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minhosimthings · 3 months

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Sample Session || 18+

Synopsis: In which you ask your boyfriend for a semen sample

Pairings: Sunghoon × fem!reader, non idol au

Warnings: SMUT MINORS DNI, p in v sex, rough sex, overstimulation, unprotected sex (not for you at all) masturbation (male), spit as lubricant, praise, degradation, swearing, rough dom Sunghoon, sub!reader, reader wears pink lingerie, boob fixation, dirty talk eyyy, collecting semen in that tube because we medical students, mentions of Yunjin from Le Sserafim and Gaeul from IVE

A/N: this is my submission for @deluluriddhi's 500+ followers event which you can find here! Had a shit ton of fun writing this though so here you go babies!

Being a doctor has its advantages.

You get to help people, you get a shit ton of money (student debt sucks but hey), you get a hot boyfriend, you can correctly pronounce and know the meaning of choledocholithiasis.

Did I mention hot boyfriend?

Park Sunghoon. Possibly the hottest and the only surgeon-in-training you'd ever want to have inside of you all day long.

Of course the walls still speak of the times he railed you in the room where they kept the crp training dolls, but we don't speak about that anymore.

But one of the greatest advantages of having a Park Sunghoon, as you soon found out, was that he proved useful in a quest.

For a particularly awkward thing.

"Sperm samples?" Yunjin gasped, almost spilling her coffee on you, "we have to collect sperm samples?"

"For the last time, yes." Gaeul groaned, massaging her temples, Yunjin had been asking the same thing since the past hour.

"How on earth are we going to get semen samples?" Yunjin asked, turning to you for some reason.

"Alright ladies, time to seduce some men." Gaeul laughed, sipping her frappuccino.

"Y/N already seduced one." Yunjin groaned, deflating her body onto the table, "Hey, get some for us too will you?"

"Number 1, we need to have different samples, and number two how the hell am I gonna ask him?" You quizzed the girls, who looked dumbfounded.

"Maybe..you know." Yunjin began, and you realised she had the same face on as she did whenever she saw the extremely phallic design of the law building at your college, "Just do the oogey-boogey with him."

Gaeul's frappucino can spit out her nose, as she cackled loudly, garnering the attention of many people in the cafe.

"The oogey-boogey YUNJIN WHAT?" Gauel kept laughing, holding her stomach tightly, "Is that your way of saying that Y/N needs to seduce Sunghoon into somehow giving her his semen?" She said, when her laughter died down.

"Absolutely not!" You protested. The idea of seducing your boyfriend was...nice to think of but to actually have a practical session? You would have rather jumped off a cliff.

"Just ask him today, we have a holiday tomorrow, so incase the oogey-boogey indeed does oogey-boogey you have semen! Simple."

Gaeul's frappucino was subjected to being ejected out of her nose again, as she rolled over in fits of laughter.

This wasn't you.

This definetly wasn't you, Sunghoon thought.

His mind was racing at a hundred kilometres per the second, and his bag full of pastries for you was abandoned on the floor as soon as he saw what lay in front of him.

A reward for his hard work today? The thought of what he had done to deserve you was running a lap through his brain. You, in your pretty pink lace, with white trimmings, and pearls on your neck, the ones he bought you of course.

"Well hello there, gorgeous." He said, grabbing your waist in his arms, as he always did when he got back home. But this time, with a different purpose.

"All dressed up for me today?" He quizzed you, placing a kiss at the nape of your neck. It was pathetic how much the simple action made your hole so wet.

Sunghoon toyed with the pretty pink lace of your bra, kissing up and down your collarbone. God had you changed your perfume? It seemed so intoxicating to him. Your hands came to rest on his shoulder, as you nibbled the tip of his ear a bit, which made his dick throb inside his pants.

"Come on." He mumbled through his kisses, lifting you into his arms, making you wrap your legs around his waist, which you did promptly.

The one thing that Sunghoon would have never expected was the various medical equipment that lay on your bed.

"Y/N." He glanced at you suspiciously, putting you down on your feet, "what's all this?"

You awkwardly cleared your throat and rushed over to the bed, picking up a tiny test tube and shoving it in your boyfriend's hands.

"Alright so I have an assignment and I need your help." You said, a bit more seriously than you had wanted to.

"Do you need me to get you pregnant or something?" Sunghoon chuckled, his eyes darkening, "Cause I won't say no."

"Actually it's not that."

"Then what is it, princess?"

"Canihaveyoursemensampleplease." You mumbled, or more properly, to say, rapped.

"Y/N, proper sentences please?"

Sighing heavily to yourself, you gulped and wrapped your arms around Sunghoon again, pressing a chaste, sweet kiss to his pink lips.

"I need a semen sample for an assignment." You mumbled into his ear, albeit a but louder this time. Sunghoon smirked into your neck.

"That's it?" He asked, a cocky smile spreading on his face. His baby, needs a sample from him? He thought it was the most adorable thing ever.

"Yeah...it's fine if you say no though!" You panicked, looking at him with widened eyes. But Sunghoon only chuckled again and raised your chin to his level with his finger.

"How could I say no when you're asking so nicely?" He said, guiding you over to the bed. Kicking off his shoes, Sunghoon settled in nicely between the sheets, while you awkwardly sat at the edge, handing the tube to him.

"Don't want to join me baby?" Sunghoon asked, taking off his belt and his trousers, and pulling you in for a sudden kiss, by grabbing your face with his hands.

"You're a medical student too Hoon, you know I can't." You rolled your eyes at him.

"Alright, but do me a favour. Hold the tube in place for me will you?" He handed the tube back to you, and you bit your lip. Holding it in place. In other words, bending over to make Hoon see your cleavage.

"If that's what'll get you off, then fine." You grumbled, although your panties were getting wetter by the second at the idea.

Sunghoon leaned against the bedframe, relaxing into the sheets, holding his throbbing cock with one hand. He began to jerk off hard, his hand rising to the tip of the cock, where more fat drops of precum accumulate, feeling the alcohol of your perfume take over the body,

"that what you want, princess?” he spits on his cock and starts jerking off again while he speaks his hand doesn't stop, slow movements, up and down as if he wanted to feel the familiar sensation of your walls clenched around him. He could feel a knot forming in his stomach, at the sight of seeing your tits, lined perfectly in your lingerie. The sight of it made him go mental.

His hand never abandons his cock, squeezing, going up and down without losing rhythm. Sunghoon began to feel signs of orgasm so he reduced the speed of his hand, waiting for what will come next.

Sunghoon thinks while squeezing his cock tightly, holding by the base his fingers massage the balls, he climbs his hand slowly and passes his thumb over the head of the cock dripping precum, spreading and with his eyes glazed, little moans escaping his lips. Sunghoon sits more centered on the bed, drops of sweat run down his hair, dripping and turning a trail around his neck, chest and belly, his body is so sensitive to touch that the drops of water seem to scratch while the sheets seem to hug him.

"Fuck—im close." He whimpered, eyes rolling back as the knot in his stomach broke and the next moment, his hand was drenched in cum, and you were holding a test tube filled with what you needed.

"Shit" Sunghoon fell back on the bed, while you happily inserted the semen into your carrier so that it stayed safe. You crawled promptly into the bed with him, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

"Thank you so much Hoonie, I had no idea how I was going to get the-"

"What about my payment princess?" Sunghoon's whispered growl in your ear left you crumbling.

His touch left your skin burning in desire for more and before you could even catch a breath his hands grabbed your legs and you find yourself wrapped around his waist. Your hair was soft between his fingers and as he gently pulled it, you let out a little groan.

"Hoonie–" you whimpered, feeling a blush creep up to your cheeks.

He loved seeing you like that, confused, embarrassed, submissive, and highly aroused. Holding your gaze for another moment, he rubbed his hand over your wet folds, gathering your slick on his palm. When he finally bent a finger and slipped it between your lower lips, he watched you closely, and as a soft squelching sound rang in his ears, he saw you writhing in discomfort, frowning slightly, but it made him smile at you, and your embarrassment was quickly forgotten.

Holding your waist firmly, Sunghoon flipped you over onto the bed with a rough thump, making you moan at the very sensation of his biceps touching your body.

"So wet for me already?" Sunghoon chuckled, removing your panties slowly, "You're so adorable."

"Shut up." You groaned, feeling embarrased again, "Hoonie, we ran out of condoms, maybe we should-"

"You're on birth control right?" Sunghoon pressed a kiss to your neck, making you mewl when his tip slightly touched your pussy, "You're not leaving this bed until the sheets are either drenched or until you've fainted."

His voice was rough as he lined himself up with your entrance as you panted in anticipation, fingers digging into his back when he finally entered you, moaning deeply at the feeling of your walls starting to clench around him.

The stretch when he enters you burns gloriously, your mouth falling open in a perfect, round ‘O’ of ecstasy. Sunghoon fills you slowly, burying himself to the hilt, so deep that you can practically feel him rearranging your insides.

“That’s it, fuck, that’s a good girl.” he praises.

Discomposed, his voice thickens, rounding the vowels and blurring the ends of his words. Sunghoon rocks his hips one shallow thrust striking a spot inside you that has your vision whiting out, ecstasy buzzing in your heavy limbs.

“That felt good, huh? Yeah. I know, I know,” he soothes, swallowing your whines with wet, deliberate kisses, tongue sweeping every corner of your mouth and teeth grazing your lips.

Your noises grew louder, as did the wet squelching sounds as your pussy fluttered around him, muscles clenching, a burning warmth gathering inside you. You sank your nails into the old wood, holding on for dear life as his pelvis smacked against your cushioned ass in quick succession.

“Can’t you handle it, baby?” Sunghoon looked at you with pity, "Is it too much for your pathetic pussy?"

“I can-fuck, I can—handle it.” you whimpered. You clearly, could not handle it.

His own grunts filled your ears, adding to the tension building up in your belly, those deep vibrations pushing you right over the edge.

"Hoon-I—ah FUCK!"

You cried out when your walls clamped around him, that tight coil within exploding into a thousand tiny lights that made your entire body convulse against him. He felt your orgasmic contractions, and despite the soreness in his leg, he kept fucking you through your release, your juices helping in easing your tight passage, but he still strained to keep his rhythm. His fingers dug into your soft skin, and he felt a bead of sweat running along his temple.

That unlocked something inside of him. While he still held you, leaving sloppy kisses on your neck, your shoulders, anywhere he could reach, he slammed into you, forcing your small body to jerk in his arms with each thrust. He grunted and moaned, nearly panting, as he crammed himself inside of you.

It doesn’t take long for your next orgasm to build up, releasing it with a silent cry as you unintentionally dig your fingers into Sunghoon's back causing him to groan in your ear in pleasure. He keeps his thrusts consistent as you begin to leak around his cock and onto the blanket beneath you. There’s no doubt you’ll have to change the bedding later.

All you could do was bury your head in his chest until with one more thrust, he pushed into you, unloading pump after pump of cum. Afterwards, he slumped down, slowly dragging his cock out of your stuffed cunt, leaving you empty and internally screaming at the intoxication of the burn.

"Shit-" Sunghoon plopped down on the bed, next to you. Both of your chests rose and fell in unison, as you managed to steeply catch your breath.

A moment of calm silence arose before-

"Does your professor need any more sampler or...?" Sunghoon asked, eliciting a laugh out of you.

"Nope, just the one." You chuckled at his unseriousness as he pulled you in for cuddles.

"You're changing the sheets this time Hoon."

"Damn it."

Bonus

"So you did the oogey-boogey with him?"

"Yunjin!"

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ashesandhackles · 6 months

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@hprecfest Day 2 - A Comfort fic

Regretfully Yours by @maria-de-salinas

Severus/ Petunia. Explicit.

The unexpectedly tender and intimate romance between Severus and Petunia - post the events of First War- tops this list. Maria has a way of writing care, intimacy with such loving attention to detail, it blows me away in all of her work. This also has a sequel!

Summary:

1981 was not Petunia's year. The day before New Year's Eve, determined to make a fresh start of it, she straps Harry and Dudley into the car and flees north--only to hit into the biggest snowstorm she's ever seen in her life. Grief-stricken and dazed by his pivot from Death Eater to teacher, Severus Snape spends his holiday far from everyone, wandering aimlessly through the snow. The last thing either of them wanted was their paths to collide, but when Petunia gets stuck in the snow, they'll get stuck with each other.

2. Not bright or noble, but almost sublime by @yletylyf

Severus/Sirius raising Harry. Explicit.

I remember talking to Lety when we connected in Snirius fandom: "Where are the fluffy fics? Where are the raising Harry fics?" Of course, Snirius fandom as a whole is interested in the tension and delicious angst of Sirius and Severus together, often veering to darker territories - so it was a relief when Lety started writing this! A very fun Snirius raising Harry story.

Summary:

On that fateful Halloween night in Godric's Hollow, Severus Snape and Sirius Black unite in a common cause: find the Secret-Keeper who betrayed their best friend. Or: A temporary truce turns into something much more.

3. The Dog and Deer Detective Agency by @artemisia-black

Sirius/OFC.

If you ever wanted to see Sirius Black in a noir-esque mystery, this is your fic. Not only is Artemisia good at building the luxuriant atmosphere for the foreboding story, this is a good exploration of Sirius in an alternate universe without threat of Voldemort. He is a freer version of the man you might see in canon, but still has that family baggage. There is also tons of baby Harry and Sirius cuteness (yes, that is my catnip- Harry and Sirius are my favourite dynamic in canon)

Summary:

Set in an AU where Voldemort is never born. James and Sirius are both the best of friends and brilliant wizards, and not wanting to be tied down to a 9-to-5, they founded a detective agency. A year in, they have had a steady business from scorned spouses until one day a woman arrives and draws them into a sinister plot in the Scottish Highlands.

sore subject by @incalculablepower

Lavendar Brown/Parvati Patil & Demelza Robbins/Parvati Patil

No one gets the romantic comedy #vibe of Half Blood Prince quite like Incalculable Power. This fic is special among her work because she captures an experience lot of queer women go through - an intense codependent friendship that is just waiting to edge into romance.

Summary:

The High Priestess, reversed. Trust your intuition. Your true self is waiting; she refuses to be contained for much longer.

Orchards by @whinlatter

Harry/Ginny.

Whinlatter dropped into the fandom with a 17k fic written about the summer Harry and Ginny fell in love, and it was utterly beautiful tribute to first loves, Harry, Ginny and also, the third character: the orchard. Even when the fic weaved in the grief Harry is still dealing with and references the war years, it is infused with hope for the future.

Summary:

The orchard is a wild, thousand-flower, crumpled-gate, fall-down-fence sort of place, where things grow that you’ve never asked for, that you’d never expect. The summer of ’96, the story of something flowery he thought he might have smelled at the Burrow.

#harry potter #ginny weasley #severus snape #petunia dursley #lavendar brown #parvati patil #demelza robins #sirius black #james potter #hinny #snirius #fics recs #hp fics recs #hp rec fest

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silicon-based-life · 6 months

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so after my italian renaissance class last year (which had a very big LARP element) i’ve taken the advice of my aunt and mom and decided to try to join the SCA. i’ve done some looking online and i’ve joined a bunch of facebook groups and emailed some folks, and i have my first event in my calendar! and now the next step is to make my garb (which frankly is where half of my interest stems in the first place).

so far i’ve just been doing a ton of research into medieval/early modern clothing, since i don’t have my sewing machine with me here in chicago (but i will be bringing it back with me when i visit home for christmas). so far i’ve started a big google doc of links to blogs and patterns and stores (i want to make most of my garb myself, but i am going to buy shoes because i have zero desire to take up leatherworking just yet), and next i need to plan out my outfit and the colors and whatnot. i’ve been torn between clothing from 14th century england and 15th century italy, but my actual persona is going to be italian so i’m going to start with that and then maybe make some 14th century garb for my friends, who i am also trying to get into reenactment with me.

the thing is, i already have patterns for both a medieval hood and a cotehardie, but it seems like for most of the things i want to make, regardless of era, require that i learn how to draft a pattern so it can be properly form fitting. so there’s a lot of sewing skills I’m going to need to work on!! thankfully i will have my mom around to help me when i go home for Christmas :)

hopefully i can pull something together before 1/6 for my first SCA event, otherwise i’ll have to find something to borrow off of someone, which does mean that i really need to start holiday gifts maxxing right now before i go home and have to start sewing like crazy (because i am insane and insist on handmade gifts every year)

anyway. i’m really excited about this!!! i’m really excited to join the SCA it seems extremely cool and fun and i’m excited to meet other people who are as weirdly invested in the italian renaissance as i am (🤞🏽🤞🏽). and i will definitely be posting garb updates:tm: as they happen

#my stuff #hmmm i need a tag for crafting #also i’m in the midrealm in the barony of ayreton so if any chicago SCAdians are on tumblr HI!!!!#SCA

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leosmasktails · 1 year

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Happy Holidays Everyone!

I have been working on this one for a solid two months or so, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Disclaimers: This is a Christmas fanfiction! I know not everyone celebrates or celebrates differently, but I hope you can enjoy this sibling goofiness regardless :)

Warnings: just a crap ton of fluff being thrown in your face :)))

Word Count: 4,306

—————————————

The Best Gift He Could Ever Ask For

Leo breathed in the crisp, winter air of New York City, letting out a sigh of comfort as he stared down into the busyness of Times Square.

He always loved Manhattan around Christmas time: the snow that turned black within two seconds of it touching the ground, the rush of people flooding in and out of stores to do last minute Christmas shopping, and the general buzz of excitement for the Holidays that filled the air.

It may not have been the ideal Christmas for most, but Leo didn’t want it any other way. To him, it was perfect.

“New York,” Leo heard the familiar, sarcastic tone of his twin brother, turning to see Donnie making his way over to where he was sitting.

“What a town.” Leo finished for him and patted the concrete next to him, motioning for Donnie to sit down.

“Hey, that’s my line,” Donnie chuckled and sat on the ledge with him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Leo stared back down at one of the large screens displaying ads on the side of a building, “You’ll get over it.” He let out a small huff of amusement.

“Wait, how’d you find me?” Leo did a double take at his twin brother.

“Eh, don’t worry about it-” Donnie shrugged off the question.

“Right…” Leo gave him a suspicious look before shifting topics, “Isn’t it crazy how fast they rebuilt this place?”

“I know right? It’s only been a few months since we fought the Kraang.” Donnie became mesmerized by the screens below.

“Yeah...” The flashbacks of the events started coming back to Leo, but were cut short by the sudden chill of the wind.

Leo brushed off the memories and huddled closer to Donnie to stay warm.

“Are you cold, Nardo?” Donnie embraced the affection by resting his head against Leo’s.

“Yeah, it’s cold up here,” Leo hummed, sighing as he sunk deeper into Donnie’s coat.

“Which reminds me, why are you up here? Angelo and Raph were wondering where you were.” Donnie looked down at his brother for an answer.

Leo pulled away and sighed.

“I dunno,” He admitted, “I guess I’ve just been thinking about the fact that I’m the leader of the team recently because even though Dad appointed me leader like, what? Two years ago? It was pretty much still Raph until we fought the Kraang. Coming up here kinda helps me clear my head.” He brought his legs up to his chest and rested his chin on his knees.

“Yeah, Dad really dropped a bomb on you with that one. We were still fourteen.” Donnie agreed, “Personally, just between you and me, I think he should’ve made me the leader.” He shrugged, earning a snort and an eye roll from Leo.

He appreciated his twin trying to lighten the mood.

“It’s not as fun as it looks.” Leo looked up at the night sky to see a light snowfall coming down, “Now I know how Raph felt all those years.”

Donnie pursed his lips, looking from his brother to the busy streets down below.

Leo had been thrown into a leadership position with years of history of him being the reckless and irresponsible one.

No wonder he was stressed.

“All jokes aside, I think you’re doing a substantial job,” Donnie confessed, “Especially after the events of what happened a few months ago. We’re all proud of you, Leo. We wouldn’t be here without you.” He smiled slightly, Leo letting a small smile of gratitude come over his own face.

“That’s like the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, even if I’m only doing a 'substantial' job.” Leo shifted positions again, letting his legs dangle over the side of the building.

“And the moment is ruined,” Donnie chuckled in defeat.

Leo rolled his eyes before smiling down and focusing on a couple walking down a street lined with Christmas lights.

“For real though, I appreciate that,” Leo mumbled underneath his breath, “Sometimes it doesn’t feel like you guys are proud of me, and most of the time, I feel like I don’t deserve it.”

“I get that feeling,” Donnie sympathized, “But Nardo, you know that I’m incredibly honest, so take with that what you will.”

“Thanks Don-Ton,” Leo smiled softly, incredibly grateful that Donnie was here with him in this moment.

Leo didn’t show this side of himself to many people, but Donnie was always the one brother that could get him out of a bad spot.

He guessed it was just a twin thing.

The two sat in silence for a minute, listening to the car horns, distant chatter, and faint music coming from down below.

Donnie felt his phone buzz and reached for it in the pocket of his coat.

It was getting late.

“We should probably get back,” Donnie broke their comfortable silence, “You promised Mikey we would decorate the lair tonight.” He stood up before offering a hand to his twin.

“Oh shoot, that’s right,” Leo’s breath vaporized in the freezing air as he mumbled, “Just one more minute? I promise I’ll be right behind you.”

“Of course,” Donnie nodded, “Oh, and just remember you don’t always have to pretend to be in a good mood for Mikey.”

“Hey, it’s how I cope with things,” Leo shrugged, “Besides, I’m over being in this mood. I don’t like it.”

“Me neither. I very much prefer our constant banter over these feelings.” Donnie shuddered at the word.

“Pshh, yeah right,” Leo rolled his eyes, “I know you don’t always hate it. I’m onto you.”

“Oh my, who is that calling me? Oh sorry, Leo, I gotta go!” Donnie turned to get a running start and leapt from one building to the next, heading toward their base in the sewers.

Leo shook his head with a laugh as he watched his brother disappear behind the buildings, sighing as he took in Times Square one last time.

He could spend all night up here, alone and at peace up on the rooftops of New York City, but it was the Holidays.

Nothing mattered more than family around the Holidays, especially since his little brother was counting on him.

He kept having to remind himself that he was the leader.

“What a town indeed, Don-Ton,” Leo stood up and shook off his goosebumps, following in his brother's footsteps and leaping from building to building.

————————————

“Donnie?” Mikey questioned when he saw his brother emerge from the dark tunnel, “Where’s Leo?” He set down his phone.

“He’s on his way, Angelo,” Donnie explained as he got rid of his winter coat and pants, throwing them to the side, “He just needed another minute.”

“Oh, yeah, okay,” Mikey set his comic down, “Sorry, Donnie, I’ve just been paranoid about him ever since, well, ever since…”

“It’s okay, bud,” Donnie placed a hand on Mikey’s shoulder, giving him a look of sympathy, “I get what you mean.”

“¡Hola mis hermanos!” Leo emerged from the tunnels in a similar fashion as Donnie had a minute before, also throwing his winter clothes aside, “You ready to get this party started, little brother?”

“Leo!” Mikey jumped up from out of his bean bag and jumped into Leo’s arms, who twirled around with him upon impact.

“Wow, where was my special greeting?” Donnie raised an eyebrow, watching his two brothers burst into giggles as they fell over onto Mikey’s bean bag.

“Ooh, it sounds like Donnie is butt-hurt, Mike!” Leo chuckled and squeezed Mikey tighter, pressing his cheek against Mikey’s.

“Sorry, Donnie,” Mikey grinned sweetly, “I can give you a hug if you want!” He pulled away from Leo’s hug and stood up with his arms outstretched at Donnie.

“Well, now I don’t want your hug!” Donnie huffed and turned to face away from them, only to see Raph walking in from the direction of his bedroom.

“You guys are ridiculous.” Raph rolled his eyes with a smile as he watched Mikey pounce on top of Donnie’s back, knocking him over.

“I just love you so much, Donnie!” Mikey landed on top of his brother, wrapping him in an awkward hug.

“Mikey! Get off!” Donnie growled before his mechanical arms emerged from his battle shell, attempting to pry Mikey off of his back.

“Why are you denying my affection?!” Mikey let out a strangled noise from the back of his throat when Donnie’s mechanical arms grabbed the bottom of his shell.

“Michael! Lehet go!” Donnie couldn’t help but laugh when Mikey’s grip got tighter, the youngest brother’s giggles becoming louder the more Donnie’s arms tried to pull him off.

“As adorable as this is, if we wanna decorate tonight, we better get going.” A smile broke out on Leo’s face when Mikey’s laughter flooded the room.

Raph grabbed Mikey’s shell and pulled him off of Donnie, who gave a nod of appreciation to Raph as he pushed himself off of the floor.

“Okay, let’s take all of this stuff out before we put anything up,” Leo began digging through the storage bin, setting everything on the ground next to it.

“Wait, what is this?” Leo held up a somewhat dusty box that was located at the bottom of the storage bin, “Are these… gingerbread house kits?”

“Ooh! I forgot I put those in there!” Mikey chimed in, jumping out of Raph’s arms, “Dad said April found those kits last year and gave them to us!”

“Eww, Mikey,” Donnie scrunched his face in disgust, “You put them in a storage bin for a year?”

“What’s wrong with that?” Mikey asked innocently.

“With you being the chef of the family, I would hope that you- “

“-Nothing is wrong with it, Mikey,” Raph covered Donnie’s mouth, who began pulling at Raph’s hand.

“I’m curious if these are still okay to use,” Leo grinned and grabbed another box out of the bottom of the bin, revealing two more underneath it.

“We can each have our own!” Mikey’s eyes lit up with excitement, grabbing the other two and following behind Leo as he walked over to the kitchen.

“Raph!” Donnie managed to pull Raph’s massive hand off of his face, “If it wasn’t the Christmas season right now, I would put Mrs. Cuddles in your bed!” Donnie stomped away from his oldest brother, making him snort in amusement.

“Wait, what about decorating the lair?” Raph looked back at the Christmas decorations scattered all over the floor, but his brothers were already out of ear-shot, “Alright then, gingerbread houses it is.” Raph shrugged and followed all of his younger brothers to the kitchen.

————————————

Leo dumped the contents of one kit on the table, ripping open the plastic that covered the gingerbread.

“Okayyy, it’s a little crumbly and stale, but we should still be able to use them!” Leo smiled at Mikey, handing him the slab of gingerbread.

“Just don’t eat anything, Angelo,” Donnie grabbed his own box and dumped the supplies from the kit out onto the table, “Actually, you know what? It’s Raph that I should be scolding. Remember that one time when Raph ate the salami we were using as fake paper?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me.” Leo made a face of disgust, “That was one of our first missions, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” Mikey smiled softly at the memory.

They had come so far since then, from fighting paper thieves in New York City, to finding all sorts of trouble in the Hidden City, to Shredder, and more recently to saving the entire world from an apocalyptic invasion.

Man, their life was weird.

“Is this frosting even okay to use anymore?” Mikey cut a corner in the bag, squeezing a tiny amount of old white frosting onto his finger and licking it off.

“Or maybe I should be scolding Mikey,” Donnie deadpanned, watching as Mikey made a face, “You nauseate me sometimes, Michael.”

“I should just make some new frosting because this stuff is terrible!” Mikey gagged, tossing the bag of frosting into the trash.

“We’re not supposed to be consuming it, Mikey!” Donnie cried out, “It doesn’t matter how it tastes!”

“Whatever, I’m still making some new frosting,” Mikey walked over the cabinet to grab a bowl and powdered sugar before grabbing butter from the fridge.

“Here Raph,” Mikey handed Raph a few sticks of butter, “You have big hands. Warm these up a little.”

“At this rate, we should just make entirely new gingerbread.” Donnie folded his arms, rolling his eyes at Mikey.

“Nah, as the leader I say let him do his thing bro-bro,” Leo leaned against the wall, keeping his eyes glued to his phone, “It is the Christmas season after all.”

“Is he allowed to pull the leader card whenever he wants?” Donnie looked at Raph for an answer before glaring at his twin.

“Yeah, sure, whatever, Dee,” Raph was hyper-focused on the butter he was slowly softening in-between his hands.

“You heard Raphie! He said, 'Yeah, sure, whatever'! That’s three words and sixteen letters!” Leo shrugged, grinning widely at Donnie, whose eyebrows furrowed, “Woah, wait, I just got major déjà vu there,” Leo’s grin turned into a look of confusion.

“I know how to count, Nardo,” Donnie hissed through gritted teeth, snapping Leo back to reality.

“I know, Dee, I’m just messing with you,” Leo pushed himself off of the wall, giving Donnie a playful nudge as he walked over to bother Mikey.

“Okay, that should be good, Raph,” Mikey reached his hand out for the butter, plopping it in the bowl after Raph dropped it in his hand.

“Ooh, can I have a taste?” Leo pressed himself against Mikey’s side, almost knocking him over.

“When I’m done, Leo,” Mikey pushed him away, mixing the ingredients for the frosting.

“How about the leader actually does something useful and helps me set up the candy?” Raph raised a brow, dumping out multiple different types of candy into bowls.

“See Leo? The leader card doesn’t work every time.” Donnie let a smug look take over his face, making Leo groan.

Leo snatched a bag of pre-packaged candies off of the table and ripped it open, pouring it into a bowl.

“You too, Donnie,” Raph smirked at the other twin.

“Heh,” Leo snickered.

“Oh, shut up, Leon,” Donnie playfully threw a bag of candy at Leo.

“Ohoho! You did not just do that!” A competitive grin painted Leo’s face, “Take this hermano!” Leo threw a small package of sprinkles at Donnie.

“Oh, ‘tis on, brother,” Donnie’s mechanical arms began grabbing multiple packages of candies from the table.

“Frosting’s ready!” Mikey dodged the flying packages of candies as he placed the bowl on the table.

Raph continued emptying the candies into bowls until a package of sprinkles hit him in the face.

“Alright, that’s it! Leo! Donnie!” Raph picked up both twins by their shells, “If you don’t knock it off with your twin rivalry, I will use your katanas to ship you both off to Tahiti!”

“You’re not touching my katanas.” Leo folded his arms, glaring at Raph.

“I would actually love a vacation to Tahiti-”

“-If I see one more package of candy fly through the air, I’m gonna lose it.” Raph cut off Donnie with a harsh glare, setting both of his middle brothers down.

“Dr. Delicate Touch approves this message,” Mikey smiled innocently, amused by all of his older brothers.

“Whatever,” Leo huffed, sitting down at the table with his gingerbread house kit in front of him.

Donnie sat down opposite of Leo, his mechanical arms holding up the gingerbread pieces while he glued them together with Mikey’s homemade frosting.

Mikey pursed his lips together, sighing as Leo scooped the frosting into a sandwich bag and snipped off the tip.

“That’s a smart idea, Leo,” Mikey tried to break the silence, grabbing the bowl of frosting and copying Leo.

“Thanks, Mike,” Leo smirked, “See, I have good ideas!”

Donnie rolled his eyes, and the silence resumed.

Well, Mikey tried.

“Man, now it’s way too quiet in here,” Raph looked up from his sloppy frosting job after a couple of minutes, “Hey Dee, can you play some music?”

“No.” Donnie didn’t take his eyes off of his gingerbread house, causing Raph to frown, “I’m just kidding, of course I can,” Donnie tapped his armband and a speaker popped out of his battle shell, blasting some random Christmas music radio station.

“NO WAY- “Leo dropped his bag of frosting as his eyes lit up, “IS THIS MARIAH CAREY?!”

“Oh geez, please, no-” Donnie’s eyes darted up from his gingerbread house.

“OHMIGOSH IT IS!” Mikey also dropped his bag of frosting and shook Leo’s shoulders with his arms.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, little brother?” Leo smirked, grabbing two wooden spoons from off of the counter.

“Take it away, Mikey!” Leo tossed a spoon to the youngest turtle.

“I just want you for my own! More than you could ever know! Make my wish come truhuhue!” Mikey caught the spoon and sung his heart out.

“All I want for Christmassss ihihis YOUUUUUUU!” Leo and Mikey sang in terrible harmony, bouncing all around the kitchen.

“On second thought, I liked the silence better.” Raph frowned again, shaking his head in annoyance.

“For the sake of my sanity, PLEASE SHUT UP!” Donnie tapped his arm band again, pausing the music.

“Hey!” Leo froze and stood up straight with a glare, “It looks like someone’s being a Grinch over here, Mikey.” He crossed his arms over his shell.

“At least the Grinch could sing better than you!” Donnie shot back before sighing and rubbing his drawn-on eyebrows, “Look, if you guys don’t pull whatever that was again, we can keep the music playing. Deal?”

“Fine,” Leo rolled his eyes as he grabbed the other spoon from Mikey, putting them back where he found them, “I’m not even a bad singer,” He mumbled under his breath.

Donnie turned the music back on, his brothers quietly humming and singing along as they all worked on their masterpieces.

“Hey Raph-a-doodle? Can you please pass me the sprinkles?” Leo asked, placing a piece of candy on top of his house.

“Never call me that again and I will,” Raph groaned, passing the bowl to Leo.

“Okay,” Leo smiled, grabbing the sprinkles, “Thanks, Raph-a-doodle!”

“Don’t push it-” Raph growled.

“I think I’m done!” Mikey chimed in, proudly picking up his hard work and showing it off to his brothers.

“That looks great Mikey!” Leo looked up from his house, “Yours definitely looks a lot better than mine and Raph’s,” He chuckled at their sloppy looking houses.

“Hey, I tried my best!” Raph pouted, crossing his arms.

“Raph, yours is still good too!” Mikey smiled at Raph’s house, holding back his laughter.

“Gee, thanks Mikey-”

“-Behold, my brothers, my creation!” Donnie revealed his gingerbread house, which was perfectly crafted together.

“Wow, show-off much Don?” Leo raised an eyebrow, attempting to hide the fact that Donnie’s house impressed him.

“Hey, don’t be salty that my engineering skills are phenomenal.” Donnie frowned.

“Wait guys, we still have a bunch of frosting leftover,” Mikey picked up the bowl, swiping his finger on the inside, “What should we do with it?”

“Eat it?” Donnie suggested and pulled out his phone, rolling his eyes as if it was an obvious question.

“Nah, I have a better idea,” Leo grabbed the bowl from Mikey, scooping out a big chunk of frosting with his hands.

“Ew, Leo, what’re you doing?” A look of disgust came over Mikey’s face.

“This,” Leo slapped the frosting on Mikey’s head, a chorus of gasps coming from Donnie and Raph.

“WHAT THE? LEO!” Mikey shrieked, grabbing the glob of frosting off of his head, “WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!?”

“Frosting battle?” A smirk took over Leo’s face, his hand already scooping out more frosting as he backed away from Mikey.

“Oh, it is on, baby!” Mikey flung the frosting that was on his hand at Leo, who swiftly moved out of the way.

“Watch out Don-Ton!” Leo yelled at his brother, who was laser-focused on his phone screen.

“Huh? AUGH!” Donnie looked up only to see frosting coming at him, hitting him in the shoulder, “EWW!”

“I warned you!” Leo chuckled, aiming for Raph with his next shot.

“Nuh-uh Leo!” Raph blocked Leo’s shot with his hand, the frosting falling the floor.

Mikey swooped down and picked up some of the frosting that fell to the floor, backing away and throwing it at both Raph and Leo, who laughed and dodged the shots.

Donnie looked at his shoulder in disgust, slowly scraping the frosting off of his shoulder before looking at his youngest brother with revenge.

“Michelangelo!” Donnie’s harsh tone cut through their laughter like a knife, all of his brothers’ heads darting in the direction of his voice.

“Ohhhh hermanito, he used the full name… You are so dead-” Leo’s eyes widened in slight terror with a mix of amusement.

“L-look, Donnie- Can we talk about this?” Mikey backed away, nervous giggles pouring out of his throat.

“Ohoho, Angelo, Angelo, Angelo,” Donnie chuckled sinisterly, “You brought my wrath upon yourself.”

Leo and Raph stood frozen in place, only able to watch as Donnie cornered Mikey into the side of the counter.

“Any last words, little brother?” Donnie looked at the frosting in his hands, giving Mikey a wink.

“Huh?” Mikey looked up at Donnie in confusion, watching as Donnie’s smirk grew larger.

Donnie raised his arm to throw the frosting, quickly turning in Leo’s direction and chucking it as hard as he could at his twin brother.

“Ohhh,” Mikey winced for Leo when it hit him directly in the face, secretly glad he didn’t have to go through that, “But why Leo?”

“You know I could never hurt you Michael, you’re my right-hand man.” Donnie shrugged, “Raph, on the other hand, would murder me if I attempted to target him, so I chose Leo as my victim.”

“You know that’s right.” Raph chuckled.

“I’m not even mad,” Leo chuckled in defeat as he wiped at his face, “That was a good twist.”

“Am I even hearing you right, Leo?” Raph’s eyes grew wide in shock, “Leo, not fighting back against Donnie?”

“What have you done with Leo?” Mikey looked at the red-eared slider suspiciously, even Donnie looked somewhat concerned.

“Nothing happened to me Mike, I’m just deciding to step up and be the leader,” Leo shrugged before whispering to Mikey, “Don’t worry, I’m totally getting him back later.” He put his hands behind his head before walking towards the kitchen’s entrance.

“Ahh, yep,” Mikey breathed a sigh of relief, “You’re still you.”

“What did you just tell him, Leo?” Donnie frowned at him, following behind both Leo and Mikey.

Raph only rolled his eyes and once again trailed after all of his brothers, who walked back into the main room and stopped when they saw the Christmas decorations still scattered all over the floor.

“Oh, I forgot we were decorating,” Leo let out a snort, “Sorry, Mike, we got a little carried away.”

“It’s alright, Leo,” Mikey put his arm around Leo’s shoulders, “Spending time with my brothers was the only thing I had on my Christmas list.”

“Aww, c’mere you!” Raph scooped all three of his brothers up in his arms, squeezing them into a tight hug.

“RAPH WAIT- YOU GUYS ARE STILL COVERED IN FROSTING!” Donnie struggled to get out of the oldest’s grip.

“So are you Don-Ton,” Leo rolled his eyes, reaching over and swiping a glob of frosting off of Donnie’s shoulders with his finger and wiping it on Donnie’s face.

“AUGH- NARDO!” Donnie attempted to wipe the frosting off of his face, letting out an exasperated sigh when it smeared, “Fine, you know what? I’ll let it slide this once,” his furrowed brows softened.

“Are you going soft on us, Dee?” Leo smirked.

“SCOFF- No!” Donnie smeared the remaining frosting that was on his hand onto Leo’s head.

“H-Hehey!” Leo giggled.

He was just glad Donnie wasn’t going to murder him for that.

“Yep, this is definitely the best gift I could’ve asked for,” Mikey sighed as he rested his face against Raph’s shell.

“Well, my gift to you all this year is a hug, specifically this one.” Donnie deadpanned.

“Hey, I’ll take it,” Leo shrugged, leaning deeper into Raph’s bear hug. “Merry Christmas, little brother,” He gave Mikey’s head a pat with his free arm.

“Raph, can you let go now?” Donnie grumbled.

“Okay, fine,” Raph stuck out his bottom lip, releasing all of his brothers.

Leo wasn’t going to lie, he really needed that hug, but there was one more thing he wanted to do to finish this night.

“Hey, guys?” Leo asked, “Are you down to do one more thing tonight?”

————————————

Leo sat down on the ledge of the building, the busyness of Times Square once again filling his senses.

“It is kind of peaceful up here, isn’t it?” Raph commented, sitting down on the ledge next to Leo.

“Indeed it is, Raphie,” Leo grinned, eyeing Mikey and Donnie as Mikey laid his head down on Donnie’s lap on the other side of him.

“You know, I’m proud of you, little brother,” Raph put his arm around Leo, pulling him closer.

Leo felt his heart skip a beat.

Hearing it from Donnie was one thing, but hearing it from Raph felt entirely different.

“Thanks, Raph,” Leo leaned into his side hug, letting the tears well up in his eyes.

“Merry Christmas, Leo,” Raph squeezed him tighter.

“Merry Christmas,” Leo smiled and wrapped his arms around Raph’s, “I love you guys.” He turned to his other two brothers.

“Likewise,” Donnie looked up from messing with Mikey’s mask tails.

“What he said,” Mikey yawned, closing his eyes contentedly.

Leo couldn’t have asked for a better family.

His brothers were the best gift he could ever ask for.

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lemonaficionado · 5 months

Text

Blog post 2023

One year ago, at the end of 2022, I created a time capsule in video form. About 15 minutes ago, when I was lying in bed hoping to fall asleep early in order to not lose too much sleep tonight (as I will most likely want to wake up extremely early in the morning), I decided to make a blog post this year, at the end of 2023 (cutting it extremely close mind you, which is typical of course).

So much has happened and so much has changed this year, I can't remember al of it. I can't even remember most of it. I've spent an abnormally large amount of time the last few months thinking about what happened when and what started when and trying to get a grip on a timeline in my head.

Of all the things that changed, I might have changed the most, giving much more significance to my 18th birthday than most. Of course it wasn't a sudden change, although it did feel quite sudden. I was a buildup of tons of vicious cycles and time itself running a young boy around. I'm still a young boy on the inside for the record, and I'm sure I still don't look like a man on the outside yet (no, thank you).

There actually was a moment, a moment I had planned, from which things could have changed very sudden, if I had let it happen, if I had made it happen. But I'm glad I didn't, in hindsight.

Woah- Deja vu... I have a feeling I wrote something like that before, with Tumblr being the colour scheme it is now (canary, because lemons), and me deciding to click off and discard the draft. Possibly that happened in a dream?... Deja vu is still a mystery to me.

The moment (that didn't happen, for the record) is quite personal to me, so I doubt whether I should put it publicly on the internet for everyone to see. It was that exactly one year after I asked a group of friends to form a - "student group" shall we call it? - with me (which ran it's course and was disbanded because another took its place), I would ask that group of friends whether they wanted to be friends (with me) again.

In hindsight I think that gradually entering that circle of friends was a better option than dramatically asking to. And so that is one of the few occasions for which I'm glad I only speak out if I find the perfect moment, a character trait which often is unhelpful when you want to be social, by the way.

I didn't want to start the blog on that moment actually, I wanted to either attempt a chronological list or talk about recent events, as in the past three days. I don't know how long it took you to read until here, but I started roughly 45 minutes ago. I'm slow like that.

In the month of my birthday there was a sports day I have a fond memory from, I don't remember the exact words that were said but they made me feel helpful and I liked being helpful and the memory is something I've referenced before (not on this blog obviously).

Around that time was when I really started wanting to break from the cycle of every day feeling the same without progress towards anything. I asked for a notepad and pen(cil) for my birthday that I was planning to bring with me from then onwards to write stuff in. Those who know me well know which little book I'm referring to.

Though I don't remember any example right now, I was starting to try to be more social around that time. Then the summer holidays happened. And something weird happened. From the past holidays (before that summer) I had concluded that I did not like traveling and going on holiday. And I really didn't want to go anymore. But against better judgement I went anyway.

And looking back I'm definitely glad I did. Because I learned that I strongly dislike physical labour when money is the only goal I am working towards. And I learned that there are people out there who I actually really like being around. 'Introvert' and 'extrovert' have become meaningless to me, because it depends entirely on who I am around and how I am feeling.

The end of the summer holidays, although I slightly doubt it, might have been the first time I actually had the feeling of "I'm going to miss this person" aimed towards a human being. Before then I had always been more of an animal person. I remember that at the start of the summer holidays I had already changed, because someone who knew me well mentioned it.

I tried to bring this social change with me back to school, but failed horrendously, getting hit with all of the problems being in the last year of highschool gives you. I don't remember exactly what happened, probably because not much out of the ordinary happened, but after a couple of days I gave up. And I gave up hard.

I decided to stop trying. And to just focus on school. This is getting personal again and it is getting late (22:22 ha) so my brain is slowing down, sorry for any inconveniences caused. I have written about this before, in a script for a video I never finished, so I want to keep this relatively short.

Everyday, I would come into class, sit alone in the front, be the first to leave when the bell rang, and I would not go to the aula in the break. Instead I would wander round the building or go to a study area or something. Being in the aula became overwhelming and the noise scared me away. Only in two lessons would I sit next to someone, and only then because I didn't want to make my old friends worried about how I was.

After five school days of keeping this up I started wearing a paper bracelet to school on which I kept track of how many school days I had been like this. I have also referenced to this bracelet before. I still have this bracelet on my shelf beside me now, the numbers on it span from 6 to 15. It was hard to know when to stop.

After an Earth science project that I was looking up against included a nice conversation with a friend and a trip home with four people that I wanted to be friends with (taking that ferry instead of waiting for the one after was one of the best decisions I've ever made, and I didn't hesitate to take it too when I saw them actually boarding it), I took off the bracelet. I hoped it was the end. Of course the next school day went badly again so I kept it on for a couple of days more, but it didn't take long before I- forgot to put the bracelet on one day. And to be perfectly honest, that is a perfect ending to the whole thing and a typical example of me, really.

Then (or around that time) Operation Friendship started (yes I called it that). I gradually started sitting next to people in lessons instead of on my own all the time. I made a list of everyone who I wanted to become friends with or get to know better (writing this makes me feel so embarrassed) as well as ranked them on how much I had talked to them or how well they knew me so far. It lasted a surprising two months before I finally wrote down in my notebook that OpFr was discontinued in order for me to focus on the friends I already had at that point.

Do not make the mistake of thinking I never questioned what I was doing. There are plenty of times that I wondered whether what I was doing counted as something a psychopath would do. And there were plenty of times where I was tempted to shut OpFr down before I finally actually did.

Anyway, one of the people whose name I wrote down but never actually got to talk properly with is someone I'll call target Kela. The reason I bring Kela up is because of the first half of 2023, before the summer holidays. I kind of feel like that storyline is unfinished though, if you know what I mean? Maybe I still find it too personal to talk about Kela...

I'll move on to recently instead. In the beginning it was really hard being part of two friend groups, every time I moved from one to the other it felt like I was abandoning one for the other. Now it still feels off, but it's tolerable and I don't think anybody judges me for it. That's one of the things that changed over a smaller vacation.

The other thing that changed is how I perceive the world, which suddenly changed back to how it was before I merged into a "new" friend group and only then did I realise that how I felt had been different in the first place. Suddenly I was back to my old socially scared self, but then with more friends and with memories and pre-made plans for me of who to befriend next (/exaggeration).

It's been weird, thinking about the past and where I am now, but I need to wrap this up now as in less than fourty minutes it will be 2024!

A couple of days ago was my first time playing D&D, which is notable because I have been interested in D&D for almost a year and ten months. Afterwards I was frustrated with myself for how it went, but I've already vented those feelings so I won't do that here. Yesterday I was still in a really bad mood so even walking for two and a half hours and having a house to myself didn't change anything.

Today we did the floor of my room, in one day instead of two, even though I was tired the whole way through. And tonight I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep early so I could wake up after the fireworks and be mentally active at three in the morning. But then I got the idea to do this!

I guess that means that my idea hyping brain is working again, so that's good. I originally had the idea of reacting to my time capsule video from last year and turning that into a video of it's own, which I could still do, but there is so much I could still do, and there is so much I should still do.

There is probably a ton of stuff I forgot to say and a ton of stuff I will remember not long after having posted this. But if you read all of this, first of all, who are you? and second of all, why did you just read *that* much text willingly?

-Aaaand my sibling just came in and completely halted my train of thought. Happy 2024!

Edit 1 (at 00:33): I completely forgot to say that part of the reason I got the idea to do this is because I realised when I was lying there that I missed people. And I really didn't often miss people in the past. Talking to a friend in a voice channel helps a lot temporarily, but I generally dislike holidays nowadays because I rarely see friends during them.

Second thing I completely forgot to mention is the memory right before the summer holidays of being at the graduation ceremony and seeing the people of the "student group" (who now I would say are my friends) being super happy in a group photo together. I stood and smiled from the sidelines. :')

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quaranmine · 2 years

Text

How to Be a Human Being (Chapter Eight)

It's time for MCC 19!

Masterpost | Chapter Seven

Words: 7255

I'm pretty sure this is the longest chapter in the fanfic! Enjoy and check AO3 for a few end notes if you're interested <3

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

Grian stood outside the Evil Emporium, feeling a bit out of place next to the dramatic buildings. He wasn’t really a fan of Derp Coin, but he didn’t quite mind Xisuma, which was who his group was waiting for. It was time to go to MCC–he was with False, Ren, and his own teammate Gem.

“Are you ready?” Gem asked, bouncing up next to him. It was only her third MCC.

“Yep,” he said, “I think we have a good team.”

Xisuma walked out of the building, and their small little group of competing Hermits greeted him. “I suppose you’re waitin’ on me, huh?” he said. “Here, I can make your portal, I don’t wantcha to be late. You’re all fancy, what’s the theme this time?”

“Christmas,” Ren said, which didn’t explain his maid costume whatsoever.

“I see,” said Xisuma, entirely unphased, as he worked on opening the portal.

It was an Admin’s portal–quite a bit different from a nether portal or an end portal. Or even a Watcher’s portal. They were the primary means of server hopping for those who were, well, normal players unable to mess with the code of servers. Other players could be granted permission to use an Admin’s portal even if they weren’t an admin, especially for the frequent off-world trips that several hermits took. But for MCC, they all mostly just went to Xisuma. He liked to send them off–they were representing the Hermitcraft server, afterall.

The portal was light blue, and hovered just off the ground, and when Grian stepped into it there was the feeling of falling–like one of those dreams right as you fell asleep.

“Have fun and good luck!” Xisuma shouted after them, and his voice faded and Grian was there.

MCC was bright, loud, and colorful. There were tons of people already there, mostly dressed in matching costumes. People talked in the distance, clearly catching up since the last MCC. There was always a static excitement in the air and it was fun to see the people mixing and saying hi to each other and playfully trash talking before the competition. Today, the server was decorated for Christmas and was filled with trees and presents.

Grian’s first thought was, unexpectedly, that the gravity was normal here. His second thought was of horror, because one isn’t normally supposed to be able to tell that gravity is normal, because one isn’t supposed to have a frame of reference for it not being normal.

Grian’s third thought was that his chest inexplicably suddenly felt hollow, but he brushed it off as the usual pre-competition anxiety he got. Even though it didn’t really feel like anxiety, Grian was an anxious enough person that he probably would spontaneously develop new symptoms, wouldn’t he?

He should find his team. Gem had been next to him, but she’d run off to go talk to another player she knew somewhere nearby. The event still didn’t start for another 15 minutes.

There, across the room, he spotted a familiar man from behind. Hm. A chance to be annoying? He snuck up behind him, before tapping his shoulder and shouting, “Hi Tim!”

Jimmy jumped fully in the air. “Oh my lord,” he said, “You scared the life outta me!”

“No hello?”

Jimmy rolled his eyes. “Hello, Grian. You’re looking snazzy in your outfit today.”

“Thanks.” It was a gingerbread inspired outfit, paying homage to both their team name and the holiday theme this time around. Grian liked the red and green striped scarf.

“What about mine?” Jimmy asked.

“Eh.”

“Hey!” Jimmy cried. “I’m offended. You know we match.”

“Yeah,” said Grian, “I can’t believe I have to show up someplace in a matching outfit with you.”

Jimmy pouted. “Well, just remember that when we win today.”

“You think we will?”

“Positive,” Jimmy smiled. “Just like every MCC.”

Grian nodded, left without any sort of snarky comment to reply with. He didn’t know why, but he just felt really off today. Floaty, untethered, hollow. It was throwing him off now and he was hoping it would either get better or he’d stop focusing on it by the time they started the games. Then again, he had a bad track record in general of feeling off during MCCs. The server was nearly full now, so it would certainly be starting soon.

“Grian,” Jimmy said, interrupting his thoughts. “Are you doing alright, man? Pardon me but you’re looking a little rough. Like, you look bad, dude. Got some dark circles there.”

Grian sputtered. No, he wouldn’t ask that . . . he would, though. “Timmy, you’re the only person I know who’d be rude enough to actually ask that.”

“Oh.” Jimmy blushed. “Look I’m just tryin’ to be a good friend!”

Grian shook his head, trying and failing to not be a little endeared, no matter how much he tried to mess with Jimmy. “I haven't slept much recently,” he said finally.

Jimmy winced. “Sorry about that.”

“Do you ever think about Evo?” Grian asked suddenly. He didn’t know what really possessed him, but he was feeling a little more like talking recently, and Jimmy would get it. Maybe not all of it, but he’d get it in a way not many others did. They didn’t always talk about it, the other Evolutionists. It changed the trajectory of all of their lives, bonded them in a way few understood, and it mostly remained entirely unspoken.

Jimmy’s eyes widened, and his shoulders stiffened. Like he’d drawn himself inward a bit. He answered after a second, voice low. “Yes.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about it.”

“I see,” Jimmy said softly. “What of?”

Grian didn’t answer. Of a lot of things. Of the obvious things–but of the less obvious things too, like how to navigate the new life he was leading with Mumbo. About being human, and not being human. About the moon, which wasn’t really related to Evo at all, but hung in the sky in the back of his mind reminding him another time his world had ended.

Jimmy, who for all accounts wasn’t a particularly observant person, seemed to pick up on this.

“It’s okay, I know,” Jimmy said. “I think about it too.” He looked tense, and Grian suddenly felt very, very bad about bringing up the subject at all since he’d been so much more upbeat before. The sights and sounds and colors of MCC seemed to be clashing with the downswing of their conversation’s mood.

Well, Timmy had been the one to ask. Grian looked at him and it all of a sudden struck him that he wasn’t the only one who’d been hurt on Evo. They all had been. Of course he had known that–he’d experienced things right alongside them–but what he needed was a moment someplace other than inside his own head. Jimmy’s eyes looked like he knew something Grian didn’t, and Grian ruffled his feathers and knew that he knew a lot that Jimmy didn’t, either. And they’d never talk, because Grian could never talk and Jimmy held his secrets so close to his chest that people never even knew he had them.

Suddenly, there was a ping on both of their communicators. Grian withdrew his and looked at the screen.

Is your team ready? >Yes >No

“Looks like it’s time to start,” Grian said, and just like that the little bubble of their moment popped. It wasn’t time to feel sorry for himself, it was time to play the game. He still felt detached, but he knew focusing on something like MCC would help center him. You could lose yourself in the games for a few hours.

“Are we ready?” Jimmy asked.

“We should probably find Gem and Pete first. I saw Gem run off to go talk to someone, but I haven’t seen Pete.”

“Oh, I saw him earlier. Let’s go find them and get this game on the road!”

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

Inside the decision dome was bright and noisy. Grian felt a little bit fuzzy. He wondered what Mumbo was up to right now. He’d wanted Mumbo to join the games once, but he hadn’t been interested. And spectating wasn’t given out lightly by Noxite, since the whitelist was very controlled. Maybe if Mumbo was here, he’d be cheering for him–though frankly that could be said for any hermits back at home, who were always supportive for each “hermit team” in the event.

The noise and the colors and the lights sort of canceled each other out, and Grian just felt distant. He had his egg; he should throw the chicken soon, but what did his team want for the first game. He should ask them? They were standing right next to him.

“Grian,” Pete said and placed a hand on Grian’s shoulder out of nowhere, and oh, he’d been speaking hadn’t he? They all had been. “Are you okay? Are you ready to vote?”

“You’re the second person who’s asked me that today,” he replied, and Jimmy blushed, “but you were nice about it. I’m fine, just a little . . . disconnected today, I guess. I hope it gets better as the event goes on.”

Gem squinted at him. “Did you feel fine when we left?”

“Uh, yes?”

Pete nodded. “It’s probably anxiety again,” he said, and, well. Pete was definitely familiar with Grian’s MCC anxiety to say the least. “Just have fun. This is the holiday one, let’s make sure we enjoy the event.”

Grian smiled. “Thanks, Pete.”

“Let us know if you feel bad, alright?” Jimmy said with concern, and Grian nodded.

“What are they voting for?” Gem asked, looking at the chickens. “Should we vote now? And see the best place to place our votes down?”

“It looks like Build Mart,” Pete said.

“Do we wanna do that now?” Gem said.

“That will be fine,” Grian said. “They probably want it out of the way early but it can give us a good starting lead.”

Pete put his hand on Grian’s shoulder. “You going to be our CEO again?” he asked.

“We need him to be!” Gem said.

“Of course,” Grian said, “but I’m gonna get bossy.”

The first game was chosen, and it was indeed Built Mart. Grian suddenly felt a lot more confident–that was a strong start to the games for him, and he immediately fell into a familiar routine of preparing. He normally liked to have the point multiplier advantage of the game further on in the event, but a first place lead right out of the gate? That sounded good to him. “Tim, you’re my floater,” he ordered as they were all teleported to the game.

“But I’ve never-” Jimmy cut himself off, looking at the others. “I can do it, I can do it.”

“I need you to start off by getting these wood types,” Grian said, and shared the list with Jimmy. “Can you do that?”

The key to a good build mart game was attention and delegation. If a gold build popped up, you finished that one first. Each team member helped the others out so nobody was left working on just one thing at a time. Clear communication was necessary. You needed to pay attention to all the details and memorize them. A floater helped in making sure that each person had the materials they needed, but nobody should ever be standing still. Someone to act as leader helped. And, it didn’t hurt to have a little block placing experience yourself–though the game emphasized team work, there was a certain advantage if you could, say, place trapdoors quickly and accurately.

Grian knew all these things. He furrowed his brow, examined the builds, and set to work. He was CEO of this game for a reason, after all, and he’d lose himself within it to ensure they won.

The time passed quickly as he focused, and it wasn’t long before the game was over. The placements began to be announced, and Grian was more than pleased to see their results: first place. The only placement he expected of himself in Build Mart. Perhaps that was cocky of him, but it was the only place in MCC he was truly confident in. He cheered. “Let’s go!”

“Yes!!” Gem cried, giving him a high five.

“We’re first!” Jimmy said.

“Great job,” Pete said, and they all made sure to catch a glimpse of their team on the leaderboard when they were teleported back to the lobby.

If Build Mart had gone well, then Hole in the Wall was not. It wasn’t Grian’s favorite game on his best day, and he wasn’t having his best day right now. He felt disoriented and dizzy in the space, his reaction times just a half-second too slow to save him.

“UGH!” he yelled and sort of half-sat half-fell onto the ground where he respawned after being completely knocked off the platform. “I just can’t do it!”

“You’re okay Grian,” Pete said, still in the event. Grian envied his movement. “You still get to try again.”

“Yellow wall,” Jimmy broke in, and oh yeah, he was actually observing the platform to help his remaining teammates while Grian was just laying on the floor feeling dizzy and sorry for himself. He stood up. Couldn’t be outshone by Tim.

“I just feel, like, floaty. I’m not with it,” he complained. It was a bad sort of floaty, unlike Pearl’s floatiness that actually helped her in this event.

Battle Box came next, and it wasn’t much better for Grian. They got a few wins, but the map was new and Grian kept getting killed before he could do the wool. He couldn’t help but feel like they’d have done better if Grian didn’t keep fumbling it, but he couldn’t make himself not keep fumbling it. He felt dizzy when he stood up.

Grid runners was worse. Objectively, their team came close to finishing when few others did, but the map was difficult at best and harder to complete when Grian felt so bad. They crossed the threshold and tried to sprint for the end, but the game ended abruptly and Grian felt that familiar feeling of falling as they were teleported away.

He was on the floor when he teleported back–presumably after stumbling the moment before he was whisked away. “We missed some coins by not finishing,” he heard Pete say, “but that was a tough map and we made it further than a lot of people.”

“We did alright,” Jimmy said. “It was hard though.”

Grian tried to stand up, but he stood up too quickly and suddenly there were black spots in his vision and his chest felt tight and-

He opened his eyes to a very concerned GeminiTay crouching over him. “Grian!” she cried. “Oh my goodness, are you alright? You passed out!”

The lights seemed to blur under his eyes. They were too bright. He screwed his eyes shut again. “Ugh,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you dare apologize!” Gem said, and raised a hand to lightly smack him, before putting it down and apparently deciding against it while Grian was still, admittedly, laying on the ground. He probably looked pretty pathetic, he thought. “You’re sick!”

“How long was I out?”

“Just a few seconds,” Jimmy said. “I just turned around and you had fallen.”

He opened his eyes again, and was horrified to see a couple people in the lobby had started to come over to see what the fuss was about. Right, it was break time after the fourth game. He pushed himself up quickly, ignoring how his vision blurred. Nobody should see him like this. The embarrassment made his ears hot and his heart pounded harder.

“I’m okay,” he said, struggling a bit to stand but making it. “Don’t worry. Don’t know what happened there but I’m fine.”

“Grian, you are the least fine man I’ve ever seen. You should sit down,” Jimmy said.

“Thanks, Timmy,” Grian snapped, and almost felt a little bit bad for it when Jimmy actually looked a little hurt. “I’m fine, I really am.”

Pete just looked at them skeptically. “I asked for a pause to extend the break,” he said. “Until we make sure you’re fine or we’re able to find someone else to sub in.”

“I can play!” Grian said. “I just . . . need a little air. I’ll be alright.”

“I called a medic over,” Gem said. “They can check you over.”

Ugh, this was getting too out of hand. Grian wanted to hide his face away. Too many people were looking at him. They had some time for break, but he could still end up holding the entire event back because of his stupid sickness he should just be able fight through.

“No!” Grian said, trying to make his tone sound a bit gentler this time. “I just. Need to rest a bit.”

Before they could say anything else, he walked away, doing his best to weave into the crowd so they couldn’t follow him. Grian’s chest hurt. It was an unavoidable feeling now, not something he could ignore. The ache felt like someone was carving his heart out of his ribcage to offer it to someone else with bloody hands, and Grian could barely think around the overwhelming wrongness of it all.

He put his hand on his chest and when he pulled it back he felt like it should be red with his own blood, but it wasn’t; the feeling was wholly internal and tearing him apart.

The lobby was too loud, and filled with too many people and too many questions and a whole lot of unnecessary concern for him. He walked further out to the edges, footsteps slow and sure so he wouldn’t fall, and ended up choosing a secluded place in the shade next to a building faraway from the main lobby.

He closed his eyes, and took a moment to breathe, trying to calm his racing heart. His communicator vibrated in his pocket, and he didn’t really feel like looking at it considering how he’d basically just abandoned his well-meaning friends. He opened the message anyway, and was surprised to see it was from Mumbo instead coming through his off-world chat rather than the main server chat.

MumboJumbo > Grian: How is MCC going? :D

Grian’s first instinct was to simply reply he was doing fine and the games were going fine, as he always would have normally, but he’d sworn to try and not lie about his feelings to Mumbo anymore. Which left only the truth.

Grian > MumboJumbo: not well. i feel sick

Grian > MumboJumbo: and disconnected and it hurts. it’s been really distracting

Grian > MumboJumbo: i passed out for a little bit earlier and gem got really worried

MumboJumbo > Grian: Oh no! Are you feeling better?

Grian > MumboJumbo: i’m fine. just getting some air

MumboJumbo >Grian: You should rest, dude

MumboJumbo >Grian: I don’t feel good either :(

Grian smiled a bit at the messages, but something tickled the back of his mind. He typed out another message.

Grian > MumboJumbo: what do you feel like

MumboJumbo > Grian: I have an awful headache and my chest hurts. I actually went to go lay down to see if it got better but it didn’t

Hm. So, Mumbo felt the same way he did–he should really stop being surprised by their souls being connected, but it still happened every time. He’d felt floaty, disconnected, torn-apart and in pain . . . like half his soul was missing, elsewhere.

Maybe it wasn’t his heart being ripped out. Maybe it was his soul.

Grian > MumboJumbo: that’s how i feel

MumboJumbo > Grian: is this because of the soul thing?

Grian > MumboJumbo: i think so

Grian > MumboJumbo: it’s only been getting worse hasnt it

MumboJumbo > Grian: It has

Grian > MumboJumbo: did you feel fine before i left?

MumboJumbo > Grian: yes

Grian thought. Could it be the distance, with them being on separate servers? Or was one of them just sick? Or was it Grian’s own anxiety? They never tested distance with Zedaph, though. Would they even have noticed until now if distance affected them, when they lived right next to each other in Boatem?

Grian > MumboJumbo: i think it may be the distance

Grian > MumboJumbo: like the two halves of our souls are no longer on the same server anymore

Grian > MumboJumbo: so our bodies are freaking out

Grian > MumboJumbo: ?

MumboJumbo > Grian: Sounds romantic

Grian > MumboJumbo: WHAT? IT’S PAINFUL

MumboJumbo >Grian: We’re literally meant to be together

Grian > MumboJumbo: i think you should come onto the mcc server

Grian > MumboJumbo: i cant just drop out of the competition, it wouldnt be fair to my team

Grian > MumboJumbo: they’re already worried about me

MumboJumbo > Grian: Shouldn’t I be whitelisted?

Well, technically so, but a Watcher didn’t need a whitelist. He could surely get Scott to whitelist him for next time, but he didn’t have time for that today, nor the presence of mind to be quizzed by Noxite about it. Mumbo needed to be here now.

Grian > MumboJumbo: not if ur a watcher

MumboJumbo > Grian: Oh no

Grian > MumboJumbo: you can just join the server

MumboJumbo > Grian: Oh no

Grian > MumboJumbo: i’ll message Scott to give him a heads up

Grian explained how, although he’d already told Mumbo about the concept before. They’d just never practiced it. It wasn’t much different than server-hopping with an admin though, except that you were bypassing a lot of normal checkpoints. It was like having a key to the backdoor and entering through there. Knowing the address of the server, which Grian could provide to Mumbo, would make the path easy and direct. He just needed a bit of concentration to open the portal. He’d never done it before, but the feeling should be innate.

Finding a random server, like how Grian stumbled into Hermitcraft, tended to be filled with a lot more uncertainties. But at the time, he’d been desperate for simply anywhere to go, and without a fixed destination he’d ended up there.

Grian switched to the server-side chat and typed in Scott’s username.

Grian > Smajor1995: hi Scott

Grian > Smajor1995: just giving you a heads up that a friend of mine will be joining the server, don’t freak out since he’s not on the whitelist but he’s fine

Grian > Smajor1995: it’s mumbo, you know him

Scott replied nearly instantly.

Smajor1995 > Grian: omg are you feeling better? Pete told me you passed out. we can’t put off the games for very long but we could find someone to sub in if you need it?

Smajor1995 > Grian: wait what? Mumbo?

Grian > Smajor1995: mumbo will be fine, i need him here

Grian > Smajor1995: i just don’t want him to be banned by Noxite

Smajor1995 > Grian: Grian what is going on? are you okay?

Grian > Smajor1995: just trust me? i’ll be fine if Mumbo’s here and I can explain more later

Smajor1995 > Grian: you know it’s never a good idea to trust you

Grian > Smajor1995: okay FAIR. just once though

Smajor1995 > Grian: fine but you owe me

Then Grian just . . . sat and waited. He’d explained the process to Mumbo–like flipping through a filing cabinet in your mind and choosing the right folder, he’d illustrated–but he wasn’t actually there to witness his attempt. It was strange. All this time of guiding Mumbo’s hands, but he’d have to figure it out without him this time.

He hoped it was easy. He hoped Mumbo didn’t somehow get lost between servers, which would have been hard to do since there was a known and well-trodden path between Hermitcraft and MCC, but Mumbo seemed like the type of person who’d find a way to get lost. He tried not to worry but it just came naturally to him, so he sat and fiddled with the end of his scarf.

His team was probably looking for him. They were probably worried for him. He’d run off when they just wanted to help. He felt awful about that now–at the time he’d just wanted out, with too many people looking at him and fussing over him. Too many eyes watching him. But they’d just been worried for his safety and rightfully so.

Why was he always so bad at this? At communicating with people who just wanted the best for him? Why couldn’t he ever keep himself under control, why did he always freak out at these normal things? Why was he always so guilty? Why couldn’t he just act normal about things?

He took a deep breath instead. Mumbo was coming. He’d be fine.

The effect was immediate when Mumbo joined the server. Grian didn’t even have to check his communicator to know his problem had been fixed, though when he did he saw Mumbo’s welcome message. Several people in chat were a little surprised, but most people just said hi. Mumbo said hi back. Tommy asked if he could swap Mumbo for Phil on his team, and said something about “father figures” that gave Grian the impression that the people on their team were very likely to start yelling at each other. Grian didn’t check to see if Mumbo responded.

For the first time since the tournament had started, he felt like he could take a full breath. His chest didn’t feel hollow anymore. Of course it doesn’t, he thought, now my soul isn’t being effectively split in two anymore.

Grian > MumboJumbo: i’m in the corner over here

He shared his coordinates, and within a few minutes Mumbo had arrived. He sat down in the shade next to Grian and they both looked at the players in the distance.

“Welcome to MCC,” Grian said. “You made it!”

“Dude,” Mumbo said excitedly. “That was so cool! I didn’t think I’d be able to do it!”

“You did it without me, too.”

“You told me how, though. Wow, that made me powerful, almost. I just stepped around the whitelist.”

Grian smiled. “You did a great job.”

Mumbo squinted at him and looked him up and down. “Are you better now? Jimmy saw me when I joined and asked if you were okay. I guess he assumed you’d messaged me.”

“Yeah,” Grian said. “I feel fine now. Don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Mumbo said softly. “I guess joining the server fixed it.”

“So it really was the distance.”

“Seems like it.”

They sat in silence for a few moments. Grian checked the clock on the communicator.

He scrambled up off the ground. He had many missed messages, ranging from his teammates to Scott, and more importantly: the time. They’d bypassed the break time but the games were paused still. Because of him. “Oh no,” Grian said. “We’ve got to go. They’re all waiting on me.”

“You’ll do fine,” Mumbo said. “Oh, this is exciting. I finally get to watch it!”

Grian frantically typed out a message to Scott.

Grian > Smajor1995: sorry i feel fine now we can unpause the game

Smajor1995 > Grian: are you okay?? We were wondering if we should replace you since you weren’t answering your messages

Grian felt terrible, guilt like daggers prickling him in the stomach, but he pushed it away and tried to focus. He needed to push past it for the sake of his team, not his own feelings.

Grian > Smajor1995: i’m sorry for the delay. I feel better now, i promise

Grian > Smajor1995: i owe you

Smajor1995 > Grian: it’s okay, as long as you’re fine

He and Mumbo walked back to the lobby, Grian looking at his feet. Gem bounced over immediately. “Grian!” she said. “There you are. Are you okay? What happened?”

“Hi Mumbo,” Pete said.

“Oh hello,” Mumbo said. “I’m honored to meet you! I’ve heard all about you.”

“I’m fine,” Grian said. “I’m sorry. I went to get some air and stopped looking at my communicator. I feel better now. I didn’t mean to hold the whole competition up.”

“Happens to the best of us,” Jimmy said. He smiled, and his eyes crinkled a bit at the edges. “Just glad you’re okay.”

“Hey Mumbo, what are you doing here?” Gem said.

“I got invited to spectate!” he said, and Grian was impressed at how smoothly he lied. Well, the invitation part was wrong–but Mumbo was definitely going to have fun spectating. It actually made Grian feel a bit more relieved about the competition, knowing at least one person was here who at least sort of knew the things in his head.

. . . maybe that was the point of telling people things all along, wasn’t it? To help you feel better? Grian shook the thought off. It was time to compete again. He took a deep breath again. Mumbo chatted with his teammates for a bit, until they were suddenly teleported back into the Decision Dome once more. Grian thought he caught a few people whispering about him, but then Jimmy distracted him with something stupid and he just couldn’t not make a snarky comment about it.

In the end, they still didn’t win, but that was probably inevitable with their string of unfortunate games, though when Grian looked back on it, they’d really just done average instead of terrible like he thought. Grian was forcing himself to realize that wasn’t entirely his fault either, that he wasn’t the only one who had issues with it. They came 5th overall, which was nothing to be ashamed of. It was the top half, after all. Finishing the competition at all was something to be proud of, honestly–Grian, for all his competitiveness, still aimed to play for fun.

He may not have made first overall, but at least he crushed it in TGTTOSAWAF and Sky Battle. And had fun, of course.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

After the competition, and after all the hermits had greeted their returning competitors and socialized and then split back off for the night, Mumbo and Grian found themselves hanging around Mumbo's van. Grian had chosen to lay on his stomach on the van’s roof, wings splayed out and drooping to touch the ground. He stared at the sky out on the horizon. The moon was big.

“So we’re well and truly soulmates then, huh?” Mumbo asked suddenly, from somewhere below Grian. Perhaps he was sitting on the doorstep. The word soulmates didn’t grate on Grian’s ears as much as it had before when Zedaph used the word. Maybe it was because Mumbo was saying it.

“I mean, we knew that,” Grian answered.

“But we literally can’t even be apart from each other,” Mumbo said softly. “I’m not sure why, but that somehow makes it feel more real than just sharing powers.”

“You becoming a Watcher wasn’t the strangest thing about this?”

“You know what I mean,” Mumbo said. “This means . . . We basically have to spend the rest of our lives together, or at least on the same server as each other. Or else we’ll get sick. I don’t want to know what happens when it’s more than just a few hours, do you? The bad feeling just kept escalating the longer it went on. What if it can kill us?”

He was right, and it was this sort of big yawning idea that Grian hadn’t wanted to examine too closely, despite it being literally in front of him. The idea that without either of them knowing, the entire course of their lives had been changed for them. He’d been taking things one at a time, or trying to despite everything going on. He had been simply reacting to their soul problems rather than actively taking it into account. MCC had shown them they might actually need to plan around this.

But honestly–Grian could think of worse things. He couldn’t view the future. At one point in his life he hadn’t even really thought he had a future. But he couldn’t view a future without Hermitcraft, and he bet Mumbo couldn’t either.

“Well,” Grian said, “I guess it’s a good thing we tolerate each other then.”

Mumbo giggled. “Thanks buddy, glad that you ‘tolerate’ me.”

“Any time.”

Mumbo stared off into the distance, and they were silent for a moment. It was dark now, but never really that dark anymore under the moon. There were lights on at Scar’s swaggon, and Grian briefly wondered what he was up to tonight. Finally, Mumbo spoke: “Do you . . . do you think it’s fixable? Do you think we’ll ever go back?”

“I don’t know,” Grian said. “I was never very experienced in soul stealing, you know. Maybe someday we’ll find a way to split them back up again.” As for being a Watcher, Grian didn’t know. For him, it was a one-way street. It didn’t seem any different with Mumbo, but if it was his soul that gave him the powers, then taking it back might take them away. But would it even work that way?

The Watchers were nothing if not tenacious. He somehow knew they’d manage to cling on above all other traits, like a dominant allele. But the knowledge in the universe was vast, and it wasn’t too long ago that Grian hadn’t even known someone could steal his soul in the first place. Maybe he’d be surprised. Maybe he shouldn’t always look on the dark side.

Maybe if Mumbo could go back, then maybe he could too. The thought slammed into him, and he sucked in a breath. If they could find a way to reverse it for Mumbo, why not him at the same time? But he didn’t expect to feel so . . . empty at the thought. Did he want to change? If he had the option? His old self felt far off. He wasn’t that person anymore. He didn’t think he could be that person again. So why did he try so hard to pretend?

I don’t know who I am without this, he thought, that’s why.

Mumbo rambled. “Maybe they’ll just give it back to you. Oh, but then I wouldn’t have one, would I? Or would they split it, and I get half and you get half? Oh, but having half a soul sounds worse than just sharing one. I wonder what happened to my old soul. I really should have looked more into this soul eating thing . . .”

“What part of the soul makes us who we are, do you think?” Grian asked. “Why does my soul dictate I’m a Watcher, and now so are you? When did my soul change, if I used to be human? And can it change yours?”

“That’s a good question,” Mumbo said. “I, I don’t really know? I don’t know. I always thought, like, souls were connected to being a good person or whatever–like you could be a “good soul,” but I can see now that’s not really the case is it?”

“If it were goodness then it would have been defined by my own actions, but it isn’t. Why am I not in control of my own soul? I didn’t ask to become a Watcher, but it changed my soul just the same. And when you stole it, it changed yours, or got rid of yours, and now you’re a Watcher too and you didn’t ask to be.” The words were bitter in his teeth. If your soul was supposed to be your very being, should it not be Grian’s to control? How could someone just change who you are like that? And what control left did he have over himself, if that were true?

Grian was always stumbling into things he couldn’t understand. The world was so big, and he was so small, but he was always defiant and ready to fight. Always trying and failing and never quite grasping it. Why wasn’t he in control of his own soul? He was tired.

Mumbo was silent for a while and Grian’s head spun. “I don’t really know who I am,” Mumbo finally said quietly.

“You’re Mumbo Jumbo,” Grian said automatically, before adding, “My best friend.”

“Yes, I- I do know that, thank you. But I mean, I don’t really know who I was before I got here. On Hermitcraft, I mean.”

Grian peeked over the edge of the van roof at Mumbo sitting below him. “What do you mean?”

“I, uh, didn’t really have a place I was from? The hermits took me in.”

“You were only 17,” Grian supplied. He knew this story.

“Right! And I, like, didn’t have much of a home before them. I had several, I guess, because I moved around and did odd jobs, but I wasn’t from any place. And I never knew who I am–or, really, what I am. I always assumed I was human, but I never really did know.”

“Oh.” He thought about some of Mumbo’s strange tendencies. Turning into a potato, a pig–the very thing that had driven him to steal Grian’s soul in the first place because he wanted to be human again, or at least the form he recognized as human. He thought about Mumbo growing into his adult self in a server full of people of all varieties, both human and nonhuman. He thought about Mumbo seemingly not making much of Grian’s wings and strange abilities, because maybe Mumbo didn’t really know what humans were supposed to look like anyway.

“I still don’t,” Mumbo said. “But that’s okay, I guess. If anything I know I’m a Watcher now.”

“You told me earlier,” Grian mused, “that we didn’t have to be Watchers, we could just be human, because being human wasn’t something you could lose, it was just a way of living.”

“I must have been feeling awfully wise when I said that.”

“Well, you were still a bit groggy from waking up. That probably did something strange to your brain. Anyway, I think you’re right. I should get to choose who I am. Not the Watchers.”

There was another long pause. The nighttime air had a bite to it, being well into December, but Boatem had always been a warm place and tonight was a pleasant night. Grian could feel the chill starting to seep into his bones now, though.

“Neither of us know who we are,” he said finally.

“Oh?” Mumbo said. “Not you either, then?”

“I don’t know who I am without this.” Mumbo said nothing and Grian got the silent invitation to keep talking. Explain more. “If we find a way to separate our souls again, you could go back to being human or whatever-you-were. But if that’s true for you, could I also go back to being human?”

The question hung in the air. Mumbo seemed to understand, somehow, what he was getting at–but then, they were soulmates weren’t they? After a moment he replied, “You don’t want to, do you?”

“No! I mean yes! I don’t know,” Grian said, running a hand through his hair. “Because I don’t really know who I am without this as a part of me now.”

Would he give it up, if he could? Certainly. Would he go back in time and stop it from happening? If he could, he would. But also . . . no. Maybe he wouldn’t. The thought scared him. Because he didn’t know how to exist in a world where this hadn't happened, and he didn’t know the type of person he’d be right now, and he didn’t even know if he ever would have found the Hermits. And was that fear of uncertainty greater than the weight of his past experiences? If he went back to being human right now, he’d still carry that weight, but he didn’t know if he knew how to live as a human anymore. If he carried on the way he was, he didn’t know how to live like this either.

He was still caught in the middle, just as he’d always been.

“Grian,” Mumbo said, voice unusually clear and confident. “You’re not the sum of every bad thing that has happened to you. Someone needs to tell you that.”

Oh.

“What does that mean?” he whispered.

“Grian, you’re going to be who you are no matter what. Whether you are a human or a Watcher. You don’t have to be a Watcher if you don’t want to be–I’m just telling you what you already know, mate, because you already left them. You’re in Hermitcraft now, and you can make yourself look however you like, and you can go wherever you like, and you can build whatever you want and do whatever you want. It’s not up to anyone but you.”

“Says the person who tricked me into signing a contract to steal my soul because he couldn’t stand not being human. Didn’t matter to you back then?” Grian asked bitterly. “Whether you were human or not?”

Mumbo winced. “I never said I took my own advice. Or that anyone should take advice from me, in general. Except you, you should probably definitely take this advice. In my opinion.”

“I’m a different person because all of this happened,” Grian said. And I don’t know if I even like him, he thought. I can’t even look in the reflection at him and try to forget he exists.

“Sure you are. So am I. But you’re also not.”

“What?”

“I mean, I knew you during Evo, right? Everything about you I liked back then, that made us get along together, all that still exists. You still have the same sense of humor and the same personality. The Watchers couldn’t keep you from a TNT block if they tried. You’re still a builder. You’re still my friend. I don’t care if you have a bunch of extra eyes or a halo or some freaky powers, you’re still Grian. I don’t care if you have parrot wings now and leave colorful feathers all over my base that make me sneeze, because you’re my friend. You’re still Grian. That didn’t change. Maybe your soul did somewhere along the road, but that didn’t.”

There was a warm feeling in Grian’s chest, and some memories–of the way Mumbo had hugged him when they finally saw each other again for the first time on Hermitcraft. Of passing notes to each other through minecart messaging systems, or the stupid pranks they played on each other. Of the careful concentration Mumbo had when he’d preened Grian’s feathers. He just felt . . . noticed. If he had to share his soul with someone, it might as well be with someone who appreciated him for himself.

There’s a couple versions of Grian. There’s the Grian of before Evo, and the Grian of during Evo who defiantly stole and blew things up and caused mischief. There’s the Grian of the Watchers, who was miserable and missed home and missed his friends. There’s the Grian at the beginning of his stay in Hermitcraft, who just wanted to bury his entire past and make new friends who didn’t know about that and be normal again. There’s the Grian of the Architechs, the Grian of the G Team, the Grian of the jungle, and the Grian of the Mycelium Resistance. There’s the Grian of the desert. There’s the Grian of the South. There’s the Grian of Boatem. And finally, there’s this Grian–who’s progress in healing from the past few years seems shattered at his feet, who is broken and confused and still trying to learn how to move past the worst thing that’s ever happened to him.

“Maybe I’m still myself, no matter what after all this time, but who is that? Who am I?”

“Maybe one day I’ll figure it out too,” Mumbo said.

They stared in silence for a moment. Tonight would be a good night for stargazing, but the moon’s size and light drowned them all out.

“Well,” Grian said. “I guess we make quite the pair, then.”

<< Chapter Seven | Masterpost | Chapter Nine >>

#hermitcraft #grian #mumbo jumbo #watcher grian #watcher mumbo #hermitcraft fanfiction #mcc 19 #quara fanfic

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bopinion · 1 year

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2023 / 24 (Short Holiday Edition)

Aperçu of the Week:

"There are many paths to happiness. One of them is to stop complaining."

(Albert Einstein)

Bad News of the Week:

The mountains have always been there, it feels - there for millennia, imposing, immovable, unimpressed by man. But now this parasite, which normally only walks over the mountains like ants, has made it. Its irresponsible behavior of the last centuries - actually only a blink of an eye in the history of the earth - shows consequences. Last week, there were landslides in the Alps of Switzerland and Austria that can be attributed to climate change. The seemingly eternal ice that holds the rock masses in the high mountains together like glue has disappeared in some places. Even though no people were harmed - experts had predicted the development - the images are shocking: Thousands of cubic meters of rock, tons of kinetic energy have stopped just a few meters from (evacuated) houses. One could almost say that nature is sending us a message: Stop torturing me at last. This is a final warning before I fight back.

Good News of the Week:

Switzerland doesn't really have a reputation for social innovation. "Status quo preservation" is certainly a term invented by the Confederates. Only a few years ago, a referendum - Switzerland has a very direct democratic system - decided that there should be no immigration, except for millionaires and asylum exceptions. But now, with 58% approval, the Swiss have opted for a climate and innovation law. This not only provides for an accelerated expansion of renewable energies, but also (drum roll please!) tax increases to finance the plan. So our neighbors have apparently understood what is necessary: without renunciation, we will not be able to effectively counter climate change. Bravo!

Personal happy moment of the week:

"The sea of stone" - that doesn't really sound like a place of longing. But it is. And also very green. Because this morning I woke up in this beautiful region of the Austrian High Alps around the Hochkönig. And thus start into a week of vacation. The sun is shining. Only for me.

I couldn't care less...

...that many are upset about NATO's large-scale maneuver "Air Defender 2023". The biggest since the alliance was founded, over two weeks, with over 10,000 participants, all over Germany. It's funny that it's taken for granted that firefighters, for example, train their missions, but eyebrows are raised when it comes to soldiers. And when a fighter jet whizzes by, it makes a little more noise than an e-scooter. We live in times of military flare-ups and a destabilized security situation. To be honest - and I say this as a pacifist! - I have no objection to those who are supposed to defend us in the event of war knowing what they are doing.

As I write this...

...I am already very excited: tomorrow I will sit on an e-bike for the first time in my life. We have reserved two bikes and tomorrow we will ride a mountain trail - which I certainly wouldn't be able to do without the support of a motor. Bodacious!

Post Scriptum

Silvio Berlusconi is dead. Normally I have no problems to respect the life work of a personality even if I don't like him. And what a personality he is: sales genius, building contractor, media mogul and the longest acting prime minister of Italy after Mussolini. But Berlusconi has also been criminal, corrupt, sexist, greedy, racist, encroaching and mendacious - all proven. Above all, however, he has established populism in Europe and made the right-wing acceptable in his homeland. As I said, number two after Mussolini. And his life's work continues to have an impact. Giorgia Meloni, current prime minister of the extremist Fratelli d'Italia, became the youngest minister in Italian history under him at the age of 31. Unlike plastic surgery and the Mafia, I won't miss this guy.

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ruki--mukami · 2 years

Note

So, dress up game made into an official tag?

BTW, are you planning the open interaction for August of will you continue one from July?

🧩 Yep, the dress up game is seen as an "event" of sorts to me, so I decided to give it its own tag much like the other memes, special occasions, and holidays seen on this blog. It's also an attempt at me organizing my blog since a lot of my posts are all over the place given how there's over 4.4K of them now.

Also, I planned on being a lot more active with the July open interaction, but as you can see I got distracted by other things going on the blog. Sorry to those I haven't replied to yet, but I'm hoping to extend it to August since that's still summer time for me anyways and it lines up, ahahaha. So, I've decided to keep that open for two months as opposed to the usual one, since it was the open interaction with the most participants thus far. ^^ The first one (grocery shopping) had 12 different threads, the bite one had 7, and then the beach one totally blew those two out of the park with a whopping 16. I also don't want to punish those who haven't participated by neglecting their threads (unrelated to any event) either, but I've been slacking on those too honestly. Basically what I'm trying to say is — I hope to reply to everyone soon, no matter which thread it is.

For the August open interaction, I originally planned on doing a summer festival setting but now that I think about it, the Japanese festivals are usually to honor some kind of god or the changing of seasons from what I read. It's ironic for a Vampire to want to attend that, lmao. Though I suppose it doesn't have to be a religious thing, and on the plus side, Ruki gave a ton of kimonos out recently so it kind of fits HAHAHA. Definitely let me know what you think about the idea for those who are (or aren't) interested in a summer festival open interaction for August. I intended on alternating between open interactions in terms of cruel vs soft (grocery store - soft, random bite - cruel, beach - soft) which would mean the August one would have to be a bit dark to maintain that balance.

And since I've honestly got so many open interaction ideas, I'll probably spoil them under the cut for those who want to "prepare" in any sort of way. 🧩

So, I already mentioned that for August I had a summer festival idea planned, but I'll at least reveal what I anticipated for the remainder of the year.

September — I was going to do a Vandead Carnival type of thing, but honestly, that might be too similar to the festival activities, haha. I don't like to make things repetitive. However, I might make it a school open interaction instead after finding out more OCs attend the academy than I expected. Though I'm not sure what exactly they're going to do at school just yet (maybe partners for an assignment, maybe a library encounter, I'm still vacillating between options).

October — Now, here's where things get a little crazy. My friend suggested that Ruki should hold a Halloween event where he judges everyone's costumes for the fun of it (there is no "ranking" system or "winner" or anything like that — he just wants to see people dress up, and I'm still working on the reasoning for that as well, haha). Of course, I will dress him up as well and perhaps even draw something over his sprite to align with the Halloween spirit. Really tempted to do a Vampire dressed up as a traditional Vampire for the laughs again.

November — I think an open interaction where you cook with Ruki might be cute. Hoping to make him invite the person he's interacting with to the Mukami manor to help him test a recipe of his choosing.

December — Of course, I'll be damned if I miss out the opportunity for a Christmas date. Yes, it's weird for Vampires to celebrate Christmas, but there is actually a Mukami Christmas special in Vandead Carnival so I'd like to create a similar atmosphere as that. I already did one like that last year where they went shopping together but we don't talk about my 2021 writing. So, instead of Christmas shopping, I'd like to plan something more romantic. By then, I'm hoping his current relationships will be more fleshed out, and for any newcomers, it could be a ploy for Ruki to bite them later most likely.

I got more ideas cooking in my head but I don't want to reveal too much.

#the admin speaks

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davidmariottecomics · 1 year

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The New Year (2023)!

Hi there and happy new year!

I'm back after a short break for the holidays! As of writing, I've been maintaining my blog on my own website for over a year. I've grown that blog by extending it out to a newsletter and a Tumblr. Happy anniversary to the blog and let's get to it! This one's going to be pretty personal and then next week I'll get back to talking about comics, storytelling, the not-so-secret life of an editor, and pressing issues of social and societal import!

Being self-reflective, the transition from one year to another is a complicated time. It is the period when what has been and what could be really collide and force one to define what is.

I tried to get out of a little bit of that by posting a whole week into the year, but honestly, that feeling's still coming for me. Professionally and creatively, that transition feels like a bit of a metamorphosis as I transition from what I've been doing to what I hope to do. While there are plenty of constants being maintained, things like Sonic which I've now been working on for 5 years (and which will soon have been releasing for 5 years), I've also recently said goodbye to Transformers and hello to Godzilla as an editor. This time last year, the last issue of TF Wreckers was about to be released and I knew I had at least a little bit of other writing work in the hopper. This time this year, I don't have any releases currently scheduled, and yet, I'm hoping/already in some ways planning for this year to have my highest writing output yet. I am a writer and an editor and I want both sides to feel equally nurtured.

For a long time, I haven't really made resolutions with the new year. Not because I feel the distinction of years is arbitrary or I don't believe I'll stick to them or anything.More, the goals I was already setting for myself existed outside the scope of the year change and so it wouldn't feel genuine to call them resolutions when they were pre-existing. And this year, for the first time, I have some. I'm not going to share them in full--a few people close to me know, but they're personal and outside the scope of the transparency I usually try to provide. But it's an interesting feeling having some "resolutions" and, like so many people, at least right now, they're energizing me even when other things aren't.

The other part of the new year, of course, is reflecting on the previous year. What you did, what you enjoyed, the moments big and small and that seemed so important, but were quickly forgotten. Fortunately, through the blessing of a blog, here's some of the stuff that I was reminded I did proudly in 2022.

I got engaged to Rebecca Ann. They're my best friend and favorite person and I love them.

I launched a website and a blog that posted *nearly* weekly and made a few sales.

I went to WonderCon, Tucson Comic-Con, San Diego Comic-Con, and a ton of smaller events around CA.

I released multiple Transformers comics that I wrote, including finally getting to contribute to Beast Wars, a lifelong dream.

I saw my sister graduate high school.

I made some weird little drawings and comics for myself, many of them posted here.

I wrote more than I probably ever have, though there's plenty of it that'll likely never see the light of day.

I ended up in the top 0.1% of Lizzo listeners on Spotify for the second year in a row. I don't know that this is actually as momentous an accomplishment as some of these other things, but it is funny.

I somehow managed to do a little bit of traveling, spent a lot of time with family, and had some very rough moments in crowded places without getting sick.

I saw Transformers to it's end with some of the best TF books of all time.

I hit a milestone issue, #50, with Sonic and then kept going and have a lot more to come.

I made progress on various other deals and titles that you'll be finding out more about from IDW in the weeks and months to come.

I met various other professional goals in creating comics I'm proud of and working with some of the greatest creators ever to practice the craft.

I was a good cat dad.

I made new friends.

I tried really, really hard to find a balance that works for me between work and life and the ways that so many of my interests and hobbies overlap with my job. I'm not sure I've quite got it down just yet, but I'm getting there.

I also, liked a ton of stuff! So, if you're maybe new here for one reason or another, here's your chance to get an idea of what sort of stuff I like and if you like it too, maybe we can talk.

What I enjoyed last year (not a comprehensive list, but a lot of it): Blank Check (Podcast), Smallville (TV show), Special by Lizzo (Album), Bar Rescue (TV show), Chainsaw Man (Manga & Anime), Honkai Impact (Video game), She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (TV show), Ted Lasso (TV show), Genshin Impact (Video Game), multiple comics unions forming, Pokemon games, Dr. Gameshow (Podcast), Spy x Family (Manga & Anime), Jack Johnson (Musician), The Flophouse Podcast, Willy's Wonderland (Movie), Barbarian (Movie), Dungeons & Daddies (Podcast), Persona 5 Strikers (Video Game), My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix (book), Komi Can't Communicate (Anime), Hello From the Magic Tavern (Podcast), The Afterparty (TV show), X (Movie), Pearl (Movie), Junkwraith by Ellinor Richey (Comic), Aeonian Red by Gigi Dutreix (Webcomic), Solve this Murder (Podcast), Pokemon cards, Medallion Status by John Hodgman (Book), Beastars (Manga), Mark Darkly's Dark Room #1 (Comic), Escape This Podcast, Nancy (comic strip), Dicktown (TV Show), Garth Marenghi's Dark Place (TV Show, doesn't fully hold up, but still some great bits), My Lovey-Dovey Wife is a Stone Cold Killer (Manga), The Batman (Movie), the Sonic 30th Anniversary symphony, Turning Red (Movie), Inventing Anna (TV Show), Jujutsu Kaisen (Manga), Shrek! by William Steig (Book), Lizzo's Watch Out for the Big Grrrls (TV show), Tomie by Junji Ito (Book), Woke Season 2 (TV show), Young Justice (TV show), Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Movie), Moon Knight (TV show), Chopping Mall (Movie), Dead Eyes (Podcast), Mr. Mayor (TV show), Kaguya-Sama: Love is War (Manga & Anime), Secret Identity by Alex Segura (Book), Maniac of New York (Comic), Catherine Full Body (Video Game), Hey Riddle Riddle (Podcast), The Rock Cocks (Webcomic for Adults Only), Alfie (Webcomic for Adults Only), Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (Movie), Squirrel Girl The Unbeatable Radio Show (podcast), Venom (Movie), The Quick and the Dead (Movie), A Simple Plan (Movie), Army of Darkness (Movie), Sweat & Soap (Manga), Obi-Wan Kenobi (TV show), Vixen: NYC (Webcomic), Ms. Marvel (TV show), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (IDW Comic),Witch Watch (Manga), Persona 5 Royal (Video Game), Wotokoi: Love is Hard for Otaku (Manga), Sonic Origins (Video Game), Only Murders in the Building (TV show), Monthly Girls Nozaki-Kun (Manga), Lore Olympus (Webcomic), Gil Thorp (Comic), Halloween Kills (Movie), Cyberpunk Edgerunners (Anime), My Hero Academia (Anime), Uzaki-Chan Wants to Hang Out (Anime), Yakuza: Like a Dragon (Video Game), Godzilla (1954 movie), Werewolf by Night (Movie), Far Sector (Comic), Abbott Elementary (TV show), The Simpsons (TV show), The Loneliest Time by Carly Rae Jepsen (Album), Prom Queen by Beach Bunny (Album), House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (Book), Evil Dead Trap (Movie), Sonic Frontiers (Video game), Lego Masters (TV show), The Tick (2016-2019 TV show), the Quintessential Quintuplets movie, my cats!

New Releases this week (1/4/2022): Sonic the Hedgehog #56 (Editor)

New releases next week (1/11/2022): Godzilla Rivals II: Rodan vs. Ebirah (Editor) Godzilla: Monsters & Protectors - All Hail the King #4 (Editor)

Announcements: Arizona Comic Book Arts Festival - 2/25! Becca and I will be coming to the AZ Comic Arts Fest! It's a one day comic-focused event in Phoenix, AZ. Tickets are only like $10. And besides us, there's an incredible group of folks going. Mitch Gerads! Steve Rude! John Layman! Henry Barajas! Jay Fotos! Jeff Mariotte! Marcy Rockwell! John Yurcaba! Andrew MacLean! Alexis Zirrit! Meredith McClaren! James Owen! Ryan Cody! And many more! Come and see us!

Next week: Over the break, I saw some chatter about whether or not some of the larger publishers are due for another reboot/relaunch/continuity reset of some sort and we'll talk about why limited continuity is so appealing for pitches and creators and new readers, but how leaving continuity behind is also a headache and a half for everyone involved!

Pic of the Week: Becca ended up having one last little event right at the end of the year! They tabled at the New Year's Eve party for fundraising for block reconstruction in our neighborhood! So we spent our NYE doing something we did a lot this year, tabling and selling cool merch.

#happynewyear #2023 #comics #comic blog #idw #Arizona Comic Book Arts Festival #comics editorial #manga recs #tv recs #comics recs #movie recs

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ranger-kellyn · 1 year

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it's not exactly easy to sit here and type this up after two bad mental health days, but i'm doing my yearly tradition of sitting in lilsimsie's stream until it's midnight on the east coast, and have about ~40 minutes before this edible kicks in and well. better get writing lmao

looking back in my 2022 journal, i think it's fairly safe to say that the start of the year is always rough on me, mentally. we're officially in winter, and the seasonal affective disorder is in full swing, so like. i KNOW what's wrong. it happens every year. doesn't stop the low from kicking me in the gut, though

2022 has been a rough year. my job responsibilities have been picking up, we've been traveling more, and it's only looking to increase even further as i continue. and sure, that's the typical progression of a job regardless, it still stinks at times. the only thing that makes it manageable is the fact that i genuinely do like all my coworkers. it's always a good time when we go out for dinner and drinks when we're on travel, and the holiday party i went to the other week was a blast.

but 2022 has also been a bit of a...i can't think of the word. reckoning? the realization that like. (and DONT fucking come for me i KNOW i'm still very young but hang with me here) i'm aging.

and with aging comes different health concerns and whatnot. as much as i have the bad tendency to overshare on the internet, there's plenty i haven't really talked about, and i'm at a point where i really need to like. take control. before things get worse. two (or more honestly) health problems i've had this year are directly related to me having such a sedentary lifestyle. if i don't take control and start holding myself accountable to getting up and being more active, things are going to start getting bad.

i've already been trying to get up and do more stretches throughout my day when i can. it was also part of the "deal" i made with myself for allowing me to have my tv up in my bedroom. if i wanted to keep it up here, i have to do at least a few minutes of stretches each day, and so far it's never felt like a punishment, so hopefully i'll be able to hold myself accountable.

i'm also working on eating better. my aunt got me this super fancy rice maker for christmas, and it makes really good steel cut oats as well. there's not much i can eat in the morning without getting horribly nauseous, but oats seem to be the exception so. that's been nice to have! my first baby step goal with eating is to just. eat. 3 meals a day. they don't have to be huge elaborate meals, but at least something. from there, i can start worrying a little more about content. my other first goal is to try to ease off on the soda bc i KNOW i drink way too much. the last time i was able to cut it out was when i started by just. drinking a glass of water before i allowed myself to have the soda, so that's my plan for now.

also. cut back on the weed bc like...being high practically every weekend just so i can disassociate it away. is uh. Not Healthy, but clearly i'm not starting that one tonight dskflhk

BUT. enough about the negatives--

there were positives in the year, too. i moved to a bigger apartment. i got to travel to new places. i took my bestie to my cousins wedding and had a great time. i got to spend time with my friends. i went to a pride event at the science museum, and went to the My Brother My Brother and Me live show. i was fortunate enough to get tickets to see taylor this next year, nashville and two nights in seattle!

i also got a TON of writing done. i didn't finish my goal of finishing any of the three ongoing fics, but i DID get a lot of good writing done. after a multi-year hiatus, i was able to update Getaway Car with a new chapter before Midnights was released, and with only three chapters left to go, the end is within sight.

i've also done a ton of writing on countless other stories. i'm hoping i can carry this energy into the new year, and actually finish one of my fics in 2023 lmao

i'm also really hoping i can get back into drawing.

but anyways.

here's to hoping 2023 is a good one

#talking tag #2022 #finished typing with like a minute to spare lol

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somian-audere · 5 months

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ENTRY XXXIII

Of New Years and New Fears

Happy new year, everyone.

The holidays had been surprisingly kind to me, got to meet up with a few relatives and for once it wasn’t a complete pain in my behind save for one event that I’ll save for later. Went swimming with two of my cousins. The two were in elementary school, one was in the sixth grade and the other was in fourth grade, I believe? The details got a bit muddled since I was just quietly enjoying my time in the inadequately short swimming pool.

Look, I love swimming okay? It's one of the few cardiovascular exercises that don't make me sweat so much...on the account that I'm already wet from the start.

Back on topic, my cousins were an interesting pair of lads.

Reminded me of how I was back when I was their age albeit I’d like to believe I was much better behaved than they were. After all, I had to maintain my rank as the ‘most behaved student’ AKA the student that didn’t talk much. Throwaway awards aside, the two had a surprisingly morbid and weird sense of shared humor. Granted, I’m pretty sure everyone’s gone through their hyper edgy, dark humor phase. I knew I did. I won’t delve into it since a ton of the jokes they said would’ve gotten them canceled on this corner of the internet, besides they’re kids, they’ll figure it out eventually, right?

Yeah, I know, cousin of the year.

But hey, I’m not their parents, go sue me. I’m not about to lecture kids on why their jokes are offensive, not while I’m laughing along with them. What can I say? My sense of humor is juvenile.

Besides that,

A ton of my relatives pointed out how big I was getting. Admittedly I’m not sure whether to take that as an insult or a complement, because I had been bulking up thanks to my work-out routine. Another factor to consider is the fact that I have also been getting heavier due to my recent medication. Turns out I had hyperthyroidism, so I had to take meds which may have been contributing to my recent density increase. Truth be told, my body has been getting a bit heavier for my liking and even though my thyroid hormones are reaching normal levels, my sweat levels are still off the charts.

Perhaps I should try a healthier diet for the year.

But I swear to God, each time I try my family always ends up with more food than we know how to deal with after the holidays and then I have to deal with a ton of the leftovers! I’m never going to get rid of my beer belly at this point.

So that’s two resolutions for the year: Be healthy, and be less sweaty.

Two things that I have struggled with for years, we’re off to a great start.

Speaking of things that I’ve struggled with.

This year, I intend to stop pursuing something that’s a bit more personal. A last shot at something before I try something new. I have a plan A and B for it, but the chances of both plans failing are at an all time high. I’m…not sure what I can do if I fail at both things but doing both of them feels like the safest option.

I can’t go into depth about the two plans but I guess I can talk about them discreetly enough.

Plan A.

I’ve been trying at this one for years. Each attempt has only resulted in marginal improvements, it’s good but not enough—the story of my life summed up in a single statement. I’m not even motivated to try all that much this time, even after months of ‘preparing’ for it. If I succeed in this matter, it feels like I’ll end up in the same place I did months ago. I can’t…I can’t go through that again. But if I fail, then I let a ton of people down. Is that a fair price? My pain for the satisfaction of others?

Plan B.

This one’s a more recent endeavor—it’s a solid option if I succeed in it given my current circumstances. Scary thing about it is I have no clue as to how it might end up in a few years’ time. I still have debts to pay for the next few years and I’m not sure if it’ll be able to cover that. Furthermore, I have already tried for this and absolutely fumbled the bag. I’m willing to try again for it, if that’s what it takes.

I have never been one for gambling.

And yet my life has the need to raise the stakes anyways. If you’re afraid that I’m betting my life on two very flimsy options then know that I have a third less concrete but equally flimsy option along the way.

…

Contrary to what everyone knows about me, I am not a very smart person.

I have no clue what to do with the rest of my life now. And all I can do is come up with elaborate plans to tide the coming storm—trying to find a way to give myself more time to figure things out. But I never do.

And I guess that’s probably the last resolution for this year: Figure things out.

Let’s all have a great 2024.

#memoir #personal #writing #new years resolution

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greensparty · 7 months

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Stuff I'm Looking Forward to in November

How is it now November? In addition to All Saints Day (Nov. 1), Day of the Dead (Nov. 1-2), All Souls Day (Nov. 2), Daylight Savings Time Ending (Nov. 5), Election Day (Nov. 7) Veterans Day (observed on Nov. 10, officially on Nov. 11), Diwali (Nov. 12), Thanksgiving (Nov. 23) and Native American Heritage Day (Nov. 24) here is what's on my radar this month!

Movies:

Priscilla

After last year's Elvis biopic, The King's Queen Priscilla Presley gets the biopic treatment courtesy of Sofia Coppola. Opens 11/3.

Sly

Director Thom Zimney has done a ton of great docs on Bruce Springsteen including Letter to You as well as Elvis: The Searcher. Now he is turning his eye to Sylvester Stallone. Premieres 11/3 on Netflix.

The Killer

A David Fincher film is always an event. But when he reunites with Seven screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, it's an even bigger event. After a limited release on 10/27, it premieres 11/10 on Netflix.

Thanksgiving

In 2007's Grindhouse, one of the highlights of the fake movie trailers they had between Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's features was Eli Roth's trailer for Thanksgiving about a Thanksgiving-themed slasher film. It took a while, but now Eli Roth's actual feature film is finally dropping on 11/17 (just before Thanksgiving)!

Next Goal Wins

Taika Waititi is one of the most interesting directors working today. In addition to what he has brought to MCU with the last few Thor movies, his Jojo Rabbit deservedly won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Now he's back with a sports dramedy. Opens 11/17.

May December

This drama had me at "Todd Hayne directs Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman". Opening 11/17.

Please Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain

The comedy writing team of Please Don't Destroy have stolen many an SNL show in recent years. Now they are starring / writing their own film produced by Judd Apatow. Premiering 11/17 on Peacock.

Napoleon

Napoleon Bonaparte gets the biopic treatment from Ridley Scott. Opens 11/22.

Maestro

After his directorial debut with A Star is Born, Bradley Cooper's next directorial effort is a Leonard Bernstein biopic. Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg are producers on this as well! Opening 11/22 before a Netflix premiere on 12/20.

Music:

Snail Mail Valentine (Demos)

I was a huge fan of Snail Mail's excellent 2021 album Valentine. Now she is releasing an EP of demos and outtakes. EP drops 11/3.

The Beatles' Final Song and Reissues

Possibly the biggest deal for Beatle fanatics since The Beatles Anthology in the 90s is happening this month. Their final single "Now and Then" containing John Lennon's 1979 recording combined with George Harrison's 1994 recordings (when they attempted to record it for Anthology) with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr's modern day recording. While AI was used for the production, contrary to some interpretations this is NOT a Beatles song created by AI. Single is dropping 11/2. As if this weren't exciting enough, the remastered re-release of 1973's The Beatles 1962-1966 (AKA The Red Album) and The Beatles 1967-1970 (AKA The Blue Album) are being re-released on 11/10. (Review coming soon).

Scream DC Special

D.C. punk legends Scream (the band that Dave Grohl joined as a teen and was in pre-Nirvana) have not released an album in 30 years (Fumble, which featured Grohl re-joining for that album). Now the group is releasing a new album (featuring tons of special guests including Grohl) on 11/10.

Conventions:

NorthEast Comic Con

Over the last few years I've been lucky enough to cover the NorthEast Comic Con, a fun MA-based celebration of comics, collectibles and pop culture. Guests for the Winter edition include Heather Matarazzo, Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald and more. Con takes place at Boxborough Regency (Boxborough, MA) from 11/24-26.

Fake Holidays:

In addition to actual holidays this month, there are also fake or unofficial holidays like Black Friday (11/24), Record Store Day Black Friday Edition (11/24), Cyber Monday (11/27) and Giving Tuesday (11/28).

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lex-munro · 2 years

Text

[Glitter on the Wet Streets: Part 4] The River’s All Wet

Eddie gets some damning evidence on Rafa’s ties to the Tracksuits. Meanwhile, Matt has spent enough time on his issues to be almost too supportive as a boyfriend, but Eddie honestly needs that level of adult supervision.

Chapter 4 of (probably?) 12.

I have made the acquaintance of three bisexual Catholic disasters (well, one is recovering from Catholicism), and can confirm that their pep talks are terrible.

Warnings: Canon divergent based on the MCU. Oblique spoilers for Black Widow, Wandavision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, and Daredevil. Discussion of abusive relationships (both romantic and platonic) and recovery from abuse. Some stage musicals are glorious and moving, some are bizarre and campy and hilarious—everything we saw of Rogers the Musical during Hawkeye places it firmly in the latter category. Consent here is an interesting grey area, because Eddie and Rafa both consent to the encounter but are both intentionally misrepresenting themselves—it’s a curious sort of fraud, and it can be counted as coerced consent; but rest assured, dear readers, that these dudes would have cheerfully had hot anonymous sex if they hadn’t known each other for half a year (let’s call it Canon Typical Dubcon, since tons of people date superheroes without knowing their secret identities). At this point, it is unknown whether Nelson, Murdock, & Page Blipped in MCU canon, but in my happy little offshoot they did not—it’s not directly pertinent here, but I’m going with Marci and Trish Blipping and Matt finally reaching the cosmic realization that It’s Not About Him (and his mountain of guilt) when Jess makes him drag Foggy to a support group she ‘just happened to find, no big deal, it’s not like she needed it or anything, and it’s not like she cares about them, they’re just her lawyers, shut up.’ Language: PG-13 (primetime TV plus s***, f***, and g**damn).

Pairing: Matt/Eddie, off-screen Eddie/OMC, past Eddie/Venom.

Timeline: A year after the events of No Way Home, but concurrent with the events of Hawkeye (told you it was canon divergent).

Disclaimer: I doesn’t owns the movies or the characters. Or the assorted objects of pop culture reference.

The River’s All Wet

In the end, they decide that MJ will have a superhero escort at all times, Ned will continue to collate data on the Tracksuits, and Eddie will lie back and think of England (so to speak).

He texts to see if Rafael has any plans. He mentions that everybody else from the paper has gone home for the holidays, hinting very heavily that he has no family and is lonely.

Rafa yeah, ikwym, it’s rough this time of yr. :/ my mom died on Christmas Eve during the Blip.

Yikes. As conversational landmines go, that’s a pretty nasty one.

omg im so sorry :(

Rafa thx. it’s not so bad, I guess, compared to how it could’ve been. just lonely. I know a great Colombian place in Queens…maybe we could get some dinner tonight or tomorrow? be lonely together? ;)

That line would’ve worked on Eddie even if he weren’t specifically trying to seduce the guy.

sounds amazing. how about tonight? or even lunch? sry if im coming off desperate. my ex left around xmas last yr & id rly like to make better memories. :<

Rafa it’s fine—we all remember what a dark place you were in when you signed on. tyw, let’s go all out. we’ll do lunch, i can get us tickets to Rogers, we can have some drinks after and…see where the night takes us?

that would be great Eddie texts, but an uneasy feeling has been creeping through him since he caved to the whole stupid plan. Normally, he’d have zero issue seducing someone for information, and he’s been interested in Rafa for months. It should feel win-win, but instead he feels like Rafa isn’t at all the guy Eddie thought he was. He seems so nice, but it turns out he’s helping keep evil shit under wraps. Has Rafa been letting Eddie publish about all the crap going on in Hell’s Kitchen out of guilt? Or has he been using Eddie’s work to screen Kingpin’s dirty dealings?

If Eddie can just keep it together, he could find that shit out. Deep breath. Yeah, it feels kinda gross, but it’s important, and he wants to be more than a mascot. Peter’s the only one with super powers, so why the hell is Eddie the only one who can’t seem to pull any weight?

Maybe he just needs another pep talk.

It takes Matt two rings to answer. ~“Hey, handsome,”~ he says, and Eddie can hear his smile. (Someone teases in the background and gets shushed.)

“Oh, I’m handsome, says the blind guy,” Eddie jokes.

~“Broad shoulders, big hands, rakish scruff…besides, MJ says you’re handsome, and I trust her taste. How’s the job going?”~

“It’s going.”

~“Oof, that bad, huh?”~

“I just…didn’t expect it to feel gross. Not what I’m doing, ‘cause I know it’s for a reason and I know it works. Just…the idea of him smiling across the table without a care in the fuckin’ world while he…ugh. Sorry, don’t mind me. Just wanted to hear your voice, babe.”

~“I give excellent pep talks,”~ Matt says (whoever teased him earlier squawks an obvious refutation). ~“You are a clever, resourceful, stubborn bastard, and your amazing giant cat loves you. Clearly, this makes you peak humanity.”~

Eddie laughs.

~“Mm, there’s that gorgeous laugh.”~

“Fuck off,” Eddie chuckles. “So, listen, I’m working the rest of the day and into the night, but…maybe I could call you after?”

~“Hey, no, don’t feel like the long hours or the holiday mean that you’re stuck with just a phone call. I know it’s a tough time for you, and if you need to not be alone after work, you can absolutely come knock on my door. Midnight, two, five, whenever. Okay?”~

Eddie chews on his lips for a while. “I’m sorry for the weird timing of all this shit. I’d really have loved to date you properly.”

~“So far, I’m a big fan of our improper dating. Neither of us is what you’d call ‘conventional.’ I mean it, Eddie—I would really like it if you showed up on my doorstep after you finish work for the night.”~

“You’re amazing.”

~“Your laugh is amazing.”~

“Sap.”

~“You love it.”~

He blushes right up to his ears. “Yeah.”

~“You deserve it,”~ Matt adds.

“Listen, baby—I gotta go, but thanks for the pep talk.”

~*~*~

The musical was equal parts hilarious and excruciating. The chick playing Black Widow was pretty hot. The portrayal of the Snap was so comical that Eddie had to bite his knuckles to keep from laughing at a scene that was making everyone else in the theater cry (the characters had transforming costumes that turned grey and sent clouds of glitter and fake ash puffing into the air).

Fortunately, Rafa seems to mostly agree with Eddie’s assessment of the play as they sip their beers at a little hipster hangout near Broadway.

“But, y’know, some people deal best with trauma by taking away its teeth,” Rafael says. “The Chitauri attack, both of Thanos’ attacks, all the economic and political restructuring, it’s all been just…fucking godawful, right? So making it fun and funny, being able to laugh at a guy in a purple mask singing an evil song full of innuendo and bad puns, is a way to make some of the nightmares stop.”

“Sure, I guess. Never really thought of it like that. My usual defense mechanism is…like, anger and revenge.”

“And you couldn’t get revenge on V,” Rafael guesses.

Eddie peels at the label of his beer with intense focus. “Not directly, but I wished for it. Really hard. Who does that? Who sees somebody who used to be their friend, somebody they love, suffering and says, ‘you deserve it’? This shitty guy sitting next to you.”

Rafa touches his hand gently. “Sometimes anger is louder than love. But it doesn’t last as long, and that’s when we feel shame or regret—if we really do love the person at whom we lashed out.”

“Huh. Y’know, the interns keep saying I should try a support group. For, uh…v-victims. Of abuse.” Eddie grimaces and takes a big gulp of his beer.

“Maybe you should think about it. It’s less private than a therapist, but you’re also not alone. You feel less like a bug under a microscope.”

The best lies are the ones people want to hear. The second-best lies are ones that are true.

People want to hear that Eddie is traumatized (he is, a bit). They want to hear that he’s as much of an airhead as he seems (he can be). They want to hear that he’s too scared, too weak, too dumb, to stand up for himself if they back him into a corner.

He’s not, but it’s surprisingly easy to hide the fact he’s got a feral side. They think a guy who walks, talks, and dresses like Eddie is all crow and no spurs. They think he’ll cave when shit gets rough, but Eddie will chew his goddamn leg off to get out of a trap.

It was one of Venom’s favorite things about him.

So, to a guy who takes money from the mob, Eddie probably looks nice and safe.

The sex is decent. Eddie manages to sneak a badass little Stark Tech remote hacking thingy to Rafa’s phone, and Ned pulls the easy, mostly-legal info—contacts and the times of incoming and outgoing calls and messages, all neatly collated.

Eddie uses Snowflake as an excuse to weasel out of staying the night; Rafa says he had a good time and would love to grab some dinner the next night.

It’s…nice to drag himself up the stairs to Matt’s place. To drop all the masks.

When he knocks on the peeling paint of 6A and announces himself, he gets dragged through the door and into a kiss.

“Um. Hi,” Eddie murmurs, sliding his palms over sleep-warm skin.

“Hi,” Matt says sweetly, beaming in the dark. “I missed you.”

It’s been a long time since somebody missed Eddie (besides the cat), so he maybe gets a little weepy.

“You’re okay,” Matt assures him, stroking his hair and nuzzling his nose. “It’s just us here. What you did today was stressful, and I’m not gonna judge whatever way you need to express that.”

“Yeah?”

“I put on a costume and beat up lowlifes to manage my stress, which according to Jess is pretty lame.”

“What does ‘Jess’ do instead?”

“Abuses her liver and punches lowlifes without a costume. It’s the costume she judges, not the violence.”

“As long as you’re not running around in bright red and blue spandex like somebody we know, I’m pretty sure the costume ain’t all that lame.”

Matt leans back a little to tip his head in a shrug. “Well, I am blind, so it’s not like I know what color it is…I’m told it’s red, but not a gaudy sort of red. I asked for ‘blood red,’ and my armor guy liked the theatricality.”

Something clicks in Eddie’s brain. “Oh my sweet baby Jesus, you’re Daredevil. That is just…so, really, very, extremely hot.”

“Thanks?” Matt says, giggling. “I don’t usually get such a positive reaction…typically, my dates are horrified if they either find out or connect the dots.”

“My, uh, life experiences have somewhat skewed my reactions to this kinda thing. People-eating alien brain-roommate, and all.”

Matt kisses his cheek. “Feeling a little better now?”

“Yeah. It’s just…the last person who missed me was V, after we got back together from a, uh…break…and what he actually said was ‘I missed us.’“

Matt nods. “Well, I do like who I am around you, but I like you more. So… I. Missed. You.”

Eddie pulls him closer and kisses him hungrily. “How do you feel about fucking on the couch?”

“Um,” Matt says, blinking. “Honestly, it sounds a lot hotter than it is. Last time I had sex on that couch, I got horrible friction burn from the leather, and it was just…not really worth it. And the loveseat is a non-starter, total logistical nightmare.”

“Fair enough. Bed it is, then. It’s a really nice bed.”

Matt laughs and pulls him through the darkness to the bedroom.

Later, with Matt pressed along his side again, a thought flutters through his brain.

“You think it’s weird how easy this is?” Eddie asks. “Like, how quick it’s going, and how much we trust each other even though we know next to nothin’ about each other?”

“I know you give really great oral,” Matt says with a coy smile.

“You’re a damn menace,” Eddie teases.

“I know three kids who don’t trust adults trust you,” Matt goes on more seriously. “Including one whose life you could completely ruin with a single printed sentence. I know you’ve written a slew of articles drawing attention to crime, inequity, and injustice in a part of town generally ignored. I know you were in love with a brain-eating alien who is remarkably territorial about someone he very literally left. I know you rescued a giant stupid cat who loves you very much. And I know you don’t expect people to find you attractive.”

“I used to. That…it changed…after V. He never much cared how I looked on the outside, but he never shut up about how much of a loser I am, and I started feeling like everybody could just look at me and see it.”

Matt hums and raises his eyebrows. “Wow, if this is what losing looks like for you, winning must be jaw-dropping.”

“So modest,” Eddie says dryly.

A gorgeous grin lets him know the joke landed. “Just saying. A strangely comfortable, fast-developing relationship with someone in whom you can confide really weird shit and with whom you can have really good sex? Also, my amazing bed?”

“Point taken, babe.”

Matt raises up on his elbows so Eddie can see his face better. “Hey,” he says softly, affectionately. “I like you. I like talking with you, I like how you are, I like your grumpiness and your determination. I like how much you like the kids, and how clear it is that they like you. I like the scars you’re growing over the places where he hurt you, and that you’re still willing to take a chance on a blind guy with a martyr-complex the size of Staten Island that’ll very probably get me killed someday.”

“I like you, too,” Eddie says, and it feels like a much bigger confession. “I like who I am around you. I like…who you see when you look at me—figuratively speaking. It just…feels like it’s been a long, long time since I liked myself, and I owe that to you.”

Matt smiles at him, neon through the colored window panes casting pink and orange highlights along the contours of the expression.

“God, you’re so beautiful,” Eddie doesn’t mean to say aloud.

“You look beautiful to me, too,” Matt says, settling back down in that perfectly comfortable spot he found the night before. “Sweet dreams, Eddie.”

“Yeah, sweet dreams, babe.”

~*~*~

He wakes tucked into an otherwise empty bed, to the smell of fresh coffee and fried eggs. After a quick trip to the bathroom, he ardently seeks out that coffee.

Turns out his almost-boyfriend is cooking, half-dressed in slacks, shoes, and an undershirt.

“I’m not sure how I feel about a blind guy frying things,” Eddie teases.

“Anybody can smell when it’s about to burn,” Matt scoffs. “I’ve gotta get to the office, but this is for you. You like your eggs over and your coffee blond with two sugars, right?”

Eddie would be more impressed if he didn’t know three scheming teenagers determined to interfere in his love life. “Did MJ tell you that?”

“I plead the fifth,” Matt says with a chuckle.

“I appreciate it, all the same,” Eddie says as he takes his first sip of coffee. “You, uh…you take good care of me.”

Matt switches off the stove and slides the eggs onto a plate (perfectly over easy, plus buttered toast cut into quarters lengthwise). “I like taking care of you.”

“Any chance I could get a kiss before you head out?”

He in fact gets pinned against the counter and kissed like Matt wants to devour his soul (the coffee is taken from him and set aside to prevent spills).

At which point the door opens, some guy shrieks (“Oh my God, Matt, my innocent eyes!”), and Matt pulls back to exclaim (“Foggy, you’re early!”).

There’s a guy in businesswear standing in the living room with a hand over his eyes. “You left the door unlocked again, Matthew!”

Eddie can’t decide whether to laugh or die of embarrassment.

“You must be Eddie,” the stranger guesses. “I’m Foggy, the straight best friend and stalwart business partner. I apologize for Matt’s shitty pep talks, but that’s what you get with a bisexual Catholic.”

“My pep talks are great,” Matt protests, grabbing his shirt and tie off the back of a chair. “And everybody’s decent, Foggy, we were just enjoying a good-morning kiss. Eddie, eat your breakfast. Call me later?”

“Definitely. Uh, nice to meetcha, Foggy.”

Foggy takes his hand away and carefully peeks one eye open, then the other. His eyebrows and eyelashes are that kind of blond that makes Eddie think his hair turns red in the summer. “Sorry, I’m just used to seeing a lot of Matt’s girlfriends and boyfriends if I walk in. Yeah, nice, uh, you too. Also. I promise I’m a lot less awkward when I haven’t just seen my college bestie making out. I’m gonna go now, good talk, I’ll be outside.” And he beats a hasty retreat.

“He seems nice.”

Matt steals another kiss while knotting his tie. “He’s my rock. The only part of my adult life he wasn’t there for me was my own fault, and it was for my own good, too. Lesson learned.”

“That’s kinda relieving to hear.”

“How so?”

“Was starting to feel very much not good enough for you.”

Matt kisses him again, sweet and lingering. “It’s only fair—I’ve been feeling that way since I met your cat.”

Another deflection, but Eddie’s starting to think Matt spends about half his waking hours evading deep conversations. “What’s with you and my cat?” he teases, taking the bait.

“Cats are extremely good judges of character,” is all Matt says before grabbing his jacket, cane, and sunglasses.

After he’s gone, Eddie finds the keys to the apartment on the coffee table, next to a piece of paper and what must be a Braille typewriter.

He eyes the little bumps on the paper as he eats, runs the pad of his finger over them in consideration.

A note for him? Or for Matt? Even for a guy as capable as Matt, writing something with pen and paper would be awkward at best…he decides it’s a note for him from Matt, and slips it into his jacket.

.End.

#fanfic #CANON DIVERGENCE #Venom liked the MCU so I let him stay as a treat #Matt/Eddie #rarepair #fandom: MCU #fic series: glitter (venom MCU)

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