#absolutely miss me with those nausea emojis by the way

[pfhwrittes]

yeeeeeah so i’m transmasc. i use he/him pronouns. if you have a “MEN DNI🤢🤢🤢” on your pinned post you might want to fuck off and not follow my blog, just as a friendly suggestion.

[stories-by-rie]

Chapter 2 - Heart of Silver

Four years before Evelyn gets herself cursed, she meets Ariel for the first time; and a second time, featuring a stinky Mare.

words: 2665 || masterlist

It had all started in a club. It was a tiny one, close to the university, with mostly students working and partying there. For many, it was both a good way to earn a bit on the side, and to get the mind off nearing exams. The music was mostly pop, with some nichey songs in between, mixed in a way where no one could really complain.

    For Evelyn, it simply was too loud. She could feel the bass in her heart. The room’s air was hot and heavy, and smelled like alcohol and sweat. People were screaming over the music, laughing, possibly also being aggressive. 

    Her phone buzzed in her hand.

    Mareike wrote, just leave, come over to mine instead, we’re having chocolate cake and watching old horror movies.

    With a sigh, Evelyn typed her answer, I promised Kyla, I should at least stay a full hour. She held onto her first beer, but people pushed from all sides, so she slipped up anyway and felt the grip on her bottle lessen. Really, in such situations one had to set priorities, so she focused on the bottle, stumbled over someone else’s foot, and saw her phone fall to the ground. Over the loud noise, she didn’t hear it hit the ground, but she flinched nonetheless.

    “Very sorry!” she yelled to whoever she had run into without even looking up, eyes on the ground. As she reached out to it, she saw her hand shaking slightly. Too much noise and too many people.

    Her phone buzzed on the ground, the blue light showing her just where to reach.

    “Broken?” A voice asked and when Evelyn looked at her phone, it indeed had a thin line running through the display.

    “Just the display, I hope. Sorry, again.”

    “No problem. You should have stuck with simple mobile phones, they don’t break that easily.”

    Evelyn finally looked at the person who held a flip-phone in one of their hands, an alarmingly blue cocktail in the other that was only overshadowed by the bright blue of their hair.

    “That’s so 2009,” was all Evelyn could say which was not a good thing for small-talk, but she blamed it on her anxiety or the alcohol.

    “You don’t look like you want to be here,” the person said, tilting their head in a way that made the colourful lights reflect in their glasses for a moment.

    “I really, really don’t want to be here.”

    “Then why are you?”

    “My… my friends are somewhere-” she pointed in the general direction of the dance floor where it was impossible to single out any familiar faces in the mass of dancing people.

    “Ah,” was all the other said. For some reason, Evelyn was certain she was understood despite her stammering.

    “I’m Evelyn,” she mumbled, ignoring the buzzing in her hand again. She wasn’t sure if she would meet the other again, if in any way exchanging names would matter. But she felt compelled to.

    “Ariel. I use they/them pronouns, if you were wondering.”

    Evelyn replied with a smile. She had been wondering.

    “That’s a nice name.”

    “Thanks, I chose it myself.” Ariel grinned and drank a bit of their cocktail.

    And -- really, this could only be blamed on Evelyn’s anxious state paired with the alcohol -- she blurted out, “Ariel as in the Little Mermaid?”

    Ariel nearly choked on their drink and shook their head. “Curses, no!” Even if they looked a bit amused and somewhat quieter, though enough to be heard, they added, “Ariel as in the Sylph in The Tempest by Shakespeare.”

    Evelyn smiled and put the phone in her jeans pocket, held onto the bottle in her hand instead.

    “Why are you here?” she then asked, even if it was probably a dumb question. Most people did come to party after all, but Ariel seemed to have come on their own and at least that was a bit unusual. 

    “I am glad you asked. I heard there’s a Mare living in the air vent in the restrooms. I came to kick it out.”

    “By yourself?” Evelyn nearly dropped her beer again.

    “Well, I hoped I would run into someone who is better with those creature thingies than me, but if this turns out to be fruitless, I am willing to drag the Mare out with my own hands.”

    “Don’t do that! A Mare is much stronger than you and would cling to you instead! You would not even notice, just feel the pressure on your chest and suffer tremendously from bad dreams every night- that’s- that’s really not how you’re supposed to handle Mares!” Evelyn had spoked too fast, stumbled over her own tongue in haste to keep Ariel from making a mistake, and only now that she saw their -- victorious? -- grin, did she notice what she said. It felt as if she had walked straight into a trap.

    “Sounds a bit like you know your fair share.” The way Ariel said it, they did not sound in the least surprised.

    “You knew.”

    “What are you in for again?”

    “Psychology.” Evelyn took a step back, clutching her beer tighter.

    Ariel followed her, narrowing their eyes. “Liar.”

    “I studied Mythology and Mystical Practices before, but I didn’t graduate, so it doesn’t mean anything.”

    “You still have the knowledge, though.” Ariel looked smug, sipping on their cocktail and Evelyn knew that they wouldn’t relent. But it really was not in her place to help.

    “If there is a Mare in the vent, you should notify the building’s janitor, so that they can then call a company that specialises in this. The insurance might not cover the victims’ therapy if the whole situation isn’t handled following the book, so. Please, really, don’t mess with it. Sometimes it’s better to just leave these things alone.”

    Nausea spread in her stomach. It was time to go. She really had indulged her friends for long enough, wherever they might be amusing themselves. Her heart beat in an unsteady rhythm, calling for sleep or distractions. She turned around, looking at the green exit sign, but Ariel kept talking. 

    “I already did notify the janitor, but he didn’t take me seriously. So I then contacted the owner, but he would not even talk to me. That’s why I decided to take the matter into my own hands and you will help me.”

    “I absolutely will not.” The thought alone made her skin itchy, made the air in the club even harder to breathe. She looked down at her phone, several messages demanding to be read. She quickly unlocked it and opened the group chat.

    I’ll head home, hope you still have some fun! Had a nice evening ^^

    To Mareike’s messages of, r u home yet? just send an emoji that ur fine, she replied with a sparkles emoji.

    “I’ll go,” she said, looking up to Ariel, but they were already gone. A hint of guilt crept into her bones – maybe she had been too harsh? But her heart beat so fast it made her cheeks feel hot, so she really needed fresh air. She put down her beer on a nearby table and fought her way through the sweaty bodies until she saw the night sky above her. The summer heat was not much better.

    The second time she met Ariel was roughly two weeks after their first encounter, on campus during lunch time. Ariel was sitting – lounging – on a bench under some birches. The small leaves were barely enough to provide shelter from the staggering sun. Evelyn really just noticed them because their iced coffee fell right out of their hand, rolling all the way down to her feet.

    “You lost something,” Evelyn said and held out the cup to them. She felt more than uncomfortable the longer she stood there, but she had started it now, maybe feeling still a bit guilty for the last time. The lid had kept most of the coffee inside but some of the cold and slightly sticky beverage still dripped down her fingers. Ariel pushed up their heart-shaped sunglasses, their own glasses underneath, and looked at the cup quizzically. Since they had last met, Ariel had gotten deep shadows under their red-rimmed eyes.

    “You look awful,” Evelyn said, forgetting about the existence of her verbal filter.

    “Thanks, it’s the exams.”

    “What do you-”

    “Doing my Masters in Curses.”

    “That’s a thing?”

    Ariel froze a bit and then mumbled, “I am sort of making it a thing?”

    They finally took the iced coffee out of Evelyn’s hand, took off the lid, chugged it all at once and threw it into the bin next to the bench.

    “Sounds very cool. And useful,” Evelyn mumbled and nearly missed how Ariel’s eyes shut again, only for them to flinch back awake. “You seem incredibly tired, though.”

    “It’s the stress, don’t worry. It’s giving me bad dreams, is all.”

    They looked each other in the eyes, communicating silently that they both knew that the other knew. It was Evelyn who finally broke it.

    “You can’t be serious. You really went into that vent to get the Mare alone? You can’t just do that.”

    Ariel just shrugged and let the sunglasses drop down again. “Well, actually I could. It wasn’t even hard. I just climbed from the toilet seat to the air vent – which is much smaller than it looks in movies, by the way – and crawled through it following the snoring sounds. Then I saw the Mare – which was the ugliest thing I laid sight upon so far, by the way – and hunted it through the maze. Just that I kinda lost it after ten seconds or so. I swear I could still hear it, but it was just too dark and I didn’t really think to bring a flash-light. Damn, it really scared the shit out of me, because I kept turning around? But there was nothing.”

    “That’s because the Mare climbed onto your back and stuck to you then. I told you that would happen, but you didn’t listen. So of course you are tired now, you’re haunted by it.”

    “Ah, right. You did say that.” Ariel rested their head on their hand and pouted. “That’s the bad dreams then.”

    “Yeah. Mares eat good dreams, so you only have the bad ones, and more of them to fill the blanks.” Evelyn sat down next to them, a little helpless.

    “I never have good dreams, though. Just weird ones. The kind where a giant slug comes and eats my master thesis and I give it strawberries as a thank. I miss the slug, I used to call it Bob.”

    Evelyn raised an eyebrow at them, uncertain if they were being serious, joking, or if it was the lack of sleep.

    “Well, maybe you will get lucky and the Mare will lose its sanity and leave you alone soon.”

    “That can happen?”

    “No.”

    Ariel groaned and stretched, only to slump down again. “What do I do now?”

    “Hire a company to get rid of it. Just know that no insurance company is gonna cover it, because you dragged the Mare into your bedroom yourself. You basically asked it to come inside.”

    Ariel pulled a face and sighed heavily. “I can’t afford that. Can’t you come?”

    “If you study curses, haven’t you covered mythological practices in your bachelor's too?”

    “Not really. Just in theory. In more practical terms, I already only focused on curses back then. I want to be a curse-broker, so I never bothered with anything beyond ghosts. You seem to be able to, though. You never once mentioned that you wouldn’t be able to help me, just that you didn’t want to.”

    Evelyn didn’t answer. They were right, of course. She had learnt everything she needed to know long before she had entered uni for the first time, growing up as the daughter of the owners of a company specializing on mythological creatures. Studying that at uni was supposed to only give her the licence to work in the field, she hadn’t gained new knowledge at any point.

    “Have you ever considered that I might really suck at dealing with creatures? I might make the situation worse for you,” she then mumbled, staring at the blue sky behind the birch leaves. She said it barely loud enough to be understood.

    “Do you?” Ariel worked through their bag and pulled out two lollies, offering one to Evelyn.

    “No,” she replied truthfully. “I am really bad with curses, though.” She unwrapped the lolly and put it into her mouth. “Curses are more my sister’s expertise.”

    Something in her voice must have betrayed her feelings. The hurt, the anger, the resentment. It was all she had to say to be understood. Ariel stayed silent for a long time as they sat on that bench, letting the lollies turn their tongues green. When lunch break was over, students walked over the campus to different buildings, but they stayed seated. 

    “She’s not dead, tho, is she? Wait! Did a Mare kill her?” Ariel then suddenly asked, their voice a bit shrill that it made Evelyn giggle.

    “Nah, don’t worry. Mares aren’t high class enough to kill you. Maybe the after effect of the insomnia would in due time, but I don’t know many cases in which it went that far,” Evelyn explained and bit on the lolly stick after the sugar had dissolved inside her mouth. “My sister’s fine. She went abroad.” Evelyn then frowned as the trees’ shadows moved with the sun, the bright light blinding her now. They had sat there for a while. “To the USA. I haven’t seen her in a while, it’s been one and a half years.”

    “You were close?” Ariel asked softly. Evelyn heard how they were more serious now.

    “Yeah. I mean. I am pretty sure that I am always closer to people than they are to me. But we got along well. We were a good team. She got this really good research opportunity in Philadelphia though. It’s good she went.”

    “But you still miss her.” Ariel handed her a new lolly with a grin and she accepted.

    “Yeah, I do. Of course, I do.”

    “Hm.” Ariel unwrapped their second lolly as well, eyes still droopy from their accidental nap. “Is she the reason you don’t go in the field anymore?”

    “More or less,” Evelyn started, and the fear of oversharing hit her. But Ariel had asked, in some way at least. “After she left, I tried to make up for the gap she left behind. It did not work out well. I messed up this one job and no one got hurt, but it just reminded me that I was kinda raised into it all and it felt wrong so I left.”

    “Huh. So you dumped your whole study subject?”

    “Yeah. I worked without a license. My parents covered it all up, which just felt even more wrong. I should have had to face the consequences, or at least my parents. I should have gotten banned from field work anyway, so leaving was the only choice to make.”

    “Do you miss it?”

    “Sometimes. A bit.”

    “I have just  the thing. Back at home there’s a Mare that I can’t afford to kick out professionally. It’s kinda stealing my sleep.”

    Without Evelyn noticing, they had come closer, a slightly mischievous grin on their lips. There really was no way to say no to them now. At some point she must have said something close to a yes, because Ariel was dragging her down the stairs towards the town and their apartment where the Mare occupied their bed. Evelyn wondered every now and then if all that conversation had been some detailed plan to lead her into that trap until she followed Ariel home to help them with the creature. But then again, she somehow had also followed Ariel into that new, quite weird friendship between them, so she did not actually mind that much.

----

previous chapter || WIP intro || masterlist || next chapter

[elsanna-shenanigans]

April Contest Submission #30: Break Me Off

Words: ca. 3,000 Setting: mAU Lemon: no CW: none

“Can I try yours?”

Elsa’s head snapped up from the book she was reading to look to her left. Her baby sister was looking expectantly, her small hand outstretched and waiting expectantly, fingers wiggling in a grabby motion.

“Sure,” she answered with a smile, and passed her barely started dark chocolate KitKat on to Anna. “I don’t think you’ll like it though.”

Anna ignored that statement and immediately put the candy bar in her ‘some teeth missing transition period’ mouth, and bit off a sizable chunk. She chewed for a few seconds before her chocolate-covered lips twisted in a grimace, and she threw the KitKat back in Elsa’s lap.

“Ewww,” she said once she finally swallowed the bite (she at least had the decency to not spit it out like she used to a few years ago, something Elsa could bet would drive their father nuts if she did it in the new car), then gave Elsa the dirtiest look ever. “It’s so bitter! Why are you doing this to yourself…”

The last words were said with an overly-dramatic flair as Anna put her hand up to her forehead and pretended to faint like an old-timey movie lady on an ottoman. Which would work much better if she wasn’t stopped by the seat belt.

“It’s not that bitter to me.” Elsa shrugged as she picked up the discarded KitKat and continued to eat it as if nothing ever mattered. “You just still have a baby palate,” she said around a mouthful.

Anna blew her a raspberry, and her gaze dropped to Elsa’s book. “Whatcha reading anyway?”

Elsa swallowed the KitKat. “Harry Potter.” She flipped the cover to show it to Anna, who immediately started tracing and mouthing the letters of the title. “The fifth part comes out next week, so I wanted to re-read it before then.”

“Can you read it to me?”

“Later,” she lowered her voice and glanced in the rear-view mirror at their father’s concentrated face. It wasn’t the best idea to read–and have Anna interrupt with her loud comments–while he was driving. “When we’re settled at the hotel, I’ll read some to you.”

+++

“Hey,” Anna whispered, leaning over the wide armrest so she could reach Elsa’s ear. “You wanna try a bite of mine?”

She offered her the obnoxiously white KitKat, and Elsa immediately took it, as if its glow-in-the-dark properties could be seen by the row behind them. Without thinking much, she chomped down on the half-eaten candy bar. The overwhelming sweetness exploded in her mouth and seemed to coat her tongue with a thick, fatty film.

“You like it?” Anna whispered again, absolutely disinterested in the screen, her eyes locked square on Elsa’s face. “It’s kinda sweet, but I think I dig the white chocolate.”

Fighting through the nausea, Elsa finally managed to push the saccharine mush down her throat. “It’s absolutely disgusting,” she whispered back, then chuckled at Anna’s betrayed face. “I can see why you’d like it.”

Anna opened her mouth to say something (presumably snarky, she was hitting that age) in return, but an angry shhh came up from behind them. Elsa glanced at the people sitting in the back row and mouthed a sorry.

She turned back to the screen and tried to catch up on what she’d missed from the movie. So far The Goblet of Fire was proving to be worse than the previous parts, but she still wanted to know how they managed to work out the lake task of the Triwizard–

When Anna opened her mouth again just a few seconds later, Elsa stuck the white chocolate KitKat in it.

+++

“Hey, tradition!” Anna screamed suddenly as Elsa unwrapped her finals-study-motivation KitKat, almost making her drop it. “Lemme try!”

Elsa blinked. This was just the dark chocolate variety, one that she was sure she’d already let Anna try at some point in her life.

“You already–” But before she could finish, Anna’s shark jaws locked around the still barely unwrapped candy bar in Elsa’s hand with a loud crunch.

She munched for a moment, a thoughtful look on her face as she was considering the flavor. It quickly gave way to a disgusted scowl.

“Ew,” she said with a fake gag. “It’s as bad as I remembered.”

So Elsa did let her try it before. She rolled her eyes and half-heartedly swatted Anna away.

With a devious snicker and a hurried good luck with the exam!, Anna skipped out of the room and left her alone to study.

Elsa shook her head and finally returned her attention to her long-awaited snack award.

For some reason, the sight of Anna’s glitter lip gloss on the dark chocolate made her stomach twist.

+++

KitKats turned out to be the best way to go through her finals that year, and the next semester, and the next next semester, putting in the required fuel, feeling of accomplishment and the calories missing from not having time to eat proper meals.

It was also one of her little pleasures to find and test new flavors, especially those not available locally. It was Anna’s little pleasure to never say she wanted to order some for herself, and instead take bites off of Elsa’s, ‘just in case I don’t like it and don’t wanna finish!’

And over time it was one of Elsa’s little pleasures to look at the print of Anna’s lips on the chocolate and tenderly place hers on top to match the shape.

That little pleasure turned into a major curse when she realized she was daydreaming about placing her lips on Anna’s directly.

From then on, she would only buy the 4 finger breakable Kits.

+++

“I don’t really like this one,” Anna said around a mouthful of the Ruby cocoa KitKat. “It looks super cute, but it just tastes kinda waxy.”

Elsa shrugged. “Honestly, it’s just like the regular, but pink.”

“No, it’s different.” There was no point arguing with Anna on that. While Elsa preferred to try out new flavors, Anna has always been a hardcore true fan and real connoisseur of the regular Kit, so all she could do was to believe the expert. The currently pouting, cutely irritated expert. “Do you wanna finish mine?”

Elsa’s blood froze.

The whole point of the 4 finger Kits (which she personally considered inferior as the ratio of chocolate to wafer was just not quite on par with the single stick) was to not kiss Anna by proxy. Is what she came to call it.

But Anna was holding out the pink KitKat with a darker pink lip gloss outline in her direction, looking at her expectantly.

“N-no, I’m fine,” she answered a little too quickly and in a little too nervous of a voice. “I don’t really like it either,” she lied.

Anna’s brows furrowed. “I thought you said it tastes like the regular to you.”

Elsa could feel herself sweat. Damn, the stupid act of sharing a KitKat, something they’ve done since they were little kids was making her sweat.

Probably precisely because they’ve been doing this since they were little kids. Growing up together. Being sisters. Who should not want to kiss each other, yet there Elsa was, looking away from Anna’s perfect cupid bow glossy lips like a teenager (which she was definitely not anymore, on the final stretch to obtaining her bachelor degree) in love.

Her own lower lip felt numb from biting down on it. Fuck, she was in love.

“Yeah, but you’re right,” she said, mouth dry. She was in love and she was just now realizing this because of a stupid Ruby KitKat. “It is waxy.” Stupidly good Ruby KitKat that she was going to deny herself because her sister’s lips touched it and she would burn in hell if hers did too. “Just toss it out.”

Anna’s face looked like she just told her she actually was planning to vote on Trump for the pure fun of it, but she didn’t say anything.

+++

“Hey, I’m just about to head out– oh is that a new one?”

Elsa almost dropped the half eaten candy bar on the floor. She was not expecting Anna to come in her room any time soon, and like the true disgusting goblin she was, she decided to partake in her secret stash of imported KitKats.

Her dirty little secret stash of single stick KitKats that she couldn’t find in 4 finger format, and thus could not ever, ever let Anna know about because even if she ordered two pieces of each kind Anna would refuse to try an entire bar on her own.

‘I mean, what’s the fun in that? Half of the joy of KitKats is sharing!’

Not really seeing any way out of that, Elsa admitted defeat. “…Yes.”

“Oh, cool!” Anna bounced over excitedly to drop down on the bed next to her. “Oooh, white chocolate and peach? So fancy! Is it from Japan? It looks about the size of the Japanese ones I saw online…”

Her pure, genuine excitement only made Elsa feel even worse about hiding in her room like Gollum with his ring. Then, right as she was reaching for Elsa’s KitKat, Anna’s face and hand suddenly dropped.

“Wait…”

Elsa gulped.

“…you… you were going to eat it without me, weren’t you?”

She focused on the pattern of her carpet.

“Oh my god, Elsa! You stinker!” Anna sounded full-on betrayed, and Elsa could honestly not blame her for that. “I thought KitKats were our thing!”

Elsa blushed, for many different reasons. “I-it’s not like that,” she started explaining herself, fully aware of how pathetic she sounded. “It’s just cause you never want a full KitKat of a new flavor and I couldn’t find them in the sharing format–”

“So? I didn’t know we were suddenly only allowed to share the break-apart ones.”

Elsa sighed. Right, to Anna it didn’t make any sense, because Anna was a normal person who didn’t fantasize about kissing her sister. Or flustered about indirectly kissing her. “I-it’s just easier to portion…”

“I’m pretty good at portioning a bite, thank you very much.” She still sounded a little miffed, but she did smile towards the end– right before her eyes turned very round and glistening. “Did you eat many without me?”

Holy shit, she was looking like the pleading emoji and Elsa was at her wit’s end. “No!” she denied quickly and truthfully. “I-I bought more, but this was the first one I was going to try…”

Anna crossed her arms.

“Aaand now that you know about it I guess there’s no point hiding,” Elsa continued sheepishly. “I’ll uh– I’ll go to the kitchen and cut you off a piece.”

She stood up quickly, holding the KitKat like a relay sprinter holds the baton, clinging on for dear life with the prospect of glory and escaping the rivals, or in this case escaping her sister before she could–

“Wait.” Anna’s hand was on her wrist and Elsa almost yelped. The rivals outran her and the finish line was nowhere in sight as she fell on her knees, defeated, and only metaphorically speaking as in real life she was just standing stiff in her place. “What? Just let me take a bite, it’s easier–”

“N-no,” she interrupted quickly, trying to pry the wrist away from Anna’s surprisingly strong grip. “Cause, uh– umm, that way I can make sure to cut in the middle and give you a fair share.”

Yes, that was a splendid save.

“I just want a bite, I’m not sure if I would like a whole half.” And a gloriously crushing response from the opponent. “Just let me–”

Her peach pink lip gloss would look amazingly fitting on the white chocolate and peach KitKat. Or on Elsa’s lips. Applied with her lips. On her lips. Kissing–

“No!” She yanked her hand away. Anna’s eyebrows shot up in shock, and Elsa realized she yelled that very loudly, even though she was mostly responding to her own dirty little secret thoughts. “I mean– I don’t wanna…”

What? What was she supposed to say to get out of this? There was literally no logical reason she could not be wanting to simply share the KitKat like they used to for so many years, aside from the obvious plague that was currently rotting her mind, but she could not tell Anna that–

“…are you disgusted by me?”

She said it in such a small voice, looking up from where she was sitting on Elsa’s bed with hands folded neatly in her lap, her big teal eyes glazed with a sheet of tears and Elsa’s heart broke into a thousand shards.

“Oh god, no!” Her hands moved on their own to grab Anna and pull her into a hug, but she stopped herself on the way, now with her hands awkwardly hovering at Anna’s eye level. “Why… no, I’m so sorry you would even think that, I–”

“Then what is it, Elsa?”

Fuck. Fuckity fuck shit fuck what was she–

“Just say it,” she damn near sobbed. “Out loud.”

“Your lip gloss,” she said in a flat voice, grasping at straws to not lie, but also not tell the truths. “It stays on the KitKat when you bite it.”

Anna’s eyes went wider. “You don’t like my lip gloss?”

Why the fuck was she sounding this hurt by the idea? “No, I–”

“I thought you said it looks good…”

“It does!” She could clearly feel herself getting flustered. “I like it, and it looks very good on your li– on you. Really good.” God, was she sounding as borderline creepy to Anna as she did to herself? “B-but it leaves a– a stencil of your lips on the…”

She trailed off, not really sure how to get out of the corner she just talked herself into.

Anna gave her a puzzled look. “So you don’t like… my lips?”

“No!” Jesus why was communication so difficult and why was the room so hot and why was Anna looking at her like this? “I love them. Like! I like them. I like. Them. Your lips. Like them.”

If Anna got up and called the ambulance right now because ‘my sister is having a stroke!’ Elsa would find it completely justified.

“Ookay…” Anna said slowly, not reaching for the phone, and instead continuing to try to read Elsa’s face (but what she could potentially read was that inside Elsa’s head there was a wind-up monkey puppet playing the cymbal, and nothing much beside that.) “So what is the problem?”

Elsa mumbled in response.

“I’m sorry?”

“It feels like we’re kissing,” she said weakly, absolutely giving up on her hopes and dreams in that instance. “When I bite the KitKat.”

Anna blinked at her. “That’s it?”

Elsa nodded.

“I mean, that’s all?”

It was Elsa’s turn to wear a confused expression.

“You’ve been getting only breakable KitKats for a year just so you could share with me without feeling like this?”

Elsa nodded again, albeit cautiously. She had no idea where Anna was going with this.

“And denying yourself flavors that don’t exist in that format so that I wouldn’t feel left out?”

Nod again.

“I’m sorry.”

Record scratch. “What? No, why are you sorry?”

“Because you were feeling uncomfortable because of me?”

“No, I– I didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable knowing I want to kiss you.”

Wait, no– oh no no no no holy fuck no backtrack backtrack backtrack–

Her stomach sunk. There was no way to backtrack.

Red alert, escape the room.

Anna caught her hips before she could dash for the door and spun her around to face her again, this time meeting her at eye level. She reached for Elsa’s hand–which was currently hanging limply at her side, and still holding the goddamned half-eaten KitKat–and clasped it gently in hers, then brought it up until it was between them, right in front of Elsa’s mouth.

The scent of peach and white chocolate hit her before her brain registered the development.

“Bite,” Anna said softly, but with demand. “And hold.”

Elsa’s mouth opened on its own as her sister pushed the KitKat in, and obediently she clamped her teeth down on it–just enough to break the chocolate layer, but not all the way through.

She stood there patiently with the candy bar sticking out of her mouth, watching Anna remove the remaining wrapper as if her body was not hers to steer, as if she was just a passive observer as her mind was struggling to pick the pieces of what her sister was doing without going for what she really wanted Anna to be doing in her heart of hearts.

Once the wrapper was off, Anna climbed on her tiptoes and– Elsa could swear she saw her smirk right before the free end of the KitKat disappeared in Anna’s mouth, slowly, until their lips finally touched.

Their lips touched.

She was kissing her sister.

She was kissing her sister around a fucking candy bar.

And in just a few heartbeats she heard the tell-tale, trademark KitKat crunch as Anna’s teeth broke through the wafer, and with a final brush of her glossed lips she was off, leaving behind only a chunk of white chocolate and peach mousse in Elsa’s numb, speechless mouth.

“It looks good on you too,” Anna said with her mouth still full and gaze dashing between Elsa’s lips and eyes. “Bet it would be even better without the melted chocolate.” She swallowed down her bite, and let out a satisfied hum. “Mm, I like this one. Funny how the flavors work together so well… chew, Elsa.”

She brought her hand up to Elsa’s chin and pressed on it, and Elsa mechanically picked up the chewing motion, earning a delighted smile from her sister.

Anna glanced down at her watch. “Well, I gotta go. The sea and beach won’t run away, but my friends just might if I keep them waiting any longer.” She placed a soft, sticky kiss on Elsa’s boiling hot cheek. “But I’m really looking forward to trying the other flavors you got.”

With a wink, she pushed past her and out the door, leaving Elsa to deal with the lump (of KitKat) in her throat.

[entergamingxp]

The Diamond Casino Heist is GTA Online’s most exhilarating score and an exercise in self-parody • Eurogamer.net

In one of the opening missions of GTA Online’s latest update, heist aficionado and lovable oaf Lester talks about how he was a good kid before he played Street Crimes Gang Wars, the in-universe version of Grand Theft Auto. As the bassline hums in the background, he starts to ramble about the gun-toting opportunists trying to lift your cargo, a set of arcade cabinets necessary to kickstart a run-down arcade business, a front for the game’s latest (and greatest) heist. “They must be gamers,” he says.

A walking parody of all things but especially itself, minutes later GTA Online treats me to a radio advert for Shark Cards, the game’s infamous microtransaction system that has made it the most profitable entertainment product of all time. Shutting my car door after a successful delivery, I get my usual daily text from Agent 14 about purchasing a million-dollar Mobile Operations Center to help with the efficiency of my Gunrunning business, one of many plates that need spinning if I’m to stay afloat in this demanding second life. I don’t even want the unnecessary vehicle but my brain, falling prey to the marketing machine, wonders whether completing this latest big score will afford me the currency necessary to get him to stop nagging me.

A packed-out patch for a six-year-old live service, The Diamond Casino Heist is designed to turn heads, all the way down to the balance tweaks that players have been begging for. The greatest issue addressed concerns the most hated (and loved) vehicle introduced in Online’s history, the Oppressor Mk 2.

Here I am posing with my very own Oppressor, which I definitely don’t use to blow up mortals when I’m navel-gazing.

For the uninitiated, the Oppressor is GTA Online’s forbidden fruit, a piece of powerful technology introduced to this virtual society without proper consideration, one that Rockstar can’t take back now that players have adopted it. A gateway to sin and loss of naivety, this flying motorbike can cross the map in minutes and has homing rockets bolted to the front, making it a virtual nihilist’s wet dream. It’s a four million dollar chrome-wrapped beacon of wealth and power that makes most of Online’s most difficult missions laughable.

Rockstar has stuck a five-minute timer on summoning this griefing machine, as well as supposedly reducing phone notifications (I haven’t really noticed) and limiting the ‘Kill Yourself’ command, making it harder to leave this late-capitalist dystopia on your own terms. This is for your own good though – it’s to address a common phenomenon where griefers would kill you and then shoot themselves to balance out their K/D and avoid punishment from Rockstar’s all-seeing eye of Sauron. At this point, it’s impossible for Rockstar to cut out the bad behavior at its root, but a few slaps on the wrist might refocus players into less trivial pursuits.

Speaking of which, now that the Arcade is set up I’m able to start preparing the heist, an innovative, multiple-phase ordeal that is nearly 20 missions long if you fulfill every optional detail. Crews will have to first scope the casino to see what information they can glean on a time limit. You can take photos of entry and exit points, security details and suspicious items, sending them to Lester who will respond with new methods of approach and optional side missions to make the final heist more creative.

This isn’t just the illusion of choice either – the number of security shipments you damage in one mission will directly affect the number of guards in the casino underbelly. Similarly, if you scope out the secret sewer exit you’ll be able to dart away from the cops through a series of subsurface tubes, Italian Job style.

You can choose, spray and upgrade which cars to use in the getaway, with low-brow vehicles equalling a smaller cut from your take.

As you may be able to tell, this latest heist is designed to be completely adaptable. One of the most infuriating aspects of previous heist missions is that if you fail a single objective you’ll have to start again, even if in reality it wouldn’t result in the end of the road. With The Diamond Casino Heist, you can switch tact on the fly and dip into three separate styles of approach if somebody drops the ball – disguised, sneaky or aggressive. This means all is not lost on a single missed headshot or dodgy pathing, you can just brandish a machine-gun and go guns blazing. It feels more reactive, the gameplay reflecting the tense, dynamic approach to heisting seen in Overkill’s Payday 2.

This adaptive style doesn’t transfer to the setup missions, however. What I liked was the space Rockstar allows for you to experiment and come up with your own canon, where I’d have my friends try and cut enemies off at certain map landmarks – one example involved heading to the airfield to steal a dodo to crash into an unruly helicopter that was leaving the mission area. Yet despite probing your imagination, almost all of the prep missions devolve into ‘Lose the Cops’, a crescendo that Rockstar loves to lean on.

There’s an economic angle to the bloat here in that Online enables those with more means to have far superior efficiency. If you’re lucky enough to own an Oppressor, some missions are a joke, asking you to simply race around the map, lock on to a set of targets and tap a button to win, whilst the mere mortals on terra firma have to suffer. The free arcade property you receive for having a Twitch Prime subscription is a welcome gift, especially given that it’s essential for starting the heist proceedings – but it’s also only available as a rebate, which means if you don’t have the million and change upfront you’re going to have to grind or buy a shark card. It’s also in Paleto Bay, a good six and a half miles from the casino…

It’s the litany of long drives to and from the property to the casino that takes the absolute Michael De Santa – even if they inevitably lead to moments of unpredictable candor. There are precious few games where a crew can cruise in a rental sedan and wail their way through the frisson bridge of “I Want It That Way” by The Backstreet Boys. Not even the rotting corpse in the trunk can dampen that kind of team spirit.

Danny Brown’s manic, likable character links with steroid-peddling Brucie from GTA 4 to chaotic effect

We were on assignment to burn a rental car in exchange for disguised casino access from Yung Ancestor, a successful walking satire of a new-wave Soundcloud rapper played by living rap legend Danny Brown. Brown (as himself) also hosts iFruit Radio, a new radio station lampooning Apple Music’s Beats 1. This follows Frank Ocean’s very own Blonded Radio which launched in-game in 2017 – itself a designated radio show on Apple Music. Ain’t it funny how it happens?

Brown waxes about the healing power of Psilocybin with UK grime hero Skepta as a rogue’s gallery of modern musical talent call in to introduce their tracks. Kenny Beats, AJ Tracey, hell even Slowthai makes the cut, the fired-up Northampton rapper who brandished a decapitated bust of Boris Johnson’s head on-stage at this year’s Mercury Prize. By carefully tapping chart-storming artists like DaBaby, Shoreline Mafia and Headie One, the curation team has managed to cram an absurd amount of pop culture catharsis into a two-hour show – the cherry on top of this iFruit salad being a set of exclusive tracks from Denzel Curry and Bauuer that are only available in-game.

Earlier in the week, I wrote about how by completing a quest in GTA Online you could conduct some cross-game archaeology and excavate a revolver in Red Dead Online’s Moonshining update. Further study has revealed that there is even more bleed between the Old West and the new – you can purchase a fortune-telling game for the arcade property that bears Madam Nazar’s likeness and name, the mysterious herald of the Collector role in Red Dead Online.

A lot of her predictions are tongue-in-cheek allusions to community in-jokes, duplication glitches and unsolved Red Dead Redemption 2 mysteries (namely “Where’s Gavin” and the mysterious time-traveler Francis Sinclair) but it turns out there’s actually some feasible bait for the Chiliad Mystery masterminds hiding behind the riddles. If you keep filling it with coins, you’ll eventually hear Nazar make mention of three sets of numbers, which when combined give you a number to call her through time and space in GTA Online, where she responds in even more cryptic terms.

Once you pull on the Emoji masks and embark upon your custom caper, The Diamond Casino Heist quickly proves itself to be the most exciting experience available in GTA Online. Whether you’re using stolen trash to infest the casino with cockroaches or tranquilizing guards with drones, you’ll make it to the vault with your heart in your throat. I’ve always thought that half the magic of a good Rockstar mission is the pulsing score, and this is no different, elevating the tension to almost feverish nausea, where all you care about is getting your cut.

Once in the vault you’ll have to scramble to shove cash in your duffel before the room fills with nerve gas. Paying for a better skeleton crew increases this timer.

Once I finally overcame the heist I felt a mix of relief and pride. I spent my hard-earned money like a true mark – on retail therapy. I’m the proud owner of one of Rockstar’s ripoff A Bathing Ape hoodies and a fancy new livery for my death bike. Come to think of it, Agent 14’s Mobile Operations Center never even crossed my mind. Maybe I’m the problem.

GTA Online is a game that demands more of its players than most, with layers of loading screens, nagging notifications and Daedalian business management systems refusing to let your attention wander. This noise can act as a smokescreen for new players, obscuring the satisfying content available to those who are yet to fight through the game’s service jank. But if you’re on the fence and you have some friends on-call, I honestly urge you to jump back in. Whether you’re a veteran who took an extended vacation from Los Santos or a rookie with a set of Twitch Prime rewards it’s still the most dynamic and limitless multiplayer open-world on the market.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2019/12/the-diamond-casino-heist-is-gta-onlines-most-exhilarating-score-and-an-exercise-in-self-parody-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-diamond-casino-heist-is-gta-onlines-most-exhilarating-score-and-an-exercise-in-self-parody-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net