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ageless-aislynn · 1 year ago

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Title: “15 Minutes” (8/?) Author: @ageless-aislynn Characters/fandom: Master Chief John-117/Reader, Halo the series Summary: You've got work to do. John worries. Things get a little more intense. Series: How to date a Spartan (without even trying) Rating: T (PG13) Length: 1,945 (this chapter, 19,693 total so far) Spoilers/warnings: Set in the Silver Timeline of Halo the series, not the games or novels. Though we began with the events of Halo 1x06, there will be no more show spoilers. We are still firmly seated in the AU Warthog, merrily driving out to places where there’s only a passing nod to canon. 😉 Disclaimer: Definitely not mine but I do enjoy borrowing them just for a bit! 😉 A/N: Text is both here in this post or available at AO3, however you like to read. Halo season 2 has finally arrived! However, this fic continues to zip along in the AU Party Warthog, so, while we began with season 1 way back when (and you'll see a few more things from s1 along the way 😉), we'll not be venturing into s2 territory at all. Unless s2 is going to take some verrrrry interesting twists, lol! Chapter 9 is still in progress by hand but I hope to have it ready soon. 🤞😣🤞The next chapter will also see us entering into some hurt/comfort for a bit but I tend to lean heavier on the comfort, in case you're worried. Or, you know, would be disappointed. 😉 If you read, I hope you enjoy! ⭐💖⭐

Taglist: @pinheadbanger @mysardencut @laurenstacy610 @sporadicbelievernightmare @ultrablackwidower @bxmxtx @jellotherelol

If you would like to be tagged in my John/Reader fics, just let me know! I also write John/Kai, John/Cortana and Kai/male Reader, so I’m glad to tag you for whatever you’d like. If you would like to be removed from the taglist, also feel free to let me know, no harm, no foul. 😉 💖

Halo fic masterlist ⭐

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7

The Troop Transport Warthog hit a particularly rough patch and you held on for all you were worth to keep from being ejected.

"Sarge," Private Taylor yelled. "Where are we?"

"That's need to know and none of you need to know, marine," Sarge shouted back from the passenger seat. "Just keep your head down, do your job, and you'll be home 15 minutes before your mama has breakfast on the table."

You couldn't particularly tell if it were dusk, dawn or high noon, the air was so heavy with the greasy remains of mortar rounds. In the distance, a nondescript cityscape occasionally flared with either continuing pockets of active combat or just the remnants of the devastation that had passed through.

Wherever you were, it felt like you were barreling at top speed through a graveyard of vehicles: Warthogs, Mongeese and even the odd Scorpion, some overturned, blackened and smoldering, others weirdly intact as if their drivers had merely stepped away for a moment.

This was a salvage and recovery mission, tasking your unit with marking vehicles as repairable, recyclable or a total loss to be abandoned.

The next hour or so, that had been your focus, moving from Warthogs and the occasional Mongoose, conducting a quick evaluation, then using your spray gun to mark a green circle on the hood to send back to Reach for repair, a white slash to send it to be stripped for usable parts or a red X to abandon, not worth salvaging.

You marked a Mongoose with a red X, though the gun sputtered and you had to give it a few whacks before it sprayed properly, then you moved on.

Next up was a Warthog that seemed in decent condition from the outside, short of the rear antenna twisted until it resembled a curly tail. But the electronics were fried and the entire undercarriage looked like it had plowed over a series of flaming spikes, all major parts gouged out and burned. There might have been a few nuts and bolts reclaimable but since you'd just recently been writing up requisition for needed parts, you judged that it was more effort than it was worth.

You made the call to abandon it but as you tried to spray the red X across the hood, nothing emerged, even after shaking the sprayer and giving it a few more hits with the heel of your palm. With a slightly frustrated noise -- who was checking to make sure that the sprayers were in working order before they were sent out? -- you headed to get a replacement. Along the way, you caught a private going in the opposite direction.

"Hey, see that 'hog there? Would you red X it for me? Thanks."

"Um, sure," the blond man said and headed where you gestured.

You were still looking for somebody who had a spare sprayer when Sarge drove up in the Troop Transport again.

"Wrap it up, it's about to get hot," he shouted.

You quickly joined the rush back to board the Pelican and scrambled into a seat just as it lifted off. A split-second after you'd clicked the restraint down, the Pelican rolled to one side, shuddering from an impact.

Alarms began blaring, mixed in with the pilot calling out coordinates, and you automatically tried to look forward, as if you'd somehow be able to spot what was shooting at you. All you could really see was the anxious faces of the other marines around you. You spared a couple of breaths to be glad that neither Maria or Jamie had been called in for this.

The Pelican took a second, more glancing blow and the resulting shudder rattled your teeth.

"Covvies?" somebody asked over the engine whine and the private across from you shrugged.

"Who else?" she said. "But that felt like surface-to-air to me. What about you?"

She met your eyes and it was your turn to shrug. "I'm not sure. Never been hit by any sort of missile before."

"Oh well, congratulations on your first missile salvo," she returned with a crooked grin.

The Pelican rolled once more, this time in an evasive maneuver, then thankfully smoothed out and made its escape without further incident.

Your unit was taken to the covert off-world depot known colloquially as The Pit, where everything that had been marked for repair or recycle would be delivered for further sorting. In the center of the large warehouse area was a compactor pit for all of the scrap to be sent into. Several cranes were already busy moving the smaller vehicles like Warthogs and Mongeese into berths to be stripped down while the still operational vehicles were lining up to be loaded onto heavy transport carriers to be returned to base.

You finished stripping your second Warthog for salvageable parts and signaled the nearest lift operator. The clawlike crane clamped onto the 'hog's shell, picking it up and carrying it towards the compactor while you moved on to a Mongoose with a crumpled left rear wheel.

Then, out of the corner of your eye, you spotted a Warthog with a particularly distinctive twisted rear antenna being dropped off into the line to be loaded up and returned to FLEETCOM.

Frowning, you wove your way through the other mechanics, avoiding the occasional flying part, and found a green circle sprayed onto the hood.

Shit, the private must've heard me wrong when I told him to red X it. It seemed like an odd mistake to make but things had been hectic.

You grabbed a sprayer and neutralized the green and sprayed over it with a red X, then went to the nearest crane operator.

"You see that 'hog with the X on it? Drop it in the line for the compactor, please."

"Got it," the woman said and you waited until she'd picked it up and deposited it appropriately before you returned to work.

You were elbows into a Gauss 'hog's engine bay when you heard your rank and name called. Looking up, your heart gave a little skip: John in full helmeted Mjolnir strode your way with thundering steps you could hear even over the rest of the cacophony.

"With me," he said tersely, passing by and disappearing through a doorway at the back of the warehouse.

You had to hustle to catch up and he had already stopped by the time you joined him in the otherwise empty hallway. He turned, removing his helmet with a slight pneumatic hiss.

"Are you okay?" you both said at the same time.

The angle of the hallway meant you were shielded from most of the work floor. He set his helmet down and very carefully took your hands in his gloved ones.

"Insurgents took the field," he said, looking you over from head to toe. "Did you see combat? Intel was unclear."

"No, we got out but the Pelican took a few shots. Somebody said it felt like surface-to-air but I didn't remember Covenant using anything like that. It was insurgents, then?"

He nodded distractedly, glancing away to mutter, "I'll be right there." Then he looked back to you. "I have to go. Your unit's being sent back to Reach but if they divert you into combat..."

He trailed off, clearly realizing there was no way to finish that sentence the way he wanted.

"Tell them, nah, I'd rather not, thanks?" Your mouth twitched and you squeezed his fingers.

He gave a resigned chuckle. "Yeah, try that, please."

"You're the one who'll be much more in the thick of it," you pointed out. "You be careful, okay?"

"Always try," he said, bringing your hands up to press a kiss to the back of both.

Kai leaned around the door, her visor glinting green. "Chief, sorry but we've got to go."

"Copy that." He released you with clear reluctance and picked up his helmet. "Stay safe. I'll see you soon."

He vanished through the doorway and you took a breath, exhaling slowly. John suddenly appeared right in front of you again, leaning down to cup your face in one hand.

You were just about to ask if something was wrong when he kissed you.

For a moment, for forever, the universe shrank to just the two of you, his mouth on yours, a little frantic at first, then slowing, steadying out.

You felt like you were hovering off the ground and then realized you were; he'd picked you up at some point, pressing you gently to his chest plate. Your hand dropped to the 117 etched near his heart and it was gritty with sand and dirt. You were both grimy and sooty but it didn't matter. It couldn't have been more perfect if you were in a flowing ballgown and him in a tux, slowly spinning together on a glittering palace floor.

He set you back onto your feet but you only parted a breath away from each other.

"I... I'll get better with practice," he mumbled.

You smiled at him, feeling wobbly, lightheaded and more grounded than you'd ever been before, all at the same time. "John, if you were any better at that, I'd have to show you how fast I can get a Spartan out of their Mjolnir with my bare hands."

He was near enough to see his pupils dilate and that was incredibly gratifying. "I'll hold you to that," he said, his voice dropping an entire octave, making your toes literally curl inside your boots.

Then he put his helmet back on and left. You took a moment to compose yourself, then exited as well. There was no sign of Silver Team. No doubt, the Pelican waiting for him had taken off the second he'd boarded.

Cutting through the busy deck, you looked for any vehicle marked with a white stripe, still waiting to be stripped. On an impulse, you diverted to the line being dropped one at a time into the compactor. There was no sign of the curly tailed Warthog.

It could've already been compacted, you were thinking when you saw it going by overhead, clutched in a crane claw and heading back towards the line to return to Reach.

You didn't stop to think, you sprinted for the crane's operator booth. "Hey, put that 'hog down!"

The operator looked at you and you realized in a burst that it was the blond man you'd originally told to mark it with the red X back on the battlefield, who'd apparently designated it instead to come back to The Pit.

No, to go back to FLEETCOM.

Recognition went across his face at the same moment and he bolted from the booth. The lift automatically stopped, the Warthog swaying over the crowded deck.

You knew. You just knew.

You ran as fast as you could and slammed the alarm on the wall. "Bomb!" you bellowed over the shrill klaxon. "Bomb! Clear out!"

Jumping into the operator booth and grabbing the controls, you quickly scanned the area as marines scattered everywhere. There was only one place you could think to go.

You swung the arm around, guiding the curly tailed 'hog firmly clasped in its grip towards the compactor pit. It felt like it was taking a year to get there but you couldn't release the controls or the safety would bring it once more to a stop. Once the Warthog was finally in position, you opened the grip.

What if I'm wrong? you thought as it began to fall. I'll feel like such a fool if--

There was a saying that if you were close enough to an explosion, you would never actually hear it.

It was true.

end note:

If you want to, you know, imagine that Sarge's full name is, sayyyyyy, Avery Johnson, well then, who am I to tell you that you're right or wrong? 😇

If you don't know the Troop Transport Warthogs, here's one in action from Halo: Reach. It's on the level "ONI: Sword Base" and is scripted to be destroyed but there's a way to save it and the marines in it and take it with you for a great deal of the rest of the level! I love saving the Troop 'hog, even if it always still looks like it's on fire. Nah, it's fiiiiiine, no worries! 😎👍😂😉

#halo #halo the series #halo paramount+#master chief x reader #x reader #john-117 x reader #fic: 15 minutes #series: how to date a spartan without even trying #ageless aislynn #aislynn's fics #aislynn's fic

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anticomedygarden · 1 year ago

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drop the champagne

5 times annabeth taught percy something new + a million times he taught her the same thing

title is from the In the Heights song 'champagne' by lin manuel-miranda. mostly a nod to how similar usnavi and vanessa's dynamic is to percabeth. also another excuse to scream about them after watching the trailer a million times

also on ao3

Dozens of kids were wandering around the grounds of Camp Half Blood as they waited for capture the flag to start, and Percy could not for the life of him figure out what was wrong with his armor. He'd been fiddling with it for five minutes now, somehow not drawing the attention of any counselors or even the Athena cabin who he was allied with. After the last capture the flag (still his only capture the flag), he was really starting to get worried. If he successfully completed a quest and died because he couldn't get his armor right for a 'friendly war game', he was gonna be seriously ticked.

Just to see what it would do, he pulled on a strap near his shoulder. For a few seconds, it stayed in place, and he really thought he'd finally gotten it. Then it unraveled completely, and he barely managed to grab it before it hit the ground.

He might as well face it. He was dead, and Chiron was gonna have to tell his mom that he, Poseidon's first child in decades, quester, retriever of Zeus' master bolt, died in a capture the flag accident.

Feeling particularly frustrated, he didn't notice when someone finally saw his dilemma and walked over, not until her blond curls were right in his face.

"You haven't figured out how to do this yet?" she asked. It was hard not to feel a little insulted by her tone, but he had come to realize that she didn't mean anything by it. She just hadn't learned tact yet. (And she'd never admit it, but Annabeth still hadn't quite recovered from the quest and Luke's subsequent betrayal. He could let this one slide for her sake.)

"I've only done it once," he said, "and you did it for me!"

So maybe he wasn't too great at tact either.

She grabbed a strap and started redoing his armor while he watched. "If I keep doing it for you, you'll never learn," she pointed out. "Here." She grabbed his hand and guided it to the other strap. "You try."

He sighed but did as he was told. It didn't look as good as the one she did, but he had to admit it looked and felt much better than before.

"Told you."

He stuck his tongue out at her. Then, since his mom raised a gentleman, he said, "Thanks."

She patted his shoulder. "Thank me when we win."

Percy watched, transfixed, as Annabeth slashed and stabbed, nothing but a vaguely blond whirl, beating some brown haired guy back to the mats until she pinned him down, 90 pounds of pure fury on top of at least 150 pounds of startled teenage boy.

The guy - Percy wasn't sure of his name - tapped out, and Annabeth quickly jumped up, eyes already scanning for her next victim. "Who's next?" she said.

The majority of the people in the training room scurried out after that.

"Cowards," Annabeth muttered and turned to a training dummy.

Percy watched her slash at it for a few minutes, and then, in a courageous move he thought would make his mom proud, he tentatively stepped forward. "Maybe you should take a break," he said with false calm.

She ignored him.

"Annabeth, you're scaring people," he tried, gulping when she tore a large chunk of fake flesh from the dummy. "You're already the best here, why don't you just-"

"Take a break?" she said, finally turning to meet his gaze. Her eyes were blazing, and he had to duck to avoid the dagger still in her hand.

"You've been here for hours-"

"How else will I beat Luke?" she asked. "He's the best swordsman for generations. I have to train as much as I can."

The situation was far worse than he thought. "And you're the best strategist, and you've beat everyone at camp already." Hopefully, appealing to her hubris would help.

It didn't. Her face closed off completely. "But I've never beat Luke."

He didn't ask if she was sure that she even wanted to beat him. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

Fine. Time to pull out the big guns. "I'll spar with you."

He held his breath as she gave him a disbelieving look. "Alright, but you're using a dagger."

"Oh. Uh-"

But she was already walking over to the weapons rack. "You need to learn how to use more than one weapon. You won't be able to use a sword in every situation."

"Isn't the whole point of having a sword that reappears in my pocket no matter what is so that I can use it in every situation?"

She gave him a look that clearly said, You're being an idiot. "What if you're in super close quarters and can't maneuver Riptide? What if you can't get to your pocket? What if someone manages to take it from you? What if you don't have pockets? What if-"

He held up a hand, because, holy crap. "Okay, okay, I get it." She smirked. "Teach me how to use a dagger."

With a certain gleam in her eyes he didn't really like, she grabbed one off the rack and handed it to him.

He gripped it on instinct, balancing it out and dropping into a fighting stance. "Is there anything - oh my gods!"

She didn't wait to give him any instruction before slashing at him with her own dagger, and he barely jumped out of its path. (Thank the gods for his ingrained battle instincts.)

He backed up as she continued her assault and narrowly avoided tripping over his own feet. Then, she delivered a particularly nasty jab, distracting him, and kicked his feet out from under him. His breath whooshed out as his back hit the ground.

"I win," she announced, her ponytail falling and hitting him in the face. Her dagger was pressed against his neck. "You're not guarding yourself enough. Remember, the dagger is shorter than your sword. And you need to actually defend yourself, not just back up."

He made a face at her. "A little warning would have helped."

"There's no warning in battle." She stood and offered him a hand. "Again."

So he got up, and they went again. And again. And again. She beat him every time, but when he came back the next day, he beat the trainer on duty, and Annabeth slept until 9.

That was a win in his book.

"That's so unstable," Annabeth commented, looking at Percy's gingerbread house which, admittedly, looked about 10 seconds from collapsing.

"It doesn't have to be stable," he said. "It's supposed to be fun!"

She snorted. "Fun is for losers and quitters."

Her gingerbread house didn't look like it was about to fall over. Hers was two stories tall with multiple rooms like a doll house and emblazoned with various candy designs: gumdrops on the roof, M&Ms dotting the grounds like gravel, a licorice moat. His was basically five graham crackers in a vague house shape sitting on chocolate icing.

He didn't mind though. They got to eat it in the end no matter what their houses looked like.

Pointedly ignoring her, he stuck a Kit-Kat straight up on the top graham cracker. It stayed for a second, then toppled into the brown icing like a stick in a mud pit.

"Oh, for the gods' sake," Annabeth muttered. She pulled his plate toward her and started rebuilding his little shack.

"Hey, I'm doing just fine," he protested, but one look from Annabeth had him cracking up. "Fine, so it sucks."

"Really sucks." He rolled his eyes, but she kept working until he had a quality graham cracker cabin with standing walls and everything. "See, you don't actually need that much icing to get it to stay. You just need better support."

He made an offended noise. "But that's the best part!"

He knew what she was going to say the second she opened her mouth. "The best part is winning first place."

Before he could retort, he happened to glance up at Grover sitting across from them and couldn't help but notice the look in his eyes. It was somewhere between exasperated and fond.

"What?" Percy asked.

He never heard the answer, however, as the Stolls chose that moment to start a food fight.

And Annabeth's house won first place, because of course it did.

They were lucky, very lucky, to have been walking past the park at the exact time they did. They were also very lucky (or unlucky; jury was still out) to have drawn the attention of the monster to them and away from the large group of children it had apparently been hunting.

"I smell children," the monster whispered, evidently still trying to hide herself. She was semi-transparent, ghostly, actually, with dark hair flowing down her back like a mane. "Such delicious demigods." She continued to amble after Percy and Annabeth as they led her away from the various crowds of people in the park.

Percy turned to Annabeth with a false sense of calm and asked, "What the hell is this thing?"

She glanced behind her surreptitiously. "I think she's Mormo."

"What - like in Utah?"

"Not Mormon, Seaweed Brain, Mormo."

Percy fiddled with Riptide in his pocket. "What's her deal?"

"Sources are sparse and a little conflicted, but basically, she eats kids."

"Oh, shit."

"Yeah, she also might be able to shape shift into a wolf or a horse."

"That's..."

"Wild, I know."

They made it to a relatively empty part of the park, and Percy decided he didn't want to wait to find out if she could shape shift or not. He caught Annabeth's eye and she nodded, already knowing the plan. He would distract while she snuck up from behind. Nothing they hadn't done a million times before.

He turned around. "Hey, lady! Eat this!" Without preamble, he uncapped Riptide and swung out at Mormo, hoping for the element of surprise.

Unfortunately, she ducked.

"So delicious," she muttered. Her form rippled. "The ichor in your blood will taste so good."

Behind her, Annabeth crept up slowly but surely.

"Nah, I don't think ichor would taste that good," Percy said. "Probably too spicy." Now, he was actually wondering if that was true.

Mormo laughed, a sharp, loud sound. "You have no idea child." She sniffed. "You are 16. What a delicious age."

He wanted to protest and say that so far, 16 hadn't been all that great barring him and Annabeth finally starting to date, but his girlfriend was less than two feet away from jumping the monster, so instead he said, "That's so creepy," and watched gleefully as Annabeth leapt forward with her dagger out and sent Mormo back to Tartarus.

Even covered in monster dust, she was still stunning. He held out his hand. "Let's go finish our date."

When Percy got to the New Rome library, his girlfriend was, predictably, surrounded by books.

"Hey, babe," he murmured.

He knew she had been aware of him coming, spatial awareness having become its own sixth sense over the years, so it was no surprise when she responded with nothing but an unintelligible chain of vowel sounds.

He laughed. "You ready to go home?"

A couple years, there would have been no point at all in trying to break through whatever cloud of work was occupying her mind at the moment, but she'd been really trying since the Giant War to not push herself past the point of no return.

"Um..." She put a bookmark in her textbook and started gathering books into her arms. "Yeah, let's go."

"What all are you checking out?" he asked even though he already knew the answer.

"All of them."

He grabbed the remaining books while she picked up her backpack, and they made their way to the front desk.

"What were you reading about?" he asked. He may have just come out of a day full of lectures, but her eyes lighting up like that made the long-ass rant he was about to get so worth it.

"The father of chemistry, Antoine Lavoisier," she answered. "He was alive during the French Revolution and did all kinds of stuff that paved the way for modern science."

They reached the circulation desk, and Annabeth continued telling him all about phlogiston theory and how Lavoisier refuted it, and about oxygen and hydrogen and carbon, and about his experiment to see what two weeks of drinking nothing but milk would do to his body.

At some point, the librarian gave them a funny look. Percy wasn't sure if it was because of the topic of their conversation or because they were checking out so many books.

Whatever. They earned the right to be weird in public.

"...and then he was guillotined for being a tax collector!" she finished with immense outrage.

He frowned and pushed the door open into the lamp-lit road. "Really?" That was not where he was expecting that story to go.

"Yeah, the Reign of Terror chopped his head off, which was a real shame because he was actually involved in a lot of government reform and other kinds of activism, especially in education."

"Cool."

"Yeah, I thought so." She bit her lip. "I guess the good guys don't always win."

He thought that was a little black and white since Lavoisier was a member of the upper class during a time when the lower class was still called peasants, but it really did sound like this guy was pretty chill.

And she had a good point.

He put a hand on her arm. "But we did."

+1 million

Annabeth shifts in the uncomfortable wooden library chair and turns her page, mind lost in thought. Antoine Lavoisier was an upper class French scientist who revolutionized the field of chemistry; he fought for class reform and education equality, and he brought humans' understanding of the world forward from phlogiston theory, the idea that a fire like element called phlogiston was partially responsible for combustion and present in all combustion reactions, to the discovery of hydrogen, oxygen, and a host of other elements, all unique and important.

And he got his chopped off. So much for scientific advancement.

Sensing Percy walking up behind her, she hurries to read the last few sentences of the page.

"You ready to go home?" he asks.

She closes the book. "Yeah, let's go."

They gather her stuff, Percy not once complaining about having to carry five textbook sized volumes, and make their way to the circulation desk.

"What were you reading about?" he asks. She loves him for that. No one else ever asks what she's reading for fear of getting caught in a long-winded explanation of some complex topic. Percy's eyes may glaze over while she talks, but he never tells her stop.

So she tells him about Lavoisier and all his triumphs and woes up until his decapitation, they end up on the street outside the library. It's nighttime already, their path lit with street lamps and porch lights. There's a chill in the air, so she pulls the sleeves of Percy's borrowed hoodie over her fingers while trying not to drop her books.

After she finishes her spiel, she bites her lip and says, "I guess the good guys don't always win."

Immediately, Percy turns to her, probably thinking the same thing she is, about all their dead friends and all their failures. He puts a hand on her arm, stopping them underneath a light. "But we did."

She looks at him and sees her wonderful boyfriend who loves her no matter what she does, who stayed with her after all this time, who fell into hell for her. The one who would choose her over the world. The one who taught her heart how to trust again. She's not quite sure she believes it, but she knows it's the truth. "I guess we did."

They smile at each other and walk home in comfortable silence.

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blackberrysummerblog · 10 months ago

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An ask game for writers to procrastinate working on your WIP(s)

Hey all! Thanks so much for tagging me @wellbelesbian, @aristocratic-otter, @valeffelees, @you-remind-me-of-the-babe, @ivelovedhimthroughworse and @iamamythologicalcreature! You’ve all correctly determined that I am procrastinating writing.

1. 🐬Tell us the name of your/ one of your WIP(s)

I actually don’t have any that are named at this point. Titles and tags are really difficult for me and I put both off to the last minute and second-guess myself into hell

2. 🍄Decriscribe your wip/one of your wips in the format of “___ + ___=___”

Popular movie retelling + flying goats = Baz and Dev have A Spot of Bother

3. 🌍What tags or warnings will your / one of your wip(s) need if you intend to share it?

Wraaaugugh, see #1 :P. I don’t know, in seriousness, I think the WIP mentioned above will end up getting a tag for sexual harassment or something like that given the nature of one necessary scene in the movie it’s based on. It’s not going to be worse than the source material, which is PG-13

4. ��An alternative title to your/ one of your WIP(s)?

Oh, to have so many ideas for titles that there’s ever an alternative lying around to spare :(

5. ⚠️Which wip your most likely to finish or update next?

I’m pretty likely to finish a sequel to Field Trip of Dreams (SEE WHAT I MEAN about titles?) this week. The eighth years are off on another field trip—this time it’s a weekend training excursion with the Mage. Baz and Simon have been dating for the short time that’s passed since FToD, but they manage to get in a fight on the bus trip to Scafell Pike, and when it turns into a sort-of-tussle the Mage mistakes it for actual animosity and sends them off to a secluded cabin to bang (I mean work🙄) it out. Absolutely everybody but Davy—including the other teachers—knows exactly how much of a “punishment” this is

6. 💾 What is your document of your wip/ a wip called? (not the stories actual title but what you've saved it as)

Practical magic au

7. 🖍️Post Any sentence from your wip

“Shut up, Gareth!” we shout as one, Snow adding a few brutish threats as Gareth pales and turns back around in his seat.

8. ♻️A scrapped idea for your current WIP

I actually can’t remember. I don’t plot my writing out very extensively so in a sense there’s hundreds of little scrapped thoughts rather than anything huge. I’m eliminating a lot of things with my crucible marriage fic, but it’s hard to say right now what’s actually gone or just being moved around. I know a major one I’ve been battling with is that prior to getting dragged off to Pitch Manor by his new husband Baz, I want Simon to have been living with Penny in a flat of their own, but for another aspect of the story I want him to have been living with the Mage in Watford (which is an au mage’s settlement in the fic) as well. There’s ways to work around it for the results I want, I just haven’t written it out yet.

9. 🤔What's a story you'd love to write but haven't even started yet?

I’m pretty sure I have at least a few lines written down for everything I want to write

10. 🤡How many Wips are you actively working on?

Oh, man…actively, probably the field trip one and my COBB. Somewhat less actively: a reverse COBB fic, a sequel to Monsters Under the Bed, a sequel to After Hours where Simon makes good on his promise to despoil Baz on his office desk, and my unending crucible marriage fic. Less active than that: a fic response to a prompt for Simon being the one kidnapped and Baz has to rescue him. There’s probably (cough*definitely*cough) some pretty messed-up OOC smut stuff lying around in my docs as well, that I add to when I’m in the mood and have zero plans to ever post

11. 🛠️Is there a scene or anything in the WIP you are struggling with right now?

I keep telling myself to just write and stop worrying about this for the moment, but I’m kind of bumming myself out worrying about whether I want to use first or third person, as well as past or present tense, for my COBB. I think the issue is that some scenes are bound to play out better one way while others would be better served differently. This is not usually a thing I struggle with.

12. ❤️Not a question, just a second kudos to send.

🥰

This was fun! (Once I stopped putting it off, lol). No pressure tagging (and sorry if I get anyone who’s already done it): @cutestkilla, @mooncello, @artsyunderstudy, @prettygoododds, @drowninginships, @hushed-chorus, @bookish-bogwitch, @thewholelemon, @brilla-brilla-estrellita, @youarenevertooold, @ileadacharmedlife, @facewithoutheart, @imagineacoolusername, @ic3-que3n

#ask game #ask game for writers #procrastination #tag game #SnowBaz #SnowBaz fanfic #works in progress #wip

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j-nipper-95 · 10 months ago

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An ask game for writers to procrastinate working on your WIP(s)

Thank you for the tags @artsyunderstudy @iamamythologicalcreature @aristocratic-otter @shrekgogurt @wellbelesbian @theearlgreymage and @ic3-que3n

I am definitely procrastinating on both my WIPs at the moment. Trails is back in limbo, and ASR has taken up permanent residence there recently, and I desperately want to get back to both of them. Here's hoping this will kick start something in my brain! I do love a good Q&A, so let's dive in!

1. 🦈 Tell us the name of your/one of your WIP(s):

I have two WIPs I am actively writing, and one I haven't started on yet, but desperately want to. The Trails We Blaze was my Carry On Through the Ages 2023 fic, and is a The Road to El Dorado!au. Then there's my original novel, A Survivor's Revenge, which I've been writing for far too long and it definitely needs to be published soon!

2. 🍄 Describe your WIP/one of your WIP(s) in the format of "___ + ___ = ___"

Ok, this is much harder than I thought it would be, there's so many elements to each of these WIPs, so bare with me.

Trails: con men in 1920s London find map to Atlantis + WW1 trauma + gang warfare + repressed romantic feelings = friends to lovers action, adventure, and chaos across western Europe that's probably been too intensely researched for the sake of historical accuracy

(Side note: this isn't how I thought I'd use my degrees in history and archaeology, but here we are!)

A Survivor's Revenge: marvel cinematic universe + James Bond = ASR

or - what would happen if Bucky wasn't brainwashed by Hydra and sought revenge on the scientists who experimented on him, was a 14 year old school girl instead of a grown man, and had elemental powers + MI6 super spies and the general aesthetic of a Bond movie = a stab first/ask questions later FMC willing to do whatever it takes to keep her loved ones safe (and I do mean whatever it takes - Lauren hasn't baulked at anything I've thrown at her yet).

3. 🌍 What tags or warnings will one of your WIP(s) need if you intend to share it.

ASR will definitely need some trigger warnings for violence (if only because of Lauren's penchant for it), and if it were being posted to AO3 the series as a whole would probably require a 'main character death' warning. This is your formal warning, no one is safe in my writing.

Trails is rated M, so there's not going to be anything too graphic or explicit, but it does have a PTSD tag, as the fic tackles both Baz and Simon's trauma from living through the First World War, and specifically Baz's claustrophobia. So I would probably warn about the panic attacks and discussion of how Baz became claustrophobic.

4. 🧭 An alternative title to one of your WIP(s)?

Neither of these had alternative titles other than my save names (Spy Novel and SnowBaz fanfic) before I decided on anything. I'm useless at coming up with titles, and I can't really claim full credit for either. A friend from uni came up with A Survivor's Revenge, which is really fitting, as revenge is a major theme in the book. And The Trails We Blaze is a reference to one of the songs from the movie The Road to El Dorado, and was Ashton's suggestion when we were bouncing ideas back and forth last year.

5. ⚠️ Which WIP you're most likely to finish or update next?

Trails will definitely be finished before ASR, purely because ASR is going to be published as a proper book, and I don't have the cash to do this independently, or the publishing deal to do it traditionally. So I know this will take time. But I am currently working on the next chapter of Trails, so hopefully it won't be too long before I can post it.

6. 💾 What is your document of your WIP/a WIP called? (not the stories actual title but what you've saved it as)

I have so many variations of both WIPs it's ridiculous. I swear there's been 100+ iterations of ASR over the years, all with variations on either A Survivor's Revenge/ASR or Spy Novel as their title.

With Trails I have my base document, which is where the rough first draft happens, in Scrivener: the trails we blaze - draft copy. And then I also have my final document in pages, where I fix the formatting ahead of exporting to AO3 (because AO3 hates it when I do it straight from scrivener and gets rid of all my italics!): the trails we blaze upload copy.

7. 🖍 Post any sentence(s) from your WIP.

This is probably one of my favourite exchanges in the first ASR book.

“Just like old times,” Lauren said. “Tell me, did you consciously decide to make my PTSD worse by assigning him to me, or was that a happy accident?” “What’s the diagnosis?” Vanessa asked, ignoring Lauren. “Fractured ribs, minor internal abdominal bleeding, concussion, and three broken fingers. She needs to rest for at least a week,” Todd said. “She has a name,” Lauren muttered. “The internal bleeding is minor for the moment, but won’t be if she doesn’t rest.” “Who’s ‘she’ in this, the cat’s mother? I am here, you know.” “Yes, and whilst I would love to trade witticisms with you, I do actually have a job to do. Part of which involves divulging a diagnosis, and pardon me if I feel certain people in this room are going to be more receptive and actually take my advice when I give it.” Lauren glanced at Vanessa. “Is he always like this?” “Just with patients. And most of the people who work here.” “So, everyone?” Vanessa thought for a moment, then bobbed her head from side to side in a movement that said Pretty much, yeah. “If we’re quite done discussing my conduct, I do actually have other patients who need my attention.” “Poor sods.” “Yes, of course,” Vanessa said, ignoring Lauren’s comments. “Have you got a treatment plan sorted?” “I’m nothing if not professional.” “Did someone switch the definition of ‘sarcastic asshat’ and ‘professional’ in the dictionary when I wasn’t looking?” Todd twisted ever so slightly away from Lauren, instead focusing entirely on Vanessa.

8. ♻️ A scrapped idea for your current WIP.

Initially in ASR Lauren was framed for the murder of a student, alongside releasing the main villain from prison (not a spoiler, it's literally in my synopsis, no worries there!), and afterward she was forced to go on the run. Essentially, it made the heads of MI6 and Lauren's best friends into her enemies for a few chapters of my drafts a couple of years back. I loved this idea, and genuinely want to implement something along these lines again, because it was an interesting position to put the characters in, but I also really love where the plot is taking them currently, so we'll see if it truly ends up remaining scrapped or not.

9. 🤔 What's a story you'd love to write but haven't even started yet?

Another original novel, this time firmly rooted in science fiction (no superhero/light fantasy elements here), where time travel is possible, but the super anxious MC refuses to use his powers to travel back in time because of the side effects of said power. Gay romance, anxiety, angst, all the good stuff!

10. 🤡 How many WIPs are you actively working on?

I'm not too active on either of my WIPs at the moment. Work's been crazy lately, and I flip between feeling super burnt out creatively and being too tired to do much. But Trails and ASR continue to be my most active WIPs.

11. 🛠 Is there a scene or anything in the WIP you are struggling with right now?

In Trails I've hit an intimate scene, and my little ace brain doesn't know how to approach it! Plus, I don't know how far I can stretch the M rating before we enter E territory.

12. ❤️ Not a question, just a second Kudos to send.

All of the kudos to everyone! I wish there was a way to leave it more than once, because seriously, the CO fandom is so unbelievably talented, my God!!

Tagging (sorry if you’ve already done this):

@blackberrysummerblog

@orange-peony

@you-remind-me-of-the-babe

@palimpsessed

#wip tag #q&a #a survivor's revenge #original fiction #the trails we blaze #snowbaz #fanfic

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thegayhimbo · 1 year ago

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Stranger Things Rebel Robin (Book and Podcast) Review (Part 1 of 2)

WARNING: The following review contains MAJOR SPOILERS from the book and podcast!

If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out my other Stranger Things Reviews. Like, Reblog, and let me know what your thoughts are regarding the show or the upcoming season! :)

Stranger Things Comics/Graphic Novels:

Stranger Things Six

Stranger Things Halloween Special

Stranger Things The Other Side

Stranger Things Zombie Boys

Stranger Things The Bully

Stranger Things Winter Special

Stranger Things Tomb of Ybwen

Stranger Things Into The Fire

Stranger Things Science Camp

Stranger Things “The Game Master” and “Erica’s Quest”

Stranger Things and Dungeons and Dragons

Stranger Things Kamchatka

Stranger Things Erica The Great

Stranger Things “Creature Feature” and “Summer Special”

Stranger Things Tie-In Books:

Stranger Things Suspicious Minds

Stranger Things Runaway Max (Part 1 of 3)

Stranger Things Runaway Max (Part 2 of 3)

Stranger Things Runaway Max (Part 3 of 3)

Stranger Things Darkness On The Edge Of Town (Part 1 of 3)

Stranger Things Darkness On The Edge Of Town (Part 2 of 3)

Stranger Things Darkness On The Edge Of Town (Part 3 of 3)

NOTE: If you would like to listen to "Surviving Hawkins," the companion podcast to Rebel Robin, you can find all 6 episodes here.

Synopsis: As Robin struggles to survive her sophomore year of High School, she becomes desperate to break free from the viciousness of high school conformity and her depressing living situation in Hawkins. To this end, she forms an escape plan to travel to Europe (which she calls "Operation Croissant") and becomes determined to get both the money for her trip and a companion to travel with her. However, as she attempts to accomplish these goals, she begins to discover things about herself, and the people around her, that leaves her woefully unprepared for how to deal with her situation............

Observations:

I've talked before in previous reviews about which comics and tie-in novels I've enjoyed, and which I haven't. However, the one that really connected with me on a personal level was Rebel Robin. Both the book and the podcast. I guess I shouldn't be surprised since this is a coming-of-age story about someone finding their own identity in a world that values forced conformity over individualism, and is also about coming to terms with one's own sexual orientation while growing up in a town that's deeply homophobic.

I should know: I lived Robin's story in my own way.

Those of you who follow my blog know I identify as gay (my username is literally titled TheGayHimbo), but I've never really gone into my own experiences about living in denial for years regarding my attraction to men (which might have actually saved my life in high school), how I dealt with homophobia and bullying (even as an adult) and how I tried playing the same game Robin initially does of trying to "fit in" to survive before growing disillusioned and staging my own rebellion when it became clear there would always be people out there who would never accept me as I am.

This book, and the podcast, hit a lot of personal nerves. That's not a bad thing because both were not only excellent, but also managed to perfectly capture what it's like growing up as an LGBT+ teen and constantly putting up with bullshit on top of that. It also does a great job encapsulating that feeling of desiring to escape the place you've been raised in for most of your life, and wanting to explore the world. I had the same dream Robin had as a teenager of leaving the United States and traveling to Europe. Unfortunately, it's only been in the last 2 years that I've finally made that dream a reality. Maybe it's for the better though since I'm a lot more wiser about the world than I was at the age of 17.

But I'm getting ahead of myself: Let's talk about the book and the podcast.

Part 1: Robin's Journey

Do you remember Mrs. Click's history class? Mrs. Clickity-Clackity? That's what us band dweebs called her. It's was first period, Tuesdays and Thursdays, so you were always late. And you always had the same breakfast: Bacon, egg, and cheese on a sesame bagel. I sat behind you. Two days a week for a year. Mister Funny. Mister Cool. The King of Hawkins High himself. Do you even remember me from that class? Of course you don't. You were a real asshole, you know that?.......... But it didn't even matter. It didn't matter that you were an ass. I was still.....obsessed with you. Even though all of us losers pretend to be above it all, we still want to be popular, accepted.......normal.

Do you remember what I said about Click's class? About me being jealous, and like, obsessed? It isn't because I had a crush on you. It's because............she wouldn't stop staring at you. Tammy Thompson. I wanted her to look at me.

Both of these conversations Robin has with Steve in season 3 are what make up a good chunk of the plot of Rebel Robin: Her infatuation with Tammy Thompson. Her dislike of Steve (a lot of it rooted in preconceived notions about him). Figuring things out about herself and how she relates to Hawkins and the world around her.

The way the book is written reminds me of the type of John Hughes movies that came out in the 80s: Sixteen Candles (which is one of the films that plays at the theater Robin initially works at), The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, etc. All of these were stories focused on teenage identity, questioning high school stereotypes, rebelling against conformity and authority, and characters coming to terms with hard truths about themselves. The big difference here is that the book looks at these themes through a queer perspective, as well as the self-esteem issues that come with growing up in a homophobic environment.

For most of the book, Robin doesn't really put together that she likes girls. She's constantly infatuated with Tammy Thompson, but she tries framing it in her head as being interested in Tammy only because she's a nice person who's passionate and has a lovely voice. Robin also can't understand why Tammy would be interested in Steve when he barely has any interest in her.

When it finally does hit her that she's attracted to Tammy, she's completely caught off-guard by the epiphany since she's always pegged herself as a logically-thinking person:

This isn't something rooted in logic though, but emotion. I would even argue Robin's initial ignorance about her sexuality was a defense mechanism. Her whole conflict in the book is about trying to survive Hawkins High and blend in so that no one notices her. In the podcast, when she's talking with Mr. Hauser (who's one of the only people at that point who knows Robin's secret and figured it out before she did), she tells him that she deliberately makes herself average and uninteresting because it's the best camouflage. Those who try to be different don't last long, and get eaten up by the metaphorical monster that is "forced conformity" in Hawkins. Robin has seen that with Sheena Rollins, the girl everyone bullies because she's odd (which is sadly similar to the bullying El is subjected to in season 4 by Angela and the students of Lenora High School). Even though there are moments Robin considers stepping in on Sheena's behalf, she's either held back by her so-called friends, or she becomes worried that her intervening is just going to make things worse for Sheena (which, again, is similar to what happens when a teacher intervenes on El's behalf in season 4, and Angela later punishes El for it by publicly humiliating her at Rink-O-Mania).

Side Note: Whenever I see fans make stupid excuses for bullies like Angela by claiming they're children who aren't responsible for their behavior, and it was the lack of adults that's to blame, I wonder if those morons ever factor in how certain adults (like Miss Garvey here) enable people like Angela and other kids to become vicious brats BECAUSE they refuse to step in. When Robin is forced to take the bus later after her parents freak out over Will and Barb's disappearance, there are several instances (in both the book and podcast) where Robin is catcalled and harassed by other guys, and yet the bus driver refuses to do anything about it because they don't care to. "It was the lack of adults" my ass. 🙄

For me, growing up as a gay man who was also in denial about his sexuality for years (similar to Robin), I never had to deal with bullying when I was in high school. I was raised in a Conservative/Republican suburban neighborhood, and in a church that had an anti-homosexual stance, but I never got subjected to the vicious cruelty that Mike, Will, Lucas, Dustin, El, and Sheena were put through. For the most part, our high school cracked down hard on bullying, and I was never made to feel unsafe when I went there. I was even an AP student and never received grief for it, which is why I find it depressing when Robin tries justifying to Mr. Hauser in the podcast that she won't do AP classes because she wants to go unnoticed. She's lowering herself for people who don't care about her. I know I grew up in a different time period from Robin, and haven't had the same exact experiences she's had, but I have been in her position before of shrinking myself for others, and it is painful.

The irony is it wasn't until later in my life, when I finally accepted myself as homosexual and was moving through college and adulthood, that the homophobia and bullying I got subjected to started.

There are plenty of examples I could give, but one particularly disgusting instance I remember came from a Reddit user who intentionally went out of her way to target me on multiple occasions because I was gay (and because she saw me as an SJW) and did everything in her power at the time to diminish me, make me feel bad about my sexuality, and repeatedly tried to gaslight me into thinking there was something wrong with me. Unfortunately, she is still active online to this day, and continues the same cycle of bullying, belittling others, mocking people for caring about social issues, and then hypocritically positioning herself against bullying. Despite being reported multiple times for her behavior (which continues to be as bigoted and nasty as ever), the Sitewide Administration for Reddit has refused to do a damn thing about it (which I guess shouldn't be surprising since they've also kept up the accounts of users who've literally told others to kill themselves). This happened years ago when I was still new to the internet (having been sheltered from online discourse prior to attending college) and didn't have the skills set and knowledge at the time to deal with condescending assholes like her. I have avoided this user since, and I want nothing to do with her (or Reddit for that matter), but it's experiences like this which have hardened me and made me cynical about people and life in general.

On an unrelated note, it's why I have no sympathy for Angela when El finally has enough of her bullying and smashes her face in with a roller-skate. I don't usually condone violence, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't get some dark satisfaction in seeing this moment:

Cry me a river of blood and tears, sweetheart. You deserve it.

Getting back to the review, having read this book and listened to the podcast, I related stronglym with Robin during this. I also grew to appreciate Mr. Hauser. He's the one who encouraged Robin to be herself and not let the small-mindedness of other people keep her down. He's the one who supported her plan to travel to Europe (Operation Croissant) and encouraged Robin to find a companion to go with her because he understood that happiness and memories are better shared with others. There's a very powerful scene in the podcast when Robin is at a low point, having come to believe there's something wrong with her, and Mr. Hauser firmly reassures her that she isn't broken and that she doesn't need to change herself for others.

Hearing that, especially as someone who deals with anxiety and depression on a daily basis, nearly moved me to tears.

I wish there were others out there who had a Mr. Hauser in their lives. I met mine on Tumblr years ago, and I'm grateful to know her. If she's reading this, she knows who she is. :)

I should mention at this point that the companion podcast for the book only covers a specific part of the novel (i.e. Chapters 15-29) and they mostly focus on the conversations between Robin and Mr. Hauser that aren't in the book. They're deep conversations about what it's like living in Hawkins, how the books they're reading relate to their current situations, discussions about other characters like Steve, Barb, and Will, having to work in a rigid system that focuses on molding people into becoming productive members of society, and so on. All of it is wrapped in a mystery surrounding Mr. Hauser that Robin begins to piece together.

I read the book first before I listened to the podcast, so I already had the twist regarding Mr. Hauser spoiled, which made the build-up to the mystery feel redundant. I'm sure the podcast is meant to be listened to at the same time you're reading the book, but I don't think it truly matters which order you go in. Even if you haven't read the book or listened to the podcast, it is EXTREMELY EASY to figure out what Mr. Hauser's secret is. If you've been paying attention to what I've been talking about in this review, you've likely figured it out for yourselves.

In any case, it makes what happens to Mr. Hauser later all the more heartbreaking.

It's also the reason why Robin finally has enough when her plans get derailed, and she finally goes full Rebel Robin: She's sick of trying to survive. She's sick of confining herself to a box for people who either don't care for her, want to use her for their own self-serving purposes (i.e. her former friend Dash), or will criticize her no matter what she does. She also realizes that, for all of her scheming on Operation Croissant, it wasn't going to fix her problems:

I can relate. Recently, I got back from a trip to Italy and Greece. While I had a fun time (and brought back some nice souvenirs and pictures), the issues I've had for years didn't magically go away either. Running away doesn't fix your problems, and sometimes you have to face hard truths if you want to move on. I'm still getting there, and I'm glad Robin was able to get there as well.

The climax of this book comes off as a combination of 10 Things I Hate About You, National Lampoon's Animal House, and Mean Girls: It takes place at a school dance, there's a lot of wacky shenanigans that involve damaged property, a sleazebag who's been the antagonist for most of the story rightfully gets humiliated, and there's some kind of reconciliation. Robin doesn't exactly get what she wants (and her behavior is what causes her to end up working alongside Steve Harrington at Scoop's Ahoy), but she does get catharsis and a special moment where she can be herself with someone who also understands her. After spending most of the book wishing for that, it's at least something for her to hold onto.

Part 2: Robin's Relationship With Other Characters

We get to meet Robin's parents in this novel, who are both hippies from the counterculture movement of the 60s. Robin notes that both of them have traveled around most of their lives (which is one of the reasons she's inspired to create Operation Croissant and travel to Europe), they both have other hippie friends who've been on their own exciting adventures, they are relaxed in their parenting of Robin (to the point Robin admits to feeling like the adult in the family), and they taught Robin to question authority and not trust the government (which comes into play for her during her later adventure with Steve, Erica, and Dustin). However, when Will and Barb disappear, they end up becoming a lot more strict with Robin, confiscating her bike and forcing her to take the bus for her own safety.

While Robin is unhappy, it's understandable why they act like this, and it was absolutely the right call considering what was going on at the time. There's even a scene where Robin has a near encounter with the Demogorgon on the night Will disappears, and only barely avoids the monster:

On top of that, when her parents accidentally discover Robin's plans to run away to Europe, they're rightfully upset about it. They make a bunch of incorrect assumptions, but at the same time, this situation was avoidable if Robin had sat down with her parents beforehand and trusted them with what she was planning. I know Robin tries to justify to herself why she didn't, but even though I wanted Robin to explore Europe, I also understand why her parents reacted the way they did. Robin did not think all aspects of her plan through. If I had pulled what she almost did where I ran away during high school and only called my parents once I reached Paris, I know EXACTLY how that would have gone: Not well.

This book also reveals that Robin used to be friends with Barbara Holland back in grade school, only for them to drift apart later. There were certain factors, from Barb hanging out with Nancy more, to Barb becoming more of an overachiever in academics whereas Robin did not, but it wasn't anything bad that ended their friendship. When Barb disappears, Robin constantly projects this idea that Barb managed to get away from Hawkins and isn't truly missing (which is something Mr. Hauser calls Robin out on in the podcast). It gets pretty uncomfortable to read about, especially when the audience already knows what actually happened to her:

Barb acts as the ghost that's still in the room for many characters. Robin speculates on where she went, Nancy is later found sobbing her eyes out in the theater bathroom by Robin, and there's even a scene at the end of the book where Robin sees Nancy and Steve looking alone and scared. Even though Barb isn't mentioned by name, her presence is there:

I know that when it comes to the show, Barb's death had the biggest impact on Nancy, and it's usually Nancy's grief/guilt that gets the most focus, but I wish we'd gotten to see Robin's reaction to learning about Barb's death. It could have even been a bonding moment between Robin and Nancy when they were working together in season 4. Maybe it'll be talked about in season 5, but I'm not holding my breath.

Robin's former friends (Dash, Kate, and Milton) were a mixed bag. Milton was probably the one I like the best, but I wasn't impressed at him distancing himself from Robin later on because he was looking to date Wendy and didn't want people to spread gossip about him dating Robin. Kate was frustrating, and the way she kept trying to push Robin to date other boys (despite Robin insisting she wasn't interested) didn't impress me. Nor was I impressed with her dating Dash. To her credit, she does wise up and apologize to Robin later on, but I do find it telling that her relationship with Robin deteriorated and that Robin refers to both her and Milton as ex-friends by the end.

Dash is straight-up awful. I will talk more about him in the second post for this review, but his character struck a nerve. For all of his posturing about being an intellectual nerd, he's a sleazy womanizer (similar to Billy Hargrove) and a serial cheater. I loathe him the same way I hate Billy, Angela, and Dr Brenner.

Something I appreciated with this book is how it goes out of its way to invert the social dynamic with certain characters. I've seen criticisms before about how the popular kids on Stranger Things are always portrayed as monstrous, and the nerds/outcasts as the heroes, which isn't completely true. Chrissy Cunningham for instance was one of the most popular girls at Hawkins High, and yet was shown to be a sweet (if troubled) person. Steve, despite some initial hiccups, also demonstrated himself to be a good guy, willing to own up to his behavior and put his life on the line for others. By contrast, Henry/One/Vecna portrayed himself to El as being a social outcast growing up, and yet is not only a straight-up sociopath with no empathy for remorse for his actions, but ultimately the Big Bad of the series.

In Rebel Robin, Tammy Thompson is popular in school and has a circle of popular friends, but she's also a kind individual. She's repeatedly nice to Robin, and goes out of her way to talk to Sheena at one point to help her after she gets bullied again. By contrast, Dash labels himself as a band geek/nerd, and yet reveals himself as one of the most condescending, unkind individuals in the series. It's a major reason Robin washes her hands of him, and wants nothing to do with Dash when he shows his true colors. All of this adds a little complexity to the series beyond Popular = Bad and Nerd/Outcast = Good.

And then there's Steve himself: Even though Robin thinks about him in a negative light for most of the novel, I can only recall one or two instances where they briefly interact before the Epilogue (which is when Robin starts working for Scoops Ahoy).

I've seen fans repeatedly debate whether Steve was a bully to others pre-season 1, and the answer this book gives is a firm NO. Steve's shown to be self-absorbed and insensitive at times, but not vicious to others the same way bullies like Troy, Billy, and Angela were. He wasn't malicious, and he didn't go out of his way to torment others for his amusement. At one point, in the podcast, Mr. Hauser point-blank asks Robin if Steve's bullied her, and she denies it. Part of Robin's feelings against Steve are her projecting her issues on to him, part of it is making assumptions about him without the whole context (like when she thinks Steve made Nancy cry at the movie theater when Nancy was actually crying over Barb's death), and part of her dislike occasionally has some merit (like when Steve runs into Robin in the hallway during the podcast and acts like a douche).

All of this makes Steve and Robin bonding with one another in season 3 feels more meaningful. She gets to see a different side to Steve after constantly assuming that people don't change, and he comes to value her as a friend. She shared her secret with him (albeit under the influence of the Russian truth serum), and not only did he accept her for who she was and kept her secret, but also encouraged her to start dating Vickie in season 4. He's the friend she deserves to have.

Assuming that both Robin and Steve survive season 5, I'd love to see Robin fulfill her dream of traveling to Europe, and that she takes Steve with her. He's the true companion to have while they visit museums, cafes, the countryside, and eat plenty of croissants. 🥐

Overall, I strongly recommend both the book and podcast. Both are entertaining and quick to get through, both enhance the show and Robin's character while adding new details, and both are great examples of LGBT+ representation.

To be continued in Part 2..........

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kazoosandfannypacks · 20 days ago

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Interview With A Fic Writer

tagged by @kanerallels. You can read her interview here!

How many works do you have on AO3? 62! This does count a couple drabble collections posted as multi-chapter works, too.

What's your total AO3 word count? 301,432 words! I tend to be very verbose in my writings 😂

Your top five stories by kudos/likes:

5. This is (Kinda) The Way ❤ 107 4. Window Seat ❤ 110 3. My Weak Spot ❤ 112 2. Open to Interpretation ❤ 123 1. Wishing it Wasn't, with a whopping ❤ 333 kudos???

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! Comments are one of the biggest things that keep me writing, and I love nothing more than being able to respond to them and tell people how much their comments mean to me!

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Aside from drabbles, probably either How Much You Have, (Sabine post-rebels,) The Monsters (Varian and Catalina realizing a bad reputation is hard to shake,) or Poor Little Eugene Fitzherbert, (which is more of a character analysis than anything else.)

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending? This is (Kinda) The Way comes to mind first!

Do you write crossovers? Not yet. I have a REALLY good idea for a Sabezra Camp Half-Blood AU, and I also think a Dracula / The Shuttle fic would be awesome too!

Have you ever received hate on a fic? I don't think so, no? I've had a couple comments of "awww, I was expecting ____," but nothing major, no.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Absolutely NOT!

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Yes, actually. The very first fanfic I ever posted was a Lego Nexo Knights fic I wrote as a teenager and posted as an adult. Sometime later I recieved a comment that said they saw my fic reposted as part of a collection on Wattpad. I made a Wattpad account specifically to confront them, and I asked them to take it down. They said they would, and I checked back often to see if they had, but last time I checked they still hadn't.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope. I have had comments in other languages though, and I always run them through google translate and weep tears of joy. I also sometimes include Mando'a phrases in fics, and once even used them as chapter titles!

Have you ever co-written a fic before? I've started a couple with people, but never really finished any, except for my little brother adding the video game sequences in need a player 2?. The funniest one that me and another person started but never finished was when my church camp friends and I started a fic about a vintage camera one of them had and the person who owns the camera keeps seeing the same person in the background of all of the photos, and he finds that it's one of the members of the Beatles, and he's trying to signal for help because he's been trapped inside the camera for decades.

What's your all time favorite ship? Just one? I'm probably gonna say Bettina Vanderpoel and Lord Mount Dunstan from The Shuttle. I read that book almost a decade ago and it permanently altered my brain chemistry to the point that the first time I got into a relationship, I was disappointed that my then boyfriend didn't have red hair. I read that book in literature class (homeschool) every day for a half hour, but when I got towards the end I was so enthralled in it that I kept reading for three hours and didn't even take a break for lunch. All of the parallels they have with each other make me go FERAL.

What's a WIP you want to finish but don't think you ever will? A couple OUaT fics, for sure. One was about Killian telling Henry some stuff about Milah, and another was a series of Soulmark AU fics. There's also a sabezra and kanera fic I was co-writing with someone who I fell out of contact with, and even though she never actually contributed to it, it doesn't feel right to keep telling this story without her.

What are your writing strengths? Flowery, lengthy descriptions, especially of emotions. I'm also pretty good at prose too!

What are your writing weaknesses? I'm not too great at action scenes, but I'm working at it!

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in fics? It would be really cool to do if I knew how to do it well! I would also probably ask someone who speaks the language to help make sure I have it right.

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to? I'll probably end up writing JFO fic by the end of the year. I also might end up writing something for my newly discovered and beloved crack pairing, Tristan Wren/Shin Hati. A full-length kanera fic would also be fun to write!

What's your favorite fic you've written?

A few of my favorites I haven't mentioned so far are As the Sun Rose And Seasons Changed, Operation Lunchbreak, and Wildflowers.

Tagging the following to participate as well, if desired! @jessicas-pi @ana-cantskywalker @booksteaandtoomuchtv @kmomof4 and literally anyone else who wants to do this!

#kazzy writes #fic writer interview #tag game

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ssa-dado · 1 month ago

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Pre-exam IQIWIANQLQPL, Chapter 21 updates and a desperate writer begging for your opinións (Help me, I'm spiraling 🤌🤖)

Hi lovely humans!

Long post ahead with lots of updates, so buckle up 🏎🏎🏎🏎

I’m temporarily rising from the dead to drop some info bombs! 👯‍♀️👯‍♀️👯‍♀️👯‍♀️ This week is pre-exam chaos central for me (two major reviews: one on Wednesday and one on Thursday), so I’ll only be sporadically active for a few minutes here and there. Wish me luck hahahahahhaha (I want to di*)

Now, onto the fun stuff: I have an ask about philosophy that I’ve been dying to answer for weeks (seriously, I’m so exciteddddd AAAAA) I’ve been working on some notes and promise to carve out a bit of time for a detailed, exhaustive response...... it’s going to be so much fun (warning: I might get a little overly talkative and probably a bit technical but I'll do my best to make it user-friendly)

Chapter 21 Updates:

I’m actually more than halfway through the chapter! If all goes well, it should drop this weekend (lessons wrap up Thursday, so yay, more writing time!). No more waiting 71,718 days for a new chapter!!!! WE CAN START CELEBRATING YEEE HAWWW LET THE BANQUET BEGIN! 🍝🍷🧃🍅🥖🥗🧀🍽

When I say “halfway through,” I mean I’m halfway through the outline I had in mind 🙃

If I stick to it, we’re finally looking at a decently sized chapter (10k-12k words - bye bye 20k monstrosities). These chapters have been trickier to draft because as you've seen they’re so heavily focused on Hotch (we’ve been spending way more time in his POV than Teach's. I love doing it idk why)

Idk if I've said it before (probably I did) but in a way, these last Act 2 chapters are a love letter to him, as each one (Logic, Physics, Ethics, and Logos) is designed to dismantle the idea of him as a stoic, using events and narrative to challenge the principles of stoic philosophy. Some heavy character development going on (because poor man he gets a divorce and also the girl he fucks with fucking explodes lmao)

But enough philosophy rambling.......you’re probably here for plot details, right? 👁👁

Right?!

Left?!

OK enough with those dad jokes

So, Chapter 21 follows the events of Criminal Minds episodes 3x09 through 3x11 (do with this information what you will). The title, Physics, is inspired by the Stoic’s highly deterministic view of the universe, where fate plays a central role.

(Hint: if you’re curious about this, check out the colors of Symposium moodboard... pay special attention to the color black 👹👹👹 Remember that both characters were involved in that case back then... just saying.)

The chapter will also include a flashback that ties directly into the present and impacts Hotch’s character. Most importantly, it will push SOMEONE toward figuring out how they really feel about a certain SOMEONE (yes, I mean Gissi or maybe not)

Help this poor lovely human being

As the story progresses, I’ve started to feel more pressure (in a good way don’t worry!!!!!) to deliver what you want to see. So, tell me, what parts interest you the most? What do you enjoy reading? This way, I can focus more on those elements and cut down on others.

Speaking of which, a while back, I wrote a scene set right after the last chapter where Aaron takes the reader out following their breakup with Peter. I was in a super fluffy, bantery mood, so naturally, I had him take them to a traditional Italian restaurant, complete with the classic nosey Italian staff 🤌🤌🤌🤌🤌 (I’m Italian, so I get a free pass on the stereotype, ty). Of course, the staff assumes they’re a couple (what a shame, really), and the two totally lean into it, turning it into one of their lawyer/philosopher-style challenges, only this time with some added hand touches and overly exaggerated flirts purely for the sake of the game (they’re still fun to read I swear)

It’s a trope I love reading, and I couldn’t resist writing it into this universe with these blind af characters.

But drumroll please 🎺🎺🎺🎺 I ended up cutting it because it was just cute fluff and didn’t really serve the plot. Typical me: I get so carried away with the pining and banter that even a "short" scene spirals into a 3k-word detour. Classic Phi.

I wanted to keep it to myself, but maybe you might want to read it as well! So I'm actually debating whether to put it back at the beginning of Chapter 21 (though the current opening feels right), or post it as a standalone one-shot preview, like a “Chapter 20.1.”

What do you think? Should I include it, or save it as a fun bonus chapter?

Also, while you’re waiting for the chapter, would you want to see any more WIPs, or would you rather experience everything as a whole when it’s done?

Alright, enough rambling and people-pleasing for today, I’m off to write 🏌‍♀️🏌‍♀️🏌‍♀️ Sending lots of love! 🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍

Phi (& Dado, the one and only chairman of the blog)

#phi over-talks #symposiumff #ssadado

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shenanigans-and-imagines · 1 year ago

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20 Questions for Fic Writers Game

Tagged by @jo-harrington. Thank you!

1) How many works do you have on A03?

According to AO3, 195. However I do know it’s more since I have made a few drabble compilation. Someday I’ll reorganize everything.

2) What's your total AO3 word count?

686,641

3) What fandoms do you write for?

Baldur’s Gate 3, Stranger Things, Marvel/MCU, Star Wars, The Magnificent Seven, M*A*S*H, Good Omens, and a scattering of other fandoms here and there.

4) What are your top five fics by kudos?

Skipping Drabble/Headcanon compilations

I Want It All (Astarion x Ace!Tav)

Life Is Inevitable Like That (Ineffable Husbands)

Trust Me (Poe Dameron x Reader)

An Unspoken Thing (Doctor Strange x Reader)

Questions (Ineffable Husbands)

5) Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I respond to most of them, or at least try to. I think it’s important to building a community, which is what I hope I encourage. Also as a way to show that yes, I did read it and yes, commenting does matter.

6) What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

What If…Loki Lost His Love?

I don’t do major character death or angst in general. It’s just not what I’m looking for in fics, but I actually think I did a good job on this one.

7) What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Most of them? They’re basically all one-shots with happy conclusions. I think if my recent stuff, probably I Want It All.

8) Do you get hate on fics?

I did get one “kill yourself” message a few years ago, but it was just one person on anon. The reception to basically all of my fics have been positive.

9) Do you write smut? If so, what kinds?

I’ve written some smut. I’ve done a couple of Kinktobers and some for Clone Wars. I think the best way I can describe the way I write smut is “sensual”? And it’s a little rougher. Idk, somebody better versed than me could describe it better.

10) Do you write crossovers?

Not really

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I did have a few of my Poe Dameron fics stolen a few years back, but I messaged them and they quickly deleted the fic. That all being said, if anybody notices my works being stolen or copied, please let me know.

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that anyone has told me.

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

My sister and I have talked about it, but no.

14) What's your all time favorite ship?

Ineffable Husbands

15) What's a WIP that you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

*glances at all WIPs I already have published and drawers full of WIPs saved on my computer*

What are you a cop?

16) What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, characterization and emotions. At least that’s what people have told me.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

Prose. I’m still working on getting more creative with my descriptions. I could also really get better at scene setting in general.

18) Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I’m not against it, but use it wisely.

If you want to reader to understand what is being said, write it out in the language of the fic. This isn’t a movie. Putting a translation at the bottom of the chapter or in the middle of the sentence makes it sloppy. Instead type out “they said in X language, “___”.

However if you want a character to hear something being said in a different language and they don’t understand it, then type it out of you want.

19) First fandom you wrote for?

Unpublished? Harry Potter

Published? Sherlock (no you can’t read it)

20) Favorite fic you've written?

Don’t make me pick. I’ve written so much and I have a soft spot for so many for a variety of reasons. If you want to send me a fic title and ask me about it, I’ll gladly answer any questions you want.

Tagging @leighsartworks216, @kittttycakes, @can-of-pringles, @flapjacques and anybody else who wants to join in!

#about the author #baldur’s gate 3 #astarion x tav #ineffable husbands #good omens #poe dameron x reader #Star Wars #doctor strange x reader #marvel #mcu

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soaked-butch-boxers · 2 years ago

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cw: biting, rough handling, slight spanking, semi-public sex, "good boy" title, good old fashioned sportsdyke foreplay

notes: inspired by the song "Play The Field" by Partner; Cal uses they/them pronouns and Jada uses she/her

Out of Bounds, I've Gone Too Far

It took the longest time for me to understand how Jada joined our university's women's basketball team, but once I made the connection between her last name and Coach Gibson's, it became clear. Nepotism is such a powerful thing.

It took even longer for me to understand *why* she joined the team. But it really shouldn't have.

I actually got into this school on a basketball scholarship. It's my whole life. I hope to go pro. Jada Gibson, on the other hand, can't play for shit. She's a music major, and while her hands might be clever with guitar strings, they are dumb as dirt when it comes to dribbling. She can't even pass accurately. Not even when I'm less than a foot away from her. It's a good thing Coach keeps her on the bench during games. Otherwise, we'd lose every single one.

I never understood why Jada didn't mind benchwarming until that day in the locker room.

We had been 2 hours into that day's practice, when I got the idea to work with Jada one on one. Maybe improve her skills and confidence a bit.

"Sure thing, Cal," she grins, her perfect teeth flashing as she lightly punches me in the arm. My heart stutters, probably from the workout.

"Lets start with your free throw. You've got great power, but your aim could use some work. Plant your feet at the free-throw line. No, shoulder width apart. Shoulder width, dude, what are you doing?"

"Could you come help me?" A smirk. I try not to stare at her long brown fingers as they beckon me closer.

I swallow and place my hands on Jada's hips, squaring them toward the basket. Then, I bend down and grab her ankles through her socks, shifting them into place. I'm careful not to touch any bare skin as I breathe in her scent: sweat, asphalt, and a musky cologne. "Try now."

Her skinny arms windmill and the ball ends up way too far left. I jog to go retrieve it.

"Haha, sorry! I think the issue is my form! Come position my arms?"

I return with the basketball under my arm, face flushed. Probably from the jog. Definitely not from the idea of touching her arms. I tell myself to get a grip, and toss her the ball.

I stand behind Jada on the free throw line, and she presses her back into my chest. I take a deep breath. *Why is she so distracting?*

"Hold it with the tips of your fingers. Yeah, just like that." I move her left hand underneath, pull her arms to her right shoulder. "Okay, good. Now relax your right wrist." Focusing on the motions is the only thing grounding me from the feeling of her soft skin under my hands. "Okay, good. Now bend your knees and throw. The power comes from the full body movement, not just your arms."

She shoots. She scores.

"Fuck yeah! That's the first time I've gotten one in!" Jada whirls around and hugs me tight, the tip of her high top fade brushing against my chin. I'm nearly a whole head taller than her.

I gently allow myself to wrap my own arms around her and hold her close.

"Gibson! O'Donnell! Time to scrimmage!" Coach shouts at us.

"Thanks, Cal. You're a great teacher." She winks at me as she lets go.

I'm distracted the rest of practice, feeling the ghost of her arms around my back. For the first time ever, I'm relieved when it's time to hit the showers, glad practice is over so I can return to my dorm and cool off, get this weird feeling to go away.

I'm always last to take a shower. I don't like getting undressed in front of the girls. I don't want anyone to see me with my binder off.

Jada usually never showers in the locker room, so I'm surprised when I see her grab a towel.

"Not gonna shower at your place this time?" I ask, trying to seem nonchalant, and not as if seeing her in nothing but a towel would turn me into a puddle.

"Everyone cleared out so fast today, I figured I may as well go ahead and get clean. I hate smelling like shit, stinking up the dorms."

"Then. Why don't you normally just shower here?"

"I just don't wanna make anyone uncomfortable. You know, since I'm a dyke and everything," she laughed.

"Bro, more than half the team are dykes, me included. You're not making anyone uncomfortable!"

"Yeah, I know, I know. Just don't wanna make anyone feel unsafe." She looks away for a second. I can't read the tone of her voice, but I feel the need to comfort her.

"I always feel safe with you," I say, walking over to her and laying a hand on her arm. "You don't have to worry."

Jada smiles up at me, full of a sweetness that almost hurts my heart. And then, she suddenly grins.

"Great. Because I was hoping you'd help me wash my back. Can't always reach it, you know?" She says it innocently enough, but I can't help but blush furiously.

"Uh -- of course!" I hate my stutter.

Jada starts to pull of her shirt, and I immediately whip around so I don't see her. I can't tell if that is for her sake or mine. I listen intently to the clothes shuffling off her small body, and try not to imagine what that looks like. I hear her walk over to the showers in her Nike slides, turn the water on, and close the curtain.

"Okay, dude, you can come help now!"

I give my head a shake, trying to clear it. *This is just friendly. She just needs help scrubbing her back. Don't make this weird.* I walk over and pull back the curtain slightly, expecting to see her bare back. My jaw drops.

Jada is standing there, in nothing but her slides, grinning up at me. Her large, dark breasts immediately draw my eyes. Her dark brown nipples are so hard. My eyes follow the happy trail down her soft stomach, and as I see the cluster of black curls between her legs, my eyes glaze over.

"I know this is really forward, but I've been flirting with you all season, and you haven't noticed, not even when I kissed you! We don't have to do this, you can walk away, but I really --"

Surprising both Jada and myself, I bend down and kiss her, clutching her jaw in one hand and her bare waist in the other. It's intense, full of grazing teeth and wandering tongues.

She pulls apart briefly and sighs out, "Fucking finally," before grabbing the collar of my jersey and pulling me into the shower with her.

"Oh, sorry, dude!" Jada giggles as she realizes she just drenched my clothes. "Lets get this off." She begins removing my jersey, then suddenly stops.

"What?"

"Cal. You're fucking binding? You've been running around all day, that isn't safe! You know better than that, I can't believe you!"

"I know, I know it's dangerous. And if any of my friends did that, I'd tell them the same. But I'd rather feel the pain of my ribs being constricted than the pain of seeing my body like that."

"No. I'm sorry for snapping," she says, smoothing her hands over my chest, immediately relxaing and arousing me simultaneously. "I'm just worried about you. I can't imagine what it's like. Just try to stay safe, okay? You'll be able to have top surgery soon, and then --"

I kiss her again. "You're sweet. But shut up and fuck me."

A pause. Then, Jada's eyes turn dark, and she slams me against the shower wall. The water continues to run down my short hair and clothes. She leans in close.

"Fine," she hisses. "But we're discussing this later. I fucking care about you, dude."

She leaves my binder on without even mentioning it, which I'm grateful for, and she immediately moves her hands to my waistband.

"Can I take these off, Cal?"

She's pressed up right against me, my heart is hammering in my chest, and I'm soaked in more ways than one.

"Y-yes."

Jada pulls my basketball shorts down to my ankles. "Cute boxers," she smirks, before pulling those down too. And suddenly, my wet cunt is exposed to the locker room, my t-dick sticking out between my glistening folds.

"Jesus Christ," she whispers, almost reverently.

I clear my throat, suddenly shy. Jada seems to notice, and gives me a gentle kiss to my lips before turning me around so my face is againt the wall and my bare ass is exposed. She slaps it lightly and chuckles as I jump, then leans in close to my ear.

"You are so. Fucking. Handsome. And I've wanted you for so long."

I blush everywhere.

She kisses the back of my neck, her arms pinning my hands to the wall. I gasp as her teeth drag over my skin. She bites down on the back of my collarbone, and I groan.

"Fuck, baby, you sound so good."

She presses my hands to the wall, nonverbally demanding that I keep them there. Then her fingers trace the water droplets down my back as I shudder and pant. My back is always so sensitive.

She moves her hands down my lower back and lands another light slap on my ass. It doesn't hurt, but I still jump.

*I am taller and bigger and stronger than her. Why am I letting her push me around like this?*

Jada presses her body against mine, and I can feel her coarse hair against the ass she keeps spanking. She clutches my throat with her left hand and reaches her right around my hips before slowly dragging a finger over my t-dick. I bite my lip to stifle a moan.

"Ohhhhh, no, baby, don't try to be quiet. I wanna hear you!"

"But -- Jada, w-what if --" I'm panting, unable to deliver a full sentence as she rubs me mercilessly.

"What if someone hears you?" Her left hand grabs a fistful of my short hair and she pulls my head back. "I want them to. I want them to hear you finally come undone on my hand."

I can't help it. I whine.

"Good boy." And I can hear the smirk in her voice.

She kicks my legs apart to get a better angle, notices my breath catch when she hits *just* the right spot, and starts rubbing me harder and faster.

I obey her earlier command and keep my mouth open, not bothering to muffle the unholy sounds falling from my parted lips. I'm getting more and more desperate with each stroke, and as Jada starts licking the water droplets off my neck, I start to unravel.

My whole body is shaking, and I'm so close so close so close so close

"Please," I whimper between sighs and gasps and groans and moans. "Please, Jada!"

"Good boy, being so polite."

As soon as she calls me a good boy, my orgasm hits. I feel my eyes roll in the back of my head, my whole body sieze up, my legs vibrating and struggling to keep myself upright, my tight cunt clenching around nothing. She rubs and kisses me through it, and when I finally relax and collapse against the wall, she holds me and strokes my wet hair.

"God, Cal." She presses a kiss to my cheek.

"Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck," I sigh. "Thank you."

"Did you just thank me?" She's laughing, and I pout at her. I never pout! She does crazy things to me.

"Well --" I start to splutter. She tries to shut me up with a kiss. "No, seriously, Jada! I feel the need to thank you. That was fucking amazing!"

"I'd wanted to for a long time."

"Really though. I feel the need to express my gratitude," I lower my voice into what I sincerely hope sounds like a seductive growl, and not a flustered enby with a fucked out voice. "And I have a few ideas on how I can do that..."

I eye the black curls between her legs and watch her grin.

#dyke nsft #nonbinary nsft #lesbian nsft #transmasc nsft #butch4butch nsft #butch nsft

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random-bs-is-found-here · 3 months ago

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Hey everyone! In celebration of Ubisoft releasing Just Dance 2025 edition, I made a little ranking of the soundtracks of different just dance version, from worst to best. FULLY MY OPINIONS, PLEASE DON'T UNALIVE ME.

I'm not going to include spin-offs, such as kids, china or experience.

Let's get started!

16. Just Dance 2025

Jesus Christ. I didn't really pay attention for a few years, ever since it was revealed JD 2023 won't be on Xbox One. I bought the game for the Switch today, and lemme say, I was far from impressed. Sure, coaches, backgrounds and the dance moves are beautiful, but the majority of songs are giving me 'brainrot'. And did Ariana Grande bribe the studio? 6 (including alt and extreme) songs out of the 40 were her songs, which isn't a lot at first glance, but it's still around 16% of the library (correct me if my math isn't mathing). Bang Bang (My Neurodivergent Anthem) or what and Calabria 2007 are pretty cool though.

15. Just Dance 2021

I have good memories about this one. The only problem is that they're pretty forgettable. If I had to pick favorites, I'd say Rare, all the good girls go to hell and Paca Dance were the best.

14. Just Dance 1

Again, somewhat good memories. I never owned it, only danced them from JD unlimited and YouTube. My main problem is that they're not that good quality, and since technology must've been a bit more restricted at that time, there could be only one coach per song. No duos, or anything. Favorites are Hot and Cold plus Womanizer.

13. and 12. Just Dance 2 and 3

I wanted to write about these two simultaneously, and it's for a reaaaly personal reason. It's idiotic, really. While both of these games' soundtracks are good, I would never be able to correctly tell which game they belong to. That's it. That's the reason. Girlfriend and Baby one more time are my all time faves.

11. Just Dance 2015

Boy, did I hate that one. Despite being my second Just Dance game, I barely knew those songs and the scoring system, using Kinect, was waay too harsh on me. To this day, it's the hardest Just Dance version on my mental list. My favorites are Problem, Dark Horse and 4x4.

10. Just Dance 2018

Welp, another petty reason. Soundtrack is awesome, but somebody that I deeply hate now used to (or still) own(s) this version. Many of the songs remind me of them and I hate it. I quite like 24k Magic and How far I'll go, though.

9. Just Dance 2020

The 10th anniversary of Just Dance. I have fond memories of this one. My sis and I competed against each other in a singular song we both exceed in, and I loved the World Dance Floor, where most of the time, the victory was ours as we were so good in these songs. We still join sometimes. If you see Victoria9219, then you've found us🤭 365 is kinda forgettable though. Faves were I am the best, Always look on the bright side of life and Stop movin'.

8. Just Dance 2019

A nostalgic title of mine. The third JD game of my life. I still remember the moments of first launch. The last one to have a pointy edged cuboid as its meter on the left. Just perfection. New Rules and work work raised me into the Just Dancer I am today.

7. Just Dance 2014

My first ever JD game so I'm kinda biased. Still remember playing my very first song (which was Just Dance, hehehe) in clear detail. The only JD game I bought some DLCs for. And, oh, do I wish they kept vs mode in. Those dances between She Wolf & Where have you been, Kiss You& Pound the alarm and gentleman & fine china were awesome. Can't hold us, applause and feel so right took the palm.

6. Just Dance 2024

It's uh... Kinda strange for me, imma admit. When I only had the demo, I took a look at the soundtrack, and it was okay. Not the best, but still better than whatever 2025 is. Since I never danced any of them, I am going to assign How you like that and can't tame her as favorites

5. Just Dance 2023

I had a hard time deciding whether JD2022 or this should be fifth place, but ultimately, I decided it's better to place familiarity over new things. Thus, JD 2023 was placed here. The soundtrack itself is almost impeccable. Except for one thing... In my opinion, Toxic shouldn't have gotten a remake. It was perfect the way it was. Therefore, if I ever buy JD 2023 or JD +, I'm never going to touch the new version. I only danced one of these songs, Telephone, thus it'll be the favorite for this one.

4. Just Dance 2022

K-pop in this generation is perfect. I have a separate list dedicated to just that. Even after all these years, the songs are entertaining, and I scarcely get tired of them. Pop/Stars, Jopping, Black Mamba and Baianá gave me so much dopamine.

--0--

And now, the top 3!

--0--

3. Just Dance 4

Seriously. The amount of songs from that game on my Spotify lists are insane. Words can't describe how much I love this generation, and if it weren't for another version that I came to like more in a short span of time, this would be second place. Here are my top 3 from Just Dance 4:

2. Just Dance 2016

This one was such a hit. I spent long hours, sometimes even days dancing. Because of this sudden hype, JD 4 has been pushed back to third place. Here are my top 3 from Just Dance 2016:

(↑ this one might not be exactly accurate to the one in the game. Best I could find, okay?)

1. Just Dance 2017

22nd of February, 2019. If we don't count a faint memory from a birthday party, Worth it from Just Dance 2017 was the song that piqued my interest in Just Dance. From that moment, my obsession with Just Dance had begun. All songs are hype. So much that I almost broke my ankle while dancing to Don't stop me now. I even got to experience its world dance floor before the servers were shut down. In my opinion, Just Dance should make the newer titles more like this one, including new modes, all time favorite songs and more... My favorites from Just Dance 2017:

--0--

Thank you for listening to this rant.

#just dance #personal rant #ranking #soundtrack #just dance 2025 edition #new release #video games #Spotify

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etes-secrecy-post · 4 months ago

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Hi, before I explain my post, I want to say something important.

• What you see my blog has become a major overhaul. And despite the changes, I decided that my 2nd account will be now my artwork blog with a secret twist.

⚠️NEW RULE! (W/ BIGGER TEXT!)⚠️

⚠️ SO PLEASE DO NOT SHARE MY 2nd ACCOUNT TO EVERYONE! THIS SECRECY BLOG OF MINE IS FOR CLOSES FRIENDS ONLY!⚠️

• AND FOR MY CLOSES FRIENDS, DON’T REBLOG IT. INSTEAD, JUST COPY MY LINK AND PASTE IT ON YOUR TUMBLR POST! JUST BE SURE THE IMAGE WILL BE REMOVED AND THE ONLY LEFT WAS THE TEXT.

⚠️ SHARING LINKS, LIKE POSTS, REBLOG POSTS, STEALING MY SNAPSHOT PHOTOS/RECORDED VIDEOS/ARTWORKS (a.k.a. ART THIEVES) OR PLAGIARIZING FROM UNKNOWN TUMBLR STRANGERS WILL IMMEDIATELY BE BLOCKED, RIGHT AWAY!⚠️

😡 WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT EVER LIKED & REBLOG MY SECRET POST! THIS IS FOR MY SECRET FRIENDS ONLY, NOT YOU! 😡

Okay? Capiche? Make sense? Good, now back to the post…↓

Title: The Speedster Twins' Impreza Cars Custom, Meters, etc...

(Young Adult) Spot 🐶🏎️: Hello, September! 🍂🍁 It is ME, Spot Speedster and I'm celebrating my 13th Anniversary! 🥳🎊 And what better way than showing our trio of Subaru Impreza customs by my Mr. creator himself! 😄

(Young Adult) Riya 🐰🏎️: By the way, no #OnThisDay throwback post from my creator because of said anniversary! (W/ (Young Adult) Miya 🐰🐻🔋) Happy Anniversary, Spot! 🐶🏎️🥳🎊

(Young Adult) Spot 🐶🏎️: Why, thank you Ri & Mi! Really appreciated!😊 You've already seen US wearing different clothes, with our cars behind us right? Now, its time to gave our trio of custom IMPREZA Cars a SPOT-light! ✌✌ See, I did there with a pun? Hehe! 😅

(Young Adult) Riya 🐰🏎️: Aah, I see you did there, twin bro! 😁👉�� So, as he said, our IMPREZA cars were based on the recent arcade game (Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune series), that we've been played before, since our respective debut! The OG IMPREZA GRB model was used to be "POCO–", debuted on Jul. 24th, 2010 in WMMT3DX Plus installment → [CLICK ME! #1], [CLICK ME! #2]. 🇯🇵🚘 Fun fact: The word "POCO" was named after creator's favorite adorable blue boy, "Pocoyo" (still an adorable boy and his educated show, to this very day). 🔵👶😊 Then by the time I debuted on Sept 20th, 2013 as ME "Riya, without a last name" 🐰🗓️, WMMT4 was rolled out and he gave me the keys and change it to my name "RIYA★", on Oct. 23rd, 2013 → [CLICK ME!].🗓️ Yes, NOT "November", unfortunately. ☝️😮 But then, I realized that the GRB car model doesn't suit my Impreza taste 🤔, so I returned his keys were he belongs, and I decided to registered my own "TRUE IMPREZA" car in the form of the "GDB-F" model from scratch, in 2017's WMMT5DX installment → [CLICK ME!]! And the rest was history for ME and my aforementioned "TRUE IMPREZA" car! 💙🌸🇯🇵🚘😁 Now, let's hear our Speedster's 13th birthday boy!

(Young Adult) Spot 🐶🏎️: Thanks, Ri! Unlike hers, the named "SPOT" still remain on the Impreza GDB-C model. And believe IT or NOT, the tuning card itself with a tremendous stats was actually came out from the illegal cloning. And to this day, we still don't know who owns the original turning card? 🤔 Was this car debuted from the 1st two Wangan Maxi Tune installments, or maybe on the 3rd installment? We may never know. 🤷‍♀️ The 2010's "SPOT–" tuning card was gifted by his former best friend on May 9th, 2010 🗓️ (three days after his 17th birthday 🥳🎁), the day were his Wangan career starts → [CLICK ME! #1], [CLICK ME! #2]. Which, he didn't drive well without any sort of tutorial. 😕 Yeah, I've feel your pain, sir. However, the named "SPOT" sparked his mind from playing Wangan Maxi Tune, and so the following year (2011) he's working on a concept sketch for an OC based on the CHOWDER! TV show! Yup, "Spot, without a last name" was born that's ME 😁👈 , on Sept. 30th, 2011! 🐶🗓️ He gave the keys to ME, and to this day, I still owned the cool IMPREZA car! Though, I changed from the 5th text from a figure dash "SPOT–" to a wonderful star "SPOT★", just like hers, from 2013's WMMT4 (Jan 8th, 2013) → [CLICK ME!]. 🗓️ 🟦🟥🇯🇵🚘😁 The rest, shall I say was history without me changing any cars! 😁 Fun fact: I struck a luck, when I have this awesome Namco racing meter → [CLICK ME!], but I rather stick with the classic IMPREZA meter! 😉

(Young Adult) Riya 🐰🏎️: Don't forget, that we've finally got our last name, in 2015, twin bro! You know, the named "Speedster" → [CLICK ME!]? 😄

(Young Adult) Spot 🐶🏎️: Ah, yeah! That's US in our pre-teen age dressing our new attire, and new cars, too! Of course, we never forget that as well as our tag occupation "apprentice", Ri! 😁 Now, what about YOU, Mi? 😏

(Young Adult) Miya 🐰🐻🔋: Well, I'm just NEW here! 🤷‍♀️ But, I'm always part of the Speedster's family blood tree, ya know! 🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒🌳 Keep it mind, I have the same age as you two twins! Nonetheless, you twins had a LONG HISTORY with your Wangan Maxi Tune careers, and your impressive IMPREZA cars that you've still driven! 😮 While my IMPREZA car here was came from the awesome racing simulator game, "Gran Turismo 4"! 🟦🟥🎮 Sure, it is ✌️ "Temporary" ✌️ because Bandai Namco Amusement didn't released the 1st OG 'Bug Eye' IMPREZA Car to their recent Wangan Maxi Tune arcade, so I might stick with this cool IMPREZA car! Based on the "Super Touring Car" base model → [CLICK ME!], I tweak some of their parts from the mirrors, to the front and rear bumpers to matched their twin's IMPREZA aesthetics. 🔧🚘🙂 What do ya think, twins? 😁

(Young Adult) Spot 🐶🏎️: Wow, pretty cool car, Mi! 😁👍

(Young Adult) Riya 🐰🏎️: Yeah, I admired your work, Mi! It matches our IMPREZA aesthetics! Now, about the meters? Why do you have two meters? 🤔

(Young Adult) Miya 🐰🐻🔋: Yeah, I'm glad you ask, Mi. The OG one right here, I made it very confusing from my personal colors. 😵 It made me tripping, Ri. So, I copied your patterns from scratch and voila! I made it better than before! 😄

(Young Adult) Spot 🐶🏎️: You did good, Mi! 😊👍 Uh yeah, we forgot to tell ya, that these right here are our IMPREZA racing meters (based on this image → [CLICK ME!]), and other parts (like 'Neon (Straight) lights' and 'window sitckers') based on the Wangan Maxi Tune series. 🔧🚘🙂

(Young Adult) Riya 🐰🏎️: Yeah, although, our racing meters didn't matched from the game, we decided to make our own personal! 😉

(Young Adult) Miya 🐰🐻🔋: As for the entire interior? Well, we'll just have to the same personal colors, with the exception of the steering wheel, manual knobs, and dashboards. 🎨🖌️🚘 🙂 So, Spot! Since its YOUR birthday, got anything else to say? 😄

(Young Adult) Spot 🐶🏎️: Nah, not at all! 🙂 I think its time for us to close the curtains for the annual "Speedster Kids' Appreciation Month"! So, overall, its been fun celebrating it! 😄

(Young Adult) Riya 🐰🏎️: Yeah, sir! From Aace & May's summer/love moment and his 1st year celebration 🐶🐺⭐❤️👊💥🐰, to our OG clothing 🧢👕🧤👖🧦👟, and now revealing our AWESOME IMPREZA Cars! 🇯🇵🚘😁

(Young Adult) Miya 🐰🐻🔋: Though, keep it mind, Aace is saving his owned JDM Car, soon! 😉 I bet, he's up to something... 😏

(Young Adult) Spot 🐶🏎️: You bet! 🙂 And tell him happy '1st year Anniversary' from us! 😁

Young Adult) Riya 🐰🏎️: Yeah, happy '1st year Anniversary', Aace! 😄

(Young Adult) Miya 🐰🐻🔋: Sure thing! 😊

Me 🇵🇭: Well, that's all for now! And happy 13th Anniversary, Spot! 🐶🏎️🥳🎊

(Young Adult) Spot 🐶🏎️: Thank you, sir! 😄🤜🤛

Previous: • The Speedster Twins in their 20s (Plus, Miya Speedster In Her 20s "Fixed") (Sept 20th, 2024) • Miya Speedster In Her 20s (Sept 10th, 2024) • Summer fun with May & Aace (Sept 2nd, 2024) • Aace's Wan Year & Aace x May - Clothing Doodle (Sept 1st, 2024)

Title, etc. - Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune series and Wangan Midnight © Bandai Namco Entertainment, Inc., Namco, Kodansha Title, etc. - Gran Turismo series © SIE, Polyphony Digital

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enm-enthusiast · 2 years ago

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Blue Rivers' University - The Exhibitionists Club Cast

Hey everyone!

As you know, I'm working on a new ENM series for you all, and you've already been introduced to at least two of the new faces we'll be seeing.

Now, however, it's time to reveal the full cast of who we'll be following along with. Now, as for length I'm planning on this to be a bit more ambitious so the current goal is to have it at least be 25 chapters.

In addition, I've almost reached 500 followers! I want to do something special for the occasion but I need your guy's help! please, DM me or comment whatever you guys think I should do.

For now, however, without further ado let's meet the new faces ;)

Cast:

Jeremy - A ginger, Jeremy is an english major and a burly “bigger” man that, while insecure about his self-image, hides a dominant side that desires to punish bad boys who misbehave. He’ll soon get his chance when he meets our other new face; Stephen.

Stephen - A nerdy blonde chemistry major, Stephen is a lanky twink that is incredibly shy about his body but what no one knows…is that he secretly goes streaking across campus at night, and even hopes one day he’ll be caught, unbeknownst to him that wish will soon come true ;)

Jack - A 35 year old, and a former professional wrestler, is a new campus security guard that ends up the unfortunate victim of some, perhaps outdated, rituals among his colleagues.

Ethan - A familiar face, Professor Ethan as you know from the Professor's Anatomy short story is a new professor on campus. For timeline purposes, this series is set after the events of that story, making this his second semester teaching. Will we see poor Ethan naked and exposed once more?

Thomas - Freshman on campus and studying for his art major, Thomas starts his first semester with quite a bit of a bang when he meets his boyfriend Sebastian's new fraternity brothers...

Sebastian - Starting his first semester as well, Sebastian is entering the same Fraternity that our new face, Eric, is a part of. Will he remain a spectator in the games of his new frat? or will he take part? ;)

Eric - A 25 year old football player, Eric is the president of his own fraternity on campus, but has recently earned the ire of his fellow frat members with his arrogant and dickish behavior. He may soon have more of himself revealed to the world than he ever would have thought, or wanted.

George - The new dean of the University, George is a 40 year old, silver-haired fox that may find himself enjoying working with his new colleagues a little too much when he finds out what a certain professor is up to ;)

Author's Notes:

There will be some interactions and overlap between these characters, but to help simplify the series will be organized like this:

The Exhibitionists Club Ch. 1 - Jeremy Part 1

The Exhibitionists Club Ch. 2 - Stephen Part 1

The Exhibitionists Club Ch. 3 - Stephen Part 2

(these are examples, not actual chapter titles)

The series may end up being longer or I may introduce new characters, but I will keep you all updated as I do so. I hope you all are looking forward to this series as much as I am!

#enm stripped humiliation #enm #gay #enm story

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demonfox38 · 1 year ago

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Completed: Okage: Shadow King

I think the game would prefer to speak for itself.

In my previous game evaluations, you may have seen me mention my best friend classified co-conspirator @jeannettegray. As of writing right now, her avatar on multiple services is this:

This would be an image of Rosalyn, one of the lead characters of today's evaluation. Having been given this knowledge, I bet you can put two and two together to figure out how I ended up playing "Okage: Shadow King." Because, let me tell you. I might be a nut for niche RPGs, but I definitely wouldn't have heard of this title without her influence. So, thanks again, JG!

"Okage: Shadow King" is a 2001 PlayStation 2 turn-based RPG developed by Zener Works. It (arguably) stars Ari, a young boy most known for…well. Nothing. Really! That's his schtick. Not that he doesn't have his own personality, but he's literally overshadowed by a bombastic set of characters hell-bent on taking over the world, reforming it to their desires, or stopping the chaos around them with their own tilted bents. To free his sister from a peculiar curse, Ari forms a pact with Stan, the titular Shadow (Evil) King, traveling around the world and defeating other Evil Kings to restore his power. Along the way, he picks up additional characters (including a handful of said Evil Kings, a dipshit scientist, and a mortified hero) and discovers the true nature of the world, all while finding a way to…well, step out of the shadows of others, I suppose.

Possibly by being the most sarcastic bitch in the world!

Now, if you read "2001", "PlayStation 2", and "RPG" above, you may pre-emptively have come to some conclusions about why this game is so damn niche. I checked the release dates just to confirm our mutual suspicions. This had a two months' head start on "Final Fantasy X" and was released in what appears to be the best month for it to come out (more on that in a bit.) So, I wouldn't say definitively that one game ate the other's supper. But, realistically, it only had a couple of months in the spotlight before went into…you know. Components of its own name.

There is definitely something weird to "Okage: Shadow King." I mean, weird beyond the intended vibes. I did some reading on Zener Works to see exactly what they are, as that's not a company familiar to me. It seems like they had a handful of titles in the late 2000s, as well as some mobile game properties (and a pending lawsuit against another company, if Google Translate was correct on their website.) This game is not only their only PS2 game, but seems to be the only RPG they ever built. Additionally, some general information on Wikipedia claims this was originally intended to be a PlayStation release but was then asked to be moved to the PlayStation 2 literally a day before the console's existence was revealed to the world at large.

I’m bringing up the development history because I don't want you to start playing this game and come to the conclusion that your PlayStation 2 is dying. (I mean, they are frailer than race horses, but it's not the console's fault exclusively that things are acting strangely.)

This isn't to say the game looks bad. Anything but! (Well, I guess there's some general distance fog, occasional camera issues, and Madril's kind of an ugly town, but stick with me here!) Honestly, given the character design for this game, I thought that perhaps there was some creative staff overlap with those that worked on stop-motion film/Hot Topic darling "Nightmare Before Christmas." This doesn't seem to be the case. Somebody in the design team was just a major nerd for that film. Like, blatantly stole the hill from that movie kind of nerd. The design team had their inspiration, and damned if they didn't nail it. So, if you're into the aesthetics of that film in particular, this game is a must play for that alone.

Also, one of the character modelers went on to work on "Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night." You know you've got the charming spooky look nailed when the former design team for several "Castlevania" games wants you in their company!

Honestly, the music is pretty good, too. There's a couple of tracks that go a little too heavy on the use of chanting or bagpipes for my taste, but otherwise? Solid. Also? It reacts to you being inside/outside a building and whether or not you are about to die in battle. Responsive music programming! I love that!

The major attraction for this game is its writing, bar none. It's the world's most sarcastic RPG, and I say that with full affection. Like, all of your dialogue options can be boiled down to good/bad/sarcastic. There's no sane man in this universe. They've all been run down and driven to frothing vengeance by those in manic passion for power. Hell, the only thing that even remotely restores sanity in this game is giving up power.

Even with the game's bombastic nature, it can come out swinging with its plot twists. Like, you'll catch some. Obviously, there's a reason that the girl with demon horns and a pink miniskirt has aspirations for becoming a pop icon. Some seem obvious after the fact, like, "Of course, you can't trust butlers for anything. That's always how it goes!" Even the nature of the world itself will explain some issues you rub up against gameplay-wise. The one that really caught me off-guard was the opening for Chapter 5. Like…I don't want to spoil it for you, so I won't get into it too much. But, let's say the bit with Ari having to stand up for himself and regain some sense of personality and appearance was surprisingly resonant for me.

So, this makes a pretty good YouTube longplay video, especially if you're listening to one sans commentary. How about the game part?

Well…how much do you like "Quest 64?"

Not that the two games are all that alike. (Well, actually, maybe in the good music/character design bit.) But, I bring up my tolerance for "Quest 64" in that I love that game despite its online reputation as being the worst RPG on the Nintendo 64. (I mean, have people even seen the opening cutscene for "Aidyn Chronicles"? JFC.) I have a great deal of tolerance for funky RPGs is what I'm trying to say. For me to call an RPG bad, you'd literally have to present something like "Hoshi wo Miru Hito" to my face. Like, poorly functioning, poor audio, and having no final boss bad.

This is a novice RPG written relatively new into its console's library. It's got issues.

If you're gonna play it, you're going to need to have patience with it.

Looking at how it operates, I suspect the game designers were fans of "Megami Tensei" games (like "Shin Megami Tensei" or possibly the "Persona" series, although the timeline isn't quite the smoothest for the latter.) At least, the occasional Stan chats prior to combat, the focus on supernatural entities, the enemy abuse of curses, buffing/debuffing importance, and HP consuming moves are screaming that to me. There are some tweaks to it that are odd. For example, characters share a special ability pool (LP) instead of having their own points to spend on special moves or magic. This seems to fluctuate based on who is in your party and how magically gifted they are. There may also be some "Chrono Trigger" influence? Maybe? Possibly? I mean, you've got a party of three that trails you and can join up with you to attack a single target. It feels familiar for a reason.

Also, it's one of those RPGs where you can't trade the main character out of the party. And, if he dies, it's an instant game over. Yep. Like, there's an implied plot reason for why this could be so, but damned if it isn't irritating as hell.

Some of the mechanic focus is strange to me as well. Like, there are several levels of curses (think poison/sleep/confusion/reward penalties), and some of these curses can be stacked multiple times to have more severe effects. Meanwhile, the elemental system is just a triangle. It is also a strange triangle if you think too long about it. It's better just to think blue > red, yellow > blue, red > yellow instead of wondering how exactly fire defeats lightning and how ice works almost opposite to every other RPG on the planet. It also has a distribution issue both within your party and the monster populace at large. Like, you only get one fire elemental guy. But, to compensate for this, most of your cast will learn spells to cover the elements that they aren't. And then, it seems like there's not the most even balance of enemies out there, anyway? Like, it seemed mostly blue/red early on, with yellow appearing towards the end to be a pain in the ass. I don't know. It was weird. Like, "Fire Emblem" handing you so many sword dudes when there are so few axes to grind and more spears to dodge. It could be personal bias, but you know that feeling, right? Not as rough as taking a fire starter in Pokémon, but maybe taking a water starter.

Pacing is also a weird issue in this game. Like, there are some dungeons where you step one foot into and can win instantly, and others that require grinding for 10 levels. Your party member pool is strapped to the same three people for almost half of the game. (Trust me when I say you want Kisling out ASAP. Dude's a creep and a dud.) Hell, in trying to get my party evened out to level 60 for use in the final dungeon, I accidentally ended up gaining, like, 37 levels for the main character. Also, Chapters 4 and 5 seem to be significantly bloated, with a great deal of fighting taking place in or around the second town. It's like, blink and Chapters 1 and 6 are gone. Very odd.

So, okay. I've got a few creative differences with the dev team. What I really don't get is how the loading issues, audio volume multiplier, and save erasing bug made it into the wild. Like, I know. Novice game made by inexperienced team on new hardware. But, c'mon. Sony had a QA team on this. They had to pick this up.

What's frustrating about these items is that I could see both how to fix them and how they just weren't fixed. Like…

The game loads fine when it's one large horizontal map. The loading issues come into play with more multi-roomed environments like homes, dungeons, and towns. Other games work around this by having multiple chunks on one map, then teleporting the player around as they enter and exit spaces. Or, hell, implement a visibility flag and turn that on/off as needed. Could the maps not be congealed, for some reason? Couldn't someone at least give the player a loading screen so I’m not sitting there wondering if my PlayStation 2 is having optical drive issues?

The audio volume multiplier is a weird event where a single sound is being played many times, usually when multiple of the same attacks or spells land at once. All that requires to fix, theoretically, would be implementing a volume maximum to not be played over, then making that volume be whatever the default value for the base sound is.

I saw the save erasing bug happen a whopping 3 times over 40 hours of gameplay, and I had been rotating my saves like a good girl. So, it wasn't something I couldn't recover from. But, holy shit. No. Absolutely not. That could have been real bad. Like, I can only guess what's happening here, but it seems like a file is being purposefully deleted before some new file is written in its place (as opposed to some file updating process) and that the writing process subsequently screws up. This would prevent bad progress flags from being recorded, I suppose, but the opposing situation of losing an entire damn file isn't pleasant, either.

Considering how much dicking around the publishers asked for in getting this game on the PlayStation 2, I'm going to assume that they're also to blame for these issues getting out. As in, "Well, we've got to ship this by October!" and wham! Bugs pressed.

Even with all of the quirks to the game, it's not the hardest RPG to get through. About the roughest time I had was with Big Bull, and the troubles there involved dealing with Ari dying in two hits and Kisling just generally being unhelpful. Honestly, most of the problems in the game can be solved by ganging up on weak enemies and having a dedicated healing item spammer. (Healing items are super cheap, so might as well cram as many as you can in your pockets!) The rest is just talking to as many people as you can and reading as many signs as possible.

Also, here. Just take this video guide on gear locations. Life is short; don't trouble yourself with something as silly as gear hunting blindly. (At least it's not as silly of a side quest as dodging lightning 100 times or learning a new sport!)

I feel a little bad for coming down on "Okage" as hard as I did at the end. It's funny, thought provoking, and respectful of the player's time. For as fresh and different as it is, I'd play this over several contemporary members of its library. But, for some of its quirks, it does require a little patience. You've just got to know whether or not you've got that on hand.

Frankly, for its price, "Okage: Shadow King" is quite the bargain, too. Hell, it's even available on the PlayStation store! Can't argue with the fair distribution it has in a modern market.

And, hey! Now I know more about JG's icon! So, it's always nice to have some additional context, especially when characters and stories are important to your friends. But, I do have to wonder how Rosalyn won over Stan for that place of honor. I mean, other than by being classified as a hero.

Then again, it might be a little disturbing being followed by something like this online.

#post game evaluation #okage: shadow king #okage shadow king #minor ending jumpscare?

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talesfromthebacklog · 1 year ago

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Tales From The Backlog: Cult Of The Lamb

7/10

I bought this a few months back after I saw Mashed's very cute (and a little morbid) "Cult Of The Lamb" animation.

Cult Of The Lamb is an interesting franchise. It's so cute and yet has a great sense of crass humor. I put about 22 hours into this title and finished the game. (As well as got the DLC and finished some of the small side missions offered in game.)

It's a short romp but a good one nonetheless. Your own character motivation is very murky. You've been wronged, but have an opportunity to do a great deal of hurt in return. You're able to choose how benevolent (or malevolent) your cult becomes. I mostly stuck with the positive options because the villagers were ultimately so cute. (Though design wise I think the lamb is the cutest.)

The game is good but is financially broken quickly. Once you unlock the fishing ritual; kiss your money troubles goodbye. For a majority of my playthrough I wanted for nothing. This made the cult management part of the game a breeze which is a double edged sword. As I'm the kind of player where once I've started achieving things with too much ease I start to get bored. I don't want to struggle the whole game but I also broke it too quickly. (I picked up Rune Factory 3 Special in September which had a similar problem. I was 2/3rds through the game with $400,000 and had just finished year 1 summer in a few days. Not all games have to be long. I don't want this to be a long experience nor do I appreciate extending the game through empty grinding. I simply want the resources to be a touch more balanced.)

Don't get that complaint twisted, the cult management is fun. Though if they make any more of this game in the future I'd like to see some mechanics swapped for others. And maybe one or two more things to do. The villagers are great. I love how they defect, I like that they're dumb as rocks, it's cute you can customize each one. I kinda wish my marriage spouse had a special outfit to match you though. I want to see my spouse wear a special fleece or flower crown.

While it has good presentation I found the game likes to crash (and lag) a lot. Especially in-between transitions and loading screens. While those things aren't necessarily a game ruiner for me, I am surprised those problems haven't been patched out in the year-ish its been out. Its saving grace is its rigorous auto-save. Which does help make the problem more ignorable. But it is scary going through dungeons sometimes when that load screen takes jussssst a little too long and you're so close to the end with a bunch of good loot.

Okay? But what about the rogue-like portion of the game?:

You see a lot of bones of other games in Cult of The Lamb. Some I like. Some I don't. It mostly reminds me of The Binding of Isaac in terms of themes and gameplay. (A game I like aesthetically but don't like to play. Which in contrast I prefer Cult of The Lamb as it gives a break from its dungeon crawling and provides the dungeon crawling in shorter bursts. Binding is built well, but too long winded for my taste.) Also Stardew Valley. That fishing game was awfully familiar! Lol.

My main complaint is how I constantly seem to ONLY get my least favorite weapon of the game, the hammer. As a speedy player it's atrocious to play. Exiting/dying/finishing the dungeon and then coming back doesn't seem to fix my problem either. I keep getting the slow hammers. And I can play with them effectively... But they aren't fucking fun. Weapons just don't seem to have even distribution. I like the axe and the dagger damn it. It'd be less of a headache if weapon replacements appeared more frequently but the game seems to prefer ONLY giving me multiple curse/relic choices over multiple weapon choices. I've only ever seen the gloves appear two or three times in my playthrough and I was in the dungeons constantly.

I love how in a Cult of The Lamb dungeon romp the game gives you an option to play a dungeon as long or short as you like (Once you've beaten an area). The resource collecting is also fun and I like destroying the environments. And while I didn't use it, it was a nice touch that it allows players to turn off time progression in dungeons.

Other than that it's pretty standard fare. If you're good at these games you darn near don't need the curses and relics. Especially after you've racked up your tarot card deck. The tarot cards are arguably my favorite part of the dungeon sequences. They are small, decently substantial rewards for thoroughly exploring dungeons that give you some pretty fun boosts. Especially once you get multiple cards those boosts really start to add up and make you feel powerful. This paired with the "fleece" you choose to wear makes for a good time. The golden fleece was solidly my favorite of the lot.

The enemy variety is small but fun. I like the bosses. The fourth boss in particular I actually felt bad for to some degree. Learning more of the limited lore that is provided is satisfying. It's paced nicely too. And it is not lost on the game how hypocritical your own crusade is in your quest for freedom.

Overall this was a good experience and one I might come back to in a few years.

...

I am definitely getting some of their merch though the lamb is so stinking CUTE.

#cult of the lamb #tales from the backlog #narinder #devolver digital #gaming #gamer #video games #video game review #review #Nintendo switch #playstation #nintendo #playstation 5 #TFTB #the one who waits

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