More Fem Xie Lian Because I Said So.

Upcoming fic yall, you’ll never guess what it is

Little peek

When you're a kid/teenager everyone expects you to base your career around your passions and interests and that works for a lot of people but it's not the full story. I wish they would also teach students to consider the lifestyle that career would require.

Like... if I had to choose a passion and work a career around it, I would probably work at a zoo or aquarium. But those jobs require a lot of schooling with STEM classes (which I hate) and a lot of early mornings (which make me feel ill) and an obligation to work in person with no flexibility to move (which makes me depressed). So even if I'd enjoy caring for animals all day, it's not a good career path for me.

My current job is travel writing, which is not my passion. I like it, but it's not my passion. But I work a flexible schedule, I can live anywhere, I get a travel stipend, and my team is really chill. So it works for me.

Rather than solely focusing on "What topics do you like?" I think we should ask students "Of the careers that suit your preferred lifestyle, which are the most interesting?"

wait i lied this is worse wtf do u mean 'why did u take mumbo away from me' Grian Minecraft

SO obsessed with the way the game cut off gem's f-bomb literally as perfectly as possible. phasmo is a comedy game first and a horror game second etc etc

Hikari’s shadow self is crazy

The og

remember when israel bombed a hospital fourteen months ago they said that they would never do anything like that only to bomb every single hospital in gaza and then target schools and refugee camps and kindergartens and un shelters?

remember how everyone was angry when al shifa hospital was bombed? why are we all silent now when israel is bombing kamal adwan hospital in gaza? where is that anger now? why aren't the events taking place in north gaza on the forefront of your mind?

while we are going about our days, there are multiple massacres taking place in gaza. we are living in comfort while our tax money is being used to bomb children.

are we becoming desensitised to genocide? desensitised to the cruelty the occupation inflicts on gaza every second of every day?

earlier in the genocide, we all came together to help palestinians evacuate. we would do our best to help. now we've simply started tuning out fundraisers. is this what we've come to? ignoring people who are going through a genocide?

i just want people to come together and help my friend alaa. she has two children and needs to feed them and ensure that they're warm in this cruel winter. donate to her fundraiser if you have the means to, share if you can't donate.

donate here || verification

Spiderverse Hualian, spider people Hua Cheng and Xie Lian having a kind-of-meet-cute.

“Who are you?” Hua Cheng demanded in a low voice.

“I don’t think you want to know.” The other spiderman replied.

“As far as I’m aware, I’m the only one shooting webs around Shanghai. So who the hell are you? Some kind of knock-off?” Hua Cheng grumbled.

The other man laughed, it was the kind of sound that set off bells in Hua Cheng’s brain. Hua Cheng paused at the sound of it, but before he could react, the other spider man sandwiched him between webs and lunged forward.

The man landed skillfully and soundlessly over him. They were inches apart now. Hua Cheng could see the reflection of his own mask in the other man’s concealed eyes. Mechanical whirring was faintly heard as the spiderman’s eyes squinted and widened in rythmn.

“Well, who do you think I am, San Lang?” The man asked, his chest heaving slightly with his breaths. They seemed labored, under pressure and tight at the mere sight of Hua Cheng.

Hua Cheng froze. He grasped Xie Lian’s shoulders.

Grasped was a generous way to put it; that was saying it lightly. No, Hua Cheng he- he practically scrambled to wrap his arms around the man—around Xie Lian. “Gege?” was his only breathless response.

Xie Lian laughed again, muffled behind his mask but it was a sound like no other in Hua Cheng’s ears.

Xie Lian’s hands let go of the webs and he stuck his feet to the wall to support himself. He touched their foreheads together as his hands cupped Hua Cheng’s face.

“San Lang,” His shoulders shook, but his voice wasn’t as happy or light as it was before. “San Lang is right. My name is Xie Lian,” the man said, then he pulled away.

Hua Cheng was tempted to reach out and tuck Xie Lian back to his chest, but he had the self-control to keep himself from moving. He just trembled, wordlessly waiting in anticipation.

Xie Lian pat his shoulder. “I was a college student in a prestigious university, and I had a wonderful boyfriend whom I cherished,” He stared into Hua Cheng’s eyes, as if the mask wasn’t even there. It was piercing in a way Hua Cheng couldn’t describe. “but I was bit by a radioactive spider after an experiment; and I lost my beloved to a villain I’d considered as my own father.”

Xie Lian’s figure was cast in shadow. It was the dawn and sunlight rose, shining behind him. It made his white suit appear a similar shade to Hua Cheng’s dark one. A contrast, but alike.

“Now, I am spiderman from dimension 817-4. Most call me Taizi Dianxia, but my real name,” He placed a hand over Hua Cheng’s chest. “is Xie Lian.”

DL!Pearl x Arachne!Gem

Fair warning, I don’t know how people usually go about posting fics on tumblr but some quick disclaimers:

-Mildly suggestive(physically)

-Descriptions of violence

“My webs do have a tendency of snaring little bugs in.”

“Little bugs?”

“Little bugs.”

=======••••=======

“I know you’re here with a purpose.” Gem chittered. Her mandibles clicked along to the trill of her voice. “So what was it? To plunder my friends? To steal my belongings? Because you’ve certainly achieved your goal if that’s what you meant to do.”

“I was only trying loot this mineshaft.” Pearl tugged at the webs. It didn’t want to come off. “This mineshaft that I didn’t even know was occupied.”

“Does that change the fact that you’ve caused me damage though, moth?” Gem’s tone stayed dark, though her eyes trained on Pearl’s hands with a hint of amusement.

Pearl felt herself burn under that gaze. Judging from how her skin would sooner tear off her body than it would the web; and how the arachne loomed over her with a keen interest that was closer to predatory than it was curious—the odds weren’t in Pearl’s favor.

Still, she couldn’t allow her dignity to go down like this. “I have a name.”

“You look like nothing more than a moth to me.”

The arachne had an attitude, it seemed. Pearl would’ve loved to play around with someone like this if she wasn’t in a life-or-death struggle. “Not to be egotistical, but people fear the mere sight of my axe. I’ve killed for less.”

“I don’t see an axe, nor a fearsome killer.” The arachne’s front appendage tapped against the floor, and the rhythm was eerily similar to the ticking of TNT.

It wasn’t difficult to see why. A soft hissing shadowed her every word, and a sharp rap came of those spindly legs—tick, tick, ticking.

Pearl tried to supress her shuddder.

As if by mercy of the watchers above, or perhaps by the arachne herself, the tapping stopped. Pearl wasn’t looking at her to see the way that the arachne’s brows furrowed. “…that name of yours, moth, what was it?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“You were so eager before. Why rescind now?” The arachne leaned forward, with a grin that Pearl thinks burns her skin in a way that no flame can. “My name is Gemini Tay. Call me Gem.”

“Pearlescent Moon. They call me Pearl for short.”

At that, Gem hummed. “They. So there are more of you plunderers?” She straightened back up.

Pearl had the urge to laugh. This woman was so wary, especially for someone whose only threat for most of her time has been cave-lurking mobs. “Like I said, I’m not a plunderer, and they certainly aren’t either. That bunch of ‘em have souls more golden than I.”

Gem cocked her head. “So you are wicked?”

“It’s subjective.”

The arachne shot her a tentative glare.

Pearl didn’t know much about spiders other than the way that their heads severed at the end of her blade. She’s only familiar with them in the way that their blood splattered across her armored chest. Never given the creatures much thought.

And yet she seemed to be giving her plenty of thought now. The urge was ever-present—to dissect things, to rip them apart, and to study them all from the most grotesque to the most intact parts of their corpse.

That was the same kind of look Gem was dissecting her with. Violent curiosity. The same kind Pearl held for her.

“You look as if you wish my neck were between your fangs.” Gem spoke up first.

“You look like you want me as your next meal.” Pearl responded in kind, unaware of when exactly her heart decided to spite her and hammer a wild rhythm in her chest.

“If I freed you from those webs,” Gem’ four eyes were all lasered onto her. “What would you do, Pearl?”

“I could give your treasures back and leave you be.”

“Why? Is there anybody waiting for you on the surface if you leave?”

Pearl’s expression dropped. She ignored the sourness trying to crawl up from her stomach, acidic and vile. Even Gem’s words could cut, it seemed.

“What’s your point, Gem?”

“Tell me more,” The arachne invited herself into Pearl’s personal space, of which the moth was helpless to combat. “Tell me about you, about the surface.” One, scythe-like spider leg prepped its blade up to the peeling, stringy web. “Do that, and I’ll cut you free; but you won’t be rid of me for a while.”

Pearl eyed her diamond axe, the single glint of the torch’s light stared back at her. “Don’t hurt me?”

Gem found herself looking at the axe too. “Don’t hold back on me.”

Pearl smiled. “Deal.”

The sound of the webs tearing were the same as when she cleaved through fabrics with her axe. Like a puppet whose strings were cut, Pearl fell.

Gem’s ginger braids filled her vision before she felt the impact of landing on the arachne’s chest. “Careful,” her voice took on a softer quality. Was this how she spoke to all the mobs in her keep? It was invigorating, shameful as it was to admit.

Pearl, always a curious creature, wrapped her arms around Gem’s waist. It was the point where Gem’s spider and human half met, which was a strange mix of textures; and it brought about a confusing clash of bloodthirst against instinct.

The moth wanted to run. The wolf wanted to hunt.

She ran her hands over Gem’s fuzzy hide, and slowly, brought it upwards to feel at the skin of Gem’s waist under her top. Was there a vulnerability here somewhere? Did it have less durability than the rest of her body? Pearl wondered.

Her wrists were seized. “Are you not pulling away?” Gem’s mandibles clicked.

“You aren’t pushing me away,” Pearl shrugged. She quite liked hugging Gem. Yes, hugging, because she had the face to admit that’s what she was doing. An embrace, albeit with ulterior motives.

Gem sighed. “Are you always like this?”

“What can I say? I like being difficult.” Pearl hummed. Though there was a limit to her ability to be thick-skinned, so when Gem let go and lifted her arms to accommodate Pearl’s, she finally peeled away.

Amber, genuinely worried and concerned over Mike’s well-being; and Mike, blank-shot stare into the clustered trees after peeping the horrors. Peak Character dynamics