#Titles are unofficial and being used to keep me from going insane.

[mattapparentlystumbltourneys]

Cutting Room Throwdown - Series Prelim - Bomberman

None of these characters recieved propaganda. All are from the cancelled Bomberman 3DS Title.

The top 2 will be in the bracket along with No. 2 (Cat).

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

The Silence of the Lambs is an unnerving film with memorable scenes, intense performances and terrific characters… along with plenty of gore. This makes it a horror film - the only one to ever win an Academy Award for Best Picture - so far. On its own, the central mystery would be enough but we get much, much more.

25-year-old FBI trainee Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) is assigned to interview Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a former psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer apprehended six years ago. Officially, Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) wants her to convince Hannibal to fill out a questionnaire. Unofficially, he hopes she can convince Hannibal to help find “Buffalo Bill” (Ted Levine), a serial killer who has been abducting and murdering women.

It doesn’t take long for you to realize that director Jonathan Demme isn’t simply giving us another serial killer detective story. When Clarice hops into an elevator at the academy, all of the men inside tower over her. While she isn’t the only woman studying to become an FBI agent, there’s a recurring theme of her being debased or disrespected because she is a woman. Jack Crawford makes an unintentional remark to some police officers, Dr. Frederick Chilton (Anthony Heald) at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane doesn’t take her seriously and makes certain assumptions about her interview with Lecter (considering what Crawford says later, he might be slightly right), at least one inmate gets particularly lewd once he sees her. The theme continues with Buffalo Bill, who has a fundamental misunderstanding of what a woman even is, which leads him to commit his gruesome - and bizarre - murders. The only person (besides a female student played by Kasi Lemmons) who seems to treat Clarice with respect… is Hannibal.

Labelling Clarice as nothing more than "the film's female aspiring FBI agent" would be a mistake. Starling is a memorable character. She’s resourceful, smarter than she looks, doesn’t easily get rattled, and develops this odd sort of relationship with Lecter that says a lot about who she is and why she wants to join the FBI. At one point, Hannibal is offering her clues that could help her apprehend Buffalo Bill but in exchange, he demands to know more about her childhood. Obviously, he's using the techniques he learned as a psychologist to gather more information than even we could understand. During the interrogation, we learn where the movie's title comes from. Considering all of the grisly sights we see, it’s telling that the most chilling moment is that exchange. There’s something about Lecter that’s so dangerous. He’s classy. He’s smart. He always seems to have the perfect remark whenever anyone says anything to him. He’s alluring but just as you start getting close to the glass, you remember that he’s a monster.

With Clarice and Hannibal sufficiently covered, we can now talk about the mystery. If it took me this long, it's because if the movie was just a conversation between those characters, it would be enough. You’re glued to the screen watching them interact. You’re having a great time putting the pieces together, trying to figure these people out. Then, they part ways and you remember "Oh, right! The mystery!" How could you have forgotten? Buffalo Bill has captured another victim (Brooke Smith as Catherine Martin, who actually creates a memorable character with her few scenes). There’s only so much time before he does whatever it is he does to her. We've seen the other victims. We don't quite understand what it is that's going to happen, but we know it's not good. Martin’s mother, a U.S. Senator (Diane Baker) has the power to accelerate processes - anything to get her daughter back. Hannibal knows it. So does Clarice. Jonathan Demme and screenplay writer Ted Tally (who bases it off of the novel by Thomas Harris) keep playing tennis with you, moving you from the interviews with Lecter, to the mystery with the FBI and back again.

The Silence of the Lambs is a thriller that makes you sweat. Its horror elements will make you uneasy and one thing’s for sure, there’s no forgetting this movie once you’ve seen it. The performances are exceptional and even some of the smaller parts are far and above what you’d expect to see, even in a classy horror film - well, as classy as you can be when you have severed heads in bottles and rotting corpses dug out of rivers. I'm returning to the idea that it is a horror movie because it's an important quality of Silence of the Lambs. It's gruesome, it's thrilling, it's filled with engaging characters and it is undeniably frightening. (On Blu-ray, January 16th, 2023)

[that-gt-and-vore-stuffs]

Experiment 05SB

Alternatively titled “I’m sorry 2B don’t hate me please”

I hath given in to the M4dc0m brain rot at the cost of me now having written a 7k+ word fic because I’m not confident enough in my art skills to draw it at the moment. Here we go!

Oh, there’s also implied fatal in this (it’s of unnamed characters, plus this is M4dc0m, but I’ve gotta say it. I guess you could take it as reformation if you really wanted to.). Mentions of blood I guess?

As always, Vore under the cut :)

“Ey 2b? You there?” Deimos’s voice crackled to life through the plastic earpiece currently jammed into his left ear, yanking the hacker and unofficial ‘team medic’ as he was called once (much to his own confusion. Sure, he knew basic medical but by no means was he any sort of doctor) back into reality. A brief moment passed in the silence of his room, more often called ‘the lab’, of their base before everything came crashing back at once. Deimos, Sanford, and Hank were out raiding a A.A.H.W warehouse at his instruction. Meaning he was alone in their base, also known as a breaking down appartement they had taken shelter in. It had electricity and provided shelter from the harsh hell scape that had once been the state of Nevada. A dark red sunless sky overhead, vegetation and any ecosystems completely wiped out from what they’d seen, bandits and zeds equally ready to eat the nearest person if it meant living another day, the Agency hunting you down if they thought you’d possibly be working against them or with the infamous Hank J. Wimbleton, and having little to no essential resources for days at a time to top it all off like some twisted cherry on this sick cake. Home sweet fucking home.

“Doc? Helllloooo?” Shit, right. Deimos.

“Sorry, I’m here. What is it Deimos?”

“And the medic lives!” The small cheer was accompanied by laughter from the smallest member of the team. Jebus, how was he able to joke in even the most dire situations?

“Just get to the point, chucklehead.” 2b could hear Sanford add in over the static, the man’s laughter just barely making it to tired ears.

“Right right, sorry man. Anyway, if we wanted to get food on the way back would you say no?” Pardon? There was no way he was hearing that right. There were several reasons why he couldn’t be hearing that right. A. food wasn’t by any means the easiest thing to come by in this hellhole, B. restaurants weren’t really a common thing anymore so those were out of the picture, and C. there’s no way they could p- actually, scratch that last one. Robbing a corpse wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that those three had done. Not by a long shot. Still though, how was he supposed to respond to that request?

“…what?” Apparently by asking the first word on his mind.

“We saw that one hotdog vendor on the way here and we’re all starving. Can we or can we not get hotdogs on the way back?” Oh. That’s what Deimos ment. How on earth had that hotdog vendor not been killed yet?

“Is this a genuine ‘we’ or is it a ‘me’, Deimos?” That seemed like a more fair and answerable question.

“Hey I-!”

“It’s a genuine ‘we’ Doc,” Sanford’s voice chimed in. By the cursing in the background 2b could imagine that he had flipped up Deimos’s mic to temporarily mute him in the realm of their earpieces. “Pretty sure one of our stomachs gave us away to the last group of agents we had to take out. Not gonna point fingers but I’m pretty sure it was Hank- Ack! I’m just saying!”

“Thought we weren’t pointing fingers.” There was the third voice. Rough from years of fighting yet still all too recognizable as Hank. The same Hank J. Wimbleton on the wanted posters that scattered the walls of almost every nearby building, wanted dead by the Auditor and his whole agency. He must’ve smacked Sanford for his comment. Well at least he didn’t do worse, whether on purpose or accident.

“We aren’t. Now Cmon Doc, you never answered my question.” Hearing the other hacker’s voice ask for an answer again 2b sighed. Always eager, wasn’t he? How the man had seemingly endless energy on missions would forever remain a mystery to him, Jebus be damned.

“I don’t really care what you do on the way back so long as you all come back in one piece and with the stuff I sent you there for. Understood?”

“Aye aye, Captain Doc! Over and out!” And there they went. The earpiece went dead, leaving 2b on his own once again once he flicked up his own mic. Back to silence. Sweet sweet silence. It wasn’t often they got that in their shared apartment of a base. Someone was always awake, someone was always saying something. It was never really quiet unless you were lucky enough to be the only one awake. 2BDamned had seen plenty of those rare times, if only because he overworked himself and didn’t sleep. So maybe it was one of his less than desirable qualities, when living in a hellscape being ten steps ahead of the agency trying to kill you is always good. He had to keep that up, on top of keeping the others alive and well.

And then there was his little experiment. That also was taking a toll on how little he slept. Not all that long ago the trio had returned from a mission with the data he had requested and more. Specifically a duffel bag full of seemingly shrunken grunts and two only slightly bigger shrunken MAGs. Pft, how funny it was to say that. A shrunken MAG. Hell, he wouldn’t believe it if you told him with no proof. The idea seemed insane. Oh but it wasn't. Not by a long shot if the cages sitting on one of his tables said anything. Normally he’d call such a thing like keeping people in cages inhumane, not that there were many humane things in this hellhole to begin with. He’d expect keeping them in cages that probably used to be for pets to be a move pulled by the Agency, not himself, however he had to make do with what they could find and had access to. Also known as: not much at all. He wanted to study them after all. Letting them free was just not an option.

Now that probably sounds bad, studying living beings like himself, but one couldn’t blame 2b when you considered his situation (at least he hopes one couldn’t). Somehow the Agency found a way to shrink living beings. That’s power that could be used against him and the others to make everything turn for the worst, something which he wanted to avoid at all costs. However, if one of his teammates or himself were to be shrunken on a mission it would be possibly lifesaving to know how to reverse the effects. Plus, having the power to shrink enemies on their side could certainly prove useful. All that being said, he needed these few alive in order to try and figure out what caused them to be how they were. Hence the repurposed, beat up pet cages. Two of them to be exact. One held the grunts and the other for the two MAG agents. None of them had killed each other yet, so that was nice. A few simple experiments and a dissection of a grunt that had been dead upon arrival to him proved that they still functioned as they would if they were their normal size. Just on a smaller scale. He had sent Hank, Deimos, and Sanford out for supplies today, yes, though if they found any information regarding the shrinking of their little ‘guests’ then they were to bring it to him. With no information on that though, he had to continue his other work. Tired eyes met the screen through red goggles. Moments later his head found itself cushioned in the crook of one of his arms.

“What the hell.” 2b grumbled, a fresh headache slowly starting to pound against the inside of his skull. What the hell was up with him? He should be fine. This was only his second day without proper ‘longer-then-15-minutes’ sleep. He’d gone longer before, he should be able to function. Why was the screen giving him such a headache now of all times? He needed to get stuff done. He needed to finish up this…this……what was he working on again? Hold on, no, he should remember. This shouldn’t be slipping his mind like it is. Maybe if he just thought back a few minutes. It would come back to him, right?

“Ok right before Deimos called, what was I doing?” 2b thought out loud to himself, trying his hardest to recall what had happened prior to the call from his allies. ”I was sitting here…then Deimos called in. Wait, no. Go back. From the top. Since…however long ago I’ve been sitting here, working on…what was I working on before Deimos asked about getting food? I sent them on the raid, didn’t eat, got to work and- no. That’s not it. Why can’t I just-“

Gggnnnnnnrrrr…

Oh well fuck him. That’s why he couldn’t focus. 2b groaned, not bothering to hide the noise as of now. He was alone, no one would hear him or tease him. Unless you would count the shrunken men in the cages, however it wasn’t likely they’d say anything. When you’re the size of a rat, spare the MAGs who were more rabbit sized, to your captor pissing them off seemed like the worst thing one could do. Clearly the hacker wasn’t at all in the mood to deal with teasing, so their mouths remained shut. That left 2b alone to deal with his complaining stomach, a feat which proved easier said than done when one was going off a day and a half without properly sleeping. He couldn’t even remember the last time he ate something. It was all just fuzzing together at this point.

Pushing himself off his desk 2b flopped back into the worn chair he’d been sitting in for God knows how long. Relaxing into the backrest was certainly more comfortable than being hunched over a laptop screen typing away like he had been for the past day or two. A hand fell to rest over his stomach while the other removed his goggles. Those were not helping the blooming headache. A low growl from his stomach drew a small hiss through his teeth, the sound being accompanied by a familiar empty cramping.

“Oh you can shut up.” He grumbled at the organ half heartedly, “It’s not like I can eat anything right now. There’s a reason I sent Hank and the others out.” His stomach growled back, the empty sound ringing in the hacker’s ears. He needed to eat, that was undeniable. The problem was getting something to eat. He had few options, none of which he particularly liked. Option 1. going out to look for something even slightly edible on his own, option 2. wait and hope the others found and brought back food, or option 3. contact the others through his headset and ask them to get him something on the way back. The first option was clearly undesirable on its own and the other two weren’t much better. Sure, asking them to grab something for him would probably be easiest and most logical, however he was almost certain that they didn’t want to hear that out of the blue in the middle of a fight. That and he didn’t want to deal with any teasing that might come along with asking. He wasn’t about to take that chance when he had things to do. He couldn’t remember those things at the moment, sure, but they were still things he had to do! So asking was not an available option at the moment. That left waiting and hoping for the best.

Rrrrrrrnnngggggg….

“I know. I don’t like the idea either.” 2b sighed as he spun around in his chair, gently patting his stomach. He needed to get out of his chair, even if it was just a walk around his room. He needed something after a day and a half straight of sitting there hunched over staring at a screen. Maybe it’d help with the headache if he was lucky. Probably wouldn’t but hey a man could dream. With a small grunt of effort the hacker found himself on his feet, his balance wobbling and legs feeling like brittle pasta beneath him. Ah, that's what I wanted to do earlier. Go figure taking breaks gets ignored by my brain. “However, I do believe it’ll end with the best result. I’m sure they’ll be home soon anyway.”

They wouldn’t. That was a lie, to himself and to his stomach alike. He likely had a few more hours alone, maybe two at least. The A.A.H.W warehouse he’d sent them to was big and if you account for fighting delays and them stopping on the way back then the chance of them being back in the next two hours would be some sort of miracle. By the way his stomach reacted every time he brushed over the thought that the trio was getting food on the way back then he wasn’t going to be looking so hot by the time they arrived back. Oh he was going to get the short end of the stick no matter what he did, wasn’t he? Talk about luck. 2b sighed, running a hand up and through his hair as he walked along one of the walls of his small room. His stomach clearly wasn’t shutting up any time soon so the next best course of action would be to ignore it. Maybe that would help him wait it out. What could he focus on? There was work, he could clean up a little bit maybe, or he could focus on the rattling coming from the cages and-

Hold on.

That most certainly wasn’t right. 2b cocked an eyebrow, crossing the room to where the three cages were placed. Quite the interesting scene was playing out before him. From what he could see a few of the shrunken grunts were teaming up to try and break out of the cages. This wasn’t their first little escape attempt, no, but it interested him enough as he stood there watching and attempting to grab his tablet at the same time. Eventually he had succeeded, opening up a new document to scribble down a few notes.

Title: Log 073SB

Time: 6:34 pm, xx/xx/xx

Author: 2BDamned

Note: Grunts working together to attempt escape. MAG agent seems to be attempting to cause a distraction by rattling the wall of the cage. Or perhaps they just want out. Very annoying either way. None seem bothered by my presence.

Satisfied with his little note, 2b closed the tablet and set it down on the counter next to one of the cages. Whether it was him being too rough with setting the tablet down or the low grumble from his stomach that startled the cage of grunts was up for debate, but currently he couldn’t find it in himself to care. Right now he needed to have a chat with the little troublemakers. Without hesitation the unofficial medic reached forward, opening the little hinged door located on top of the cage with ease compared to what the grunts inside were attempting before. He didn’t think twice before he reached in and grabbed the two topmost grunts from the pile of attempted escapees before retracting his hand, repeating the process with his other hand, and finally closing the cage. Hands now full, each holding two fighting bodies, the hacker sighed.

“Escape huh? How many times have you already tried that and it didn’t work?” 2b asked, a less than impressed tone lacing his voice. Sure, he needed a distraction from his stomach but he didn’t want to have to deal with escape attempts left and right for the next however long. “What made you think it’d go any different this time?”

There was a moment of silence before a soft voice spoke up, one that clearly hadn’t been used recently. One of the grunts in his left hand. “W-we figured i-if we actually tried and w-worked together then maybe we’d b-be able to manage a successful…e-escape…”

“Really now? Interesting.” 2b mumbled, looking over the grunt in his hand. They were all so small. You’d think he’d have gotten used to their size by now but every time he held one it seemed to slap him in the face. Offing them if they got too rowdy wouldn’t be hard at all. Wouldn’t need to use anything to begin with. How crazy it was. “Though I’m not sure I can let this slide as I have with previous instances.”

“W-what?” His response seemed to temporarily stun the four in his hands, most likely because of how it was different from his previous comments on their attempted escapes. A shiver passed over them like a wave while the hacker only nodded.

“Your previous attempts at escape. While I can understand why one would try I’ve made it quite clear that successful escapes won’t be happening nor tolerated, correct? I need to prove my point here because you all clearly don’t understand words.” He shifted on his feet slightly, a new question wracking his brain. What could he do to show he wasn’t going to deal with constant escape attempts? It had to be something that stuck, seeing as they clearly didn’t understand his earlier comments about escape not being tolerated. Only a few moments of silence passed before his lips were moving again. “You four are going somewhere else. A stronger holding space. If any of the others try anything they’ll join you. Simple, yet effective.” Or it would be if he knew exactly where he planned to stick these four. What did he have that could serve as a stronger cell for them? The cages were already pretty secure in terms of what he could work with. He just needed something stronger, close to him, hard to escape, and threatening that held a sense of danger with it. But what could that be? His eyes darted around the makeshift lab, trying to find something.

Grrrrroowwwllll…

2b’s eyes slowly scanned down from his shaking captives to his stomach. For a moment he just stared, eyes lacking any readable emotion. Well now that was certainly an option. It fit his criteria. Almost too well. Strong, hard to escape, close to him, and it held a sense of danger. Under his mask his torn and scared lips quirked up into a little smirk. “Mmhm. That’ll do quite nicely, in fact~”

The final moments of peace were shattered as the meaning of his words collided with his captives like a well aimed punch to the gut. Hearts sunk to their feet like rocks in water, despair rearing it’s head in their struggles. Those fortunate enough to remain in the cages simply watched with a muted horror as the four bodies were tossed onto the table and held down with little to no effort. The hacker wasted no time removing the mask and bandages that usually covered his mouth, tossing the fabrics haphazardly beside his discarded tablet. Despite the word fresh being the last thing he’d use to describe the Nevada air, 2b knew he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t nice to just breathe the air in alone and not through the layers of fabric like he often did. With the temporary roadblock now gone his eyes drifted downward to the bodies pinned beneath his hand.

“Well, I believe that eliminates any preventable issues we could encounter here.” He hummed softly, plucking the grunt who was covered by his hand the least up into the air. It certainly was odd to watch the little body squirm and fight against him, all attacks on the two fingers holding it proving futile. Their only hope seemed to be 2b letting them go, something which proved less and less likely the longer they studied the look in the hackers eyes. It wasn’t a look one ever wanted to find themself on the receiving end of. The sight of sharp teeth, glimmering with saliva through grinning lips, certainly did not help to lower the grunt’s heart rate at all. 2b simply clicked his tongue. “Meaning stalling time is up. Stay still, won’t you?”

The grunt did not, in fact, stay still. It was impossible to do so as far as they knew when you had a spit soaked tongue dragging up every inch of your front, sharp daggers of teeth only millimeters from their face. A deafening silence washed over the others, only being broken by a small pleased hum from their normal sized captor.

“Not bad…” the man mumbled, dragging his tongue up the squirming grunt yet again. A small voice in the back of his mind, his voice of reason, yelled out the obvious loud and clear to him plenty of times: this was wrong. It wasn’t right to be doing what he was about to do. This was stooping down to the bandits level, something he never intended to do unless absolutely necessary. He shouldn’t be enjoying the taste of another living being like this. And yet…here he was. Ignoring any logic and reason in his mind to proceed with this. Thank goodness he was alone. 2b didn’t even want to think about what the others might say if they were to see him how he was now. Shaking his head softly he shoved away the thought, opening his jaw as far as the joint and scarred tissue that made up his cheeks would allow. He wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or concerned with how easily the small body slipped into his mouth.

Despite their best efforts to squirm free of their new confinement, the slippery surroundings of the unofficial doctor’s maw proved to have horrible traction. Saliva dropped onto the unfortunate grunt’s head from above while they desperately tried to crawl out of the dark cavern. Feet scrambled on the soaked surface of their predator’s tongue as the muscle moved and flipped them around as if they were some piece of candy, all while their hands desperately tried to keep as little of them between the axe like teeth. One bite and they were done for, a terrifying thought. Through it all only three sounds were ever heard from those lucky enough to not be in the current grunt’s position. The sickening sounds of soaked struggle, terrified yelps from the grunt stuck within 2b’s jaws, and the occasional hum from the man himself. The torture, as those watching from the cage would describe it, seemed to continue for hours and hours on end.

Glk

Glp~

Until it all stopped with two simple swallows and a collective gasp of horror from those watching. The relaxed posture of the man they all watched failed to help their situation.

“H….huhh…that was..” the uncertified medic breathed, breaking the silence. His free hand lazily felt down his throat, tracing where he could feel the squirming body slip further down by the second. It didn’t take a genius to decipher that the less angry sounding gurgle from the man’s stomach signaled the end of the unfortunate grunt’s descent. With eyes widened just beyond his natural look 2b gently pressed his stomach. How interesting it was, as morbid as it might sound, to feel something squirming around inside the organ. Before he could even stop to consider a better way to word his thoughts, he finished his sentence. Just not in the way the grunts wanted to hear. “…incredibly easy.”

The last thing any of the remaining grunts wanted to see was those eyes scan up slowly before locking on them as if they were some sort of dessert. The clearly out of place smile on the man’s face didn’t help the feeling of impending doom either. If anything it only made it worse as a rough hand plucked another grunt from the selected three that had remained under his hand. Down, beneath his newfound curiosity and odd urge to continue what he was doing, 2b knew he should have been more concerned about how easy this was coming to him. No sane person would take so calmly to swallowing living beings, especially not of his own kind. Yet here he was, smirking as he licked over his scarred lips with cold eyes locked onto the small shaking body like a cat would after spotting a mouse. Looking at their sizes in comparison to one another? The simile was scarily accurate. Through his whole little mental debate the hacker found it all too easy to slip the small body into his mouth, licking it over to draw out as much of that strangely addicting taste before slowly beginning to nudge it back. Just bit by bit until it was far enough.

Glrk

Grk~

“Two down…haahhh…two to go…” the hacker sighed as he traced the lump down his throat. There was a waiting period once more but it didn’t last long before the shiver inducing gurgle signified where the poor soul had ended up. How the man hadn’t gotten sick yet was beyond the understanding of those who witnessed the event and even the man himself. Surely he should feel at least a little nauseous with two rat sized bodies squirming within his stomach. Nausea and fullness were the two sensations he had expected by now and yet neither had shown their face yet. Deep within his mind, from an area he didn’t even know existed until it spoke, a voice urged him to test his limits. 2b had shaken that idea off nearly immediately. As….enticing as that idea was, he still needed a few of the shrunken grunts alive and well to continue his attempts to recreate and reverse however the Agency had shrunken them before. Four however….well that wasn’t the biggest loss in the world if something happened to go wrong. Leaning a little more heavily over the table he grabbed one of the last two grunts, shoving the struggling body into his mouth head first. Quite the sight it was to watch flailing legs be slurped into someone’s mouth like nothing more than wet noodles. Interesting and horrifying.

Glp

Glrk~

Though compared to seeing someone who had been beside you ten minutes ago disappear down your captor’s throat as nothing more than a barely visible lump would top it in the scarring scale. Nothing could compare to that sight. Good god was it terrifying. The reality that escape was impossible was all but cemented into the remaining grunts' brains now, as that had been what had gotten their companions into this situation in the first place. This was happening because their capturer wanted to prove his point that attempted escape would not be tolerated. At this point they were convinced they’d have to have a death wish to attempt escape now. Especially when their conditions weren’t horrible compared to what they could be in, something which hadn’t crossed their minds till now. Now don’t take their words wrong, by no means did they want to stay here. Especially not now. However, if it meant living another day and not ending up as lunch? Staying definitely was the preferable option.

“One to go. Damn.” The hacker's voice snapped all attention back to him. His position had changed, now leaning back on the table as he looked over the struggling form in his hands. The words seemed to flow from his mouth without too much thought needed behind them. They just felt…right. It was a feeling he never expected to experience in such a context that he was now, much less to have it almost piloting him as it felt now, but he was nearly willing to say he welcomed it. He wasn't well acquainted with the idea of eating living beings after all, so the subconscious help to ease the process along wasn’t something he’d push away. Not unless it were to cause an issue that is. However, nothing of the sort had happened yet, meaning he was going to keep letting his actions flow naturally.

Just as he had with the three before this one, 2b wasted little time starting towards his goal. Raising the grunt just above his head the man dangled the flailing body over his open mouth, a sight that he could assume would terrify anyone in the grunt’s position. All went smoothly as he lowered the small body in. That is until the grunt, having seen an opportunity and taken it, grabbed and yanked down his mic. While he tried to react as quickly as possible, he could only pray the microphone had not managed to pick up the gag he’d made after panic and shock had caused him to jolt forward and send the grunt to the back of his throat. He flipped up the mic as fast as he could, trying to determine the best course of action one could take with a squirming body halfway down their throat and a possibility of having just been ratted out to the others by their lunch. He was screwed were they to find out, what with how at least two of the three always seemed to be looking for teasing ammunition. That and this….well this wasn’t exactly normal, you know.

“Doc? Is everything ok over there?” Fuck. That wasn’t good. Ignoring the sinking feeling of dread in his chest the best he could, 2b took a deep breath and forced the fourth grunt down with a swallow that took a little more effort then he felt it should’ve. Flipping down the mic, he answered.

“Damnit- yes. I'm fine, Sanford. Don’t worry.” The sentence had to be his least convincing lie yet. Between his heavy breathing and dryness in his throat he could tell his voice wasn’t helping him in any way. Now he didn’t take his teammates for idiots, despite how it sure seemed like they were sometimes, but in the moment he found himself wishing they were.

“You sure? You don’t sound all that fine. Did something happen back at base?” The worry beginning to lace the man’s voice through the static filled earpiece only served to worsen the feeling of dread in 2b’s chest. He needed to get Sanford, and the others who were no doubt listening, off the idea something had happened. He needed to deal with the whole I-just-swallowed-four-people-alive thing before they came back, so them returning early was not in the plan.

“No, nothing happened.” He shot back, only realizing the speed in his voice wasn’t too reassuring after he said it. Ok, what was a believable excuse for why he sounded like he did? “I just…spilt coffee on my legs after burning my mouth. Must’ve knocked the mic down in the process.” With a hand to his chest the hacker forced a soft swallow, trying to at least get rid of the uncomfortable dryness that had settled in the back of his throat. Please say they believed that.

“Pft, really? Damn, wish I could’ve seen that. Think you looked like one of those old cartoons, Doc?” Phew, crisis averted.

“Real funny, Deimos. Get back to your mission.” 2b shook his head at the comment. At least they seemed to believe him. It was worth it, even if the mental image of those over exaggerated cartoon characters was now going to show up whenever he even slightly burnt his mouth on coffee. Oh well, some sacrifices must be made.

“Alright alright. We’re going.” The man on the other end laughed. Those idiots. Damn his heart caring for them, now he was attached. “See you when we get back. Over and out, Doc!” And there they went.

Fighting off his own soft laughter, 2b flipped up his mic. A soft sigh escaped him before he could even think to stop it. That could’ve been horrible. While one hand softly rubbed at his neck, sore from what he had to guess was the miniature disaster that just took place, the other gently laid itself over his stomach. The four inside never seemed to stop moving, constantly squirming and slipping about. There were a handful of reasons he could assume was the cause, though the most likely was that being shoved into a soaking wet moving sack with three of your colleagues provided little traction or ability to get comfortable. That and panic. Panic was probably a rather big factor in how they were feeling. 2b, on the other hand, had to be feeling the exact opposite of how they were. The warm weight of his four ‘victims’ was a welcome sensation within the previously empty pit of his stomach. As twisted as he knew it sounded, he would’ve been confident saying that what he was feeling was honestly satisfactory. Why having living beings stretch and actually round out his stomach in a barely noticeable way was causing this feeling was a mystery to him, but at the moment he couldn’t find it in himself to care. Not when it felt this nice.

“I hope I’ve made my point clear.” The unofficial medic hummed, looking over to the grunt filled cage. They had backed away from him by now, huddled in the back most corner of their confines. The sight drew a genuine laugh from the man they all seemed to fear ten times more than before. Well that was proof if he’d ever seen it. Looks like their escape wasn’t something he had to worry about any more. So maybe he sacrificed a little of his ‘I’m not going to hurt you’ act for this. It was worth it in his eyes. And besides, he was probably the most gentle with them out of his whole little gang. If they wanted to be left with one of the others then go ahead. Although being left with the mercenary who you were created to kill didn’t sound like the most fun time to him. Smirking, he collected his goggles, mask, and tablet from the table. “It seems I have. Glad we could have this little -hic!- chat. Heh.”

He gave the cage a pat, the rattling of the metal only serving to scare the grunts further back in the ball of bodies they’d curled into, before turning to walk back to his desk. He needed to sit down. Standing apparently became a lot harder when you had four people fighting against your insides. Thinking back, he didn’t know what he would have expected. Did he stumble a little bit trying to get back to his desk? Yes, he did. It was like he forgot how to walk in all honesty. Another reason he was glad he was alone in their base. Like most things though it proved worth it when he finally collapsed into the worn chair he used for work. Without thinking twice he opened his tablet and started a new log.

—————————

“Doc! We’re back!” The call rang out through the appartement, followed by three sets of footsteps marching their way in and the door slamming shut perhaps a little stronger than needed. As the hinges of the door stopped rattling the three expected to hear a displeased groan, followed by the ruffled form of 2b appearing in the hallway to scold them for being so aggressive or something like tracking blood into the base. Honestly, why he still bothered was a mystery to them, at least Sanford and Deimos for they had zero clue what went on in Hank’s head, for the most part. They were mercenaries, fighters, people looking to not end up with their brains splattered on the wall or something worse. They were going to be bloody upon returning, even if that blood wasn’t their own. It wasn’t like their floors were carpet or anything either. In the end though they never bothered to fight the scoldings. No use making the unofficial medic mad, especially if they needed help. The lack of disgruntled medic in the hallway or at least yelling when silence returned to the room was worrying. After a minute or two with nothing spoken and no ruffled hacker to be seen, Deimos tried again to call him.

“2b?” He called out, peering down the hallway which led to their rooms. There wasn’t any blood on the walls, a good sign to start, and no bullet holes that weren’t there before. Unless the Agency suddenly learned how to do stealth missions, something he and he knew the other two were hoping wasn’t the case, he had hopes. Again, no response from the man. Gun still in his hand he took one glance back to the others, a silent ‘follow me’, before continuing down the hallway. Although Deimos had made it to the closed door first he’d been pushed past by the red goggle wearing giant as he reached for the doorknob. Hank had been the one to open the door to 2b’s room. He’d also been the first of the trio to feel the tension in his shoulders drop. It wasn’t long after he had relaxed that he was shoved into the room by two bodies trying to get in and see any damage that could’ve been done while they were gone. The sight of 2BDamned softly snoring away in his chair, nothing in the room seeming out of place, was most certainly a welcome one.

“Ah. So that’s why he isn’t barking us up a tree for your entrance, Dei.” Sanford hummed with a laugh, careful to watch his volume. If there was one thing he didn’t want to deal with after their mission it was a cranky Doc who got woken up by them. It wasn’t a secret he didn’t necessarily sleep after all and there was no way he could survive off coffee like he seemed to silently claim he could sometimes. They all had times when their sleep schedules were fucked.

“Oh shut up, ‘Ford.” Deimos shot back with a playful punch to the man’s bicep. “It’s not like I’m the one who slammed the door. That’s what he would’ve been on our asses about.”

“You slammed it open then yelled loud enough for all of Nevada to hear you. Don’t act like you’re innocent!”

As the two’s words morphed into friendly bickering Hank took it upon himself to deliver the bit of what they got that couldn’t stay in the duffle bag slung over his shoulder at the moment. Buried in the pocket of his jacket was a small object. Something he hadn’t expected to find, but had snagged nonetheless when it had been pointed out by Deimos. For a second as he walked over to the man a rough hand dug around fabric, fingers gripping plastic as he arrived at his destination. Without thinking he tossed the USB onto the hacker’s desk, eyes wandering over small things like the empty coffee mug or discarded goggles. Behind red-tinted goggles they landed on the man’s tablet, the screen now illuminated thanks to what he could assume had been the small drive hitting the desk. Prying wasn’t something he often did when it came to his teammates, respecting their privacy as they often did his, but after a certain word caught his eye he couldn’t help but read the log that had popped up.

Title: Experiment 05SB

Time: 7:42 pm, xx/xx/xx

Author: 2BDamned

Note: I…cannot believe I’m about to write this. This is update one of Experiment 05SB, an experiment started without much if any bit of a proper plan behind it. Phase I, I suppose you could call it, was a success. The shrunken grunts are, in fact, small enough to swallow whole and…alive. MAGs have not yet been confirmed to be the same way, though I’m sure that answer will show itself one day. I am unsure why I am able to keep four of them down without feeling nauseated, but I can. I will update at a later time when more information has presented itself.

The log ended there, eyes falling away from the screen as Hank’s mind worked to process the information it had just been given. According to what had been written before the man had fallen victim to sleep, it was not only possible to swallow the shrunken beings sitting in one of the cages behind him, but the unofficial doctor had done it himself. Four times to be exact. Curiosity grabbed control of his eyes, slowly panning them up to the cage of grunts who looked noticeably more terrified than they usually did. Had they seen the whole thing go down? His mind continued to wander, finding new questions like how on earth the hacker had managed to keep living and no doubt moving beings down like the log said he did. That is unless he’d spit them up before falling asleep. However that seemed highly unlikely-

“Snooping around Doc’s stuff, are we Hank~?” When Deimos had appeared behind him was beyond the mercenary, though the shock of hearing his voice out of the blue was enough to startle him into quickly powering off 2b’s tablet and whipping around to face the two that now stood across with him with far too smug looks on their faces for his liking.

“Woah there, big guy! We didn’t mean any trouble.” Sanford cooed, the fucking Chad cooed, holding his hands up as if he was under some sort of arrest. “Just wanted to know what you were reading over here is all~.”

“Yeah, exactly. I never expected to find you clicking through Doc’s diary.” Deimos added on nearly flawlessly. Sometimes he really hated how well they worked together. Namely when it was against him. “So, was it a love confession~?”

Hank sighed, glaring at the two through his goggles. He sure fucking hoped they could see the look on his face, despite most of it being covered by bandages and his mask. Because he was not amused and he wanted them to know it.

“No, not a love confession, you morons.” He groaned, shaking his head. Telling them straight off what it said would probably be horrible. At the moment he was still having a few difficulties understanding parts of what he read. Lying just seemed like the best choice overall. It wasn’t like he’d be the only one doing so, after all. It sure seemed like 2b did to them over the mic. Speaking of the man, Hank turned around to take a good look at him. At first glance he seemed like he normally did when he passed out in his chair from overworking himself like this. It was only when Hank took an extra second to look and let the information in his brain guide him did he see the slightly out of place softness around the sleeping hacker’s stomach. Unable to help himself Hank felt his ruined remaining lip quirk up into a small smirk under his mask as he turned around to shove the Dumbass Duo out of the room so 2b could sleep.

“Bunch’a nonsense, is all. Now move. I don’t wanna deal with him if you idiots wake him up and we still have shit to put away.”

[simplive]

you will become a memory.

manhunt au! dream team, badboyhalo. general hunter mini headcanons

caution. death, insane sapnap per usual, maybe hints of yandere

DREAM.

─ “to hunt or be hunted.”

to be the hunter when he is usually the hunted is uncommon, but it is welcomed all the same ─ dream will revel in your fear from start, to finish as long as he possibly can. confident enough in his abilities to let you roam about in the world for a lengthy period of time because the direction of this compass will always point to where you resided. he’s not even worried when you reach the nether. whatever pace you decide to go about, will he respectively follow a suit, choosing to be calm and calculating. you don’t hear him ever speak from the ear piece, only the sounds of his shoes crushing the leaves below him as he gains closer, and closer towards your way. letting the impending dread crawl in.

he’ll let you have that sense of security, before tearing it all away.

to strike fear in others... it is what he does best.

sometimes you can get him to have conversation, just not for long. no larger than five minutes because he always returns to the same withdrawn, quiet self everyone knows him by. maybe smart, funny comments here and there to fill in the initial silence, but they are all disregarded by the fact that dream is coming to kill you regardless. there’s nothing he wants to change about that, you both signed yourself for this situation... he’s simply going to honor what it takes to be a professional, merciless hunter. an unofficial title he silently wears like an emblem. so you were doomed from the very start the moment it’s been heard who’d be tracking you down exactly.

out of everyone, they send out him, making you wonder as if the whole world wanted you to perish.

death is to be expected. you can still be good friends and still die at his hands. you’ll let him, won’t you? it’s destiny, your destiny, and everyone knows nobody can escape it once their future has been set, written in stone. what is there to have hope for? a painless death, maybe, depends on how dream feels that exact moment ─ their pain is what makes up a part of the amusement in the chase. although, it’s not like he’s going to drag it out unlike a close friend of his. do not fret, you’ll go down in history as the first prey he’s bothered to open up to... isn’t that good enough?

so why does his heart still pang at the thought?

no no, these are just mindless feelings, barely skin-deep. they’ll go away within seconds if he pays them no attention, just getting his objectives over with and moving onto the next victim. he’s doing this all for survival, and who knows... you’d do the exact same if you too wanted to live. this is a dog-eat-dog world, you either kill someone, or get killed. in fact, because you’re inflicting these unknown emotions on him gives dream more motivation to follow through with these objectives.

he’ll have you until your last breath.

GEORGE.

─ “love me until you die.”

george wants you to be comfortable and scared at the same time, he doesn’t want you to think of him as only a monster like the others. see? there’s still a bit of mercy in him to let you slide at times, shaking it off as a ‘silly little mistake’ of his, but it’s all planned. always has been. he doesn’t like to say this much, but, he pities your situation. the game cannot end until one completes the objectives... and by the looks of it, you’re nowhere as close to the finish line. be free to ask for tips or pointers whenever, he’s generous to share what he thinks will benefit you. it’s up to you whether you trust him or not, there is no offense to be taken, he’d have a hard time believing in your situation.

you can try to talk him out of this for a chance, but a job is a job, someone has to get this done.

and who knows what’ll happen to him if he doesn’t follow through.

your moments together were only meant to be full on bittersweet. you hate that he still tries to be nice against all, as if your life wasn’t placed in his hands to begin with. it would’ve been so much easier to despise george if he’d been vile, heartless, cruel even... but he isn’t. he’s kind, too kind, and you’re starting to think that maybe this was just your unescapable fate. something that transpired during your blurred life was apparently unacceptable for you to live on, it’s starting to finally make sense. no one can elude destiny as much as they pray. of course, when given a chance to slip from death, you’d take it without hesitation... but if all doesn’t go well, then that’s alright too.

everything should be okay if george is here, with you.

will you tell him these sentimental views, especially when you’re lying carelessly on the verge of death? absolutely not. he’d start to feel bad, and that’s the last thing you’d want from him. he’s only doing his job like anyone else, this is somewhat normal despite a few circumstances. you’ll keep reminding yourself anytime despair tries to reach out to you, pulling away from its tantalizing vicinity. don’t go back on this choice, don’t let the sadness take you.

don’t let him regret.

with your head perched comfortably onto his lap, blood spilling at your lips as you try to confess multiple things all at once, then failing miserably. they come out as a garbled mess of sounds unsurprisingly, rather faint to the ears, but there’s enough affection to get through him. you’ll squeeze his hand weakly in hopes of delivering a message, certainly woozy and content nonetheless. he smiles, smiles sadly at the result of his success, but this is what george had desired the whole time.

a chance to spill out his true feelings for you.

SAPNAP.

─ “look at me in the eyes.”

perhaps the most happiest one of the bunch to end someone’s life for the fun of it, quickly that is. he doesn’t want to waste time chasing after you endlessly all over the world, takes too much energy and patience... sapnap prefers to have you right in front of him so he can get right into action. there’s no point in running, everyone knows this. you do too, but such fact could never stop you from trying anyways ─ why not take advantage of that ten percent chance survival rate than do nothing at all? even he somewhat agrees with this new knowledge. there’s no fun in having a compliant little mouse. despite the obvious frustration of tracking you down, he knows it’ll be worth it in the finale when seeing you beg.

always, always looking forward to new targets. everyone is unique: their reactions, their struggles, every part of them. it’s good to have a taste of something refreshing and new. for being the type of person he was, having the same type of people to play with is completely boring, hunting would’ve became a tedious chore at that point. sapnap is ecstatic to hear about you. not much information was disclosed about you, there must be something intriguing then for the lack of story.

he hopes you won’t disappoint him.

sometimes he’ll let his ‘guard down’, sometimes. it’s only to get you motivated again because hopelessness will begin to bore him exceedingly. “don’t give up completely, little [name],” sapnap coos sickeningly, “maybe you’ll have a chance if you actually try for once. should i be nice like george, and give you another head start?” his encouragement, if you could even call it that are down right patronizing, doesn’t try to hide any malicious undertones because he’s confident his words will affect you just the way he wanted.

the fun can’t go on forever. he wants you to suffer for everything you’d put him through. sapnap did not waste three full days trying to corner you, shedding sweat, effort, and time in doing so for you to try and come up with some other excuse for him not to kill you. no, you’re misunderstanding, that’s not what he’s here for. money? no. fame? absolutely not. if it wasn’t any obvious,

he’s here to feed on your fear.

BAD.

─ “forgive me.”

like george, does manhunts because he has to, and it is quite absurd. bad has a huge problem with others having a foul mouth, but happens to not have any qualms raising a blade at someone’s throat. what kind of morals were those? he too questions these actions like any sane person would, however, does not do anything to change his ways because... it’s not in his power. what good would it do to suddenly just switch mindsets all of a sudden, superiors will start to question him and everyone he’d grown to love would suspect. to quit then would be breaking the code, and that’ll be like breaking someone’s trust. bad shouldn’t do it, he’s always reminding himself.

he shouldn’t...

and still, he’s probably the only one who has the hearts to let you go.

for first impressions, bad certainly doesn’t strike you as a hunter. he takes the time to introduce him properly, salutations and a heartfelt apology. you ask, why apologize so suddenly, we just met. he can’t do anything other than sigh, letting the silence answer your question. well, you’re currently the first one on his list, the first to die at that. he’s just here for warnings, letting you gain a huge head start...

calls you muffin as another form of affection. strikes to be strange at first, but you slowly get used to the nickname as you do him, able to enjoy the situation because it’s starting to feel like a nice game of a fusion of hide and seek, and good ol’ tag. he hasn’t been able to physically hurt you once, or at least is trying to make it seem like a mistake ─ missing opportunities, or forgetting to. whatever the case may be, you’re not complaining one bit. in fact, you too haven’t tried to raise a blade at him either.

why would you even?

your kindness is limitless, and it proves when bad cannot fathom hurting you under any circumstances. most of his victims were very aggressive, always cussing at him no matter the context, maybe that’s why guilt hasn’t officially hit him until now. the you who still manages to laugh despite everything, thank you for letting him see the horrors of his actions. “will... i’ll be able to see you again?” you murmur, unsure if you should turn your back on him and leave.

“... maybe some day! for now, you should go. be careful though, some might recognize your face as well.”

he never tells you that his life would be of no more, and he lets you go, the oblivious one, with a bittersweet smile.

[theworldinclines]

Title: pre-meeting meetup

Pairing: Wave/Pang

Ao3 link

     Pang has likely never been so careful in his life. And he has to be, because a single misstep could completely destroy what they’ve worked to build over the last year. Being the unofficial leader of the Gifted means that he refuses to be the one who fucks anything up this far in, so he’s constantly looking over his shoulder, deleting incriminating threads (even those coded) from the prying eyes of anyone who might look for them, and overall feeling insane amounts of stress at having to be prepared for the worst, at all times.

     What’s he being so careful for? His boyfriend.

     Just before their scheduled meeting of the Gifted, he’d been told that there was an emergency and to go to the designated stairwell as soon as he could, which sent Pang into as much of an overthinking-spiral as one would imagine. It takes quite a bit of self-control not to full-on sprint from his dorm to the academic building’s back entrance (which Ohm has done a remarkable job of keeping unlocked, by the way). Catching the attention of any wandering security or student police by running through the halls wouldn’t do him any favours either, so he can’t even pick up the pace once he’s inside.

     All Pang can do is press crescents into his palms and try not to bleed out on his way to whatever ‘emergency’ is waiting for him in the main building. Had Ohm arrived early to find that their year-long compilation of work he’d disappeared for them is actually just gone, forever? Did the Director get reinstated now that the Gifted Program is set to return?

     Pang is about to run up the steps when his arm is yanked to the left and into the shadowed space that resides next to the staircase. Before he has the chance to twist the stranger’s wrist into a painful injury, he comes chest to chest with Wave.

     He’s smirking like the gremlin he is, and Pang manages to deadpan over his receding moment of panic, “I think I can guess what the ‘emergency’ was.”

     “Did I scare you?”

     “Oh, no. Not like we’re under near-constant scrutiny by the school and shouldn’t meet up like this or anything, for any reason.”

     Wave drops his head back against the wall behind him. “I’ll see you in the meeting then.”

     “You brought me here!”

     “My mistake. I just happened to recall that we can’t go to each other’s rooms, and that the last time we were alone was at your house with your mom in the kitchen and sister in the room over. And the others don’t know about us, so on top of everything else we have to sneak around them while already sneaking—”

     As has happened an innumerable amount, Pang gives a roll of his eyes and then kisses Wave in an attempt to shut him up. There's really no other answer that Pang has found to bottle the thoughts that tumble out from Wave when he gets like this. It’s always a miscalculation on Pang’s part, perhaps a willful one, that he tends to forget how Wave will try to turn what Pang might intend to be a brief kiss into something not-so-brief. (Note: Wave tries at least 98% of the time, but succeeds 100% of the time.)

     Before all this—well, he supposes that before really knowing Wave, Pang would never have guessed that Wave is such a fan of physical affection. He’d always been used to the Wave who tore his arm from the grip of anyone trying to get his attention, where the closest they ever got was when Wave tackled him to the ground with punches.

     The Wave of so long ago also had a habit of stuffing his balled fists deep into the pockets of that old maroon hoodie, like he wanted to take up less space than he did. Pang had been informed of the reasoning for this much later, when Wave admitted that he’d only hidden his hands away because they always wanted to reach for Pang.

     He’s pretty sure Wave only told him this because Pang had been teasing him about always skulking about in that hoodie, full of secrets or worse, and Wave had dropped the truth on Pang just to see him turn red. Despite Wave’s answering smirk, though, Pang could tell that being so honest was still something he was learning. It’s been nearly a year since then, and they’ve come far in that time.

     Like, for example, Wave feels no shame in messaging Pang “Emergency. Get here now” in order to corner him into the shadows of a staircase for a pre-meeting meetup.

     In this moment and others, there’s no hint of the boy Pang used to know, an acting rival to Claire when it came to his emotions or wants. There are only Wave’s hands, formerly hidden, that have grown openly fond of unbuttoning Pang’s school-shirt, holding Pang’s cheeks, ruffling Pang’s hair. And there’s also Pang, who can’t respond to Wave with anything but enthusiasm when these touches come.

     It’s a wonder they were anything before this, other than this. And maybe they weren’t; maybe they’d always had everything else, just now this too. An added bonus to the relationship with a boy who Pang often thinks is a key factor in keeping him afloat in the insanity that has been Ritdha’s storm.

     His back to the wall, Wave has the slim fingers of one hand secured around the back of Pang’s head while the other arm wraps his shoulders, keeping him from running off (like he would). It’s past ten p.m., they have a meeting of the Gifted within the next five minutes, and Pang is kissing Wave’s jaw beside a staircase of the school they hate. Just a typical Friday.

     From somewhere comes the distant sound of a door being slammed and the boys spring apart.

     “The student police—”

     “I know,” Wave interjects. He can’t help the disappointment that slips into his voice; Pang knows that Wave hadn’t been kidding when he said that they’ve gotten hardly any time together recently. They can’t be seen as a pair here, and even the afternoons they manage to go to Pang’s are risky. It’s tiresome, having to be so alert all the time.

     Pang picks the garment up off the floor that Wave had dropped carelessly and when he realises what it is, Pang gives him a look. “My jacket?” he asks flatly. “Subtle.”

     Wave goes to snatch it back but Pang holds it from his reach with a grin. Wave is prepared to break out the glare when Pang shakes invisible dust from the jacket and puts it over Wave’s shoulders himself.

     “If you wanted it, you could’ve asked,” Pang points out. “I thought I lost this a month ago.” He smiles at the way it drapes Wave’s skinny frame. “Looks better on you though.” Wave ducks his head, which gives Pang the perfect opportunity to kiss his hair.

     “Pang!” Wave complains in a way that isn’t a complaint.

     Pang grins again and presses another kiss to Wave’s mouth. “You going up there first or should I?”

     “I can go,” Wave says peevishly.

     “Okay,” Pang says, agreeable and amused as ever even as Wave straightens his back like he’s squaring up. “Oh, wait.” Pang reaches into his back pocket to reveal a cassette. “B side,” he says, eyes sparkling.

     Wave accepts the cassette and nods once before turning to go. Pang can see he’s blushing, so he doesn’t try to stop him.

     He just wishes he had a camera in the room to see Wave’s reaction to playing a love song instead of the correct recording on the A side… but either way he knows it’ll have been worth the earful he gets later.

[princeasimdiya12]

I adore your talentswap backstories! I'd like you to write some headcanons for my Talentshift SDR2 au. It consists of Mechanic!Hajime, ReserveCourse!Mahiru, Photographer!Ibuki, Musician!Fuyuhiko, Yakuza!Gundham, Breeder!Chiaki, Gamer!Mikan, Nurse!Nagito, Lucky!Imposter, Imposter!Peko (impersonating non-despair Junko), Swordswoman!Sonia, Prince!Nekomaru, Coach!Teruteru, Chef!Hiyoko, TraditionalDancer!Akane, and Gymnast!Kazuichi. If not, I completely understand.

Hey anon! I’m glad you enjoyed them! ^_^ And I’d be happy to make some headcanons for your AU. But just to let you know anon, I would appreciate it if you asked me first before sending me your listed requests. I honestly don’t mind writing headcanons for talentswaps (I honestly enjoy doing that) but I would appreciate you asking me and then sending them to me. That way it doesn’t take me by surprise. 

So without further ado, here are my headcanons for your SDR2 Talentswap AU.

Peko Pekoyama as the SHSL Imposter

While Peko was adopted by the Kuzuryu Clan, she didn’t have a choice in her lifelong profession like Fuyuhiko did.

She was made to work as an infiltration agent.

As a professional imposter, Peko learned how to analyze and copy the body movements and behaviors of any potential person. 

She also was taught how to apply makeup to make her disguises as accurate as possible.

Her assignments involved abducting low level workers of rival clans and taking their place while disguised as them.

She’d then relay the rival clan’s weaknesses and business transactions towards the Kuzuryu’s so they can exploit them.

Peko was discouraged from having any personal interests or hobbies so that her infiltration and identity theft skills wouldn’t be tarnished.

This made Peko feel more like a tool and how she only existed to promote the success of the Kuzuryu Clan. 

When Fuyuhiko was scouted to go to Hope’s Peak, her superiors used their connections to grant Peko a spot with him to keep an eye on him.

She would take on Junko Enoshima’s image given that the supermodel was busy with her own personal affairs.

Although no one can recognize her while disguised, the viewer/player can recognize Peko with her thick glasses and piercing red eyes.

Hiyoko Saionji as the SHSL Chef

Hiyoko came from a family of culinary masters who amazed Japan with their creative and flavorful dishes.

There was unfortunately alot of drama within the family as they each wanted to train Hiyoko so they can pass their personal culinary training onto her.

Her grandmother managed to win and was one of the most ruthless teachers ever. 

Under her training, Hiyoko received burns, cuts and having her food thrown in her face just for making the smallest of slip ups.

Her brutal training mixed with having negative relations with her family made her bitter and aggressive towards everyone around her.

She also has a hard time trusting others to work with her in the kitchen due to multiple incidents where dishes were poisoned and nearly tarnished Hiyoko’s reputation.

Because of this, she prefers to work alone in the kitchen. When she’s assigned to work with partners or underlings, she can be best described as Gordon Ramsay if he were a sassy lost child.

She often holds a knife or a frying pan whenever she’s threatening someone she doesn’t like.

Her culinary specialties involve desserts such as wasabon and kompeito.

Ibuki Mioda as the SHSL Photographer

Throughout her childhood, Ibuki was neglected by her caregivers so she took up photography as a means of distracting herself from the loneliness of her household.

She managed to earn her success by taking high quality photos of lovers in romantic situations.

At her middle school, she made it a game for herself to see how many pictures she could get of different couples at her school without getting caught.

While developing her photos, the couples tried to chastise Ibuki for her actions but they immediately changed their minds when they saw how cool the photos looked.

Ibuki gained a reputation among her peers for her photos and now everyone wanted one too.

This resulted in Ibuki getting alot of “friends” who only wanted to hang out with her just so she could photograph them doing what they wanted while conveniently leaving out the photographer herself.

The fact that these people only cared about her talent so she can capture their memories for them gave Ibuki a sense of familiar loneliness.

Despite this, she wants to enjoy her talent as much as she can with an upbeat attitude.

Ibuki’s favorite subject to photograph are people.

She loves to people watch since the people walking around come in different shapes and sizes and are always doing something unique that you wouldn’t expect.

Sonia Nevermind as the SHSL Swordswoman

Sonia came from a family of professional swordfighters who taught her the power of the blade at an early age.

She grew up on European fairy tales and legends of powerful heroes who used their swords to fight for justice or prove their superiority against enemies who opposed them.

Her family taught her classical fencing, mordhau, the half-sword, destreza and several other fighting styles which she claims are a secret.

She earned her title after winning multiple swordfighting tournaments, many of which were held underground. 

Despite her victories, she’s actually been hospitalized due to the extreme injuries she received from sword wounds and physical attacks from her opponents.

Since these wounds have yet to diminish her fighting power, Sonia feels that it’s best to pay them no mind so she can continue her family’s legacy.

She’s never seen without her longsword which she made herself. She calls it Stjerneild because there were shooting stars on the night of making it and also since she burned herself during the process.

Sonia isn’t afraid to boast about her fighting skills and eagerly offers her girl friends the chance to learn how to use a sword.

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu as the SHSL Light Music Club Member

Rather than becoming the next heir of his family business, Fuyuhiko wanted to pursue his dream of being an idol.

He takes his career extremely seriously and wouldn’t do stupid stunts or scandals that could jeopardize his work.

To make up for his young appearance, Fuyuhiko uses outfits that have a punk aesthetic while also incorporating black and gold color schemes to make him look older.

Alot of his songs feature themes of embracing your personal talents or how it’s better to carve your own path rather than rely on others.

He knows how to play the electric guitar and the keyboard. 

Having refused his parents’ intended career plans, he feels that he can’t screw up his career or else everything he ever worked for will be for nothing and he’d have to crawl back to them for support.

His sister Natsumi often joins him during his tours and unofficially becomes his manager and bodyguard during her visits. 

He has a hard time dealing with fanclub meetings because the fangirls would make jokes about his baby face which would drive him insane.

Akane Owari as the SHSL Traditional Dancer

Just like in canon, Akane had to take care of her younger siblings while struggling to survive her poor hometown.

While she did take different jobs to support her family, she would lose those jobs constantly because she kept getting into fights against strangers who tried to grope and harass her.

One day, while she was training by herself in an empty plaza, a woman passed by and paid close attention to her fighting form and rhythm.

She revealed herself to Akane as a traditional dance instructor and offered to train Akane to perfect her skills.

The girl wasn’t interested in doing something fancy like dancing but she changed her mind when she realized that her dancing could be used to raise money for her family. To which, she accepted.

While the instructor taught Akane the fundamentals of mai and odori techniques, the girl performed better when she used her own skills.

While frustrated, the instructor decided to rework her teaching style so Akane’s performances would be passable while also integrating her own skills.

She ended up winning multiple competitions and performances and used the prize money to move her family into a bigger and better house.

Although her reputation as an “easy waitress” would often rear its ugly head and would make Akane become agitated.

Her dancing moves incorporate alot of her old fighting techniques.

She wears a cherry red kimono with a yellow dragon etched on the side as a design.

At the end of each performance, she can be found at the snacks table eating just about everything.

Nagito Komaeda as the SHSL Nurse

Nagito lost his family when he was just a child.

Having pity on the boy, along with finding traces of frontotemporal dementia, the head doctor of the hospital he resided in decided to adopt the boy as his own.

Nagito became the doctor’s apprentice and learned of the different techniques that came with working in the medical field. 

The doctor taught him which drugs/medicines were used for what along with how to use the surgical tools properly.

He personally saw different medical cases each more mesmerizing than the last. 

He became fixated on the concept of death and how it was an integral part of life.

When he became old enough, he started to work as a nurse and partake in the same surgeries he saw as a child.

While he certainly participated in a number of cases that saved the lives of his patients, he also had a number of cases that resulted in death.

He personally requested to handle the patients that were unable to be saved so he can spend their final moments with them and capture the memory of their deaths.

There’s been word from the medical staff that he tries to comfort the dying patient and their family with speeches on how they shouldn’t be afraid of death and how the patient will move on to greater things in the next life and how the families will become stronger afterwards.

This has earned him the nickname “Angel of Death”. 

He wears mint green scrubs and carries a portable bag withhis own medical equipment.

Teruteru Hanamura as the SHSL Coach

Despite his physique, Teruteru has amazing stamina and is capable of lifting heavy objects that ordinary people would have trouble lifting on their own.

Teruteru can analyze a person’s physical stature and determine which exercise or physical activity best suits them.

He always offers massage therapy proclaiming that it’s the best way to strengthen the body and relax the mind.

There are multiple cases where the players he’s worked with have accused him of sexual harassment or groping their bodies. 

He has a complicated relationship with his family.

The younger siblings antagonize him for pursuing a career that isn’t related to their family’s restaurant business while putting more hardships on their mother.

His mom on the other hand, is more accepting of his career and asks that he focus more on what he enjoys doing in life.

Teruteru’s massages originally stemmed from how he would give massages to his mama to help alleviate her of her body aches.

He wears a dark red track suit and gold chain. Mixed with his combed over hair, it makes him look like a sleazy gangster.

Chiaki Nanami as the SHSL Animal Breeder

As the daughter of a rich family that hardly had time for her, Chiaki’s parents bought her a variety of animals to keep her company.

She found comfort with them but was heartbroken when she noticed that they became saddened and died.

She became motivated to learn from them so they could stay alive for long as possible.

Chiaki began studying different types of animals and what behaviors are ideal and which are concerning.

After school, she would venture to local animal shelters and veterinarians and offer to volunteer so she can work with different animals and examine first hand their behaviors.

She earned recognition by forming connections with the animals in her care and teaching them commands.

While she prefers the company of animals to humans, she will make an effort to help her human clients have a better relationship with their pets.

She can often be found napping alongside any of her animal friends.

Sagishi as the SHSL Lucky Student

Saigishi grew up in an orphanage having been abandoned by their family before they can remember.

They noticed that they had an unusual luck themed streak when it came to playing with the other kids.

If they were playing soccer, they would accidentally kick the ball into the window which surprisingly knocked out a janitor that was about to assault one of the orphanage workers.

If they tried to pass a love letter to another child they had a crush on, a burst of wind would fly the letter straight into the child’s face and they’d end up having a terrible accident.

If they were preparing food for an upcoming dinner, they would end up pouring too much vinegar into the meal which would spoil the dinner resulting in the staff having to order pizza for the kids.

Saigishi developed a reputation as a kid with creepy powers which both amazed and terrified their fellow orphans.

The kid realized that their luck would only benefit the people around them but would make bad things happen if they tried to use it for themselves.

At the urging of their friends, they ended up participating in the Hope’s Peak Lottery and wound up with the chance to join them as the next SHSL Lucky Student.

Sagishi was worried since something bad would eventually happen if it was the work of their luck, but they decided to take the offer knowing that they needed to make a future for themselves.

They wear a white collared shirt with old jeans. 

They still have a mullet which has a small ahoge on the top of their head.

Mikan Tsumiki as the SHSL Gamer

She still had a horrible childhood growing up where her family and classmates would bully and abuse her for a variety of reasons.

Not wanting to put up with their abuse anymore, Mikan decided to drop out of middle school and become a hikikomori.

Using her worn out computer, Mikan found comfort in playing online video games. 

She personally enjoys fighting games as she imagines her enemies as her abusers and would deliver swift justice on them by beating them up.

Mikan has a preference for playing as male characters since the female characters wearing skimpy/stripper-esque outfits bring back painful memories for her.

After sufficient online practice, Mikan gained enough confidence to try tournaments in the real world. 

But she kept this secret from her family in fear that they would use this to torment her.

When it comes to tournaments, she unleashes her pent up anger and frustrations for her past tormentors by cursing at her opponents as she beats them.

While her fandom is impressed with her gaming skills, they do question why they would call her opponents by a different name and accuses them of doing something awful to her.

When she wants to calm down after a heavy day, she likes to play relaxing games with cute animals.

Nekomaru Nidai as the SHSL Prince

During his childhood years, Nekomaru stayed in his room because of his heart condition.

He received private tutoring based on the history of his kingdom along with different world cultures.

His father and mother spared no expense in providing the best doctors and medical professionals who could ensure that their son would be physically fit.

When he started making appearances outside of the palace, there were rumors that the frail prince was placed in a secret government program that was designed to create super soldiers.

He’s often recognized for working first as a soldier under his father’s militia before becoming of it’s main generals.

Nekomaru is well versed when it comes to proper etiquette and engaging in the company of royals or high class aristocrats. 

He has a personal club made of suitors who have fallen for his image as a charming (and handsome) prince.

He also devotes alot of time to interacting with the middle class of his kingdom as he believes having a bond with his people is important for a royal to have.

The main uniform he wears is a blue military outfit with a silver sash and a black beret with a family jewel in the front.

Gundam Tanaka as the SHSL Yakuza

He inherited the throne of the Tanaka Empire at an early age due to the death of his father.

He wasn’t able to remember his father but the stories passed by his underlings and advisors describe him as a devil who was incredibly powerful but dangerous when provoked.

His mother on the other hand, remembers him as a loving man who was very attentive toward her needs.

Gundam would unintentionally embrace his father’s memory thanks to his “overlord” personality which would make him come off as overly dramatic and sinister to his enemies.

His reign as a yazuka lord involved more emphasis on spiritual affairs by bringing spiritual communities under his Empire.

He personally believes that maintaining ties with the spirits and Gods will grant the Tanaka Empire a stronger chance of survival.

While maintaining relationships with minor businesses under his control, he would also invite potential gang groups for tea ceremonies and offer them the chance to join him.

He’s been trained by his advisors in using a katana and gun making him skilled enough to handle even the most dangerous of gang members.

While he’s capable of defeating them, he vows never to take the blood of anyone weaker than him or unless he’s given no other choice.

Before entering high school, Gundam was able to have his upper and lower body tattooed with images of oni demons and spirits.

He found the Four Dark Devas when he passed by a street and saw the four hamsters foraging for food in a dumpster. 

He also expresses admiration for Sonia’s impressive swordfighting skills and has offered her an opportunity to work for his Empire if she wishes.

Kazuichi Souda as the SHSL Gymnast

Kazuichi got into gymnastics by reading alot of shonen manga.

He was impressed by how athletic and fit the heroes were so he wanted to train and be like them.

When not helping in his dad’s shop, he would try practicing parkour near the streets of his town to help him develop better flexibility.

While practicing at middle school, his teachers noticed his potential and offered him a spot in a gymnastics program.

His dad didn’t like him getting into “girly shit” like gymnastics and frequently insulted him for it. 

He would often perform for his friends which impressed them at first. But then things got troublesome when they requested him to do flips and jumps for their amusement.

It got worse when they tricked him into breaking into a second story classroom so he could steal the answers for an upcoming test.

Not wanting to be taken advantage of again, Kazuichi gave himself a radical makeover so no one would mess with him.

Along with his pink hair, his outfit consists of a black tanktop with neon green stripes and yellow shorts.

Hajime Hinata as the SHSL Mechanic

His parents rented his own shop for him to work at but they personally didn’t invest their own time to work with him.

To avoid having to think about his loneliness, Hajime placed all of his effort and thinking into his work.

He began receiving requests to repair average household appliances before moving on to bigger machines.

He’s received alot of praise for improving the appliances while also explaining to the owners on how they should best maintain their appliances so they can last longer 

The machines that he worked best with were vehicles and motorcycles.

Despite being underage, Hajime managed to practice driving on his own and learned how to drive the basic motor vehicles.

While he’s grateful for his mechanic talent, he often worries if he’s really living his life to the fullest and if there’s something missing that he needs to achieve.

His favorite invention is a hoverboard that he uses to ride around his hometown to clear his mind after a hard day’s work.

His mechanic uniform is a mechanic uniform with a design similar to that of a racecar driver. 

Mahiru Koizumi as a Reserve Course Student

While Mahiru was interested in the idea of going into Hope’s Peak, she wasn’t confident enough in her photography skills to go through with the entrance exam. 

At the insistence of her best friend Sato, Mahiru ended up in the Reserve Course so they can fight for the chance to be special.

While she didn’t mind the work provided by her classes, Mahiru took notice of how her peers had a hard time with paying for their tuition along with even getting into the Talent program. 

She also had to deal with Sato having to fight against her old rival Natsumi who was picking fights with her while trying to get recognized herself.

She became an unofficial peace keeper of her class as she would chastise her classmates for picking fights against each other or making rude remarks.

As time went on, Mahiru herself was unable to keep up with her classes since the money to pay for them was running low. 

She would later receive an e-mail from the Steering Committee offering her a chance of entering the Talent program through an unconventional method that was funded by the school.

She had to cast that thought aside when Natsumi ended up dead and Sato is all but stated to have killed her out of frustration.

Soon vengeance would claim Sato’s life with Mahiru finding her in an empty classroom and on the brink of death with her head bleading.

Before dying, Sato begs her friend to make something special with her life and not to waste it in the Reserve Course. She knows that Mahiru will do great things in her life and that she believes in her.

Casting her doubts aside and refusing to let her friend’s death be in vain, she accepted the Steering Committee’s offer by participating in the Hope Cultivation Project.

[imagine-loki]

Ragnarok

TITLE: Ragnarok CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 3: Reunited AUTHOR: traveling-classicist ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine you take care Odin when he was homeless on Midgard (based on the deleted scene from Ragnarok). You take him in and listen his crazy stories about Asgard and Thor thinking he’s just some crazy hobo who needs help. Then one day, Thor and Loki break into your apartment looking for their father. Hela returns in your living room and insanity ensues. RATING: T

AO3 Link: Here

NOTES/WARNINGS: Wow this came out as a big Ragnarok fix-it chapter. These things happen, I suppose. Enjoy, if it’s something that you need. I know some of us feel it.

Also, head to AO3 and please, read the endnote. If you don’t use AO3, I’ll summarize here.

Someone has stolen my material (including this story and my other story, Loki’s Daughter) and every single AO3 authors material and is profiting off of it by marketing an unofficial mobile app called the Fanfic Pocket Library Archive (Unofficial) App. This thing’s been around for several years but as I’m a little new to writing, this is the first I’ve heard of it. I do this for free and receive zero (0) dollars from it. I do it for fun but it’s my intellectual property and no one deserves to make money off of it, especially without my permission.

Please, if you use this app, stop, leave a one star review, report it as inappropriate on whatever store you use (it’s on all the popular ones), and then delete it. This person is hurting fanfic authors like me and many others on this blog! I don’t (and never) encourage sending hate mail to this individual and I don’t recommend you try to contact them directly, please. I don’t know if they know that they’re hurting us but we need to make sure that this app gets taken down.

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Several weeks had passed since Odin had come to live with Theo. They had finally settled into a workable routine. Theo was thankful she could finally work in peace for a full day without Odin bursting into her room yelling about frost giants or the helicopter he thought was an attacking dragon or whatever other mundane event triggered his dementia.

            He was content, most days, with reading in the living room. Theo had gotten him a library card and they went to the library several times a week to keep him set up with books. Theo thought about getting him involved in book clubs or other social events but thought he might need a little more time before he could be with other people again.

            He no longer spoke about the crazy doctor and he did not bring up the incident that Theo had had with him. For which, she was grateful. All in all, he was a good roommate and Theo enjoyed listening to his stories about Asgard and the battles in the Nine Realms. She was concerned by his comments about the Avenger Thor being his son, but she was not sure what to do about them.

She had asked him how long he had been in New York and he could remember being there for about four years. She assumed he had been upset and displaced during the Battle of New York, like herself and so many others had been. She thought, perhaps, this is where his fantasies about Thor and the Avengers had come from. A lot of people had had psychotic breaks after the aliens attacked. New Yorkers could come back from a lot: freak storms, floods, train wrecks, fires, terrorists, spies. But aliens and super heroes proved to be just a little too much for some.

Her attempts to get him to see a real doctor had all come up short. She did not want to force Odin to do something he did not want to do. She still wanted him to have the dignity of being his own person. He was healthy, for the most part, though she had noticed a bit of bodily weakness as of late. She had just chalked it up to the cold weather and old age. She was slowly working on his alcohol habit. He was down to only a few drinks a week now, instead of one a day. She did have to start hiding the booze in her room, though, after she caught him pinching some beer in the middle of the night one night.

She hoped that with a little more time together, he would come to trust her enough to go to a doctor to address his mental state but for now, as he wasn’t hurting himself or anyone else, she was content with him just being content. She enjoyed living with him. She didn’t feel like it was a chore to take care of him. She loved cooking for him and introducing him to new food.

She learned he had something of a sweet tooth so she kept a jar stocked with cookies or brownies or tarts or whatever recipe she could find. He even began checking out cookbooks from the library that had photos of food he thought looked good or familiar.

“Oh, these look like the apple tarts that Idunn used to make for us. Do you think you could make these? Of course, you don’t have golden apples but I’m sure you could find a decent substitute,” he would say.

“Sure! They look easy enough,” Theo would reply. “Check this one out and we’ll drop by the grocery store and pick up the ingredients.”

When they arrived back at her apartment, she unpacked the groceries. To her surprise, Odin came to her side and helped her. He took out the milk and cheese and a few other things and placed them in the refrigerator. She smiled. She’d have to remove the cereal and oatmeal he put in there later but at least he was trying to help.

He placed her cookbook on the island in the kitchen and took the rest of his books to the living room to read. She put on some coffee for him. She had found that he did enjoy a cup of coffee while he read. She set down a mug for him and he thanked her as he pulled out one of his newest books, a book about modern American politics. He went through books very quickly, so he often checked out ten or more books in a single visit. Among them this time were books about the Afghan wars, the Iraqi war, the American revolution, the Civil War, the civil rights movement, another Norse mythology book, and a book about Nordic style knitting.

She returned to the kitchen and started on the recipe for the apple tarts. She started on the dough and made up the apple and cinnamon mixture. She glanced up at Odin and caught him watching her from over the top of her book. When she caught his eye, he quickly looked down at his book again. She smiled and placed the tart crusts in to bake. When they were done, she pulled them out and added the apple mixture on the tarts. When she was finished, she put the tarts back in the oven.

“Okay, those need a little more time and then we can try them out,” Theo said.

“They already smell delightful,” Odin said.

Theo smiled. She enjoyed how happy he had been recently. It was good to see someone who had been so spiteful and angry and confused, be content and happy with life. Even though, he was still rather confused most of the time.

“Nordic Style Knitting?” Theo read, as she picked up one of Odin’s books from the pile on the coffee table.

“Knitting?” he said, taking a closer look. “I thought that said, ‘knighting’. I must be losing my sight.”

“Aw, I thought you were going to pick up a new hobby,” Theo said, a little disappointed. “Knighting? It has a picture of a woman with a knitted sweater on it looking longingly into mid-distance. How did you think this was about knights?”

“Well, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. That’s what the librarian lady always says,” Odin said.

Theo nodded. “Well, I guess that’s true. But if there’s anything about knights in here, be sure to tell me because that would be the plot twist of the century.”

“Hmph, a king does not have time for knitting,” he said.

            “Right, well you’re not much of a King of a the Dumpsters now, are you?” Theo said, smiling.

            “Well, I suppose I’m not king anymore,” he muttered.

            “Are you happy?” she asked. He looked up at her and smiled. His eye shimmered a bit in the light.

            “Most of the time,” he said.

            She laughed. “Well, that’s the goal, isn’t it?” She leaned over the couch and kissed his cheek. “I’ll be in my room for a bit. I’ll be out when the oven beeps.”

            She walked down the hallway to her room and flopped onto her bed, playing on her phone. The apartment filled with the smell of apple tarts. It made her stomach growl in anticipation. She rolled over on her back, phone raised over her face, playing Candy Crush. She completely lost track of time and before long the timer started beeping in the kitchen.

            “What is that! Who’s there?” Odin shouted at the oven.

            The beeping and Odin’s booming voice made her jump. The phone slipped from her hands and landed like a brick on her face. “Ow,” she groaned as she slumped off her bed to get Odin away from the oven again before he started beating it with her rolling pin.

            “Odin, it’s just the timer, remember? Our tarts are done!” she said, removing the rolling pin gently from his hands. She pulled on her oven mits and pulled out the tray. Odin’s hand went straight for one, but Theo smacked it away. He recoiled holding his hand and giving her a sour look.

            “Not now, you crazy! They just came out! They’re still hot,” she said.

            He frowned at her and grumbled as he stalked to the living room and plopped down on the couch again. She smiled and shook her head. She waited for them to cool before plating a few for him and some for herself and walking into the living room to join him. She set the plate down in front of him. When she looked down at him, he had his hands on his head again like he did when he was upset and frustrated. A book was open in his lap.

            “Odin? Are you alright? What’s wrong?” she asked, setting the plate down on the table.

            “Asgard is not a place, I know that, but I have to remember,” he said, hitting his head with his palms.

            “No, no, we don’t do that, Odin,” Theo said, stopping him. “Just take a deep breath, come on.” She picked up the book from his lap. It was the Norse mythology book. He grabbed it from her and pointed to the page he was on.

            “Look, look at her, I know her,” he said, pointing to an illustration of a woman on the page. Theo read the caption, ‘The Goddess of Death, Hela’. She looked up at Odin again. He was clearly in distress.

            “It’s alright, Odin, here have a tart, remember? We were excited about these. They smell really good,” she prompted him with the plate, but he shook his head. He was really distressed if food would not bring him out of this.

            “They’ve got it all wrong. They’ve got it all wrong! Stupid Midgardians. Not you, Theo! Them!” he said, pointing at the book and fidgeting. “She’ll come back. I do not know when, but it feels soon. Very soon. She will kill me.”

            “Odin, no one is going to kill you,” Theo said, coolly, trying to keep a calm tone.

            “No, no, she will. It’s been foretold that she will,” he panted.

            “Odin, those are just stories. No one is going to kill you. Did you see that guard dog of a landlord I have downstairs? He’s not going to let anyone in that doesn’t live here. I promise, no one is going to kill you.”

            “I must speak with my sons. I must speak with them now! I must warn them immediately!” he said. “Asgard is not a place!” He pounded on his head again. “Why won’t they listen! Why can’t I remember!”

            “Odin, please, stop! Don’t hurt yourself!” Theo grabbed both his hands and held them. He stared at her. Beads of sweat had appeared on his forehead. His eye was bloodshot and glistened with welling tears. Theo sighed.

            “Listen. Let me help you. Please,” she pleaded with him, holding his hands. “Take a deep breath.”

            “Theo—”

            “Shut it! Do as I say,” she snapped.

            He sighed and took a deep breath.

            “Alright, now let it out.” He did so. “Again,” Theo said, softening her tone now that he was listening to her. She made him take several deep breaths in and out until he was calm. She held his hands so that he could not hit himself.

            “Okay, I want you to close your eye and focus on your breathing and make all the other little Odin voices stop talking in your head. Frigga too, if she’s in there,” Theo said. “Sorry, Frigga,” she added, quietly.

            “This is silly,” Odin said.

            “It’s not silly, just trust me, okay. Rule number seven, remember?” she said. He opened his eye and looked at her.

            “Fine,” he grumbled, closing his eye again.

            “Good. Sometimes this takes a while. It takes me a while sometimes so just tell me when you have them all shut up.”

            She waited for several minutes when finally, Odin said, “Alright.”

            “Okay, now let’s think about how this started. You were reading your book and you got to this page about Hela,” Theo said.

            “I know her,” he said, quickly.

            “Okay, how do you know her? Is she your friend?”

            “No, no, no, they have it all wrong here,” he said pointing to the book.

            “Alright, alright, well how do you know her? Take a deep breath and think hard about it. Don’t let any of the other voices think over you.”

            He closed his eye and scrunched his brow, clearly concentrating hard on this task.

            “She… She… is my… daughter,” he whispered. “She is my daughter.” A tear slipped from his eye. Theo looked at him, squeezing his hands. He started breathing hard. His eye flicked around and then up at Theo. “She’s my daughter and I forgot about her. I forgot about her!”

            “Oh, Odin,” she said, squeezing his hands. “Don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault,” Theo said, rising up to sit next to him on the couch. She put her arm around him.

            He put his face in his hands. His body shook with silent sobs. “I’m a terrible father,” he whispered. “To all my children.”

            “Odin, I’m sure that’s not true.”

            “It is. I’ve done nothing but push them away and lock them up, punish them for who they are, for who I made them to be. They all hate me. They all think I’m mad and foolish. And I am. I’ve been blind to them.” He collapsed into his hands again.

            Theo couldn’t help her own tears at seeing him cry. She rubbed his back and squeezed his arm, trying to think of something to help him feel better. She knew that sometimes, when people broke down like this – which many of her former roommates had on this couch – it was often helpful for her just to sit with them and listen.

            “I’m sorry, Odin,” she said, softly. “I can’t imagine how hard this is for you, but the fact that you realize that you’ve made mistakes may mean that there’s still time for you to fix your relationship with your children; that you can ask for their forgiveness.”

            “You don’t understand, girl,” he said, shaking his head. “What I’ve done to Hela, to Loki…the eons of torture and brutality I’ve put them through… there is no conversation that can fix.”

            Theo was a little scared by what he was saying now. She wanted to be optimistic for him and supportive, but she had a gut feeling there was something more going on here that Odin was not telling her.

            “Well,” she said, her voice a little shaky. “We can only try. For right now, let’s just have a few tarts and try to calm down. Maybe, you can think about what you would want to say to your kids if they were here.”

            He sighed. “I would want to tell them I love them,” he said. He wiped away the tears from his face and took a tart.

Theo looked at him sympathetically. She tried not to cry herself as she took a tart too. She took a bite. She was impressed with her baking. They tasted really good, immediately improving her mood.

            “Mmm,” Odin muttered. “My sons would love these. Frigga, too. They loved Idunn’s apple tarts.”

            “Do I do them any justice? Even without the golden apples?” she said, bumping his shoulder with hers.

            “They’ll do,” he said with a little smile. He looked up at her. “Thank you, Theo.”

            “Oh, you’re welcome,” she said, standing to get a drink from the kitchen. As she walked, there was a sudden pounding on the door. “Now, who’s that?”

            She walked back towards the door, but the pounding got louder. “Hang on! I’m coming!” she said, shoving the rest of the apple tart in her mouth and swallowing it in one bite. She could hear muffled voices outside. There was a loud bang on the door that made Theo jump.

            “Hey!” she shouted. “Knock it off!”

            There was another bang and the door heaved inwards. Theo jumped back and reached for the coatrack. The door gave one last shudder before shattering into a million pieces across her entryway floor. Theo slammed against the wall beside the coatrack, as two men casually walked into her apartment: Thor, the Avenger and Loki, the alien that attacked New York. She reached into her coat pocket on the coatrack and pulled out a handgun, pointing it at Loki’s head.

            “Do not come any closer. What the hell are you doing in my house?” she shouted at them.

            “Father!” Thor said, stepping over the broken pieces of door to Odin who was standing by the coffee table.

            “Thor! My son!” Odin said, putting his hand on Thor’s cheek. “Oh, my sons! I love you!”

            Theo did not take her eyes off Loki, nor the sights of her gun. Her hand was steady, though her heart was racing. He was looking at Odin with brows raised in shock at his adoptive father’s admonition upon their arrival. He looked back at the Theo with her gun pointed at his head. He raised his hands slowly and gave her a gentle look.

            “I apologize for my brother murdering your front door,” he said, slowly. “Please, allow me to fix it.”

He waved his hand and the splinters of the door began to reform on the broken hinges. Theo felt a wriggling sensation under her foot. She looked down to see a large chunk of the door wiggling to get free as if pulled by a magnet towards its comrades. She lifted its foot and it replaced itself, making the door whole again.

            Loki stepped over to it and tested it, swinging it open and shut. “There, good as new,” he said. Theo still had the gun trained on him. He turned back to her. “Please, put that down. We’re just here for him.” He pointed to Odin with his thumb.

            “He… He was telling the truth… All this time? And I thought he was crazy…” Theo said.

            “Well, you’re probably not completely wrong. I’m pretty sure he’s crazy,” Loki said.

            Odin ran over to them and grabbed Theo’s arm, lowering her gun.

            “Theo! You’re breaking rule number five, young lady,” he scolded her. “No weapons!”

            “It’s my house. They’re my rules. And I get to break them when GIGANTIC ALIEN MEN COME TEARING DOWN MY DOOR!” she shouted, pointing at the brothers.

            “I do suppose that’s fair,” Loki said, looking at his brother.

            “No weapons?” Thor said. “What kind of house is this?”

            “Thor, don’t be rude,” Loki muttered.

            “A safe one!” Theo snapped. “Now, explain yourselves right now!”

            “My name is Thor, and this is Loki—”

            “I know damn well who you are! Why on earth would you leave your father here to become homeless? Why would you say you would come for him and then just leave him here with no way to contact you?”

            “That’s a good question,” Thor smiled at Theo. “You want to answer that one, Loki?” he growled at Loki.

            “Homeless?” Loki said. “I didn’t leave him homeless here. I left him in a home. For old people. A retirement home. Where he could play bingo and mingle with old Midgardians and tell war stories and be cared for day and night their healer nurse-doctor people or whatever.”

            “And that retirement home went out of business,” Theo said, standing on her tip toes to be eye level with him. “I guess they don’t have a mailing address for Asgard, do they!”

            “So, what, they just turned him out on the street?” Loki asked.

            “Yes! They had nowhere else to put him!”

            “What kind of place is this? Just throwing your elders out like trash?”

            “Welcome to America, sweetie. You don’t have the money to pay for yourself, you go out on the street.”

            “Thor, this is not what I intended,” Loki said, addressing his brother. “All I did was strip him of his memories so he wouldn’t rouse the Midgardians’ suspicions, but I did not do this.”

            Thor shook his head at him and rolled his eyes and turned to Odin. “I’m sorry that this happened father—”

            “No, I am sorry, to both of you,” Odin said.

            “What?” both the brothers said in unison. Loki stared at him with surprise, thinking he had heard him wrong. Odin turned his attention to him.

            “I am sorry for how I’ve treated you, Loki. For the lies I’ve told you. For blaming you, when I should have blamed myself. Your lawless nature, these storms inside you; you inherited from me. And I would never wish that on another soul,” Odin said, tears in his eyes. “You are my son. I just hope that you can forgive me now after all that I have done.”

            Loki stared at him, taken aback by his words. He had no words of his own. He looked at Thor and then to Theo. She crossed her arms, gun still in hand. He stared blankly at Odin, unsure of what to do or say or even what to think.

Thor too was in shock. He looked back and forth between his father and his brother.

            “Father, I think you broke him,” he said, chuckling a little, putting his hand on Loki’s shoulder.

            “I… I…I do not know what to say,” Loki said.

            “That’s alright,” Odin said, putting up his hand. “I don’t expect forgiveness right away. Now, Thor, I must speak with you too.”

            Thor wiped his nose with the back of his hand, trying to disguise his man-tears. Theo scoffed. Loki was still searching the room for something that could help him respond. He stepped closer to Theo while Odin spoke with Thor.

            “What’s in those tarts?” he asked, suspiciously.

            Theo turned her head slowly to glare at him, shooting daggers. “Apples,” she said, feigning hospitality. “And a bit of cinnamon and brown sugar. You’re welcome to one if you want,” she said, though a bit scornful. “And you didn’t answer my question. Why did you leave him here?”

            Loki looked uncomfortable. “It’s a long story.”

            “Start talking,” Theo said.

            “I was not expecting this apologetic Odin. He’s never been this way before. Several years ago, Asgard was dealing with an unexpected war with the dark elves. My brother abdicated his right to the throne and Odin was, well, unfit to rule after our mother died. He was willing to sacrifice every Asgardian warrior we had to defeat the elves just uphold some old family grudge. So, I did what needed to be done and removed Odin from power.”

            “Jesus,” Theo said, rolling her eyes.

            “I brought him here so he would be safe. I removed his memories with a spell so as to disguise his existence. To keep him safe not only from Midgardians but other powers in the universe that might want him dead. I wasn’t expecting them to throw him out on the street!”

            Theo shook her head, not meeting Loki’s eyes.

            “But I am grateful to you, Theo, for taking him in. Thor is too, though he may forget to say so.”

            “Mmm,” Theo grunted. “How did you even know where to find us?”

            “Pfft, that crazy second-rate magician that lives on this island too.”

            “Oh no, not him,” Theo whined, as a sparkling portal began to appear in her living room behind Loki. Doctor Strange and Wong stepped through.

            “I know, right,” Loki continued. “What a knob. He made me fall through one of his stupid portals for thirty minutes while he tried to figure out where you two were. Man’s not a sorcerer. His magic’s more suitable for children than… he’s right behind me…”

            “Hello again, Loki. Theo,” the doctor greeted them. Theo cocked the gun in her hand.

[snarkwriteswrasslin]

wild winter | the quiet game; kyle o’reilly [m]

PROMPTS USED

LOCATION: a shared hotel room ( with Bobby Fish asleep in the next bed, ftw)

SITUATION: knowing people can/might  overhear

TYPES OF SEXUAL CONTACT: hand focus (holding hands), intense eye contact, spooning

Notes: 

So this is the unofficial begin to my year long smutty self challenge. I figured that the few I did in February could count as a begin to winter. So, I’m transferring them all over to my blog(s). Perhaps later, I’ll make some kind of information post so that you guys know what this is all about. Or, maybe I’ll just leave it a mystery, bc Idek myself why I chose to do this other than boredom, wanting to stop writing god - awful and cringe inducing smutty stuff when I feel up to writing smut. Anyway, here it is. This oneshot fits into the universe I started in fake fic titles with Kyle O’Reilly and the OC used there, Dominique Carron. { x | x | x } < if you wanna read those before reading this. Time frame for this oneshot is a few months between the second part and the third part when Kyle and Domi have become an established couple.

Pairing:

Kyle O’Reilly x OFC, Dominique. 

Warnings:

uhh... smut. filth. shared hotel room / risk of getting caught. body fluids. an awkward but funny moment in here where they do kinda get caught by Bobby, whomst they’re sharing a room with (thank you so much for the inspiration for this part @kyleoreillysknee​ love you forever for throwing it out there) aaand that’s pretty much it, tbh.

                           KYLE & DOMINIQUE in

                      THE QUIET GAME.

He’d been on the verge of dozing off when he felt the bed dip low and he felt her, wiggling into place. He cuddled into her, his arms going around her after he’d pulled the blanket up over her better.

Dominique rolled over to give him a goodnight kiss and when she did, Kyle’s hands raised, cupping her face, pulling her mouth into a deep and gentle kiss. “Was startin to think I’d have to come in there with you.” he yawned into the kiss. Dominique cozied herself up to him and trailed her fingertip over his lower lip.

“I’d have honestly loved that. I just wanted to soak.” Dominique muttered softly, eyes fluttering open and shut as he pulled her closer. It always felt like sheer bliss when he held her close and tight.

“A little sore?” Kyle questioned, his hand leaving her cheek to ghost over her side and settle at her hip.

She shivered and bit her lip, pouting at him as he flashed her a mostly innocent grin. “More than a little. Turns out, not only are you sexy, amazing in bed, kind and funny.. You’re also really smart and I should’ve listened and stretched out instead of curling up in back like I did.” she pressed her lips against his lazily, an innocent little kiss.

Kyle pulled her closer and his tongue slipped past her lips as he raised his hand again to rest it against her cheek.“Good night, baby.” Dominique muttered softly, nuzzling her face against his hand.

“Good night, babe.” Kyle yawned lazily as Dominique rolled to face the opposite direction.

He slipped his arm back over her, pulling her completely against him, thinking he’d start to doze off. But naturally, he didn’t. And he knew she wasn’t either.

Bobby, on the other hand, snoring up a literal storm across the room.

Kyle’s mouth brushed against the back of Dominique’s neck and she sucked in a breath because as his mouth was wandering over her neck, his hand was wandering  up and down her sides, stopping a second or two to squeeze at her hip. He moved even closer and she bit her lip, whimpering a little, her breath catching in her throat as he rubbed into her from behind.

“Kyle.” Dominique whimpered almost helplessly as she continued to really try and rub herself against him in the hopes that she could get him all worked up. She just wanted him so badly. Right then. Right that second.

“Yeah, babe?” his voice was husky with sleep and that always did things to her. She licked her lips and swallowed hard. Parts of her wanted to turn over and face him but parts of her also liked it when he spooned against her from behind, strong arms tight around her body. And they had a shared room tonight, she didn’t trust herself to remain quiet.

Kyle had this ability to bring out the side of her that got loud. Insanely loud. And needy. Oh so needy.

“You know exactly what you’re doing.” Dominique gasped right as she felt his hand slipping beneath the hem of the t shirt she’d kind of stolen from him to wear to sleep. He chuckled, his lips against her ear as his hand crept higher up her thigh. “I’m not doing anything. Promise, babe.”

“Yes. Yes you are.” she gasped a little, rocking herself back against him about the second she felt his hand settle over her unclothed heat, rubbing lightly. She heard him swear upon the discovery that she wasn’t wearing panties and when his teeth grazed at her neck, she bit down on her lip.

Kyle had her flat against the mattress in a split second and he was settling himself over her, his hands grabbing hold of her hands and holding them flat against the pillow.“Kyle… oh..” her voice came in a soft whimper against his neck. He gazed down at her with lust blown pupils. “So beautiful. And all mine.” he mused, lips crashing against hers as he bucked into her teasingly.

The kiss broke and his mouth strayed. And despite his burning desire to get his hands all over her, he continued to hold her hands flat against the pillow and gaze down at her adoringly. Bobby stirred, grumbling in his sleep and rolling over in the bed across the room and for a second or two, Kyle and Dominique froze, Kyle taking advantage of the pause in kissing and whispering to let go of her hands and slip his hand down between them, circling his cock, teasing it along her bare folds.

She shivered and tried to thrust her hips upward, to get some kind of friction going but he shook his head and chuckled quietly, pressing down into her as he whispered against her ear, “Think you can be quiet, babe?” questioningly. He’d honestly been planning to be a good boy and just attempt sleep since they had to be awake hellishly early, but.. the fact remained… He couldn’t keep his hands -or his mouth, to himself tonight. And she’d been nothing short of a playful tease the entire drive.

“It’s doubtful but..” she started to whimper as she felt him lining his cock up and the tip teasing between her folds all over again, “I’ll try.” the whimper and her words were swallowed up in a hungry kiss and Kyle shallowly thrust into her, barely letting the tip enter her heat. Dominique wanted to raise her legs and wrap them around his waist, this was so much worse than the way he’d been teasing her earlier in the SUV on the drive to the hotel… His hips were pressed so firmly into her lower body that she couldn’t lift her legs and wrap them around his body and drive him into her to the hilt like she wanted.Just as she thought she’d at least get to keep movement of her hands so she’d be able to touch him like she wanted, his hands found her hands again as he sank into her, keeping still for a few seconds as he gazed down at her and lowered his mouth, capturing her mouth in a kiss.

“Kyle..” she whispered, breathy and soft because her breath caught in her throat at his touches and kisses.

“Shh.. Gotta keep quiet, remember, babe?” his tone was a thick and sleep laced almost teasing drawl as he spoke.

She nodded, swallowing hard. All she wanted to do was get her hands on him. To wrap her legs around him.“C’mon.. Please?” Dominique tried begging again but she could look at him and tell that it was falling on deaf ears.

“Uh-uh.” he replied as he started to thrust, slowly and carefully. Almost agonizingly slow. It was quite evident that Dominique was about to pay for her little teasing throughout the drive today. And it was clear that Kyle wanted control.That turned her on more than anything. And he knew this.That combined with the way he was staring down at her, lust blown pupils almost blackening his entire eye.. She shivered as his cock buried inside her even deeper and he dipped down, mouth roaming hungrily down her neck. A gasp caught in her throat when she felt his lips latch on her neck, quiet sucking sounds drowned out by the noisy snores of their roommate for the night.The thrill of being caught at any second had her dripping. When she moaned a little louder than intended because he started to drive into her deeper and harder, his hips snapping quietly against her body as he did so, he chuckled against her skin. “Shhh.”

“You’re trying to make me scream.” Dominique choked out after a deep and bruising kiss broke because they needed to breathe.

“You were the one teasing me all the way here, babe.” Kyle replied, flashing her that cocky smirk from above. He started to fuck into her a little faster, his hands gripping her hands tighter, his hips pinning her flat against the bed. The orgasm started to build all over again, this time more intense and just like before, Kyle came to a full stop, cock buried inside her, gentle kissing and sucking noises as his mouth roamed all over her neck and dipped down, leaving a line of marks littering her collarbone as he smirked against her skin. When he felt her starting to back away from getting off, he started to fuck into her again. Deliberate and slow.

Her fingers laced through his and she gave his hands a gentle squeeze, trying and finally managing to move her hips just enough to get a little more friction going between them. It did nothing for the tears of frustration stinging at her eyes. Bobby stopped snoring and Kyle went still on top of her, mouth moving over her skin, finding her mouth as his tongue parted her lips. “Feels so good, Domi. God, you feel amazing.Shit.” he muttered into the kiss as he remained still, both of them caught up in kissing each other, Dominique trying and failing at wiggling her hands free.

Kyle chuckled and shook his head no at her with a teasing gleam in his eyes. “You’re in for it when we get back to our apartment, Kyle.” Dominique muttered as her teeth caught on the side of his neck and she nipped at it, leaving a mark of her own.

Kyle shivered. He definitely had a weakness about her lips anywhere near his neck. And she knew it. So he knew she was trying to tease, to do anything she could right now to get back at him for holding her hands still.“I’m counting on it, Domi.” Kyle muttered lazily against her collarbone.

Bobby hadn’t said anything or really moved again and he’d started to quietly snore again, so Kyle started the delicious torture all over again, slow drives deep into her heat as careful as he could. She moaned and the kiss swallowed it up, Kyle chuckling right after. The mattress’ quiet creaks had them both laughing in whispers that were swallowed up in even deeper kisses. When she started to rock her hips upward, meeting his deep drives, he growled quietly, burying his lips in her neck to muffle the sound and leave another mark behind.

“Eyes up here, babe.” Kyle coaxed as he started to move faster, letting go of her hands finally so he could grip her hips, angling them up, driving into her as deep as he could get. He buried his mouth into her mouth, their teeth bumping against one another in the hurry to deepen the kiss. “Kyle, fuck.. Oh..” her back arched away from the bed slightly and he buried his mouth into her mouth even deeper, muttering into the kiss, “C’mon, babe.. Wanna feel you.” coaxing her right over the edge and straight into an orgasm that shattered through her with enough intensity to make her want to scream his name over and over until she lost her voice.

Kyle deepened the kiss, his fingertips digging into her hips, the mattress creaking steady and quiet. When she clenched around him he growled into the kiss, teeth sinking into her lower lip, tugging at it, gasping as his own orgasm built to an almost dizzying rush and the snap of his hips against her hips was almost neck and neck with the sound of Bobby’s snoring across the room.

She managed to get her legs around his waist, her heels digging into his ass, driving him in even deeper. Her nails dragged slowly and carefully across his shoulders and down his back and Kyle grunted, “Fuck. So close.”

“Don’t stop. Don’t you dare stop.” Dominique coaxed, staring up at him. Kyle raised his hands, putting them over her hands again as he continued to fuck into her, his hips at a steady and almost bruising tempo against her hips, fucking her deep into the mattress almost. As his orgasm shattered through, he crashed his mouth against her mouth, groaning as she whimpered his name over and over quietly into the deepening and dizzying kiss. “Love you Domi.”

“Love you too, Kyle.”They shared a look and Kyle’s head bent, burying in the crook of her neck as Bobby spoke up from his bed, “Love you, Bobby.” and after a few seconds of them both trying to compose themselves and not answering, he spoke up again,

“Oh come on? You two are seriously gonna leave me hangin? Just when I felt like we were gettin really close…” Bobby chuckled, trailing off with a mumbled, “Horny as a couple of actual teenagers, I swear to God.”

“Bobby go to sleep.” both Domi and Kyle responded in tandem, both embarrassed at having been heard, Kyle falling to the bed completely spent, immediately turning onto his side and pulling Dominique into his arms, gripping her tight, pulling her into a yawn filled and lazy goodnight kiss.

“What are the odds he was pretending to be asleep?” Dominique asked, cringing because she had a feeling that there was a high chance Bobby was pretending to be asleep just to give them shit.

“Knowing Bobby, babe.. Pretty high.” Kyle gave a sheepish chuckle as his lips brushed lazily against her forehead.

“Awesome. This is never gonna be not awkward.” Dominique muttered against Kyle’s chest as she rolled over to face him, throwing a leg over his hip. Kyle’s hand found her thigh, squeezing gently as he chuckled and yawned.

[kakushigo]

hiya! what shows have you been watching recently?

Recently?

Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty God, I love this one so much.  It’s a very slow paced drama though and there’s a lot of court intrigue going on.  It’s based (loosely, from what I understand) off a novel of a similar name.  There’s a little bit of suspension of disbelief needed during the end of the arc, but overall, very solid.  Excellent costumes, excellent acting, and they really sell the OT3.  Wang Zhi is my favorite boy.  It is directed by Jackie Chan & the fight scenes are top notch.

 Breaking Dawn (2019) Admittedly, I haven’t gotten far in this one yet. But it’s another BL book adaptation.  While the title says 2019, it’s currently being released on IQIYI (googling only turns up raws as well, so I’m wondering if this drama got released late b/c of censorship).  Bit of a warning if you watch it subbed on IQIYI- the subs are very literal, sometimes to the point of being confusing.  10/10 great characters and great angst though.  Yes, the title did give me traumatic flashbacks to Vampires & they really should’ve used the other translated name.

My Roommate is a Detective Everything about this drama is “Good, but...” If you want something not so serious & a little zanny, it’s a good one.  Warning: a lot of people don’t like the female lead.  (She’s not my favorite and I definitely don’t ship the main pairing the show tries to sell, but I don’t hate her.)

L.O.R.D Critical World (Warning, this does end on a major cliffhanger, which doesn’t bother me but may bother some people.) Oh, man. I’m a slut for world building and this? Delivered.  The premise is there’s 7 Lords who have magical powers and they’re assigned their own student to keep the Silver Brotherhood strong & the Beasts from destroying order.  This series follows Lord 7′s apprentice, Kynil (or at least that’s what IQIYI subs it as...), and how much of a mess he is.  Also, I’m totally ready for everyone to get Beasts instead of Daemons.  I’ve been told to inform everyone if you like pretty men you need to watch it for Lord 7 alone.

Been meaning to get into but haven’t yet:

The King: Eternal Monarch 

Hospital Playlist

Legend of Awakening

Winter Begonia (Might give this one a pass as cheating is a squick XD)

Rewatching:

Stargate: Atlantis 

As I am running a big bang for it, gotta rewatch Space Crimes: The Series.  It’s serialized sci-fi, so suspend your disbelief.  And the finale didn’t happen, they’re still in Pegasus, okay?  Great found family vibes, especially once the gate team is Sheppard, McKay, Teyla, and Ronon. You can watch this without knowing anything about Stargate (I did).

Always good to watch:

Nirvana in Fire (the first one) Political intrigue! Returning from the dead!  Pining!  Warning: you may find yourself suddenly crying over random household objects.

Guardian Another fun one, though sometimes thinking about the plot too much makes you go??? (The drama writers tried, they really did but they sometimes sacrificed plot for scenes from the novel & I’m kinda okay with that.)  Excellent chemistry between the leads.  Poor CGI but the soundtrack makes up for it.  Modern cop BL novel adaptation.

Leverage  Literally thieves say ‘steal from the rich, give to the poor.’  So, so good.  All the found family vibes.  Happy ending to every episode.  This is a feel good series, ‘kay?

Person of Interest Do you need to feel paranoid about everything watching you?  Do you want canonical lesbians?  How about dogs? Well, PoI got you covered!  It follows Harold Finch, creator the “The Machine”, as he attempts to save just one person from premeditated death with the help of ex-CIA, John Reese.  Joining them is Bear, the Dog; Root, the criminally insane (enemy to friend to lover of your unofficially adopted daughter but she’s also your adopted daughter); and Shaw, almost a doctor (from number to ‘ugh, I’ll help you out’ to loving bear to loving Root).  Shoot is adorable and there’s so many good AO3 Shoot fics.

[ilovejevsjeans]

RICCIARDO IS FERRARI’S CHANCE TO MOVE WITH THE TIMES

(THIS IS FROM LAST WEEK- SO WE KNOW ITS NOT GONNA HAPPEN NOW BUT A LITTLE TEA WAS SPILLED.)

Thirteen years. Yes, it’s 13 years since Ferrari last won a world drivers’ championship with Kimi Raikkonen which, let’s be honest, it backed into to some degree thanks to the internecine insanity of Fernando Alonso vs Lewis Hamilton, Spygate and McLaren in 2007 (as well as Kimi actually trying, which he’s only done intermittently since). Since then, the sport’s most famous team has been a major but ultimately unsuccessful player as McLaren, Brawn, Red Bull and Mercedes have swept up every title on offer. Drivers have come and gone (and sometimes come back again), team principals have been switched in and out (we see you, Marco Mattiacci). And still Ferrari hasn’t been able to parlay its historical, financial and (ahem) regulatory advantages into anything other than regular race wins and consistent underachievement. Which means it’s time to change an approach that served it so well for so long, but has run its race.

In the early 2000s, when testing was unlimited, tyres were being made specifically for its car by Bridgestone and cigarette cash flowed like chianti at lunchtime, putting every egg in the Michael Schumacher basket was absolutely the right way to go about dominating the sport, and dominate Ferrari did. Give Schumacher the sharpest tool in the box, and he metronomically sliced the opposition to ribbons for five straight years with Rubens Barrichello riding shotgun. Since then, Ferrari has thrown its weight behind Raikkonen (save for that weird 2008 season when Felipe Massa became its best option to beat Hamilton and McLaren for the title), Alonso and Sebastian Vettel, the latter two of which could never repeat in red what they’d managed to achieve elsewhere.

Which brings me to Vettel, and the fact he’s out of contract at the end of this season (should it ever start). If he stays at Ferrari beyond 2020, emphasis on ‘if’, it seems he’ll need to accept a smaller pay packet and a reduction of status given Ferrari has hitched its wagon to Charles Leclerc, 10 years younger and with a contract in his pocket for four more years after this one. What if Seb decides that, with four world championships, 53 wins and a stack of money in his keeping, that enough is enough with Ferrari, or F1 in general?

Before we get into that, an interlude on Vettel [1]. It feels as though there’s been a massive swing in how he’s perceived in the past year or two; for a while, he was seen by many as being overrated [2] because of his relentless Schumacher-style winning from the front of the field when he had the best car in the business (2010-13), and that perception wasn’t helped by what happened when he didn’t (2014 and the first year of the new regulations at the time sealed that view in the minds of many). But to be dismissed so quickly as a Barrichello/Raikkonen/Massa (dare I say Mark Webber?) number two in favour of a driver who has won two Grands Prix and has precisely 21 Grands Prix of experience in a top-line car seems a little disrespectful and short-sighted. Yes, Vettel has his foibles (overdrives when emotional or when he feels slighted, gets the wobbles under pressure), but he’s still very capable of winning races and is a proper professional who puts in the work, two things Raikkonen has rarely been accused of doing since 2007.

Back to the topic du jour. If Ferrari have decided that Vettel isn’t a number one anymore, or at least isn’t worthy of number one money or opportunity to genuinely challenge for the title, then why not make a seismic shift to the intra-team dynamic while you’re at it? The Ferrari “way” didn’t work for Alonso, nor Vettel. Why would it then work for Leclerc, promising as he undoubtedly is, given his pedigree relative to two of the most successful drivers in F1 history? Is doing the same thing over and over, rinse and repeat the idea that all eggs in one basket is the way to go, really going to topple the winning machine that is Toto Wolff, Hamilton and Mercedes? It’s time to be bold.

If Ferrari in 2021 isn’t going to feature an underpaid, muted and surely demotivated Vettel, then Daniel Ricciardo is the ideal replacement. Why? Glad you asked.

One, he’s available, with his Renault contract coming to an end at the end of 2020. Two, he’s a race-winning driver who isn’t in a race-winning car [3], and isn’t likely to be for a while if he stays where he is despite Renault’s intentions and ambitions, and because of the gap between F1’s top three teams in Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull to the rest. Three, sections of Ferrari management who didn’t feel Ricciardo was an ideal fit in 2018 because, in part, of a perceived lack of seriousness for the task are no longer a factor. And lastly, Ricciardo will lick his lips at the chance to bet on himself, even if he’s signed, unofficially, as Leclerc’s wingman (sorry, Valtteri Bottas).

Financial pressures for Ricciardo aren’t a factor. The fire to ignite a world championship charge still burns. He’d be apolitical, respectfully competitive with Leclerc, perhaps pushing the Monegasque to a new level that Vettel never could, and Ferrari/Italy would love him and his approach (can you imagine the cries of ‘Reee-chee-ardo!’ at Monza?) He’s scared of nobody and has the results to prove it. And it would turn up the heat on Mercedes, while making his former employers at Red Bull entertainingly uncomfortable [4].- If I could frame that part I would.

Faced with a choice between driving down a no-through road that is the very definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, the coronavirus-sparked chaos of 2020 gives Ferrari a chance to reset, rethink, and be bold. Ferrari’s ballsy move to fast-track Leclerc into a top seat paid dividends handsomely last year; let’s see if fortune can favour a brave call again by putting Ricciardo in red, a switch of approach that could help achieve a goal that has eluded it for more than a decade.

[1] Another Vettel thought. To this observer, he has always been someone who has had almost an endearing child-like love for racing, F1 and its traditions, and little time for any other peripheral distractions. Some drivers say they’ll never watch a race or be seen trackside again once they’re done, but they come back for the free money (“yeah, I reckon I could do some TV commentary …”) and/or because they miss having people blow smoke up their backsides every fortnight. You get the sense that Vettel would retreat into the Swiss countryside and never be seen again once he hangs up his helmet, but I’ve been wrong on that front before …

[2] In this part of the world, a lot of the Vettel/overrated commentary came out of him being teammates to Webber for as long as they were and the feeling among Australian fans that Webber wasn’t bad or a number two driver, to twist a little comment we heard along the way. Turkey 2010, Malaysia 2013 … people saw what happened and how management “handled” it, and it left a bad taste. Related: Azerbaijan 2018, and what will eventually be a must-read chapter in Ricciardo’s autobiography.

[3] Of the other contenders on the grid, Carlos Sainz is clearly good and hasn’t yet – emphasis on yet – had his chance in a race-winning car (he’d have been handy for Red Bull … never mind). Sergio Perez has had his chance in a top team and blew it, has been around as long as Ricciardo and has precisely seven fewer wins than the Australian’s seven. Esteban Ocon will surely get his shot in silver at some stage.

[4] Christian Horner’s face wouldn’t be as sour as it was in series one of ‘Drive to Survive’ with Cyril Abiteboul after Renault had signed Ricciardo, but it wouldn’t be far off. It’d be a bit like the ‘joy’ in certain sections of the Red Bull garage after Ricciardo nicked pole off Max Verstappen in Mexico 2018.

This was written by Matt Clayton, an Aussie media guy who used to write a lot if not all the content on Red Bulls site. He was a pretty good relationship with Dan. (X)

[superman86to99]

Superman: The Man of Steel #26 (October 1993)

REIGN OF THE SUPERMEN! In this issue: Steel vs. the Cyborg... or, if you prefer, John Henry vs. the Machine. The Man in Black and the Man of Steel are still exploring the Cyborg Superman’s ginormous Engine City (formerly Coast City) when they hear a massive rumble -- looks like someone put the keys in the ignition, which is bad news for everyone on Earth. See, the Cyborg’s plan was to put several of these engines across the planet to turn the Earth into a knock-off Death Star, but his lackey Mongul betrayed him and decided to start the first engine before time. As a result, the whole planet will spin out of orbit and break itself apart due to, uh, physics and stuff.

Our heroes bump into Mongul as he’s making his escape, and he decides to stick around a little while longer to beat their asses. The Man in Black decides to fight Mongul to allow Steel to go into the engine itself and hopefully turn it off before it destroys the planet. Now, Mongul might be a planet-killing bastard, but at least he’s considerate enough to give the Man in Black and Steel a little moment to themselves before they separate. Aw.

“It’s you! The guy who looks exactly like the steel mask I’ve been looking at!”

So, Steel goes into the engine, but the thing is so massive and complex that he doesn’t know how to even start turning it off. Luckily, he gets some unexpected tech assistance from the Cyborg (well, some chunks of metal animated by the Cyborg’s mind) and his complete inability to STFU.

Steel basically just lets the Cyborg keep talking about how the engine works as they fight, then uses that information to formulate a sophisticated plan to shut the machine down. That plan is called “jam the Cyborg and himself into the gears and make the whole thing explode”.

It works! The Cyborg is still alive and he still has a giant, kryptonite-powered fortress in his power, but at least the planet won’t crumble anymore, so that’s something. Anyway, let’s check on how the Man in Black’s been doing against Mongul...

Uh-oh.

Character-Watch:

Superboy had his big character-defining moment a few weeks ago when he pushed himself to the limit to stop that missile, and now it’s Steel’s turn. If Superboy’s moment was about rising up to the occasion, Steel’s is more about using his engineer brain to outsmart the Cyborg. His best stories are the ones where he tackles impossible problems until he finally breaks them down (literally, with a hammer). What a cool character. Too bad he died in this issue and stuff.

Plotline-Watch:

Halfway through the issue we see Green Lantern Hal Jordan coming back to Earth from a mission in space and he’s like “And now to take a big sip of water and check on my beloved home town of Coast City...” Don Sparrow says: “Some rough news, to be sure, but Hal’s been a noble hero for so long, I know he’ll be able to handle the disappointment like the hero as he has been consistently been portrayed for all these decades…”

Don’t worry, we’ll see Hal go “down there” in Green Lantern #46 soon!

We also see Old Man Eradicator flying down on Engine City. It’s all coming together!

Supergirl, once again in her invisible form, tries to help the mostly powerless Man in Black against Mongul, but he showers her with a convenient oil pipe and takes her out of commission in two seconds. If I were the Man in Black, I’d ask for a refund on my Emergency Secret Weapon.

Jeb-Watch: Lois sees Jeb “Homewrecker” Friedman for the first time since he kissed her last month, and he tries to get her attention with a pretty shocking accusation: that she (*gasp*) loves Superman. Jeb expert Don Sparrow says: “I’m pretty famous for my hatred of Jeb in these pages, so I gotta love how hard Lois is ignoring him. Aside from dismissing his sexist jabs, his would-be haymaker about her loving Superman and not Clark is flat out ignored, and to my memory, never brought up again. Besides, if Clark is dead, as Jeb thinks he is, what would be wrong with Lois loving Superman? Stupid Jeb.” Suck it, Jeb.

And I’ll just let Don keep talking now. More after the jump!

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

This entire issue feels to me like it’s being backed with a guitar solo, and the cover is no exception: pure badassery, as Superman and the Man of Steel run from explosions like action movie stars.  The opening splash on page one doubles down on the badassery, with Superman wielding an Image-comics-scale firearm (and while Jon Bogdanove has never shown an inability to draw feet, the convenient smoke hiding them does also remind me of Rob Liefeld, so more Image homage). [Max: I think he covered the feet so we can’t see Steel using his jet boots to look taller than Superman, again.]

Then ANOTHER splash follows on page 2-3 where we see the scale of our heroes relative to the giant engine structure.

Mongul’s bearhug looks pretty painful on page 6, and page 7 gives us yet another variation on the great poster from the Cyborg Superman’s first appearance. [Max: Those shots of Cyborg inside the machines always give me Superman III PTSD.] I love the mixture of low-tech and high tech that Bogdanove uses to show us the alien Engine City.  Aside from wires and gears, we also get shapes that look very analog, like transistors and the like.  Also the Cyborg being shown coming to life through his structures is a real visual playground for the art team, with some of his forms looking like himself, and others looking downright monstrous.

Did I think we’d get to see an oiled up Supergirl when I opened this issue?  No, no I did not.

The beating Mongul lays on Superman is very painfully drawn, particularly that last left hook Superman takes. [Max: Why does this look so familiar? It could be that similar cover image with Bibbo punching Superman, but I have a feeling both things are homages to something else. Some Neal Adams thing maybe?]

Mongul’s power level has always been something of a mystery to me.  Alan Moore’s “For the Man Who Has Everything” put him on a par with Superman, right up there with Darkseid for power level.  But then when Superman fought him in the gladiatorial games on Warworld, Superman didn’t have much trouble beating him, even though he had been out of range of a yellow sun for a very long time and was therefore, again, only using a fraction of his regular power.

The sequence of Steel hammering away at the Cyborg is well done, and appropriately reminiscent of The Mechanical Monsters, from the old Fleischer Superman cartoons (a well that Bogdanove rightly revisits a lot!)

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

This issue serves as a precursor to the Man of Steel comics from the early 2000s, where John Henry Irons served as an unofficial partner to Superman in Superman: The Man of Steel when it was being written by Mark Schultz (one of the more readable Superman titles of the mostly awful Joe Kelly-Joe Casey era).

Mongul’s done a lot of lousy things over the years, but it was downright decent of him to just flat out stand there and wait for Superman and Steel to have their bro moment before attacking the very-weakened Superman. [Max: Great minds, Don.]

This issue reads very choppily, as a lot of the transitions are jarringly abrupt.  From when Superman barely finishes his sentence when they come against Mongul, or later when we cut away from Jeb midsentence to the Cyborg, then jumping right to Steel in the engine room, it can be confusing as a reader.  Anyone else notice this?

Looks like Bog has skipped right past the Clint Eastwood of last week, and is taking the Eradicator right into R. Lee Ermey territory.

It’s fitting that in what amounts to the final issue of this being a Steel comic (until his own later series) that they finally raise the John Henry story, as the inspiration for Steel’s name.  In an industry with a reputation for underrepresenting people of colour, Simonson and Bogdanove’s Superman: the Man of Steel has consistently featured prominent African-American characters, and portrayed them with nuance and dignity rarely afforded in the mid-90s.

I would have liked to seen a little more acknowledgement from the Cyborg of just how much his plans are screwed up, but I suppose it’s all supposed to further demonstrate how insane he is.  One thing after another, his plans fail (Superboy survives, saves Metropolis, Warworld conversion fails, SUPERMAN IS ALIVE, Mongul betrays him, Green Lantern is coming to help, etc).  Now he’s saying “ah, it’s all cool, all that matters is my plan to kill Superman!” Except that he thought that Superman was dead when he hatched this whole plan! [Max: I guess they had to make it sound like there was still stuff on the line before the big climax... but yeah, that was weird. No one’s buying it, Hank.]

Aside from a few pages where they go ALL OUT (like the aforementioned Engine City spread), there’s a real dearth of backgrounds in this issue, with tons of figures on solid or blank backgrounds.

I’m glad we got a little update on Lois after Superman jetbooted away again, it was kind of her to assure them that this is indeed the real Clark who has returned.   Still, that conversation could have been a lot more awkward than it was.

FOOLS! The Man in Black is an impostor! My money’s on Bibbo now.

[greenjudy]

and now for something completely different

Under the cut is a long (long), rough-draft excerpt from The Orchid Keeper, one of my Belltower novels-in-progress. For some unknown reason I feel moved to post this today.

It’s the future. 

The narrator is Nathan Findzeit, fabulist, Operator, and dirty-tricks-facilitator for the global conglomerate, Belltower Industries. Eric Rehm (the orchid keeper referenced in the title) comes from Belltower’s Ethics Division. Three years ago, he was assigned to conduct an internal audit of Nathan’s division--an almost unprecedented occurrence, considering how much of Belltower’s dirty laundry is sitting in that hamper. 

Over time, Eric and Nathan have gradually come to appreciate one another. At the same time, they’ve learned that they are both pawns in an unimaginably complex power-play by the shadowy Arthur Cheergathers, Eric’s unofficial  supervisor in Ethics. 

See what you think of this. Heads up, it’s not explicit, but it’s a little on the steamy side. 

[author’s note: Findzeit is out of sorts in this excerpt; an unknown party, for an unknown reason, has given him a low dose of Teluno, a drug that will figure prominently later in the story.]

Eric’s apartment

[I’m thinking 2412 Webster St kind of on the border between Pacific Heights and Cow Hollow, right next to Bromley Place. This area is awfully affluent, but Eric is a Belltower minion.]

It’s a short walk from wherever the train let us off to Eric’s place. We take a shortcut, a flight of stairs that passes beside, and at one point through, a sequence of tiny and smartly landscaped backyards full of topiary and herb knots and bird baths. 

I steady myself on Eric as we walk. 

“I can’t believe you can afford to live here,” I complain.

“It’s not mine,” Eric says. “It’s Belltower’s. It came with the job.” I stare at him.

“OK, you are rent-free in Pacific Heights? That is extra unfair.” 

“It’s a place to live,” he says, shrugging. “If I were paying, I could never afford this.”

“If you were paying, where would you live?” 

“SOMA,” Eric says promptly. “Studio walkup with no street parking.”

“Keeping it real,” I say, eyebrows up. 

Eric unlocks his door with a jingle of keys.

I have never been here before; not when I was awake. I find myself touching the doorjamb, brushing my fingers against the stucco’ed wall, and when I take my coat off and put it on the hook in the hallway, I have to lean against it and breathe for a second, just to remind myself that I am really there.

“You okay? Still feeling loopy?” 

I guess I am. I guess I am still feeling loopy. 

Eric gets an arm around my shoulders and eases me into an armchair. It’s a soft dusty dark green; the nubby texture stands out against my fingers. 

“Just sit here,” he says. “Idrik said it would wear off soon.”

“It’s warm in here,” I say, surprised. 

“Space heater,” Eric answers. I see it, finally, bars glowing orange, leaving tracers when I turn my head. 

“I hope you didn’t give up on the fireplace. Were you finally able to get a chimney sweep to clean out your flue?” 

“You want…you want a fire?” Eric says, hands full with a tray that he sets on the coffee table. “I could make a fire.” 

“Is that tea?”

“It’s tea. Nothing in it, though. It’s just lemongrass. I don’t know what this is, Idrik doesn’t really know what this is, just—“ 

“No, it’s okay, you’re right, I’m stoned out of my mind on something and we don’t know what it is. It’s the right time for lemongrass. It’s a wise choice.”

Eric pours tea into chunky white mugs. They look like they belong in a men’s boarding house from the early twentieth century, or like they should contain shaving cream.  

“Let me know about that fire.”

“If you want to make a fire,” I say, “I won’t stop you. Won’t help you, either…sorry about that.”

I turn my head to gaze at Eric—my head weighs a thousand pounds—and I see a smile at the corner of his mouth.

“You’re an Operator,” he says. “You’re not supposed to get nailed by unknown substances in your drink.” I open my eyes wide.

“Did…did you just roofie me, Eric? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“No,” he says, stretching a mug out to me, “but looks like Idrik might’ve. He have a thing for paralyzed Operators?” 

“I have no idea,” I tell him, taking the mug very, very carefully. “If he does, that opens up a whole new dimension of Idrik’s personality for me.” 

Eric steps around the coffee table, slides open the mesh curtain in front of his fireplace, and stacks pine logs in an irregular pyramid. He’s got little bundles of rolled-up offprints for kindling in a basket on the hearth; he pushes them between the logs.

I hear the snap of the match and smell the sulfur before I see the flame it starts. He crouches, his back to me, poker in his hand, until he’s satisfied the fire’s taken hold. 

“I have to say, I’m not crazy about the idea of you and Idrik,” he says then, stunning me. 

“No?” 

“No, he’s not who I’d pick for you.” 

“What’s wrong with Idrik? Nice, upstanding young man…”

Eric shakes his head and sets the poker back in its stand. 

“Nah, wrong guy. Entirely wrong.” 

“Tell me who you’d pick,” I whisper.

“Don’t be silly,” he says. “I don’t give up my intel so easily.” 

I tip my head back against the chair, looking at him steadily. 

“Eric,” I say, my voice wondrously even, “if this stuff doesn’t wear off right away, can I stay?” 

He stands over me, cradling his mug in both hands, head tilted a little bit to one side. 

“I could stick you in the office with my orchids,” he says, considering. “Kind of push you under the desk and fold you up. You look like you’d fold up okay.” 

“I travel really well, too. I can fit in the overhead compartment.”

“But you won’t like my bathroom. The bathtub is full of plants.” 

“Why?” 

“Because the light is nice. There’s a south-facing window and a skylight.” I close my eyes, visualizing a bathtub full of brave orchids.

“I dreamed of being here,” I tell Eric. I don’t open my eyes, so I have no idea what his face is doing, but I hear him make a perplexed sound.

“You dreamed of being here. In a company-owned one-bedroom in Pacific Heights?” 

“I dreamed of your apartment. Many times.” 

I hear him slurp his tea, and curse softly. 

“Too hot?” I ask.

“Burned my mouth.” 

“Ouch,” I say. “Don’t do that. Your mouth deserves better.”

Eric doesn’t answer this, and we drink tea quietly together for a while. 

“Did it look like this?” 

“Did what look like this?” 

“You said you dreamed about my apartment.” 

“No,” I say, “it was…it was a dream apartment. Everything was…oh, but you know, the fireplace was in the same place. But you had this white drawing table and it backed up against a window and you could see bricks out the window…” Some quality of Eric’s silence has changed. I open my eyes. He’s staring at me, mug inches from his lips. 

“There was blue paint on the desk,” I said. “You know, big, flat white surface, full of plants—but it had a smear of cobalt blue paint on it, kind of impasto? You could feel it with your fingers.” 

“What was the kitchen like?” he asks. 

“I don’t know that I went in there, really. Seemed kind of—“ 

“Dark and cavelike,” Eric says. “Actually all the windows looked out on brick buildings. But they faced south, so I—“

“—you kept the orchids on the drawing table, where they could get a little light—“

“—because sometimes it would bounce off the buildings on that side, in the morning…”

“I watered those orchids. When you were traveling. Not too much,” I add hastily. “I know about root rot. I promise I paid attention to the drainage. It just seemed like you were never there, you know? I assumed you were traveling or something.” 

Eric reaches out and brushes my cheekbone with his fingers. His hand is shaking almost imperceptibly. 

“That was my apartment in Chicago you were dreaming of,” he says. “You should have left a note.”

“I dream about that place every couple of weeks, Eric.”

“That often?”

“Maybe more often.”

“Why?”

Moving like a cargo ship trying to navigate a tiny lock, I set my mug down on the coffee table, and sit back, watching Eric, utterly at a loss for words.

“Nathan,” he asks, his voice gaining urgency, “why are you dreaming about me?” 

“I don’t know,” I say. “Pretty much since you arrived, though. I think…I think I wanted to talk to you. At first, remember, you never stuck around—you’d grill the snot out of me and you’d snap your briefcase closed and put on that mind-blowing leather jacket and head out into the fog, and I wanted—I wanted to know where you were going.”

“It should have been easy enough to find out. Belltower put me in this apartment,” Eric says, “all the details must be in my file. Haven’t you looked at my file?”

I just hold his gaze as best I can.

“No,” I say. “They gave me—they gave me a dossier.”

Eric perches on the arm of the chair.

“And you never looked at it? Are you insane? I know you’re supposed to be spying on me.”

“I knew stuff,” I say. “You know the Division is a gossip cesspool. I heard stuff I couldn’t un-hear. Eckbo…Eckbo probably knows a lot.” 

“You’re supposed to be spying on me,” Eric says again, bewildered. “Nathan, I read your file.” 

“That’s your job, to read my file,” I say. “It’s okay. I don’t mind. I have lots of files Belltower probably doesn’t even have. You could read those if you want. Should I get them? They’re in a storage locker out in Fremont.”

“You never even tailed me?” 

“I tailed you,” I say, “I tailed you plenty, just never here. Never home.” 

“What kind of Operator are you?” Eric asks, his voice cracking a little. 

“I don’t know,” I say. “Honestly. I don’t know. I dream…Eric, I dream a lot. I dreamed stuff about Moontown before it happened. I dreamed about the Specials. And you. I really, really wanted to talk to you.” 

Eric bows his head. I feel his hip and thigh against the side of my body. 

“Are you still feeling woozy?” he says in a low voice.

“Weak as a kitten,” I say, mouth dry.

“I think you’d better stay,” Eric says, “and talk to me, since you want it so badly.”

—

We’re sitting side by side on Eric’s couch. I have no idea what time it is anymore. Eric keeps making green tea, but I notice that he’s started drinking scotch. 

“It’s not fair,” he explained. “You’re not in your right mind, why should I be sober?”

I lift and study the bottle. 

“This looks good,” I tell him. 

“It is good.”

“So you’re one of those guys,” I say, “who eats macaroni and cheese from a box and drinks twenty-year-old single malt scotch?” 

“I eat all kinds of things,” Eric says. “I just don’t cook much. Never really learned.” 

“You mentioned that before. Living in Chicago on, what? Chewing gum or something?” He smiles into his glass. 

“Let’s see. There were only a few basic things. Instant oatmeal—“

“What flavor?” 

“Maple,” he says.

“That’s good,” I say seriously. “I’ve never held with fruit-flavored oatmeal.”

“I’d eat any flavor they had, honestly, but I got maple when they had maple. I tried to stay away from the cranberries. But the yuzu one was all right.” 

“The Pan-Asian Confederacy,” I decide, “has done interesting things to oatmeal.”

“Frozen burritos,” Eric resumes, musing. “Bad ones, the kind that comes in packs of two dozen. Instant ramen.” 

“It’s a wonder you’re still here today.”

“Instant ramen’s not that bad for you,” Eric says. I lift an eyebrow.

“You don’t read labels, do you? It’s not that good for you, either. No vegetables? Nothing green?” 

“I’d buy salad greens sometimes,” Eric says, turning his glass around in his hands. “Chicago’s not a great place for greens.” 

“It’s a major world city,” I object, “with amazing shipping. Eric, where on earth do you come from?” 

“What…what do you mean?” 

“Where did you grow up? You didn’t just fall off a tree.” 

Eric swallows scotch, looks down at his hands. 

“Madison, Wisconsin,” he says. 

“Jesus, so that’s what that vowel sound is.” 

“What?”

“Something about the way you say ‘about.’” Eric gives me a prickly look. “It’s not—I notice accents,” I say, shrugging. “It’s a work thing. It’s not an especially noticeable accent, I kind of located you in the Midwest but you’re missing a lot of markers…”

“That’s on purpose,” he says shortly.

The fire crackles. 

“Why did you work on your accent?” 

“Why’d you work on yours?” he retorts. 

“That’s an easy one,” I tell him. “I spent years learning how to talk like other people. I worked on getting rid of my regionalisms, then I went and got them back. I try to practice different leans, different inflections. It’s kind of like Tresca going to the gym or like Eckbo keeping his hand in by hacking San Francisco’s water board or something.” 

“So you used to sound like a kid from New Jersey, and now,” he mutters, “you don’t sound like you come from anywhere. You don’t have a way of talking that’s natural to you.”

“You…” I say cautiously, “want to know what I’d sound like if I let my guard down, don’t you, Eric.” 

“You’re very good,” he says, “at sounding like your guard is already down.” 

I meet his eyes. 

“I’m not a virgin, either,” I tell him. “I don’t have any virtue left to offer you. I’m--” I’m laughing a little-- “actually, I’m kind of sorry about that.” 

Eric draws back from me, straightens up for a second.

“Can you not--that’s--don’t be ridiculous.” 

I give him a grin, but I don’t feel it inside. 

“Eric? Ridiculous is all I have left. I don’t get to be serious anymore. The truth is, I’m good with accents; it got weaponized. Anything we do well gets weaponized. I can’t bust out an authentic Nathan Findzeit accent for you anymore, Eric. All I can do is tell you the truth about that.” 

I rub my face, and shake my head. Eric is watching me intently.

“I realize that I’ve erased a lot of markers that would let you know whether or not I’m being honest. You can’t even be sure I’m telling you the truth about whether or not I looked in your file.” I reach over and capture his hand in mine. “The worst part is that you and I both know I have instructions to be friendly, because friendly is one of my talents. It’s the number one finest way to extract intel: it produces the best results and the fewest unforeseen consequences. You have every right to wonder why I’ve become friends with you.”

I lift his hand to eye level. 

“I admire you so much,” I tell him. “And I’ve given you a hell of a conundrum and now you’re obliged to make a determination based only on what I present to you. I’m a bullshit artist because it is my trade. But all you have to go on as to whether I can be trusted beyond my trade is your sense of me, Eric. Do…do you have a sense of me?”

“No,” he says, pulling his hand free and standing up. “I’m going to make more tea.” He sways a little on his feet, and I realize he’s killed almost a quarter of his bottle of scotch. 

“Eric? Careful,” I say, “careful there.”

“I’m always careful,” he says, collecting the teapot. 

“No,” I say, rising with him, “you’re not.” Gently I take the teapot from his hands. “I’ll take it in. Don’t think I can handle any more tea, at this point.” I’m wobbly, but I orient myself in space and successfully navigate the distance between the couch and the kitchen counter. 

I lean there, for a second, watching him run his hands through his hair. 

“Jesus,” he mutters. 

“Sit down,” I tell him. 

“What the hell are we doing?” 

“We’re talking,” I say. “Talk to me. Come on. You promised.” I take his hand and walk him back to the couch. The fire’s gotten low. Eric twitches away from me again, skirts the coffee table, puts another log on. Crouched by the hearth, he says: 

“We’re just going to talk forever?”

“Why not?” I ask.  

His head drops for a second, and he looks up at me from under his brows. 

“Where’ll it end, Nathan?” he says. 

I arrange myself on the couch. I hope I look as harmless as I feel. 

“I don’t know,” I tell him. 

Amazingly, this answer seems to satisfy him. Slowly he gets to his feet, and when he sits back down, he’s put himself right beside me. I feel him along my entire right flank. He leans back into the cushions and closes his eyes. I put an experimental arm across the top of the couch, and he lets his head roll over onto my shoulder. 

“That’s good,” I tell him. 

“You feel good,” he says softly. 

“Bless your heart, Eric,” I whisper. 

“What else do you want to know?” 

“Everything,” I tell him. 

“Everything,” he says, “is a lot of stuff.”

“Tell me what happened in Chicago.”

Eric’s silent for a while. Then he says:

“It’s actually a pretty short story. I did my job, and then I was buried alive.” 

“You broke up the Sinaloa Cartel.”

“Not quite,” Eric says wryly. “I dismantled their Belltower access. I didn’t kill them. I gave them heartburn.”

“Belltower should have pinned a medal on you.” 

“Nathan,” Eric says, suddenly sounding very sober, “you have a fairly weird idea about our company.” 

“What’s that?” 

“You seem to think that outside the Division, Belltower Industries is a legitimate enterprise,” he says. I turn my head to look at him. He keeps talking. “You have this idea that wrongdoing is happening—in your division, where the spies are. In Queries, maybe. You’re wrong about that. Belltower is the Workflow Division, Nathan. It is its spies. The fact that Belltower employs you to do what you do means that Belltower is a corrupt entity. There is no clearer expression of this than me, and what I do for Ethics. I’m the fig-leaf. I’m not giving you cover, I’m giving them cover.”

“Eric,” I whisper. 

“It’s all right,” he says. “You’d think I would have gotten hold of that after five years cooling my heels in the Evanston Regional Office with no one to talk to but my plants. But I had to audit you before I figured it out. Ethics is supposed to give Belltower a conduct parameter. Does it? You tell me.” His face is inches from mine. 

“You do,” I say to him. 

“I can’t,” he says. “That was the lesson I learned from Arthur this year.” 

“You scare me, sometimes,” I say. “What are you going to do, and how do I keep you safe from harm while you do it?” 

He looks startled. His grey eyes are widely dilated, scotch and low light, and who knows, maybe I have something to do with it. The idea makes my head spin. 

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he says. “I don’t care who runs Belltower, but if Arthur takes over, it could do things, take actions in the world…Belltower’s just a power structure, Nathan. It’s only pretending to have an ethos, a culture, a reason for being besides its own survival.”

“Sort of like me?” I whisper, for this is the heart of the matter.  “Just pretending to feel things, to be human?”

His eyes study me for a long time. 

“I don’t know,” he says at last. “I don’t think so.” 

I close my eyes and drop my face against his hair. 

—

“Has it worn off?” Eric whispers. 

“I…I’m so tired, I can’t tell anymore…” 

“Come on.” 

Eric’s bed is all dark colors and flannel sheets. It’s unmade, a tumble of muted plaids.

“Not…not what I expected,” I tell him. 

“What were you expecting? White sheets? Hospital corners?”  

“No, it makes sense, the flannel. Gets really cold here.” I reach out to touch his sheets, and find myself caressing the blanket. “So glad you have a warm place to sleep.”

“You make me sound like a hobo.” 

Eric has gone to his chest of drawers. I see him pluck out a t-shirt and a pair of sweats and toss them behind him, onto the bed. “Put those on.” 

“What?” 

“We’re just sleeping, don’t panic,” Eric says. “You enjoy sleeping in blue jeans? You can leave them on, I don’t care.” He’s already undressing, briskly, his back to me. 

“We’re sleeping?” I say in wonder.

“I could have been mean,” Eric says, drawing his white undershirt over his head. He chucks it into the open closet; it misses the hamper, just, and slithers onto the carpet. “I could have left you out there, made you crash on the hardwood floor, let you wake up with your neck in knots.” 

Moving like a guy in a dream, I unbutton my oyster-colored shirt. Eric, in underpants, holds a hand out to me impatiently. 

“Shirt,” he says, so I give it to him, and he puts it on a wooden hanger. I peel off my jeans; he sets them on a hook on the closet door. 

We stand there in our underwear until Eric says, “This is ridiculous,” and we both climb into bed, leaving t-shirt and sweats on top of the blanket. 

“What,” I say, my teeth beginning to chatter, “what are we doing?” 

“We’re sleeping, I just explained that,” Eric says. 

“You’re almost naked,” I whisper. 

“Yeah,” Eric says, “what does that make you?” 

He pushes a pillow under my head. 

“I’m very serious,” he says in a low voice. “Go to sleep now. We’ll talk more in the morning. Are you warm enough? Do I have to put sweatpants on you?” 

I cannot, cannot answer anymore. I can’t accidentally touch his hand or lean beside him, casually absorbing his body heat; there’s no room here for that illusion. I am so exhausted that I can barely see, but I reach out one hand, let it rest on his upper arm. 

Eric sighs. 

“Come here,” he says at last.

“We’re sleeping,” I mumble. “We’re sleeping now.” 

“Come and sleep here,” he answers.

Why not? It’s only been three years since he started auditing me and I started dreaming about him. It’s only been three years, my poor Operator’s heart in harness, doing my best to seduce him, doing my best not to seduce him. Three years in the wilderness, horribly and hopelessly in love.

He folds me against him. 

“I thought your arms would get all over the place,” he whispers.

“No, I said this before, I’m quite packable.” I wedge my head in under his chin, and he sighs again. “We’re really going to sleep?” 

“If I don’t,” he says, sounding apologetic, “I can’t answer for what I’ll be like tomorrow.” 

“Fair cop,” I tell him. Then, because really, I’m just about certain this is a dream, I brush his collarbone with my lips. “Good night, then, Eric,” I whisper. 

“Go to sleep.” 

“I’m going to sleep.” 

“Go to sleep,” he says again, his hand in my hair.

“You’re talking to me, I can’t go to sleep.” 

“Sleep,” he whispers. “We’ll talk in the morning.” 

And somehow, in the cloud of flannel, with Eric’s arms around me and his lips against my ear, I do, finally, gradually, succumb to sleep. 

--

When I wake up, I realize that somewhere in the night we had pulled apart with the instinctive wisdom of the exhausted; I have vague memories of hearing Eric snoring faintly and feeling his fingertips brush the small of my back as I turned over. Now I’m gazing into the deep blue-hued darkness of his bedroom, blankets pulled up to my chin, and as I remember where I am, I turn onto my side. 

Eric, wide awake, propped on his elbow, like every guy in every story who’s ever virtuously refrained from having it on with his companion, is watching me, his grey eyes shadowy. 

“Your bed rocks,” I say.

“Thank you.”

“Did you actually sleep?” 

“Some.”

“I slept,” I say, feeling foolish. 

“I know.”

“What time is it?”

“About ten-thirty.”

“It’s dark,” I say, puzzled. 

“Look,” Eric says, and gestures at his window. He’s got blackout curtains. 

“Ah,” I say, “I solved that problem at home by cleverly having a bedroom with no windows at all.” 

“I know. It’s like a space capsule in there.” 

I stare at him. 

“You haven’t been in there,” I say, “in three years. You remember that?” 

The look on his face is almost painfully amused. 

“You think I’d forget sleeping in your bed?” 

“You say stuff like that to me,” I tell him, my poor heart pounding, “and whatever prudent reserve we’re hanging onto here is going to go right out the window.”

“Oh god,” Eric murmurs, “we can’t have that.”

“No, we can’t. We’ll compose ourselves and have breakfast or something.” 

Neither of us moves. I can’t get myself to stop looking at his face. 

“We could get cronuts,” he says finally. 

“We could. That sounds exactly right. As long as we don’t lose it and start feeding each other, we should be fine.”

“Good point, I’ve been wanting to feed you,” he mutters. 

“Really?”

“Ever since I watched Eckbo stick that muffin in your mouth—“ he says, and his cheeks suddenly go bright red.

“That was—you just said that? That was incredible.” 

--

We get cronuts.

As it turns out, there is a bakery only about a dozen blocks from Eric’s place. I’m still feeling a little shaky on my feet, but not distressingly so. I borrow a clean shirt, splash water on my face, fetch my jacket, and wait for Eric in the living room while he pulls himself together. He looks worn out when he emerges from the bathroom, but he’s missing his signature frown lines. I inwardly high-five myself. 

“I love that blue on you,” I tell him. 

“I can’t—“ Eric throws his trench on with, perhaps, more force than necessary. “You have to stop saying stuff like that.” 

He holds the door for me, and we step into the corridor. 

“Why?” I ask. 

“I don’t know what to say when you say things like that.” 

“You said thank you when I complimented your bed,” I point out. 

“That is clearly different,” he says. “That’s my bed. This is me.” 

“I hate to break it to you, Eric, but your bed is you, too. In synecdoche.” 

“In—in what?” We step into the street. 

“Your bed says things about you, semiotically,” I explain. 

“It says I sleep, like a human being. It says I get cold at night.” 

“That too. But the dark colors, the plaids—“ 

“You’re psychoanalyzing my bed,” Eric says. 

“Well, I could psychoanalyze your shirt,” I say, “but I don’t want to make you nervous.” 

Eric stops on the corner and turns all the way around to look at me.

“You don’t want to make me nervous,” he chokes out.

We stare at each other, and the light changes while we stand there. 

“I don’t, Eric,” I say. “I mean, I know that I do.” The wind, a little damp, picks up, blowing Eric’s hair across his forehead. Moving slowly, as if I were reaching out to defuse a bomb, I brush his hair back off his face. 

“I can’t,” he whispers, “I need to eat.”

“Where are these cronuts, then?” I say, querulously. “You promised cronuts.”

“Nathan, Nathan—“ he turns away from me abruptly and crosses the street. I have long legs, though, and I catch up with him. 

“What? Eric, what is it?”

“I don’t know if I can bear this.”

I rest my hand on the small of his back as we walk. 

“You can do it,” I tell him. “I promise I’ll keep myself on the leash. I swear to God, Eric.” 

“You’re so—“ 

We’ve reached the bakery. He holds the door for me again. I want to press him up against the glass, get my teeth into his lips. 

“So what makes these cronuts special?” I ask, instead. 

“The first in the City,” Eric replies. “They’ve been making cronuts here for a hundred years.” He’s not quite composed, but he orders for both of us, and gets us espresso shots to drink with our cronuts. 

“I know what you’re thinking,” he growls, as we take our booty to a little white table in the corner that gets the best sun. “You’re thinking you need some kind of very sweet latte. Six sugars, right?” 

“You remember that?”

“I remember everything. You’re not getting a latte. You’re getting a shot. The cronut’s sweet enough. The shot will help you wake up and you won’t crash as hard later.” 

“A medicinal espresso shot,” I murmur. “Look, for you, I’ll drink it straight. I’ll do pretty much anything you tell me to, actually, Eric.”

“Shut up,” he says. “Eat your cronut. Drink your espresso.” 

“As you wish,” I say. I bring the cup to my lips. It’s terrific espresso. I haven’t had it straight since I was in my twenties. Eric is tearing into his cronut. We lock eyes. 

“You see?” I whisper. “You can tell me to do things, and I’ll do them. I’m good, Eric.” 

“You are not good.”

“What am I, then?” 

Eric downs his shot. 

“Ridiculous. Terrifying. Everything I ever wanted.” 

This reduces me to stunned silence. We eat our cronuts without saying much of anything else for a while. Eric really looks tired; his words seem to have drained the blood out of his cheeks. I can’t imagine what my face looks like. 

“Is it good?” Eric asks finally. 

“I can’t taste it,” I confess. “I have no idea what it tastes like.” 

“Finish up,” he says. “Let’s go home.” 

Mutely, I eat my cronut; meekly, I follow him to the door.

--

We are sitting on the bed. The couch, at this point, seems like a formality we’ve dispensed with. I’m still wearing his shirt. 

“Eric,” I say. He shakes his head. 

“For the longest time,” he says quietly, “I was sure I couldn’t trust you. I was sure you were lying whenever you opened your mouth. You were Findzeit, professional liar; you were a fabulist. You said you were, and you were. You remember when you explained it to me that day? What you do?” 

“I remember,” I say. 

“How could I trust you? You were a friendly, gentle, tender, seductive liar. And how you treated me was part of your job. And then I kept working with you, and I started forgetting—“

“Eric—“

“Shut up,” he says fiercely. He puts his hands on my chest. “Shut up.” I can feel the slight tremor in his hands as he starts to unbutton my shirt. 

“And then, after Moontown – I started to wonder if maybe you could lie and tell me the truth at the same time. You gave me access to everything. You put your life in my hands. I wondered if you—if you knew how much I wanted you. And the things you said—I couldn’t get you to shut up—“ he slides the shirt down my shoulders. 

I don’t move a muscle. I don’t dare. I just look into his eyes and let him touch me.

He pushes the sleeves down to my wrists and lets his hands slip back up my naked arms. 

“You kept saying things to me. You tell me you’re dreaming about my life. You say… you say these things about my shirts. Are they true? I have no way of knowing, Nathan. I want them to be true.” He rests one hand against my neck, pulling me towards him. “I decided to trust you. I’m trusting you, all right?” 

I can’t speak. I slip my arms the rest of the way out of the shirt, and let him draw me in. 

His mouth’s on mine. It’s never happened before. This is the first kiss. 

His arms have gone around me and I can feel his tongue in my mouth and I’m holding on, as best I can, to my resolve not to push, not to overwhelm him, to let him, to allow him, to be there for whatever he wants or needs or cares to have. 

“Kiss me back,” he whispers. “Stop fucking with my head and kiss me back, Nathan.”

I hear a sound like a sob—oh, that’s me, I’m almost crying—and I push him back into his pillows. 

--

[melchiordahrk]

What mods do you recommend for someone who's just getting their Morrowind modding feet wet?

The first thing I recommend to people is to try Morrowind with a bare minimum of mods first to experience the world and gameplay in its original form - this way you have a sense of how various mods come in and shake things up and can make an informed decision if you like it or not. I will purposely steer away from most graphics and content mods here since they are each a whole ‘nother ball of wax for another time, but if you’re ready to look at adding mods to the game, the starter pack which I recommend would include:

Essential Utilities

Wrye Mash Standalone - if you��re planning on installing a bunch of mods or want to swap out different graphical replacers, then Mash is a must. It’s the best mod manager for TES3. The Morrowind Modding Wiki has a fairly comprehensive article on using Mash and it may seem daunting, so I would say the two most important features for players are Installers (you can put mod packages into a folder to install/uninstall using Mash rather than cluttering your Data Files folder if you then decide to try removing a mod) and Repairing a Save Game.

mlox - this program should be used in tandem with Mash to organize your mods. This program uses an extensive database of mods to set a load order with the best chance of eliminating conflicts and errors.

Morrowind Code Patch - still actively being supported by our resident wizard, Hrnchamd, MCP was just updated to 2.3. The effect the patches included in the MCP have on the quality of life when playing cannot be overstated.

4GB Patch and Exe Optimizer - these two programs combined significantly reduce the number of CTDs you will experience while playing. Even if you don’t want to use mods, use these. Install MCP first, then 4GB Patch, then EXE Optimizer - the order is important.

Morrowind Graphics Extender XE - major graphical enhancement to the game without even updating any models or textures. I would recommend limiting your distant land to under 7 cells. Removing the artificial “veil” by being able to look across the entire island is great for screenshots, but removes some of the mystery which lends to this old game’s charm. I personally use the beta version from Hrnchamd which can be found here and have found it to be relatively stable.

tes3cmd ( - To get to the download page yourself, follow the MW Modding Wiki instructions. I recommend this insanely powerful program to players for one primary reason: Multipatch. tes3cmd can create a patch from your entire load order to fix a number of common issues. The MW Modding Wiki has instructions for creating a batch file to help make the multipatch creation easier since tes3cmd is a command line program with no GUI.

Plugins

Morrowind Acoustic Overhaul - this mod overhauls the environmental, music, and effect sounds in the game. Even having the option to have a player voice. This mod is an impressive technical feat which will truly help immerse you in the world of Morrowind.

Morrowind Patch Project - like the unofficial patches you may be familiar with from later Bethesda titles, the MPP is an extensive bug squasher. Version 1.6.6 is the latest, but you will need to install 1.6.5b first.

Landscape and Object Fixes (assorted) - complementing the MPP, this series of fixes address a lot of visual errors such as floating objects, bad texture mapping, and visible seams.

Boats and Silt Striders - makes the “fast travel” services of boats and silt striders have a “scenic” option where you can actually ride the ship or giant flea. Excellent, must have mods. If you’re wanting another excellent transportation mod by abot, check out Guars.

Fatigue and Magicka Overhaul - managing fatigue and magicka burn in TES3 is fairly challenging. Not that it’s wrong, but this mod - along with other alternatives like it - make the systems function a bit more like TES4 and TES5 while still remaining balanced for TES3. Note: if you’re playing a magic character, you might be interested in Mastering Magicka which is a gameplay mod focused on magic users. You’ll just want to turn off its magicka regen feature if using it with this mod.

Go To Jail - instead of just getting warped outside of an Imperial Fort, you will actually serve your time if you commit a crime. This mod may be geared more towards thievish players, but it’s still a great addition to the game.

Graphic Herbalism - geared more towards magic characters, this mod makes it so if you pick from a plant, it will change visually as a helpful queue not to bother with it.

Morrowind Containers Animated - this mod makes containers open when you activate them like in the later Bethesda titles. A relatively simple mod, but to great effect.

There are so, so many more amazing mods out there. I myself keep a very full mod list when I am actually playing and not modding. Get in there on MMH and Nexus and find your own diamonds in the gold! Or feel free to ask me if you’re looking for something in particular. if you think I missed some crucial mods, feel free to let me know.

[askarkham]

Title: I Stand Corrected

Genre: Humor/hurt/comfort

Time Frame: A few weeks after this--[link]

Warnings: Mention of blood, brief mention of suicide attempt

Word Count: 2428

It was a bright, dull and microscopically sterile of a place. Three things Edward Nigma hated.

Well, he hated a lot of things, but that particular trio in combination irked him far more profusely than if he had encountered them individually. And certainly not in living quarters he himself would have to exist in. But this was his current lot in life it seemed.

These were the sort of thoughts that drifted in Edward’s mind as he paced quietly to the table with his dinner tray, along with calculations of a potential escape plan involving mustard (spicy, not honey), the lyrics of a Van Halen song (from the Roth years), and theories on how to rework an old file version of Windows Movie Maker to work on his new PC (the lime green one the Police had missed when they ransacked his place during his last capture). Edward Nigma was one to multitask, as it helped block out peskier thoughts and memories of his past he cared not dwell on.

Besides, what sort of puzzle-master would he be if his mind wasn’t a constant maze and tangled web only he could understand?

He sighed as he sat at the end of the table, knowing full well his choice of seating was uncomfortably close to Crane’s placement beside it. It made him smirk to see Crane scooch an inch away. He enjoyed getting in the taller man’s personal space. Maybe he was suicidal, maybe he was desperate to bridge the gap and form some kind of friendship—it honestly depended on his mood at the time. Today it was boredom that fueled his actions. Boredom and a need for companionship now that Dent was in solitary for a few weeks (the former lawyer had managed to break an Orderly’s arm after a snide remark about his mis-matching hair. Edward thought the punishment was a bit harsh considering the context, but he understood the need to make an example when people like Joker and Killer Croc were present. And Leland let him sneak Twinkies to Harvey every couple days, so win-win).

Anyway, Edward had noticed Crane often sat alone during mealtimes (or anytime that required socialization at Arkham) and he could see now that this time was no different. Having known the man for only a few months, he had taken it upon himself to unwrap the riddle that was Scarecrow. Though he had heard rumors that Jonathan Crane and Scarecrow were sometimes very different people. Not like Harvey though, which in itself was confusing but Edward didn’t need to overcomplicate his plans just yet. He just needed a foot in the door. Even if his every attempt to befriend Crane had come up empty handed—and with the occasional scratch.

At any rate, the resulting hazel-eyed glare he earned from Crane made him grin gleefully in return as he plopped down whole-heartedly, efforts renewed for another try.

“Jonny!” Edward greeted. “Salutations!”

“Don’t call me that, Nigma.”

Edward visibly pouted, then reached across Crane for the salt, nonplused by the snap.

“What are you doin’? You don’t reach your dirty little elbows across a’body like that at a meal!” Crane reprimanded, now sitting straighter in his annoyance. Edward heard a hint of an accent that seemed out of place, and wording that echoed just enough off from Crane’s own usual speech patterns (Edward paid attention to that as well—not much else to do in this dump), but the thought was gone in a flash as Crane continued. “What were you, raised in a barn?”

“No, were you?” Edward countered, slapping on a terrible amount of salt on the mush that was supposed to be lima beans. Or butter beans. Or…something faintly green.

“How I was raised is none of your business.” Crane replied in an icy whisper, clenching his fork. Edward eyed it, not forgetting who he was talking to, but not scared off quite yet. If anything, this reaction intrigued him.

“Fine. I’m no psychiatrist. And you aren’t either anymore.” Edward decided to twist in the proverbial knife as a different approach. He still had a nasty compulsion of saying the wrong thing (or exactly right thing) to set someone off.

Harvey had been the first to notice it while they were working together. At first it had been to hold his own as he entered the crime world green—not just in clothing—and naïve. But Harvey, once warmed up to the new rogue Riddler, had sat him down and confronted the behavior. Harvey had been somewhat kind…Two-Face threatened to snap a digit off if Edward didn’t quit provoking him. And Leland…well, she had confirmed it. From what he remembered from their recent session, she had connected it somehow to his relationship with his father, and how he had begun to talk back and use his insecurities against the man in some twisted play for control. Provoke a beating to get it over with perhaps. Violent encounters had escalated after that until he had finally left home for good. But the warped social habit had stayed with him. Defense mechanism? Or need to feed some rebellious recklessness with his life? Leland hadn’t decided yet.

And Edward didn’t really care.

But the old memories did seep into his slowed calculations and he visibly shivered before pushing them back down.

“Cold?” Crane asked with narrowed eyes and a flicker of a wicked grin. He wasn’t so easy to provoke it seemed, but then Edward knew virtually nothing about him still. So nothing of real consequence to use as ammo. Pity, that.

“Nope.” Edward grinned brightly back, stuffing the last of the residual memory down as he stuffed his mouth with the mush. Crane watched and crinkled his nose in disgust.

A shuffling noise made them both look towards the line Edward had left moments earlier. Other inmates still getting food from the buffet, servers slumping the food stuffs onto their divided trays. They were the kind that were one of six complementary colors, like the ones in grade school. They were hideous in some indescribable, irrational way.

The shuffling noise, they noticed a moment later, was from a little scuffle Croc was causing, pushing into the new guy, Tetch.

Jervis Tetch was not on Edward’s “Interesting” radar and yet he knew far more about him than he did Crane. For one thing, they had been colleagues at Wayne Tech a few years ago, before Edward had killed his supervisor. Edward hadn’t thought much of him then, and he could tell that Tetch, somehow, hadn’t liked him either. But at least they had been civil, which was more than he could say for his own associates on his floor. A conversation here and there every few months, a collaboration or two—that was the extent of their relationship. And when Tetch had gone rogue a month or so back, his entire story had been in the papers. His trial had been a media circus. Joker laughed himself silly when the story aired during Arkham’s allotted TV Time.

He went insane over that doof of a secretary, how embarrassing,  Edward had thought at the time.

So he had nothing more to really say to the man, and little Tetch seemed even more resigned to being alone anyway. Aside from allowing Crane to do that thing where he has his own little unofficial sessions with newbies he found interesting, Tetch kept to himself. Plus…he looked broken, and that was slightly more than Edward was ready to take. And with what happened a couple weeks back, Edward could cut the awkwardness with a knife.

What do you say to someone who tried to kill themself in an insane asylum?

Crane took a swig of the tap water he had gotten, eyes focused solely on the sight before them.

“Look at him, already getting into more trouble.” Edward smirked, looking on with Crane as Croc once again chuckled and pushed into Tetch, making him spill a bit of his rice on the floor. Tetch just closed his eyes, took a breath and reopened them, looking at the floor and taking it without a word of protest. As if he felt his deserved it. Or that he wasn’t even worth helping himself.

The sight made Edward want to gag, it was so pathetic.

“You gonna save him again, Crane?” Edward turned to Jonathan then, head resting on an arm he propped up on the table. Crane darted his eyes sharply to his unwanted companion. But Crane was fairly surprised to see a grimace rather than the usual smirk on Nigma’s face.

“I have no further interest in him.” Crane simply replied.

They both heard a giggle down the table where Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn sat. They were also watching the sight of the newbie rogue getting bullied.

“Serves him right.” Edward heard Pamela mumble, glaring full on at Tetch. “Stalking and kidnapping that poor girl.”

“Aw c’mon Red…look at im’!” Harley tried to sound sympathetic, but Pamela’s scowl amused her too much to keep a straight face.

Edward looked back to Jonathan, who had also turned his attention back to Tetch and Croc. Freeze was a few inmates behind Croc but spoke up in his slightly altered voice, cooling collar providing a steady mist of icy air for him to be comfortable out of his suit for the short mealtime.

“Waylon…stop picking on the boy. You’re slowing up the line, and he’s done nothing to you.”

“Mind yer’ own biz, Vic.” Croc turned and growled, making Wesker hide behind his still empty tray, but a clear snort could be heard from Scareface. Selina rolled her eyes and rested her weight on a hip, obviously waiting for the line to hurry up. Freeze made a disgruntled face but let it go.

“So, lost your interest eh?” Edward asked, jolting Crane back to their conversation again as the line finally moved forward to the mystery meatloaf.

“I got what I needed from my initial conversations with him.” Crane said, making to look as if busied by his own food, Edward noting he was just mixing his limas with the rice absent-mindedly. Edward had noticed Crane did that when he was agitated or lost in thought. Or both.

Edward lowered his voice “Then why’d you save him last time?”

Crane shot him yet another glare. “Like I said,” he said through gritted teeth, “I didn’t want his blood draining into my cell. The stain would never come out of those cheap shoes they make us wear.”

“Mmmm, I don’t think that’s why.” Edward cooed, trying to push the subject.

Another shuffle, another rough low chuckle from Croc. Crane forced himself not to look over at the pair again, keeping his eyes locked with Edward’s.

“You’re itching to protect him, I can tell.”

“Nigma, I swear, when I break out of here I will come after you next.”

“Ho-Hum.” Edward drummed his fingers on the cheap table top. That wasn’t decidedly the worst thing someone had ever threatened him with.

“Tetch means nothing to me.” Crane sighed as he reiterated, a tone that Edward knew all too well of one trying to convince himself. “He wanted to be friends, if you can believe that. Friends. With me of all people. What a joke.” Crane continued, this time quieter though. A distinct change in his mood as he mixed his food again.

That was a surprising attitude if Edward had ever seen one. For Crane at least. And contrary to popular belief, Edward was not some Joker rip-off, he did have feelings. Sometimes.

“…I’m not laughing.” Edward admitted just as quietly after a moment.

“Well, he’s just not…interesting.” Crane forced out, his mind screaming at him to take it back. Scarecrow even arguing it was not the truth.

“And that’s why you’ve been avoiding him.” Edward stated.

“It’s why I’ve stopped initiating conversation with him, yes. Nothing else to learn.”

“But…you don’t walk away from him when he comes talk to you. I’ve noticed, since you almost always do with me.” Edward dared bring up pointedly.

“I’m about to get up and sit with Joker if you don’t clamp that gaping maw.” Crane growled. Edward rolled his eyes but did stop talking a moment.

Then he broke the silence and Crane groaned.

“Well, you’re right for once. I knew him back at WT and he was a real wet blanket. He’s just not interesting.” Edward sighed agreement into his cup as he drank. Ugh, the tap water was more chlorine-y today. He smacked his lips in an unsatisfied manner, earning a smirk from Crane.

“AROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGH!” A sudden shriek called out in a dreadfully pitiful whine, and everyone stilled, shocked at the sound and looked up to where it came from. Even Joker had turned around and looked captivated by the sight.

Jervis Tetch, the small blonde man with buck teeth, was standing with his tray in his hands and a cool, unperturbed gaze as he looked up at the reptilic inmate cradling his hand, panting. A fork was sticking out of Croc’s clawed right hand.

Jervis just looked on blankly a moment more before turning on his heel gracefully and walking straight to where Edward and Crane sat.

“Seat taken?” Tetch asked in a no-nonsense English accent, a bit of Croc’s blood splattered on his shirt front and left glove.

“N-no…” Edward managed with a gulp. Crane just looked on wide-eyed as Tetch sat in front of him and beside Edward.

“The wretch of a lizard tried to take my Danish, the only good thing in my life today. And that simply wouldn’t do.” Tetch explained simply, taking a bite out the pastry. The action was framed by orderlies taking Croc to the side and wrapping his hand up after plucking out the fork (earning another whine, but it being drowned out by Joker’s laughing). Pam had decided to ignore Tetch sitting a few places down, but Harley continued to whisper in her ear while looking at him and giggling excitedly. Joker continued to laugh as he ate his meatloaf. Victor patted Croc’s shoulder in comfort. Things were already winding down. A couple guards were zeroing in on Tetch of course, with Leland whispering orders to them on how to take Tetch out of the room without more escalation. Edward knew he was about to get some Solitary too.

“Oh bother, I need a fork now.” Tetch left to go pick another off the silverware cart, leaving Edward and Jonathan to share a look.

“I stand corrected.” Edward beamed.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 15th July 2018

God, this first bit is going to be heavily ironic now, isn’t it?

Top 10

If you’ve been following the World Cup, you’d know that Britain got into the semi-finals before being beaten by Croatia and then Belgium, leaving us in fourth place, which isn’t too bad, but it is kind of sad when you realise that the day after we got beaten by Croatia, the unofficial World Cup anthem “Three Lions” by David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and the Lightning Seeds leaped up 23 spaces to number-one, at its 27th week in the chart, and not the first spent at #1, as it has had four different runs at the top of the UK Singles Chart since it was released 22 years ago – “Nice for What” by Drake is the first to break that record in the US, only a few months after its release. Talking about Drake...

That’s a segue I hope to never use again because I don’t want to talk about Drake ever again, to be honest with you. He’s so bad in such a boring way. That has absolutely no relevance to our number-two spot, “Shotgun” by George Ezra, pushed back to the runner-up spot because of “Three Lions”, but I wanted to mention that, especially since I have to talk about him today. More on that later.

“Solo” by Clean Bandit featuring Demi Lovato isn’t moving at number-three.

Oh, Drake. We meet again sooner than I thought. “In My Feelings”, thanks to a dancing challenge meme and Drake’s album (in which this song is probably one of the worst from), has debuted at number-four. Delightful.

Oh, hey, more Drake! Fantastic! “Don’t Matter to Me” featuring Michael Jackson is STILL in the top five, specifically at number-five after being pushed back three spaces by his own song.

Also thanks to an album, Years & Years’ “If You’re Over Me” is up three spots to number-six, barely missing out on the top five – thanks to Drake. Am I coming off as some anti-Drake protester? If so, I’m sorry, I like Drake for the most part, but his chart prowess kind of baffles me.

Hell, just to prove I’m not too bothered by Drake generally, I get to thank Drake and Years & Years for not letting this next piece of trash get to the top five, or any higher, really. At number-seven, after a four-space boost up to the top ten, we have “Rise” by Jonas Blue featuring Jacksfilms and Jack Black.

“Girls Like You” by Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B continues to go up and up the charts, bouncing up two spots to number-eight this week.

Funnily enough, Cardi outdid herself this week, as she pushes down her own song “I Like It” featuring Bad Bunny and J Balvin a spot to number-nine.

Finally, down four spots from last week, we have “2002” by Anne-Marie at number-ten, where, frankly, it deserves to be more than in the top five – this is inoffensive enough to be a hit but I do not see the appeal in such a smash hit.

Climbers

This week on the US Hot 100, “Jackie Chan” by Tiesto and Dzeko featuring Preme and Post Malone just debuted at #88 – why did it take so long for this to cross over to the states? In fact, it went up five spaces to #12 this week on the UK Singles Chart, and it’s doing well globally. I know the US is really late to EDM, but, come on, it has Post Malone! Why are you guys so slow to this?

Some debuts from the week before last week are recovering from Drake – “Only You” by Cheat Codes and Little Mix is up 12 spots to #28, while “Ring Ring” by Jax Jones featuring Mabel and Rich the Kid is up seven spots to #29. Otherwise, there’s nothing really of note here to discuss.

Fallers

Former chart-topper “I’ll be There” by Jess Glynne is at freefall at this point, as it’s down six spots to #13. Drake’s “Nonstop” will obviously take a hit, going down 11 spaces to #15. The late XXXTENTACION also suffered, with “SAD!” down four spots to #18 and “Moonlight” down six positions to #37. Liam Payne and J Balvin’s “Familiar” took an unexpected but definitely deserved ten-space shove down to #30. “no tears left to cry” by Ariana Grande and “Paradise” by George Ezra are both down six to #35 and #34 respectively, seemingly ending their runs – that is, of course, until Sweetener releases soon.

Dropouts

Okay, so the biggest drop ever out of the charts is from #2, and I think “Last Christmas” by Wham! holds it. Of course, “Three Lions”, our current #1 will probably break that record, but a drop out from #5 is still impressive, and Drake’s “Emotionless” featuring a sample from Mariah Carey has done just that. Of course, the one I like the most has the least longevity.

We have quite a few other dropouts too: “This is Me” by Keala Settle and The Greatest Showman Ensemble, finally out from #39, “Flames” by David Guetta and Sia out from #34, “changes” by XXXTENTACION out from #37 and “Girls” by Rita Ora, Charli XCX, Bebe Rexha and Cardi B out from #38.

Returning Entries

Former #1 “These Days” by Rudimental featuring Macklemore, Dan Caplen and Jess Glynne is back to #40 for some reason, but that surely doesn’t matter when we have a much more important return.

So, recently, the current President of the United States – you all know him – Donald Trump, visited the United Kingdom to talk to our current Prime Minister, Theresa May. I don’t really like to get political on this show, but let me just say I’m incredibly happy that people started a campaign to get this to return to the charts this week.

#25 – “American Idiot” – Green Day

So, let me clear up a few things first – this song isn’t about Trump, at all. In fact, it’s pretty much about a President in title only. It’s actually about the American media circa 2004, when George W. Bush was re-elected. Billie Joe Armstrong just bluntly makes fun of rednecks and propaganda in his signature insane, loud and sometimes unintelligible delivery over a now classic guitar riff with a subtle megaphone filtering effect similar to Damon Albarn on “Feel Good, Inc.” at about the same time. The verses are meaningful and packed with political punch while still being catchy enough to sing along, which Armstrong even demands the audience to do in the second verse. The cuts in the instrumental during the verses and after the chorus are pretty intense, mostly due to Tré Cool’s fantastic drumming, which is simplistic but incredibly effective and powerful. Mike Dirnt’s short guitar solo is pretty amazing, too, and all the members come together to make a modern punk-rock anthem that will be remembered for decades to come. These guys were in their 30’s when they made this too, this isn’t from an exciting youthful band, they’d been around for years when the great album this track is from (also titled American Idiot) took the world by storm in 2004.

For curiosity’s sake, I checked when this charted, and it peaked at #3 in the UK 14 years ago, and becoming Green Day’s first ever Hot 100 entry at #61. It also debuted at #1 in Canada! It is funny how a song about criticising America took advantage of the controversy to much lesser effects in the idiot nation itself, huh.

NEW ARRIVALS

Now for the much less exciting songs, I suppose.

#39 – “Panic Room” (CamelPhat remix) – Au/Ra

So, CamelPhat are the guys from last year’s “Cola” which charted at #18 over in the UK, and would have made my best list if they had crossed over to the States. I like these dudes’ other work too, so I was pretty excited when I saw them chart in the top 40 again. Au/Ra, however I have no idea about. From what I can gather on her Spotify bio, she’s an indie pop artist who had her song “Panic Room” remixed (twice, may I add) by CamelPhat, leading her to have her first top 40 hit. There are also four other remixes, as well as an acoustic version, so, yes, there are eight versions of this ONE song. I’ve listened to all of them – excluding CamelPhat’s second remix since it’s just a club mix, so I’ll just say what I think of each one in a sentence or two.

The original by Au/Ra is boring as sin during the verses, although I kinda dig the pitched-down vocals, and it gets much more exciting in the drop with the buzzing synths. It’s also when I listened to this version that I realised this is from an advertisement, which explains why she’s in the top 40 without a Wikipedia page. This version is alright, though, but I understand why it needs a remix.

The acoustic version is a slow painful death. This is also barely acoustic, there’s a pretty blatant digitally-added filter on Au/Ra’s voice at several points.

The Jonas Rathsman remix is seven glorious minutes of 1980’s dance music. I’m not even kidding, this is wonderful. I love the random sounds they add throughout too, they all add up to a pretty cool listen. Au/Ra doesn’t come in until about five minutes, though, and even then, her vocals are chopped-up a bit to fit the instrumental.

The KDA “Stop Saying You Were at Trade When You Weren’t” remix is pretty fun too with some pretty unique percussion, and much shorter than Rathsman’s, but Au/Ra’s vocals are mixed horribly and it never really has a good climax or drop, it’s just a bit of a slog. I like it, but it definitely needs some work.

The Denis First and Reznikov remix is some of the blandest house music I’ve heard. It’s also much shorter and the vocals are mixed pretty badly, once again.

The Sway Gray remix is much better in its vocal mixing, but it feels way too safe – even if the drop is one of the best things I’ve heard in mainstream dance this year, it just doesn’t keep up his momentum throughout. It’s worth listening to for that drop, though.

Now the CamelPhat remix is the one used in the advert, and yeah, these guys have struck the barrel again. Like “Cola”, it’s intense but also damn fun, with a pumping beat, pretty nice synths and pretty interesting echo effects put onto Au/Ra’s voice, including in the anti-drop, where it continues to build up when you think it climaxes – something KDA didn’t really grasp – in fact, during the actual drop, which has a similar buzzing synth to Rathsman’s mix, it’s still building up. The whole thing feels like a hike on top of a mountain, and the vocal manipulation in the drop and crazy synth work during the second build-up are the obstacles that come your way, until you get to what is nearly the tip, relax for a second when Au/Ra’s vocals come back in and the white noise starts to somehow harmonise with time-stretched beeping noises and a nice deep wobble, for the final drop where you take the last steps but it never feels satisfactory. You never get to the top, you just stay right next to it for a while and you’re fine with that because you’ve gotten so far. Like “Cola”, the ending of the song is very abrupt and anti-climactic.

The CamelPhat remix of this song is easily the best one, because it feels like an exciting journey portrayed via house music. I love this. Listen to this, like, right now. CamelPhat are Goddamn geniuses, I tell you.

#38 – “Fine Girl” (remix) – ZieZie

Oh, delightful. ANOTHER remix. ZieZie is another musician without a Wikipedia page who hasn’t had a top 40 hit until today thanks to a remix, but I’m not exactly sure which one out of the four that exist, especially since BBC has made the artwork the original single’s cover. So, naturally, I’ve listened to them all, and I’m counting the original version as the hit single.

So, before we talk about the songs, let’s just make it clear that ZieZie is an incredibly incompetent British rapper – so incompetent in fact that his single “Low Life” has been listed as “ZieZie- Low Life” on Spotify – and that’s just the title. It is listed, on Spotify, no joke as “ZieZie- Low Life by ZieZie”. Now that’s stupid! If you want proof, here you go: https://open.spotify.com/album/5mZIWWiqFQBEGlcdXfojVf?si=uLweMtHjQs6yQHA0Vg0T0Q.

Okay, so the T. Matthias remix isn’t too bad, it has a nice piano melody and it’s a pretty generic but decently-produced house track, with a deep, overbearing drop. The profanity is censored, as normal with EDM songs recently (think “Solo” and “FRIENDS”). Nothing more than what it is and nothing less.

The James Hype remix is more Caribbean-influenced with steel pans, but otherwise is basically the exact same as the Matthias remix for the first few seconds, until the pretty stiff synth melody and bassline kicks in, with some nice vocal chopping, even if it kind of sounds like it sampled Super Mario 64.

There’s another remix without a producer name that just adds a couple pretty decent rappers to the original track. It’s okay.

The ADP remix is also like that, except the guest rappers have much worse flows for the most part.

Now, the actual track – I do like the production here, with the cowbell(?) and typical dancehall production, except being oddly minimalistic with the clicks and pretty cool synth sample, hell, I even like ZieZie here, as he sings the catchy autotuned hook with a decent melody and fun ad-libs, as well as some pretty funny lyrics throughout. He references Chief Keef in the hook, even replicating his signature “bang bang” ad-lib, the fact that he’s proud in ignoring the woman’s body entirely for the fact that she has a nice butt, and how he just kind of uses a lot of nonsense words as metaphors (or just bluntly stating fact) in some lines, like “booty jiggle-jiggle like Jello” and “she wanna tick-tock if you got time” (which, also, despite the fact that it oddly references someone else having time free, unlike the other lines which refer to him having fun with this girl, actually makes sense, because throughout the hook, he’s recommending the girl to someone else). He also HEAVILY channels Fetty Wap, so it’s pretty fitting that in the bridge, he mentions his name and sings Fetty’s  signature “yeah, baby” croon that he uses in songs like “679” and “$ave Dat Money”. Yes, he doesn’t only interpolate songs; he basically interpolates two artists’ whole discography, more than once, in the same song. The references to other trap artists and some filler lines are pretty lazy but I do like how he integrates not only Patois but French in an otherwise English song, while referencing African-American artists and the Congo, as well as making fun of British YouTube prankster Jack Jones crying after being hit by a slice of pizza... yeah, I don’t get it either. If anything, this is actually pretty culturally diverse, and catchy, so I don’t mind this and it’s probably the best dancehall song we’ve covered on this show.

#4 – “In My Feelings” – Drake featuring City Girls

Remember last week when I said I thought I’d be done with Drake? Well, lucky me.

Now, this song is hilariously awful. It’s not lazy like “Nonstop” or so-bad-it’s-good like “Ratchet Happy Birthday”, it’s just bloody pathetic and that kind of makes it enjoyable, if you’re into hearing Drake on the edge of insanity over a bunch of chopped samples and pretty bland R&B-trap production. The intro is kind of funny, too, as is the hook which is just him desperately moaning to other women, asking them if they love him and if they’re riding. There’s a few hand-claps in the singular verse too, that try to add any intensity to this, which kind of make it even worse because it proves that effort was put in, when it really doesn’t sound like it. City Girls have a short bridge before the absolutely-hellish breakdown, where Drake’s vocals are all over the place with samples from Magnolia Shawty being repeated and chopped to the point of sounding like a damn parrot, before it abruptly stops and we get treated to Lil Wayne joining the party with a lazy sample from “Lollipop”. The way Drake delivers everything is really funny in this song, especially how he says “TrapMoneyBenny”. It’s kind of like “Fake Love” in a way, everything is just so unintentionally joyful despite how horrible it is. There’s some extra percussion and a sample from an episode of Atlanta too? God, this is a mess.

Conclusion

What do you think? Seriously, you think I’m gonna give Best of the Week to that ZieZie guy? Hell, no, you can figure out who gets what pretty damn easily. See ya next week!

.

[imagine-loki]

TITLE: F#*king marry me already

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 8 AUTHOR: Valarie Ravenhearst2 ORIGINAL IMAGINE:

Imagine Loki trying to propose to you, trying to make it the most perfect occasion. But every time that it comes to the big night, something happens, like you getting sick or have to work, so it keeps getting put off because he wants it to be perfect

RATING: MA NOTES/WARNINGS:

LokiPOV

A gas leak. A fucking gas leak! Literally two seconds away from asking her and fucking BOOM! What the actual fuck. Loki leaves Violet sleeping in bed, the sun still not risen. He sneaks out into the cool early morning air, starting out at a sprint down the streets.

A fucking explosion. We should be engaged right now.

Sprinting through the darkened streets to work off his rage, he has to avoid hitting drunken partygoers who are just starting to make their way home. He runs until the sun begins to peak on the horizon, before stopping at the edge of the park; not realizing how far he’d run. Breathing heavily, he glares at anything that crosses his vision.

Just five more seconds.

He begins running back, trying to expel the rage from his mind. Knowing that it’s irrational. Technically it wasn’t anyone’s fault. But still the fact that he came so close … so damn close. And then for everything to just be thrown out the window…   It’s difficult to just act fine. This would be so much easier if he had someone to blame. But he doesn’t. He begins jogging back home, and arrives back at the building by seven thirty. He trudges up the stairs to give him more time to dawn a façade for Violet. It’s not fair on her for him to be in a bad mood. And if he gives any indication, all she’ll do is try to make him better all day. He exits the stairwell, seeing Thor and Jane at the end of the hall about to knock on the door. “Wait!” He calls out; though not that loudly that it should disturb Violet.

“Brother?” Thor cocks his head like a confused meerkat.

“What are you doing here?” He whispers harshly.

“Well, we were up and thought we’d take you two out to a congratulatory breakfast.” Jane smiles but shares Thor’s confused expression.

“Don’t you watch the news?” He questions and the two exchange glances. “There was an explosion –”

“What? Is she alright?”

“What? She’s fine.” Loki shakes his head. “It was across the road; but it killed the moment as I was about to ask her.” He informs, his voice lowered as he can hear the blender going – informing that she’s up.

“Oh no!” Jane pouts in disappointment, acting more upset than he.

“And Mrs. Potts may need to address the media.”

“Why?”

“Because I put out the blaze.” It isn’t a publicly known fact that he’s back on earth, living with the avengers. And they don’t exactly have a known hero for turning everything to ice. Thor pinches the bridge of his nose and Loki has to bite his tongue. “What did you want me to do, Thor? Let dozens of people burn?” He scowls and moves around them to unlock the door.

“No of course not.” The blond god goes to correct. “You did the right thing.” They all enter the loft; Violet looking over from the kitchen looking surprised to see the guests.

“Good morning.” She smiles brightly, pouring herself a smoothie. “I didn’t know y’all were coming over.”

“Oh we were up and about and thought we’d ask you two for breakfast.” Jane continues casually. “Loki just told us about the explosion, what happened?” She takes a seat at the counter, ready to engage in conversation.

“We heard firefighters saying it was a gas leak, but luckily everyone got out, thanks to Loki.” She smiles proudly at him as he walks around into the kitchen. “He’s not going to get in trouble for that, right?” Her smile fades to concern rapidly as she looks at Thor standing behind Jane.

“No, he did a very good deed. Everyone else will see that as well.” He assures with a nod of certainty. Loki comes behind her, touching her shoulders gently so not to get her all sweaty as he kisses her cheek from behind. He walks to the fridge and begins chugging down water from his water bottle.

“So where were you thinking for breakfast?” Violet continues.

“Well actually, it might be an idea for Loki and I to go into work; see if anything needs to be explained.” Thor looks at his brother, who nods in agreement.

“Oh,” Violet turns around giving Loki a questioning look of concern. He smiles in return.

“Don’t worry,” he kisses her gently, “it shouldn’t take too long.”

“Good.” Grabbing him by his shirt she pulls him closer for a deeper kiss. “Well, I was going to head to a yoga class.” She turns back to Jane. “Did you wanna come since they’ve got hero stuff to do?”

“Sure.” She perks up. “We got time to swing by mine so I can change?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, well you girls have fun.” Loki smiles warmly, kissing Violet goodbye as they head to the door.

“You’re not going to get in trouble, right?” She double checks at the door, giving him a ‘don’t you lie to me boy’ look.

“No sweetling. Run along.” She reluctantly closes the door behind her, giving him one last narrowed eyed glance. Loki lets out a sigh, his façade slipping away now that she’s gone. “I’ll take a shower and we’ll go.” He heads to the bathroom, leaving Thor to make himself at home. Whilst he showers, Thor calls Tony explaining what happened, also learning that the man of steel has been dealing with the media all morning, along with S.H.I.E.L.D officials. He informs they’ll be on their way soon as Loki emerges from the bathroom in a towel. Upstairs he gets changed into a pair of black slacks which only elongate his legs; and a black dress shirt. Which was really as casual as he got when he leaves the house. He restrains his damp hair in a small bun as they’re walking out the door.

~

By midday Loki finally returns home. The meeting had not exactly gone well. It unofficially ended with Loki storming out, declaring from now on that he’d leave the saving to them and he’d never lift a finger to save anyone again. Thor had tried to follow but he used illusions to elude him. With a flash of green he seals the loft; the windows and door glowing green for a few seconds before absorbing the essence. That should keep them out. He closes the thick curtains, darkening the apartment before taking the phone off the hook and then switching his off. Violet comes down the stairs with a puzzled face; pouting and she slides over the floor to him.

“What happened?” She questions, sliding her arms over his shoulders to stop him from moving.

“I’m not helping those bastards anymore.” He seethes, vibrating with rage.

“Sweetheart?” Violet caresses his face whilst her eyes widen in concerned confusion. He wraps his arms around her, lifting her off the ground as he buries his face in the crook of her neck; as if it were the safest place in the world and no one would find him there. “Oh baby…” She coos, rubbing his back comfortingly until he finally puts her back down. “What happened?” She questions again; leading him over to the lounge where she continues to soothe him until he seems to be calming down.

“Every member of the board wanted to put me in containment for almost revealing myself to the public. They believe that it’s only a matter of time before they find out and they’ll have an uproar on their hands.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Vibrating with her own rage now. “So they’d rather all those people burn to death whilst waiting for the fire brigade?”

“I think the fact that it was me that saved them is their issue.”

“Why? That’s absurd. You were the only one there. And what was the rest of them going to do anyway? What would be more effective then what you did?” She almost has the nerve to jump up and head down there and kick them all to kingdom come. Loki just shrugs, his head hanging back against the top of the lounge.

“Their main concern is my identity getting out. They want me to move back to one of the bases and only go on missions where I’m not seen.”

“No, no, no, no, nononono.” She shakes her head fiercely. “I don’t care what they say. What you did was heroic, it was good; you saved people. Not any of them, YOU.  And you know, you gives a flying fuck what the public thinks. I’m part of the public, aren’t I? And I certainly don’t care what happened five years ago. It wasn’t your fault. It was as much  Barton’s fault as it was yours. And if the good people of America can’t see that, then they’re bloody not worth saving then.” She straddles him, holding onto his collar. “I love you. And all those people you saved last night love you too. And you deserve the credit. You’ve risked your life more than a hundred times on missions and not one shred of credit is thrown your way. It’s sick. They’re scum. Imma go kick their ass.” She goes to jump off but he grabs her hips and holds her down.

“Oh Violet.” He cups her cheek affectionately. “What would I do without you?”

“Have below than average sex.” She mumbles, hoping to just make this whole mess disappear. He smiles happily at that, lifting to meet her lips.

“I have you; that’s all that matters to me.”

“But –” She tries to argue; wanting the world to start appreciating him like they should.

“But nothing. I’m quite happy being invisible to the world as long as I have you.”

“Well I’m not going anywhere.” She holds onto him tighter, her eyes glazed with emotion that she can’t physically express. He soaks up all the love spilling from her eyes and kisses her fiercely, never wanting to let her go. She was his only life line. The only thing bringing him happiness. The only thing preventing him from falling into insanity … because if not for her that would be the much easier choice.

To give into the darkness inside and disappear. Just slip away…

But she gave him a reason not to.

She is his entire life.

“You hid the apartment, didn’t you?” She queries.

“Yes. They can search every floor in this building and they won’t find ours.”

“Good.” He never underappreciated his magic; it was truly his greatest asset.    A buzzing noise distracts them then, Violet turning her head to see her phone vibrating on the coffee table. Thor’s picture on the screen. They both ignore it; hugging each other until Violet’s legs begin to ache from the position and she curses her little mortal body as she’s forced to move and stretch out. Loki smiles, pulling her over his lap, assuring her that he loves her little mortal body very much. She eventually turns her phone off altogether when the calls don’t stop and they stay curled up on the lounge all afternoon, eventually turning on the tv to watch old movies to distract them.