is. By only tilting her head, she would have access to his neck. Instead, she holds the rotting of New York with both hands.

It's normally 2am in New York when he arrives. Miguel wonders if it is as unhabitable as it feels.

\\~~~//

"Won't you tell me your name? Your true name."

Miguel glares at her, seemingly forgotten of basic human etiquette.

Now, she rasps in a esoteric way, "Your real name, not the preposterous–"

"I already understood your opinion."

Her head tilts. "So?"

Well–

Predator had taken the Sinister Six under twenty minutes, impersonating a battering-ram and outmaneuvering each of them. The best he saw in combat until now.

Dutifully, she would be the perfect candidate for the Strike Force.

When everything comes back later, he'll hate himself for this just a little more. He stares into her eyes, getting used to seeing her bare face, soaked in rain, and it doesn't break him yet. The worst hasn't even begun yet.

In mellow fashion, he growls, "Miguel O'Hara."

This is the swift difference between talons and claws:

Claws aren't designed to predate.

"Miguel," she taste-test, and he can almost see the awed expression through the mask,

"My name's Anastasia Hart."

#atsv #across the spiderverse #miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x oc #miguel ohara atsv #atsv fic #arwrites

[tobiasdrake]

Gym #8: Grusha, the Sub-Zero Shredder

One last Gym Badge to go. It's time to face the frozen fury of the Ice Gym with a randomly selected team of Pokemon, trained to level 47.

So, going into prep work for this Gym, I made some less effective choices for my movesets than what I would ordinarily. Here at the frozen near-peak of Glaseado in a fight against an Ice Gym, I'm kind of anticipating a convenient natural snowstorm.

What I've observed thus far when dealing with weather is that I don't think naturally-occurring weather effects can be cancelled. Like, I think I've noticed moves such as Sunny Day failing during natural rainstorms and such. I might be totally off-base, but that's what it seems like.

I'm going into this Gym battle with the expectation that the weather is going to be Snow and there's nothing I can do about it, so I shouldn't build any plans around weather moves. With that in mind, here is my team.

Spidops (Insomnia) w/ Big Root - Leech Life, Toxic Spikes, Sticky Web, Silk Trap. As you can probably tell, I built Spidops for setup. I want her to drop Sticky Web and Toxic Spikes on the field, and her Silk Trap can punish whoever she's fighting against first.

Lycanroc Midday Form (Sand Rush) w/ Hard Stone - Rock Slide, Crunch, Psychic Fangs, Stealth Rock. With this, all three forms of Lycanroc have appeared in one of these randomized battles, I think. She's got Stealth Rock for more spike-laying. Other than that, she's just going to fire off Rock Slides. Crunch and Psychic Fangs are here for coverage, if we need it.

Bellibolt (Electromorphosis) w/ Leftovers - Thunderbolt, Chilling Water, Confuse Ray, Slack Off. Bellibolt seems like a strong candidate for Rain Dance and Thunder, especially with Weather Ball in her moveset. But no weather tactics. So instead, we're going for more of a tanky saboteur with Ability-boosted Thunderbolts.

Dachsbun (Well-Baked Body) w/ Rocky Helmet - Play Rough, Body Press, Stomping Tantrum, Charm. Dachsbun is a brick house like Bellibolt, but with Body Press and Rocky Helmet to take advantage of it. I think she's going to be fairly strong here, though it's a shame she definitely won't be able to intercept any Fire moves for that +2 PHY DEF boost.

Arcanine (Intimidate) w/ Assault Vest - Flare Blitz, Overheat, Reversal, Extreme Speed. The heavy hitter. If anyone's going to get out there and trash Grusha's team, it's Arcanine. Overheat will cost a lot of Special Attack, but his other moves are Physical so that's fine. With Speed advantage all but guaranteed from Sticky Web, Flare Blitz and Reversal can do some damage.

Great Tusk (Protosynthesis) w/ Black Belt - Earthquake, Body Press, Knock Off, Rapid Spin. Wow, what a mixed bag. Great Tusk is so powerful that they're right on the cusp of pseudo-legend. But no weather tactics, so Protosynthesis can't fire off. Being Ground and Fighting, they have a mutual weakness exchange against Ice. But with Sticky Web nerfing Speeds, they can hopefully fire off fast enough to crush before they get crushed.

We've got a quick no-muss no-fuss minigame Gym Challenge here. Underwhelming, but okay. And no pre-emptive battles with Nemona or a Gym understudy or anything. Huh. I guess we really are just... off to the Gym Leader battle. I expected more.

I guess I can use this space to just comment that I was a little surprised by his gender. His hair, facial construction, and especially the long eyelashes give off a feminine appearance, but during registration, he was referred to with he/him pronouns. So I thought maybe the little Gym Leader icon didn't capture him right, and it'd make more sense when I met him.

Then I actually met him, and he's literally dressed in the colors of the trans flag. Huh! So that's pretty cool. Nice subtle bit of inclusion there.

Not sure why he doesn't cover his nose with his scarf, though. In his years on these slopes, I guess he's built up an immunity to his nose getting nippy in the cold.

Grusha Pokemon #1: Frosmoth

Okay, the naturally-occurring snowstorm did not arrive. Shame. I could have come in with much better tactics. I outsmarted myself.

Well, let's get started. It's a setup round so I have little to fear from damage. Frosmoth and Spidops have similar ideas. Frosmoth uses Tailwind, while Spidops uses Sticky Web. My Web will still be here when your Tailwind dies down, asshole.

Now I could go for Silk Trap to try and snare Frosmoth, dumping her Speed. But according to my Pokedex, Frosmoth has is optimized for Special damage. Silk Trap only debuffs on Contact, and that moth isn't coming anywhere near us physically. It'd be a waste of a turn. Besides, that Tailwind would mitigate the effects of Silk Trap anyway.

So let's just tank her first hit to set up Toxic Spikes. It will give us an idea of what we're dealing with too. Frosmoth fires off and it's Blizzard. Spidops loses 75% HP, but sets up the spikes.

Blizzard, huh? Perfect accuracy in Snow, but only 70% right now. And with Tailwind in effect, she has a base Speed of 130 plus whatever IVs/EVs she just doubled. The only one among us who even has a hope to outpace her is Lycanroc. But if she can't, then she's taking two consecutive Blizzards from switching.

I think we need to let Frosmoth win. We can waste one of her Tailwind turns with a failed Leech Life.

This plan more than delivers. Blizzard's unreliable accuracy janks Frosmoth's next attack, forcing her to drop 40% HP from a successful Leech Life before she can successfully take down Spidops in the next attack.

Grusha Pokemon #1: Frosmoth, Round Two

I could use this time to set up Stealth Rock. But if I do that, Frosmoth will use this time to fire up another Tailwind. Let's just shut this down now.

Lycanroc crushes Frosmoth under a Rock Slide. Next!

Grusha Pokemon #2: Beartic

It's begun. Beartic enters and is immediately poisoned and debuffed. Now we can set up Stealth Rock.

Stealth Rock comes at a heavy cost, however. Beartic oneshots Lycanroc with Earthquake. Shit.

Grusha Pokemon #2: Beartic, Round Two

Time to get analytical. Beartic is slow, but tanky. Pure Ice with 80 for both Defenses and 95 HP, with 130 PHY ATK. His Abilities grant either +1 Speed or Evasion, but only during Snow. And we've just seen that he has Earthquake, so this is not a safe fight for Arcanine or Bellibolt.

Let's go for Dachsbun. Dachsbun uses Speed advantage to Charm Beartic, cutting his formidable PHY ATK in half. The responding Icicle Crash only hits her for 20 HP.

Dachsbun concludes with a pair of Body Presses. She takes another Icicle Crash, but she's left with 76 HP. She's good for another round.

Grusha Pokemon #3: Cetitan

Boy, it must suck to begin a fight Poisoned, Speed debuffed, and at 75% HP. I'm glad I'm on this side of the battlefield. Anyways, Cetitan is a distant relative of Wailord, and like Wailord, he's specialized in HP first and foremost. His only other good stat is PHY ATK, so let's cut that in half with a Charm.

The Charmed Cetitan hits Dachsbun with Ice Spinner. It does as much damage to Cetitan courtesy of Rocky Helmet as it does to Dachsbun. And then Poison triggers!

I haven't even hit Cetitan with an attack and he's already down to 40% HP. Body Press, I guess! Sadly, Cetitan lives through it with a sliver of HP, hanging on to KO himself on Dachsbun's Rocky Helmet. And bring Dachsbun down to 32 HP, the jerk.

Grusha Pokemon #4: Altaria

Oh, boo. Flying Type means Altaria ignores the Toxic Spikes and the Sticky Web. But not the Stealth Rock, so that's nice. And Fliers still take 25% damage from a super-effective Stealth Rock, so not technically being an Ice Pokemon didn't help her.

Let's see. She's a Dragon/Flying but she's about to be mono-Ice. Probably can anticipate Blizzard. She has good HP, PHY DEF, and Speed, the latter of which is NOT cut in half. Special Attack is where she truly shines. But her Defenses are weak. And her ability, Natural Cure, is basically irrelevant.

She's at 75%. I think Dachsbun is faster than her. And if she's not, Arcanine is. So we'll go for a Body Press, factoring her impending shift to mono-Ice.

Grusha Terastilizes Altaria. Big mistake. Altaria changes Type just in time for Body Press to knock off 40% of her HP. She's hurt but hanging in there. Altaria finishes off Dachsbun with Hurricane, to my surprise.

Grusha Pokemon #4: Altaria, Round Two

Arcanine hits the ground running, erasing Altaria with a Flare Blitz before she even knows what hit her.

It's over!

Man, it feels good when a plan goes off without a hitch. I've never really understood why people say Rapid Spin is a high-level competitive move. I think I get it now. Peppering the field with so many Spike moves is crazy OP. Grusha had zero answers for the intense conditions I was forcing his team to enter the field under.

I think this might have been the second-easiest Gym battle I've fought all game. And it's not because Grusha's team isn't strong. We were the same level. It's because Toxic Spikes, Sticky Web, and Stealth Rock conspired to cripple them.

I learned something today.

#pokemon #pokemon scarlet and violet #pokemon sv

[poodleteeth]

(Part 1) I’m interested in getting a (standard) poodle, and I’d like to keep it in the show German/terrier clip and since you keep Sparta in that clip, I wanted to ask some questions on it. Do you groom her yourself, and how long does it usually take(including bath time)?Obv for a standard it’s going to take longer, but by how much do you think?

(Part 2) I’d assume that once the general shape is down, it shouldn’t take too long to touch up after that in the future groom sessions? How much time do you let pass between grooms, and because I want to groom myself, do you have resources and info on learning this clip? Thank you and sorry for all the questions 😅

haha it's okay! i love talking about this so asking me was like activating my trap card asdadfs

i take her to a groomer every three months to refresh the cut and/or shape it into my next random idea. but between that, i groom her every week myself, though i mostly do just bath, drying, shaving face, feet and sanitary area and clipping nails. i go with scissors only when something's really bothering me. but yeah, once the general shape is down, trimming it down takes no time.

right now the whole groom takes me around 30-40 minutes really. i bathe her, put on a mask and wrap her in a towel to let it sit for at least 10 minutes, then wash it off and wrap in a towel again. usually i do a 10 minutes break here, just to let her dry a little, and rn fluff drying her takes me 20 minutes, sometimes less, sometimes more, depends on if she has any knots or is uncooperative that day. when she was in a full puppy clip, the entire weekly groom took me anywhere between 1,5 (typical, well maintained coat) and 3 hours (i had a depressive episode or something and now there are knots and mats), so i guess a standard would fit somewhere in these brackets. it all also depends on your skill, equipment and hair products you use: some products make the hair a hell to dry and it feels like it's taking forever. it also gets much easier with time as you get more used to grooming.

ALSO the quality of your dog's fur matters a lot. i can only speak about european lines, but silvers and fawns are notorious for having atrocious fur quality that requires more attention, and black poodles generally have the best fur. Sparta has exceptional fur quality for being a silver so when it's not raining or snowing she can go without a groom for two weeks (ofc if you're banding or wrapping fur you need to do a maintenance check between baths bc the bands will break the hair after some time, but redoing bands/wraps takes no time + tc doesn't need bands anyway) and it'll be fine no matter the clip she's in, but most silvers and fawns would be full of knots and mats in that time lmao.

as for resources: Julie Wilkins has a nice tutorial on the terrier clip, her channel in general is great and helped me a lot when i was a weenie who's too afraid to ask my breeder for help asdfadsfs