#HE'S SO MENACING AND SCARY... AND HIS MODEL IS AMAZING

[just-bendy]

Here is my surprise that I had planned 1 month ago, The Ink Amalgamation!

This was a big challenge it wasn't easy at all to make the model, it took me 1 month and a half to finish it. I hope you like my little gift.

Here's some behind the scenes and sorry for the long "ask".

(( WHAT!!??? WOW!! OMG

THIS IS SO COOL!!?? NO SORRY THIS IS AMAZING!! IT;S THE BIG BAD,,, THE BIG GOOP MOSNSTER,,, AAAHH I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU MADE SOMETHING SO COOL OUT OF A MESSY DRAWING!! 😭😭😭💕💕💕💕👀👀👀👀👀👀😍😍😍🤩 HE'S SO SCARY,, 😱WOW THIS IS JUST SO WELL MADE AND KJDHASAD

thank you so much!!! this is so cool and i'm so honored that you spent time on making this for me 😭💕💜very appreciate it! this came out amazing!! i love it so much! thank you again for putting so much effort and dedication into making him!! i will save this forever! 🤩✨ and the behind the scenes is so cool! i don't know anything about making 3D models but it's so interesting to look at! ))

[goodgirlofglory]

A successful trial run/ One-shot

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader

Word count: 9,2k

Warnings: Explicit sexual content, explicit language, smut, making out, nipple-play, dry-humping, coming in pants hehe, me making up a lot of unconvincing sciency talk about tech and engineering and whatnot.

Summary: As a newly recruited scientist in the royal technical institute of Wakanda, your first task involves a certain Winter Soldier fresh out of cryostasis and in need of a new arm. Intrigued by his mysterious figure since forever, you’re brimming with fascination over the subject. Little did you anticipate capturing his eye in return. 

Note: This takes place somewhere between Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Avengers Infinity War. Kinda wanted to write something from the time Bucky spent in Wakanda. I enjoyed writing this one, hope you enjoy reading it😘 Likes, replies and reblogs are amazing. Luv you guys, you are the best, i am always so grateful and excited to receive all your feedback💕💕🦋

The first time the Winter Soldier entered the lab, he was flanked by the entire Dora Milaje and led by the king himself. Apart from the usual ceremony of greeting the king and his guest of honor, no one seemed jittered nor particularly preoccupied with the new project - or its primary subject. The engineers, scientists and technicians of the royal technical institute and Wakandan Design group were used to making much more extravagant and complicated designs than a prosthetic arm. 

It was a regular Tuesday for everyone - except you, that was. Extraordinarily gifted from a young age, you had quickly advanced and surpassed your peers and even superiors in your studies at the university of the capitol. Subsequently, you were the youngest person in the lab - apart from princess Shuri herself. 

And you were almost jumping out of your skin with excitement at having the Winter Soldier as your very first test subject. Or rather, you were on the team that was to build his next vibranium arm. You’d read all about him and watched all the news over the years, but you had started working in the lab after he’d been brought to Wakanda and put in cryostasis, so you’d never actually seen him in the flesh. Now he was out of cryo for rehabilitation and with that came the need for a new arm. Shuri had picked the team herself, and to your utter surprise, chosen you as a part of it. 

Your task was fairly simple: organize and execute the fitting of the prosthetic prototypes with the subject himself, take notes and report to the team whatever adjustments the soldier would prefer. The others would do most of the engineering, creative modeling and building - the more prestigious work. You didn’t really care that your tasks were relatively simple and low level though - it was an amazing learning experience for a newbie like you. Plus, it meant you were the primary contact person for the soldier himself, which had you flushing hot for both professional and decidedly less professional reasons. 

The soldier was an enigma; lethal chaos and extreme discipline spliced inside the body of what was once a regular American. His mythos was both intriguingly detailed and all at once a mystery - a sort of dangerous puzzle you couldn’t help but be drawn to like a moth to a flame. Everything he had lived and experienced and represented was so very very far from your own safe and mundane world. It wasn’t that growing up in Wakanda had been boring per se, but everything was just so… perfect, and despite yourself, you were drawn to the Winter Soldier and the extraordinary case of his unusual life. And from the moment you’d laid eyes on him, you knew you were out of your depth. 

He was beautiful - in a rugged, unpolished sort of way; raw and hauntingly real, he only seemed to move when it served the explicit purpose of his visit. Otherwise, he stood still as a statue. He had an air of mystery to him, but despite his huge, menacing and burly form, he wasn’t scary. His eyes were soft, the babiest of blue, his stubble revealed tiny streaks of silver, and his hair, though washed and groomed, had a consistently shaggy look to it that made him seem…human. Just another regular white guy to everyone else in the lab - the most intriguing person in Wakanda to you. 

Along with the king, the soldier had silently shaken the hand of everyone on the team, looking them in the eyes with a polite, though quite stoic expression that betrayed nothing of what was happening on the inside. You’d stared at him as he'd made his way down the line, scrutinized every inch of his face, trying to gauge the tiniest twitch of muscle, any indication or hint of emotion - to your utter astonishment, you could see nothing. Then he'd reached where you stood at the end of the line of team members, and your heart'd kicked into a sprint at the way he suddenly loomed before you in all his muscled, mystical and deadly glory. Holy shit, he was huge, surely a foot taller than you, with the most obscenely broad shoulders and thighs that bulged in a way that had your mouth going dry.

Get yourself together! Stop ogling the subject!, you had admonished yourself harshly.

By the time you got back in contact with your body and reached a hand out to him, your palms were sweaty and your face hot. And then, as he engulfed your hand in his pale, calloused one, hot like a multilayered sonic solar panel during july, you thought you saw a muscle near his eye twitch, catching your gaze the same way his eyes did a moment later when they glinted with something suspiciously alike curiosity, a flashing moment of undivided interest that had you flushing even hotter. 

Oh yeah, you were in big, big trouble. 

§

Three months later you no longer broke out in panicked sweating whenever Barnes came in for a fitting (most of the time). You’d had a total of four meetings so far, all of which had been professional, short and silent. Barnes hadn’t spoken more than a few words to you in all your time together in the lab, and none of them of much importance.

("Here?" he'd asked that first fitting when you’d asked him to take a seat on the surgical bench. 

"No" he'd said when you asked if the new fastenings at his shoulder were uncomfortable.

"Yes", he'd said when you’d asked if the first prototype arm was lighter than what he was used to.

Other than that, the winter soldier mostly communicated in grunts, nods and shakes of his head.)

The hiss of the sliding door alerted you to his arrival as you were readying the newest prototype for the fitting, and just like always, the door was the only sound even hinting at his presence. He was impossibly silent for a guy his size. 

“Sit down, please, I’ll be ready in a moment,” you threw over your shoulder, keeping your eyes on the clasps you would try on the shoulder today. 

When he didn’t answer and you could hear no sound of the shifting padding on the surgical bench, you threw a look over your shoulder and froze. 

Barnes stood by the bench, his one flesh arm raised high, fingers adjusting something on the…bun on the back of his head. His…bun of…gorgeous, thick locks of shaggy brown hair. You gulped, a tingling sensation of adrenaline starting to well up in your chest. He hadn’t worn his hair like that before, at least not around you, and man were you a sucker for a nice hair do on a man. Combined with this man it seemed to be suddenly and quite effectively lethal. His locks were collected and pulled away from his face, revealing high, chiseled cheekbones and a jawline that could cut diamonds and -

A screw fell out of your hand as your mind worked overtime to process the image before you, and then, so quickly you didn’t even see him move, the soldier was there, crouching at your feet, catching the screw before it could clink onto the floor. 

It felt like an eternity went by as you stared at his bent form slowly straighten up up up to his full height, the screw looking more like a grain of sand in his big, calloused and rough hand, his body so close you swore you could feel the warmth radiating off him. The lulling scent of fresh earth and spices filled your nose, taking you to luscious lands far away. 

You heard the hitch in your tiny, involuntary intake of air like a siren in a dead silent night, and your face blazed to a million fucking degrees, your heart galloping in your chest. Swallowing thickly, you looked up into his pale eyes - eyes that betrayed nothing in an equally neutral face. 

Fuckfuckfuck, he’s so close. Fuck, his eyes are so blue, shit, he smells good, is that freckles on his cheek bones - 

He held the screw out expectantly, and you mentally shook yourself for being so fucking slow. Stop ogling him! Take the screw! With fingers you were relieved to see didn’t tremble, you reached out and plucked it from his light grasp, furiously not hyperfocusing on where your skin grazed his. 

“Um,” you started, and painfully cleared your throat before trying again, cheeks burning, “t-thanks. Please, sit.”

He stayed unmoving for half a second longer than was strictly necessary, and then he turned and moved to sit on the surgical bench. 

Turning back to your table of tools, you took a few calming breaths, breathing as softly as you could in case the soldier could hear you (which he probably could quite well considering what you’d read about his enhanced body and senses.)

You turned back to find him watching you from a seated position on the bench, eyes following your movement as you walked up towards him, pulling your table behind you. You plastered on your best carefree smile and picked up the prototype vibranium arm, sleek black with silver accents, and like you always did, held it up so he could inspect it if he chose to. Like always, he didn’t seem remotely interested in the design. Only, he didn’t stare ahead out into the room like he usually did during these parts of the fittings. Instead his eyes remained on you, his form so fucking unmoving he could be a statue. You swallowed thickly, absurdly nervous. His scent still lingered in your mind. 

He’d removed his shirt, revealing the new shoulder prosthesis in the same black as the arm, fitted to mold over his scarred tissue and make a clean transition from steel to skin. Your eyes caught on the tiny sliver of golden, muscled skin peeking out from where his white t-shirt had been cut above the shoulder, and you quickly averted your gaze even as your mind started conjuring images of wide expanses of soft, golden skin under the tips of your fingers as you explored under rays of soft, morning sunlight. 

Why did he have to look so god damned good, with his stupid hair up in a stupid bun and stupid t-shirt that dared show even a square centimeter of his stupid skin, you thought perturbed as you started fitting the arm to the shoulder, hands working on autopilot while your mind frayed at the edges. 

All through the fitting, you felt his eyes linger on you, not staring per se, just…observing. Three times you peeked up from your work to catch his eyes on yours, and three times you hastily averted your gaze back, your cheeks heating anew, your heart picking up speed. He’d never done that before. He’d always just stared at the floor or the wall during his fittings, eyes vacant, seemingly far far away. He’d never been fully present, never watched you, very rarely met your eyes. It was what had kept your own visceral reactions to such a minimum you could easily manage them. But now, under his weighty gaze, your body started tingling all over, sweat gathering on your brow, your breathing going just slightly too fast. You didn’t know if it was excitement or some instinctive fight or flight-reflex kicking into gear. Why was he looking at you like that?

“There,” you said just a little too hastily when at last the final screw was in place. You retreated to the other side of the room under the guise of organizing your tools back into their rightful place on the wall. “Please test it out, feel how it fits, tell me how it feels,” you said with your back to him, reciting the instructions you always gave him during this part of the fitting. Usually, you observed him closely as he walked around the room, lifting the arm, flexing the fingers and grabbing at random objects to test grip and reactivity. Now it was all you could do to not flee the room all together due to how embarrassingly flustered you were. The fittings in themselves weren’t really necessary from an engineering perspective - the royal technical institute all but guaranteed the highest mark of quality and a near zero percent chance of faults. The fittings were more beneficial from a psychological point of view - to give the subject a smooth transitional introduction to their new limb. 

You heard him shuffling about for some time while you randomly moved tools and screws around your table while trying to collect and promptly ban all the inappropriate thoughts running wild in your head. It was so unprofessional to be affected like this! Sure, he was handsome (wildly so) but you couldn’t call yourself a proper scientist if you acted like this! It was disgraceful! Even as you scolded yourself for being this way around the poor, innocent hunk - SUBJECT - your mind flooded with the thoughts you tried so hard to keep at bay. What did his hair feel like sliding through your fingers? Did he always gaze so intently? What would those eyes look like in dark rooms surrounded by soft sheets? What would that new metal hand look like wrapped around your - 

The sound of a throat clearing had you yelping - for fuck’s sake, girl - and whipping around to find him right behind you, looking down at you with that expression that betrayed nothing. 

You stared up at him for a moment, heart thumping in your chest, stunned to silence by his clear initiation of contact, and then abruptly found your sense. 

“Does it feel right? Is anything uncomfortable or -”

Your words died out as he extended the vibranium hand between you. He let it hover there, hand straight, expectant. You stared for a moment, and then praised yourself for daring to reach your own hand out to clasp his, a bit unused to the flip to using your left hand to shake his, hoping to God this was what he was getting at and that you didn’t just make a fool of yourself. 

Your interpretation was correct, and the smooth, slightly cold metal closed around you, dwarfing your hand. The soldier squeezed your fingers and then shook your hand a bit stiffly a couple of times before stilling. You gulped, acutely aware of your heartbeat running a gallop in your chest, the silence around you so severe you could hear your own breathing like a wind tunnel. The feel of the vibranium, so alive in this form and shape, squeezing your fingers in a firm, unyielding grip had new, strange sensations slowly trickling south, and you fought the instinct to clench your thighs as unwelcome heat pooled in your lower stomach. Mortified by your own, inappropriate and decidedly unprofessional reaction, you hoped to all the dead kings and Bast herself that the soldier didn’t notice. Disturbingly, there came no sound from the soldier, not even from his breathing. 

After a moment of nothing happening, the both of you just standing there, clasping hands, you dared a peek up at his face. He was watching you again, but instead of pale, dead eyes, the blue of his irises simmered with something…something hot and wicked and - 

You abruptly pulled your hand out of his grasp, and gave him a far too fake gleeful smile. “Good grip,” you jipped, voice coming out far too strained and shrill to be casual. Barnes looked at you with those captivating eyes for a moment longer before looking down at his vibranium hand, flexing the fingers a little. 

“It’s perfect,” he said. 

It took you a moment to register the words, and then elation swept through you. You smiled and clapped your hands together and spun to go note his comment down.  “How wonderful, I’m so glad,” you said, not able to keep the excitement out of your voice.  A happy subject meant you’d fulfilled your task! The project could move onto its final stages of rendering and documentation. Happy progress!  You scribbled down some fast notes on the screws and fastenings, how he’d tested grip by shaking your hands and his own feedback, putting his exact words down as a quote. 

“The team will be so happy to learn you’re satisfied, they talked so much about the latest updates on the interface between sensory input and mechanical automobility - they wouldn’t shut up about it for days, I swear to Bast,” you said, the words falling out of your mouth in your excitement, and then you turned back towards him and again fell silent. 

He was staring at you, and for the first time, you could actually detect emotions on his face. He looked…dumbfounded, or something akin to that, watching you with avid eyes, mouth slightly open and brows for once out of their trademark downturned frown. You were stunned yourself for a moment seeing him so out of character, and then you promptly lowered your gaze. 

Oh great, first you’re fumbling and awkward and then you start rambling like a lunatic. What is wrong with you?, you asked yourself silently.  You cleared your throat and motioned for him to sit back on the bench. He obliged, and you found yourself slightly disappointed to see him schooling away his emotion behind the stoic mask. 

“So, I’ll have to take the arm off so it can be finalized, and then you’ll just have to have it fastened a final time, and then you’ll have your arm, Mr. Barnes,” you said as you got to work unscrewing and removing the prosthetic limb. He nodded, eyes glued to you like before. He didn’t seem happy, or if he was, he didn’t show it. You hoped he’d feel elated like you did, but considered how the whole metal arm thing might still be a little complicated for him. You wondered if he was going to a therapist, or a support group or anything. You didn’t dare ask, though. “I imagine the finalizing process won’t take much more than two weeks. I’ll send you a suggestion for the next appointment once it’s clear, and you can confirm using your compad like before. Sound good?” you asked, thankful you could keep a clear head through this part at least. 

“Yes,” he said, still watching your eyes as you removed the arm and returned it to the table. You nodded to him, and managed to stay upright until the door hissed shut behind him as he left. Then you curled into a mortified little ball and hid your flaming face in your hands. 

§

Fucking. Great. 

Your heart had been hammering harder for every mile that passed as your cruiser made its way into the heart of the Wakandan landscape. The prosthetic arm had been finalized within a couple of days and your superiors thought the best course of action was sending you out to fasten it instead of demanding Barnes make his way into the capitol on such short notice. Which meant you were on your way to his home, to be completely alone with him…in his home.   

Part of you was insatiably curious to see how he lived, to peer into such a private, revealing place. Everyone knew seeing how a person lived was like seeing a reflection of their soul. Your apartment for instance, was a hot fucking mess, but one you could navigate perfectly. You hadn’t allowed yourself to picture Barnes’s home, though, or make any assumptions. How he lived was of no scientific interest, and therefore no interest to you! Or so you told yourself, at least…

It’s fine. Everything is fine, you chanted in your head as the cruiser arrived at its destination, the small hut Barnes had been gifted as his indefinite residence. It was a beautiful place to keep a residence, right by the river, the surrounding trees providing plenty of shade from the hot sun and a gorgeous view over the plains. It only made you more curious about Barnes, and subsequently, more furious with yourself. 

Everything is fine. 

As you shut the motor down and climbed out of the vehicle, his large, burly figure emerged from the hut, and a spike of energy went off inside you as you locked eyes with Barnes. He was as stoic as ever, but he walked up to meet you right away and surprised you when he reached to grab the case with the arm in it to carry it for you. 

“Hi,” you said, and quickly added, “um, thanks for being available at such a short notice.” 

You’d felt kinda foolish for giving such a roomy deadline prognosis at his last fitting only for it to take a few days, and were sweating with the hope it hadn’t inconvenienced him in any way. There was a whole delicate, psychological process involved in getting a new limb - a process one shouldn’t meddle too much in - especially when there was significant trauma involved in losing the original limb. Fuck, you were so nervous.

He looked a bit puzzled for a moment, brows drawn down in consideration. 

“No. Thank you for coming all this way,” he said a bit haltingly, and to your astonishment, he sounded almost as unsure of himself as you felt. Uncomfortable warmth spread in your chest. That must have been the longest sentence he’d ever spoken to you. His voice was low and gruff, a smooth rumble that seemed to vibrate through the ground, across to you and straight into your chest. Fuuck, how were you supposed to survive that voice, and with him being uncharacteristically timid and polite?

Suddenly you felt like laughing. Here you were, both of you so awkward and unsure, and what for? This was a joyous occasion, for Bast's sake, and you were being silly! Forcing your nerves down, you leveled him with a smile. 

“Not at all. Let’s get that arm on, shall we?” you said, letting your actual excitement for the happening fill you instead. You were after all, genuinely excited to finally give Barnes his new prosthetic limb, and see him back to full mobility. 

He stared at you for a moment, his eyes fluttering around your face, and then abruptly stepped aside and gestured for you to proceed him into the hut. You obliged, holding your spirits high as you dared venture past the curtain and inside the hut. 

Barnes’s home was sparsely furnished but…surprisingly cozy. Brightly coloured pillows, blankets and tapestries lay everywhere, a window to the right letting in the bright, midday sun, casting a glowing light on everything. You recognised the patterns and color scheme from your own parents and grandparents houses, it was a traditional home in all senses of the words. You’d think Barnes would stick out like a sore thumb here, but really, he seemed to fit in well. There was a low table to the left with stacks of books and a mug on it, surrounded by more pillows and blankets. Your eyes caught on and swiftly ignored the cot at the back of the hut, made perfectly with a mountain of pillows. 

That’s where he sleeps. That’s where he rests. That’s where he’s most vulnerable. That’s where you would lay if he - NO!

Barnes squeezed around you where you stood just inside the entrance studying the space, and you quite viscerally realized how small the hut was for the two of you, how small it was for him alone really. This was gonna be way more tight and intimate than the lab, you thought with a mix of excitement and trepidation.

Barnes put the case down by the low table and proceeded to start clearing the table of books and pens and the mug. He looked down into the mug and then over at you. 

“Coffee?” he asked, and taken aback by the unexpected question, you shook your head quickly before immediately regretting it. It would’ve been more polite to accept, and you did feel a bit strung out by your morning so far. 

Barnes nodded in response, and then seemed at a loss, turning the mug in his hand. Was he��fidgeting? 

“Where do you -?” he started, and you cut him off. 

“Right there is fine. We can sit on the floor, no problem,” you said reassuringly, giving him another smile, suddenly filled with sweetness for this big hulk of a man and his nervous fidgeting. He nodded and proceeded to plump down where you assumed he normally sat. You quelled a smile at how normalcy seemed to bleed through even this exceedingly awkward situation, and was kind of enamored by the way Barnes seemed to relax once he was seated in his usual spot. It gave you the impression that this space was a comfort to him, which you were glad to see. 

You neared and sat down on your knees at his side, opening the case and swiftly taking out everything you needed as he took off his shirt to reveal the same t-shirt he used to wear underneath, sleeveless on the left side. Without further ado, you started the process of permanently fastening the arm. You slipped into a calm concentration as you worked, the familiarity and comfort of your skills calming you, a comfortable silence descending upon you both, only interrupted by the sounds of your electric screwdriver. The whole thing took no longer than ten minutes, and then you sat back and looked upon Barnes in silence as he took in his new arm, knowing it was finally, and wholly, his. 

He stared down at it for a long while, and then the hut was filled with sounds of gentle, almost silent whirring as he started flexing mechanical muscles, then fingers, then the whole arm, lifting it to examine and compare to his other arm, running them both through his loose hair and picking up different items on his table and tossing them lightly from hand to hand. He seemed completely engrossed, and for long minutes it seemed almost like he’d forgotten you were even there as he explored his new arm. 

It was awe-inspiring to see, to be allowed to observe such a vulnerable moment, to witness him seemingly letting himself really connect to this new possibility of having two arms and two hands again, in a way he hadn’t even seemed to entertain while in the fittings. It touched something deep inside you, witnessing with honor what you hoped might be a moment of healing, and tears pricked the back of your eyes. It felt so incredibly moving to be part of a team that could give something like this to a person who’d been through so much hardship, and the feeling filled you, making you feel all warm. This was why you’d gotten into this field, this was why you wanted to be a scientist. To be able to help people recover precious things lost. 

Your heart swelled with emotion, and then Barnes looked at you, his own astonished joy blasted clear across his face, completely unencumbered, letting you see it without any pretense or facades. Your breath caught in your throat at the sheer volume of his joy, and how intimate him sharing it so openly with you was. You were stunned. 

And then you kissed him. 

One moment you were looking at his broad smile full of slightly crooked, white teeth, and then you’d leaned across your own knees and half across his and unceremoniously pressed your lips to his. It was closed-mouthed and a bit off-center, your bottom lip caught awkwardly on his top one. But sparks crackled through your body all the same as you felt how soft his lips were, how warm his skin was, the slightly surprised gust of warm, gentle air from his nostrils. 

And then your senses kicked in, mortification hot on their heels, and you broke the kiss abruptly, all but ready to flee the hut. You didn’t get the chance to move away though, before cool metal fingers slid up the sensitive skin of your throat and back to cup your neck, gently, but firmly pulling you right back into the kiss.

A fire caught in your loins, sizzling hot sparks shooting up your body and you drew in a shaky breath through your nose only for the air to be caught in your throat, making a small, needy, desperately embarrassing sound. The metal fingers on your neck tightened at the sound. 

You felt completely blown off your center. Nothing had felt this good before, nothing in your whole, perfect life full of joys and pleasures and fulfillment had felt so sensationally good as James Buchanan Barnes's lips on yours while his brand new prosthetic hand cradled your neck.

The surge of desire that welled from that feeling propelled you to buck forward and crawl into his laps, straddling him with even more clumsy frenzy as you kissed him again. He answered in kind, his flesh hand landing tentatively on your hip before moving up your back to pull you tighter against him once he seemingly caught on to the fact that you were there in his lap of your own fruition. 

You kissed again and again, hungry, exploring, closed-mouthed but growing more desperate, more daring. You opened your mouth to catch your breath and was met by the shy swipe of his tongue just inside your mouth, and your whole body shuddered at the sensation before you wrapped your arms around his neck and swiped your own tongue to meet his. 

A growl came out of nowhere and exploded in Barnes’s chest as you tongue-kissed him with everything you had, and then the world was spinning, and your back hit the brightly earth-coloured rug. Barnes followed you closely, and laid down on top of you, pinning you down with his huge, burly body, claiming your mouth in an honest-to-Bast breath-taking kiss. 

It was explosively good, this gorgeous, muscled beast of a man pinning you to the ground, broad shoulders shielding you from everything above, leaning on his elbows while his hands cradled your face, holding you perfectly still as his mouth descended upon yours again and again, growing hungrier with every kiss. Your mind whirled with images of his metal arm wrapping around your throat, pinning you down, tearing your clothes to shreds and holding you put exactly where he wanted while the soldier ravished you, and it became even harder to pull air into your flaming lungs. You heard yourself whimpering into the kisses, your own desperation growing like a galloping crescendo inside you. You were suddenly, unexpectedly, and totally irrationally ready for him to tear your clothes off and take you right there on the floor of his hut, heat flaming in your lower stomach, a molten ache starting to let itself be known between your legs, everything else in the world be damned and forgotten if you could just feel him ins - 

A small beeping sound cut through the fog of desire overtaking you, and it took you a moment for your melting brain to recognise it as your pager. You wrenched out of the kiss and put your hands on Barnes’s broad, warm chest, feeling his strong heartbeat jackhammer beneath the layers of clothes and flesh. His lips followed you for a split second, his eyes opening to slits in order to find you again. Then, as he realized you’d intentionally ended the kiss, he immediately let you push him half-way off you to fish the pager out of your pocket. It was your boss, they needed you back by lunch. 

Fuck

Fuck, what the fuck were you doing? It dawned on you the incredibly inappropriate situation you were in, had put yourself and Barnes in. This was reckless and rash and completely not who you were or had ever been. With anyone! No, no, no, this was bad, you were so fucking stupid. You couldn’t bring yourself to meet his eyes as you pushed him gently all the way off you to sit back on his haunches and swiftly extracted yourself from under him and got to your feet. 

You were mortified, absolutely mortified, shame and embarrassment and guilt washing over you in tidal waves, slamming into your chest. 

“I’m so sorry, that was so…um…I have to go, but er, enjoy your hand - ARM and hand,” you sputtered out as you began fleeing the hut all together. Then you remembered what you were supposed to say upon leaving, and turned while halfway out the door, “If you have any trouble or complications, don’t hesitate to contact the institute. On behalf of the technical institute and design group, we hope you will be pleased with the product. Um, bye!”

Barnes remained in the same seated position on the floor while you made your stumbling exit, and you missed the look of longing in his eyes as you left. 

§

A week passed while you marinated in your own embarrassment and guilt, trying and failing to get the whole incident in the hut out of your mind. Partly because it was the most unprofessional and out-of-control thing you’d ever done, and partly because you just couldn’t get the memory of Barnes’s lips out of your head. The warmth emanating from him like a furnace, the way his hands gripped you gently, but possessively, the thrill that had gone through you when he flipped you and pinned you to the floor like you were nothing more than a rag doll. Had he been as turned on as you? Had he enjoyed himself? Surely he’d enjoyed it a little bit with the way he’d reciprocated, but had he really wanted it?

You shook yourself out of your daydream for probably the dozenth time that day, not a single word written on the personal essay you were to turn in with your other documentation in a couple of days. Fuuuck, this was so bad, you had to be able to focus and put this from your mind! If you were lucky and if everything went as it should with the prosthetic, Barnes would have no reason to contact the institute and seek you out ever again, and you would never have to see him again after your blunder. 

The project would be over soon, you would move on to new ones and the one tether you had to Barnes would be severed. It was best for everyone if you just forgot the whole thing. 

Except, in your panicked flight from his home, you’d completely forgotten the case that had contained the prosthetic arm, along with some screws and your most beloved screwdriver. You hadn’t even noticed it was left behind until you were halfway back to the lab, and had been completely at a loss on what to do. You couldn’t go back after the way you’d left, but you couldn’t just leave it either. The equipment wasn’t of that much value and the lab had plenty more, so that wasn’t the greatest issue. But you loved that screwdriver, and felt it as an obligation to retrieve it. Plus, it wasn’t fair to just leave it there, in Barnes’s home, what use did he have of it? Still, you couldn’t bear the thought of going back after the way you’d left….

Your head thumped down onto the workbench at the back of your lab. You were spiraling down the rabbit hole of warring thoughts for the upteenth time that day and was about to hurl something at the wall when the clearing of a throat came out of nowhere. 

Whipping your head up, you practically leapt from your chair when you saw Barnes standing  in the middle of your lab, clad in light pants and a loose-fitting half-sleeved shirt, completely unexpected, looking exceedingly unsure of himself (...and obscenely gorgeous)

Your immediate thought went to his arm, but as far as you could see, it was still intact and working perfectly from the way he clenched and unclenched the vibranium hand at his side. Then your eyes slipped to his other hand, and saw the case he held in it. 

“I, um, hello, I thought you might like this back,” he said, looking down and holding out the hand with the case. You immediately walked up to him and took it. 

“Thank you! So much, you didn’t have to come all this way just for that,” you rushed to say, feeling sheepish and grateful at the same time. 

“Oh no, I, uh…I…I have some errands in the… uh, the city and whatnot,” he said, and you almost smiled a little at the way he suddenly fumbled for words. Was this even the same guy that had pinned you to the floor and ravished your mouth a week ago? The same guy that had walked into the lab that first day, all menacing silence and calculated movement.

“Oh, okay, well, this was really nice of you, thank you again. Um, what did you say to the guards to get in here?” you asked, suddenly remembering the levels of clearing he had to go through to get here. Did he tell the truth? Would your superiors know you forgot the case? That you’d made a fool of yourself and made the whole institute look chaotic and unprofessional?

“I told them I had some more questions about the arm, and that I wanted to speak with you since you’re so knowledgeable and good at your job,” Barnes said, waving his metal hand in the air a little as if to show you it was indeed made of vibranium. 

He’d protected you? Kept your secret? A warm sense of giddyness spread through you, and you bit your lip to keep from smiling to broadly. 

“God, you didn’t have to tell them all that,” you said, feeling warmth bloom on your cheeks from his compliments. 

“I meant it, though,” he said seriously, and then he took a step towards you, “And I wanted to, needed to apologize…for what happened at my house…last week.”

Your heart surged in your chest and you couldn’t bear to meet his eyes. Apologize? What could he have to apologize for? You were the one who’d acted out of line. Did he regret what’d happened? What if you’d overstepped his boundaries and added more to his trauma?

“No, no, please, I’m the one who should apologize here. It was completely unprofessional to do that when I was working on a project with you, and so inappropriate to force myself upon you like that, all in this emotional moment and without knowing if you’d enjoy it or -”

“I enjoyed it,” he interrupted, voice clear and strong.

You looked up to find him another step closer. So big, and strong, and handsome, your insatiable desire whispered to you as he gazed down into your eyes, only inches between you. You wanted to kiss him again suddenly, your lips tingled with it. 

“You did?” you asked, only half paying attention as you lost yourself in his heavenly baby blue eyes, framed by thick lashes paled by the sun. Your eyes flicked down to his full lips, and when they went back to his eyes, they glinted with a spark of that same ferociousness that’d awakened in him on that floor in his hut. A glint that had your lower stomach going all molten. 

He nodded, breathing a little laugh that surprised you. Your heart started soaring in your chest despite your best efforts to keep from getting ahead of yourself. 

“Yeah,” he breathed, swallowing and licking his lips, “a lot. I, uh, I was really sorry to see you leave so abruptly too  - before I could speak with you,” he said. 

Arousal welled up in your body, and you felt a little dizzy all of a sudden. He’d enjoyed it…

“Me too,” you whispered, not trusting your voice not to crack. 

He took a final, tiny step closer, too close for any kind of professionalism or even decency, really, so close you could almost sense the atoms sparking to life in the tiny space between your bodies. Just like that, you were back in his hut, the moment swelling to level with the heavy, sizzling churn of when he'd flipped you to the carpet and caged you in underneath him. He had such a presence, his body thrumming with life and power and fuck, you wanted it on top of you. Again. 

“I’m relieved to hear that. And,” he said, slowly reaching his flesh hand to tentatively cup your neck, hot and possessive in one, tender gesture, his calloused thumb coming up to stroke over your jaw, the intimate touch sending fireworks through your nervous system, ”though I don’t want to disrespect your work ethic, I’d like to point out that we’re not working on the same project anymore, so if you’d like to -”

The case hit the floor with a loud bang the moment you wrapped your arms around Barnes’s neck and threw yourself into his arms, your lips meeting in a sizzling kiss. Barnes caught you around the waist and hauled you up into his arms, your feet dangling off the ground as he crushed you to his chest, returning the kiss tenfold. 

His tongue was immediately in your mouth this time, licking hot and wet and dominatingly over your own, and you whimpered at the sheer intensity, the way it blazed to a fire in your loins.

You clung to him like your life depended on it, and moaned into his mouth as you felt him turn and lower you to the bench in the lab, not letting much space get in between you before he draped himself over you and continued putting his mouth to yours. Your hands found their agency and started moving, mapping out his shoulders, feeling the muscle ripple under your fingertips as you caressed down his chest and around his sides to stroke his long, chiseled back.

His loose cotton shirt rode up as he moved to step further in between your opening legs, pressing himself closer, and your hands were unable to resist the pull as your fingers met the hot flesh of his lower back, stroking over silky smooth skin up again under his shirt. 

His whole body shuddered against you, a small gasp emanating from him as he broke the kiss, and your excitement went through the roof. You opened your eyes and stared at his expression going lax, eyes closing and mouth hanging slightly open as you continued your caress up his back. You hooked your hands over his shoulder and pulled him down to you again, nibbling on his lip before kissing his open mouth, your fingertips dancing in swirling patterns down his back. 

His body shuddered again. 

“Oh my god,” he whispered a little breathlessly against your mouth, mostly to himself it seemed, and your discovery made you almost feverish with desire. 

He was sensitive, and probably more than a little touch-starved. 

You brought your hands forward and found the top button on his shirt, staring to undo it as you breathed into each other's mouths. You’d gotten to the third one when Barnes gave a (admittedly adorable) little huff of impatience and pulled free to wrench his shirt over his head, revealing a sculpted torso right out of your wettest dream. You had to take a moment just to stare at him, hard abs, flat stomach, pecs that stretched into rounded, muscled, obscenely broad shoulders. Tight, sculpted muscles that shone in the dimmed, bluish fluorescents of the ceiling lights, one muscled arm with prominent veins running down to a calloused hand, one arm reflecting the lights in shiny, sculpted, black vibranium.

His chest rose and fell with his labored breath, his abs flexing, the muscles of his torso and arms tensing and shifting as he stood before you and it was just so different from the statuesque, almost frugal way he’d moved before, when he only exerted energy at the utmost importance. This man was alive in a completely different way. And he was looking at you like he wanted to devour you. 

You’d barely raked your eyes up to his and caught the feral glint in his eyes before he was on you again, ripping your lab coat open and sliding his hands up and down your sides. His touch sent shivers of warmth through you and you moaned into his mouth as he kissed you. That only seemed to spur him on. When his hands slid under the cotton sweater you wore, exploring the folds and dips of your abdomen, you shuddered. He was touching you like he hadn’t touched anyone before, all curious and explorative with just the hint of inexperienced clumsiness, fingers curious for such a mundane thing as the fold of skin over your ribcage as you lay there crouched beneath him. 

Bast, you needed more, his touch sending you into a frenzy. You wanted him, all of him. 

You started awkwardly extracting your arms from your lab coat, and when Barnes caught on, he was more than willing to help you shed it before his fingers went to the hem of your sweater. He paused then, and looked into your eyes for permission. You nodded, a bit eagerly perhaps, but whatever. 

He slowly slid the fabric of your sweater up your torso, and in a move more gentle than you’d anticipated from the way he removed his own clothes, he bent down and tentatively kissed your stomach - right on your tummy, soft kisses following the fabric up. It stole your breath away as you watched the movement avidly. 

He pushed the fabric all the way up over your bra, and reached with a curious hand to tug the cup down, revealing a hardened nipple. You were nearly shaking with want at this point, and shuddered embarrassingly hard when he took the nipple in his mouth and swiped his hot, wet tongue on it, nibbling gently and curiously with his teeth until you shuddered again.

You let your hands wander and found his hair, finally, finally getting to feel the soft, straight locks of hair sift through them, basking in the opportunity after having snuck peaks at it for months. It was even silkier than you’d imagined, despite its shaggy appearance. You combed your hands through his hair as he moved to suck on your other nipple, pulling the cup of your bra down to free your breast to the open air of the room. 

Scraping your nails over his scalp, you felt the way his form trembled atop you, and he almost purred, a deep, rumbling groan vibrating through you and into the very bench beneath you. You scraped over his scalp again and bit your lip as it elicited another rumble.

He let your nipple go, puffy and a shade darker than usual from his bullying, and you watched the string of saliva connect it to his lips with a blush burgeoning on your face. Oh, this might get filthy, you thought to yourself, almost embarrassed by how much you liked it when he closed the distance between you and licked into your mouth again, seemingly not caring about his spit getting everywhere, the kiss messy and wet. 

There was a tell-tale hard bulge pressing against the heated spot between your legs, and you rolled your hips down on it. Barnes gasped out of the kiss, looking almost shocked as he quickly looked down between your bodies to where he was pressed against you, and you wondered if he might’ve forgotten where all of these horny urges came from. You rolled your hips into him again, experimentally, and watched as realization hit him, as his eyelids drooped and a tiny groan escaped him. Then he rolled his hips to meet yours and it was your time to groan. 

“Just like that,” you whispered encouragingly, and met his gaze as he returned his eyes to yours, watching you intently as he rolled his hips again and again, grinding himself between your legs. 

He felt…big, to say the least, and he was grinding against your clothed clit in a way that you knew had you gushing into your panties. You could already feel the fabric getting soggy, sliding along your flesh as Barnes widened his step and grinded against you with more grounded precision. 

Fuck, it felt so good it was getting hard to think, and when his - oh god - vibranium hand slid down your side to grab your hip, effortlessly pinning you down into the bench so he could grind even harder against your core, the breath in your lungs fucking punched out of you. You knew just how much strength was packed into that metal arm. Knew there was a fine line between using too much strength and keeping you pinned firmly enough so you couldn’t move your hips an inch. Barnes traversed that line perfectly. 

Your pussy was on fire, the grinds of Bucky’s big, hard bulge against your clit too much while - simultaneously - the layers of clothes between you made it somehow not enough. It had been so long since you’d just frotted, clothed, like this, and you now wondered how you could’ve forgotten how fucking good it felt - or if it’d ever felt this good at all before. You seriously doubted it, for you couldn’t really believe it, but the rhythm and weight of Bucky's hips while his mouth lowered to mouth at your neck was somehow actually propelling you towards the edge. 

You tried to move your hips to grind back, to make him go faster, harder, but found yourself utterly - and deliciously - fully at his mercy as he nuzzled the crook of your neck and laved his tongue on your skin, tasting it in that fascinating curiosity of his. 

Fuck, it was right there, you could feel it, he was gonna make you come, you just needed a little more. 

Through the haze of your impending, building release, you could hear yourself start to whimper. Needy and a little embarrassing, the sounds escaping you despite you biting your lip and clutching at Barnes’s shoulders, barely holding on as he hurled you towards that precipice.

His face suddenly appeared from the crook of your neck, and it took you a second to realize he had a look of confused concern on his face as he looked down on you. 

To your utter distress, his hips slowed their steady, hard thrust against yours, and he gave you a once over you had a hard time understanding. Then it hit you that he must be concerned he’d done something wrong; that he’d mistaken your sounds of need for ones of pain or that you didn’t want it or something utterly ridiculous like that. Sweet, respectful, slightly confused and apparently wildly inexperienced man, you thought with an almost woeful endearment. You could feel yourself slipping further under the power of his spell as his eyes returned to your face, flitting about to try and decipher your expression.

That elusive orgasm you were dancing up to started to slip away as his hips grinded to a halt, and you reached out to cradle his face in near panic. 

“No, please, please, please don’t stop. It’s so good, please,” you practically whined, trying to move your own hips to get more of that sweet, intoxicating friction. You barely managed a little squiggle under the pinning strength of his hand on your hip and his body on top of yours.

A great gust of breath whooshed out of him, and he started up his rhythm again almost immediately, meeting your tiny writhing with thrusts of his own like he just couldn’t help it, and you threw your head back, biting your lip and nodding frantically as the pleasure built inside you again, picking up just behind where you’d left off. 

His hand, the one of flesh, slid up your torso to caress the exposed column of your neck, almost curiously, exploring, holding it in an almost tender grip as you moaned in delirium. His thrust grew harder, your moans louder and his hand gripped harder like he enjoyed the feeling of your moans being forced from you by his moving hips. 

You could tell the moment he started climbing his own precipice, how his movement grew more focused, more intent, leaving all exploration behind to chase a goal with an almost singular, feral possession. His breaths turned to gasps, which turned to grunts and then low growls. His movement turned frantic, almost feral in their one mindedness. He was losing himself to the pleasure and you whined, mind turning to slush under the onslaught of his ferocity. You were going dumb on his cock and he hadn’t even taken it out of his pants. Didn’t matter, you were done for. 

The wild, animalistic abandon with which he chased his own high was so blastingly hot it sent you tumbling over the edge almost entirely on its own. You gasped, your body tensing and then exploding under his as his grinding thrusts sent wave upon wave of searing, orgasmic bliss crashing into you, riding you so hard you nearly passed out. 

Your sight went blurry, blood roaring in your ears, but you heard the moment his breath caught in his throat, such a vulnerable sound, and then the bulge pressed to the sticky, clothed cunt between your legs started throbbing in an uneven, staccato rhythm, which you could feel against you even through the layers of clothing separating you. His grip turned to bruising steel and you gasped anew as the intensity of the pain mixed with your abating orgasm, making a shocking, intoxicating cocktail of sensation blast through you. 

He threw his head back, the thick column of his neck stretching taut, and growled like he was in pain, and it sent vibration straight through you down to the table beneath you. Fuck, he was like nothing you’d ever experienced - pure, raw power, lust, shocking honesty and a sense of almost ardent fascination - mixed together in this anomaly and mystery of a man.

It felt like several minutes passed as you tried to catch your breath and gather your mind from where it’d melted out of your ears to puddle on the bench around you. Bucky’s face had made its way into the crook of your neck, where he seemed just as slow and sluggish to come back down to earth. He was like a furnace on top of you, even hotter from his exertion, forehead damp and hot where it pressed to the sensitive skin of your neck. 

His weight on you was a comforting one though, making you feel safe and protected, covered and nestled into a cocoon of muscles and warmth and soft, puffing breaths. Taking a cheeky chance, you carded a hand through his hair, the brown strands soft, glinting in the fluorescents above as they shifted through your fingers. Bucky’s whole form shivered as you raked your fingernails along his scalp, and the bulge nestled tight between your thighs and his body throbbed once as he grunted softly, neck twisting to push his head into your hand, almost like a cat rubbing against your palm to get more scritches. 

A chuckle left your mouth as you kept carding your hand through Bucky’s hair. He looked up at you then, and the moment caught up with you. A blush had the audacity of spreading on your cheeks even after everything you’d just done. He looked into your eyes, silent but for your deep, still slightly labored breaths. You couldn’t help smiling. 

He looked a little dazzled for a moment, then a slow, beautiful smile spread on his own lips to answer yours.

"Um, it's been a long time, and I d-don't remember much, but I'm pretty sure this is not how you court a lady properly," he said a bit self-deprecatingly. You chuckled again, and he joined, his form vibrating with myrth. He made no move to get off you though. You wrapped your arms around his neck.

"I don't know, this doesn't feel too bad," you said, and you could practically feel the relief in Bucky as he let you keep him laying draped across you.

"Still. I'd like to take you out sometime. It was the real reason I came here, after all," he said.

You felt your smile turn wry.

"I thought you said you had errands...and whatnots," you said.

His gaze wavered for only a moment as he realized he'd revealed his own bluff. Then his smile grew sheepish, and so warm it sizzled.

[kozumekenza]

house of memories :: three

:: kageyama tobio x f!reader :: playlist :: masterlist ::

:: taglist: open :: wc: 2.0k ::

the last you had heard of kageyama tobio, he was following his grandfather’s footsteps and leaving you behind to join the syndicate. a chance meeting throws him back into your life, along with all of the memories.

tw: mafia elements, profanity, blood, discussion of kidnapping

Dinner is a quiet affair, the three of you sitting in the penthouse’s dining room while a personal chef serves you. The food is delicious, and for a moment, you’re yet again jealous of Kageyama for having all of this at his disposal. Pre-packaged bentos and junk food are the norm for you, so you would kill to have a personal chef. 

“So, y/n, what are you up to now?” Miwa spears a piece of chicken with her fork as she speaks, her eyes locked on you.

You can’t help the smile that comes to your face. “I’m sure you already know.”

She has the foresight to look slightly disappointed. “True, but I want to hear it from you.”

You sigh, taking another bite. “I’m in college at Tokyo University, just started my fourth year. Going pre-med. My best friend is finishing up nursing school. I intern at a research lab on campus, but that’s about it for extracurriculars. Most of my time is spent doing homework and applying to medical school now, anyway.”

“Fun, I guess?”

You shake your head. “Not at all.”

Miwa tilts her head. “Why do you do it, then?”

Contemplating, you pause for a second. Why are you doing all of this? “I want to be a doctor, and these are just the steps for getting there. I do what I have to do.”

She nods in understanding. “You need a break sometime, though. We should hangout sometime, go shopping and whatnot.”

Kageyama, who has been silent during the entire conversation, finally speaks. “You just want to spend my money.”

Miwa reaches across the table to swat at her brother, who avoids her hand by quickly sliding his chair back. “So what if I do? You have so much of it and you never do anything with it. Someone needs to put it to good use, and I’m sure y/n and I can do that.”

Kageyama accepts his defeat with a blank stare. “Fine.”

Miwa squeals in delight and you laugh along with her. “When are you free? I spotted this gorgeous Balmain dress that I’ve had my eye on for awhile, and last time I was in Versace, I found this beautiful zip-up mini, but I didn’t like how it looked on me. I think you would look amazing in it!”

You give her an incredulous look. “I’m free tomorrow, but I’m not quite sure that I could afford that.”

Miwa gasps. “Don’t worry about that, we’re using Tobio’s money.”

The man in question just sighs.

“I couldn’t use his money-”

“Just do it.” Your eyes snap to Kageyama, who seems ready to say anything for this conversation to be over.

“There’s no way, I-”

“Just use the money, y/n. Miwa’s right anyway, I really have too much money that I’ll never use. I’ll give you my black card.”

Your eyes widen. “I really can’t let you do that.”

“Y/n, I have three billion dollars sitting in an account that I never touch. I can afford a shopping spree for you and my sister.”

You truly can’t believe that you’re sitting in front of a billionaire. You figured Kageyama was rich, but this rich? You want to ask him how he did it (you know the answer) or if he can pay for your medical school tuition instead, but what comes out of your mouth is: “Three billion?”

“Yes. Consider it an apology for this mess I’ve gotten you into.” He takes out his wallet and slides a card across the table. “If there isn’t at least a hundred thousand missing from the account, I’ll custom order something for you.” He stands, turning towards the stairs, leaving you slack-jawed and stunned. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some work to finish up. Y/n, I’m sure I’ll see you tomorrow when Miwa inevitably drags you back here to try on everything.”

Speechless, you turn to Miwa, who looks smug and delighted. When you finally regain the ability to talk, all you can do is pick up the weighted credit card and whisper, “What the fuck.”

---

The next day, you step outside of your apartment and see a nondescript black sedan parked on the street. You laugh a little to yourself before snapping a pic and messaging it to Kageyama with the caption “you won’t even know they’re there, he said”.

---

When Miwa picks you up in her Lexus after your morning lab, it’s with a coffee and croissant in hand. You sink into the seat, sipping your coffee as she drives off. 

“Thank you so much. I can’t believe you remembered my coffee order after all this time.”

She grins sheepishly. “It was in the file.”

“S-Seriously?” you sputter, “He has that kind of shit in my file?”

“He has all sorts of shit in that file.”

You shake your head. “At least if I get kidnapped, they’ll know my coffee order.”

“Hey, about that,” Miwa parks and turns to look at you, “are you alright? I know it’s probably pretty scary, knowing that someone has all that information about you and could use it against you at any moment.”

“I think I’m alright. I mean, I knew it would always be a possibility.”

“Okay, I just wanted to make sure. If you ever need to talk about it, you have my number.”

You give her a smile. “Thank you, Miwa.”

“Of course. Now let’s go shopping.”

---

You’re starting to question how Kageyama has any money at all. Miwa is a menace when shopping, dragging you from store to store, every clerk greeting her by name and suggesting anything new they have to fit her tastes. She was right, her Balmain dress is gorgeous, and you tell her so when she models it for you. She brings you to Versace to show you the zip-up mini, and you immediately fall in love. It’s a gorgeous dress, black with gold accents. 

Paying for it, however, is another story. You feel so guilty when you hand over the black card, you almost tell the clerk that you’ve changed your mind. The only thing that stops you is Miwa standing next to you, her eyes encouraging you and reminding you that if you don’t spend the money, Kageyama will do it for you.

“Do you wanna stay over tonight? Tobio’s working late, and I’ve honestly missed spending time with you. You’ve always been like a little sister to me.”

Miwa’s words take you by surprise. You always thought that she hated you after you walked away from Kageyama, but her actions so far have shown the complete opposite. “Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you guys.”

“Of course I’m sure.” Her smile is bright as she leads you to the next store. “We have two guest rooms in the penthouse, and I want to have a girls night.”

“That honestly sounds amazing.” Hana’s on night shift again tonight, and you would much rather spend your evening with Miwa than in an empty apartment.

“Great, I’m glad.” Miwa’s smile disappears as she browses a rack of blouses. “Honestly, I don’t have that many friends. It’s hard to keep them, doing what we do, and I’m always with Tobio anyway. It’s so nice to have a girl to talk to.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. This is probably the first time I’ve hung out with a friend in over a year.” Miwa’s sadness shows in her eyes, and you feel awful for her. She’s always there for her brother, putting him before herself. 

You pull her in for a hug. “I don’t want to say that I’m glad the files were hacked, but I am glad that you are back in my life again.”

“Me too.”

---

Somehow, Miwa convinces you to get matching silk robes for your girls’ night, along with enough skincare and spa products to last for weeks. You’re exhausted by the time you’re finally done shopping, satisfied with your purchases but still feeling slightly guilty. The numerous shopping bags are put into the car, and soon enough, you’re heading back to the penthouse.

When you arrive, the sun has already set, and she ushers you into her bedroom to try on everything you bought, just as Kageyama predicted. All in all, you made out pretty well, with two purses, two pairs of Louboutins (one pair for Hana, of course), numerous clubbing outfits, and some nicer clothes for med school interviews. Miwa claps and cheers as you twirl and spin, gushing over your new outfits. 

“You look so gorgeous, y/n.”

This time, she’s referring to the robe that matches hers. It’s truly an extravagant thing, long and flowing with silk and lace. It feels nonexistent on your skin, and you think that if you had to pick one thing to wear for the rest of your life, it would be this. 

“Thank you.” You’re blushing slightly as you twirl in front of the mirror. You’ve never worn anything like this before.

“Just wait ‘til Tobio comes home and sees you in it.”

Your head snaps up and your cheeks turn bright red as you rush over to a giggling Miwa, clapping a hand over her mouth. “Don’t say things like that.”

You remove your hand slowly, and immediately regret it. “Why? It’s true. He’s probably going to blush as hard as you are right now and spend the rest of the night in his room, avoiding you.”

Rolling your eyes, you reply, “No he won’t.”

“Uh, yeah, he will.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes! He’s still in love with you! Of course he’s gonna go crazy!”

“He’s what?” You’re in disbelief, the lump in your throat making it hard to speak. It’s hard to believe that Kageyama would love any part of you after you left when he announced his move to Tokyo and his future plans. 

Miwa puts her hand on your shoulder, looking you in the eyes. “He still loves you, y/n. He never stopped.”

“How is that even possible? I left him.”

“Oh, babe.” She leads you to sit on the edge of her bed as you wipe your eyes. “He never blamed you for that, not once. He knew that you weren’t going to be able to be with him when he told you. He’s kept an eye on you for the past four years because he can’t let you go. I kept telling him that he couldn’t keep it up forever, but then you were in the club that night, and I swear, it was fate. Y’know,” she chuckles lightly, “that night, after he saw you, he came straight up here and sat on the couch for hours, staring out the window. When I finally finished my shift and came up, he was crying. You can’t tell anyone though, because he’s supposed to be this big bad guy and all,” she waves her hand, “but that was the most emotional I’ve seen him in years.”

“Really?” Your voice breaks when you speak, and your tears haven’t stopped. 

“Yes. He’s always loved you, and although the circumstances aren’t ideal, I think it’s wonderful that you’re back in his life again.”

You nod. “I missed him, and I still love him, but I don’t know if I can be with him. This is all still so unfamiliar to me, and it’s scary. I have to figure out if it’s worth it.”

Miwa rubs small circles on your back. “I know. Take as much time as you need. I’m just glad you’re here, and I know Tobio is too.”

---

After the emotional rollercoaster in Miwa’s bedroom, you two went downstairs to the living area, ordering takeout and putting on face masks. You lounged on the couch, eating ramen and watching k-dramas until late in the evening. You didn’t ask when Kageyama would be home; you simply enjoyed your time with Miwa. It was nice, spending time with someone that you once considered a sister. You were thrilled that you could hopefully regain that relationship with her. 

At around eleven, the elevator dings, signaling someone’s arrival. 

Your jaw drops as Kageyama Tobio stumbles into the penthouse, one hand clutching his bleeding chest, as he passes out in the foyer.

taglist: @lilith412426​ 

[prismatales]

Anon asked: Would you mind doing headcanons for either being Shouta's or Hizashi's quirkless younger sister? I love all your others so much, I think you did such a good job capturing their characters 🥺

This is one of the sweetest messages I've gotten so far! Thank you so much! This means a lot to me! 😭 And as a thank you for the support I'll be doing both of them!

Shouta Aizawa:

• There's quite an age gap between the both you, He was already in UA when you were born, so his big brother instincts were stronger than average the moment he saw his baby sister.

• The day Shirakumo died left a huge impact on Aizawa, he knew being a hero wasn't a walk in the park, but his thoughts couldn't help wandering. (Y/N) was always saying how she wanted to be a hero when she grew up and how she would be his sidekick. At some point he had nightmares where instead of his friend it was his sister who died.

• Years later when you were found to be quirkless a part of him was sad, but there was a selfish part of him feeling relief, specially when you actually said you didn't want to be a hero anymore, to his shock you had taken the news better than he thought.

• That didn't mean you weren't sad though, but he was quick to comfort the little girl pouting sadly.

• His worry however still remained at the thought of how hard it would be for his sister to grow up surrounded by people who thought less of her for not having a quirk.

• Aizawa made sure to teach (Y/N) how to defend herself and not to care about other's opinions. By the time she was in elementary any kid that tried to bully her would end up pissing themselves at the sight of the little girl with the same menacing aura as her brother AND their characteristic glare.

• You can't change my mind on this, he taught his sister how to use his capture weapon from a young age, so the both of them wear matching "scarfs".

• Since your brother's quirk is not as flashy most people won't even realize you're quirkless until it's actually mentioned.

• It's most likely (Y/N) and Shinso actually know each other because of the latter's training with Aizawa. And since (Y/N) already knows how to use the capture weapon she also helps training Shinso.

• You go to a different high school, so nobody from his classroom expected the girl that just came in one day with a bento in hand, a frown adorning her face and the same menacing look as Aizawa.

• "Shouta Aizawa I swear to god, if I see one more of those protein pouches at your home I'm telling Mom!"

• Congratulations, you're one of the reasons Dadzawa came to exist.

Hizashi Yamada:

• This guy was kicked out of the hospital the day his sister was born, he wouldn't stop crying and accidentally used his quirk. Everyone was wearing earplugs they day of your birth just in case, after what happened the day Hizashi was born....

• Shirakumo's death also took a great toll on Hizashi, so when you mentioned you wanted to be a hero? He was having a crisis. Sure, you could be a gret hero, but the risk of death? He already lost a friend, so the risk of losing his sister as well?

• Then his parents told him they took you to a doctor and found out you were quirkless.

• To say you were sad for was an understatement, you were bawling all day because it meant not having "An amazing super power as cool as his", Hizashi ended up bawling alongside you.

• He didn't leave your side for the whole day and made sure to keep you busy, even if it meant being your model, wearing ribbons and make up to cheer you up.

• Everytime someone dared make a comment about you they would end up making eye contact with a scary looking Hizashi watching from afar, a sadistic smile on his face.

• "Care to repeat what you just said about my sister?" he'd wrap his arm around their neck in a "friendly" way before taking them away for a "friendly talk".

• You may not have a quirk, but you can also be pretty loud yourself.

• When you start high school, he gave you one of those personal alarms, "just in case" he said.

• He also got you a pepper spray.

• You also go into a different high school, but people are quick to realize who you are because Hiizashi won't stop talking about you on his radio show.

• He tries to give you advice sometimes, and gets an incredulous look from you.

• "You're probably the worst out of the two of us"

• Hizashi may be a "grown-man" but he's still a huge dork when it comes to you.

• He once tried to give the "shovel talk" to the person you were dating, and got a toy spider thrown at his face. He ended up using his quirk in a panic, luckily you and your partner were wearing earplugs just in case.

Bonus:

• The biggest Irony is that both of these guy's sisters end up attending the same high school AND the same class.

• While Aizawa's sister is more talkative than her brother, Hizashi's sister is more quiet and shy than her own brother, but she could be pretty loud should it be necessary.

• When these two realized their sisters were also friends they both laughed.

@t-amajiki @undead0relived @shoobirino @godtieruwu

A/N: Hope you guys enjoy these! I'm sorry if Hizashi's HC's were shorter than Aizawa's!

[weirdfetishes123]

The Blimp Date - deviantart

I couldn’t believe it. I had a date set up with a guy who was so far out of my league it was insane. Not that I wasn’t attractive enough, I had striking dark eyes, high cheekbones, and an angular jaw, which combined with my pale skin and chestnut brown hair made me rather striking, but I was small. I was barely 5’7”, and a skinny but toned 125 lbs. The guy I had been chatting with online though was a different story. From the photos he had sent me he looked like a bodybuilder, with large toned pecs and biceps, and he told me he was 6 and a half feet tall. On top of that he had a face like a fashion model and piercing blue eyes. He told me his name was Rob, and for some reason this stud wanted to go on a date with little me. He even called a car to take me to his house before we went out. I was sure once he realized how small and awkward I was he wouldn’t be interested in another date, but I couldn’t pass this up. A black Mercedes pulled up outside my house and soon I was on the way to Rob’s to meet this gorgeous man. Rob lived along the shoreline in a stunning mansion overlooking the beach. I couldn’t believe it as the car dropped me off. On top of his looks this guy had to me a multi-millionaire. I even googled him to see if maybe he was a secretive movie star that I hadn’t heard of, or maybe he was just a rich old man catfishing me with pictures of someone else’s pictures, but I couldn’t find anything. I took a deep breath, walked up to the magnificent oceanfront mansion and rang the bell. Within seconds the door swung open. Rob hadn’t been lying. I think I actually gasped when he opened the door. Standing before me was the most beautiful man I had ever seen in person. He was definitely over 6’6” tall and had muscles that looked like a Greek sculpture. He had round firm pecs projecting out from his chest, bulging cannonball biceps, a washboard set of abs and thighs that looked like they could crush rocks. I looked up at his stunningly handsome face and felt his laser-like blue eyes sear into me, and his lush red lips immediately turned up into a slight smile. He was also wearing only an ultra-light bathrobe, which was totally open in the front, and light blue briefs. The bulge in his briefs was almost obscene, it looked like he had a coke can and two plums in his underwear. It was hard for me not to stare. “Glad you made it!” The stunning man quickly said, and he pulled me in for a hug. My eyes were barely at the same level as the base of his enormous bulging pecs. “H-h-hi,” I stammered as I pulled back away. I didn’t even know how to react. “Well come in silly!” Rob replied, and turned and led me into the huge house. I followed him through a massive ornate foyer and into a living room in the back. The room had a cathedral ceiling and huge windows that looked out onto the ocean. Where there weren’t windows there were also huge mirrors, even on the ceiling. “I’m not quite ready to go out yet,” Rob smirked, gesturing to his almost-naked body, “but can I make you a drink?” “Sure,” I replied, and he disappeared into the kitchen for a minute. He came back with two drinks, what looked like a vodka for himself and a pink fruity drink in a martini glass for me. “It’s my specialty,” he said and winked as I took my first sip. The pink drink had an odd flavor, almost like bubblegum, and it made my throat and mouth tingle as I sipped it. We sat on the couch next to each other and made small talk. I told him about my boring job at an ad agency, and he explained to me that he had made most of his money in biotech research. “My company is redefining the limits of the human potential,” he said proudly. It was still difficult for me not to stare at the massive bulge in his briefs as he talked, but his face was so striking I managed to maintain eye contact. His light blonde hair was styled perfectly, and he had a little sexy stubble. His jawline looked like it had been carved from granite, and his muscular neck was even wider than his head.

Then he rested his massive hand on my slender thigh, and began to massage me as we talked. I gulped, and he laughed. “Don’t be nervous,” he chuckled as he stared me down. There was a predatory look in his eyes, hot as he was it was almost a little scary. This massively strong and powerful man had me totally alone in his remote mansion. Then he shifted his hand up to my crotch. I gasped again. He rubbed my package through my jeans as he planted his lips against mine. He held my shoulders as his massively wide and muscular body totally enveloped me. His tongue dove into my mouth as his stubble brushed against my cheeks and I smelled the gorgeous musk of this man flood my nostrils. I had never had a kiss like this, it was like making out with a god and my dick was suddenly harder than it had ever been. After a couple minutes he broke off the kiss and stared into my eyes. “You like that, little man?” he asked. “You’re amazing,” I stammered back. He laughed, and moved my hand down to his own crotch. I couldn’t believe it. Rob’s massive cock had boned up to at least a foot long and wider than a coke can. I looked down and saw it fighting to burst free of his straining briefs. It was terrifying and unbelievably sexy at the same time. Even his balls had gotten bigger, each now the size of an apple and mostly visible as his underwear was pushed aside. I rubbed my hand up and down his massive shaft, feeling it pulse and vibrate as it leaked precum like a faucet. I pulled the massive instrument out of his tortured underwear and leaned in to lick his head. It was so wide I couldn’t even get the whole tip in my mouth. Rob still moaned though as I sucked and rubbed him. Then suddenly he pulled back and stood up. He stood up in front of me so his massive erect dick was right at my eye level. He put his hands on his hips and said something I did not expect. “Am I big enough for you?” the stud asked bluntly? “What?” I was so confused. “Am I big enough? I feel too small for you to be interested.” “You must be joking,” I replied, “you’re at least a foot taller than me, over twice my weight, and look like you’d qualify for Mr. Olympia. You’re huge!” I was actually worried that he had some weird macro fetish and only liked me because I was so small. What if he only dated little guys in order to make himself feel bigger? “I just don’t know,” Rob replied, “let me try something.” He walked to a small cabinet at the end of the couch and came back with four objects. The first two were obvious, a big dildo and a bottle of lube, the others confused me, there was a length of rubber tubing and what looked like a small air tank. “Uuuuuh, what’s all this?” I asked. “You’ll see!” Said Rob excitedly. He inserted the end of the rubber tubing into the big dildo which was apparently hollow, and poured a generous amount of lube onto it. Then he pulled down the remains of his briefs and forced the dildo up inside his bubbly muscled ass. Last he connected the rubber tubing to the small air tank. “What the hell is this about??” I asked totally confused. I was suddenly realizing that this whole date might be some elaborate prank. “You’re acting ridiculous!” “Just watch,” said Rob with a big grin on his gorgeous face. Then he took a deep breath and switched open the air tank. There was silence in the room except for the hiss of the air tank. Rob stared at me with a huge grin and I looked back totally dumbfounded. Then I saw it happening. I wasn’t sure at first, I thought it couldn’t be happening, but it definitely was. Rob was getting bigger. “Holy shit.” I muttered as a watched Rob’s body expanding before my eyes. The muscles in his arms were swelling with power, his pecs were plumping up, even his washboard eight pack stomach was distending, and I could see his bubble butt getting even rounder in a mirror across the room. “How is this even possible?!” I yelled.

Rob laughed and flexed his massive cannonball biceps as they slowly inflated even bigger, “remember I told you I work with biomedical technology,” he said. “Expanding the male body is a pet project of mine.” He flexed again and the light bathrobe totally burst off his swelling muscular body leaving him totally naked before me. “This is unbelievable,” I muttered unable to take my eyes off him, “You better believe it little man!” Rob replied as he rubbed his belly which was starting to actually get round like a roid gut. “In fact, it feels so good I think you should try it,” he said looking at me like a hulking wolf about to eat its prey. “Uuuh that’s okay!” I yelled back, “I know I’m small but I’m happy with my body. I don’t need to get inflated with an air hose in my ass!” He then took a step closer to me so his swelling cock was right in my face. It was now almost as big as a two liter bottle and looked even more menacing. His head had grown as big as a grapefruit and his slit pointed straight at me. It was almost like looking down the barrel of a shotgun. “I didn’t say anything about another air hose,” Rob smirked, and poured lube onto his inhumanly massive member. In a panic I suddenly realized what he meant. I needed to run away. This man was insane. But suddenly his hand clamped down hard on my scrawny arm. His other arm ripped my belt off in a single motion, tugged my jeans and briefs down, and began teasing my hole with a massive finger. “No no no no no!!!” I yelped as he effortlessly lifted me up to his eye level. Rob was no longer the beautiful athlete who had greeted me at the door, he had grown into a Hulk and I was at this monster’s mercy. “Get ready to see stars,” Rob taunted and I felt his massive greasy 16” cock push between my legs and up against my tight little ass. “I can’t take that!” I yelled panicking and kicking. “Oh yes you will,” said the expanding man, and I realized I was truly powerless to stop him. Rob looked straight into my eyes as he held me up, and then in one swift motion he slammed me down onto his swollen cock. He and I both yelled. It was the most intense sensation I have ever felt. I think I blacked out for a few seconds. It felt as if his shaft was filling my entire torso. I should be dead I thought, he must be tearing me apart with this enormous tool. But suddenly I realized I wasn’t in pain at all, and it actually was starting to feel amazing. I could feel Rob continuing to expand inside of me as he pumped my body up and down like a sex doll. But I didn’t feel like I was being ripped to pieces, all I felt was a tingling sensation and waves of orgasmic pleasure. “How am I taking this?!” I moaned. Rob chuckled, “Enjoy your pink drink? It helped prep you for this.” I realized he had drugged me with some scientific compound so I could survive his inflated cock. This must have been his plan all along. Actually it wasn’t that bad, I was really starting to enjoy being fucked by this hulking monster. Without the fear of being torn apart this was like a fantasy come true. Then suddenly I felt a new sensation. The pressure around his dick in my abdomen got even tighter. “Are you cumming?” I asked almost disappointed. Rob laughed, “nowhere near.” I then realized that Rob had stopped growing, his chest and arms were no longer bulking up and his belly wasn’t getting any rounder. I was confused since I could still hear the hissing of the tank. Then I looked down at my own cock. My dick had been a small but decent 5” when hard. I had always wished for a bigger package but figured it just wasn’t possible for me. But when I looked down at my cock after five minutes of being fucked by Rob I was shocked. It was huge. Not like Rob’s monster but now at least 8” and so wide that when I tried to reach my hand around it I didn’t even come close. My balls had also swollen up to the size of ripe oranges. Rob saw the surprise in my eyes and smirked. “Nice package little man.”

I was both excited and alarmed that my cock and balls had grown so much bigger. “H- ho- how is this happening?” I stammered but soon I realized that my flat toned stomach was bulging out too. At first I thought it was Rob’s tool expanding inside me but I suddenly realized that my whole body was puffing up. It wasn’t just my cock, my chest was pushing out, and my arms and legs were tingling as they began expanding too. “Looks like you’re bulking up there,” teased Rob as he continued to pump his dick deep inside of me. I could see in the mirrors around the room that I was actually starting to look fat. I was totally panicked but I realized what was happening. “Holy shit. You’re blowing me up with your cock.” I said in a low voice. “Exactly!” Yelled Rob laughing “My dick is pumping you up like a big gassy balloon! All the gas inside of me right now is being forced into your tight ass.” I moaned. This wasn’t possible. I couldn’t be here in this massive stranger’s house being inflated with a giant prick. But another look down at my swelling chest proved me wrong. My pecs looked like rising bread dough, and they were getting wider by the second. “Yeah that’s it little man,” said Rob, “Blow up nice and big for me. Feel the gas pumping into you, stretching you, rounding you out. I’m gonna make you huge.” “Fuuuuuuck.” I groaned as my body expanded to the size of an obese man, but I didn’t look fat. I just looked round and puffy. The shirt I had been wearing had now ridden up above my plump man tits and I could hear threads snapping as it was losing the battle with my distended body. The remains of my shirt now totally burst off of me, and I was totally naked on Rob’s cock. In the mirrors I could see I was now the size of a world champion Sumo wrestler. My cock was pulsing and it looked like it was now well over a foot long and as wide as a football. Even so, a couple minutes later and I couldn’t even see it since my belly was now bigger than an extra large exercise ball. “Yeah that’s it,” smirked Rob, “You’re my balloon, and balloons have to get bigger. Now swell big boy.” He then set me back down on the couch, I barely balanced on it since my back was rounding out too, but he set me firmly between some cushions, and rotated me back so my weather balloon sized ass was pointing up in the air towards him. He placed his hands on my bloated belly and continued slamming his cock into my swollen ass. I could feel Rob having to adjust his fingers as my body expanded. He grunted and moaned as I blew up bigger and bigger with every thrust of his hips. Then his breathing got faster, and he began to moan. As Rob came I felt my inflation kick into overdrive. I expanded as if I had been hooked up to an industrial gas pump. I actually worried I might just explode from the incredible pressure he was pumping into me. But within a couple minutes he stopped thrusting his hips and the air tank ran out. Rob was panting as he stood back to look at what he had created. He himself was now back down to the size he had been when he had opened the door for me, all the gas that had been pumped into his ass was now inside of me. I realized I was now taller than he was, and my waistline now had to be around twenty feet. I wasn’t totally spherical, but I looked like a massive caricature of an obese man. My arms and legs were bloated fat cones which I could barely move. My man tits were big fluffy pillows that pushed up on my chin. My cock was now significantly bigger and fatter than Rob’s had been when I arrived, and my balls were like melons. My ass was like two oversized exercise balls behind me, and my entire body was dominated by my tight round turgid belly. I reached down to touch it just to be sure it was still me, it was unreal to suddenly be this big and full of air. I was stunned. “Well now it’s time for our date!” Suddenly exclaimed Rob. “Wha- you can’t be serious?” I said, “I can’t move like this!” “Nonsense,” he replied, and stood me up on my feet. “You’re not a sphere, you can still waddle yourself.”

I realized I couldn’t say no to him, so I tried taking two steps forward. It was incredibly difficult and I could see how foolish I looked in the mirrors. The fattest man in history trying to waddle across the room. Then I tripped and rolled right onto my enormous gut. Rob couldn’t stop laughing but he rolled me back up, “Don’t worry big guy, you’ll get the hang of it. Now let’s get you dressed!” Rob then went to another room and came back a couple minutes later with a huge pink spandex bodysuit. “I think you’ll look pretty good in this!” He said. “You still can’t be serious,” I responded, but he wasn’t kidding. He made me step into the suit and then pulled it slowly and strenuously up over my massive body. I felt the pressure inside me increase as the suit squeezed me. I looked like a pink bubblegum bubble, almost totally round, with puffy limbs and a big bloated bulge in my crotch. It was almost more humiliating than just being a naked balloon. Now I just looked like a toy as much as I felt like one. I was worried though that if I didn’t do what he wanted he would blow me up even bigger. “Perfect! You look beautiful!” Rob then disappeared back to the other room to get dressed himself. He came back wearing a skintight blue tank top and stretchy white athletic shorts. He finished the look off with leather boots. “How do I look?” He taunted as he posed for me. His cock and balls were totally visible in his shorts and the fabric rode up deep into his muscled ass. I cursed myself for suddenly feeling turned on again, but this man was just so damn hot. “Okay! Time to go!” He said. I groaned, but realized I had no choice. I waddled slowly after him and out the front door of his mansion. Outside there was a large black van waiting. Rob opened the trunk and gestured for me to enter. Fortunately it was wide enough that he didn’t have trouble squeezing my round form in. Before he shut the van’s doors however he paused, leaned over my balloon belly, and looked me straight in the eye. “You better not get any ideas about calling for help while we’re out.” He said looking menacing, “I’ve blown you up with my science and I’m the only one with a formula that can deflate you. If you run screaming for help you’ll escape me, but you’ll still be a balloon forever. Be a nice blimp for me tonight and I’ll think about deflating you when we get back.” I think I actually whimpered. He winked at me, poked my inflated belly, and then slammed the van’s doors shut and we were off. I was at his mercy. When he parked and opened the doors again I could hear music, and realized we were in a hip part of downtown with lots of bars and clubs. I realized lots of people were about to be staring at my enormous body, and there was even a risk someone might recognize me. Rob pulled my distended body out of the van and looked me over. “Very nice.” He said, “Let’s go!” And we walked into a nearby bar with flashing lights and blaring music. Fortunately the bar had double doors so I could waddle myself in, buy every eye in the place turned to look at us. I heard people murmuring and looking us over. I was so embarrassed my face turned bright pink, almost matching my bodysuit. Rob however looked like he was having a great time, and escorted me up to the bar. I just stared straight ahead, not wanting to look at anyone, but feeling hundreds of eyes on my weather-balloon ass. Suddenly I turned and saw Paul walk in. Paul and I had dated for a few months three years earlier, but had spilt up since he just didn’t seem that interested in me. Now he was at the same bar as me and Rob, and was just a few feet away from the pink blimp that was my body. I thought maybe he wouldn’t notice me, but how could anyone not notice the muscle stud in the slut outfit with the fattest man anyone had ever seen. I saw his eyes settle on my belly, then dip down to the gigantic bulge below it, and finally raise his gaze up to my head. At first he didn’t react, but then he did a double take, and I knew it was over.

“Holy shit it is you!” Paul practically yelled running over to me. He had always been a few inches taller than me, but now I towered a foot over him. “How the hell! What happened to you man?! You’re huge!” “Well – I-I-I’ve put on some weight… decided I liked being thicker.” I hesitantly responded. “Thicker?!” Paul replied, “You’re the biggest dude I’ve ever seen now! It looks like someone shoved an air hose into your ass and blew you up like a parade balloon on Thanksgiving!” With that Rob turned around to look at Paul, he smiled and put his arm around me. “Yup,” Rob chimed in, “I like to keep my big boyfriend nice and full. He was such a shrimp when I met him. Now he’s my big sexy man.” And he leaned in to kiss me passionately. “Damn! This is your boyfriend?” Paul said looking at Rob, “Well man I guess if I guy this hot asked me to get fat as hell I’d say yes too.” “Yup.” I replied, “Can’t say no to him.” “Well have a good one then man,” Said Paul turning to leave, “but careful you don’t get too big, I don’t want to hear about you exploding!” With that he poked me in my big pink belly and walked off into the crowd. I sighed. “Well that was fun,” said Rob, “Would my big balloon boy like a drink?” “Yes please,” I sighed. At least alcohol could make this situation ever so slightly easier to tolerate. Rob then turned to the bar to grab some fruity drinks for us. My arms were too blimped up for me to be able to reach my face so Rob poured the drink into my mouth. “Down the hatch!” he teased as I gulped the drink down. I felt the comforting sensation of booze pass through my body and actually relaxed a little. But then I felt a different sensation. A tingling and a pressure deep inside me. “Oh no, you didn’t.” I pleaded, “Did you spike my drink with something?” Rob couldn’t hide his grin. “Just a little something! A very slow releasing gas formula. No one will even notice. Now let’s just chat and enjoy ourselves.” Shit, now I was going to get even bigger in the bar. We just talked for a little while. Well, he talked and I listened. He told me about his time studying biology at his university, he told me about other guys he had dated, and even some of the science in the formula that had allowed him to pump me up into a living balloon. All the while he talked I felt my body slowly swelling, as more and more gas was released from the substance he’d made me drink. I felt my bloated limbs getting even shorter as my body became rounder and rounder. Soon I figured, I would just be a ball with a head hands and feet. Suddenly, other patrons started noticing that the enormously fat dude in the pink was blowing up. “Oh my god he’s getting bigger!” I heard one guy say. “I’m worried he’ll pop!” Added another, and one more yelled out “I didn’t know humans could get fatter so fast! What did he eat??? “I guess it’s time to go,” sighed Rob, and gestured for me to waddle out. But now I couldn’t even waddle. My body had blown up so big only my taint now sat on the floor, my feet wiggled helplessly in the air a foot above the ground. “Oh fuck,” Rob said, and stepped over to roll me onto my swollen belly. “You weren’t supposed to become totally round while we were still in the bar.” With that he began rolling me out of the bar. The other people gasped but watched mostly in stunned silence as he rolled me like the 8’ ball that he had turned me into. Suddenly, as he rolled me there was a snapping and tearing noise. With a snap my pink spandex bodysuit burst off of me, leaving me totally naked and almost totally round “Damn that’s the biggest dick I’ve ever seen!” Yelled one patron. “How is he even human!?” yelled another. They were transfixed by my cock which was now larger than a fire hydrant with balls the size of watermelons.

“He’s a big boy all over,” winked Rob as he rolled me towards the double doors. Only this time I didn’t quite fit through them. I became stuck in the doorframe as my body had blown up too wide. Fortunately a couple strong men in the bar helped Rob push me, and after a couple tries I popped out like a wine cork. Then Rob was rolling me back towards the big van so we could go home. Back at the house Rob squeezed me out of the van, which I was about to burst out of, and rolled me back up into the house. I was back in the room where I had first been blown up, only now I was even bigger, and totally round. Then I felt Rob roll me onto my back and insert a large dildo into my ass. “Oh no.” “Oh yes,” Rob replied, “you’re not nearly big enough to be my bed balloon yet, and he turned on an air tank, connected to an air hose, connected to the dildo in my ass. Immediately I began expanding again. The pressure inside me increased as even more gas pushed my round body to unprecedented size. Rob then vaulted on top of my spherical ballooning body and looked right in my face. “That’s it,” he said rubbing my taut smooth skin, “Blow up even bigger for me. Let yourself become my balloon, without a care in the world except getting bigger and pleasuring me.” I could see myself in the mirror on the ceiling. It looked like Rob was shrinking as my body expanded bigger and wider. I could see my cock was swelling up now even faster. It had to be over five feet long now, and the python was as wide as an obese man. My balls were now at least as big as overblown yoga balls. The pressure in my junk was so intense I felt like the tiniest touch could cause me to orgasm … or explode. It occurred to me that my dick was now bigger that I had been when I first came into this house. I looked up at Rob, “So will you deflate me and return me to normal tomorrow?” I asked hopefully? He laughed, “Oh I forgot! I was totally bluffing earlier. There’s no way to deflate you once you’re this size, big guy. You’re gonna be my blimp forever now, so you better get used to this life.” And with that he kissed my bloated lips and squeezed my taught flesh as hard as he could. For a second I didn’t worry about having been permanently turned into a balloon. Kissing him was still the most pleasurable thing I had ever experienced. Within moments of him ending the kiss though, the beautiful blonde man was asleep on my distended chest. Forever. This was forever. The realization suddenly set in. I was never going to be deflated. I was never going to walk or run again. I was Rob’s inflatable play toy, and I would be forever at his mercy. Could I ever get used to being this monstrous blimp? I fell asleep just as the tank ran out of gas, leaving me a 12’ tall balloon with a forty foot waistline. I dreamed I was thin again. I dreamed I had my little slim body back, and I was running on the beach. I was a twink again. I could touch my toes, and run and jump, and swim as I looked out over the water. Suddenly on the ocean horizon there was a large shape rising out of the water. I was afraid as it got bigger and bigger and loomed closer and closer. I wanted to run away but I was petrified there on the beach, and I couldn’t escape this massive shape. But then I realized, I was the shape. It was morning and I was waking up, and the terrifying shape rising out of the ocean in my dream was the horizon of my own inflated body. “Fuck.” I muttered. Then I felt hands rolling me around. The world spun again as my round body pivoted so now my head was facing down at Rob. But it wasn’t just Rob Standing next to Rob was another man. This guy was also naked and every bit as tall, muscular, gorgeous, and hung as Rob. “Hey!” The second guy greeted me, “I’m Terry!” “Who are you?” I asked. “I’m Rob’s partner! In life and in business,” Terry laughed, “you don’t think he owns this house and figured out all this science by himself do you?!”

The two of them then embraced in a passionate kiss. “I have to say, you did a really nice job blowing this boy up.” Terry said to Rob as both of their foot-long cocks swelled up into hard boners. “Did you bring the others back?” Rob asked his lover. “Yep, they’re all out by the beach,” replied Terry gesturing outside. “Perfect,” Said Rob, and he opened the huge sliding glass doors at the back of the room. The two of them then rolled me outside towards their pool and the beach. Outside I suddenly looked up and was amazed. Floating over the beach were at least ten balloons, but they were all very clearly inflated men. They had to each be around twenty feet tall and sixty feet around, with cocks the size of vans and balls bigger than individual Sumo wrestlers. They all just floated there in the breeze, tethered to weights in the sand. These men were actual helium balloons, lighter than air and pressurized to the max. “You ready?” I heard Rob yell. I looked back down and realized that he and Terry were now both carrying large helium tanks and had rubber hoses snaking into their muscly asses. Already they looked bloated up like off season bodybuilders. “Let’s do this!” Yelled Terry as Rob boosted him up on his shoulders so he could climb up onto my belly. Terry was already pretty inflated, and I could see the rubber hose in his butt snaking down to the tank on the ground. Terry then climbed so he was right in front of my face, and pointed his inflating cock right at my mouth. He stroked the massive member and whispered to me, “You’ll never be big enough.” With that he slammed his cock into my mouth and forced it down my throat until my nose almost touched his abs. Immediately, I felt gas pouring out of his body and into me Seconds later I felt Rob slam himself into my ass. The flow of helium into me doubled and I inflated faster than I ever had before. The feeling of their two cocks in me, blowing me up to unbelievable size, was so orgasmic I almost passed out. No sex had ever come close to feeling like this. I heard Terry whispering, “Yeah that’s it boy. Swell for me. Expand into the blimp you’ve always wanted to be. You’re our balloon, and balloons do one thing for their masters and that’s blow up.” I realized this was true. As the two studs pumped me full of helium with their massive cocks I realized, I’m just a balloon now. The only thing I have to worry about as a balloon is getting blown up, and being blown up feels so good I never want it to end. Suddenly Rob and Terry both began to moan, and at the same time they both blew their loads into me. I expanded so fast in that moment I thought I might actually explode. I was delirious, it felt so good. The pressure was unbelievable but I didn’t want to stop inflating. Terry then pulled himself out of my mouth and stepped back. He was deflated back to his normal muscular size, but standing on the vast hemisphere of my body he looked so small now. “Fuck you’re huge,” muttered Terry, and jumped off my body into the pool below. As soon as he was off of me I began to slowly rise up above the ground. I quickly stopped since Rob had apparently tied a rope around one of my feet, but he gradually let it out until I was the same height as the other ballooned men. I also realized I was a bit bigger than most of them, and actually felt kind of proud about that. “See you later!” Rob yelled, “We’re having a beach party this afternoon and you’ll all provide excellent shade for all our guests!” And the two of them headed back into the mansion I was dazed, inflated like an actual blimp, and floating helplessly among other human balloons. Then one of them, with a cute face, red hair and blue eyes looked over at me. “Hey man!” he said, “How’s it feeling?” “Hey, umm, okay I guess,” I replied, “I can’t believe this is my life now, but fuck… inflating like that felt so good.”

The redhead balloon laughed, “You’ll get used to it after a while. It’s actually a pretty nice way to live, all fat and puffy and carefree.” A couple other balloons laughed and nodded as well. “I was Rob’s first boyfriend,” the redhead added, “we were dating at school when he, well he tested some new formulas on me, and suddenly I was the size of a Volkswagen. But don’t worry Rob and Terry take good care of their blimps.” I smiled. I was starting to think it wouldn’t take me that long to get used to life as a big gassy balloon.

[ancientphantom]

Working on brushing up old reviews has inspired me to provide these for everyone playing along at home: Bad Phantom Adaptation Bingo!

Categories are behind the cut. I suggest drinking, especially if played with friends.

Angry Mob: Bonus points if it’s somewhere that it absolutely does not make sense for an angry mob to form.

Anti-Romani Racism: Use of the G-slur and any plot involving Romani people being evil, abusive, magical, or otherwise stereotyped all the way to hell.

Carlotta’s Career: Bad Singer: Somehow Carlotta is a highly sought after professional opera singer, yet also simultaneously super bad at singing.

Christine and Raoul Have a Loveless Marriage: Yes, they got married, but it was the wrong choice and they hate it, okay?

Christine is Evil: And that’s why she hurt Erik’s poor feelings and we hate her.

Eh, Just Kill Raoul Off: He can’t interfere in your ship if he’s dead.

Erik Dates a Blind Woman: I mean, who else?

Erik Finds Religion: Converting (usually to Christianity) will solve his problems!

Erik Has Manly Pets: Thundering stallions, menacing hounds, hordes of rats.

Erik is Rich/Noble/Fancy: He’s a count, or a lord, or a prince, or he has five million dollars, or he’s a literal angel...

Erik Learned Nothing from Last Time: Erik forgot instantly about that whole learning and gaining redemption thing and is plotting to do exactly what he was doing the entire time... all over again.

Erik Loves Animals: Erik cares for or is able to instantly bond with animals so you can tell he’s a Good Person on the inside.

Erik Wrote the ALW Musical: Because who else could have written the most amazing musical ever committed to paper?

Erik the Virgin Sexmaster: Erik has never had sex before, but he’s mind-blowingly good at it and everyone has fifteen orgasms.

Erik’s Genius Musical Spawn: Erik has children and they’re just as Special as he is.

Everyone Lives at the Theater: Instead of, you know, in their homes.

Evil Persian People: Foreign people are antagonistic and dangerous, especially those scary brown ones.

Freud Called, Erik’s Dating His Mom Again: Christine looks uncannily like Erik’s mother, and/or he obviously uses his love interest as a replacement/proxy for his mother.

Have You Heard About Erik’s Tragic Childhood?: Recap the whole thing, as luridly as possible, and explain why it means it’s okay for him to be an asshole.

Hilarious Names: Characters are named variations on Angel, musical terms, or completely made up names that don’t exist in reality.

Hottie Phantom: Erik is just lusciously physically hot and everyone wants him. It’s science.

It’s Not Pedophilia If It’s Romantic: No, no, it’s okay if Christine/some other lady is a child/teenager and Erik is an adult. He loves her and he might wait until the day she’s legal, so that makes it okay!

Mask That Makes You Handsome: Erik creates a mask that makes him an undetectable gorgeous male model when worn.

Meg, For No Reason: Look, she’s in the ALW musical so she’s going to show up at least once if it kills us.

Nurse Poor Wounded Erik: Erik gets hurt or falls ill so a loving woman can lovingly nurse him back to health.

Orphan Alert: Erik and/or other characters adopt orphans to show how good and charitable they are.

Random French Words: It’s important to sometimes say oui, monsieur in your text so people don’t forget this is set in France.

Random Muggers: Sometimes you need random muggers so people can be rescued from them. That’s life.

Random Orientalism: Making things sound exotic and fancy by invoking places in Asia or Africa (usually Persia and India, but somehow everywhere in the world is fair game).

Raoul is Abusive: Just give him a personality transplant and then no one has to worry about whether or not Christine likes him.

Rape Threat: Someone’s Virtue is Threatened, often by random antagonists (or Raoul).

Reincarnation: People come back for another round and usually make exactly the same mistakes.

Romance with Thinly-Disguised Self-Insert: Author writes an obvious personal fantasy of their avatar dating Erik and helping him recover from Christine’s cruel rejection.

Secret Erik/Christine Sex: Either they did it during the original story and you just didn’t notice, or they’re doing it right now and Raoul doesn’t.

Secret Wedding!: Christine and Erik actually got married! Or maybe someone else and Erik. It’s very hush-hush. Priests are rarely even invited.

Sexy Madame Giry: It’s important that those side characters all get sexy romance, too.

Smug Smirks of Smugness: Erik smirks so you know he’s powerful yet playful.

Stalking is Sexy: The ladies LOVE it when Erik creepily lurks just out of sight everywhere they go.

This Book Brought to You By Absolutely No Editors: From the run-on sentences to the rampant commas to the wild homophone abuse, reading this hurts your eyes and your brain.

Those Were Accidents, Not Murders!: Erik didn’t really murder anyone, they just blundered into his traps/accidentally fell into his noose/forced him to fight back in self-defense/didn’t really die.

Time to Punish Christine!: Christine was very bad to break Erik’s heart and that’s why this book is now going to abuse, murder, assault, or in some other way ruin her life.

Time Travel!: How else is your modern-day character going to get to romance the Phantom?

Vampire Phantom: Erik does not drink... wine.

Wait, Christine Changed Her Mind!: Actually, she didn’t mean it when she said she wanted to go home with Raoul so she’s coming right back now.

WHAT Daroga?: When the Persian is forgotten yet again.

WHAT Deformity?: Actually, Erik isn’t ugly at all, or he’s barely ugly and everyone can reassure him that actually they love him.

What Even is French Nobility?: No one knows what Raoul’s title is or how it works.

Whorephobia: Disdain for and mistreatment of sex workers, usually to show how “pure” or “good” the other characters are.

Women: For Healing Erik’s Soul: Female characters are solely here to heal Erik’s suffering and reward his pain. What do you mean, “goals” and “feelings”?

Zero Classical Music Knowledge: Obvious lack of elementary understanding of opera, composition, or like... what words mean.

[mygreatadventurehasbegun]

Top 5 Claude Rains roles

It was actually really easy to think of these!  I thought I was going to need a minute to ponder, but I thought of three instantly.  Anyway....

5. Jack Griffin in The Invisible Man

The role that introduced Claude to the world!  And you only physically see him for 60 seconds.  I love the joyful menace that Jack becomes....I mean, just the casualness in the way he says:

4, Senator Paine in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

I re-watched this movie a few months ago after only seeing it once years ago and I was floored by how amazing Claude is in the role.  I mean, he’s always amazing, but that final scene when he tries to kill himself and demands to be expelled gave me so many chills and I was baffled that Claude didn’t win an Oscar for that performance (or any performance, really).  And I love watching him and James Stewart go toe-to-toe.

3. Alex Sebastian in Notorious

A great villain role for Claude!  But what I like about it is that he is a sympathetic villain.  Claude brings so much charm and depth to the man, that even though he is one among a group of Nazi’s, you actually kind of like him.  Until he decides to kill Alicia, that is.

2.  Prince John in The Adventures of Robin Hood

Now this role is just fun!  Claude looks like he is having the time of his life playing this role....he brings a sort of deliciousness to the role...he’s deliciously evil.  And I nearly died laughing when I find out that he (most likely) modeled his performance off of Bette Davis.

1. Erique Claudin in The Phantom of the Opera

Yeah, y’all knew this was coming.  This role is so great, I almost can’t describe it.  Claude shows us so much range as Claudin...he starts out gentle, kind of shy, a little put upon....but then we get to see him snap and it’s so effective...it’s scary in a realistic way.  It scared me as a six year old watching this for the first time.  Seeing this kind man strangle a man was shocking...and I couldn’t watch when the acid gets thrown in his face.  And right before he decides to cut the chandelier chain, there’s a moment where he snaps his head up, and on a VHS tape, it made it seem like he looked right at the camera and that scared me too...for a while, I couldn’t watch part.  I have analyzed this performance so much, and yet I still discover new things with every re-watch.  And knowing his character’s actual backstory, even though it was cut from the film just adds to his performance.  

*And I’m pretty sure I saw this movie and Robin Hood during the same trip to my Gramma’s (or at least within the same year), and I don’t think I realized that Claudin and Prince John were the same guy.  Claude was one of the best actors in Hollywood, and even though he’s been gone for years, I still rank him as one of the best.  He really could do it all.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

ASM v5 #24/825 Thoughts

TL:DR version: Undeniably the most gripping issue of this year, this run, possibly this decade, possibly of post-OMD Spider-Man and possibly that I’ve ever read.

 Seriously I was getting looks on the train reading this because my facial expressions were contorting with fear, joy, alarm, confusion and just utter attention to what was going to happen next.

Does gripping mean best?

No.

But there isn’t much wrong with this issue beyond it being a little lacklustre considering it is technically the 825th issue of Amazing Spider-Man and the fact that Mysterio is regarded as a challenge even by Ravencroft standards. Preeeeeeeeetty sure CARNAGE  would be more challenging there Spencer.

But really those are nitpicks, even the former point as the next issue will be the big celebration.

Everything else in the issue stuck the landing.

Now you must forgive me as this post will be more of a list than I’ve been doing in recent ‘thoughts’ posts. This is because I prefer to write these posts ASAP after reading the issues but unfortunately I read them on the train home then had to head off for work straight after meaning I didn’t have time to write this until now, which is the day after. Consequently my memories aren’t entirely fresh and I’m going off bullet points I jotted down before hitting the sack. With that said...

·         The MJ scenes were shipperiffic. I’ve long thought the idea that Spider-Man reels from seeing a vision of MJ dying (as opposed to actually fridging her) would be potent drama and this issue delivers on that. It’s tragic yet romantic and there are some just plain romantic scenes if the former ain’t your bag. It also helps Spencer, who is possibly the best writer to explore Peter’s psychology since DeMatteis or Straczynski, get into Peter’s head a lot. In this issue he almost literally has everything play out in Peter’s dreams. Or sort of anyway.

·         Ottley on art continues to crush it although, sacrilegious as this might be, I actually think Ramos drew Centidemon better

·         Speaking of Centidemon...he’s....sooo...creepy....and...scary. I obviously knew of the guy before reading his early appearances but...there is something of the early creepiness that Venom invoked wrapped (gEt iT????) in Centidemon.

·         I did see him eventually harming Mysterio (but not MURDERING him Jesus Christ!) coming but it was still done well. You could feel the tension, the creepy way he was being almost caring almost sympathetic. There was a Ramsey Bolten-esque cruelty in how he pressured Mysterio into damning himself.

·         Centidemon continues to intrigue. Unlike the Menace, Spider tracer killer or any of the mysteries of Slott’s run, Centidemon is outright compelling and I don’t think it’s merely due to his implied OMD connection. We are getting clues and hints about who he is, the biggest one being in this issue. The speculation game is fun!

·         Centidemon is scary because he seems obsessed with Spidey and knows him intimately, for example his penchant for nicknames (which he’s derisive of). It almost seems like he doesn’t want to kill or hurt him but is almost infatuated with him. When you combine that with how his new name, ‘Kindred’ it opens up so many possibilities. Could he somehow be Uncle Ben (kindred as in blood family), some aspect of Aunt May (as in family, she is clingy to him), Gwen (she’s dead and could view her and Peter as kidred spirits, lovers), some aspect or in fact the REAL Mary Jane? (similar deal to Gwen but maybe this is pre-OMD MJ) or perhaps it’s some aspect of Peter himself, like pre-OMD Peter!

·         The fact that Kindred is in fact someone who BECAME a demon but wasn’t one originally also sheds some light onto the mystery. It eliminates Mephisto but does open up the possibility that Kindred may have masqueraded as Mephisto...or....got Mysterio to do that for him...Re-reading OMD Mephisto does seem...a little off model. And demons in the Marvel universe have pretended to be one another before.

·         We also learn he can project things into Peter’s dreams, make him see what is happening. Now in fairness this could be a non-demonic ability. A telepath could maybe do that. But it’s also very demonic. Of course if Kindred became a demon...that doesn’t preclude the idea he already had powers before dying...

·         Finally Kindred references something Peter did. This is obviously written to invoke OMD in reader’s minds whether or not that’s actually the case remains to be seen. But it could mean so many things. It could mean OMD or his role in Gwen’s death or his ‘original sin’ with Uncle Ben, or his lying to Aunt May!

·         Another enticing element of the mystery comes in the form of the two psychiatrists showcased. We get a passing reference to Beck’s old doctor, Doctor Winhorst who isn’t an established character to my recollecton. He must play a role in this mystery some how, perhaps as simply a red herring. Then we get the current psychiatrist for Beck. A man I can’t name because we never see his face, it’s either off panel or obscured by shadows. That can’t be a coincidence. Perhaps it was another short red herring, someone meant to trick readers in this issue into thinking he was Centidemon before the reveal that he wasn’t. But I don’t think so, not from the way he’s framed and how we get his POV. What’s more intriguing to me is that from what little we see of his face he resembles Dr. Ludwig Rinehart. For those who do not know Dr. Rinehart was in fact a disguise used by a villain more than once in Spider-History, notoriously way back in ASM #24 where he tried to trick Spidey into revealing his identity. The villain in question just so happened to be...Mysterio! Could it be Mysterio didn’t fabricate a new identity but stole it from a real man we’re finally meeting???????????????????

·         Speaking of Beck this is a great time to be a Mysterio fan. Between this story and Symbiote Spider-Man he’s getting some great character exploration. I love we’re actually finally addressing Guardian Devil. I don’t exactly begrudge Slott for just ignoring that story, but it was unrealistic that Mysterio could’ve faked his death. Moreover it is his most ambitious scheme in Marvel history and his most notorious story, casting a long shadow in Spider History. And associationg Mysterio with Hell is at this point part of a tradition in his own history. I mean my God we even reference him doing it back in the truly obscure Webspinners #1-3!!!!!!!!!!!!! Could’ve believe that! Also I love Spencer might be throwing shade at Slott for just glossing over Guardian Devil.

·         Mysterio’s character in general was explored quite nicely. He comes off as funny yet also sad and sympathetic. I love how Spencer presents a possibly plausible explanation for Mysterio’s condition (even though we readers know it can’t be true) and has Mysterio himself almost believe it. Also I’m sure Mysterio will be back. He’s got a movie coming out so he won’t be dead permanently. In fact I expect him back within this run.

·         Switching gears a bit, I like how Spencer acknowledges that what Peter went through in Hunted would affect him, that he would need time to heal. It’s not okay in comics to traumatize characters then gloss over it, but if a comic on some level acknwoeldges healing will or has happened then it’s okay most of the time. For example with time and MJ’s support Peter could recover relatively quickly from the events of Hunted. We saw his pain last issue, we saw MJ there supporting him, helping him to heal (as happened in KLH) and then in this issue we acknowledge between issues he’s been different, he’s been healing. It’s part of how Spencer tries to be psychologically true to real life even within the relative realism of super hero comics.

·         That being said all the talk about dreams and in reference to MJ makes me wonder in fear that he and MJ being back together is just an illusion of some kind, something that will be used as a rug pull.

·         If I didn’t mention it before Ottley is scoring touchdowns with the art this issue.

Not only does this issue get a recommendation from me but my highest one at that.

P.S. Oh and that Absolute Carnage prologue page was pretty creepy in a good way too!

[billclinton42]

Can you tell random facts about Bill

yep. 42 facts about 42 😎🎷🇺🇸

1. He’s 6′2

2. He’s left handed.

3.  His favorite color is blue

4. He’s won two Spoken Word Grammy Awards. The first was in 2004 when he performed along with other leaders and actors an interpretation of the Peter and the Wolf story. The second was in 2005 for his own audio book called “My Life”.

5. His favorite flavor ice cream is peach. 

6.  Bill Clinton left office with the highest end-of-office approval rating of any U.S. President since World War II. 

7. When Bill played the saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show, he was described by some religious conservatives as “the MTV president”.

8. His nicknames have included, Bubba, Wonderboy, The Comeback Kid, Boy Governor, and The Big Dog, explainer-in-chief, Elvis, Secretariat, and The Eagle.

9. He knows a lot about chickens. After flubbing a question about chickens and free trade during his Rhodes Scholarship interview, young Bill promised never to be stumped again by any and all questions about chickens. In my Life, he wrote, “It never happened again. When I was governor and President, people were amazed at how much I knew about how chickens are raised, processed, and marketed at home and abroad.”

10. He played rugby at Oxford.

11. He wears briefs 

12. He eats apples all the way through—core, stem, seeds and all. Clinton wrote in his autobiography, “[Professor Deutsch] was the only man I’d ever met who ate all of an apple, including the core. He said all the good minerals were there. He was smarter than I was, so I tried it. Once in a while, I still do, with fond memories of Professor Deutsch.”

13. He was the first president to send an email from the White House. In his whole presidency he sent two emails. 

14. He was reading books by the age of three.

15. He is vegan.

16. He is a terrible driver. This is because he talks too much with his hands and as a result in his 1974 campaign for Congress, drivers were hired to drive him around since he would tailgate people and go too fast down the hills.

17. Bill had a health scare in the form of a cancerous lesion on his back, (toward the end of his presidency) thought to have been caused by stress but after its removal the cancer did not spread. 

18. He plays tenor saxophone and when he was in high school he was a member of a band called “Three Blind Mice”.

19. His shoe size is a men’s size 11.

20. Bill’s face is so symmetrical that once he ranked in facial symmetry alongside male models.

21. He got all the answers right to a My Little Pony Quiz when asked about it on a radio station. 

22. He watched Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace on  June 6, 1999 in the White House movie room. 

23. His favorite movie is High Noon.

24. Before he was a vegan, his favorite foods included  jalapeño cheeseburgers with mayonnaise, lettuce, pickles, and onions. He was also very fond of Chicken enchiladas.

25. Whenever he went to the movies in Arkansas, he would get triple buttered popcorn. 

26.  Young Bill moved to Dallas and took up the role of coordinator for McGovern, with future film director Steven Spielberg also among the campaign staff, the two have remained friends since.

27. Bill Clinton had a scary appetite while in the White House according to pastry chef Roland Mesnier, who worked at the White House for 26 years beginning with the Carter administration. About Bill, the chef said "He could eat five or six pork chops.“ 'But he loved dessert,’ says Mesnier. ‘It made it very difficult for a pastry chef.’ He recalls the episode of a strawberry cake he made one evening. Clinton devoured half of it all by himself, and the next morning he wanted more. 'No one could find the cake,’ says Mesnier, who had a face-to-face with the distraught commander in chief. 'Clinton was pounding on the table and shouting, "I want my goddamned cake.”

28. He’s allergic to chocolate and milk.

29. He has significant allergic rhinitis triggered by house dust, mold spores, cat dander and pollen (weed and grass).  Allergy injections were usually prescribed to him and well tolerated.  He also has reflux esophagitis, and this, in addition to his allergies, likely contributed to his hoarse voice.

30. Bill has a skin condition called rosacea which at times makes his skin really red. 

31. He is the most recent and last president to have balanced the budget. 

32. He does a pretty good impression of Bono.

33. While in the White House, Bill slept only very little, 5-6 hours a night.

34. The quickest way to get him mad is to question his character or call him a phony.

35.  Bill called the death of his dog Buddy the worst thing that had happened to him since leaving the White House.

36. His  post-presidential office is located in the predominantly black Harlem district of New York City.

37. Some of his favorite books while in college were The Last of The Mohicans, The Robe and Black Beauty.

38.  He enjoys crossword puzzles and once helped a customer in Prince Street Cafe with their crossword puzzle. 

39.  He has used Southern phrases such “johnny-come-lately” and “hooey” before. 

40. He was in Math Club in High school 

41. When he was six years old, he had his first kiss with a girl who kissed him behind one of the trees near his home. 

42. He has described death as a homecoming. Bill Clinton recalled going to black churches as a young politician. “For the first time,” he said, “I heard people refer to funerals as 'homecomings.’ We’re all going home, and I want to be ready.” 

[letterboxd]

Tristan Oliver Q&A.

“We have had far more problems shooting on a 5D than we ever did on film. The sheer absurdity of the throwaway society and obsolescence leaves a bad taste in the mouth.”

Cinematographer Tristan Oliver takes us behind the scenes of the Wallace & Gromit train-chase scene, a flood on Isle of Dogs, and the time he acted with Colin Firth, Rupert Everett and Cary Elwes in 80s British romance Another Country.

Oliver was the man behind many of the cameras on stop motion films including Isle of Dogs, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, ParaNorman and Chicken Run. He also filmed the Academy Award-nominated Loving Vincent.

We asked him some of your questions and some of our own (but we did not ask him “what is Wes Anderson like?”—read on to find out why).

Several Letterboxd members (including ReiJr, Curtis and Nicolas Inard) want to know what drew you to animation cinematography over live action, and what makes it interesting for you?

Well, obviously it’s a ridiculous way to make a living by any definition and I don’t think I ever really, actively wanted to do it. I just kind of fell into it. I was shooting some pop promos for friends and needed to borrow some lights and I knew a couple of people at Aardman—at that time it was literally a couple of dozen people. They said “Oh great, what are you doing next week?”

It was so great—they never used to schedule anything. They just used to ask you in and you’d stay until the job finished a few weeks later. So I stayed as a freelancer with them for a very long time. At the same time, I had a child, so I needed some regular income. I stuck at it at Aardman and I was good at it and they liked me.

It was an exciting time inasmuch as they were reinventing the entire look of stop-frame [animation], because stop-frame really was kids’ TV up until that time—it was super quick and rough and very crudely photographed. Big, soft lights and go home and forget about it. So what we started to do was create a very cinematic look for it, and make it into a much bigger canvas and bigger screen. Our driving motivation was that we made no concession at all to the fact that it was animation, we just tried to make it look nice.

[Animation] was a genre that was neglectful of its cinematography, and even now, I meet animators who don’t really care about it. It’s all about puppets as far as they’re concerned, and I think generally anyone watching the films doesn’t really care about cinematography. It’s the Cinderella department. People are all over the props and puppets.

Immediately getting a little more technical, how does one pull off a rack focus with moving stop motion elements in the shot? —Gina

That’s very interesting because of course stop motion isn’t moving. It’s entirely static until you move it. So a rack focus is just broken down into as many frames as you want it to take place over. So if it’s a twelve-frame or an eight-frame rack focus, in one way you can put a piece of tape over the lens and you move it one notch each frame. Or, we use a motion control computer to do it, which we do these days because it’s much smoother. The animator will press a button, the camera takes a frame, the motion control computer moves—and the animation software will trigger what needs to be triggered.

Although the camera move is conceived in real time, you know, A-to-B, if it takes four seconds you can run it at four seconds or you can run it at a frame a time—now move your puppet and off it goes. So the puppet follows the camera, as it were.

Motion control is one of the things that really liberated us. When we were setting up Chicken Run, that was suddenly a film that needed to play out on a cinema screen rather than a television screen, and moving the camera through space was one of the ways to expand that space. We kind of take it for granted that we can do that now.

Cinematographer Tristan Oliver on set

I was wondering how different lighting a set for a stop motion film is compared to a live-action film and maybe what some challenges of lighting a stop-motion film are? Thanks, I love your work! —Ben

Thank you Ben! Well. I would say that aesthetically there should be no difference because, coming back to my original point, one’s aim should be to make something look beautiful and not really concede in any way to the fact that you are shooting animation.

But there are some issues. Primarily of course the size of what you’re shooting—and this means that relative to the characters you’re shooting, the camera is very, very large. The camera is kind of the size of a small car inside a domestic environment. It’s normally as tall as the character, so you do have issues lighting the character without the camera getting in way. You also have enormous issues with depth of focus because normally we are working right up to the minimum [focal point] of the lens. So to get stuff looking natural, you have to work at a very tiny aperture to get the depth of field that you’d find acceptable in live action.

A puppet’s head might only be the size of the top of my thumb and if I focus on its eye I might find that its nose and ears are unacceptably out of focus. So we are really asking the lenses to do something they were never really designed to do well, which is to work at tiny stops. Most lenses are optimized around ƒ/4, ƒ/5, ƒ/6 and we typically use them around ƒ/14. We really do beat them into submission.

The other issue is heat, of course. We don’t want to be cooking the animators or the puppets or the environments. Luckily, we don’t need a huge amount of intensity with light because we can vary our shutter speed, because we are taking shots one frame at a time. But we do need to keep sets comfortable. We do occasionally use large lights—especially if we’re shooting daylight exteriors—because you very quickly give away that they’re models [if] the shadows fan out, and real shadows don’t do that. They remain parallel, or “coherent” as we call it.

Has LED lighting changed DOP work for stop motion? —Tim

Yes, LED has in many ways transformed our world. The reason being that it’s very tiny so you can hide it and it’s very cool so it doesn’t produce any heat, and also you can dim it without the colour changing.

As an example, on Isle of Dogs we have a large theater set which is all painted with red and black lacquer in the Japanese style and it is lit by paper lanterns (which are actually made out of painted resin). Each of those lanterns contains a very small incandescent bulb, so when you dim those the colour gets very warm and orange. But then we have other [LED] fixtures in that environment and they can be dimmed right down but their colour doesn’t change, so you can keep a very dim but pure light point and that makes the warm stuff read warmer. It’s all about showing the eye where the light is. LEDs just have that purity of colour which doesn’t change with intensity.

And the other thing I wanted to say is the main difference is the sheer number of units we’re shooting on. We typically run between 40 and 50 units, and I’m having to be across all of those in terms of how the film looks. So I’m personally hands-on lighting a lot of those but I can’t do all of them. I have a couple of other guys who help me out and they work to my brief so that it looks like one person did it.

It is a huge, very busy environment in a very large stage with a lot of people running around. I think people’s impression of animation is a very ponderous, dull thing but actually, although it takes a long time, they’re working as quickly as they can. And they’re all working on their own.

Wes Anderson with his Isle of Dogs cast

What type of personality do you think you need to work in stop motion? There’s a stereotype that you must have to be very patient, but the reality is quite different?

I think the idea of “patience” is... I don’t even know where that comes from. That is what we call one of the “top five questions”. That, along with “tell us what is one of the most difficult things you had to do on the film” and “what is Wes Anderson like?”.

I don’t know what anyone’s being patient about, really. Where’s the patience? An animator is animating. He (or she) is working as fast as he possibly can, doing a very complicated performance through the medium of a puppet. So he is undergoing a degree of concentration it would be impossible to imagine and around him sets are being built, painted, lit, set up.

In all respects it is exactly like a live action department—it’s very busy, there is no downtime. So this concept of patience is entirely erroneous. What you actually need is stamina. Not patience. Because this is five or six days a week, 60-hour weeks for two years. And it’s intensely busy. Because of the length of time it takes to shoot, we’re in a rolling process of pre-production even when we’re in production. People are constantly losing their temper and constantly screaming and running out of the studio. To think there’s some kind of monkish, trappist environment… [shakes head].

Which villain did you find more terrifying from the films you worked on? —Manny

They’re not that scary are they, because they’re puppets, but I guess the best villain is Feathers McGraw from The Wrong Trousers, because it’s a penguin and it never speaks, and yet it has a sense of menace to it that is so thorough. It hasn’t even got pupils! It does occasionally blink but it mostly just sits there and... looks. It’s amazing how well it works.

What is it about penguins in animation? There are so many… Surf’s Up. Madagascar. Pingu…

Feathers McGraw and Wallace in Aardman Animation’s The Wrong Trousers

When stop motion films were first shot digitally, sensor noise was an issue that sometimes led to ‘crawling’ artefacts between frames. Has this been mitigated in newer camera hardware, or is it something you still need to watch out for? —Matthew

Do you know what? I read that question and I thought “I have no idea what you’re talking about!” I’m completely unaware of this as an issue. The only film I think that may have been an issue on was Corpse Bride. We did have issues with the 5D which was used as the default animation camera for about ten years. But those issues were to do with the chip heating up and causing fluctuations with the density and the contrast. But the camera I used for Isle of Dogs and also Aardman used for Early Man, which is the Canon 1D X, was pretty damn good. Pretty stable. So it’s kind of ironed out. I mean, you know, no camera on earth is designed to shoot stop-motion animation. I mean why would it be? So we’re always looking for the next camera.

I know that Pete Kozachik is an extreme fan of 30- to 40-second shutter speeds, which is frankly ludicrous. That may have resulted in excessive sensor noise, but that’s more to do with the shutter speed.

How do you handle having to start an insanely complex shot again after an error?

That’s a very interesting question and I’ll tell you why: because the only reason that we reshoot is if there’s an animation problem. Because nothing gets shot until everything is right. So everything is tested. The lighting, the motion control, set dressing, everything is run in front of the director to the point where they say yes, good to go.

The reason is: you can’t ask an animator to reshoot a shot if they’ve done nothing wrong because you’ve cocked it up. So only animation issues are reshot. And from that point of view, it doesn’t bother me in the least, because I just go in and make sure they’re good to go, and they just go again. It’s their loss of time, not my loss of time. They’re normally quite okay about it. Most animators don’t mind having a second go because it does give them the opportunity to improve.

If there’s a catastrophic tech error on the other hand… We did have a flood on Isle of Dogs. We had a massive hole in the roof and a torrential thunderstorm and we lost some stuff in that way. So that becomes an Act of God, a force majeure, and you just have to get on with it.

But also we do monitor what’s going on, so I tend to pop in and just make sure the animators are okay and do my daily rounds. If I see an animator has unwittingly missed a focus point or position because they hadn’t been concentrating, I would inform the first [assistant director] and say “we need to restart this shot”. But because of the critical mass of shooting on 40 to 50 units, if you have an issue, it’s not really an issue. It can be frustrating, that’s all.

Gromit and friends in Curse of the Were-Rabbit

What, if anything, do you miss about the 35mm Chicken Run and Curse of the Were-Rabbit days?

There are things I miss about 35mm days. The structure of the day is far more coherent when you’re shooting on film, because you start your day looking at the rushes, looking at the dailies, then you go into the edit suite and you look at that material cut in, and then you go to the studio floor and address what needs addressing. Whereas when shooting digitally, every time someone finishes a shot you all have to go and look at it, get them turned over, and so on.

There is also far less downtime for animators and bizarrely I think they suffer from that because the process of sitting down and discussing shots and comparing notes is over. The experience of sitting in a green room and getting into a conversation with two or three old silverbacks of the industry is gone really.

The other thing is it’s no quicker shooting digitally. We shot Chicken Run in 78 weeks and we shot Isle of Dogs in 86 weeks, so it actually took longer.

A problem you get with digital is you suddenly have far too much choice. We would do everything in-camera on film. We would use painted backdrops for skies. Everything would be shot into camera, and now of course you can just shoot green screen and decide what your background’s going to look like later.

You’re giving yourself way too much choice because you can. So the amount of creative decision-making is thrown to the end of the movie. That seems like liberation but in fact it’s just putting off what could otherwise be a perfectly reasonable decision. And I think living with what you’ve done isn’t a bad way of working.

And the other thing—which has nothing to do with the practicalities of shooting—which appals me, is that every time we do a movie you have to buy new cameras, because they wear out, so they have a life, and they always stop manufacturing the damn things.

Halfway through Isle of Dogs they stopped making the camera we were shooting on! We had 50 and we had to find another 30 and we had to scour the world for them because Canon was no longer manufacturing them.

Whereas at Aardman, I could take a camera off the shelf that was made in 1928 and I’d know that I was using a piece of 70- or 80-year-old technology that was just going to keep going. We did not lose a shot on Curse of the Were-Rabbit or Chicken Run to a camera problem.

We have had far more problems shooting on a 5D than we ever did on film. The sheer absurdity of the throwaway society and obsolescence leaves a bad taste in the mouth. That at the beginning of every movie you have to spend $300,000–400,000 on new cameras.

At the end all those cameras are [sold on] eBay. The sheer fact of having to put all those cameras on eBay is absurd.

The famous train-chase scene in The Wrong Trousers

Can you tell us any good stories about the train-chase scene in The Wrong Trousers? (Emma guesses it must be the most challenging scene you’ve ever worked on, and there’s no doubt it is one of the best action scenes in a film, ever.)

Ha! Do you know how long ago that was? My daughter Sally was born the second week of shooting The Wrong Trousers and she’s just had her 26th birthday. However, I can tell you exactly about the train chase because it was a lot of fun, that particular segment.

So what you have, of course, is you have this chase that appears to take place in an infinitely huge environment, because the train is moving. We did some crude math and decided the train would be moving at 50mph if it was scaled up. So we did some tests and it looked really slow. So we just kept going up and up and up. And in fact it’s now moving at about 200mph scale-to-scale.

It’s tiny, absolutely minute, the train. We devised this method for shooting where you never see both ends of the train at the same time, so it’s either being pushed or it’s being pulled. It’s attached to the camera, [which is] on a crane hanging over the set. And the camera either had a rod that was pushing or a thread that was pulling. There is no motion control at all.

Laid on the floor is a tape measure and a pointer pointing at the tape measure. We’d hit the camera button—it had a two-second exposure—and we’d push the train 10cm [3.9in] along the track. So it’s moving at 10cm a frame. That’s a lot of distance to cover. And as the train is pulled or pushed, its wheels naturally go around on the track, so it self-animates its own spinning wheels as it goes along.

And we had a set that was a sort of long living room. It was Wallace’s living room but stretched, so it was about five meters long. At one end there was this huge sofa and the camera would go along following the train and it would go behind the sofa and as soon as it moved we’d pick the sofa up and take it down the other end of the set and the camera would move around the sofa and the train would keep going again.

And then when the penguin flies through the air, we actually mounted a sheet of glass in front of the camera—a big sheet of glass so you could see the set through it—and then the penguin was animated across that sheet of glass from right to left. So it looked like it was flying through the air, but the camera was still moving—everything was moving at 10cm a frame—so that’s 2.4 meters per second on double-0 gauge (if you know anything about trains). If you scale that up you’re moving at a hell of a lick!

So the penguin is stuck to the sheet of glass each time he is moved?

He’s had his back sliced off him so he’s like half a penguin, a bas-relief, if you like.

Then there are two other bits on that sequence. (It’s a very big sequence, obviously, there’s a lot to tell!) One is when the train goes around the corner. So for that I built this tiny dolly, which was a wedge of timber with four furniture casters on it and a massive Mitchell camera mounted on top of it. The track went under the camera, and I actually knelt on the set and hand dollied it round the bend.

I thought “this is fantastic!”. But when we actually shot it, what I had completely neglected to register is that as you hit the button the shutter goes around and it completely obscures the eye-piece—so I did it blind, really.

And the other shot is where the camera goes under the table. I can’t actually remember how we did that. I think we had a table that just broke away. But it’s all in-camera. There are no special effects at all.

We had a crew of six on that film. And only 150 shots in the whole movie. It’s amazing. The camera just sits there and watches what’s going on. It doesn’t cut, cut, cut. The camera sits there and you watch the whole sequence of penguin looking up at museum and all the other scenes.

Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs

Did you have a favorite moment on Isle of Dogs?

[Laughing] The last day! There are certain bits of Isle of Dogs that I greatly enjoyed bringing to the screen, but overall it was a slog. Working with a director who is an auteur gives you far less scope to exercise your own creative imagination, so you become reactive rather than proactive. That can be frustrating. That isn’t saying that the film isn’t fabulous and everyone will love it, but in terms of saying I loved that and I did that, it isn’t really my work. It’s something that I “enabled”, if you will.

There are some things that give you a degree of satisfaction. The problem with these movies is they are vast machines that roll on, so the intense personal satisfaction that I used to derive from shooting stuff like The Wrong Trousers is kinda lacking, because it’s such a huge thing.

I had a lot of fun shooting ParaNorman. By my own admission, I think I made a really, really good job of it and I think it looks fantastic. I enjoyed the directors, I enjoyed working at Laika. It was great.

What are five films you love for their cinematography?

I love Conrad Hall so I would always have Road to Perdition, his last movie, which I think is absolutely stunning. The beauty of shooting that film, dying and then getting a posthumous Academy Award is fantastic.

Seamus McGarvey is a great talent and I think Atonement is a beautiful looking film.

Casablanca is absolutely beautiful in black and white. That’s an astonishing looking movie. God, absolutely stunning.

I just think the standard of cinematography is so high at the moment. Production values just generally are so much better than they were 20 years ago—you can see a lot of bad movies but they’re very rarely badly shot.

The latest Blade Runner is fantastic. I’m so glad Roger [Deakins] won an award for that. Revolutionary Road, he did a fantastic job on that as well.

Any women cinematographers you have an eye on?

I realise that’s a prod, but Mudbound is a very handsome looking movie. I think [Rachel Morrison] did a fantastic job on Mudbound. Ask me in another ten years and I’m sure I’ll have many more names.

Did you ever meet Roger Deakins?

No, never. I met Jack Cardiff a couple of times, in his 90s. He was very twinkly. He’s a very naughty man—I think he had sex with nearly every leading woman that he worked with, which given that he is about five foot four is astonishing. He wrote a fantastic book called Magic Hour which has some absolutely awesome anecdotes in it. It’s well worth a read.

Could you have imagined in your wildest dreams that you’d spend a quarter of a century working in this field?

Tristan Oliver on set

My wildest dreams? Like some hideous nightmare! I mean, “no” is the answer. I think I’ve always kind of felt that I would be getting out of it at some point. You very rapidly become pigeonholed in this business. Because it’s what I do, it’s what I get asked to do. People are ludicrously conservative about this.

A case in point is Loving Vincent. The reason I got that job was because I knew about animation. But I actually shot a 90-minute, single-camera, live-action movie with a dolly, cranes, the works, in 16 days, which is pretty good going for a 90-minute movie. Then someone took it away and whilst I was shooting Isle of Dogs they painted all over it!

But isn’t it weird that I got the job because I knew about animation? That’s what the business is like—a crazy, slightly blinkered view. But all my films get seen by a lot of people. They’re proper big movies, they go all over the world.

What memories spring to mind when you think about Another Country all these years later? It must feel like another life.

Ha! 35 years later. The thing about that movie is that’s kind of what made me do what I do today. I didn’t really know anything about films until I did that movie, and I became very friendly with the camera crew [director of photography Peter Biziou, who later won an Academy Award for Mississippi Burning, and camera operator David Garfath, who also worked on The Empire Strikes Back]. I was really interested in it.

At secondary school I had done my exams in physics, biology and chemistry so I had a technical knowledge. I absolutely adored acting. I really, really, really enjoyed acting, but it just never happened for me. I had at one point to make a decision about whether I was going to live in a tiny flat by the seaside and do a couple of commercials and a pantomime every year and end up in a blazer and cravat, or do something that would make me a living. So I did spend a couple of schizophrenic years being a clapper loader and an actor, then I went to film school.

But my memories of that film are very intense and very fond. I mean, that was a real eye-opener for me. I’d never been in that environment before, surrounded by those sorts of people doing that job. It was deeply affecting. I think it damaged me for about five years. Although it was only a few weeks of my life, I then had to go back and finish my degree and the phone never rang. Everyone was interested in Rupert [Everett] and Colin [Firth], or Cary [Elwes]. Although only Colin really became a superstar.

In hindsight I’d have got myself a publicity agent and gone out there and sold myself. So I do this now. I lead a life of anonymity.

Look at an animated feature: in terms of awards, all it’ll be up for is best animated feature. The Annies don’t ever have a category for cinematography, and they have a category for everything, even an award for the floor sweeper! I wrote to them and asked them in the nicest possible way, why don’t you have a category for cinematography? And they went, ‘Oh it’s far too expensive to introduce new categories’. Then a year later they introduced two new categories. It’s absolutely absurd. We go very unconsidered in this world. Trying to gain membership of any professional organisation is impossible.

I’ve shot six movies and every one has been nominated or won an Academy Award. And I’ve shot short movies that have won or been nominated. They just go, ‘Yeah, it’s animation though isn’t it’.

Well, what keeps getting you up in the morning, in terms of what you do?What do you think is the role of storytellers such as yourself and the teams you work with in our society?

Stories are what separate us from the beasts. We are the only animal capable of projecting abstract thoughts into the future or into the past and drawing analogies in that way. I think it’s what makes us human: the ability to tell stories. There’s no anything without story. People ask me what makes a great movie and I go “the script”.

People love to watch people acting stuff out. It’s peculiar. It’s not something that any other animal does. It’s very deep within us, this need to tell stories. In fact they’ve now decided that the way these neolithic cave illustrations have been structured, with animals with multiple legs, is because when they were lit by candlelight it gave the impression of running. As the candlelight flickered, these things galloped. It’s all about story.

Finally, tell us why we ought to visit Bristol, the home of Aardman Animation?

Why would one visit Bristol?! Well, it has a thriving arts and animation scene. It’s a little bit laid-back. It’s rather like Portland in that respect. If you were in the UK and you wanted a day out I’m sure it’s right up there with Bath. It’s next door to Bath so you could probably do both in a weekend. But the thing about Bristol is it’s so nice, it’s so comfortable, that people used to go there and never leave.

I’ve experienced this many times because when I was crewing up Fantastic Mr. Fox—and indeed Isle of Dogs—I asked some of my old crew from Aardman to come and work with me. And they were all incredibly reluctant and it’s only 110 miles away! They were happier to be unemployed in Bristol than come to London, which terrifies them because there’s too many people there. Portland is where young people to go to retire and Bristol is the graveyard of ambition.

Our thanks to Tristan Oliver for his time and energy and to Fox for arranging the interview. See the accompanying list of favorite cinematographers and the questions thread.

[alexanderessex3dstoryart]

Character Design - Silhouette Designs

Since I’m not the most amazing drawer and tend to spend way too much time on the smallest of things, Jon suggested I should look into creating my character designs/sketches in Photoshop through the use of silhouette design. Instead of drawing the character fully out, all that I would be doing is adding props to an already existing mesh and creating character ideas and ketches this way. Having mention before I wasn’t the best at drawing, i was very willing to try this method out and give it a go to see if the process stuck with me.

Firstly, I had to find some pre-made meshes for me to draw and place images on top of.  From casually browsing on the internet, I found this really great turnaround online of the same mesh that’s in an ‘A-pose’. I found this to be just what I was looking for as I could cover all aspects of deign with this mesh at different angles. In addition to finding the perfect mesh for the silhouette ‘drawing’, I also made a library of different objects that I could use to build my character up from scratch weather that be using one object as the basis of a design or used as an extra detail. The images i’ve chosen are influenced from the mood boards I’ve previously made in the past for the character design project.

Mesh Turnaround

Images that i placed on top of the pre-existing mesh

Once my image library had been completed and the meshes ready, i then started to combine the props and human mesh together to create my weird and wacky character designs. To achieve a true silhouette image for some of these designs, I applied a black and white filter to them which I decreased the saturation creating a fully model which was very hand for me if i wanted a deign added on very quickly to the mdoel.

But enough of how i got myself ready to do the designs of the characters, the actual drawing and placement of these props was actually really fun to do as it was a very simple but really effective process if i wanted to get ideas out as quick as possible. Looking at the first shilloute sheet I made, it focused on the character Hyde due to him being the character I would love to model for hand in. Using the shilloute technique, his deer skull was an essential piece to his design being made up from natural debris and junk from my story as this posed as the menacing piece of his design. This si why he has items and materials like bottles, signage and general junk scattered across forming a beast like no other.

Through this process I noticed I wanted the skull to be a lot more hidden and cramped into the design of the character giving off the vibe this is a humongous character approaching you. in a lot of these designs I made on the first sheet, I had what each character was comprised of shape wise and how they were used to create a unique-looking character. Taking influence from Doomfist’s gauntlet form ‘Overwatch’ for one of my Hyde designs was a really good idea as it expressed who I might want to model a particular element for the character (like the fist and wires) as well as giving a vague representation of what it should look like. Knowing this fact, I began to be a lot looser in my design process because of it. 

To further expand on my Hyde character’s design, I looked up paper scraps online to see a section of them clustered together. I thought because my Hyde character is very janky and uneven in appearance, these ripped up pieces of paper could emulate how the character will look if it was metal plates attached to him instead. Whilst the process was very tedious to do, I was really happy with the entire process as it really did capture what kind of character Hyde would look like if I was to sketch his silhouette out. Details like Jekyll’s arm being still show reminded me a lot of the Charger's character design (Left for Dead - Game) which is what influenced me to retain some of the Jekyll’s character into the design of him. In addition to the paper scrap method it influenced me to have his big mechanical arm separate fro, his body with only wiring connecting it. Although whilst I really liked this idea, I had to make sure it was a conventional design too as my Jekyll character as to fit inside him sorta snug and not detaching his limbs in the process. All these ideas felt like I needed to expand this particular character design. 

Charger Character (Left for Dead - Game)

One slight issue I had when making any of the designs as soon as I got into the groove with it all, Photoshop kept on crashing on me or at least be really slow in placing my props onto the mesh meaning the process turned from really enjoyable to really tedious and tiring to make as across all three silhouette sheets I made, it took me quite the couple of days to make due to how badly my laptop runs Photoshop. Never the less, I still had to keep pushing on as the shilloute drawing is slowly starting to grow on me. 

First experimentation sheet on the Hyde character

Ripped up pieces of paper to assemble the rough character designing of the Hyde character

Working from the paper based shilloute, I used the pre-made meshes that I found at the beginning and made 5 versions of them each specifically the front, side profile and the 3/4 angle meshes.  This was to allow me to have a wide range of different ideas covering different angles of the character as they weren’t made to be consistent to all form one design all together.  Because I found placing objects on top of the models to be really slow and tiresome for my computer, I thought I would create sketches using very loose sketches on my graphics tablet.

Starting off with the front facing first row of experimental sketches, one common theme I had here was to establish what the final design was going to be. Whilst this may seem really early tor try and find, it was because I could dedicate the rest of the angles to much more experimental sketches playing around the from and accessories that the Hyde character is attached too. One design aspect that you could probably already see in the sketches in the first row is with the feet as one foot is larger than the other. The way I’ve been able to communicate this I really like as it express the incompleteness that the chracter has in the world as one of my sub-themes for the story is that my Hyde character wants to be apart of human society but can’t due to his looks and always scary the city folk away.

Going back to the character design process, I like how I’ve played around with the different sizes of the leg shapes specifically with the fourth model as I love how beedy the left leg looks in comparison tot he right one which you can definitely also see in the first design I did for the Hyde character. Another aspect of the design I really like was the right arm itself as I already knew that the left arm was going to be Jekyll's own arm. So for contrast, I wanted his arm to be this huge ginormous figure that overshadows the tiny arm to emphaise the deadlier side of him. 

With the second and third row of designs as previously mentioned before, these were a lot more experimental sketches to play around with poses or aesthetics that I want to add onto the already final design. I think the only takeaways from the second and third row of designs were the use of signage as I want a combination of pipes and signage to cover the back of the character as he patrols around the world fully expressing the mess he becomes off of Jekyll’s hatred in my story.

Second Shilloute Drawing Sheet

In addition to looking at Hyde, I thought I would look at using the same silhouette process in my Jekyll character working from my turnaround that I made before Christmas. Thinking about how I wanted to exapnd the character, it was mainly looking at how I could make the back look better as that was my only gripe with the turnaround for my Jekyll character due to not being too impressed with it. Through the sketches I made here, I really liked the idea for having either a portable spotlight that can emerge from the back of his back that can be used like a surgeon's light in a operation but for a mechanic. The other idea was to have a leathery school backpack to keep all his tools and spotlights in depending on the work he has to do. I think personally, I’m leaning more into the backpack design as it’s the most simplest and the easiest on the eyes for the turnaround if I was to end up modelling the character fully.  

Third Shilloute Drawing sheet - Jekyll Character 

Overall despite the process of shillouting these experimental character designs took far longer than expected as Photoshop really couldn't handle the process at all. I think it went rather successfully in terms of developing my ideas and coming up with new ones so quickly. I think if ti wasn’t for my computer acting up the way it has been since the start of January, I would proabley keep working in silhouette deign especially for the final sheets as they would look a lot nicer and prettier to understand.

[xanthicantag]

do all the asks scrub

you have truly mastered all i have to teach and reached the rank scrub lord

We got D for Darren, IT for inktree, TE for scary terry, G for garramoosh, F for fellos and UN for unfaceable

1. How many dead parents do they have?

D: 2!IT: 0!!TE: 5!G: a whole deadass clanF: A whole mess of dead family poor kidUN: she technically killed her own father so like

2. How good are they at tongue twisters?Except for Darren, BAD

3. Biggest regret?D:Losing friendship powerIT: the lose of boyfriends 1-6TE: not killing more peopleG: Letting all his friends and family die and having to live with the regret he couldn’t avenge them and then took up the mantle of those who slew themF: Letting the clan of @purplewombat14481​ ‘s character die, he thought no one else would vote for the kidUN: listening to her friends and not ripping that Darrus guy in half

4. Are they formally trained or have they gone through a more organic learning experience for their skillset?

D: No training just a lot of the street lifeIT: All the fucking goddamn trainingTE: he’s a damn good murder sorcerer is what he isG: as much training as a paladin bugbear could get?F: Not as trained as Inky but he was trained real goodUN: ex military baby, and also a naruto like training period

5. If they could hang out with one famous person in 18th century American History, who would they want to hang out with?

None of them would last 5 minutes without killing them, except maybe Inktree, she’s a smart girl

6. What’s their theme song?

D: It’s a hard knock lifeIT: The Killing Type -Amanda PalmerTE: Young and a Menace - FOBG: Believer - Imagine Dragons or Every Kesha songF: Praying - KeshaUN: The Wolves - JJ & the pillars

7. What fictional character are they most like? Was this an intentional or accidental influence?

fukc dude, Garamoosh is kinda like the man of lamancha?

8. Paper or plastic?

all paper all the way

9. What’s their dump stat?

D: StrengthIT: Charisma (she’s not a good talker)TE: I don’t remember I think he might have busted stats tbhG: It was INT before he got a 19 in thatF: His cunning was bad? (this was for dragon age dnd)UN: Int and Dex, she was the strongest ranger

10. What’s their best stat?

D, IT, TE, G: DEX (also INT for IT and CHA for D and TE)F & UN: They are ripped as fucking hell.

11. What is their favorite anime?D & UN: NarutoF: Neon GenesisTE: High death animeG: he loves that slice of life anime about the big guy who finds love, it really gets to him as a big guy who’s just looking to have a family

12. What’s their favorite beverage?All but G: AlchoholG: He drinks water since it’s holy

13. If they can use magic, what’s their favorite spell?D: Burning handsIT: Booming blade or Magic MissileTE: Hellish Rebuke (I love tieflings btws)G: Divine smite (and shield, and find steed, he loves that horse, and magic, he’s a giver really)F: He likes his big hand grabby spellUN: Goodberry or passwithout trace, Hunters mark had it’s day in the light one time

14. Most heroic thing they have ever done?D: Tried to help someone in their time of need, that guy was a piece of shitIT: Saves the rest of the party, every time, always, she is tired of it, she wants restTE: Murder is bad and he is only good at thatG: he is techincally stopping a bunch of evil cults from ending the world, and murdered a slaver, it was dopeF: Saved a party memebers child, but also let a whole clan die so it kinda wasn’t so greatUN: Stopped a genocide and and punched a god

15. Most despicable thing they have ever done?D:He got over zealous and ripped a guys head off for style points after he surrendered, scared the rest of the partyIT: Techincally breaking out of jail is illegal but she doesn’t follow lawsTE: he is a murderer, like, really, he killed the other orphans, who does thatG: He techincally may have broken his oath once or twice, but it’s for good and he’s smater than religion now so no one can stop himF: see all times i mention those dead elvesUN: She kind of worked for a totalitarian order of assholes for a while

16. Are they a hero or a supporting protagonist?D: He wants to shine as a true hero with a heart of gold, but he’s really evil and is bad at being goodIT: she just wants some fuck and some sleep, she would gladly not be any whereTE: noG: That party is full of ridiculous hero backstoriesF: same as GUN: she was really stubborn but also didn’t really want to be front and center

17. What’s their favorite food?All non IT: any foodTE: The spider meat (the underdark is making her crazy)

18. Would they rather fight a hundred duck-sized horses, or one horse-sized duck?100 small horses, they are all good at aoe

19. They have to go live on a deserted island. They can take one thing and one person. What do they take?Alchohol for all non-GG: his family

20. Are they religious? If so, what god or gods do they serve?G: The golden Hog who saved him from death at the hands of a paladinF: The maker kindaNone for the rest

21. How did they become an adventurer?D: by accidentIT: she was arrested and said no i’m not staying hereTE: he’s really notG: the people needed himF: he wanted to save his brotherUN: she woke up in a basement and found a new family, a better one

22. Most amazing monster they have ever killed or helped kill?D: a battalionIT: shadow demon wizard fusionTE: i don’t even remember he needed to relaxG: a lot of high-powered high-ranking cultists, and a dragonF: Some hot guy UN: a fake god and then technically a real god 

23. Thoughts on death?BAD

24. Do they have any interesting skills?D: can pickpocket stuff with a whip (says he can pick a lock with it but everyone knows he just breaks the door down)G: has skin with AC 20UN: can pull rank sometimes

25. Favorite animal?IT: She really loves owlsD and TE: their pets ratG: HogsUN: her sweet dogF: Mabaris

26. Expansion of civilization or the preservation of nature?All of them except Fellos are for nature

27. They’re at a tavern. They bump into a big burly angry drunk with a combative attitude. What happens?That fucker get’s his ass beat is what happens (or eviscerated by D or TE) 

28. What do they do between quests?G: tries to raise his boy (another player)D: hunts a bastard manTE: his never not doing murderF: finding his brother (plot twist he found him it was awkward) or learning more about his friendsUN: systematically killing every member of the order she used to work for, or having a nice day with her doh

29. Biggest positive and negative influences on their life and development?D: himself and his murdery tendencies are bad, his friends were goodTE: HIMSELF, not goodIT: the other gnome and druid is the only not negative influence, everyone else is a negativeG: He loves everyone, until their evilF: His mother was his only big role model/ parent, and he is trying to do good to be that kind of figure for his brother, but the demon who lives in his brain (IS THE BEST INFLUENCE SHOUT OUT TO MY BOY)

30. Would they smooch a ghost?

100% YES

[scifihorroradventure]

IT (1990)

In the small town of Derry, Maine, an ancient evil makes its presence known, slaughtering multiple children. Recognizing the pattern, Mike (Tim Reid) calls his old childhood friends Bill (Richard Thomas), Ben (John Ritter), Beverly (Annette O'Toole), Richie (Harry Anderson), Eddie (Dennis Christopher), and Stanley (Richard Masur) and tells them that "it" has returned. Though glad to hear from him again, they are terrified of the memories that come flooding back to them, as together they all faced the same evil when they were children - A murderous clown known as Pennywise (Tim Curry). The group eventually conquered their fears and defeated the beast, sending it into a deep slumber, but their fears quickly resurface when faced with the prospect of dealing with Pennywise once again. Reuniting in Derry, the adult Losers Club prepare to defeat Pennywise once and for all, even as the clown preys upon every fear they've ever had...

A two part television adaptation of Stephen King's famous novel, It definitely has its heart in the right place, but is unfortunately besieged by a series of problems. One of the biggest of these becomes almost immediately apparent in the first few attack scenes involving the girl on the tricycle and the flashback with Georgie - The movie can't show anything. Each time Pennywise attacks anyone in this movie, he either only sticks around long enough to give them a quick scare, or the aftermath of his attack is never shown. As such, despite how fearsome the clown is supposed to be, he never really accomplishes anything, making him seem scary, yet ultimately ineffective at... anything, really. Yes, this was intended for television and not a theatrical release, thus they could not show carnage one might expect to see on the silver screen, but this was still a feature length film adaptation of a Stephen King novel intended for adults, and the movie fails to show a level of 'gore' one might expect to see on detective shows of the time like Columbo or Murder, She Wrote. Frankly, when Henry Bowers gets stabbed near the end of the movie, it's almost out of place in this otherwise non-violent film. It's almost enough to ask the question "If they couldn't do It justice, why bother?"

The second largest problem is that the adult sections of the film are massively uneventful and almost feel like filler. It takes forever for the adult Losers Club to finally reunite, and when they do they spend an incredible amount of time just sitting around, either worrying about Pennywise or remembering about when they used to worry about Pennywise as children but never actually doing anything, despite destroying Pennywise being the entire reason they returned to Derry! It’s also odd that, while understandable that they would be creeped out at the prospect of fighting Pennywise again (who wants to fight an evil alien demon clown twice?), no one brings up the train of thought “We beat him as kids, why should we be worried now?” There's also the head scratcher that they all came to destroy Pennywise once and for all but didn't actually bring anything to help get the job done (a fact that the movie brings up via Richie and then immediately ignores). Now, as children, this makes total sense - things like slingshots would be the only thing they have access to. But as adults? They should have been packing guns, hunting knives, swords, axes, machetes, bows and arrows, crossbows, or hell, even baseball bats! Instead, all they bring is Beverly's old slingshot and Eddie's inhaler. Literally over half of the Losers Club didn't even bring weapons of any kind. Aside from this, the movie also suffers from being unable to decide what to adapt and what to leave out from King's novel - The flashback sequences feel like they're being rushed so the film can return to modern day, while the modern day scenes feel like they're being rushed so the film can begin the next flashback. It's this odd rushing of scenes that result in several pivotal plot points like the kids realizing what Pennywise truly is, and even their ultimate (childhood) showdown with him in the sewers, being hurried to and then being done with before they've barely even begun. Meanwhile, sequences like Ben's family troubles, Bill and Mike messing around on Bill's old bicycle, and adult Ben watching a child being attacked by bullies (and not helping) are given ample screen time. Amazingly, despite the film being over three hours long, it feels incredibly rushed and disjointed.

Overall, the cast is serviceable. The kids do alright, in particular Jonathan Brandis and a young Seth Green as Bill and Richie, though Eddie (Adam Faraizl) and Stan (Ben Heller) never really get a chance to shine over the others at any point. Jarred Blancard as the young Henry Bowers does well, effectively portraying an incredibly nasty young man (though thanks to this being television, he never does anything too nasty). As far as the adult cast goes, they almost all have odd, even awkward introductions, such as Beverly being stuck in an abusive, 50 Shades-esque relationship, or Ben trying to turn his date on by discussing how fat he used to be as a child. Richard Thomas as Bill is a decent, if slightly bland lead, responsible for a couple meta Stephen King in-jokes which are funny at first but then just become annoying by the end. Despite having interesting characters, John Ritter and Annette O'Toole just feel kinda there as Ben and Beverly. Harry Anderson as Richie probably shows the most personality out of the adults, while Richard Masur as Stanley doesn't even get to do anything before he's killed off. Tim Reid's Mike seems like he's going to be a major player in the story, as he is responsible for recognizing that Pennywise has returned and summoning the rest of the Losers Club, but is injured and removed from the story not too long before the climax, while Dennis Christopher's Eddie is killed off almost as an afterthought. Ultimately, the actors are good, but none of them really have any interesting material to work with, resulting in most of the scenes being rather boring to watch.

Of course, the one thing this film is often remembered and praised for is Tim Curry's iconic performance as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. And honestly, this is one aspect where the film really does shine. As Pennywise, Curry exudes an air of utter menace and malice while also retaining plenty of clown-like playfulness. There are a few instances where he threatens to go overboard with the silliness (such as when he taunts adult Richie in the library), but they never cross the line. Pennywise's scenes are the only time where the movie actually starts to become creepy, but unfortunately he is never on screen long enough for the atmosphere to take full effect. And lastly, while the unveiling of Pennywise's true form was necessary for the climax of the story, it does suffer from a total lack of Tim Curry during the encounter, and while the Spider's design is decent, the puppet's movement is laughably stiff and it features amusingly large, Cookie Monster-like eyes that are focused on very clearly in a few shots. If only they had been able to find a way to work Curry into the monster's final scene, even just his voice. On the plus side, though, the effect of the shimmering light traveling through the sewers as Pennywise attacks and devours Belch is effectively unsettling, a rare case of keeping the monster off screen done right.

While the cast and crew give it their all, It ultimately falls short of what was required to bring Stephen King's novel to the big (or even small) screen, with director Tommy Lee Wallace and various members of the cast echoing these sentiments for a variety of reasons. While the film can be scary for younger viewers, it can be tedious and boring to older audiences, which would be bad enough if this were a regular length movie, but with the monstrous run time of 192 minutes (187 on the DVD), it can be a Herculean task to get through at times. Of course, one must watch this at least once if for no other reason than Tim Curry's amazing performance as Pennywise, but after that I can't honestly recommend watching this again for at least another twenty seven years.

Rating: ★★★

Cast: Tim Curry ... Pennywise the Dancing Clown Richard Thomas ... Bill Denbrough Jonathan Brandis ... Bill Denbrough (Age 12) Tim Reid ... Mike Hanlon Marlon Taylor ... Mike Hanlon (Age 12) Annette O'Toole ... Beverly Marsh Emily Perkins ... Beverly Marsh (Age 12) John Ritter ... Ben Hanscom Brandon Crane ... Ben Hanscom (Age 12) Harry Anderson ... Richie Tozier Seth Green ... Richie Tozier (Age 12) Dennis Christopher ... Eddie Kaspbrak Adam Faraizl ... Eddie Kaspbrak (Age 12) Richard Masur ... Stanley Uris Ben Heller ... Stanley Uris (Age 12) Michael Cole ... Henry Bowers Jarred Blancard ... Henry Bowers (Age 14) Olivia Hussey ... Audra Denbrough Tony Dakota ... Georgie Denbrough Chris Eastman ... Belch

Director: Tommy Lee Wallace. Producer: Mark Bacino (associate producer), Allen S. Epstein (executive producer), Jim Green (executive producer), and Matthew O'Connor (supervising producer). Writer: Tommy Lee Wallace (teleplay), Lawrence D. Cohen (teleplay), and Stephen King (original novel). Music: Richard Bellis. Special Effects: John Thomas (coordinator), John Deall (uncredited crew), Tony Lazarowich (uncredited assistant), Bob Comer (uncredited animatronics), Gene Warren Jr. (special visual effects supervisor: Fantasy II), David Emerson (uncredited optical camera), Michael Joyce (uncredited model shop supervisor), Bret Mixon (uncredited roto supervisor), and Tim Scannell (uncredited rotoscope artist and camera operator).

[ashleybenlove]

Hidden Talent

This episode is definitely one of my favorites. We get to hear Say The Word, Patton Oswalt shows up again, and Sherri Shepherd plays a character named MC Honey. Sherri hosted the Newlywed Game for a while and she also played Angie Jordan, Tracy’s wife, on 30 Rock. At the time of this episode’s airing she was on a show called Less Than Perfect (which apparently also starred Patrick Warburton, who also appears in this episode too). She would appear a total of 3 times on KP.

This episode literally begins with Kim trying out new gadgets at lunch. She calls the thermal sun glasses “flossy” Urbandictionary says that means extremely flashy/showy.

Kim has a laser ring. At school. It shoots Ron’s hair.

Wade has tech glitches on his end. This will cause problems later.

Bonnie’s older sibs won the talent contest in past 4 years. We meet Connie and Lonnie later in S3. Also Kim’s line: “And your talent is what? Singing... your own praises? Acting... obnoxious?” is amazing.

Bonnie has done 12 years of ballet training. That’s a lot. 

Ron signed up Kim for the talent show WITHOUT ASKING. Not cool. And Kim gets mad at him for it. GOOD.

16 styles of kung fu.

Wade calls but it is not Wade.

MC Honey!

Dementors lair is really cool.

Ron’s like, you’re Kim Possible, you can do anything. Kim proceeds to jump around the red laser things which is pretty much how she started the save the world thing as we see in A Sitch In Time.

Kim did some singing as a young child. Silent Night. Probably one of the most overtly Christian religion references we get in the show (except perhaps, Christmas).

Kim going through all of Dementor’s henchman gives me so much life.

Kim is suspicious about the fact that Dementor named the invention they were asked to steal from his lair, and just in general but everyone’s like IT’S FINE. 

Also Kim can’t hit the high notes. It’s funny because CCR is a great singer and was even Belle on Broadway. Also, Kim was wearing braces in the flashback so she was probably 12 or so. Also I guess they wanted to put more use to the model they made in A Sitch In Time of her as a preteen.

I feel like you can tell its not Wade because Wade is a little more chill than usual??? Also Kim definitely is like unsure of the legitness.

The disguised voice is actually Shego.

Drakken’s basically using mocap technology.

Kim, Ron, and Rufus are in the vents. To spy on Bonnie. Kim expresses disbelief that Bonnie would spend 12 hard years doing ballet. Which yeah, from what I understand ballet is super duper hard.

Bonnie’s wearing legwarmers. Did she miss the memo about legwarmers being passe like forever. 

Serious suggestion or mocking. Ah Drakken and Shego, you’re the best. 

We hear some of Say The Word.

Ron believes in her so much, aww.

Drakken as Wade contacts Kim and he definitely struggles with dealing with Kim. She tells Wade to chill.

Why is the adapter thing for the teleporter plugged into the phone line. Why would you trust landlines to be a matter transporter. Ron is like “It’s all fiber optics, Kim.” I mean, I guess.

Ron and Rufus head back to finish prepwork on the song and Kim stays behind to deal with the mission. 

And then REAL Wade contacts her and apologizes for being out of contact.

Tahj Mowry proceeds to argue with himself. 

Kim says “surprise me” in response to Drakken’s gloating about horrible fates. He’s all YOU TEENAGERS AND YOUR SASS. 

Drakken shows exactly what’s gonna happen. A bottomless chasm that fills with water (that Shego calls out) and sharks and a squid are involved. 

Kim’s like eh beats humiliation at the talent show I guess. Is this like that whole thing with millennial nihilism or whatever? 

When the box starts filling with water, Kim’s face gets sad. Oh gods. She’s pretty much faced with the probability of drowning. Yikes. I do not wanna think about Dire Straits and Hiccup being like “I wouldn’t leave you either” to Toothless. *deep breath*

Bonnie is wearing the Björk Swan Dress. I love it. That was only like a couple of years before at the time. 

Barkin gets up and he has that military music playing for him. That’s like his theme music.

Kim escaping from the box is incredible.

Kim has a funky little breathing apparatus that looks like the one from Phantom Menace that Obi Wan and Qui Gon use? I’m not sure what it is but she holds it in her mouth.

They play Jaws like music as Kim swims away from the shark. Y’all should have paid for the John Williams music. Probably would have been a distraction. And too scary. And also absurdly too much money.

Kim tries to use her body to break open the glacial ice. Um... you’re gonna hurt yourself. 

She uses a high note to break the ice.

While Drakken uses the teleporter thing, it rings. His mother is calling. We’ll meet her later this season. More on her when she shows up. 

KIM PATS DRAKKEN ON THE HEAD PATRONIZINGLY. I LOVE IT.

Kim uses the teleporter phone thing to get to the Talent Show just in time. 

Ron misses out on Kim’s EXCELLENT PERFORMANCE OF SAY THE WORD because he’s knocked out. And it doesn’t look like anyone is videotaping it either. 

We also see her family. Bros are bored, her parents are 😍.

Kim got an amazing response.

Ron won though, because quantity over quality. Snort. Sorry Bonnie and Kim. Kim claps for Ron though. So, like, good ending. 

[waddlesdpig]

TOP COMICBOOK WRITERS OF 2018

The following is a quick write up about my personal favorite writers for 2018, spoilers and bad jokes ahead. 

 Wow, will you, wow, just look at, wow all that time wow. 2018 came and went like my dad after McDonald’s McRib was back in season! Tragic loss of delicious parents aside, we can’t look ahead to the new year without reviewing what the things that came before! 

 In this case the Top Comicbook Writers of 2018. I mean you knew this was coming, you read the title. Y-You can read the title right? Oh god all those people with Can’t-Readitis are going to be so lost!

2018 was crazy, but for comic books it was like a good crazy. Kinda like when you eat at a Chinese restaurant and find out they sell pizza, but like actual pizza. And not just in the movies, with Marvel and DC digging deep to revitalize and strengthen their IP’s, we got some of the best comics from the big two in a long while. At the center of this movement has been fresh and exciting writers taking these titles in new directions. So now being the leading authority in basement dwelling blogging hogs, i felt the need to highlight some of my favorite Comic book writers of 2018. First examining those wonderful folks at Marvel Comics.

(Side note, not only am i the world’s greatest blogging hog, i am also a huge flithy casual of the highest order and as such any of my lists for 2018 will not include any indie titles even though there be a great many fantastic non-big two comics.)

MARVEL

DONNY CATES

Whoo boy, i don’t think it’d be a exaggeration to say that Hank Hill’s next door neighbor has had a stellar year comics-wise. Coming out early in the year with the stellar “ Thanos wins” story arc that pushed the big man Grimace himself into new territory in fantastic fashion. Something that would only carry forward with his brand new OC introduced in the run, that being “ Cosmic Ghost Rider.” Which is like the regular Ghost Rider but in SPAAAAAACEEE! Suffice to say he’s a very cool character, with his spin-off title living up to the hype.

These two runs in themselves would be deserved feathers in anyones cap, however with the Marvel Fresh Start initiative, Cates provided what is the crowning achievement of his work this year. This being Venom. Without a doubt since he and superstar artist Ryan Stegman have taken over, the title has become one of the most entertaining books Marvel has been pushing out. 

Cates has done a wonderful job of balancing the tone, knowing when to lean into the edge associated with the character and but also not depraving the title of brevity or more light hearted moments. This coupled with the epic reimagining of key aspects of Venom’s backstory and building to climatic moments that i hate are going to be sullied in the next Venom movie ( Dem Chinese audiences enjoying something that mildly annoys me ;-;). 

In Venom however we find more than big action, grand stakes, and epic concepts, as Cates has made it a point to consider introspectively Venom and it’s host relationship with each other. At some points wholesome, at others disturbing, but always engaging and because of that it has propelled Venom to a title worthy of standing alone from it’s Spider-Man origins.

CHIP ZDARSKY

I love Spider-Man, you probably love the fashion model dating luckless webhead yourself in one way or another. Whether it’s the original Lee/Ditko comics, the 1980’s animated show, MCU movies, or this guy, one way or another Spidey has found a way to web himself into the hearts of generations of people all over the world. So i can almost guarantee you love Chip Zdarsky and you didn’t even know it. (Think about all those valentines you missed out on sending to the man!)

 Chip’s run on Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man didn’t start in 2018, but it ended this year so i’m still counting it. While the first few issues were enjoyable in their own right, for me it wasn’t until Spectacular Spider-Man 6 ( #296 legacy number because Marvel never learned counting in pre-school) that things really started kicking into gear. As readers we are well aquatinted with the quipping more ridiculous side of the menace, but from issue 6 onward Chip makes it his focus to remind us that the Man matters just as much as the Spider. 

He portrays Spider-Man as he should be, the everyman hero that anyone can look up too. You still got your jokes and your villains and your good times, but more than ever Chip’s Peter is willing to lift the mask and show that he just that, a man.  So many times throughout the title we find Peter allowing himself to be vulnerable, not just to friends and comrades but to those who have sought his end so many times.  Giving us a Peter who is a hero, not just through his heroics, but also because he is willing to look for the good in others and not afraid to empathize with those around him.  And in that way Chip has given us, in many respects, the Spider-Man we’ve always known and love. And for that he has my thanks.

In addition to what will probably become a fan favorite take on Spider-Man which already warrants use of the “ Spectacular” adjective, Chip also helped bring the Fantastic Four ( or at least The Terrific Two) back into the spotlight with Marvel’s Two-in-One. ( A title name which might excite and immediately disappoint fans of Chip’s earlier work at Image.) 

Marvel Two-in-One focuses on the two remaining members of the splintered Fantastic Four, primarily how the main duo deal with assumably losing the rest of their family and just how far both are willing to go to regain them. In this book particularly i feel Chip did a magnificent job exploring the character drama, you can really feel the longing and grief that these two are experiencing, but at the same time manages to balance this with fun reality jumping shenanigans that never overstay they’re welcome. All in all another incredible title that made 2018 an absolutely amazing year for Chip, with 2019 looking to be a another stellar year for him. ( Can’t wait for his run on Red Batman!)

Side note it should be no surprise that my top two Marvel writers for the year had a part in this hot spider on spider strip here.

AL EWING 

BOO! Scared you? Probably not ( scary amount of cringe if anything ). Now if you want some real spookums Al Ewing is just the guy for you as 2018 saw the release of The Immortal Hulk, one of if not arguably the best comic of the last year. 

The Hulk has always been a mixed bag for me, i love the premise of the character: Quiet on the streets, radioactive green giant in the sheets. There’s an inherit struggle that can make for some compelling story opportunities in the right hands. But that’s just the thin, for me personally i hadn’t read anything that spoke to that idea i have for the character. Don’t get me wrong in the 57 years of the characters existence there have been some pretty good Hulk stories. ( Some of which i’m still getting around to reading) 

But none have appealed to me quite like Al Ewing and Joe Benett’s run on the title. The two masterfully has given this tale a fresh start by ironically taking the character back to his roots in the horror genre. The creative duo manage to achieve this through turning Hulk from misunderstood hero to essentially a wandering monster bent on exacting his own sense of justice on the scum of the world. This change in the status quo is excellently executed effectively through the artwork. No longer standing proud in defiance of those who would doubt him for the hero he is, Joe Benett pencils depict the hulking giant now as a grotesque monster lurking in the shadows ready for his next victim. 

This would all be for nothing if not for the strong voice Al Ewing has for this title. The Immortal green bean is not scary only because he can snap you in half like a brittle wishbone, but because he instills fear with the scariest thing known to man.. emotional insecurities. (That’s right folks we got a bitter beefed up Dr.Phil serving justice up like it’s a buffet.) Not content to beat you dead, Hulk now tortures those unlucky enough to be his targets by holding up a mirror to the horrors that haunt them. This applies to more than those Hulk seeks to punish, the real genius of The Immortal Hulk isn’t that he is the thing keeping scum up at night, no it’s that he is the never ending nightmare of Bruce Banner. Throughout the run Hulk haunts Banner in showing that they’re only two half’s of the same coin. Leaving Banner and the reader with eerie thoughts that linger on whether the mad beast is right all along. 

This is all too say that The Immortal Hulk is pretty dang good, your probably reading it already, if not you should probably read it. ( You know as long as you don’t have can’t-readitis) And if issue 11 is anything to go by 2019 is looking horribly wonderful for Al Ewing and the jolly green giant.

And that’s it, my top three Marvel writers for 2018. In all honesty last year was crazy for Marvel, i’m leaving out so many amazing people making their mark in the comics industry and all things considering here’s hoping we’re in store for even greater things in 2019.

[entergamingxp]

Five of the Best: Scares • Eurogamer.net

Five of the Best is a weekly series about the small details we rush past when we’re playing but which shape a game in our memory for years to come. Details like the way a character jumps or the title screen you load into, or the potions you use and maps you refer back to. We’ve talked about so many in our Five of the Best series so far. But there are always more.

Five of the Best works like this. Various Eurogamer writers will share their memories in the article and then you – probably outraged we didn’t include the thing you’re thinking of – can share the thing you’re thinking of in the comments below. Your collective memory has never failed to amaze us – don’t let that stop now!

Today’s Five of the Best is…

Scares! Boo! It’s beyond me why people play scary games. I look at someone like Ian Higton, playing Resident Evil 7 in VR, or Alien: Isolation in VR, and I wonder what’s wrong with him. Why willingly put yourself in that position? He’s the person in a horror film who walks into a dark basement on their own. I, on the other hand, am the person on the sofa screaming “don’t do that you wally!” while hiding behind the pillow. Look, I’d love to be as brave as Ian but I’m not. I nearly threw the PlayStation VR headset across the room when the shark started attacking my diving cage. Heck, I nearly threw the Vive headset across the room when I was standing on a sunken pirate ship and a whale swam up next to me. Ian, I am not like you. And sadly Ian is too busy to contribute to today’s piece, but he suggested the above games as well as Dead Space so I thought I’d at least mention them here.

Scares don’t have to come from scary games, though. Any game which ramps up the tension can make you jump out of your seat. So here’s to being scared and here are five of the best scares. Let’s hear yours below. Happy Friday!

Half-Life: Alyx

Oh man. So you’re going to meet Jeff. How bad can Jeff be? Here’s a guy who’s surviving the Combine. He warns you that if you go any further you’re going to be in Jeff’s domain. But really – How Bad Can Jeff Be?

Jeff is, um, quite bad actually. I think he was once a person. But now his head has sort of opened out like a kind of meat flower. He wanders around spreading toxic spores out of a little meat factory he has in his back. He’s very angry.

Jeff can’t see but Jeff can hear you. So for a while you have to inch through Half-Life: Alyx with your hand over your mouth and nose to stop those spores from making you cough. And you have to distract Jeff while you collect things from the maze where he lives. And you have to try and make it to an elevator. Which is very loud.

You don’t have to be a classicist – I’m not! – to understand the myth that Valve is tapping into here. But annoyingly there is no Ariadne in this version, no red thread to follow. Instead, you have to inch forward, one risk at a time. Surely I’m not meant to do that? Surely I’m not meant to try this?! The moment when you finally fire the lift up… and Jeff…

Okay it’s too horrible. But the weird thing is as much as you fear Jeff, you sort of feel for him too. Poor Jeff!

-Christian Donlan

Eternal Darkness

Eternal Darkness is a horror game, which means scares are all over the place. I remember evil monks, cursed Legionnaires, spooky rooms and all sorts of creepy stuff. But the biggest scares cross through the screen and are frightening in a more practical way.

This is one of those fourth-wall breakers. Sometimes while playing Eternal Darkness a fly will land on the TV screen, or the volume will start to turn up or down. But the biggest scare by far – I feel bad spoiling it – comes when you try to save your game at a particularly tense moment. DELETING FILE reads the on-screen text. For a minute, first time I encountered this, I totally forgot all the fourth-wall malarkey that had come before it. Some things in games are sort of sacrosanct – so of course that’s where Eternal Darkness chooses to get to you.

-Christian Donlan

Dead by Daylight

There’s nothing scarier than another human being. This is something I’ve learned not only from watching horror films and reading my Twitter replies, but also from gaming – with Dead by Daylight remaining one of the most stressful experiences so far.

That’s because it tackles a problem I’ve encountered with many horror games, in that after a certain point, you just stop getting scared. Once you’ve been caught for the first time, you remember it’s a game, you can’t actually die, and the monster is beatable. Then it’s merely a matter of figuring out the system to win.

Not so in Dead by Daylight, where as part of the asymmetrical multiplayer, the monster chasing you is a fellow human. Out goes the rulebook of a single-player game, and suddenly you’re playing mind games with a real person. One who may well bait you into a trap, try to outsmart you during a chase, or relentlessly track you down. There’s something distinctly menacing about knowing another human is sitting behind a screen somewhere, planning to impale you on a meat hook. And although with enough playtime you’ll become more familiar with the strategies, that element of unpredictability will always be there – and that’s what gets me scared.

-Emma Kent

Counter-Strike

Scary games are good fun, especially if you’re playing them in a group. You rush through the dank water, a monster close behind, screams of terror from the player and screams of laughter from those watching. But for me, the scariest moments I’ve ever experienced in a game have been in Counter-Strike.

In Counter-Strike, you’re always thinking about where your opponents might be. There are two teams of five, necessarily spread out across a wide map, so if you’re defending a bombsite you might not see another player, friend or foe, for the whole round – you’re just sitting in a corner, holding an angle, biding your time, listening to your teammates. Occasionally you do see someone, or hear the click of a grenade’s pin being pulled, and you get that kick of adrenaline as you anticipate the onslaught to come. They could come from anywhere! You could be challenging a whole team by yourself! This is exciting – but not scary. You’ve prepared for this.

Scary happens when that mental model – that understanding you carry of what is happening on the map right now – is disrupted. When you’re holding down B and someone calls “Five on A! They’re planting!” You relax. You think, ah, brilliant. I’ll just wander over to A now and help out. Shall I go via spawn, or through the middle? Do I still have grenades left? Let’s look at the kill feed and see how the defense is going – am I going to have to clutch this one, or are we doing alright? Just then, someone walks out into the B site and shoots you in the face. And you shit yourself, because you are not prepared for this.

-Will Judd

F.E.A.R.

I mean, it’s in the title – how can it not be scary?! What was so special about First Assault Encounter Recon though, a name no one ever used – besides the slow-mo and besides the level-shattering action and besides the aggressive, flanking AI – was the brand of horror it opted for. FEAR went for psychological Japanese-style horror at a time everyone else was going in-your-face jump scares, and the result was something insidious, something which got under your skin. A girl called Alma who had supernatural powers. A girl with lank dark hair who might as well have been pulled straight out of The Ring and The Grudge horror films, which I still rank among the scariest I’ve seen (and if you know any better, please suggest them below). She was always there but never quite there, haunting your every move. Menacing, malicious and absolutely pant-wettingly creepy.

-Bertie

OK it’s not F.E.A.R. 1 but it’s close enough!

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/05/five-of-the-best-scares-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=five-of-the-best-scares-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net